Tenel Ka was the only child of Prince Isolder and Queen Mother Teneniel Djo. She was identified as Force-sensitive in early childhood, and spent much of her first years on Dathomir, learning the ways of the Dathomir witches under the tutelage of her great-grandmother Augwynne.
Tenel Ka at the Jedi Academy[]
At the age of fourteen, Tenel Ka joined the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV. Initially, she hid the fact that she was a princess, and pretended that she was from Dathomir instead of Hapes. Eventually, though, she told her friends the truth.
Her circle of closest friends at the Academy included Jaina and Jacen Solo. She and Jacen developed a deeper relationship over the next few years, even though a sparring accident caused him to cut off her arm. Her first lightsaber was faulty, and shorted out during the duel; his blade passed through the space that hers had occupied, and her left arm was cut off right above the elbow. Tenel Ka accepted the fault as her own for not taking special care when building her lightsaber, and she lived with the injury for five years before finally accepting a prosthetic arm, which she rarely wore.
Stellar Imperial War[]
Tenel Ka spent most of the Stellar Imperial War on Hapes with her parents, and she tried to use what influence she had to convince her mother to sent the Hapan fleet to join the New Republic fleet and defeat the Stellar Imperium, which was slowly taking systems over through hostile means. Because there was no clear target, though, and the location of Empress Shira's fleet was unknown, Teneniel initially refused.
Tenel Ka and Teneniel both contracted the Cyalax virus and temporarily lost their Force powers. This was when Tenel Ka had her prosthetic arm made, although she had another reason to do this - to distance herself, psychologically, from Jacen. He disappeared, along with his younger brother Anakin Solo and two other Jedi Knights, in 28 ABY and all were presumed dead.
When the virus was no longer active on Hapes and the few remaining uninfected Jedi Knights had been inoculated, the remnants of the Jedi Order gathered on Hapes, one of the few relatively safe places for them - Shira would not risk a difficult journey through the Transitory Mists to target them, and leave her own forces vulnerable to attack from the Hapans. Jaina was one of the last to arrive, and brought with her some information taken from the navigational computer of Shira's apprentice, Lord Welk. This information, along with intelligence gathered by the New Republic and the Jedi, was enough to reveal the location of Shira's fleet. Teneniel, at her daughter's continued urging, finally agreed to ally with the New Republic against the Stellar Imperium.
Tenel Ka was also cheered by the knowledge that Jacen was still alive. Jaina had felt his life force, far away and muted, but still there. After the Battle of Angwel, in which the Stellar Imperium was defeated and during which Shira died while resisting arrest, Jaina retrieved Jacen from his faraway crash site, the planet G0-CVII. She also brought back Anakin; both brothers had survived, although their two traveling companions died the previous year.
Jedi, Princess, Wife, Mother[]
Tenel Ka and Jacen did not, however, pick up their relationship quite where they left off. Jacen was cold and distant for a few months after his rescue, preferring to spend time alone, and when he was not alone, he was usually in Anakin's company. Eventually, though, he opened back up to others. He and Tenel Ka became friends again, though it did not progress much farther than that.
At Jaina's wedding to Zekk in late 29 ABY, six months after the end of the Stellar Imperial War, this changed. Jacen floated Jaina's thrown bouquet to Tenel Ka, and caught the garter tossed by Zekk. He proposed to Tenel Ka, and despite her brief misgivings, she accepted the proposal.
After the first month of marriage, Jacen lapsed back into friendly behavior, without intimacy. Tenel Ka was distressed by this, but continued to attribute it to Jacen's suppressed emotions over the torture and other trials he endured on G0-CVII. There were other stressors, also, such as Jacen's lack of freedom on female-dominated Hapes, and the fact that Anakin had grown increasingly close to a new friend, Dyar Leeds. Jacen and Anakin had been each other's only companion for a year, and he seemed to take Anakin's new friendship as betrayal.
Nonetheless, Tenel Ka conceived, and in 31 ABY, gave birth to a daughter, Allana. Allana was named for two of Tenel Ka's ancestors - the ancient mother of the Dathomiri witches, Allaya, and her late grandmother Allya. The second part of the name was from "Anakin" - Jacen's late grandfather, Anakin Skywalker. He may also have intended it to honor his brother.
The relationship continued to fracture, and Jacen and Tenel Ka finally decided that they could no longer live together. Jacen left Hapes, returning to Coruscant to dedicate more time to the Jedi Order, and Tenel Ka remained in the palace, raising her daughter alone.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Jacen and Tenel Ka got along much better after the divorce, and settled into close friendship without the former romance. She also encouraged him to remain in contact with Allana, although there was little time for it and Allana grew up not really knowing him for the first six years.
