Vader is a terrible, terrible man. AGAIN. [OPEN]

[sin_and_misery]

Kenobi!

Vader's eyes snapped open as he jerked to consciousness, his last memory of Kenobi's smirk burnt into his memory. The treacherous Jedi had thwarted him again. Why he was not dead was beyond him, but the second time Kenobi had left him for dead without having the stomach to actually finish the deed would be the last

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[ladyofthesands]

"Your Empire and Emperor are dead," Arha said, meeting his eyes with her own, and with more curiosity than anything. "Reach out your senses, listen, feel. Are there no echoes? Do you sense nothing of your Universe, your worlds, your Empire? What reason do I have to lie to you? Your hate is your own, keep it if you feel it makes you stronger, but it blinds you from the truth. As for the destiny of the Galaxy, you can forget about that. There is not a galaxy left to shape. What you say is silly."

She frowned lightly.

"I said once 'What is the Force? Surely no power like this can exist!' and I was proven wrong, for I felt it. The logic is true in this matter as well. Simply because you have not seen such a power, does not mean it is absent. It has not been witnessed. Do you wish to see? I could show you what the Ohm have done to my universe. I have seen it. I was there and I remember the way they swept down upon us all, so thick I could not see the sands of my home. I watched as they slaughtered everything and anything alive on my planet before I came to this place."

Arha leaned forward.

"Look at me."

Her eyes were fierce as she glowered at him.

"Look at me and tell me I lie and tell these 'fancy tales'--I speak true as sand burns."

[sin_and_misery]

There was no sound in the medbay but the soft, labored rhythm of Vader's breathing. What she said could not be correct- just as the news of his son, at least twice his age and alive, could not be correct- yet he felt the truth of her statement. He withdrew deeper into the Dark Side, feeling the comfort of sure, swift desire for vengeance.

"The most lasting peace is that of death," he replied, simply. "If they are all dead, then I have been spared for one purpose only- to ensure that the Jedi cannot spread to any other galaxy. My mission is far from over."

It was a non-answer to make the Emperor proud.

[ladyofthesands]

"You are a very dense man," Arha said, blinking at him before shaking her head. "You hear only what you wish to hear and let your hate blind you to all. You do not master your hate. This is the Dark Side? Your beloved Empire, your Emperor, your universe is gone and you say, 'Ah, but I must kill any remaining Jed-Eye because it is my mission'--such a thing to say."

Arha stared at him most seriously for a long while.

"Kill Jed-Eye? What does this serve? A master who is dead, a universe that is dead, a vengeance that is purposeless. Such does nothing in the end of all things. Why save you? You let your emotions run about as badly as I do! I rejoice in the Force and you hate," she wiggled her fingers as if to shoo a bug, "in it. You would kill, maim, reshape, I would heal, reknit, fix. Spreading Jed-Eye? This is not the problem. We are not breeding and producing tiny little Jed-Eye in this place to spread and conquer galaxies by seed and conquest." Arha half snorted in laughter, then shook her head, bewildered at the whole thing.

"We are fighting something bigger than you can see, such is apparent. You cannot be a stupid man. I refuse to believe this. You are meant for more than mere stupidity and poorly executed attempts at logic. Would you not strike down those who have taken your universe from you? It is a better mission than picking off Jed-Eye. What ever shall you do when you are finished? Then shall the Ohm be your target? You shall be eaten by them if you attempt such a thing, though I do not think you would be very appetizing."

[sin_and_misery]

"What purpose does it serve to kill the Jedi? Does the Order no longer teach of justice?" Vader drew himself up on the bed, still to weak to rise to his feet but as imposing as a seated figure could be.

"Their crimes did not die with the Galaxy-- and they clearly have no stopped committing those crimes, either. The stain spreads as their numbers swell. When the Jedi are dead, I will at last be allowed to die. I do not wish to live where I no longer have a purpose. What happens after that is none of my concern."

"I will remain loyal. I still remember my duty."

