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Disclaimer: This vignette is not meant in any way to infringe on the rights of Lucas Films or anyone else holding rights to Star Wars. It is merely a labor of love.
Authoress Note: This is another 'Heart of Darkness' AU with all due reverence implied for Cka3ka. His/Her work is wonderful and in order to understand this vignette, you must read HOD. In regard to HOD, this AU goes a bit out on a limb, assuming that Cka3ka intends for Leia and Pooja to return from the Meridian Sector and continue as Imperial Senators.
The key revelation in this story expands on an older, HOD-influenced, but not AU, story I wrote entitled 'A Murky Gray'. You can easily read this one without reading 'A Murky Gray', but HOD is VITAL if you want to follow this fic.
Special thanks to Vader's Fallen Angel for her assistance. I hope you all like it!
Seeking Truth
By Arianwen P.F. Everett
Obi Wan Kenobi felt the heaviness of the dark side emanating from his hovel in the Dune Sea and he sighed. He'd sensed her returned to Tatooine yesterday. He figured, as the Senate was in recess, she was here to see her brother, aunt, and uncle. The last time they'd met, she'd told him that she hoped they would never meet again. She must have changed her mind.
"No, I don't relish being here, but a Sith can't afford ignorance, no matter how blissful it might be," Leia Naberrie Skywalker stated, coming out from behind the private moisture condenser outside Obi Wan's small house.
Obi Wan could have sworn the girl was inside, not... ah, she must have projected her force signature into his home. That didn't surprise him. From their previous conversation he'd come to understand that her mind worked out complex scenarios quickly, and she was gifted at verbal misdirection, positioning her prey to come to the conclusions she wished them too without direct proclamation. She also disliked being analyzed by others, preferring to be viewed as unpredictable, which explained the why of her trick, but not why she was here with him again. Obi Wan figured the best way to find that out was to invite her inside and ask. "Please come in, Leia Skywalker."
"I need to know about my mother's death, Master Kenobi," Leia stated bluntly, as she entered the old Jedi's home. She sensed the man's brief hesitation in locking his door, but a moment later, saw him move to the tea set in the back of the tiny, three-room dwelling.
"I thought you said your father already told you about that," Kenobi stated, measuring the tea leaves he had on hand into two cups.
"My father can only tell me what he knows… or thinks he knows. Even now he believes that he killed my mother on Mustafar and that still sensing Luke and I in the living force, you… cut us out of her… deceased body. However, my foster father says that he witnessed my birth on Polis Massa, and that my mother was in labor and under the care of the med center's droids for almost an hour after you brought her in. Obviously, they both can't be right," Leia explained, attempting to be as delicate as possible about her mother's death, while still offering Kenobi the opportunity to clarify what she already knew. Her father only had morbid conjecture to go on. Bail Organa had witnessed Leia's emergence into the galaxy with his own eyes.
"Why is this so important for you to know now?" Kenobi asked, needing to understand the young Sith's motives. He was beginning to sense a change in the girl. Despite his hopes several months ago, the darkness in her was even more powerful, but it wasn't normal. It wasn't what he had seen in An.. Vader on Mustafar, or in the Emperor whenever he made a holonet appearance. It was almost as if… no. The light and the dark couldn't co-exist in one sentient being. The struggle between the two sides of the force, contained inside a sole, mortal body, would cause a massive explosion that would make Lord Kaan's thought bomb pale by comparison. This had to be another trick, although one whose purpose he couldn't figure out at the moment.
"I already explained that to you, a Sith can't afford ignorance, ever," Leia restated, taking the cup of tea Kenobi offered her. Gently touching the force, she examined the cup.
"It's not poisoned," Kenobi informed her, rolling his eyes slightly at the girl's suspicion.
"I'm sorry, but I can't just take your word for it," Leia explained with a sincerity she knew the old Jedi would be able to feel through the force. Having found nothing wrong with the tea, Leia tossed back the beverage in one gulp and placed the cup down on the table in front of her.
"Or any Jedi's?" Obi Wan teased gently.
"Actually, I take advice from a certain Jedi quite often, but you're not her. She's teaching me about the light side of the force. She's a good teacher. We're learning a lot from each other," Leia replied enigmatically, knowing she had to have peaked Kenobi's interest.
"Does your father know you have this teacher?" Obi Wan asked. He sensed truth in Leia's words, but also amusement. Once again, she was playing with him, as she had done months before.
"He does. He's not thrilled about it, and I've promised to turn her over to him once I've learned all I feel I need from her, but he's accepted it for the time being," Leia explained, leaning back in her seat, the amusement in her growing.