Taking Up the Crown[]
Tenel Ka had to leave Allana in the care of nannies when she was on Jedi missions, because Allana was too young to go with her. She did her best to raise Allana with her own principles, but because there was so much influence from outside sources, notably Tenel Ka's paternal grandmother, the former Queen Mother Ta'a Chume, these efforts largely failed. Allana, by the age of six, was a precocious and cultured child, but also spoiled and selfish.
Tenel Ka returned from a short trip to Dathomir in 37 ABY and was distressed to see that Ta'a Chume's influence on Allana was increasing. She resolved to spend more time training her daughter and keeping her away from Ta'a Chume. Ultimately, the first became impossible, and the second was forced.
The royal dinner that night was laced with poison. Teneniel Djo returned one of the dishes to the kitchen, claiming that it didn't taste right, but she had already ingested enough to kill her, and she died that night. Ta'a Chume was strongly suspected as the culprit, but it was not proven, and no action was taken against her.
Ta'a Chume offered Teneniel's crown to Tenel Ka, thinking that Tenel Ka would refuse. With nobody else available to rule, Ta'a Chume would then be the ruler once more. Tenel Ka surprised her by accepting the offer and ascending to the throne as Queen Mother. She and Isolder also claimed that Allana had died with Teneniel, to keep Ta'a Chume from trying to assassinate Allana as well. Because she would surely be discovered if kept on Hapes, Tenel Ka sent her father to Coruscant, telling him to take Allana to Jacen. Tenel Ka and Allana tearfully parted, and she only saw Allana once or twice a year for the rest of her life.
Ruling Hapes[]
Tenel Ka's rule was mostly uneventful, and short. Isolder did marry again, five years after Teneniel's death; his second wife was a noblewoman named Loralia. Tenel Ka also decided to remarry, and she chose a man named Planck Gray, who was about twenty years older than she was. This was mainly so that she could bear a son and keep the throne out of her scheming grandmother's hands even if something happened to her. Tenel Ka wanted a son, and not a daughter, because a daughter would be forced to take the throne after her death, but if she had a son, then she could help him choose a wife who would be an adequate ruler and who would be happy in that position.
Ta'a Chume secretly offered a sum of three million credits for anyone who would kill Tenel Ka. Many professional assassins and bounty hunters took up the job, and Ta'a Chume's spies also forced Ingvor Gord, a bounty hunter in her mid-thirties with mild Force powers, to accept it. This was a mistake, because Ingvor was Jaina's sister-in-law, and she immediately reported the planned hit to Jacen, who took action to get Tenel Ka away from Hapes long enough to deal with the bounty hunters and Ta'a Chume.
Tenel Ka was unaware that any of this was going on. Allana had returned to Hapes for a brief visit, along with four of her friends from the Academy. Tenel Ka saw many changes in Allana; the girl was now twelve, and entering adolescence. She had also taken well to the Jedi life, and preferred it to the Hapan ways. Allana also confessed that Jacen was seeing someone else and was happy in the relationship. Tenel Ka quietly accepted this, because although she had denied it, a part of her had always known that his heart had changed, and that someone else had taken her place in it. She did not believe that this cheapened their friendship or their love for Allana.
Boba Fett arrived on Hapes mere hours later, immediately behind Jacen, Jaina, and several others. There was a brief altercation that destroyed part of the Hapan palace, and ultimately all of the children, and Tenel Ka, were flying away on one of the two ships. Most had piled onto Jaina's ship, but Tenel Ka and Allana were flying with Jacen and Anakin. The ship had a hull breach and had to land near the palace, and Jaina landed nearby.
Vastly outnumbered, Boba Fett couldn't fight off the Jedi and was wounded by Tenel Ka. Everyone ran towards Jaina's intact ship, but as they were climbing on, Boba managed to raise his blaster and shoot Tenel Ka. He was killed seconds later by Ben Skywalker, wielding Ingvor's blaster, but the damage was done and his job completed; Tenel Ka was dead.
Five years later, Allana, at her own Knighting ceremony, was distressed that Tenel Ka wasn't there to see this pivotal moment in her life. Tenel Ka appeared to her as a Force ghost. She told Allana that she was proud of her, and then briefly appeared to Anakin, telling him to continue to take care of Jacen and watch over Allana. After that, she joined with the Force, knowing that Allana would have the freedom to find her Jedi destiny.