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anghrainetitle: The Jedi and the Sith Lord (8/?)
verse: Lucy Skywalker: my f!Luke AU, following from The Adventures of Lucy Skywalker and The Imperial Menace
characters: Luke/Lucy Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker; Tuvié (F-2VA)
stuff that happens: Lucy responds to Vader's revelation, Tuvié gives her a present, and Vader loses patience.
previous sections: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
CHAPTER EIGHT
In an instant, fury blotted out all other feeling, more fury than she’d felt the whole time she’d been in this place. Lucy laughed, high and breathless.
“I’ve forgotten what I come from?” she said, then looked straight into the lenses of his mask. “And you haven’t?”
With that, she swung around and stalked away, barely conscious of the possibility that he would stop her or retaliate. She didn’t care. She had to get away from him—from—
The door slid closed behind her and Tuvié, who still waited to guide her, turned to face her.
“Miss Lucy?” she said uncertainly.
Lucy realized her hands were clenched, nails digging into her palms. She could only imagine what her face looked like.
“It’s all right,” she lied. “Let’s go. I should get back to my exercises.”
She struck out for the practice room without hesitation, despite her uncertain idea of its direction from here. Only some remaining fraction of sense had her finally slowing to defer to Tuvié’s leadership; she dared not reach for the Force, with the Dark Side all but roaring in her ears, so thick and smothering that it would be nothing to grasp at it. The glimmer of the Light Side had rarely felt further away.
But sometimes it was right to be angry. She refused to calm herself, her pulse racing as she strode after Tuvié and then rushed into the practice room. She quickly ran through her usual exercises, only just managing to hold the Force at bay. With barely a pause, she did them again, just as enraged as before, working until her muscles were so tired she could hardly move.
Lucy flopped onto the floor, closing her eyes.
He was Alsarai. Like her, like Anakin. They would have been Alsarai Jedi together, the last of their kind. And Vader had betrayed him, his own kinsman. He’d betrayed their people in everything he chose to be and do.
Was that why he’d killed Anakin? Had he wanted to be the last one? Or had kinship simply not mattered to him? Why had he even let her know? Had he thought it would weaken her resolve, to know that his arguments came from one of her own?
You have forgotten what you come from, kavashti.
She hadn’t! She never forgot! What did he even mean?
Lucy’s heartbeat was slowing, her exhausted rage fading to a simmering anger. He’d been talking of good coming of evil, saying that Lucy was proof that it could happen. Because she was kavashti. She’d come of slavery.
Her brows drew together. She’d never really thought of it that way—that she might never have existed without it. She would gladly give up her life if it would spare her father and grandmother that particular horror, of course, but it was a strange concept.
Good, come of evil.
Another idea flashed into her mind. If Vader thought she proved that good could come of evil, he must think that Lucy herself was something good.
She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, trying to wrap her mind around that one. How bizarre. Why—what—
“Miss Lucy?”
Tuvié leaned over, her head obtruding into Lucy’s vision.
“Are you quite sure you are all right?”
Lucy looked at her pleasant metal face. Then she sighed.
“No,” she said. “But you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m certain Lord Vader didn’t mean to trouble you,” said Tuvié.
Lucy was pretty sure he had meant exactly that.
“He told me something I didn’t want to hear,” she said. “That’s all.”
-
Thankfully, Vader left her alone at dinner, and Lucy ate in—well, not peace. But at least quiet. Even Tuvié hardly spoke, though she hovered closer than usual.
That was nice, Lucy supposed. Would have been nicer without the knives, though.
Afterwards, she crawled into bed, too angry to try meditating—Yoda would disapprove, but the Dark Side still pressed in on her, cutting her off from the Light. Surprisingly, she slept well, and woke with a bright, clear memory of what had happened. Furious all over again, she barely noticed as Tuvié dressed her, moving like a mannequin when prodded.
How could he? She might understand an Alsara doing wrong things, but not like this! Not standing by, doing nothing, as a world was destroyed—even if he didn’t approve. That disapproval hadn’t stopped him from forwarding the Empire’s goals and slaughtering its opponents as the Alsarai themselves had been slaughtered.
