#sir that's my emotional support sith lord

[dapurinthos]

*staring at heroes on both sides & pursuit of peace with a dawning realization*

it would be really cruel to put the events of dark rendezvous in this time period instead of the 19bby date it had in legends, wouldn't it. because if i'm keeping it, it needs to happen before grievous attacks dathomir, and needs to happen before the mahanree atrocity aka the point when the council decides they need to assassinate dooku.

that's just. that's a misericorde straight through. oh, look padmé has proposed a peace initiative, the separatist senate votes 'sure why not', ahsoka is all 'don't look at me like that lux', whoops here's the part in dark rendezvous where anakin shows up & dooku goes 'FINE NO ONE LOVES ME YOU ALL LIKE YOUR NEW SPECIAL BOY BETTER', and then it's the coruscant bombing, the murder of mina bonteri, & dooku's 'WOE HOW THE REPUBLIC HAS BETRAYED ALL OF US' moment.

whoops.

[dapurinthos]

oh is it TALKING ABOUT THE PYJAMAS TIME?

(~they're in battlefront ii, why do i know this even though i don't play video games apart from lego wii ones and that one clone wars lightsaber one~)

one of my favourite behind the scenes quotes is about the pyjamas, from killian plunket, the lead series designer of the clone wars.

"So, Dooku sports the finest silk easy-fit trousers and a matching side-opening silk blouson in dark gray-blue with a midnight blue collar and sash. His front pocket is monogrammed and the sleeves are accented by finely embroidered patterning running down their sides. The ensemble is finished off with hand-stitched kid leather charcoal moccasins. Available in three sizes: Old, Angry and Angry Old."

also, headcanon that he, like sidious, doesn't sleep any more and just does lying down meditation. in his little ugg booties.

dooku, why.

& it's not a 'c' & a 'd'. the monogram is an entirely different alphabet than what we've seen elsewhere, so i guess serenno also has its own alphabet, which i am very not surprised at. it looks kinda like outer rim basic, if you reversed a 'd' and an 'o' and added a line (it's actually one line off of being a naboo/futhork 's'), but you would think that it would be DS for dooku of house serenno (the second letter is actually one line off of being a naboo/futhork 's'). and i am confident in saying that they are silk habutai because the model says 'very thin silk'.

the bedroom does not make sense architecturally. you do not have a castle where the room immediately off of the main chamber. it's bad security. you shouldn't be able to sit at that desk and just go 'oh, that's my bedroom off to my right. it's not somewhere else secure in my fuck-off wizard tower.' i tried to figure it out. all i am left with is questions.

For the ask game - 5, 7, 18 for dooku?

5) Out of all your fanworks that include Dooku, which is your favourite?

If I had to tell people to just read one of my Dooku fics, I think it would be Milk Run.

I think it's my best Jedi Dooku character work, and I loved writing his dynamics with Qui-Gon, Jocasta Nu, and Sifo-Dyas. It's a longer work, but hey, fuck being self-deprecating, I'd vouch for every page of that shit: if someone gets to the end of chapter two, where Dooku very awkwardly and earnestly tries to explain Jedi sex life to Qui-Gon, and doesn't love the fic by then, I'll give the reader a free coupon for… uh, *turns out pockets* I guess an essay on Legends/EU. :D :D ??

7)Is there a piece of clothing you think Dooku is particularly fond of/that you imagine them wearing a lot or like to draw them in?

I go with the characterization from the novels that Dooku is very fastidious about his Jedi uniform, keeping it all neat and perfect, very rarely if ever out of uniform. Like Sifo-Dyas and Jocasta Nu's depictions, he's got those warmer colored tan/gold/cream/warm brown Jedi tunics with the little flourishy gold detail work on the sleeves and hems.

I like this because it's fun to write the rare times when he needs to be out of uniform for a mission or something, and he's completely awkward about it. And it's fun foil with my headcanon that Sifo-Dyas is out of uniform a LOT with his underworld work. I like imagining them side by side looking like they came out of different eras.

Seer of the Cosmic Force, fated to speak with the froth of doom on his lips? No, it's that guy over there in the hoodie and the manbun, trying to convince the barista to take a coupon for a complimentary drip coffee but instead give him a free extra large matcha frappe with a five squirts of coconut syrup and extra whip.

18)Type Dooku's name and tell us what the autocomplete suggests as the next word

You know, I tried this in my SMS to see if it would give me a different answer than my previous, and got "Dooku cleaned"

Hmmmmmmm. *making direct eye contact with Sifo-Dyas*

[madeofsplinters]

all these memes about people who feel guilty because they haven’t updated their fanfic, and I’m over here like, wellp, I have all this actual adulting to do and people who are counting on me but my hyperfocused autistic ass just won’t stop writing down weird things that happened to darth vader

having a bad day? darth vader. feeling anxious? darth vader. got upset about a thing? darth vader. too tired to do your other work? darth vader. actually had a good day and want to reward yourself? darth vader. feeling insecure about whether people enjoyed the latest installment of the darth vader fic or not? the solution to this is more fic, apparently, according to my brain

like, I promise you, being capable of prolific frequent updates isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you only end up feeling about 20% better about yourself in this version.

