hisfathersimage | PSL: Naboo

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psl: nouskaiananki

PSL: Naboo

Luke ignored Vader for the rest of the trip.

For a moment, he had almost forgotten who and what he was dealing with. A totally self centred, self absorbed creature of darkness, boiled in rage and suffering who wanted him to convert to his way of thinking and start up a second reign of terror and horror after killing Palpatine.

And in aid of doing that, they were going... to Naboo?

He wasn't really sure why they were on their way there. It was his mother's home world. It was Palpatine's home world. It was a paradise of water and greenery that had produced something so rotten and evil that the galaxy heaved to try and dislodge it from itself.

He stands in the cockpit's doorway, nursing his stump in his left hand and watching hyperspace, preparing for the shock of dropping back out again.

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Luke came back and cooked up something edible.

It wasn't going to win awards, but it tasted fine and was not rations and was made of fresh things.

He finished off with some of the fresh fruit from outside, more fresh water and then headed to the living area, stretching out on a couch to get some sleep. He didn't know how long he'd have here, but sleeping in the shuttle was far from ideal.

At least the kitchen was stocked with the basics?

Vader meanwhile can still be felt, but he's retreated into the back of the villa, into the bedroom next to the never used nursery - her bedroom, then their's, it's easy to guess - but he's pulled into himself, curling around himself like a serpent or a mighty kryat, right into a ball of coils.

Bee Two is no where to be seen.

Luke sleeps as long as he can.

When he gets up, he gets another tree fruit and some water and eventually goes looking for Vader or Bee-Two, or anyone else who might exist in these areas and hasn't been chased off by the Sith Lord.

The island finest have staff, other than the cleaning and landscaping bots, but there is wildlife.

Marks in the carpet point to Bee Two hand been moving some the villa - even near Luke, checking on him while he slept, and down the hallway towards Vader.

But an Imperial Shuttle is doing all the work needed to keep others away or at least from crossing the vast lake to the villa. There is someone lurking, if Luke reaches out to feel for anyone, a middle age woman with hostile feeling toward the Empire and is presence oh Naboo in general and here in this place in particular.

Vader, eventually, leaves the room he's locked himself in. There's a rawness to his emotions, like a wound ripped open, a deep unending sadness under all the rage.

"No one would mind if you packed yourself fruit to take with you, otherwise it will go to rot," is all he says.

Luke does reach out, mostly just to see what there is and he almost misses her under the rumble and thunder of Vader's presence.

But she's near and she's not a fan of the Empire and there's an off chance he can try and get a message to the Rebellion, let them know he's alive for now. He doesn't know if he'll be allowed to get near her or if he can speak to her if he does, so he takes a little time, just a little, to find a small rock and carve into it with his mind and a couple of stolen tools.

(He is not good with his left hand and writing.)

He pockets the rock and goes looking for her. At worst, he hopes he can drop the stone near her, the message nice and easy.

To Leia. Love Luke. And a few dots that mark out a particular constellation in a particular sky that they shared once.

She isn't staying in one place - could be mistaken for a someone out liking for a lost shaak and curious about the activity on the villa. It'd take the Force to know otherwise, and she was quite good. If Luke really managed to lock onto her, she was the weaver of the fabric scrapes, torn from larger pieces around the villa, including the silk around his right arm.

But once she notices Luke noticing her, he is in her focus. Even if he doesn't appear to be. And from her side of the shore she moves, not to the spot closest to the island, but one must sheltered, a boggy, sandy marsh from the shore. A small sandy beach on his, a stilt filled, dangerous pass of water between them. It's swimible - but predators lurk, the Force warning of them.

And it's far too wide to simply leap.

She looks like Leia.

She looks like he imagines Leia's mother would have looked.

He can't yell to her, can't risk trying to send anything in the Force, but he can lift his left hand, the stone on it. He can look at her face and will the stone over to her, easily floating it to her side and holding it until he can drop it into her hands.

"Please," he mouths. And then turns and heads back to the villa, before Vader comes looking for him.

She's taller than Leia, was always taller the Padmé but the same age, but that was something they could hide in costume and she and Rabé had worked miracles to do so.

