Saga Justification (AOTC, Dooku's thoughts during the arena battle)

Hello! Well, here goes. My first fic posted on tf.net. I hope I've done everything right, and not in the wrong place or something...

Justification

Disclaimer: I don?t own Dooku, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, or this situation, that's all Lucas. I?m making no money.

~*~

They don't know what they are up against. Still they stand, righteously, idiotically in the circle of light, like glowing beacons amidst the carnage that I have created. Mine, this death, this blood, this sacrifice. I survey it, but feel no triumph. No power rush, no satisfaction brightens the empty space that once was my soul. I destroyed a part of myself today. Or did I just cut out a cancer?

My thoughts turn inward; my eyes close to the survivors standing in the arena. Words echo in my mind. Cutting out a cancer. Don't they realize what they have become? The Jedi? I will not allow myself the bitter laughter that threatens to ruin my guise of cool patience. No, this is not the Jedi I grew up with, more an ugly shriveled corpse of what once was. A tool, they are, more drones then children of the light. I could see it. See the twilight ever so slowly creeping over their expansive sky.

But they didn't listen. Never had, of course. And I warned them.

Those ...fools.

Qui-Gon was the breaking point. I never could see him as a Jedi Master, try as I might. No, I am not harsh to say that, I don't mean he lacked ability. He was always the boy in my mind, an image that did not fall away with his shorn padawan braid. The boy. Fancy takes me back, floating on a sea of bitter remembrance, to a sweetness of memory... turned sour. I go to a place I seldom dare venture, to a time when such cold haunting anger was a mere glimpse of shadow, as meaningless as a cloud flitting across the moon. Tall, lanky, smiling boy, he was, thoughtful gray-blue eyes that could sparkle with defiance or melt with a beautiful compassion that in all my years as a Master I could not attain. He was different; unlike the other Jedi I had seen and trained. Something in the way he trusted the Force. With a single-minded determinedness that made him unstoppable. He listened to it.

Of course, a child like this would undoubtedly clash with the strict mandate of the Council. He wasn't defiant, he simply believed he was right. I saw it. And when the winds rose up against him, he stood firm, with his strength, the Force. Suddenly he wasn't a boy, but a man.

So proud...

Being different cost my Padawan his life. There is no room for Jedi like Qui-Gon Jinn in this new Jedi Order. The one who struck down my child, the Sith lord, I not blame for the murder, no it is the more unlikely foe. It is the High Council of the Jedi, who sent Qui-Gon to die.

He wasn't prepared to fight a Sith! He and that boy, yes, Kenobi, thrust into a situation no Jedi should be faced with, not alone. Alone. Thoughts break apart; the brief warmth that the good memories brought made acrid by the foul, torturous grief that chokes me. I can feel the anger rising in me, filling me with power I had been taught to fear. Tantalizing, the feeling is, and I allow the darkness to caress me gently, soothing the pain with numbness.

Eyes open now, and trained on the one who watched Qui-Gon fall. Kenobi. Of course, now he is but a pawn in this game. A tool of the Councils, another one of the meaningless fools playing the Chancellors game. I remember his vibrant eyes, glowing with the blue light of the energy restraints, and his angry voice, as if he had been somehow violated by my words.

"Qui-Gon Jinn would never join you!"

How little he has learned. I wanted to make an allowance for him, a plea, that he could perhaps be spared the massacre to come. Be he was a fool as well. I wonder if Qui-Gon will forgive me for what I have to do.

I'm sorry?

No.

Kenobi's Padawan will die too. The chosen one? Maybe, Qui-Gon, but not in the way you thought. Yes, balance will be brought, but not by this boy, by my sacrifice. Regret is nothing; there is no pain where strength lies. Fire shall cleanse th

 

Very powerful, and dramatic. Very interesting look into Dooku's thoughts.

 

Yay! You posted it here!

 

You know I love this. Really powerful and sets a more realistic, less 'evil' Dooku that some other pic portray. You sound exactly like I would think Dooku would sound like...almost too much like him. Great read.

 

That was a very interesting look into Dooku's thoughts...sometimes chilling and sometimes giving a deeper insight into the man he once was and painting him so much more than just a villian.

A dark and beautiful portrait.

 

I finally got round to reading this. What a perceptive insight into the character of the Mysterious Count Dooku...

I especially liked this paragraph because it concurs with a theory I've always believed:

Being different cost my Padawan his life. There is no room for Jedi like Qui-Gon Jinn in this new Jedi Order. The one who struck down my child, the Sith lord, I not blame for the murder, no it is the more unlikely foe. It is the High Council of the Jedi, who sent Qui-Gon to die.

Very few writers do justice to Dooku's complex character and I am delighted to have stumbled across one. Well, not exactly stumbled... I have posted a couple of times on the Dooku Character Thread...

From one Dooku fan to another: Well Done!