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

[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.

[hisfathersimage]

Okay. Obviously more answers aren't forthcoming at this moment.

Maybe they had planned on it being their home, before Vader?

He sits and waits. And hopes there's hot running water.

[nouskaiananki]

The island under them has a large villa, clearly built originally by someone with money, and a lot of it. It had been furnished and touched up over the years it stood.

The landing pad, clearly meant for smaller personal craft than Vader's was cleared but the stone steroids leading from the beach to the entrance are covered in... much.

Candles, some bare, some in glass. Silk ribbons, many in shades of orange or red tied to stone, flowers and petals scattered about, grape leaves artfully laid out, pieces of bread left as offeringsto the birds.

The residual grief was only drowned out by the love and deep respect the mourners had left, but the emotional wave left Vader feeling like he was attempting to walk through hard-set gelatin. He couldn't actuality say whether he grasped Luke's shoulder as they walked out the shuttle for his son's support or his own.

But under everything, Padmé's touch lingered.

He could feel her here. He wants Luke to feel her.

[hisfathersimage]

Luke can't pick the emotions apart. It's just an overwhelming melange of feelings, too many and too much, twenty three years of grief and love lost poured into the grounds.

He shuts himself off from it, focusing his attention to the dull ache in his far too healed stump. Puts one foot in front of the other, Vader's hand tight on his shoulder, guiding him slightly ahead of the giant.

[nouskaiananki]

Psychometry was a common enough Force talent, and he's always been good with it. On contested ground it could be overwhelming, here Vader could pick out each visitor. Could tell her handmaidens all still made regular trips. Her sister. Her nieces. People he didn't know but knew of, former Queens he'd met once or twice, the puppet Queen Palpatine installed, her advisors and security team. Gungans.

Vader weaves his way through the echos, across the stone pad, up the stairs Padmé had climbed so many times.

Paused at the small stone idol she'd placed of her moon goddess when she had brought the large ones to Coruscant, crowned with a headdress Padmé had oft wore a likness of. The stone was marred, two red dots on her cheeks, a red mark splitting her lower lip, her thumbnails marked white. Luke wouldn't recognize it of course, but Vader did.

A young queen, somber and resolute, face painted white, royal robes of red. Dots of symmetry of her cheeks, a mark of remembrance on her lower lip, thumbnails painted white (the only personal custom she'd added to the royal markup). My fate will be no different than that of our people.

He didn't mean to stop. To project that image, those words, into the Force, to add to the echos already here, to place his free hand reverently against the body of the idol, head bowed. But he doesn't stop for long, continuing to usher Luke up and inside.

[hisfathersimage]

Whereas for Luke... it just wasn't a natural talent. Telekinesis. Empathy. But not psychometry. There was grief and it was more complicated but he didn't want to feel it and it was easier not to.

He hears her. Sees her, looking far too young and serious, her voice heavy with the solemnity of her role. And then it's gone and Vader is pushing by the grip on his shoulder, up to a door to head inside.

[nouskaiananki]

Had Vader known Luke isn't gifted in psychometry, he would have been saddened - it is the easiest way to share Padmé with Luke - and quietly relieved.

Ahsoka struggling though a battle field beside him, crying out for the dead-

-Vader slams that memory shut as he opens the door. The Villa was clean, the bots there kept it dust and cobweb free, but nothing had been touched since she was last here.

And her touch is everywhere. The art. The textiles. The light streaming in the windows, lighting up her things. The door closed, the overwhelming emotion left outside.

Vader drops his hand from Luke, walking side by side now. Letting him look at the villa, his mother's things.

Hidden in the private rooms her private life, but this was Amidala's life. What the public saw.

[hisfathersimage]

It... doesn't really mean anything to Luke.

He thinks maybe it should, but this life is so far removed from anything he understands and a woman he only learned of days earlier that it just fails to connect to anything in him. It might also be the lingering shock of everything that's happened, but he somehow doesn't think so.

He does look. Wanders through these impersonal areas and looks at the objects that would have bought a family's freedom back home. He is curious, but he doesn't feel anything.

[nouskaiananki]

Several of them did buy families freedom, not that either of them are aware.

Vader stays close, watching Luke, but also looking. Occasionally glaring at a piece that hits a memory too hard.

Once they have wandered back, Vader opens a door and pulls Luke through. Here, the personal rooms are hidden away.

A dining room, open and airy, able to be opened to the outside. A kitchen obviously set up to be used. A sitting room, a study, bedrooms. One door, ornately carved, fabric torn from black lace and deep red velvet tied around the handle. That's new, in a way - not here when he was here last - but the fabric itself is old.

Vader puts a hand on the door and leans his head against it. Rests.

Then turns to the door perpendicular to it and presses the doors open.

Unlike the others, it's not finished. A mural is started, Naboo's hills and rivers spilling over the walls, star maps started, figures outlined by not finished, ghostly in their appearance. The windows large and lighting the room with golden light. Some furniture, a chaise, a rocking chair, paints long dried out, brushes rotting, a beautifully woven wicker basket on the floor, lined with soft cloth and filled with tiny bundles fabric. A dark, agonist black pile of woolen fabric near a ladder. A crib, in pieces, never put together.

[hisfathersimage]

It's interesting.

Until the nursery.

Luke stops at the door. He can't explain why, but he doesn't want to go in there, into a room that was being finished for a baby who would never grow up there. It feels like he shouldn't be there, because he wasn't there when he was meant to be.

"I'm not going in there," he tells Vader.

It's the first thing he's said since they came here.