Author's Note: This was written for the LiveJournal shuffledrabble community. In case anyone wants to know, the song for the drabbles are: 1. Black Sabbath – "Heaven and Hell" 2. Iron Maiden – "Aces High" 3. Iron Maiden – "The Duellists" 4. Ensiferum – "Tale of Revenge."
1.
Padme Amidala Naberrie has stopped trying to figure out why her husband fell. She is no longer "Amidala," or "Naberrie"; she put those names aside for safety when she fled Anakin.
She is with the Gungans, plotting treason. Jar Jar understands her; he too feels the guilt and anger of being Palpatine's pawn in his reach for power. When she thinks about Anakin—which is more than she admits—she wonders if she has a right to feel angry at him, her fellow pawn. But he is a willing tool in Palpatine's hand.
Padme wonders if she could kill him.
2.
Flying is the one thing Luke and his father could agree on. Luke had wondered what his father was like before he had been taken from Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen. Now he knows: distant and able to get to fury from—well, Father is never really happy, it seemed, but flying is as close as he gets.
As close as they get to really working together.
So Luke works to be the best starpilot. He ignores the voice in his head wondering if there was a reason he had been hidden from his father. He is happy enough now.
3.
Fighting is the other thing Luke's father is really good at. Luke has never seen Father fight in earnest, but he'dsheard stories of his skill—of the savage efficiency with which he killed Jedi. Not that people talk about it in front of Luke, but Luke can avoid being seen. He's never dared to ask Father about it; Luke is young, but he isn't stupid.
Luke is good at fighting too. He's only fought droids or occasionally his father, but Luke knows from Father's—sparse—praise that he is good.
Luke just wonders when he'll have to kill someone.
4.
Lord Vader lives for revenge. It is one of the few pleasures that is still left to him. Sensing Obi-Wan's despair was as sweet as getting his son back—or so he tells himself and his master. His master disapproves of Luke—not of Luke himself, a powerful boy ready to corrupt—but of his role in Vader's life. A distraction.
Palpatine is hardly an innocent in the bleakness that is Vader's life, so soon Palpatine will be dead, and the threat he poses to Luke will be dead with him.
Vader still tells himself that he lives for revenge.
