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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"Why?"

Outside the viewsceen, Theed's waterfalls are coming into view.

"Because I was a whole person before you caught me. This? Will have a huge affect on me going forwards, I know that. But who I was, the person I was, until that, had basically nothing to do with you."

Well that stung.

But who he'd been, before kneel on Palpatine's carpet had little to do with Vader too. Even the memory of moment made his insides twist and threaten to heave.

"I am aware. There is a reason I'm angry they stole you from me." Many of them.

This? Will change Luke. Had changed him. Has carved something into him that will never be the same.

"You might be. But I like who I am."

When he was a child, so had he. Never the circumstances, true
But who he was? Yes.

Adolescence had been full of growing pains, full of doubt and frustration, discontent and over confidence.

Adulthood has been misery. Peace, happiness, had really only occurred with Padmé.

Vader uses the route to have a chance to glance over at Luke, while still appearing focused on piloting. "You're still a boy. You'll come to understand the nessessity of placing duty over desire."

"I'm twenty three. I'm older than you were when you got married." According to Vader himself, anyway. "I think my duty and what I want fit together pretty nicely. I want to make things better for people who can't do it themselves."

"When you are twice your age, think on how you view someone that much younger." That Luke is also the same age Padmé had been when they married, the age Vader had been when Luke was born - it's irritating in a way Vader doesn't understand.

"You speak as if I do not want those things."

"Being younger doesn't make me a child, or mean I'm not... experienced enough or smart enough to have solid convictions and decision making.

"And I don't know what you want. I don't think you do either. But whatever you want, it's not what you're actually doing."

"If you believe so." Vader clearly doesn't, and it only had some to do with Luke being his son, his child, and the age Vader had been when he Fell.

Vader had always been...sonewhat biddable on matters of morality, adapting to his Masters as a matter of survival, not that he had the self reflection to recognize the pattern.

"I want what I accomplished on Mustafar when I slew the Banking Clan leadership although with the free others who made up the Separatists Leadership." Their handsome reward, no longer handsome. "Peace, freedom, justice, and security to my empire. Palpatine however has other plans."

And Luke... Luke was Freeborn.

"Empires don't tend to have freedom or justice." Peace? Of a sort, according to Leia. Security? That was more than abundant in the wrong ways.

Freeborn and Freeborn to a different world than had his father still been a slave. If the Hutts had controlled Tattoine as they had when Anakin had been a boy. Luke wouldn't have been a Skywalker, but a Naberrie. No one would have risked Luke having that last name. The Hutts would have put too many bounties on him, to enslave him too.

Vader had seen it happen, more than once. Sometimes it ended in death. Or multiple ones.

"Why can't they? It depends on the leadership."

"Dictatorships don't work." Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even with the best of intentions.

"The Empire is a dictatorship because Palpatine is a dictator. What happens when he dies? Many empires have existed, most had Emperors or Emperesses but not all were dictatorships." Monarchy and Empires are old friends.

"When he dies, you said it would all fracture into warlords and infighting. And most empires sort of were. Or got there pretty quickly."

"Unless someone or a group of someone's takes control from the jump yes." Something he was trying to plan here son. "They just as often had a monarchy." A pause. "I need to bury you in history texts."

"... yeah, that's not happening. I wasn't a great student when I was a kid and actually had to study."

"What a privilege."

"I know. I studied. I speak multiple languages. I can do all the basics of maths. I know my sciences. I did it because it was my best hope of getting off world."

"It is." He missed the sarcasm clearly. "There is history you need to know as well."

Yeah, arguing is pointless. Luke is starting to recognise when it's worth the fight and when it's easier to just ignore Vader and wait for him to move to another topic.

"We're going to need supplies to make my hand. I can't make the neural interface pieces and the ones you have won't work." Too large, too specialised for Luke to use.

"Ideally some wild be gotten here, but they would take quite a while to be produced. However the quality would be unmatched." If Luke wanted to order them here on Naboo and retrieve them later, Vader understood.

Even if they had the same wrist size, his are implanted much further up his arm.

"Are you willing to stay on Naboo while they were produced?" He suspects that Vader will want to keep moving, keep him out of sight of the Emperor and the Rebellion alike. And minimise the likelihood of Luke taking off. It's much harder to run in space on a shuttle.

"I am. I am not willing to have you stay here that long. He has spies here." He's learned that, before Luke was born.

But it's something he wouldn't worry about for anyone else. Being willing to put himself in danger - he'd always been willing to do that. He often put his allies in danger.

He's not willing Luke in danger.

It's strange, and sits uncomfortably inside Vader.

"What if we could place the order and come back when they're done?" Could he get a message to the handmaiden he had seen, that they'd be back? Would there be an information network that might pick up on the order, let her put it together?

He took a deep, slow breath and let it out. "I would really like a hand sooner than later."

"Yes that would be easily accomplished." And would promise Luke the best quality as well, which Vader would like.

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