Title: Omelas
Author: Deja Vu
Summary: A horrifying fact is revealed to Darth Vader.
Rating: No language, some violence, very disturbing images. It's on the PG-13/R border, though I'm not quite sure where it should fall, so I'm erring on the safe side.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."
Characters: Vader, Xizor, Luke, Palpatine, Artoo, Threepio, OC.
Author's Thanks: Thanks to Moyima for lending a figurative ear.
Author's Note: The first chapter was written for the conversation challenge on the Luke/Vader Writers II mailing list, whereby either Luke or Vader is supposed to be told by someone of his relation to the other. It was inspired by the Challenge, Moy's fic entry "Time Lost," and Ursula K. LeGuin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (this provocative story shaped much of this fic, and I even borrowed a line of dialogue from it—"I will be good"). It was originally a one-shot, but I decided to expand it.
"I do not understand why you have brought me here," Darth Vader growled, a dark edge to his voice. He always felt like committing murder around Prince Xizor, but today the urge was particularly difficult to resist. It was a pity that the Emperor wanted him to be kept alive.
The crime-lord gave a sly smile that somehow managed to send a shiver coursing through the Sith Lord's bones. "I told you—I have something to show you."
The rest of the walk through Xizor's highly decorated corridors was spent in silence. Vader felt the urge to rip down expensive tapestries and tear apart exotic plants, enraged at the black pleasure emanating from the Falleen. The Force was screaming at him, and though he knew he would find out why soon enough, his annoyance could not be quelled.
After passing through several security checkpoints, the alien led the Sith Lord to a dimly lit hallway and stopped at a small door. After Xizor typed in a code and underwent a corneal and fingerprint scan, the door slid open.
The door frame was ridiculously small—to get through it, both Vader and the Falleen would have to duck. As he moved backward, Xizor made a gesture at Vader, and the Sith Lord took a few steps forward, staring inside at the dark room.
The room was three paces long, scarcely more than closet-sized and not really befitting of the term "room." A noxious scent wafted out from it, and Vader's big frame meant that very little light was getting in through the doorway. And then he saw it.
A small filthy creature was hunched in the corner, making a strange noise that was somewhere between a hiss and a growl. It was covered in its own excrement—and on further inspection, Vader realized that its urine-soaked feces covered the floor like a shallow, foul swamp.
There were sores all over its naked body, and its limbs were like thin flexible sticks that had been added to its frame as an afterthought. Its head was covered in a mass of dirty hair, the true color of which was impossible to distinguish. As Vader stared in disgust at the hideous thing, it cried out, "Please! I will be good. I will be good!"
Vader recoiled, taking a few steps backward. It was a human child.
The child—a boy who was perhaps ten years old—whined something unintelligible, reaching out with a malnourished hand that was so small it was like a claw. He scuttled forward, making squishing noises as his hands and feet moved across the excrement-covered ground.
Vader felt immense hatred well up within him for the green-skinned monster standing behind him; the situation this boy was facing was worse than the most heinous death he could concoct.
"How could you do this to a child?" He turned to look at the self-satisfied Xizor. "Why did you bring me here?"
The Falleen was staring at him with an odd smile on his face. "You do not like my pet?" He moved past Vader to stand just inside of the doorframe. He kicked at the creature (how could he be called a boy any longer?), who cried out, growled, and went back to his corner, where he glared with animalistic hatred at these two bringers of light and pain.
Xizor looked in disgust at the filthy floor, his lip curled upward. He obviously did not want to get his shoes dirty to go after the creature, which was crouching just out of his reach. "I should have thought that you would be the most interested in it. That thing is, after all, your son."
Vader felt his vision tunneling and his heart pounding as the humanoid's last word echoed through his mind. Son . . . Son.
"You lie," was all he could bring himself to say, though the Force was shouting the truth of the statement at him.
Xizor's laughter was a harsh, dry sound full of bitterness. "No, I assure you, I do not. It was once called Luke Skywalker. It was the son of your former self—the spawn of that Jedi once known to the galaxy as Anakin Skywalker."
Vader looked past Xizor at the thing that had once been a human boy. "You beast," he said softly to the humanoid before he turned and raised a fist.
Xizor was lifted into the air with the Dark Side of the Force, and an invisible hand clenched his throat.
"Go ahead and kill me," the Falleen prince managed to gasp out, composed despite his looming death. "I have avenged Falleen; I shall die a martyr."
Vader stared into Prince Xizor's eyes as he died, hoping desperately to see some sign of fear or regret. Instead, the sound of Xizor's strangled laughter rang in Vader's ears for several seconds after it had died out. Furious, the Sith Lord continued clutching his fist until finally the alien's throat was completely crushed. Blood seeped out from wounds opened by shattered bone, but Vader merely stared at the hovering body for several seconds. Finally, he flung the dead Falleen aside. The death of the humanoid did nothing to fill the void that had opened in the Sith Lord's chest.
It took a few minutes before Vader could finally bring himself to speak. "Son," he said shakily, reaching out toward the boy—Luke—Luke Skywalker.
But the boy was as a wild animal—he knew that this was not someone bringing a bowl of gruel, that this bringer of light could not be good in any way to him. He snarled, baring his teeth and trying to back further into his corner. He dug long fingernails into the floor, preparing to launch himself in the air if he needed to, even though he didn't have the strength to actually do it. "Baaaack," he hissed.
Vader fell to his knees in the doorway. "Son."