trans_9 | long shadows lure you in [closed]

Current Mood: determined
Current Music: Canvas|Imogen Heap

Entry tags:

long shadows lure you in [closed]

Arha did not care if he did not wish her there. She came with her hair loose, clad in her plantsuit, barefoot, empty handed. This was not a lightsaber battle, nor was it one of any blade at all. She had peeled the plantsuit up to allow her feet to dig in against the deck of the medical room, should she need it. There was no steeling in preparation, she came open, her shields dropped and baldfaced before Vader.

She studied him from the doorway, her head tilted and her blue-within-blue eyes half-slitted in contemplation. He would be rude, she would ignore it, he would yell, and she would speak softly. The poison in him, this Dark Side, it was just poison. Arha had survived The Water of Life--so, too, would she survive the taint that flowed through him.

Poison always burned.

She swept a cursory probe over the work she had done the day before and found it well and still healing. It needed help, but this was why she came. It was not easy to initiate contact, to push aside the darkness, but such a thing was to be done and she would get better at doing it in time. She moved into the room and took a seat beside his bed.

For the moment, she sad nothing.

[[For this post I have music: Canvas.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Vader drew himself up, going so far as to swing his legs off the bed so his feet touched the floor. He would not cringe before the strange Jedi. She may have bested him once, but never again.

"What do you think you are doing here?" he demanded.

Luke had said to his father that he would visit every day, or what passed for a day on board Stacy anyway, and he was not one to break promises. As such, Luke was padding through the med bay when he heard Vader's raised voice, and sighed.

Obi-Wan had it right, he thought to himself. Things are never easy, not in this family. As if he would trade what he had for anything more normal. What fun would that be?

As he came into sight of his father's space, he was a little surprised to see Arha there. "Hey," he said, by way of greeting to them both, taking his place beside Arha. "I think we're both here to see you."

Arha reached to lightly squeeze Luke's arm, not actually turning to glance at him. She kept her eyes on Vader for awhile and then poked him in one of his prosthetic knees. Deliberately.

"Yes," she said, tilting head head back the other way. "So we are. And you? May complain like a child all you wish." Arha blinked at him for a moment, her eyes fixed on him with intense scrutiny. "The pain is less than it was before I came yesterday, yes?"

It would be less again in a good minute or so, in any case.

Vader tensed. He did not want Luke to see this.

"I am not a child. My condition is none of your business," he replied, tilting his chin upwards. "I refuse to allow you to violate my dignity in such a manner again, after taking advantage of me in a moment of weakness."

Luke looked between Arha and Vader. The wheels were turning in his head; he had something of an idea what Arha had done when she last visited his father, and the thought made him smile a little. "I think," he said, "That Arha's doing what she can to help you."

He looked at his friend for confirmation, brushing out against her presence. "Right?"

"I am healing your lungs. I cannot see why you object so strongly to something beneficial to your health. It is not as if I am pulling your eyeballs out and making them chase each other around the room," she said pointedly.

"I will do this," Arha said, her voice hard with determination. "You are hooked to a machine, I would give you your freedom from it. Surely you are not so stubborn as to reject--" Her eyebrows arched. "I rescind that last statement. You are." She waved it away. "It matters not. You did not answer my question and I would have an answer."

Vader chose to behave like a mature adult and lie through his teeth.

"I am beyond physical pain- any that I acquire can only serve to make me stronger. My scars serve as a constant reminder of the price of failure."

"I am pleased you are feeling better," Arha said blandly, peering at him through the Force. The pain block was deteriorating and nearly gone. "Lay back or you shall fall over when I begin once more." She did not wish to scoop him up with the Force after he faceplanted into her lap.

Then? He would have absolutely no dignity whatsoever.

"I will make you stronger if it takes me years, so, please, continue to be foolish." Her tone dropped into something close to dry amusement. "It does not matter to me how you curse or rail at the horrible indignities I am about to torture you with. How terrible and mean am I to give you back your lungs. Such a horrible, cruel Jed-Eye."

She shook her head.

"Lay. Down." That was accompanied by a light shove with the Force.

"She means it," Luke said. "I'm right here, too. I'll make sure she won't actually torture you." Luke grinned at Arha, moving round to the other side of the bed and pulling a seat over.

Vader took the force of the shove, but grabbed the bedpost and remained upright, his eyes still locked on Arha's and his glare only deepening.

"No. I will speak to my son, but only to him."

"You," Arha said, pressing her palm against his chest, "were warned." She had given the man fair warning, had she not? "Talk to your son. I will not hear you."

Her seat swung with her movement and she reached out with the raw power that had no Force in it. She connected Vader with herself, looping into him as she barely used the Force to bolster herself. If it came down to it, she would sink herself into Luke for an anchor. Now, she began the battle against the Dark Side, her eyes open and locked onto Vader's, bright and unyielding. Arha's weight fell into the edge of the bed and her fingers curled against the tangled fabric of the blanket.

It was truth--she would not hear them while she was working. The task was too involved. She pushed aside darkness, felt it burn into her, then slide away, retreating as she pressed forward. The Force was for her eyes, to see beyond and into the damaged tissue, to guide the streams of desert power and Bene Gesserit mutation. As she worked through the Dark Side, her eyes clouded over, the bright blue-within-blue distant, and almost milky. Time.

It would take time.

The connection, it was always a shock, but she would let it pass through her. Arha had stilled, barely drawing breath, so focused was she on the fight. He was a stubborn man, he and his Dark Side. She? Had the patience of more than five thousand years. Her Mothers-Within surged to back her up and their strength carried her onward and into the storm.