Who was he, anyway? Vader wasn’t an Alsaraic name.
As she calmed again, she felt the distant warmth of the Light Side, and a faint tugging at her mind. A sense that—almost that she should know. But how?
Lucy thrust it away from her. Maybe she’d head to the practice room again. But then the thought occurred to her that he might be there again, or have her fetched. She was not speaking to him.
After Tuvié finished fastening Lucy’s braid, she said brightly,
“And where would you like to go today?”
“I think I’m going to stay here,” said Lucy.
Tuvié cocked her head. “All day?”
“Yes,” Lucy said firmly.
“But—you require sustenance—”
“I’ll manage.”
Lucy spent the morning pacing around her room, trying to put her thoughts into some kind of order. By noon-ish, she was starting to feel a little stir-crazy, but her stubbornness won out. She started pointing out haphazard objects to Tuvié and supplying names for them in Alsaraic, all the while wondering how much Vader spoke, and who he might have taught it to. It was, she thought, rather odd that he hadn’t programmed it into Tuvié.
Not that odd was anything new for Vader. And his reasons for ignoring and betraying his heritage—their heritage—weren’t really her problem. Holding that thought in her mind, she refused to leave when he sent for her that evening.
Tuvié positively twitched.
“You can’t refuse a summons from Lord Vader!”
“I can and I am,” said Lucy.
“But, Miss Lucy—”
“It’s not your fault,” Lucy told her. “He knows why I’m not coming. If he wants me there, he can have Ellex drag me by my hair.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t—he wouldn’t—but—”
She was so upset that she actually left Lucy alone for a few minutes to go talk to another droid. Lucy tuned out their low voices and laid down on her bed, determined to relish the rare respite. Despite herself, however, further questions rushed into her mind.
How was it even possible for Vader to be Alsarai? She supposed it would depend on his age, but she had no idea what that was. He seemed too active to be elderly—and, anyway, Ben had said he was young when he killed her father and betrayed the Jedi. That was just short of twenty years ago now. A long while, but not so long that Vader could have personally survived the eradication of the Alsarai in time to become a young Jedi. He must have come from a later generation, like her. Had some escaped? Or maybe Shmi hadn’t been the only one enslaved.
If he came from slavery, too—he evidently considered it an evil—how could he support the Empire? None of it made any sense!
Tuvié strode back through the door.
“AS-64 said they would deliver your refusal to Lord Vader,” she reported. “But this is most irregular, Miss Lucy. I can’t imagine what he’ll think.”
“I guess we’ll see,” said Lucy.
As it happened, they didn’t see. Vader made no response at all; perhaps he wasn’t surprised. But it seemed oddly patient for a man—cyborg—well, a person, anyway, who wasn’t known for patience. When she strained her mind trying to see it from an Imperial point of view, she supposed he’d been pretty patient all along. Because she was Alsarai? Or simply because she was valuable? He’d said outright that he needed her to defeat the Emperor.
That was odd, too. Almost a confession of weakness, and to an enemy, of all people. Maybe he found her so non-threatening that he saw no danger.
Lucy’s lips thinned. The moment she had her chance, he’d find out otherwise.
Meanwhile, Tuvié fluttered around anxiously all that day, which didn’t help Lucy’s nerves. But she supposed that Tuvié meant well; in a quiet part of her mind, she even felt a bit guilty about upsetting her so much. But Lucy couldn’t endure Vader right now. It was one thing to snap and bristle when she knew what she was doing, but right now, she had no idea how she’d respond to anything he chose to do. Part of her just wanted to launch herself at him and beat him into a pulp, despite the armour and her size. She couldn’t see that ending well.
She held out for two more days. Tuvié arranged for meals to be brought, so it wasn’t that—she just had to get out, Vader or no Vader. Half-reluctantly, she followed Tuvié to the practice room, feeling like she might be dragged off at any moment.
As soon as they walked in, Lucy stared.
“What—”
The room practically gleamed. The piles of debris were gone, the dust was gone, almost everything was gone. Fresh mats lay along the floor, now a vivid sea-blue, and the windows over the observation box at the top of the room were so clear that Lucy could see the chair inside it.