[phoenixyfriend]

In Which Palpatine Leaves the Door Open

So, @purronronner suggested this on discord:

au where anakin finds out about palpatine during clone wars era like, coming in for a visit and overhears a conversation with Dooku about war planning he’s been pulled between palpatine and the Jedi/obi-wan/various things but I want to see him pulled between palpatine and his men could go either way on the sith part of the reveal even

palpatine is not aware! unless anakin’s course of action is to go “hey palpatine I must have misunderstood something right? :(“

(This was a group effort but there's a thing I wrote that requires this context so please bear with me.)

I'm just imagining Anakin backing out, closing the door, and turning to the Corrie Guard by the door to say a thing... and not finding words.

Eventually "Did you guys know he was evil?" "He's a politician, sir." "But like the evil ranting..." "He's a politician. Sir."

He's willing to use his men to save R2, but that's because R2 was part of the team and helping, not arranging battles to make things worse.

Anakin: Normally, I'd go to Palpatine to talk about my problems, but right now he is the problem... Obi-Wan and Yoda are off-planet.... Anakin, phoning up Padme: Help?

Per @atagotiak we also have some Intense Thoughts

Oh hey. The deception arc. And the subsequent argument that we don't see and stuff. Like there's all the ways you could justify it especially from an opsec standpoint (If Anakin acts like that around Padme why would anyone assume he can keep a secret about anything?) And it was a pretty tactically important thing for the war as far as anyone knew. But just. I've heard some people say that perhaps also Obi-Wan reasoned that hurting Anakin is an ok price to pay to make sure someone Anakin cares for doesn't die for real which seems plausible enough.

Anyways. My point is. Anakin gets a front row seat to sheevception when he actually sorta knows whats going on. Gets sidetracked halfway through yelling and stuff to think about how convoluted this whole mess is.

For more clone-centric things all the times Palpatine's like "I wish I could do more, it's truly regrettable, but..." Would just seem awfully fake now.

Anakin, belatedly: Wait, does this mean that, behind all the layers of bullshit, Palpatine was the one trying to kill Padme at the start of the war???

WHICH IS WHAT LEADS TO A WHOLE LOT OF FUN and yes this is the part I'm sort of proud of.

Okay so: Anakin's a shit liar, yes?

After he meanders over to Padme and has a breakdown, he then goes off to tell the Council about all this. I imagine she goes with him as moral support, and also because she wants to protect him from them calling him out on his legitimately terrible decisions. They're trying to come up with a plan to take Palpatine down without tipping their hands too early, because they need to investigate; for the sake of this plot point, we'll say that Palpatine mentioned a contingency plan while talking to Dooku, even if he didn't directly name the chips.

Someone mentions that Palpatine is going to ask to see Anakin, because he does regularly. And, as experience has shown, there is very little that will stop Palpatine from insisting that Anakin come see him. They can stall for a bit, maybe, but not for long.

"You could send me to the other side of the galaxy," Anakin suggests. "Short notice, so sorry, won't be around for a bit."

They point out that won't work forever.

"So... arrest me, or put me on a mental health hold?" Anakin tries. "Say I got violent at civilians or the clones for no reason and you need to make sure I won't hurt him, and then even if he visits me in the cell, I don't have to act normal 'cause he'll EXPECT me to be upset."

Palpatine presumably has spies all over, so he'd know that hadn't actually happened. Also, Anakin's too important to the war effort for anything short of a cold-blooded murder of an innocent, and they can't just take him off the field without an absolutely massive violation of the Code or his orders.

"Tell him I Fell," Anakin offers.

A Sith Lord would be able to feel that from across the galaxy, if it had happened, especially with the amount of time that he's put into grooming Anakin.

"Oh," Anakin says, and his stomach drops out as he realizes that he can either keep his secrets, or keep people alive.

He thinks about how Palpatine had targeted Padme already, and how if Palpatine thinks Anakin's betrayed him, then he'll probably do that again.

He thinks about 'a Sith Lord would know' and realizes... well.

Anakin values his freedom, but he also values his men, his padawan, his master, his wife... the wife that's in danger if Palpatine knows that Anakin caught him out.

The Order has to keep Anakin away from Palpatine. They need an excuse to arrest him. They need an excuse to hide him away, one that Palpatine won't question too hard.

A Sith Lord would know if Anakin fell. Even if he came back afterwards.

"So... so tell him you found out about the Tusken Massacre."

The what.

"...tell him you found out about the time I actually did Fall," Anakin says, squeezing Padme's hand. She knows. She's the only one who knows, on Coruscant, other than the Sith they're hunting. "On... on Tatooine. You can claim it was an anonymous tip. He already knows about that one. He's one of the only two people outside Tatooine that do. He might not question it."

(He won't question it.)

What did you do, Skywalker.

"I killed... a lot of people. A Tusken tribe. Including the children. Right before the war hit."

