PSL: Naboo

[hisfathersimage]

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.

Comments

[nouskaiananki]

He can sense Luke there, of course but for now, he ignores him. The navicomputer is blank and silent. No astromech beeps or trills as he sets up the drop.

Indeed, his eyes aren't even open, reaching out in the Force, feeling everything.

Counting down inside his head.

5

4

3

2

Now.

The controls move seemingly of their own accord, buttons depress, switches flip and they are there.

Naboo's triple moons to their side, the green and blue planet before them. And suddenly Vader filled with an aching so over powering it feels like it'll crush what's left of his heart, a light on his chest panel flashing alarmingly, Bee Two starting to stir behind Luke, just in case.

Padmé's home.
What should have been Luke's home.

Someone took that from him. Still, for all the anger that inspires, he reaches back out for Luke. Wanting to expirence this with him.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke is fairly sure that Vader is navigating them through hyperspace. Which is impossible, but all things are possible, through the Force, and surely someone did it before they developed the technology to do it.

Normally, exiting hyperspace bring a flush of awareness, of real space and the Force within it, the scents and feelings of the nearby worlds washing over him.

All he feels now is Vader's presence.

"It looks beautiful from up here."

[nouskaiananki]

Vader is indeed navigating them, Skywalking Thrawn had called it. The Chiss still did it that way, but he believed they used technology first or at the same time.

With them out of hyperspace, he can pull back some, giving Luke space.

"The third world I saw, as I remember it." Quietly.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke still doesn't reach out towards Naboo, though he becomes more aware of it. The tension of it, a knife's edge balance between what the world is and where it's being pushed.

"What was the second?"

[nouskaiananki]

"Coruscant."

Vader's path wasn't straight on - he wasn't going to a port, and with his transponder, no one was going to hail him.

It gave Luke a good view, from Thneed to the country.

[hisfathersimage]

"I know the Jedi Temple was there. I never understood why. I heard there's no nature left on Coruscant. Hasn't been for thousands of years."

[nouskaiananki]

"Correct. They built it so an old Sith Temple as a war trophy. It has changed hands multiple times."

Palpatine was residing inside it now, he could imagine the rituals trading place inside it.

After a moment.

"There is a Core planet they would use when the Sith had Coruscant or they were not welcome."

[hisfathersimage]

The Core holds little appeal to Luke. It's too noisy and cluttered, always has been, from the first time he went even a little way into it.

He doesn't get it.

"This place seems nicer."

[nouskaiananki]

There are still Jedi Temples within the Empire. Places the Inquisitors had been too young to know, save one. Places Jocasta Nu had deleted from the Archieve in her fight to save it from him, Palpatine, the Grand Inquisitor. Places Palpatine didn't know of. The old woman probably would have survived, had she abandoned it.

But now...

Now they may serve a purpose. A place to hide Luke away. From the Rebellion, Palpatine, Yoda. To reflect and realize the tone of the Jedi was over.

Darth Vader had seen to it.

But for now, he directs them out, over the vast oceans, a mountain range, over fields the size of entire cities, such vivid greens and blues from rivers and lakes.

The lakes growing more numerous, larger, Vader transfixed on something.

Come away with me! I love you!

A stick vibrates, as if the ball is held by a shaky hand. The paint cracks into spiderwebs. The orb explodes, covering Vader in the debris.

The dragon roars, lunges, opens is jaws and burns him, flames fresh. Raw.

Stop! Stop now... come back!

Abruptly Vader slams his fists down into the armrests of the chair, leaving them cracked. The pain radiates into what's left of his bones, screaming, wailing, sending wave after wave of pain into arms he no longer has, the pain ripping him down into the Dark, as if he is dropped into a gravity well.


It's Dark. Cold. And quiets the phantoms. His fists relax, fingers extending.

[hisfathersimage]

Whatever is happening, Luke doesn't want to be here for it.