“I think they did quite a good job,” Tuvié said.
To Lucy’s relief, her stick lay along one brightly silver-blue table. That must be Tuvié’s intercession.
“Yes,” she said at last. “It’s—nice. Really nice.”
She’d never had anything like this before, much less one all to herself. It didn’t begin to make up for her captivity, but, well. She might as well take advantage of what she had. Lucy ran forward to the mats and rolled into a handstand. The Light Side flickered within reach; only a trickle flowed through her when she reached for it, but it was enough that she rose further, onto her thumbs, and then pushed herself into the air, landing neatly on her feet.
Tuvié clapped politely, then said, “There’s an interesting feature that I was not formerly aware of.”
“What’s that?” said Lucy, jogging over.
Tuvié picked up a control of some kind off the table, and flicked a switch. One of the platforms in the air moved smoothly to the left. A different switch had another platform turning lengthwise, and a third had all of them shifting towards the right wall. Tuvié pressed a green button, and now, a tall, blocky platform rose right up out of the floor. If someone moved those around while she was jumping up there—damn.
“That’s great,” she said.
“I’m not certain of the purpose,” admitted Tuvié.
Lucy smiled. “It makes the leaps harder. A lot harder.”
Potentially, hard enough that she’d have to use the Force to manage them. Very nice, if it were in any place other than Vader’s castle.
“I … still do not understand the purpose,” Tuvié said. “They seem quite difficult enough. And dangerous!”
“Not with the pads,” said Lucy, though she wasn’t sure what difference they’d make at that distance. Falls had never bothered her much, anyway. “It forces you to practice harder and get better. Well, good job, Tuvié.”
“I only did a very little,” she said.
“You arranged the whole thing,” said Lucy. “It was thoughtful of you.”
In some ways, this would all be easier if Tuvié were more like Ellex or even Tisix. She could just resent everything. As she stood there in that vast room, however, she found it impossible to resent Tuvié.
“You are pleased, then?” said Tuvié, sounding bewildered.
Lucy thought of Tuvié wrapping her in Padmé’s clothes, and guiding her through the castle, and eagerly storing Alsaraic words and grammar. She thought, too, of giving up Anakin’s lightsaber and walking into carbon-freeze, of Vader’s diatribes about the Dark Side, and the memory of their people.
She said,
“I am with you.”
“You’re very welcome, of course,” Tuvié said, “but Lord Vader said—”
“I don’t care what Lord Vader says,” said Lucy. “I’ve got some climbing to try out.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry,” Lucy told her. “Would I do anything dangerous?”
-
Vader didn’t interrupt her in the practice room, either deliberately or because it didn’t fit into his schedule. Lucy had no idea which. Their meetings happened so irregularly that she had yet to figure out what logic governed them. Maybe that was the idea.
Regardless, she assumed that he’d pester her at some point. Sure enough, he stalked into the dining hall right after she’d started her dinner.
“I see that you’re done sulking,” he said.
She hadn’t meant to reply, but that was so unfair that she said,
“Excuse me for being surprised that I’m being held captive by one of my own people.”
Aggressively, she took a bite of toast. Vader watched her, then said,
“I have not forgotten anything.”
Sure you haven’t.
She finished the toast and brushed some crumbs off Padmé’s dress. Her instincts told her to force him to do the talking if he was going to insist on it, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Are you kavashti, too?” she asked.
Vader, standing halfway across the room, didn’t move, didn’t seem to react at all. After several seconds, he said,
“No.”
“But you are Alsarai,” she persisted.
The next pause was longer.
“Yes,” said Vader.
Lucy had known it, but she still felt sick. She almost set her utensils down, thought of running away again. Instead, she sliced the indeterminate meat on her plate and said nothing. She had nothing left to say.
-
Or so she thought. But she simmered for another full day—she wasn’t sulking, she was angry, and if she had her lightsaber he’d know the difference—before deciding against sitting through another miserable meal and stifling everything that came to mind. When he walked in during the next night’s dinner, she said brightly,
“Bánad akhtu!”
The mask inclined down, his lenses meeting her eyes. Instead of returning good evening like a normal person—not that she expected it—he said,
“Your accent is terrible.”