----

It's a hell of a way to fall on his figurative sword.

(Mace is... both impressed that Anakin would take the hit to make sure they can handle the Palpatine problem, and horrified about the Massacre, because... who wouldn't be.)

(Mace is unfortunately Anakin's main handler on this project.)

Anakin puts in so much effort, all the time, into not Falling, so it’s surprisingly (terrifyingly!) easy for him to fake a 'near miss' with the Dark just by thinking really hard about things that make him angry. Nobody wants him actually Falling for the ploy if they can help it, but they need to sell the bit, and Anakin's... well. He's Anakin. It's easy to think about his own emotional volatility until any control goes out the window.

He's sacrificing a lot for this mission! It's fine! He's fine!

(Padme, the council is judging you so hard right now.)

Palpatine comes to visit Anakin in prison, and it is very easy for Anakin to disguise his anger as... a different anger. I have a very intense mental image of Anakin working himself up into a frenzy when Palpatine comes to visit, and then at some point in the following conversation he just snaps something about how "you said they were animals who deserved to die."

The Council can even eke it out a bit, make it so they don't want to admit why Anakin's in prison or under a psychiatric hold or whatever they claim it is, so their "I'm hiding something vibes" look like "I'm hiding the fact that one of our most recognizable war heroes just came clean as a mass murderer and we have no idea how to handle it" instead of "I'm hiding that we know you're a Sith Lord and are working to take you down."

Obi-Wan comes back from an off-world mission to find out that Mace arrested his former padawan and Ahsoka hasn't stopped crying for three days because nobody will tell her what's going on.

(The Council decided this couldn't be risked on even an encrypted comm.)

(They maybe tell him soon enough? But also they might treat it like the Hardeen thing and use his reaction as fuel to keep Palpatine convinced.)

SKYGUY GOT ARRESTED AND NOBODY'S EXPLAINING WHY.

Rex is overwhelmed because it's been his job to keep her calm.

Anyway, padawanship has been temporarily transferred to the grandmaster. You were half-training her anyway.

Insert a subplot about Obi-Wan being horrified and betrayed and aiming the feeling at Padme because she knew about the Tuskens and never told.

[lowkeyanakin]

OBIKIN fics reclist! (pt.1/?)

Alright, since you were interested, here they come. They’ll be in order from the first one I bookmarked to the latest, so to give some space to not-so-recent works :)

Artificial Heart by Duckscribe (MCD, TU, complete)

Piece by piece, he builds his lover.

my love has known yours for so long (the stars couldn't keep us apart) by ahandsomebabe (NAWP, M, complete)

In four standard days of travel on board the Relentless, Anakin Skywalker sleeps, at best, a grand total of six hours.Half. Half of his men. Gone in one battle.Obi-Wan was nearly one of them.

flash point by treescape (NAWP, M, complete)

It isn’t the first time, but he thinks it is; he could never forget this sick curl of exhaustion in his limbs. The truth is that he will forget again, just as he has forgotten before.

Or: After capturing Obi-Wan on Mustafar, Vader does the only thing he can think of to keep his former Master close: he freezes Obi-Wan in carbonite. Every so often, he can’t resist the temptation of seeing Obi-Wan again and brings him out.

Nor the Suns Themselves Brighter by glimmergangler (GDOF, M, complete)

Everything interesting in the desert happened at night, at least in Anakin’s experience. The temperatures dropped with the setting of the suns and the darkness crept in, covering acts that would be revealed under Tatooine’s harsh daylight. Considering what people were willing to do in the light, the night hours were a dangerous time to be about.Anakin was one of the many factors that made them so.(AU where Qui-Gon never took Anakin off of Tatooine)

OR, the one where Anakin gets a ready-made family dropped on him and handles the situation far better than anticipated.

The Consequences of a Crash by happygiraffe (NAWP, G, complete)

Anakin doesn’t remember how they lost control of the ship. A newly made knight and his former master crash on an unknown world and must hang on until help arrives. Obi-Wan is badly hurt, Anakin's just trying to hold his shit together

sir that's my emotional support force bond by destiny919 (NAWP, G, complete)

"During the Sith Wars," Mace began heavily, "many of the most powerful and deadly Sith were once Jedi, whose partner bonds had been severed."

"And this is the connection you believe Skywalker and Kenobi have formed?" His former Padawan, Depa Billaba, almost whispered.

"That is madness - surely Obi-Wan would not be so foolish."

"For Skywalker," interrupted Fisto, "he would be."

I myself have torn myself to shreds by iscoos (CNTUAW, M, complete)

The Force whispers in its ageless voice, its touch peaceful and lulling against Vader’s ancient soul, “Tell me your biggest regrets.”

Or the five times Anakin traveled back in time with the intention of making things better, and the one time that it actually worked

the kind that was burned first by loosingletters (CNTUAW, TU, complete)

The Chancellor was revealed to be a Sith Lord orchestrating the war and had been taken down by an unknown assailant. As far as Ahsoka was concerned, mysteries should start unraveling now, not start accumulating, but then Obi-Wan had to return to the temple with a stranger and refused to let go of him.

