Epilogue… and Prologue

In the end, the Republic was restored. Not entirely as it had been, but, its people hoped, rather better.

Mina Whitsun became the new Chancelloress. She wore a mantle of white silk embroidered with gold, and red shoes, and a diadem of true-silver and gold interwoven. She was not ashamed of her scars, and did not fear to reveal the burned side of her face, with its blind eye, and the area over her ear where her red hair did not grow.

Following the fashion of the ancient Republic in the days of its founding, which she admired, Mina chose to wear asymmetrical dresses, usually in purple, which exposed her one breast. (This detail borrows from Catholic iconography of the Virgin Mary. But it also suggests a Roman toga, and perhaps anticipates the dresses worn by the women of Qarth in the book version of A Song of Ice and Fire.)

Han Solo, Mina’s husband, became the new President of the Transport Guild—which turned a blind eye to smuggling in a way it had not under the Empire. Han now habitually dressed in the elegant black furred robes of Guild traders. Together he and Mina raised Mace Windom as an adopted son.

But Han still occasionally glanced at Leia. And Leia glanced back. And Mina, who was no longer as sheltered as she had once been on Acquis, exchanged glances with her as well.

Marcus Whitsun became Lord of Acquis, ruling in his underwater city—which now could float freely on the surface, without fear of discovery by the Imperial fleet.

He married Mara Lamiya, now Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Second Galaxy, who was quite impressed by his abilities as a pilot.

Mara, in her new office as ambassador, took to wearing elaborate Dwarf-forged wigs, in alternate colors of gold and black, to match her outfits. (She had not minded her original brown hair, but she was ready to try something new. Perhaps one day, she mused, she would wear a brown wig.)

Her lost eyes she replaced with new droid facsimiles, which were distinguished by their purple irises. But Mara’s teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.

Heda Horus dwelt with them, as the captain and chief pilot of Mara’s personal flagship.

As a wedding present, Chancelloress Mina bestowed on Marcus and Mara a legal dispensation, granting the rights of inheritance and succession to any children of the Whitsun bloodline born out of wedlock.

Lord Pestage was stripped of his imperial title, and he and Alana were exiled to Alderaan, where he might have a kingdom of his own—the one he had always possessed.

Alana felt guilt in her heart for having abandoned her husband to die on Organa Major. And so for several years she refused all attempts at ameliorating her condition, instead going about in a silver wheelchair like Carl Organa’s. Eventually, however, she yielded to Leia’s entreaties, and received silver prosthetic legs which restored her power of walking.

Leia Organa became Queen of Utapau, which began to blossom, gradually, under her rule. The surviving expatriates of Organa Major were invited to settle there, and to recreate something of their former happiness.

She took the regnal name of Nellith.

The Order of the Jedi-Templers was re-founded, with two bases. One was on Utapau and one on Ton-Muund—now a beautiful planet with palaces rising from a world-spanning ocean, Venice writ large. (This of course comes from the two Foundations, on Terminus and Trantor, in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation book series.)

The Templers had two mottos. The first, emblazoned over the doors of the Temple itself, described the ethos of the Jedi Order: Servants of the Servants of the Republic. But the second, kept within the private lore books of the Jedi and recorded in Old High Galactic, was this: Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, et ergo nihil interit. Quia quod mortuum est, hoc non morietur numquam, nisi sola per se mors.

The Jedi Council had three co-leaders: Luke Starkiller, Leia Organa, and Lando Kadar. Lando usually remained on Ton-Muund, whereas Luke and Leia preferred to remain on Utapau.

But they visited often, and Leia’s droids, C-4PO and R2-D3, invariably went with her. However, the droids liked it best when Leia visited Acquis, though that happened less frequently.

Lando had a small life-support device implanted in his chest, so that he no longer needed to be encased in armor. (Think of a combination of Marvel’s Tony Stark and Isaac Asimov’s portable nuclear reactors from Foundation.)

He took off his mask, and revealed his face openly. After all, he wished to show that even a Sith Lord could be redeemed.

There was now no shame in the Mark of the Sith; the bad Lords had been dealt with, and the repentant ones were welcomed into the folds of the Jedi.

And he shaved his mustache, which he had always hated. But Luke, who himself disliked his beard, kept his own mustache.

Lando replaced his missing right hand with a golden prosthesis—for he now realized that even his revered father, Annikin Starkiller, could make mistakes of judgment. Luke, for his part, replaced his missing hand with a robotic one covered with synth-flesh, to honor the independent mind of old Ben Kenobi.

Leia took to wearing elaborate hairdresses of woven metal discs, alternating from gold to red to jet in color, according to her daily whims. She even had a wig made of stones of lapis lazuli, for special occasions (rather like Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra).

Her eyes were gone, but Leia had no wish to replace them. After all, thanks to the Force, she had all the vision she would ever need—although she still tripped sometimes on the steps before her throne.