“It might be better if my entire family hadn’t been murdered,” said Lucy, still in Alsaraic.
Vader strode to his usual looming position at the end of the table, not deigning to answer this in either language. Instead, he talked—in Basic—about the Dark Side and her destiny, which she barely bothered listening to, and the suffering of the galaxy under the Emperor’s grip when she could stop it, which troubled her far more than she could acknowledge. It was just manipulation, she knew that, but … he wasn’t wrong about the Emperor. At least, what he said about him was true, even though “corruption” and “waste” were the least of Palpatine’s sins.
“If I turn to the Dark Side, I’ll be no better than him.”
Or you.
“Of course you would be,” said Vader impatiently. “The Dark Side does not change who you are; it shows who you are.”
That wasn’t what Ben or Yoda had said, and she was a lot more inclined to believe them. She just shook her head.
The whole time, she spoke in Alsaraic; he didn’t say a word of it, though clearly, he understood everything she said. He’d admitted to being Alsarai, but it seemed like he didn’t want to be. At the least, he was doing his best to bury every other part of their heritage. No wonder Tuvié didn’t know Alsaraic.
Well, whatever happened to Lucy, she’d at least leave some mark. She taught Tuvié more and more words, and did her best to explain the grammar, even though, in reality, she knew how to form sentences without understanding the rules. It didn’t feel like a betrayal, this way, but a preservation—right under Vader’s nose. If he was aware of it, he never said anything; he never spoke about the Alsarai or Alsaraic at all, and ignored any questions Lucy asked, just as he ignored everything he didn’t want to talk about.
Like Padmé, Lucy thought resentfully. There was someone who could tell her about her mother, and he just wouldn’t. He was awful and evil and might lie, but it still felt deeply unfair.
Not that anybody had ever called Vader fair.
All the while, she worried about Leia and Han and all her friends. Vader did say enough for Lucy to guess that the war was still ongoing; wherever the Rebellion had established their new base, it seemed to be operational and secret. But though she did her best to hold to the Light Side and see them, it was too weak here; the Dark Side and Vader’s presence overwhelmed any sense she might have had of anything outside the castle. She could only do her best to work off the worst of the strain in the practice room, and vent by snapping at Vader, whose tolerance continued to erode.
“This is your choice,” he told her. “It could all be over in an instant!”
“Your precious Dark Side hasn’t even told you where the Rebellion is,” said Lucy. “Why should I trust it?”
“I have never said anything about trusting it,” Vader replied. “You shouldn’t, or it will devour you.”
She scowled at the green-tinged sunlight passing through his window and folded her arms.
“That’s a winning argument.”
“You have to control it, subject it to your will. Then you can triumph.”
“And what if I can’t?” she demanded. “Why should I believe you, anyway, after everything you’ve done?”
One of his gloves curled into a fist, though it seemed anger rather than some use of the Dark Side. She didn’t feel anything, at least.
“Everything I’ve done has been to save the galaxy!”
“Good job,” said Lucy.
“If it weren’t for your pathetic Rebellion—”
She gave a scornful laugh. “You didn’t think it was pathetic when we blew up the Death Star and shot you out of the sky!”
“When you blew up the Death Star,” said Vader. “The Rebellion is little more than an irritant without you.”
It would be insufferably arrogant to think so. But sometimes—well, she worried about what might happen without her there, without an agent of the Force on their side, while the Empire had Vader, however ambivalent he might be. Lucy set her teeth.
“You can flatter me all you want,” she said. “Do you think it’s ever going to make a difference? If you’re waiting for that, you can just kill me already.”
“That is not your destiny,” said Vader.
She could nearly have beaten her head against the bars on his window.
“As if you don’t take destiny into your own hands all the time,” she said. “Did you call it destiny when you killed Anakin Skywalker?”
Vader’s hand unclenched.
“What?” he said.
“Oh, did you think I’d forget my father if you treated me nicely enough?” said Lucy, her voice rising.
His mask turned towards the window, as if searching for some answer in its sickly light, then turned back to her. For a moment, he simply looked at her.