Or: Five times somebody wondered about Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and his children because they don't bother to inform anyone of the fact that they time traveled and one person who didn't.

Courage of the Stars by BeanieBaby (NAWP, TU, complete)

“Do you like it, general?” Hardcase asked eagerly from where he was sprawled over a metal crate in their designated hanger. Anakin stared at the new artwork adorning his battalion’s starfighters and gunships.It was…an extremely provocative cartoon of Senator Obi-Wan Kenobi clad in skimpy gold lingerie, cradling a vaguely phallic-looking blaster cannon.

“Hey, you said we should come up with a design for the 501st. Remember? To boost morale and whatnot,” Tup reminded, scratching the side of his face.

“I meant something like the Wolfpack's nose art! You know, my head and Ahsoka’s next to some of yours,” Anakin hissed, blood pressure mounting at his men’s casual indifference.

“But that’s so boring,” Hardcase whined, flopping onto his side and upending some half-used paint cans onto the ground.

36 Questions by kenobiapologist (NAWP, TU, complete)

In a study by psychologist Arthur Aron, they found that strangers would fall in love when asked to answer 36 questions together. There are 3 sets of 12 questions and each set gets increasingly personal. The goal is to create mutual vulnerability that fosters a relationship between the strangers. 

What if Obi-Wan and Anakin found this quiz while scrolling through the depths of the holonet? What if they scoff and say, I bet we could answer these and not be affected? We aren't strangers, they say. But I think you'll find that they have a lot to learn about each other. And maybe a little love to give. 

[dottiechan]

Finders Keepers Pt. 1 (A SWTOR Imperial Agent story)

Part 1 / Part 2

Word count: 1633

Summary: SIS agent Dorathine Garza is left behind on Dromund Kaas after going undercover.

A/N: Thanks for kicking my writer’s block in the butt!!! I worked Dee’s story over a little, and gave it a good angsty twist in the end! Also, who needs proofreading, right?!

@catpella​:  does she ever get out? i still want to knowwwww

Warnings: anxiety, grief

It was supposed to be just another covert mission. Infiltrate Imperial Intelligence, gather information about Operation Krenth, get extracted by the SIS. She’s done it a thousand times before - her mother used to say that all Garzas are born with a blaster in hand, after all. Hutt Cartel, Exchange, Black Sun, blast, even the Sith Academy. She’s survived them all, her devotion to the Republic growing fiercer with every assignment. It was gruesome work, but she liked it. It made Dee feel invincible when she gambled with her life and won. Better than a night at the Star Cluster Casino on Nar Shaddaa, she’d tell you.

This time, things are different. This time, the SIS went on radio silence after getting the necessary information out of her, leaving her stranded on the Imperial capital. That was 3 days ago. There will be no extraction. There will be no victory. Not this time.

Dee used to joke about her work, saying she took out the Republic’s trash for a living. She’d never imagined she’d live long enough to become the trash.

Dee counts the hours on the first day.

She knows it’s only a matter of time before she’s found out. In her shocked, panicked state, she does what she was always taught by the seasoned SIS agent who’d trained her – she reverted to the first undercover lesson beaten into her. Act inconspicuous. Cover your tracks. And above all, watch for any and all opportunities. Her chance of getting out thins with every passing second, and it’s painful to resist glancing at her chronometer as she uses up her last minutes. Stars, I never thought I’d go out in this blasted Imp armour and its stupid bucket of a helmet, she thinks as she walks across the Citadel towards the taxi pad, all forced tranquillity, casual steps and feigned respect when passing by a Sith. Dee’s seen loth cats with more discipline than some of these so called lords, but she won’t string a civilisation up for worshipping its apex predators. The Republic isn’t all that different, despite its claims.

The barracks are tidy but not exactly spacious, and a few glares are enough to make the other recruits shut up. She’s not here to make friends with Imperials, but... she doesn’t know why she’s here anymore. She repeats all she had to learn about Operation Krenth for the SIS over and over in her head until she can’t think straight anymore. Dee is homesick, utter desperation heavy on her chest as her panic melts into sadness. If the SIS wanted her dead, she would have preferred being lined up to a wall and shot. That is clean. That is fair. She won’t pretend to be a saint, won’t pretend to have followed every order to the letter, to have never worked for her own benefit on the side. But she did what the other agents couldn’t, and she did it well. Her stomach twists when she realises she’s just as expandable as the other agents, the ones she knew the SIS only employed until they outlived their usefulness, the ones she was tasked countless times to dispose of in creative ways. But when she thinks of her mother, she straight up becomes sick to the stomach.

General Garza was no doubt informed beforehand. And all she had to do to turn it around was to say no.

But she let it happen to her daughter anyway.