[ladyofthesands]

"The Jed-Eye Order as you know it died a very long time ago--such I have been told," Arha said. "The crimes you speak of have faded into the darkness of time. You alone carry their weight and your anger is just the wind passing across the mouth of a long forgotten cave. Your duty is hollow and empty and the justice you speak of cooled by the distance from one era to another. It is time to make yourself anew, if you can."

She regarded him thoughtfully, watching the way he gathered himself as if to intimidate her. It did not work. He had not braved the sands of Arrakis, his storm came from other sources, other places--from within and from without. It marked him as her blue-within-blue eyes marked her, she with an addiction that meant death if interrupted, his with a body that could not sustain itself without aid.

"Loyalty to the dead," she said softly. "Do the dead not deserve to be avenged properly? You say duty but this duty of yours is not in service of an Empire. I think it is not. It is selfish and weak. If you had a proper sense of duty, you would take up arms against the Ohm and avenge your Empire. You would fight with us and not against us. You may deny all of this, but if you examine all that has transpired, you will see the path you must take. I cannot tell you 'choose this' for you have your own mind. Sometimes there are things we are loathe to do, but these are the things that must be done."

[sin_and_misery]

"Do not dare presume to lecture me on loyalty- I have had my oaths tested again and again as the stain of blood grew wider and wider about me. You may disguise it with pretty metaphors, but as long as Kenobi draws breath his evil poisons you and every other Jedi-- it poisons my son."

Vader was grinding his teeth between proclamations, his body screamed for action rather than this back-and-forth useless exchange.

"Call me selfish if you will, but as it stands now I am the Empire. You cannot know what I sacrificed to breath life into the Galaxy once again, to create order from madness, but it will not be wasted. I am my purpose- I will see it through, then gladly turn my lightsaber upon my self to see every last trace of the Jedi erased."

[ladyofthesands]

"Tell me," she said simply, her palms turned up. "I cannot know of these things you speak of--truly I cannot. I am not even from your universe and I have never seen it but through the Thinking Machine. Tell me your tale, pour it out before me. I have nowhere to be but here."

Her eyes flicked over his face.

"I am, too, the head of the Order I come from in my own universe. The last of the Bene Gesserit. You know nothing of my own trials nor of the chaos I have seen and survived." There was more behind her voice than that of the twenty-six year old woman that now sat at his bedside. There was the press of more than five-thousand years worth of genetic memory behind it. She was old and sharp and different with eyes that reflected it.

"As to your son," she said, "I have never met a more remarkable man. If you lay aside your hate for a moment, you should be proud. He has rebuilt the Jed-Eye and left the trappings of the Order that stifled it and, perhaps you, aside. I do not know how such is poison..."

[sin_and_misery]

"You wish to know of Anakin Skywalker- he was weak and foolish, and consequently, he is a dead man. I was born from his ashes, when Kenobi thought that the mercy of death was beneath me and left me to burn alive. I owe you nothing- I do not care for your story any more than you would care for a mine."

Vader froze, his jaw tightened and veins stood out prominently in his forehead.

"My son is forever lost to me. Do not speak to me of how I can be proud of a man I can never know, a man who has been programmed to fight against me to my death-- a man I will have to put out of his own misery if I cannot save him from Kenobi's ministering. You may speak to me of hatred, but the Jedi will never be content until they have intruded upon every last facet of who I am and made it nothing."

[ladyofthesands]

"You would be wrong in that I would sit to hear your story," Arha said. "But, I think, you are set in seeing your world through a certain lens. I do not think there is much I can say that will give you what you truly seek. You wish a son, yet he has turned himself into the Force and away from hate, sorrow, and darkness--this does not make him lost to you. He is still your son and will still sit with you. He shall not kill you. Luke has found his way without Obi-Wan and the things he has learned have changed him into the man he is this day. He has been through much, both dark and light, and has struck a balance and peace between them."

Such is what she saw when she looked at Luke.

"You say 'the Jed-Eye' as if they are a massive force uprising against you that needs to be crushed. In reality, they are all survivors, all who are aboard this ship. They harm no one by being here, though you would surely kill them all. You may try, but this ship will not let you succeed."

She studied him unflinchingly for awhile.