“No,” he said at last. “I am your father.”
verse: Lucy Skywalker: my f!Luke AU, following from The Adventures of Lucy Skywalker and The Imperial Menace
characters: Luke/Lucy Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker; Tuvié (F-2VA)
stuff that happens: Lucy responds to Vader's revelation, Tuvié gives her a present, and Vader loses patience.
previous sections: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven
CHAPTER EIGHT
In an instant, fury blotted out all other feeling, more fury than she’d felt the whole time she’d been in this place. Lucy laughed, high and breathless.
“I’ve forgotten what I come from?” she said, then looked straight into the lenses of his mask. “And you haven’t?”
With that, she swung around and stalked away, barely conscious of the possibility that he would stop her or retaliate. She didn’t care. She had to get away from him—from—
The door slid closed behind her and Tuvié, who still waited to guide her, turned to face her.
“Miss Lucy?” she said uncertainly.
Lucy realized her hands were clenched, nails digging into her palms. She could only imagine what her face looked like.
“It’s all right,” she lied. “Let’s go. I should get back to my exercises.”
She struck out for the practice room without hesitation, despite her uncertain idea of its direction from here. Only some remaining fraction of sense had her finally slowing to defer to Tuvié’s leadership; she dared not reach for the Force, with the Dark Side all but roaring in her ears, so thick and smothering that it would be nothing to grasp at it. The glimmer of the Light Side had rarely felt further away.
But sometimes it was right to be angry. She refused to calm herself, her pulse racing as she strode after Tuvié and then rushed into the practice room. She quickly ran through her usual exercises, only just managing to hold the Force at bay. With barely a pause, she did them again, just as enraged as before, working until her muscles were so tired she could hardly move.
Lucy flopped onto the floor, closing her eyes.
He was Alsarai. Like her, like Anakin. They would have been Alsarai Jedi together, the last of their kind. And Vader had betrayed him, his own kinsman. He’d betrayed their people in everything he chose to be and do.
Was that why he’d killed Anakin? Had he wanted to be the last one? Or had kinship simply not mattered to him? Why had he even let her know? Had he thought it would weaken her resolve, to know that his arguments came from one of her own?
You have forgotten what you come from, kavashti.
She hadn’t! She never forgot! What did he even mean?
Lucy’s heartbeat was slowing, her exhausted rage fading to a simmering anger. He’d been talking of good coming of evil, saying that Lucy was proof that it could happen. Because she was kavashti. She’d come of slavery.
Her brows drew together. She’d never really thought of it that way—that she might never have existed without it. She would gladly give up her life if it would spare her father and grandmother that particular horror, of course, but it was a strange concept.
Good, come of evil.
Another idea flashed into her mind. If Vader thought she proved that good could come of evil, he must think that Lucy herself was something good.
She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, trying to wrap her mind around that one. How bizarre. Why—what—
“Miss Lucy?”
Tuvié leaned over, her head obtruding into Lucy’s vision.
“Are you quite sure you are all right?”
Lucy looked at her pleasant metal face. Then she sighed.
“No,” she said. “But you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m certain Lord Vader didn’t mean to trouble you,” said Tuvié.
Lucy was pretty sure he had meant exactly that.
“He told me something I didn’t want to hear,” she said. “That’s all.”
-
Thankfully, Vader left her alone at dinner, and Lucy ate in—well, not peace. But at least quiet. Even Tuvié hardly spoke, though she hovered closer than usual.
That was nice, Lucy supposed. Would have been nicer without the knives, though.
Afterwards, she crawled into bed, too angry to try meditating—Yoda would disapprove, but the Dark Side still pressed in on her, cutting her off from the Light. Surprisingly, she slept well, and woke with a bright, clear memory of what had happened. Furious all over again, she barely noticed as Tuvié dressed her, moving like a mannequin when prodded.
How could he? She might understand an Alsara doing wrong things, but not like this! Not standing by, doing nothing, as a world was destroyed—even if he didn’t approve. That disapproval hadn’t stopped him from forwarding the Empire’s goals and slaughtering its opponents as the Alsarai themselves had been slaughtered.