"What's her name?" Kenobi asked firmly, tiring of the game. He knew the girl wanted him to continue playing, but behind the amusement he sensed a cruel reality she was leading him into.
"How did my mother really die?" Leia countered, hardening her words to let Kenobi know she would say no more about her Jedi instructor until she had her answers, and she wasn't going to give him any information about herself or her motives for wanting to know either. She was a Sith, and if history taught her anything, rooted in the heart of every Sith was an unwillingness to defend their motives or actions to any Jedi, under any circumstances.
Obi Wan closed his eyes briefly, summoning the memory. Telling Leia the truth could cause him no loss, and if the girl really had a Jedi hostage he had to try to save her before Leia tired of her toy and gave another Jedi over to Vader for slaughter. "She gave up hope. The medical droids found nothing wrong with her, but she had lost the will to live. Luke was born, then you. She told me that there was still good left in your father, and then she died."
"But how? What did she die of? It certainly couldn't have been from force choking, not if she could survive long enough to reach the med center, then push out two babies," Leia insisted. This was important.
Obi Wan heaved a deep sigh. The girl was as tenacious as her father when it came to a mystery she needed solved. "I told you, the medical droid said…"
"Oh, Chaos take the med droids! What broke down in her body? What was happening in the force around her? Don't give me this garbage about giving up hope. Things like that only happen in bad holofilms!" Leia demanded, sick of Kenobi's vague answers.
"She passed out and moments later her organs just shut down, at least that's what I saw on the scanner read out. I didn't sense anything abnormal in the force. One minute she was exhausted but cognizant; the next she was dead. What else do you want me to say?!" Kenobi exclaimed, his voice having finally lost its long-practiced calm. He now realized that he had no idea what had killed Padme. Looking back, he had to wonder why he hadn't sought more of an explanation from the droids, why he hadn't demanded an answer from anyone as to why Anakin's wife had simply died in front of him for no apparent reason. Again he had failed Anakin and now, he realized, he had failed Padme and her children as well. Force forgive him!
"Like what happens when morichro is used on a non force-sensitive?" Leia asked, more gently this time. If she kept pushing Kenobi full throttle, he would shut down the conversation. A softening of voice might just slip him up and give her the most vital pieces of information that she needed. From what he had told her, she began to believe more and more that her hypothesis was correct.
Kenobi's head shot up to look at Leia and his jaw dropped in shock. "No! Morichro is a very advanced Jedi power; dark siders have never successfully mastered it, and besides, if there had been another force sensitive in the medical center, particularly a darksider, I doubt Master Yoda and I would have just been standing about."
"You know as well as I do that nothing is impossible in the force," Leia countered.
"Nothing but this! Look, the only Jedi Masters in the Order during my lifetime who had trained in morichro were Master Yaddle, who died several years before the Clone Wars began, and Master Yoda, who…" Obi Wan's eyes widened like saucers as the words left his lips, but as much as he wanted to deny it a part of him began to consider the events of that horrible day 17 years ago in a new light.
"Who, according to Bail, was standing behind a pane of transparent glass, mere feet away, with a direct line of sight to my mother," Leia finished for Kenobi.
So here they were, at the truth. Leia had spoken with her foster father when he'd come to see her on Corascant after her return from the Meridian Sector. During their reunion, Bail had spoken more openly about Leia's mother than he ever had before, and Leia had wanted to know everything, not merely to learn about the person who had given birth to her and her brother, but about the woman who still ruled her husband's heart and whose death haunted his every conscious hour.
When Bail could give her no answers as to her mother's demise, she had mediated on the subject until the truth had snuck into her suspicions, and the light side of the force would not deny them. It tried to offer her peace, but it refused to negate what she knew. She had come here to make sure it wasn't Kenobi who had done the deed or that Kenobi had not colluded with Yoda after the fact.
The look of shock and pain on the older human's face, as well as his equally disturbed reaction in the force, told her that he had been as deceived by Yoda in that moment on Polis Massa as Bail had been, but that was not surprising. Yoda had known Kenobi from infancy, and was centuries his senior. Performing such an obscure and subtle manipulation of the force, especially when Kenobi was already emotionally raw and on the edge of sanity from what had culminated on Mustafar, would have been simple enough for the ancient Jedi master to accomplish without alerting his human colleague to his actions.
If the little green troll had believed that the only way to save the Jedi Order and countless sentients from the oppression of the Sith was to kill an innocent woman and steal her children, Yoda would have made that choice resolutely and never questioned his actions. Kenobi had spent nearly two decades beating himself up in the deserts of Tatooine for far less morally ambiguous choices. No, Leia was certain Obi Wan Kenobi was at least innocent of her mother's demise and would likely have attempted to defend her had he known what Yoda had in mind. While Leia still had much to blame him for, that was not something she could lay at his feet.