Since that's not an option, he retreats back when the shaking starts. The whole shuttle starts to tremble as if in fear of its master and things start to crack and squeal, metal tortured and buckling.

He feels pinpricks of pain where some of the shrapnel scratches his skin, but most doesn't come near him.

He should be scared.

Size matters not.

He reaches out into the Force while Vader's distracted by whatever rage has taken him, trying to do what comes naturally to him, telekinesis, catch the shuttle and hold it against Vader's fury.

It doesn't happen.

Vader's pain hits him. Maybe it's because they're father and son and connected. Maybe it the ragged, broken end of his own bond to Ben that meets and recognises the broken edges of Vader's own snapped bonds. Maybe, Luke's just an empathic boy. Maybe it's all of it.

Vader's pain smashes into him like a physical force and someone's screaming, not Vader, maybe it's Anakin (he knows it's not, it's him but he can't stop anyway) and the Force reacts to his pain not with violence and coldness but trying to wrap and soothe, a cool balm and soft whisper.

[nouskaiananki]

His head is ringing. For longer than Vader cares to admit, he doesn't know why.

That it's Luke screaming to the point he can't hear anything else, can't even focus.

Decades ago, broken ribs and knock to the head had been soothed with a cool worn-out rag to wipe his face, a soft song, a breast presented to his mouth. He'd have been all of two.

That memory, Shmi's care, her brown hair in a long braid wrapped around a small hand, her voice, her love (her Light). My little blessing, sung whisper soft.

Our baby will be a blessing.

Luke screaming.

Vader rose, not truly moving under his own accord, to put his forefingers against Luke's head and shove something at him.

It's less delicate than Anakin had been trained to be, Vader clumsy from decades without practice.

Shoves that warmth of that memory, that safe-care-love that had been tangled in healing, a memory of a beautiful girl (the most beautiful her ever seen) in a robe made of flame wrapping a blanket around a shivering boy 'Space is cold Ani', a male voice groaning quietly in the dark, a hand well calloused from the hilt of a lightsaber falling down, bumping his head and rubbing hair shorn short 'go back to sleep Anakin', brilliant blue eyes and orange and white skin from a young Tortuga leaning over him and a man with warm brown eyes like rich dirt and a blond buzzcut right beside. 'Skyguy?' 'General Sir?'

Purple silk under his hand, the flesh under it warm and round and firm and so alive, a warm heavy body against his, dark brown curls obscuring his vision, something moving under his hand. 'Shhhh let your mother sleep'. In a voice too high, too warm to be Vader's - but unmistakably his candence.

Nothing of which Vader means to translate over. An impossible knot tethered to the feeling Luke is calling in.

Hush its OK.

[hisfathersimage]

Sympathetic memories ricochet back in response, Leia draping a blanket around his shoulders and sitting next to him, pressed close. His trying to ask about Alderaan and her deflection, that she can't think about it, needs to keep going, long dark curls and impossible strength.

A lightly haired chest under his cheek, bare skin on bare skin and nothing at all sexual or erotic. A hand holding the back of his neck and head and murmurs of 'It's okay, we're not dying tonight, buddy,' that breathe hot breath over his ear.

The pain drops away again and Luke stops screaming, throat raw and voice croaking and the Force still a shimmer of healing haze about him, trying to envelope everything that hurts.

[nouskaiananki]

Under everything, just the reference to the Death Star causes Vader feel disgust and loathing. But it's impossible not to respect Leia, had been since Tarkin had commanded Alderaan's destruction.

Luke being quiet now, Vader keeps ahold of him, letting the Force do what it would, while he kept him on his feet. Keeps him close, body tense. Bee Two edges closer, observing.

[hisfathersimage]

After long moments, Luke takes his own weight on his feet, hand reaching to the wall for balance.

The nicks on his skin seal up and vanish like they never happened, except for the blood smeared from where they had been. A last wash of healing and affection ripples through the shuttle, a last glimpsing memory of Leia's kiss to his brow and the strength of his own affection for her, tempered by time and closeness.