Who was he, anyway? Vader wasn’t an Alsaraic name.
As she calmed again, she felt the distant warmth of the Light Side, and a faint tugging at her mind. A sense that—almost that she should know. But how?
Lucy thrust it away from her. Maybe she’d head to the practice room again. But then the thought occurred to her that he might be there again, or have her fetched. She was not speaking to him.
After Tuvié finished fastening Lucy’s braid, she said brightly,
“And where would you like to go today?”
“I think I’m going to stay here,” said Lucy.
Tuvié cocked her head. “All day?”
“Yes,” Lucy said firmly.
“But—you require sustenance—”
“I’ll manage.”
Lucy spent the morning pacing around her room, trying to put her thoughts into some kind of order. By noon-ish, she was starting to feel a little stir-crazy, but her stubbornness won out. She started pointing out haphazard objects to Tuvié and supplying names for them in Alsaraic, all the while wondering how much Vader spoke, and who he might have taught it to. It was, she thought, rather odd that he hadn’t programmed it into Tuvié.
Not that odd was anything new for Vader. And his reasons for ignoring and betraying his heritage—their heritage—weren’t really her problem. Holding that thought in her mind, she refused to leave when he sent for her that evening.
Tuvié positively twitched.
“You can’t refuse a summons from Lord Vader!”
“I can and I am,” said Lucy.
“But, Miss Lucy—”
“It’s not your fault,” Lucy told her. “He knows why I’m not coming. If he wants me there, he can have Ellex drag me by my hair.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t—he wouldn’t—but—”
She was so upset that she actually left Lucy alone for a few minutes to go talk to another droid. Lucy tuned out their low voices and laid down on her bed, determined to relish the rare respite. Despite herself, however, further questions rushed into her mind.
How was it even possible for Vader to be Alsarai? She supposed it would depend on his age, but she had no idea what that was. He seemed too active to be elderly—and, anyway, Ben had said he was young when he killed her father and betrayed the Jedi. That was just short of twenty years ago now. A long while, but not so long that Vader could have personally survived the eradication of the Alsarai in time to become a young Jedi. He must have come from a later generation, like her. Had some escaped? Or maybe Shmi hadn’t been the only one enslaved.
If he came from slavery, too—he evidently considered it an evil—how could he support the Empire? None of it made any sense!
Tuvié strode back through the door.
“AS-64 said they would deliver your refusal to Lord Vader,” she reported. “But this is most irregular, Miss Lucy. I can’t imagine what he’ll think.”
“I guess we’ll see,” said Lucy.
As it happened, they didn’t see. Vader made no response at all; perhaps he wasn’t surprised. But it seemed oddly patient for a man—cyborg—well, a person, anyway, who wasn’t known for patience. When she strained her mind trying to see it from an Imperial point of view, she supposed he’d been pretty patient all along. Because she was Alsarai? Or simply because she was valuable? He’d said outright that he needed her to defeat the Emperor.
That was odd, too. Almost a confession of weakness, and to an enemy, of all people. Maybe he found her so non-threatening that he saw no danger.
Lucy’s lips thinned. The moment she had her chance, he’d find out otherwise.
Meanwhile, Tuvié fluttered around anxiously all that day, which didn’t help Lucy’s nerves. But she supposed that Tuvié meant well; in a quiet part of her mind, she even felt a bit guilty about upsetting her so much. But Lucy couldn’t endure Vader right now. It was one thing to snap and bristle when she knew what she was doing, but right now, she had no idea how she’d respond to anything he chose to do. Part of her just wanted to launch herself at him and beat him into a pulp, despite the armour and her size. She couldn’t see that ending well.
She held out for two more days. Tuvié arranged for meals to be brought, so it wasn’t that—she just had to get out, Vader or no Vader. Half-reluctantly, she followed Tuvié to the practice room, feeling like she might be dragged off at any moment.
As soon as they walked in, Lucy stared.
“What—”
The room practically gleamed. The piles of debris were gone, the dust was gone, almost everything was gone. Fresh mats lay along the floor, now a vivid sea-blue, and the windows over the observation box at the top of the room were so clear that Lucy could see the chair inside it.