Pulling himself together, Kenobi fixed his eyes on Leia. He couldn't afford to be swayed by the girl's words. Despite their history, she was still a Sith, one growing in power and command of the dark side with each passing day. He would meditate on what she was proposing later. Right now, he would be the Jedi Master Yoda and Qui Gon Jinn had trained him to be. He would stand against a Sith. "I've known Master Yoda all my life. He would never do something like you're proposing. The dark side is twisting your mind as it inevitably does anyone who embraces it."
"I'm fully aware of what the dark side does to ones' mind, Master Kenobi. It's a daily struggle just to keep it from influencing me towards actions I know I'll regret later on. However, I was meditating in the light when I came to this unfortunate realization. The dark side wanted a very different outcome to this meeting, but my long term goal is to bring permanent ceasefire and peaceful coexistence between the Sith and the Jedi, so once again, I've subdued the dark side in service to my own ends. I'm not some common darksider, Master Kenobi; I am a Sith. I serve the darkside, but I am not its slave," Leia insisted, not wanting to let the Jedi off that easy. It was the simplest thing in the galaxy for a Sith or Jedi not to trust the other, but Leia had come to realize that the 35 millennia of fighting was taking its toll on the force, and neither side could ever permanently defeat the other. It was an exercise in futility that had wasted hundreds of trillions of lives over the course of history.
"I thought the Sith Code denied the existence of peace," Kenobi rebutted. The girl obviously didn't understand the ways of the force as well as she thought she did. The dark and the light did not coexist peacefully, anymore than fire and water could share the same space without annihilating each other. It was a sad but real truth.
"Mistranslation, Master Kenobi. The Sith language, which the code was created in, had 4 different words that Jedi and Republic linguists translated into 'peace'. Peace in relation to the Sith code speaks of inner peace, tranquility, stillness to the point where the light side of the force takes control of your entire being. That form of peace is a lie. The peace I propose is socio-political peace, the kind of peace that exists when groups with competing interests decide to try and work out their differences rather than engage in armed conflict where victory would be more expensive than compromise. I don't believe it's possible for the Sith to ever conquer the Jedi completely, nor for the Jedi to eradicate the Sith, and thus the casualties to both parties and civilians are merely wasted lives in futile efforts. Still, there's too much history between the two for actual peace, so ceasefire and coexistence will have to do," Leia explained, totally serious, hoping Kenobi would see her point.
"An interesting point of view, but I fear a flawed one when the party that purports to be a peacemaker is holding hostages," Obi Wan stated matter of factly. Truthfully, he was intrigued by Leia's proposition, but she was a Sith, and the Jedi had been fooled before by a keen political mind claiming they sought peace. His first priority had to be freeing his brethren, if indeed the girl had a Jedi hostage.
"I don't hold any Jedi hostages. I have a Jedi teacher who still has much to teach me about the light side of the force and who I'm not eager to dismiss from my service. And honestly, it's nice having an older woman around, teaching me things, someone I don't have to worry over and protect. She could free herself any time, but she chooses to stay with me. I guess you could say I've grown very… attached to my Jedi teacher and don't want to loose her. Not to mention I'm not sure she'd want to leave me at the moment, especially to live here, on Tatooine, with you of all people," Leia added. She had kept Siri's existence a secret from Kenobi to give the older woman a choice and help cement trust between them, but Kenobi would want to see Leia's willing Jedi teacher, and saying no would shatter any potential cooperation she might receive from the old, yet still powerful, Jedi Master in taking down Palpatine.
On the other hand, she knew Siri would come to Kenobi's hovel if Leia desired it, particularly if it was sold to her as a way of gaining Kenobi's help in eliminating the Emperor. She'd see it as her duty, that her discomfort was irrelevant in the face of stopping the Sith, ending galactic tyranny, and freeing the remaining Jedi from persecution, but Leia didn't want Siri pushed into this reunion out of duty.
Kenobi could sense the deep affection Leia held for her teacher, but he had to ensure a fellow Jedi's safely if he could. "But if you care for her as much as you claim…"
"Look… I'll go to my teacher and ask her to come here. I won't demand it of her or incapacitate her with the dark side to drag her here, but I will ask in the name of peaceful coexistence that she visit you. I'll be staying with the Lars for the next five days. If she comes and if she chooses to stay with you beyond that period of time, I won't press her to return with me to Corascant. However, if she freely decides to remain my teacher, I expect you to honor her wishes," Leia finished, menacingly, letting a hint of gold tinge her pupils to get her point across.
