Chapter Text
Count Dooku had never liked to be kept to rules he didn’t agree with it. It was the reason he made a pretty bad Jedi even as he grew up in a temple that admired him for his intelligence, swordsmanship and beauty. For most of his youth he was told he would be destined to be chosen as a Courtesan and finally be allowed to leave the temple with a Sith master. He never was. He was born in the wrong era – one of turmoil between the Siths and as the dust settled only two were left neither likely or interested in gaining a Courtesan. Then the older one died as well.
As Dooku grew older, his hair starting to grey but his swordsmanship sharper than ever he grew tired of his entrapment. Jedi weren’t allowed to leave the temple as anything else than a Courtesan; Dooku was told it was because they were too innocent, too weak to survive in the cruelness of the galaxy surrounding them. But even growing up isolated and surrounded by Jedi Keeper’s Dooku was too clever and sharps-sighted to truly believe it. What a coincidence that the only people truly able to be a threat to the Sith were put away, raised as their willing prostitutes and with such a fear of the outside world that they wouldn’t dare to leave. How curious!
At first Dooku tried to tell his brothers and sisters of his realization. Surely he couldn’t be the only one to realize what was being done to them. Wolves domesticated into lap dogs!
No one listened. At best he was given a condescending smile – “He’ll understand when he becomes older” – at worst he was laughed it.
Dooku grew disillusioned.
So he left.
The temple’s teachings were right: The galaxy was a cruel place and the first month Dooku spend outside of the temple he was betrayed, mugged, hunted and nearly killed.
The temple’s teachings also couldn’t have been more wrong: Dooku thrived. Finally – FINALLY! – something that required his full attention, his full use of his intellect and abilities. And he had an aim: He would march to the surviving Sith lord and he would fight for his brothers and sisters freedom. He would prove them all wrong.
Several decades later Count Dooku was sitting in his palace on Serenno running through report after report. As a young Jedi the life of a Sith had seemed perfect: They had made a galaxy without any competition for themselves, ruling over the peasants with all the freedom you could imagine. Unfortunately reigning entire solar systems had sounded far more glorious than it actually was. There were people to protect, rebellions to snuff out, trade treaties to make and hungry mouths to be fed. Not speaking of the inane disputes people persisted to bring to him.
“Remind me.” He mumbled nearly to himself. “Why I should care about this petty argument who the true heir of some small piece of farm land in the eastern squadron is?”
“Tread carefully.” Qui-Gon sat opposite him hiding a sly smile under his beard. “They make your favorite tea in that squadron if you displease them you might be cut off.”
Dooku threw him an annoyed glare. “The disputes with the trading confederation are getting more heated by the minute don’t you have better things to do than to annoy me?”
“I thought annoying you was part of the job description of a Courtesan, old man.” Qui-Gon had been an unconventional Jedi and he was just as much of an unconventional Courtesan. Or to say it in other words: He was a pain in Count Dooku’s noble behind.
“I should have you thrown to the fishes for your insolence.” Dooku grumbled.
“I do apologize for my insolence, oh Count. Please forgive me.” Qui-Gon said in an unmoved tone then he took another data pat to peer into. “You shouldn’t complain anyway, you have chosen this after all.”
Count Dooku had expected a lot of things as he stormed into the high Chancellors door with his light saber drawn but not activated demanding the freedom of the Jedi. He hadn’t expected him to smile.
“Imprisoned?” Palpatine had repeated Dooku’s words back to him. “Such a terrible world for the protection I am providing.”
“Protection?” Dooku has scoffed. “You don’t let any of us leave the temple.”
“Don’t I?” The Sith lord’s smile had something fatherly. “I tell them not to, yes, as did my master before me and his master before him but you clearly left the temple. Did I put up insurmountable barriers? Unbeatable guardians that kept you from leaving? Did I even put up a gate surrounding the temple.”
“I…” Dooku frowned. “I mean…”
“Aren’t you all trained in the ways of the light saber?” Palpatine’s tone was so soft. “Capable warriors in your own right?”
“Yes but…”
“Then why haven’t they left?”
“Because you continue to tell them how dangerous it is outside!” Dooku felt anger bubble up inside him and as he gestured with an arm a sudden gust of wind threw the vase from the Chancellor’s table which shattered into a million pieces on the ground.
“No!” Palpatine’s eyes hardened. “They don’t leave because they’re Jedi. They are weak. They follow rules without thought – without even an idea of a rebellion!”