“I think they did quite a good job,” Tuvié said.
To Lucy’s relief, her stick lay along one brightly silver-blue table. That must be Tuvié’s intercession.
“Yes,” she said at last. “It’s—nice. Really nice.”
She’d never had anything like this before, much less one all to herself. It didn’t begin to make up for her captivity, but, well. She might as well take advantage of what she had. Lucy ran forward to the mats and rolled into a handstand. The Light Side flickered within reach; only a trickle flowed through her when she reached for it, but it was enough that she rose further, onto her thumbs, and then pushed herself into the air, landing neatly on her feet.
Tuvié clapped politely, then said, “There’s an interesting feature that I was not formerly aware of.”
“What’s that?” said Lucy, jogging over.
Tuvié picked up a control of some kind off the table, and flicked a switch. One of the platforms in the air moved smoothly to the left. A different switch had another platform turning lengthwise, and a third had all of them shifting towards the right wall. Tuvié pressed a green button, and now, a tall, blocky platform rose right up out of the floor. If someone moved those around while she was jumping up there—damn.
“That’s great,” she said.
“I’m not certain of the purpose,” admitted Tuvié.
Lucy smiled. “It makes the leaps harder. A lot harder.”
Potentially, hard enough that she’d have to use the Force to manage them. Very nice, if it were in any place other than Vader’s castle.
“I … still do not understand the purpose,” Tuvié said. “They seem quite difficult enough. And dangerous!”
“Not with the pads,” said Lucy, though she wasn’t sure what difference they’d make at that distance. Falls had never bothered her much, anyway. “It forces you to practice harder and get better. Well, good job, Tuvié.”
“I only did a very little,” she said.
“You arranged the whole thing,” said Lucy. “It was thoughtful of you.”
In some ways, this would all be easier if Tuvié were more like Ellex or even Tisix. She could just resent everything. As she stood there in that vast room, however, she found it impossible to resent Tuvié.
“You are pleased, then?” said Tuvié, sounding bewildered.
Lucy thought of Tuvié wrapping her in Padmé’s clothes, and guiding her through the castle, and eagerly storing Alsaraic words and grammar. She thought, too, of giving up Anakin’s lightsaber and walking into carbon-freeze, of Vader’s diatribes about the Dark Side, and the memory of their people.
She said,
“I am with you.”
“You’re very welcome, of course,” Tuvié said, “but Lord Vader said—”
“I don’t care what Lord Vader says,” said Lucy. “I’ve got some climbing to try out.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry,” Lucy told her. “Would I do anything dangerous?”
-
Vader didn’t interrupt her in the practice room, either deliberately or because it didn’t fit into his schedule. Lucy had no idea which. Their meetings happened so irregularly that she had yet to figure out what logic governed them. Maybe that was the idea.
Regardless, she assumed that he’d pester her at some point. Sure enough, he stalked into the dining hall right after she’d started her dinner.
“I see that you’re done sulking,” he said.
She hadn’t meant to reply, but that was so unfair that she said,
“Excuse me for being surprised that I’m being held captive by one of my own people.”
Aggressively, she took a bite of toast. Vader watched her, then said,
“I have not forgotten anything.”
Sure you haven’t.
She finished the toast and brushed some crumbs off Padmé’s dress. Her instincts told her to force him to do the talking if he was going to insist on it, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Are you kavashti, too?” she asked.
Vader, standing halfway across the room, didn’t move, didn’t seem to react at all. After several seconds, he said,
“No.”
“But you are Alsarai,” she persisted.
The next pause was longer.
“Yes,” said Vader.
Lucy had known it, but she still felt sick. She almost set her utensils down, thought of running away again. Instead, she sliced the indeterminate meat on her plate and said nothing. She had nothing left to say.
-
Or so she thought. But she simmered for another full day—she wasn’t sulking, she was angry, and if she had her lightsaber he’d know the difference—before deciding against sitting through another miserable meal and stifling everything that came to mind. When he walked in during the next night’s dinner, she said brightly,
“Bánad akhtu!”
The mask inclined down, his lenses meeting her eyes. Instead of returning good evening like a normal person—not that she expected it—he said,
“Your accent is terrible.”