Dee stops looking over her shoulder after the first month. The only mistake the SIS did when they sent her on this suicide mission was giving her too good a cover. They should have known she’d use it. So when she catches the attention of Keeper, she only works harder. Edging slowly inside, earning their trust favour by favour, mission by mission. She’s too good an opportunity to be passed up, even though she knows the old man suspects something. They both have a nose for trouble, a keen sense of survival that has kept them both alive and going all this time.

When the mission to Hutta is outlined, an unspoken truce is made between the two. Friend or foe, honesty or lies, they need each other. Imperial Intelligence needs her to infiltrate a Hutt’s palace – child’s play for an agent of Dee’s calibre. In return, she needs them to trust her enough so she might get close to Operation Krenth from the Imperial side.

A small voice in the back of her head tells her it’s only so she could get home, to the Republic. That by ensuring a Republic victory, she’d be forgiven. But with every single day she spends in the heart of the Empire, she knows the inevitability of her revenge. She has the upper hand – she remembers all the SIS security codes, the secure channel decryptions, the standard operating procedures, the preferred tactics. In the Imperial helmet, Dee is just another infantryman, just another number, just another body to be dropped. Which is why she is in the perfect position to remind them why you must put down a rabid kath hound, why you must cauterise a wound before it festers.

“Welcome to Operation Krenth, Agent.”

Keeper’s voice is undecipherable. Dee wouldn’t put it past him to know. It would be the perfect test of loyalty. She clicks her heels together and stands at attention, the prospect of payback momentarily soothing the constant pain of betrayal in her chest. Betrayal and abandonment for a sin she wasn’t even deemed worthy to know by her old superiors.

“I’ll make you proud, sir.”

...

“Total mission failure, General. I’m telling you, they have a mole in our ranks! They knew every move we’d make before we did them!”

“Calm yourself, Lieutenant Jorgan,” Garza replies as she forces herself to be still and tranquil despite the catastrophic outcome of Operation Krenth. Instead of ensuring the Empire’s defeat, they only doubled their own by trying to stop an Imperial stealth mission on Ringo Vinda, losing a key Republic shipyard in the process. A devastating blow, considering the resource and material that went into cracking Operation Krenth.

“With all due respect, how can you say that, sir?” the Cathar seethes as he rounds the holotable, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Your own daughter died giving us intel on the Imps.”

“I don’t need to be reminded what we lost during our campaign, Lieutenant,” she barks, tone sharper than intended. Not a day passes without Garza thinking about Dee, and how the SIS was forced to abandon her on Dromund Kaas. It’s as good a fate as death for a spy, and to mount a rescue op of that scale would not be supported by the GAR. Her rationale knows this. But there are days when she just wants to commandeer a shuttle, sling a rifle over her shoulder and blast her way into the damned Dark Council chamber to demand her daughter back. Elin Garza knows Dee is dead, she can feel it in her bones. She knows her demands are empty, childish threats; her hopes naive and otherworldly. There’s not a thing she can do or say to undo the damage that’s already been caused.

It doesn’t mean she can forgive herself just yet.

“That... was out of line. I’m sorry, General,” Aric says, his head sinking between his shoulders in defeat, anger, anguish. “I just... keep going over the mission in my head, constantly. Thinking what I’ve done wrong, what piece of intel I might have misinterpreted.”

“It’s impossible to tell. Maybe we simply waited too long. Let the intel grow stale.”

“We did everything by the book. It was supposed to be one of the easy ops. Now, I’ve lost two Havoc men, more regulars than I could count, the second largest Rep shipyard on Ringo Vinda... Something doesn’t add up,” Jorgan sighs as he places his hands on the holotable and leans forward, letting his eyes search the holoimage of the destroyed shipyard as if his own failure was written in the debris.

“Rest, Lieutenant. Recharge. Fill the gaps in Havoc squad’s ranks.”

Garza is already behind her desk, eyes trained on the incoming reports on her datapad. Aric Jorgan knows his general better than to try and say anything more. Her attention is already elsewhere, far away from what she has been saying just minutes ago. So he mutters a “yes, sir” and grabs his helmet, fingers gripping the plastoid so hard he could snap it in half. Dee might have been an SIS agent when she disappeared, but she was a rookie under his leadership a few years before that, and such emotional ties are not easily broken. He might not have had anything to do with the mission that was her downfall, but that doesn’t mean he will not keep feeling responsible. Like it was his fault somehow. Like he could have prevented it in any way. And the fact that he cannot investigate without Garza’s blessing doesn’t exactly help soothe the Cathar’s nerves.

Just as he’s halfway through the door, Elin’s voice halts him. She does not look up, her concentration is not once broken. But her intentions have never been clearer.

“Once you do that, I want you to report back to me, Jorgan. You will take Havoc squad and unravel the real reasons behind this defeat. Learn all you can and keep HQ and the SIS updated on the situation. We must avoid incidents like this in the future. And more importantly, I won’t allow my daughter’s death to have been in vain.”

It’s been a long time since Aric stood at attention willingly, unironically, without being told to do so. He finds himself doing just that now anyway.

“I’ll make you proud, sir.”

[anghraine]

“the jedi and the sith lord” - chapter twelve

It’s short, but ends where I wanted it to!

