Saga "Magic always come with a price" (A Palpatine One-shot in 19 BBY)

Story: “Magic always comes with a price”

Summary: Not every clone is produced the same way. The Emperor has done his privat research and sealed off the laboratory of his choice. Yet there are visitors anyway. They come from the other side.

Time frame: The story takes place nine days after the failed coup of Headmaster Gentis on Coruscant (19 BBY).

Continuity: Before the Saga – Legends mix-up

Length: One-shot

Genre: Drama with a bit of humour

Planet of choice: Kamino

Reader warning: Please excuse my weird English! I am German. English is only my Second language!

Disclaimer: SW is owned by George Lucas, Lucas Ltd. and now The Walt Disney Company



The sun is sleeping quietly
Once upon a century
Wistful oceans calm and red
Ardent caresses laid to rest

For my dreams I hold my life
For wishes I behold my nights
The truth at the end of time
Losing faith makes a crime

I wish for this night time
to last for a lifetime
The darkness around me
Shores of a solar sea
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping
Weeping
With you

Sorrow has a human heart
From my god it will depart
I'd sail before a thousand moons
Never finding where to go

Two hundred twenty-two days of light
Will be desired by a night
A moment for the poet's play
Until there's nothing left to say

I wish for this night-time
to last for a lifetime
The darkness around me
Shores of a solar sea
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping
Weeping
With you

I wish for this night-time
to last for a lifetime
The darkness around me
Shores of a solar sea
Oh how I wish to go down with the sun
Sleeping
Weeping
With you...


Thunder rolled across the wild, churning waters and lighting flashed across the sky. Inside the laboratory it was safe though, and mostly dry.

Sheev Palpatine aka Darth Sidious was not willing to risk a feverish cold when practising necromancy, the blackest of all of the black arts. He was not a young hotspur any more. With advancing age caution had become his primum mobile. Whatever he did tonight, at least his feet would remain dry. He was wearing his favourite slippers. They were golden and a present from Nagina, his deceased niece.

He lifted up the Petri-dish and glanced at its contents.

To get samples of Nagina’s genetic code had not been a big deal. Her hair had basically been all over his holiday house on Scarif. The hair brush had been an additional backup.

Nine days ago the genetic code had been duplicated here in Tipoca City and got implanted into a suitable donor cell. It would grow, divide and, eventually, gestate in an artificial womb, which was filled with nutrients and organic catalysts.

But a person was more than a mass of flesh, bones and muscles. More than elements bound in physical form.

Sheev Palpatine, having a holistic view on human bodies, produced a piece of ordinary chalk from his Sith robes.

With quick efficiency he drew a simple line around the laboratory table. More complex art work followed, ornamenting the circle. It consisted of the symbols of several religions, some of them long gone, but still remembered in ancient scripts and books.

Satisfied, he grinned down at his work.

It had been a while since he had truly needed a magic circle like that. During rituals in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban it was always an obligation. To build up his power and commune with his long-dead predecessors would not be possible without protection. Those without a proper body always longed for a fresh start.

The Sith Lord checked the sealed door once more.

Nobody was to disturb him. Twelve loyal Red Guards waited outside, willing to defend his peace of mind with their lives.

From the folds of his robes he took out a number of black candles. He did not, theoretically, really need any of them, but he could, no would not do without inglorious sensationalism. The entire operation was so awfully secret, that he wanted to be in the right mood for the things to come.

Candle light always did the trick for him. Not for Sly Moor though, the willing victim of his cruelty. But Nagina always had loved lighting sanctuary lights.

“You were my light when all other hope was gone for me,” he mused. “This is why I owe you. I have promised you hope on that beach nine months ago. As a Palpatine I am obliged to keep my promises.”

Once all the candles were lit, and out of laziness he used well-proportioned blasts of Force lightning for that, he produced the Sith brooch that kept Nagina’s ba, her life force. He would rekindle her ka, her very soul, and reunite both of them in a new body. It really was a bit like gardening.

To create Anakin, the ever whining boy, had cost him much more nerves about nineteen years ago. To trace down a woman of the Skywalker line in the Outer Rim had been tough. When he finally had the slave, a woman named Shmi, the rest of the operation had been like a ride with a malfunctioning pod racer.

“You are deserving, my darling girl. Not that piece of garbage, only held together by a life suit and his hatred.”

While cradling the brooch in his left palm Sheev Palpatine thanked the dark side for having had mercy on Nagina. In her darkest hour it had protected her.

Without warning he threw the artefact on the ground, activated his light sabre within the blink of an eye and drove it into the midst of the brooch.

A small, glittering cloud came free.

“Raise yourself!” he whispered harshly, his words a quotation from the famous Book of the Dead. “You have not died. Your life force will dwell with you forever.”

The energy cloud tried to flee in horror, but with his willpower he took hold of it and drove it towards the Petri-dish.