"There is sorrow in that such things have happened to you," Arha said at last. "The situations that lead up to such a confrontation must have been terrible, indeed, for you to shed your life as Jed-Eye and become Sith, as you are now. I will let you find your comfort, such as it may be, if you wish. Our words will continue to clash for mine fall upon ears that have forgotten how to hear. I am certain I could stay for hours and we should get nowhere. But, I leave you with the words I have spoken. They are truth as I am Bene Gesserit and Jed-Eye both."

[sin_and_misery]

"I will take nothing from a Jedi," Vader said, drawing upon all his teachings he had received at the foot of the Emperor. The truth of Arha's words was completely lost on him.

"I do not need your false pity, nor do I need your disdain or supposed joy-- all these things are lies. The Jedi feel nothing. Nothing! You cannot fathom the bonds of blood because they are forbidden to you, and I do not encourage you to try, lest you fall and find yourself no better than I am. Then you would be unable to stare down at me from your vantage point and gloat in such a manner. Wrap yourself within the teachings of your false prophets, if they truly allow you to sleep soundly."

[ladyofthesands]

"The Order has changed," Arha said patiently. "Blood ties are permitted, encouraged, needed because they are the thing that gives a Jed-Eye strength. The mistakes of another age are gone, perhaps in part, by your own doing. Your own son is married, has a family, and his ties to them are strong. Perhaps, if you stopped for a moment and used your brain instead of folding in upon yourself and pulling your hate over your eyes like a pillow to keep monsters at bay, you would see this is true."

She half rolled her eyes.

"The Jed-Eye you hate are gone. You do not listen and I have no gloating, no pity. You are what you choose to be. I cannot change this. The only thing I can change is myself." She stretched her mind out, open wide, though the wrapped anything to do with Obi-Wan up and stuffed it away like a squirrel, burying it in the sea of voices that were her ancestors (and truth, those who she had never known in her life from the one whose face she did not know). The Mothers-Within were agitated, but settled to allow sharp relief to the memories she called forth and left where he could reach them. The barren stretches of her home on Arrakis, the emptiness, the abandonment, the bitter cinnamon sent of Spice, the roar of the great Shi-Hulud--such had been her family before finding the Jed-Eye. Then the Force, healing Obi-Wan, and the joy of it, the release, the family she had gained. Kyle Katarn with his arms around her, Luke talking of his wife, of Ben, or his sister and her own family, the laughter and the joy, the heartache, all of it laid bare.

"Tell me I lie again. Tell me I am weak and I will drown you in the life I have lead. I do not lie in anything I say--there is no advantage in lying to you, nothing I can gain from it."

[sin_and_misery]

"Stop! STOP!" Vader roared, thrashing on the bed hard enough to activate the bony, insectoid restraints. The light of her thoughts touched the places within him that were still raw and sent his thoughts skittering away from her reach, even as his physical body was kept firmly in place. Try as he might, he was still too weak to raise his shields and keep her presence out- or keep his own thoughts safely locked away. The images were of a place far too similar to Tatooine, and he remembered his own burning sands with blood pooling within footsteps, and the cries of--

"Get out," he said, hoarsely. Then, shouting, even as ravaged as his throat was from this unassisted conversation: "GET OUT! I will not be swayed by you! I have had the veil removed from my eyes, and the Emperor has shown me...he knows far better than you do how deeply the conditioning of the Jedi runs!" He was frantic now, pulling deeper and deeper within himself to stay right, to know that what he had done was the only conceivable option. He was the avatar of justice to the galaxy...

[ladyofthesands]

There is a veil between you and the world, one your Emperor placed before you. I do not sway anyone, I show only the absolute truth. I cannot lie in this place. Arha showed the blistering sands at dawn, the tiny scorpion that favored the rock outside her small cave, the quiet peace of her cave and the ripple of the water in the small cache that had kept her alive. She showed him the harsh beauty and the cruelty of her desert home, how she had nearly died from lack of water only to dream of it and find it. She showed him the fierceness of the desert warriors, the Fremen, and of the Jihad that followed Paul Muad'dib; her sands wet with blood and the puddles of water in the street in Arakeen. All of this at a cost.

This was a place without Jed-Eye.