Last chapter:

“Is it true?” she demanded. “Is Darth Vader my father?”

As quickly as it had come, Obi-Wan’s shock faded. He walked over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and looking down at her in his quietly kind way.

“This is unexpected,” he said.

This chapter:

“I’ve accepted the truth,” said Lucy, “that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.”

“That name no longer has any meaning for me,” Vader told her.

Oh, clearly.

chapters: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five, chapter six, chapter seven, chapter eight, chapter nine, chapter ten, chapter eleven

-

Lucy practiced her exercises under Ellex’s unimpressed sensors, acutely aware of Tuvié’s absence. 

She climbed up the rungs on the wall, relieved at how much easier it seemed after the cliff, and leapt onto the nearest platform, then launched herself onto more and more distant ones until the Force thrummed in her. Apart from her own breaths and the sound of her feet, she heard nothing—certainly no polite claps or fretful cries. Ellex seemed entirely unconcerned and entirely unimpressed, until Lucy took up her stick and shifted to the handful of lightsaber forms she knew.

Ellex stalked over. 

“What are you doing?”

“Practicing,” said Lucy, trying not to look like she intended any threat or mischief. 

“Practicing what?”

Lucy knew that Ellex must consider her a dubious character already, so maybe the truth wouldn’t matter. And she’d already told Tuvié, anyway, though that was different.

“The stances for using a lightsaber,” said Lucy. 

“You do not possess a lightsaber,” Ellex replied.

Lucy knew that. The one she’d considered hers—well, she couldn’t really be angry at Vader any more for taking his own lightsaber back.

“I know that,” Lucy said. “I told you, I’m just practicing. I don’t want to forget what I’ve learned.”

Ellex stood still and regarded her with her flashing optical sensors. “Hand me the item.” 

Reluctantly, Lucy handed it over, half-expecting that Ellex would immediately snap it in two. Instead, the droid held it with a careful grip and lifted it up to her optics, closely examining the thing.

“This object makes for a very inferior weapon,” she said at last. “You could not harm Lord Vader or myself with it.”

“I wasn’t planning on trying,” said Lucy.

Ellex tucked the stick under her arm. “My faculties are extensive, but cannot determine that. I will consult with Lord Vader.”

Lucy scowled. She couldn’t think that he’d be particularly impressed by a stick, and she had no idea what he’d think of her attempting to continue her training on her own. She didn’t even know what she wanted him to think—if anything.

“Fine,” she said to Ellex, then moved away to try the forms with just a closed fist.

It wasn’t at all the same. Sighing, she dropped her hand and went to stretch. 

Thinking of Vader, she still couldn’t quite understand why he’d rescued her. Well, she could—he needed her for his plots—but not why he’d done it in that way. He could have damaged himself, and to go by the life support panel on his suit and the knowledge that he’d been left to die in lava, she didn’t imagine he could take much damage. Maybe he just hadn’t thought it through; recovering her body without bothering to use his force field might have been the impulse of the moment.

She had trouble imagining Vader as impulsive, though. Owen and Yoda both said Anakin had been, when they mentioned him at all, but she still struggled to fuse Anakin and Vader together in her mind. They were one person and she knew they were one person; it was just hard.

Other people suffered worse things, she told herself. Other people had suffered worse things at Vader’s hands, at that. And here she sat, dressed in velvet and feeling sorry for herself because her father cared enough, in his way, to risk his life saving hers.

Lucy tightened her hands on her knees and squeezed her eyes shut. 

Force, it was hard.

-

Several days passed with monotonous regularity. Lucy slept, exercised, and ate, and otherwise got shut up in her room. Dutifully, she tried to ignore Ellex’s blasters and meditate. The Light Side seemed to flow more strongly than before, but remained slippery, sometimes responding to her efforts to reach it, but just as often sliding away.

All the while, Lucy shifted between frustration with her weaknesses and failures, anxiety over her friends and the Rebellion, curiosity about what her father was up to, and sheer boredom. She hadn’t felt as restless since her days on the moisture farm. At least then, she’d had her uncle and aunt, and things to do. Now she really was the prisoner she’d imagined herself.

When she felt the shift in the Force that heralded Vader’s arrival, she almost welcomed it as much as she dreaded it. She didn’t look forward to the conversation that she knew would happen—that had to happen—but it would at least be different. And if she could get through it, it’d be over. She just had to be strong.

Normally, she looked to Leia’s or Han’s examples for that. But this required a different sort of strength, one she couldn’t borrow. She could do it, though. She had to.

Lucy took a steadying breath. She needed all the peace she could get. And there was no point in working herself up, anyway. It might be hours before Vader decided to harangue her or drop some new terrible revelation. Instead, she counted backwards in Alsaraic until her nerves settled and the Force coursed through her.