Yané holds out her hand, reading it without ever seeming to look at it, and slips it into a pocket, subtlety touching a metal pin I'm her hem, the Naboo Royal symbol, one Luke would have noticed in multiple places on the villa.

And she leans down, as if getting something from the ground, then retreats, continuing her "looking".

Luke returns to the villa, takes a couple of pieces of fruit with him to eat along the way or while he waits. Whatever ends up happening.

Vader emerges, an impression of scowling at the cleaning bot following him - it had all but chased him from the bedchamber to do its cleaning and he was in the way, while the bot chittered at him. He finally turns on it, posture suggesting he is considering kicking it before stomping away, dragging the closed brown luggage case and surprisingly a wicker pinic basket, with linen napkins and a couple bottles of water tucked inside. He shoves the basket at Luke.

"The grapes are from your grandfather's vineyard. You should take some."

Picnic basket.

Dark Lord of the Sith, right hand of the Emperor... with a picnic basket.

He takes the basket with his hand, wrapping his arms around it. "Um. Okay? Do grapes travel well?"

"They will last a few weeks if placed in the chiller unit." Bee Two might grumble as it was meant for medication but it was Vader's ship.

"How about I only take one... bunch? I might not even like them."

"Then go try them." That Luke hasn't had them before doesn't surprise him, but his reluctance does.

Right. Of course.

Luke heads off to the vineyard. He has a vague memory of Han commenting that booze fruit and eating fruit tasted different, but it's not like he'll be able to tell the difference until he finds eating grapes.

He carefully removes a single grape to bite into. Firm skin, splinter like seeds, a splash of incredibly sweet juice.

He's really not sure. It's very sweet.

He comes back without grapes. "It's really, really sweet."

"They are yes." Cold tended to blunt the sweetness, but he hadn't thought about that.

But if Luke doesn't like these, it's not like he's going to force him to eat them.

Instead he motions to the waiting ship. "Time to board."

Of course it is.

"Where to next?"

"A final stop on Naboo, then a rendezvous with my personal ship." The shuttle was more secure, less for Luke attempt to escape with, but less suited to someone with biological needs.

"Your personal ship, or your 'personal' ship, the flagship of the Empire?" Because they're not the same thing. If nothing else, the Executor gave him a much broader scope for escape or internal sabotage.

"My personal ship." He pauses for a moment. "The Emperor has spies among my staff aboard the Exector, and even a few in my primary home, some openly spying, some attempting to conceal themselves. My butler Vaneé can deal with the ones in latter location easily enough. I will not reveal to him I have you." Vader pats Luke lightly on the cheek. He can't have you, he means.

Oh, this is really getting messy.

Vader's serious about keeping him secret and that means he's probably serious about 'join me and rule the galaxy'. And that pat on the cheek, that's an attempt at physical affection from something that doesn't really remember what affection is, but it making the attempt.

"Right. And then we'll just... fly around?"

It was messy the moment Vader found out Luke was his son. Taking him from Bespin had been impulsive. Bringing him here had been spiteful, risky, and sentimental. Traveling to Padmé's tomb was entirely for Vader's benefit.

But the Force is whispering, something exists beyond this, a chance at something, less a message and more a driving need to continue crawling forward towards something Vader couldn't understand, could barely catch a sense of. But keeping Luke from Palpatine was right, he could feel that.

"We will go were the Force leads."

That's not a plan.

That's barely a thought of a plan.

"... okay." What the hell. He's chased worse ideas for less reason. "We follow the Force."

It worked out pretty well for Vader, and when it didn't, he still managed to claw something from it.

Save once.

Except Luke lived.

"Do you not feel it? In motion, something building, loke a gathering storm." Vader questions while ushering Luke up the ramp, the brown suitcase following along, Vader using his foot to press it against a wall out of the way.

"I can't feel much past you."

Yes. He felt it. Like a pressure building in his chest as he drew closer and closer to that moment on Bespin.

"There's a moment coming." Yes, he knows it. "A series of moments. Decisions. Bespin was one."

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