But this was a place with her. She had no family but the wide stretches of sand and the creatures of the desert, left alone and pathless for long, long ears even as war tore through her planet. She healed those she could and watched others die, their bodies put in the deathstill to water the seitch. Their water rings were borne by their loved ones and life went on. Life always went on.

Arha recognized Tatooine (such was where Luke had come from) and followed his thoughts as they fled while showing him the Jed-Eye in crystal-clear relief. (Blood and death on his hands, on his sands, grief and rage, so much rage.) The Jed-Eye were family and they were joy--Mara's relief at knowing her son and husband were on the ship was bright and fresh as if it was happening, Arha own deep pleasure at seeing the family reunited, Kyle Katarn's unwavering support as she faced the horror of what had been done to her universe, too, was there.

She showed him the Ohm, then, her sands blotted out in a sea of insectiod aliens that devoured and killed everything in their path. The dying eyes of the child she had tried to protect were freshly burnt into her memory. They were her people, even if she had been alone in their midst, they were her people, and they fought like Fremen to the end. Even as that sharp leg stabbed through her mid section just before she was caught, Arha had been fighting. For her family.

This was truth.

And the same ferocity shone through as she slammed it home.

"I was not Jed-Eye, then," she said in a tight voice. "I am not conditioned, now. Look, see." Her fingertips rested against the edge of the bed. Arha showed him what she saw when she looked at him--the pale angry man, the denial, the refusal to listen to anyone, and how it hindered him. The refusal to deal with the situation at hand, the Ohm, the ship, these were the things that would render him useless. And he was meant for more than uselessness.

She was sure of that, even if he was a Sith Lord, he was not meant to be useless. Arha had hope in this. It mattered not what he thought. This was how she saw him, the light of her own eyes, unaided by the Force. Too, this was how she saw nearly every last person she met--with hope.

[sin_and_misery]

"You cannot win," Vader panted, squeezing his eyes shut. "I will not...allow you..."

He recognized what she was showing him- as though they were half-remembered holos from his own life, snapshots of something he once knew, and had left behind. He recognized how she saw him, he was aware of his faults; but now he buried those doubts deeper within himself, attributing them to his own weakness and lack of skill in the Dark Side.

I am capable of resisting this.

And he...withdrew. Bloody sands, dying children, family, two different but somehow linked galaxies- all thoughts he sent drifting further from his mind, floating away as he curled his thoughts behind battered shields.

None of this is of any concern to me.

Further...and further...

[ladyofthesands]

Arha's fingertip barely touched his hand as she followed him. Retreat would not help when they could use his support against the Ohm. The contact jarred her and a shudder worked down her spine as she was quite suddenly able to see the devastation wrought on his body. She focused most of her energy sifting through the information streaming into her.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she focused, tightening her control until she could see the damaged cells. She stilled and carefully, gently eased a thread of healing that became a light wave that washed over the scarred surfaces and wound its way into the deeper recesses of his lungs. It was restorative, easing, and a combination of the Force and her own healing. The pain would go first, it always did. There was a loop in the assent clause--more of her own ability, less of the Force. Starting slow with her own was easier on the system, less chance of shock. This would be a slow healing, but it would be like soaking in the sun on a hot day. She examined the black spots, the charred sections, and the healthy tissue that still remained, her frown soft.

Restoration was attainable, though it would be terribly difficult.

She could heal his lungs given enough time.

And yet, she had snaked her mind after him, refusing to let go until he faced the reality of their current situation. No trick, just the brutally honest truth of this moment. Arha Masaari was not about to back down from a challenge--not this one. He would be shown the truth and she would spend time healing him. There would be no argument.

She was Bene Gesserit and she was Jed-Eye. She would find a way.

[sin_and_misery]

I will outlast your pursuit, he said, lashing out. You are not allowed in my mind. I have one last place that is free from...

It was at that moment her assault on his mind turned to the physical. For a moment he thought he'd lost feeling in what was left of his body, until he realized he simply was not feeling...pain. Between the calm he was trying to maintain and the sudden removal of stress-

Vader began to slip out of consciousness and into a very rewarding sleep.