Anger did, too—yet, oddly, the Light Side and its comforting warmth stayed with her. She didn’t even know what she was angry about. There were a lot of options, but usually something brought it on. Lucy sat there, puzzled even as her teeth clenched with frustration. She wasn’t frustrated, not really, with the Force wrapped around her, connecting her to everything from the fresher’s mirror to the droids outside her door to Vader himself—

Vader. Cautiously, Lucy let her attention drift to the riotous tangle of power and emotions that accompanied him. As she did, her anger escalated, her heart racing, and some instinct urging her to throw herself at Ellex and damn the consequences. She just had to break free of this nonsense and make them obey. They’d learn—

She shook her head free of it. What? Who did she want obeying her, anyway? Ellex and the droids? The idea was laughable. 

Lucy shifted her attention again, back to herself and her room, and the burst of outrage dwindled back to frustration. She wanted to do something, but there were obstacles in her path, ones she couldn’t see her way past. Like fully armed droids at her door? 

No, she thought. It wasn’t her path at all. It was—Vader’s? He was angry. He hadn’t achieved whatever it was he’d meant to do. He meant to teach them to obey him, whoever “they” were. 

But was that good news for her or bad? She had no idea. She didn’t even know if picking up on Vader’s seething emotions was good or bad. Maybe a little of both.

Regardless, his rage soon cooled to icy displeasure. After that, she felt nothing at all beyond his distant presence. Lucy breathed a sigh of relief.

Ellex, on the other hand, twitched, one metal hand going to the side of her head. 

“Yes, sir,” she said. “The situation is under control. No, sir—none.” After a pause, she said, “Very well.”

“What is it?” said Lucy.

“Get up,” snapped Ellex. “Lord Vader has returned.”

“He wants to see me already?” Lucy asked.

At least he’d waited until he wasn’t in a fury. Or he’d had more important things to do. Who knew?

“I will stun and carry you if you resist,” said Ellex.

Lucy scrambled off the bed and lifted her hands. “I’m not resisting. I was just surprised. Let’s go.”

Ellex all but pushed her out of the door. If Lucy hadn’t eagerly ducked out as soon as the door was unsealed, before it’d even opened all the way, she suspected Ellex would have actually done it. As it was, the droid clanged forward with a brusque,

“Keep up.”

Tone aside, she maintained a pace that Lucy could match without running, even if she wouldn’t have exactly called it comfortable. She didn’t trouble herself with talking; over the last few days, they’d long since subsided into silence. Lucy had nothing more to say, and Ellex presumably no interest, since Lucy didn’t fool herself into thinking she was anything to the droid but the object of an appointed task. Probably one she didn’t care for, at that.

Ellex rapped at the usual door, which immediately opened, though nobody seemed to be inside. Lucy, a little confused, followed her into the room, avoiding the patch of green light and sitting down. She even folded her hands on her lap, doing her best to look particularly accommodating; she didn’t fancy getting knocked unconscious after avoiding it for five days.

Ellex stared down at her as if she might make a run for it at any moment.

They’d only waited a few minutes when Darth Vader swept through the door. Without a word, he looked from Ellex to Lucy and back again.

“LX-3. Remain outside the door,” he said at last.

“Yes, sir.”

Once she’d marched out, he returned his unsettling red-black gaze to Lucy. Refusing to put herself at more disadvantage than she was already, Lucy jumped to her feet.

She straightened herself to her full five feet of height, feeling even smaller than she had before.

“I trust you have had time to reconsider your actions,” he said.

She thought about lying, or giving a flippant answer that would do nothing for his temper but make her feel better. But he hadn’t lied to her, even when everyone else seemed to be deceptive or ignorant. 

“I’m not sure there’s enough time in the galaxy for that,” said Lucy. “Maybe I should have made sure it was really a Rebel fleet before I used up the force field’s charge. And I am sorry about Tuvié—I just didn’t think.”

“Hopefully,” said Vader, “you will think in the future.”

He didn’t sound convinced. Lucy had to admit that she wouldn’t have been, either.

“You didn’t,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” demanded Vader.

“I heard that you didn’t use a force-field out there,” said Lucy. “You could have died, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

With barely a twitch of movement, he managed to loom over her even more.

“However much you may wish otherwise, I was in no danger. My equipment protects me.”

“Not from everything,” Lucy insisted. “You heard Doctor Izahay. She said we both might have died.”

“She usually overstates matters,” said Vader. “There is no comparison between your actions and mine.”

Lucy hesitated. It’d been easier to think it through when he wasn’t there, so much Darth Vader that she could almost deny the truth again. But she couldn’t.

“Maybe not,” she allowed. “I ran into poison fumes on purpose. You were just trying to save my life.”

Without quite knowing how, she could tell he was surprised. He tilted his helmet down to look at her directly, otherwise motionless, and silent but for his respirator. After several seconds of mechanized breaths, he said,

“Then what point do you think you are making?” 

“You did save my life,” said Lucy. Her pulse was beating a quick rhythm in her chest and head. To him, she knew she must seem tiny and weak, something to be trapped or rescued as suited the occasion. But she had to do this. She squared her shoulders, doing her best to meet his unseen gaze. “Thank you, Father.”

He didn’t react in any visible way.