"... whenever we were under the stars at night, she'd look for Alderaan's light. She liked knowing that she would be able to see it for the rest of her life, even if she'd never see it again."

[nouskaiananki]

"Alderaan was always going to end up a target. Tarkin wouldn't have ordered it without permission." He can't prove it, of course, but it feels like truth.

Palpatine has hated the Organas since a cousin was chosen to run against him as Chancellor, and the royal couple, especially Bail Organa had always gotten under his skin.

Not that he's even sure why it would matter to Luke.

[hisfathersimage]

Vader didn't approve.

He could feel it. Disapproval sitting heavy on the back of his tongue.

Alderaan's destruction was not something he approved of.

That was interesting.

"You should either engage the auto pilot or take us down."

[nouskaiananki]

Tattooine? Eh. He'd had fantasies. Not of a strike without warning, but total destruction of the planet and its native people. And the Hutts. Let everyone else flee.

But not what Tarkin had done. It had occurred to him when the order was given that Palpatine was always going to use it, for this, that it wouldn't have stopped.

He hated the project all the more then. He had meant what he he'd said, almost two decades before: peace, freedom, justice, security. The Death Star was none of that. He'd wondered in the years since how Thrawn would have killed Tarkin, had the man lived. Because he didn't doubt he would have.

He barely turns his head, then hustles Luke to the other seat before taking his own. He doesn't need to map the route, he knows it by memory.

"Almost all of Naboo's native predators live in the water. Do not enter water you cannot see through." Not that he wouldn't go in after Luke.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke lets Vader usher him about, settling into the seat again now that there's less chance of the shuttle exploding from Vader's... whatever it was.

"Especially without a lightsaber. I nearly drowned on the Death Star, you know. There was a dianoga living in one of the trash compactors, got hold of me." He hadn't been able to swim either, relying on the others to drag him up.

"Where are we going?"

[nouskaiananki]

He hadn't known, and wondered less about it being there than who had brought it aboard.

"You shouldn't have been there." The Death Star, not the yeah compactor. Although Luke shouldn't have been in there either.

"It will be better for you to sense it, before I explain it." He wants to see if Luke will sense it, understand it. But he thinks Luke will.

[hisfathersimage]

"A beautiful princess left a message asking for help."

Okay, the message wasn't for him and the help wanted wasn't his, but it was how it all started and why he'd ended up in a trash compactor.

"Sense what?" But of course, he's already sitting up and stretching his awareness, trying to pick out what Vader thinks he might find."

[nouskaiananki]

"But not for you. How did you intercept it?" Clearly they'd been reaching out to Kenobi again.

Possibly an unfair question - they were rapidly closing in on Lake Country, would pass Convergence which Palpatine had sold after murdering his Clan, to Varykino a place technically belonging to the Naboo government, a place for artists. But as Amidala had fallen so thoroughly in love with it, it had become her's and even in the decades since, no one had used it, even if it had become a pilgrimage site for those who wanted to honor her memory. But it wasn't a time when anyone would be there.

Vader didn't have any reason to expect to be disturbed.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke doesn't answer, busy trying to pick out what's up ahead.

"It's... sad. Up ahead. There's... grief? Nothing happened there but there's so much grief." He goes to press his hand to his head, realises, lowers the stump. "It's a memorial."

It takes another few moments to click into place.

"It's Padme's memorial, isn't it?"

[nouskaiananki]

"It's what it became yes, but it was her home here first. She'd been eleven he thought. Before she was elected as Princess of Thneed.

Ahead, the lake. An island in the middle, a rocky beach. Remote and isolated and breath taking in its beauty.

[hisfathersimage]

Breathtaking but...

Sad.

"Is there still a home here?"

[nouskaiananki]

"Yes."

A single word.

That is all. A single word but weighed heavy with grief and regret and longing.