InsaneJournal

Hours turned into Days as Jacen came to terms with everything that had happened and where he’d found himself. It had been somewhat of an eye opening experience being back in a world where the Yuuzhun Vong had won. Where apparently they’d taken him over and made him a monster. Made him their god just like they’d tried to. Luckily the older Jacen had known very well how to play the role. He knew the language, the attitude. He’d played at being their god for a while and had saved the galaxy from becoming, well...what it had clearly become. And now the only plan Jacen Solo had was that for as long as he was here he would try to fix it. Try to talk the dhurhyums round as once he had. He’d use what he knew about the world and he’d set it right. He’d already done some things. He’d sent a party to destroy the Gorog Nest and bring Raynar Thul to him. Setting the Killiks to rights before more could die. And he’d sent people to find Lumiya. That was vital.

Oh the idea amused him, Him, of all people setting the Galaxy to rights. A part of him, a very big part of him wanted to use his skills to make the galaxy right before any of the Jedi could see it coming. He wouldn’t have to kill Mara. He was Sith already and Lumiya had nothing she could teach him. He was too strong for her. But there were voices in his head, female ones that sounded a lot like his mother, wife, daughter and sister. And they urged him to fight the instincts. To wait it out and to try and make this galaxy better in the ways he once had. And so Jacen knew that was what he had to do. He realised with a pang that it was likely they were all dead here anyway. The God that Was would have seen to it. He’d discovered quickly that Jaina had died first, at his hand. The sacrifice. It didn’t surprise him. It would have been entirely what the Vong wanted. Always so big on twins. And he and Jaina, the gods reborn. She was the trickster after all, ironicly. And annoyingly. He did hope Gabriel never found out. And protected her from whatever Jacen had been here.

He knew how these things worked by now, it was likely he’d been swapped. Replaced. The Jacen that thought himself a god was swanning around Kansas, killing, maiming, all in the name of his truth. But Jacen didn’t worry for his family. They’d keep each other safe. Cade would help...He’d tried to give him the Force back when he’d felt the tug of energy pulling him away. He hoped that it worked, and more importantly that it didn’t break Cade further getting it back in a rush. That hadn’t been the plan at all.

Surrounded by Yuuzhun Vong, all the time. Jacen planned, usually sitting on the throne buzzing with life beneath him, quietly thinking, hiding his thoughts from the Fosh that he knew he should kill. He should wring her little bird neck but he couldn’t. Not Vergere. He knew already that he would not kill her though he knew most would think he should. Most would see it as justice. But for all her agendas, Vergere had taught him so much. He’d be wandering lost in a sea of questions if he hadn’t had her. He’d never have known what were the weeds and what were the grass.

“Distracted” she said, having snuck up beside him as ever she did, He’d missed her, her guidance. Her friendship. She’d saved him. He knew that too. He’d learned a lot here, with her, but it hadn’t been supposed to turn out this way.

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I’d said no, turned the Galaxy on its head, turned the tide of the War” he asked her. Idly wondering if Shimmra was alive, more important if Onimi was. Talking of turning the tide. “Do you ever wonder, if my family had saved me. Or if I’d decided the Yuuzhun Vong were weeds after all.”

“I have no need to wonder little Solo. I see it in you” she told him. “Did you think I did not know? You are not him, not of here. There is more power in you than even I possess and you fell didn’t you my student, my teacher. You fell so far”

Jacen couldn’t help smile, so perceptive for a bird, and oh so willing to go along with whatever suited her. That was Vergere. “And you wanted me to.” He told her, beckoning her to follow, He’d go to the durhyums now, before this changed, before he went back, and he’d have Vergere with him. She wouldn’t tell their Masters, not if he told her not to. “You knew Lumiya of course. Knew what she’d do. But you know, I don’t blame you, or even her really. I knew what she was offering and I took it because I thought I could handle it. I gave the life of my aunt. Of Mara Jade Skywalker...something that stuck with me I guess, supreme sacrifice. I’d thought it would be Jaina. Or worse, Tenel Ka and Allana. Did Hapes fall? Here...I suppose you convinced him it would be the first place to go.”

“Not at all” she told him, “Oh my gardner, Hapes flowers even still, you pruned the weeds that strangled her for so long and your beautiful queen...she didn’t understand before you put her in the white.” It took all he had for Jacen not to strangle the Fosh there and then. He’d done that to Tenel Ka. To his beautiful wife...

“You can call me Caedus” he told her as they reached the Well of the World Brain. “You made him here. In the Embrace, he started there didn’t he. The Sith Lord you so desperately needed to turn the tide. I was pulled back though...someone came here with me...” The memories hit him like a Star Destroyer. “You Shall Not Pass” Ganner and his last stand. Brave foolish Ganner Rhysode...what had become of him here.

“He tried to find you, the brave foolish boy. But it was too late. He got you here and you had already started to believe.” She told him, again knowing what he was thinking. Clearly there were some even Darth Caedus couldn’t hide from. “So its Caedus is it. ...You don’t feel Sith. Of course do I sense what you are, were, or might have been, my Lord. There is darkness in you, yes. And you bury it down. So far down inside where she can’t see ...where they can’t see. Do you think it will stay there?”

Jacen’s eyes narrowed, but he knelt all the same beside the Well of the World Brain. His Vongsense easily coming to the fore. “Hello old friend.” He told it, and immediately it responded nervously. He felt different, it said, wrong, less connected to the will of the gods. Jacen admitted of course that he was. That he was very different, and he tried to explain to it why, knowing it would be hard to understand. Still he was able to talk, quietly and calmly knowing no one here would see this as different and knowing Vergere’s little bird brain would be processing a million thoughts, working out a strategy. But she would not expect what he had planned for her. Oh no. First though he focused on talking to the World Brain. Showing it a world it could create, showing it ways to help the other Jacen learn again. Showing it how slight slight differences could change the galaxy. And telling it he was sorry for his betrayal of it. Oh that was the most important of all.

He’d been surprised how much he’d missed the world brain. It had suffered and died when Alema Rar tried to kill him and got it instead. It had died of poison slowly. But Alema would be dead soon too, along with her nest. No one would hurt his friend. Not again.

And Vergere. Oh he couldn’t kill her. He knew that all too well but she had been wrong. She had been playing her agendas. And Jacen knew what he needed to do with the rest of his time on Yuuzhun’tar. With her, and with Lumiya. His eyes glinted yellow and red and he knew that here at least he could let it out. Here he could be everything they taught him. But just for now, and just to them. Caedus could live here.

He needed to educate them. The way he had learned. They needed the Embrace.