“Now is not the time to be stubborn!”

Outside, the storm raged on unimpressed by the battle of wills.

A shimmering portal opened right there were the laboratory entrance was.

“What do we have here?” the Sith lord snapped, staring ahead into the portal.

“Let her go!” begged a woman’s voice from far away that he recognized as that of his half sister Mandré.

“Be gone!” he snarled. “I did not summon you.”

If he had to, he would send the whimpering ghost straight into a black hole or into the midst of a sun.

“If you know what is best for your daughter, let me continue, sister.”

All the candles went out.

“This is not the answer I had hoped for,” he muttered.

“If I had a bottle of Corellian whiskey,” ranted a male voice close to him, “I would smash your silly, old head in. Leave my wife alone!”

Sheev Palpatine smiled, gazing at the translucent body of Barin Samye. “Sorry, but she has not finished on this level of existence.”

“After all that Nagina has been through with old Cosinga you force her to stay alive?”

“Do not mention him!” he yelled at the apparition, a part of him not willing to be reunited with his dead father. Names held so much power.

“Listen, Steve!” Suddenly, the dead Corellian sounded like a businessman willing to strike a bargain. “You are a bit overexcited here. Which is no wonder with all that black magic you try to bring on its way. Why don’t you sit down for a while and have a glass of wine on my behalf. If you consider the facts, there is no need to punish Nagina like that. Let her go!”

Sheev Palpatine shook his head, still keeping the glittering little cloud in his grasp. “She was mine long before you entered her life.”

The small man crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I still would be in her life if you had not started the Clone Wars machinery. Then Krennic would never have entered her door step. That narcissistic psychopath should have never have come near her. And Gerrera would not have murdered her.”

I will give her soul a new body, right here and right now,” claimed the mighty Sith lord, his eyes half-closed. “For I will not be denied her love ever again.”

He rose his arms high above his head and spoke words that a certain Nightsister had taught him by accident. Greenish mist arose.

“Choono slalem denni tay'lori olee-ay.
Lucheno vadem klavlane.
Blenay vedi nalem koreem.
Blenay vedi nalem koreem.
Villos susko kono lamal!
Vlemon tagoo!”

And by thus, Darth Sidious forced both the cloud and the cell to merge and become one.

“Great,” commented the ghost of Barin Samye. “You just have given me a reason to spoil all your remaining Festivals of Light. I bet I will have no trouble to find to other spirits who are willing to assist me. Two should be enough. Together we will drive you crazy.”

Sheev Palpatine did not remain in darkness for too long.

The lights went on again.

Exhausted, he leaned on the laboratory table. He was getting too old for such confrontations with the spirit world. Visits to Korriban and Malachor had to wait for a while.

Looking for a mop bucket with a mop wringer and a handle, for he wanted nobody alive to see the evidence of his black magic, he wandered away from the Petri-dish.

Unseen by him, a sad looking woman crossed the magic circle with no difficulties. Her motherly love defied all the darkness.

Holding her hand above the Petri-dish, she whispered, “You will forget all of your former life until the time is ripe, my daughter.”

When Sheev Palpatine returned, the mob and bucket in his hands, the ghostly apparition was gone without a trace.


Sources:
The song “Sleeping sun” from Nightwish (1999)
Inspirations by the ancient Egyptian funeral book “Book of Dead” (around 1550 BC)
Inscription from the Tomb of Pipi I (2300 BC)
“Chant of Resurrection” from the TV series “STAR WARS: The Clone Wars” (Episode: “Massacre”) and the computer game “STAR WARS: Jedi Fallen Order”
A bow to Charles Dickens' famous “A Christmas Carol” (1843)
Wookieepedia – The Star Wars Wiki
Jedipedia, a free German Star Wars-Encyclopaedia

 

The images of Palpatine working in his laboratory to create life were extremely eerie and well done!

Dealing with the spirit world could have so many consequences and this brought an edge to what Palpatine was doing. Anything could have happened!. I found it touching at the end that Nagina's mother even though she could not bring her spirit away, helped to soothe her suffering.

That was a beautiful song full of sorrow in the beginning. Everyone in this was grieving in their own way. Great job!

 

@NobodyIX: Thanks for reading and commenting!

When I finished my Nagina main story with a bang, I mentioned Sheev´s plans in the epilogue. Then I wrote a one-shoot explaining those plans a bit further. But then I still felt the entire process of cloning with bits of necromancy needed more explanation.

The wonderful book "Labyrinth Lost" (Brooklyn Brujas) by Zoraida Cordova put me in the right frame of mind to write my own thoughts down.

The song is from one of my favourite bands. They are Finish.

As for the grieving. There are two stories about the grieving of some of the most important men in her life. Shortly after the deed and 4 years later. All take place in Old Jho´s cantina on Lothal.

 

Well, now that we all know who Rey´s parents are, I need to write a sequel to this, because old Palps is not done creating life that day.