“It might be better if my entire family hadn’t been murdered,” said Lucy, still in Alsaraic.
Vader strode to his usual looming position at the end of the table, not deigning to answer this in either language. Instead, he talked—in Basic—about the Dark Side and her destiny, which she barely bothered listening to, and the suffering of the galaxy under the Emperor’s grip when she could stop it, which troubled her far more than she could acknowledge. It was just manipulation, she knew that, but … he wasn’t wrong about the Emperor. At least, what he said about him was true, even though “corruption” and “waste” were the least of Palpatine’s sins.
“If I turn to the Dark Side, I’ll be no better than him.”
Or you.
“Of course you would be,” said Vader impatiently. “The Dark Side does not change who you are; it shows who you are.”
That wasn’t what Ben or Yoda had said, and she was a lot more inclined to believe them. She just shook her head.
The whole time, she spoke in Alsaraic; he didn’t say a word of it, though clearly, he understood everything she said. He’d admitted to being Alsarai, but it seemed like he didn’t want to be. At the least, he was doing his best to bury every other part of their heritage. No wonder Tuvié didn’t know Alsaraic.
Well, whatever happened to Lucy, she’d at least leave some mark. She taught Tuvié more and more words, and did her best to explain the grammar, even though, in reality, she knew how to form sentences without understanding the rules. It didn’t feel like a betrayal, this way, but a preservation—right under Vader’s nose. If he was aware of it, he never said anything; he never spoke about the Alsarai or Alsaraic at all, and ignored any questions Lucy asked, just as he ignored everything he didn’t want to talk about.
Like Padmé, Lucy thought resentfully. There was someone who could tell her about her mother, and he just wouldn’t. He was awful and evil and might lie, but it still felt deeply unfair.
Not that anybody had ever called Vader fair.
All the while, she worried about Leia and Han and all her friends. Vader did say enough for Lucy to guess that the war was still ongoing; wherever the Rebellion had established their new base, it seemed to be operational and secret. But though she did her best to hold to the Light Side and see them, it was too weak here; the Dark Side and Vader’s presence overwhelmed any sense she might have had of anything outside the castle. She could only do her best to work off the worst of the strain in the practice room, and vent by snapping at Vader, whose tolerance continued to erode.
“This is your choice,” he told her. “It could all be over in an instant!”
“Your precious Dark Side hasn’t even told you where the Rebellion is,” said Lucy. “Why should I trust it?”
“I have never said anything about trusting it,” Vader replied. “You shouldn’t, or it will devour you.”
She scowled at the green-tinged sunlight passing through his window and folded her arms.
“That’s a winning argument.”
“You have to control it, subject it to your will. Then you can triumph.”
“And what if I can’t?” she demanded. “Why should I believe you, anyway, after everything you’ve done?”
One of his gloves curled into a fist, though it seemed anger rather than some use of the Dark Side. She didn’t feel anything, at least.
“Everything I’ve done has been to save the galaxy!”
“Good job,” said Lucy.
“If it weren’t for your pathetic Rebellion—”
She gave a scornful laugh. “You didn’t think it was pathetic when we blew up the Death Star and shot you out of the sky!”
“When you blew up the Death Star,” said Vader. “The Rebellion is little more than an irritant without you.”
It would be insufferably arrogant to think so. But sometimes—well, she worried about what might happen without her there, without an agent of the Force on their side, while the Empire had Vader, however ambivalent he might be. Lucy set her teeth.
“You can flatter me all you want,” she said. “Do you think it’s ever going to make a difference? If you’re waiting for that, you can just kill me already.”
“That is not your destiny,” said Vader.
She could nearly have beaten her head against the bars on his window.
“As if you don’t take destiny into your own hands all the time,” she said. “Did you call it destiny when you killed Anakin Skywalker?”
Vader’s hand unclenched.
“What?” he said.
“Oh, did you think I’d forget my father if you treated me nicely enough?” said Lucy, her voice rising.
His mask turned towards the window, as if searching for some answer in its sickly light, then turned back to her. For a moment, he simply looked at her.
“No,” he said at last. “I am your father.”