“I left!” Dooku proclaimed proudly.
“You did.” Palpatine smiled again but this time he was showing teeth. “Because you aren’t like them. You aren’t a Jedi.” He put a hand to his belt and drew his own light saber in all its scarlet glory. “Do you want me to tell you how true power feels like?”
“I haven’t heard anything back from Obi-Wan in awhile.”
“Mhm?” Dooku looked up from the contract in front of him with a frown. “Pardon, did you say something beloved?”
Qui-Gon tsked and gave him a fond eye-roll. “I swear to god if I wouldn’t more or less force-feed you and carry you off to bed you would die buried under a pile of documents.”
“I’m more than capable to take care of myself.”
“Mhm, sure.” Someone nearly twenty years his junior shouldn’t be able to give him such a condescending smile.
Dooku decided to ignore him. “Did you have something to say or are you just trying to keep me from working?”
Qui-Gon’s smile faded from his face again. “I haven’t heard anything from Obi-Wan for the last few weeks.”
“Oh.” Dooku barely knew his Courtesan’s former student but he knew he was important to Qui-Gon. “Wasn’t he sick or something?”
Qui-Gon’s frown deepened. “For weeks on end? If it is so bad they should transport him to a better healer since the temple clearly cannot provide one that helps.”
Dooku sighed. “I promise I’ll look into it once I inverted this crisis.”
Being a Sith came far more natural to Dooku; condensing all his frustration and anger into his use of the force felt like he could breathe again. No more inane rules without explanation. Finally people gave him the respect his stature deserved. Everything was going well.
Until Palpatine’s second student Darth Maul attacked his master seemingly out of nowhere, leaving him disfigured and spitting mad.
Dooku knelt next to Palpatine as he was walking up and down the hall. “He will suffer for his betrayal! Him and his dirty Zabrak brother!”
“Yes master!” Dooku was used to his master’s temper even if he didn’t share it. Better to agree and wait until he calmed again.
It seemed to work somewhat, Palpatine’s grimace relaxed into something that would have probably seemed neutral if it weren’t for the new disfigurement of his face. “I guess I should have seen it coming. He has been trying to surpass my power for awhile now. I should have put an end to it earlier. Yes, I’ll have to take control of this situation as fast as possible.”
“Yes master.”
Palpatine’s yellow eyes turned to Dooku as if it was the first time he really saw him. “Have you ever heard of the Rule of two?”
Dooku raised an eyebrow. “I can’t say I have.”
“It was an idea of the old Sith.” Palpatine explained. “A way to reduce or maybe even stop conflict among our own kind.”
“I thought conflict was what made us powerful.”
“Conflict is what killed my former master.” Palpatine answered. “It left us nearly extinct.”
“I admit a Sith’ passion can lead to undue violence.” Dooku concurred. “So what was the proposed solution?”
“The Rule of two stipulates that there are always supposed to be only two Sith at the same time.” Palpatine explained. “A master and a student. Following this doctrine conflict can only arise if given the chance to.”
Dooku frowned. This doctrine sounded a lot like the things he had been taught in the temple but he had the feeling it would go far less well for him if he questioned it aloud this time. “That certainly would reduce conflict but wouldn’t it also impede our growth?”
“Sith do not need other people to grow. We aren’t JEDI!” His master jeered. “I will enforce this new Rule and will go down in history as the greatest force-wielder to ever have lived. And you will be right at my side sharing our glory.”
“Master, do you want me to kill Maul and his brother?” Dooku could get behind that idea he had never liked Maul much in the first place.
“No,” Palpatine whispered. “I have a more important task for you while I take care of my old student.” The force itself seemed to freeze in terror had his next words. “I want you to go to the Jedi temple and kill them all.”
Finding Darth Maul and his brother to ally against Palpatine hadn’t been as hard as Dooku might have suspected. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him that Maul’s sudden turn against their former master months ago had actually come after being ordered to kill his own flesh and blood. Somehow it still did. Palpatine really dug his own grave.
Killing Darth Sidious seemed out of Maul’s and his own power but with combined forces they managed to banish him into the far corners of the Outer Rim. To avoid any more conflict from forming they divided the known galaxy in two and each chose a territory to rule. Luckily Maul hadn’t been interested in Coruscant leaving the planet and the Jedi temple for Dooku to reign. One thing he had learned during all of this: The Jedi needed to be protected at all costs because clearly they were incapable to do it themselves. Had Dooku agreed to Palpatine’s plan the Jedi would have gone extinct!