“So,” he said, “you have accepted the truth.”

“I’ve accepted the truth,” said Lucy, “that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.”

“That name no longer has any meaning for me,” Vader told her.

Oh, clearly.

“It is the name of your true self!” she said indignantly.

Beru had once told her about how they met Anakin. When Lucy’s grandmother was abducted by the Tusken Raiders and tortured to death, Anakin had rushed ahead to go find them and recover the body. He’d returned without a scratch, and Shmi’s corpse in his arms. He’d done that, and now chose an empty title over the name and personhood his mother had given him? 

“And if it isn’t,” she went on, “then my father is truly dead.”

Real anger was running through her, her own anger, and all the more as he said nothing.

“Did you need anything else, Lord Vader?” said Lucy.

Vader kept looking down at her. Then he said,

“No.”

-

Darth Vader spent much of his life in a towering rage. It fed the power of the Dark Side in him, and he certainly had found himself surrounded by causes for it. On this particular day, he had more than usual. 

For one, Jerjerrod—whom he felt almost certain must be involved in that ridiculous, but traitorous, attack on Bast Castle—had been moved to a different project, one so secret that Vader himself only knew the vaguest details. That made him virtually inaccessible. 

And Varti, Jerjerrod’s companion in scheming, was a favourite of the Emperor’s: just the sort of slick, self-interested bootlicker that Palpatine preferred. Vader couldn’t risk everything he’d planned on a direct threat to someone as useless as Varti, all the more as it turned out Varti was currently stationed on the Emperor’s home planet as some sort of honour—a planet that Vader had no intention of visiting.

In addition to that, the crucial ingredient to his plans, Lucy, had shown herself more than recalcitrant in her latest escapade. He’d immediately moved to secure her, of course, but that didn’t make her any more reliable. While he had won some time to turn her to the Dark Side and prove her value, that time was not indefinite, and he knew exactly who would be called upon to … to resolve the situation if she could not be turned. 

Valì?

He nearly recoiled. Even as he’d pronounced himself her father, he never quite envisioned Lucy saying it, until she had. Even then, he wouldn’t have imagined hearing it at any point when she was conscious and coherent, much less what she’d said.

Sorinen, Valì.

Lucy, thanking him for anything? A day ago, the idea would have beggared belief. Part of him thought, vaguely, that it seemed an important step, and he should make some use of it. The rest of him felt too startled to think anything at all, except that she no longer denied the truth. For a moment, his residual anger had converted to relief. Then, of course, she had to speak of Anakin Skywalker—not some other man, whatever anyone said, but another name, the name attached to his weaknesses and failures. It meant nothing.

He should have felt just as much relief at her flash of fury. That was good; it would carry her more swiftly to the Dark Side. But—

Fa valiyat khiris ai-dûru.

He had been considered dead for many years: dead as Anakin Skywalker, and a dead man walking as Darth Vader. He never much cared about that. But he was honest enough, and weak enough, to admit to himself that Lucy relegating him to the dead had made for an unpleasant experience—unpleasant enough that it wiped his mind of any reply. Then she’d switched to Basic, from Valì to Lord Vader, and somehow that seemed more unpleasant still. 

He should have been enraged, of course. He should still be. But he only felt tired—very tired, and very old. 

In a rare moment of reminiscence, Vader let himself think back. His mind flitted from the Darth Vader of this miserable day, to a reckless young Jedi Knight, to a newborn slave beneath Gardulla’s palace. Yes, he’d counted right.

He was forty-three.

[achantersayswhat]

The Hero of Tython, bringing Scourge into the Jedi Council Chamber: sir that’s my emotional support Sith Lord

[autisticlaezel]

Sir, that's my emotional support Dark Lord of the Sith

[dapurinthos]

you waited a single month before picking up a new kid.

i cannot believe you. this is up there with realising that this is happening at a place called shurrupak with a green beach, named after the sumerian city of shuruppak, also the namesake of shrupak, the holiest site on kaleesh, located on the shore of an ocean. i'm not saying this is the yam'rii crisis, where the kaleesh were pushing them off of their planet because they were 1) enslaving them and 2) eating the eggs of sentient creatures & the yam'rii/huk got the trade federation to tattle to the senate and the jedi to intervene on their behalf, causing general grievous's all-consuming hatred of the jedi.

now: am i saying this is part of the huk war? not really. am i saying this is part of the bitthævian war, ported over from legends in a sly-wink-wink-nudge-nudge way, that dooku & qui-gon fought in, where the republic convinced the kaleesh that the bitthævians were going to invade them so they would fight for the republic aka the war that grievous's own great-grandmother fought in? yes.

(the same way that shili is located in the same sector as yinchorr, which makes it plausible that that event is also still canon and plo koon picked ahsoka up, taking a detour on the way back from the battle of uhanayih.)

[dapurinthos]

SIR APPEARING IN MY MAILBOX, TINY, SMUG LOOK OF SUPERIORITY INTACT, AND ADORABLE

@kurtssingh he is a delight.