It was always fascinating to watch Arha work. She got an intensely focused expression on her face, and while she wasn't using a huge part of the Force, he could feel that alien power growing, roiling like an angry sea. It was vast, and deep, and... plural.

Those other lives she told me about once, Luke thought, then realized he was staring and gave himself a little shake.

"Arha's been one of my friends since I woke up here," he told his father. "I trust her with my life."

"I do not," Vader grunted, and threw up wall after wall against Arha's foreign treachery.

I am the master of my own fate, he thought, shooting the mental message at her fiercely, what is mine is mine alone to bear.

It is time to stop bearing and to start living. It was not precisely Arha's voice, but a blend of many. They rose and came down on another wall. You have your fate in your hands, only now you shall have more of it. You may keep blocking me, but this will continue.

Desert power, she threw at him, striking down another wall while Arha, as the head, ripped through another billowing wash of darkness. She would heal him sometime today. If it took all day, such a thing she would do. The next time she ripped through a wall, it was accompanied by the rumbling, deafening roar of of Shai-Hulud.

I will do all I must.

Her fingers closed around the blanket a little more even as she tugged on the Force to keep her focus. She let go of her body a little more and mentally slammed down, blazing with determination. If he wished a fight, she would give him one.

The things Vader had done- the atrocities he'd committed-- did not dominate his thoughts, but they were never far from his mind. He drew them closer, all his reminders of why his fall could not be in vain, why the Jedi could not be allowed to best him, and in a last-ditch effort met Arha head-on. His own shields were down, and every disgusting, twisted part of himself was on display.

This is what I deserve. It is how I will stay.

The past is finished and cannot be changed. What you have done is done. You are imprisoned in your failures, chained to yourself by the weight of what you could not prevent through your own pride. What you deserve is the power to cut your chains yourself, the power to become something greater than your failure.

The words swelled up and over all the ugliness, covering the death, destruction, and sorrow. Leto II had committed genocide upon thousands and millions of worlds for the sake of correcting his own father's mistakes. She had seen more ugliness in her own universe than Vader had committed. Instead of screaming and running away, she pulled him in.

You will let me heal you, Anakin Skywalker. Her voice was simple, direct, and sharp. Every man deserves more than one chance to live free. Arha let it all pass through her, all the insanity, the horrifying crimes, the death, the screaming, the torture, the darkness. She reached for him, determined and unafraid.

Take. My. Hand.

That is not my name anymore! he shrieked, clawing against the tide. That man is dead!

Like a black hole, she was pulling him out from behind his walls, wiping them out even faster than he could throw them up. Get out of my head! I do not want you here! I DO NOT NEED YOUR PITY!

He is not dead. He is till there, I see him still, buried within a web of lies, grief, and loss. You have tried to rewrite yourself, but you cannot erase a man. You may pull on the cloak of Sith, cover yourself in darkness and death, but the man remembers.

Sitting at his side, Arha showed the strain as her fingers clamped down on the blanket and dug into the side of the bed. The more he clawed, the greater the stress was, but she bore it.

I do not pity you. If this was pity, I would have given up long ago. Arha managed a smile that cracked through to her lips. She found another wave of relief come from her Mothers-Within and ripped another wall down.

Take it. She patiently held her hand out to him. Take my hand, Anakin.

The name was deliberate and slicing. She knew the man called Anakin was still there, buried and broken, but there still. Arha could, almost, reach him.

I will not lose before my son.

Vader knew she was going to win- she was going to best him with this alien power that he could not fight. It made him absolutely furious, and gave him enough strength to land one last blow before he gave in completely, refusing to accept but unable to struggle any longer.

This is not losing and I am not winning. It is for you and for your son, that I persevere.

Arha jerked and grit her teeth as his blow landed. For a long moment, she found herself flopped half against Vader's chest. Arha didn't even blink, still suck staring, with her eyes clouded over.

Are you finished? she asked after a few moments of silence. Slowly, she stirred to right herself.

Luke had been watching and sensing everything going on, his trepidation increasing to the point where when Arha fell forward, Luke moved faster than humanly possible to grab her and help her right herself, an arm around her shoulders to support her.

"What just happened?" he asked, worry creasing his brow.

I will never submit, he replied, but he wasn't strong enough to keep fighting her like this.

He dug in his heels and waited for her to take him.

She clamped a hand down over one of Luke's hands and shook her head wordlessly, still buried into the layers of darkness, and refusing to come back out until she had done what she had set out to do. She wasn't finished.

Arha went after Vader with her teeth grit and her fingers tight against Luke's.

Stubborn fool, Arha spat, roaring forward not with attack, but the healing power she had been reserving for the slow heal. It gave her the extra charge to slam through the darkness.

Her target was his lungs. Once she was through. Once she was through, she could adjust the raw power of it. Luke would help her.

He would help.

Arha, despite everything, still hand her palm against Vader's chest and it was all the contact she needed. In this rush, she felt something pop in her nose and tasted blood. She didn't have time or the attention to care.

She had come for one thing only.

Still worried, Luke nonetheless clasped her hand and opened himself to the Force, and to Arha. Their bond wasn't as deep or as well-developed as the ones he had with his family, but they were friends, and that was a strong bond in itself.

It was a wordless giving; as if Luke had said Take what you need, I am here. A state of peace, despite the maelstrom of darkness that was his father, or the sharp edge of pain that Arha felt. It was something else entirely, and it was full of the light side of the Force.

It was his son. Vader turned his attention from Arha, forget to continue trying to best her, drawn like a moth to the bright, luminous glow of Luke's presence.

Even growing within Padme, I knew him.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject