#sneaky Mufasa references Because I Can

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

(Part 2 of yesterday's snippet!)

Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. 

Luke had been so sure of himself when he'd entered the chamber. He knew what he had to do, and he knew there was always a chance that he would die in the attempt. But his friends -- no, his family -- were trapped in this facility, and Luke would not let them die.

Yoda didn't understand. He claimed to have watched over Luke all his life. He criticized Luke for looking to the future and not the present. 

If the present is so important, Master, if you can see so far, why didn't you see that Leia's been tortured by Vader before? How can you be willing to let her fall into his hands again?

No. Luke would never let that happen. His friend was more important than his training: he would never choose to let someone die for his own benefit. 

That's not the kind of Jedi I'm going to be.

And so he had chosen to fight.

But there was a problem. 

Darth Vader had chosen not to fight.

The man's presence filled the room like smoke, billowing and curling around them both as though it could cut off every escape route. Maybe it could. Luke was not foolish enough to believe that Vader was vulnerable, just because he refused to draw his sword. The Force was with him, after all. Corrupted, used for selfish purposes, but nevertheless a powerful ally. 

But Vader did not attack.

Again and again he admonished Luke for his aggression. A hint of scolding. A hint of fond exasperation. As if he were a teacher correcting a favored pupil. 

Or a fa-

Luke cut off the thoughts in fury. His enemy was underestimating him. Patronizing the would-be Jedi, so sure of his own superiority. 

This was not a Darth Vader he had seen before. Where was the cold pragmatism? The apathy towards others? Clearly it had been in play when he had harmed Han and Leia and Chewie. 

"I have no specific grievance against those you keep company with."

And that was worse. Infinitely worse. Everything he had done to his friends -- to Leia! -- and he didn't even have any particular issues with them?! If he could torture someone he didn't hate, what would he do to someone he did have a grudge against?

What will he do to me?

Now he walked down the stairs, ignoring Luke's lightsaber, speaking calmly as though he could pretend he hadn't just used sentient beings as bait to draw him here. It didn't work like that! He couldn't just make Luke drop his guard with honeyed words. Every child raised on Tatooine knew the danger of those who spoke sweetly and held a transmitter behind their backs. Luke wasn't going to fall for it and he wasn't shy about saying so.

"The jakreb learns to listen before he runs," his enemy quoted suddenly. He sounded amused.

That was an old saying on Tatooine. A proverb to teach children to watch carefully for signs of danger before making a move. There should have been no reason for Vader to know it.

None whatsoever.

I don't like this. Something is wrong.

Something plucked at his memories. A tickle at the back of his mind, like a spider crawling across his skin. Nothing concrete, but a nameless, formless, something. 

"The dragon who moves too soon is a dragon who starves," Luke shot back, a little rashly.

Another old proverb. Less about wariness and caution and more about patience. 

I know what you're doing, old man. You're the dragon. I'm the jakreb. So which one of us is going to move first?

But Vader kept walking. After all this, after the horrible things he'd done just to get Luke here, he was just...just leaving?! But that didn't make any sense!

“You want me to drop my guard, so you can kill me. Just like you did to Ben!” he accused.

He turned his blade to a more horizontal guard and stepped up to the high ground. 

If Vader was trying to lure him in close enough to run him through, he was going to be disappointed. 

“Luke.” Vader shook his head and continued to descend the staircase. Again his voice was sickeningly compassionate. “Obi-wan allowed himself to be killed. What his motives could have been, I do not know. He told himself and everyone around him such pretty lies that I am no longer certain that even he knew what his motivations were. But I assure you that whatever he did, he did so deliberately.”

The bottom seemed to drop out of Luke's stomach. There was so much anger hiding in those words. Maybe Vader didn't have a vendetta against Luke's friends, but it was very clear that he'd hated Obi-wan. But why?

Ben said that Vader betrayed and murdered his father. He said nothing about Vader betraying him. And he'd given no hint that there might be particularly bad blood between them. Did he just think it wasn't Luke's business?

But Luke knew that Vader was right about one thing: Ben had chosen to die at that particular moment. “To give us time to escape," he said defiantly. Lightsaber at the ready, he cautiously began to descend the stairs after Vader. "So we could destroy your Death Star! Worked out pretty well, Vader.”

“Indeed?” 

Vader glanced back over his shoulder at Luke, then stepped off the edge of the platform. 

What the kriff?!

He was leaving! Why? Was this room a trap? Would he activate one of those machines as soon as he was out?

Oh no way. Not a chance. You don't get to walk away from me, Sithspawn.

Luke scrambled to the edge of the platform in time to see Vader stepping into one of the maintenance tunnels.

“That is a topic for speculation, I believe," the rumbling voice echoed back. Luke definitely caught some sarcasm in his tone. "But for all the times your “Ben” betrayed me, it is fitting that in his final moments he unwittingly revealed you to me. Returning what he stole all those years ago.”

What.

The reverberating breaths faded out, and Luke stood at the edge of the platform. He tried to piece together what he'd just heard logically.

Had Ben stolen something from Vader? If the Sith wanted it, it was probably a good thing Obi-wan had taken it. Whatever it was. Maybe a weapon?

Luke's heart sank as he looked down at the brilliant blue glow of his saber. 

Vader killed his father. He might have felt that Anakin's lightsaber rightfully belonged to him.

What do I do?! This is my lightsaber! My inheritance. It's all I have of my father and I will not let him take that away.

Luke's emotions twisted around each other, bending back over themselves in a discordant jangle of mismatched rhythms as he tried to understand what was happening. The grip of the saber was slick in his hands. 

I'm…

No, no, I can do this.

I'm scared 

I can do this!

He was being torn in two different directions. Every fiber of his being begged him to flee. To not walk into what could very well be a trap. But at the same time, something down that tunnel was calling him. Like a cord wrapped around his heart, steadily pulling him to an unknown destination, he felt the whispers more than he heard them.

I'm scared. 

It's alright to be scared. I'm here.

They weren't words so much as sensations. Faintly brushing against his memory like a butterfly's wing, the whispers seemed to promise that everything would be alright, he just couldn't look back. 

Frightened, but determined, Luke clipped his saber to his belt and eased over the edge of the platform. 

It's okay. I can do this. 

I can win.

Just don't look back. 

The instant Luke stepped into the tunnel, the lights snapped on. He had a feeling that he was walking into a trap. But then, the place he had just left felt like a trap, too. 

Kriff kriff kriff.

Stupid jakreb hopped right into the snare.

There was a control room at the end of the tunnel. 

There was a Sith Lord at the end of the tunnel.

Luke had his lightsaber out almost before he had time to think. 

A grate slid shut over the tunnel mouth behind him, cutting off his retreat.

Well. 

At least he could see in this room.

"Put down your weapon, young one," Vader said again. He did not even turn away from the holographic map to face Luke. 

"Not. Happening." Luke bared his teeth and forced himself to take two steps forward. "You have to answer for what you did, Vader. To my friends, and the galaxy, and the Jedi...and my father."

Quite suddenly, Vader's shoulders fell. He leaned against the projector as if he were bone-weary. 

"Child, I have done nothing to your father."

He still did not turn.

"He is a contemptible, pitiable wretch, too quick to give his loyalty to those who do not deserve it. But he is a powerful wretch. Powerful enough to conceal your existence from the emperor for the last three years."

Luke stumbled back. His father's lightsaber hung by his side uselessly.

Present tense.

Darth Vader was speaking about his father in the present tense.

Anakin Skywalker. 

Present tense.

"You...you're lying."

No please, please don't be lying-

I can't…

Don't toy with me you sleemo

Don't you dare use my father's memory as a ploy-

At last, Vader turned to face him. "I have done what I can, Luke," he said simply. "But now we are out of time."

"I have done what I can"

Something cold and clammy slithered in Luke's gut. It knotted in coils around his spine to sink its teeth into his heart. Against his will, tears sprang to his eyes.

He knew Darth Vader was evil, but this was a cruelty he had not expected. The carefully laid trap, baited with words, and the insinuations eased between sentences, struck deeper than any lightsaber's blow. He played on the memory of Luke's father -- of his loneliness, his lifelong yearning for his father -- and twisted it. Perverted it into an attempt at manipulation so blatant it could hardly be believed.

Did he believe it was an attempt at manipulation?

What if it was worse? What if Vader actually believed what he seemed to be implying? Pointing out how illogical it was could quickly become dangerous. But Luke was past the point of caring.

"You...you aren't half the man my father was!" he hissed. 

Something bitter and almost amused dripped from the Sith to puddle around Luke's fear.

"An ironic statement."

"You don't know me!" Luke continued gamely on as if he had not been interrupted. "You think you're the first person to play mind games with my memories? Huh? Kriff you!"

He swung the blade up in a ready position. 

Darth Vader tilted his head to one side, considering.

"This is not going to go the way you think."

The spiders were back, creeping across his brain. Luke blinked and shook his head to clear it. Losing his focus here would be fatal.

"Don't fight it."

Vader raised a hand towards him, almost reaching out. 

"You have been running for a long time. It is alright to rest, now."

Was the Sith doing something to his mind?!

But Ben said mind tricks only worked on the weak-willed! And Yoda was always complaining about how stubborn he was!

"Get out of my head!" Luke shouted. Don't panic, don't panic-

"It is not me." 

Oh, gentleness did not sound right coming out of that voice.

"You have forgotten who you are, and yet from our first encounter your memories have tried to reestablish themselves. Stop fighting them, Luke. Let them flow."

Luke stopped pretending he wasn't afraid. He was terrified. He was alone in an isolated place, too far away to call for help, and trapped with a deadly enemy who meant to prey upon his very sense of self. 

His hands were shaking too badly to hold up his father's blade. This was so stupid, he was so stupid, he never should have come here! He had to get out, there had to be a way out!

Luke scanned the room frantically for an exit. He backed away from Vader and edged towards what looked like a corridor. 

"Luke."

"No!" 

Luke stumbled over a bundle of cables on the floor and nearly fell. He managed a graceful recovery despite his terror and kept moving.

"Stay away from me!"

Vader did not. He began to move at last, slow and purposeful and relentless. 

The Force moved around them like a frigid tide, pulling machinery from the walls to land behind Luke. He was cutting off his escape. The trap had been sprung.

"Stop running, Luke."

"Leave me alone!"

He was pleading now.

All sense of bravado, of dignity, had fled.

Obi-wan was right. I'm not ready. I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die-

If Leia lives, it's worth it

But I don't-

I don't want to die

And then at last, he could go no further. His calves caught on some discarded hunk of metal, and toppled him. Sharp, broken pieces dug into his back as he landed. The pain felt distant, like something that was happening to someone else. Luke's increasing disorientation muffled everything but his fear.

This was the end. Luke, on the ground at Darth Vader's feet. If the encounter didn't end in immediate death, his interrogation was likely imminent. 

But Vader 

Knelt.

He kneeled down beside Luke and rested his gloved hand on Luke's cheek. Luke was very sure that his heart was going to stop.

Oh. He's going to snap my neck. At least it'll be quick.

"Enough, child." A deep bass growl vibrated through the words. He sounded as though he was finally angry. "I am not going to kill you!"

Before Luke had time to process that, he added, "I am trying to save you."

Save me?! From what?!

Luke swung out with one arm, trying to push the dark lord away. Vader caught his wrist easily and squeezed it. 

"You know me." Each syllable dripped with an unexpected urgency. "Search your feelings: you will know it to be true. Remember, Luke. You must remember."

"No!" Luke tried in vain to pull away. "S-stop!"

He was pulled, gently, but firmly, up into a sitting position. 

He was pulled, less gently, by the thread around his soul. It reached out, straining for something it had once known. A sense of something missing. 

A sense that was being answered in kind.

And he felt something. Something he had felt before. 

Or rather 

Someone.

Luke knew the answer to the question his soul was asking. 

He didn't want to know. 

He didn't want to face it. 

No, no please-! 

"You have forgotten what you once knew," Vader murmured. "You have forgotten me. And I- I believed you had died."

Seething shadows coiled around them both. 

"The Emperor will suffer no Skywalker to be free. If he is not entirely beneath the emperor's thumb, then he must die. If you lived, his hold on me was jeopardized. Luke, he told me you were dead. But here you are, alive again!"

Skywalker. 

Vader was referring to himself as Skywalker. 

The Force resonated. A great bell seemed to have tolled, and with each reverberation the jagged pieces were forced together. 

Darkness and Light.

Hunter and quarry. 

Lost and found. 

Father and son.

Luke could not see through his tears. He didn't need to. He could feel. 

The Force was no longer a counterpoint around them. It was a harmony. And that was the hardest truth of all.

Shhh, you are safe. I'm here, I'm here.

The same soundless lullaby that had soothed his childhood nightmares. The thing he had forgotten.

His father's voice. 

I know you. 

"Oh." Darth Vader lifted him free of the machinery as easily as if he were still a little child. 

He pulled Luke into his arms. Luke did not have the strength to resist.

“There you are.”