Nonetheless, she found that the sight of her empty eye sockets disturbed visitors to her court. So she filled them with two dazzling jewels—star sapphires, her favorite gemstone—which, under the supervision of Fourpio and Artoo, were grown in the span of a week.

Her silver hands, and silver teeth, had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. She kept them, however, because they still worked. And her other false teeth, of gold and crystal, remained in perfect condition.

Her queenly attire consisted of a blue silken cloak, a filmy white loincloth, a beautiful royal necklace, and little else. She sometimes wore the silver shoes traditional for queens of Organa Major; but she usually went barefoot, for she limped, and she could no longer see as ordinary men did. And she disdained too much clothing, for the heat of the fires of Condawn never entirely left her.

As the ruler of Utapau, and the popular face of the victorious Rebellion, the newly crowned Queen Nellith set fashion trends across the wider Galaxy.

On the watery world of Clementias, red seas reflected the purple-red of the skies, and strange lichens clung to rocky spires protruding from the world-spanning ocean.

Here the new Prince and veteran intelligence officer—brown-haired, gray-eyed Simon Ritter—felt best comfortable in his old Rebel Navy uniform of tan and blue. But Princess Rosanna habitually wore a skirt of silver fringe, ornamental silver vambraces and greaves, and a thin cape of pale blue silk.

In the silver towers of Raghusa’s royal palace, King Kim and Queen Winter, and Viceroy Fredericks, looked out upon a vast sea of red dunes, beneath an emerald sky in which two large moons were invariable sights.

Kim, the tall, short-haired blond, and Lloyd, dark and mustachioed with curling hair, both wore the white tunics and black trousers of Devil Squadron. Queen Winter, though, wore a loincloth of woven gold-metal discs, and a brassiere of sable mesh.

Meanwhile beneath the blue skies of Acquis, Mara Lamiya and Heda Horus wore elaborate robes of state which covered them almost from head to toe.

Leia did not mind not being the cynosure of every eye; variety was the spice of life, after all. Rather, she admired Mara and Heda for setting their own course.

But, as the old saying goes: “When on Byssia, do as the Byssians do.”

So, when she visited Acquis, Leia wore full-body gowns, though hers were made of the lightest possible fabrics. Conversely, on trips to the First Galaxy, Mara and Heda reciprocated—though they made sure to maintain a modicum of decency in their attire.

Luke Skywalker, the Grand Master of the New Jedi Temple, wore the purple cloak and white robes of a triumphant Jedi general, as did Lando. All three Starkillers now had destroyed their Kiber Crystals. And all three wielded a lightsaber (or two) with skill and grace.

Luke and Lando each gave their magic Rings to Leia, as a sign of their devotion to her, and their confidence in their own skill as warriors. However, having lost her hands, Leia had to wear her three Rings in a different fashion from ordinary people.

One day, a merchant from a far-away land arrived at the court of Queen Leia on Utapau, carrying a nondescript box of plain dark wood. The man was wizened and shriveled with years, and shabbily dressed, and in spite of his kindly face and keen eyes, few of the courtiers (a species closely related to lawyers) would have paid him the slightest attention.

But Lando Kadar happened to be visiting Utapau at that time, and it was he who asked the traveler what he bore.

“Fruits from exotic lands,” was the fellow’s reply.

Lando paid the man for a sample of his wares.

The merchant reached into his box, and produced a yellowish fruit, covered in a hard rind. It was like nothing anyone in the court had ever beheld.

“This is only a small sample of the many delights I can procure for you.”

The strange food mesmerized Lando—for he now recalled having seen its like, years ago, on a tree in the white-haired sorcerer’s garden.

At the merchant’s instruction, Lando peeled the rind from the fruit, and ate of the flesh inside.

It tasted good, in a way Lando had never experienced before… yet its savor was also somehow strangely familiar.

Lando asked the man what he called this new and exotic fruit.

“An orange, Sire.”

At her father’s advice, Queen Nellith bestowed upon the merchant a royal commission in the new orange trade. She asked only that he sell his wares at a fair price, to which he agreed, because he was a reasonable man.

And soon, exotic fruits of all kinds—principally oranges, but by no means solely—began to grace the dinner tables of the Galaxy, and were enjoyed by lowly and highborn alike.

With Lando’s permission, Leia had the ancient bronze gong moved from its old home on Condawn to the throne room of her new palace on Utapau.

In the gong’s dull reflection, others saw Leia as she normally looked. Usually.

But what Queen Leia saw reflected on the face of the gong, she revealed to few—and it is not said in the surviving manuscripts.

And, across the galaxy, people shared and shared alike.

And peace and love reigned in the Republic.

And, on a remote, swampy planet on the uncharted edge of the galaxy, the Jedi Master Bunden Debannen, living under the assumed name of Minch Yoda, laid down his burdens, and breathed a sigh of relief… for the time being.