last of the memefics!
This one was also written for ladyhadhafang.
title: he was despised and rejected
verse: she asked for "luke and vader" and I set it in my very first AU verse, Ten Facts About Star Wars; prompt: I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.
“The Dark Side does not destroy those who use it.”
Anakin permitted himself a thin smile.
“Perhaps I should say it does not merely destroy those who use it. There is no quick, clean death for a Sith: only a long torment, twisting everything you once were to its own purposes, until nothing is left but anger and hatred and fear.”
“Yet you turned back for Luke,” said Obi-Wan. “Some part of you must have remained.”
“Yes.” Anakin shut his eyes. “I - it is fortunate for me, and for the galaxy, that you did not succeed in spiriting him away.”
“Patient, the Dark Side is,” Yoda said, scowling. “To it all attachment leads. In the end - ”
“In the end, attachment saved me from the Dark Side,” Anakin snapped. “Oh, likely it would have been corrupted, in time. Yet I cannot help but think otherwise - think that I would have always loved my son as I did then, as I do now, some tortured fragment of Anakin Skywalker surviving amidst Vader's evil.” His arms tightened about his sleeping son, one shaking hand touching Luke's hair.
“-- Skywalker,” the Emperor says. He looks at Vader sharply, but senses nothing beyond mild curiosity.
More the fool him. Anakin alone is privy to his counterpart's sharp, broken mind, the thoughts piled together like jumbled shards of glass. Anakin alone hears the litany emerging in his own voice:
The child lived? My son - my son - my son -
“He's just a boy,” says Vader, and thank the stars his vocoder changes the edge of desperation into one of dismissal. The unspoken words fall safely into place.
The emperor of the galaxy needn't concern himself with one half-trained boy.
Yes, of course. That's right. Darth Vader, the Emperor's apprentice, terror of the Imperial Fleet, could never mean anything else.
Certainly not he's too young for this, too small - don't hurt him - not Padmé's child, my child -
The scene spins away, voices roaring in his ears:
“No, I am - ”
“Father?”
“ - must face - ”
“won't kill my - ”
“ - my son - ”
“there's still good - ”
“ - Anakin Skywalker - ”
“ - too late - ”
“Father! Please!” A scream, anguish tearing at him - at Anakin, imprisoned within the armour while his son dies by pieces.
Anakin opened his eyes. “There would have been no end, no release, until death. I have seen it.”
title: he was despised and rejected
verse: she asked for "luke and vader" and I set it in my very first AU verse, Ten Facts About Star Wars; prompt: I'd storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.
“The Dark Side does not destroy those who use it.”
Anakin permitted himself a thin smile.
“Perhaps I should say it does not merely destroy those who use it. There is no quick, clean death for a Sith: only a long torment, twisting everything you once were to its own purposes, until nothing is left but anger and hatred and fear.”
“Yet you turned back for Luke,” said Obi-Wan. “Some part of you must have remained.”
“Yes.” Anakin shut his eyes. “I - it is fortunate for me, and for the galaxy, that you did not succeed in spiriting him away.”
“Patient, the Dark Side is,” Yoda said, scowling. “To it all attachment leads. In the end - ”
“In the end, attachment saved me from the Dark Side,” Anakin snapped. “Oh, likely it would have been corrupted, in time. Yet I cannot help but think otherwise - think that I would have always loved my son as I did then, as I do now, some tortured fragment of Anakin Skywalker surviving amidst Vader's evil.” His arms tightened about his sleeping son, one shaking hand touching Luke's hair.
“-- Skywalker,” the Emperor says. He looks at Vader sharply, but senses nothing beyond mild curiosity.
More the fool him. Anakin alone is privy to his counterpart's sharp, broken mind, the thoughts piled together like jumbled shards of glass. Anakin alone hears the litany emerging in his own voice:
The child lived? My son - my son - my son -
“He's just a boy,” says Vader, and thank the stars his vocoder changes the edge of desperation into one of dismissal. The unspoken words fall safely into place.
The emperor of the galaxy needn't concern himself with one half-trained boy.
Yes, of course. That's right. Darth Vader, the Emperor's apprentice, terror of the Imperial Fleet, could never mean anything else.
Certainly not he's too young for this, too small - don't hurt him - not Padmé's child, my child -
The scene spins away, voices roaring in his ears:
“No, I am - ”
“Father?”
“ - must face - ”
“won't kill my - ”
“ - my son - ”
“there's still good - ”
“ - Anakin Skywalker - ”
“ - too late - ”
“Father! Please!” A scream, anguish tearing at him - at Anakin, imprisoned within the armour while his son dies by pieces.
Anakin opened his eyes. “There would have been no end, no release, until death. I have seen it.”