Leia knew Siri still loved Obi Wan and that this bargain might result in her loosing her master for a time, but still she would give Siri the choice. After all, Siri would still be her servant, only one Leia was leaving here on Tatooine with Kenobi. She knew she could always call Siri back to her side anytime she wished, and having Siri on Tatooine would help to ensure Kenobi couldn't brainwash Luke against her or their father.
"Of course, but you haven't told me who I should expect," Kenobi responded, perfectly agreeable to allowing Leia's Jedi teacher to make up her own mind, but still having no idea who the Jedi in question was.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Heck, father didn't believe she was alive until he'd spoken with her and sensed her reality in the force. Even then he had me run her through a battery of medical tests to confirm she wasn't a clone or a very skilled imposter. Frankly, I found his lack of faith disturbing. But anyway, let's just say, if my teacher agrees to come she'll be here by the setting of the second sun this evening. You'll definitely know her when you see her… that is if you don't drop dead from shock," Leia laughed, sensing Kenobi's curiosity heightening.
"Alright, I'll expect her this evening," Kenobi agreed, sensing nothing but truth and mischief emanating from Leia. This disturbed him more than he would admit. On Mustafar all he had sensed from the body of his brother was the dark side. Anakin's essence had been missing, so he had been able to fight Vader without reservation. Palpatine was a shell, a mask worn by Darth Sideous, and from what Obi Wan had seen in holonet broadcasts since he arrived on Tatooine, he'd come to understand that Chancellor Palpatine had never truly existed at all.
Leia, however, was genuine. She spoke openly about who she was. She never hid her darkness or her ambition, but darkness and ambition weren't all that she was. There was a person, a moral, intelligent person, coexisting with a Sith in one body and Kenobi knew that if he ever had to strike her down, he would be killing both a Sith and an innocent young woman in the same stroke. He knew there was a very good chance he would hesitate; the Sith she was would not.
Obi Wan had to wonder if this was how Master Yoda had seen it all those years ago on Polis Massa. Padme had been innocent, but her actions had led the entire galaxy to the tragedy that was happening all around them. Her husband drew strength from her, and her husband was a Sith Lord. Her babies were the only hope the Jedi had, and Padme had planned to keep them, raising them to be good people but not necessarily the salvation the Jedi and the galaxy desperately needed.
However, as much as he could understand his old master's logic, he still grieved the woman that had been his friend, his best friend's wife, and Luke and Leia's mother. He would never have been able to do what he now believed Yoda might have done. He wasn't completely convinced, but if he were honest with himself, he knew it wasn't impossible, and it made sense of a situation that had never made sense to him before. Despite her age and inexperience, Leia was far more dangerous than her father, possibly even more dangerous than Sideous in the long term, and yet, once again, he would let her freely walk off his land.
As if sensing Kenobi's pondering her leaving, Leia stood up. She had gotten what she'd come for, even if she'd had to make concessions she hadn't anticipated making. She had to go back to the Lars homestead and speak with Siri. Her aunt and uncle were really remarkably kind people, taking in Siri along with her this time, even though Siri wasn't family and they had seen the two force users sparing this morning after breakfast. Leia hoped they understood that Luke wasn't the only draw Tatooine held on her heart. She promised herself she would make sure they knew it before she left five days hence.
As for Siri, the more Leia thought about it, the more comfortable she felt with the idea of leaving Siri here. She'd miss her and her lessons, but Siri could be quite valuable in watching Luke's watcher. Yes, she was a Jedi, but she was her own Jedi, just as Leia was her own Sith. Still, Leia's gut told her Siri would choose to return with her to Corascant. Siri had invested far too much time in Leia to walk away now, but if she needed more than 5 days to put her past and priorities in order, Leia could live with the temporary separation.
As Leia stepped out the front door of Kenobi's hovel, her mind reran itself over what she had learned this morning. She had to figure out what to do with these new truths, and more importantly, who to tell and who not to. At least she had five days to consider it, and she sensed being with Luke would help her.
Of course, she couldn't directly discuss any of this with him, but just being around him made her feel more whole. She'd never really believed in that twin bond thing you heard about on talk shows, but she and Luke weren't your usual twins; they were Skywalkers. They were not only bound by blood and birth, but in the Force as well. That had to mean something.
Leia sensed Kenobi following her to her speeder, and she turned back towards the old Jedi as he gentlemanly opened the door for her to get in. "I know you're worried I'm gonna go all nuts with the dark side and try to kill the little, green bantha dropping, but the truth is, I never knew my mother, and you can't really miss what you never knew. Daddy has been the best father any kid could have. If I hate Yoda for anything, it's for denying Luke a chance to know and love him as I do, but rushing to vengeance, particularly when I have so much more pressing work to do , would be foolhardy, a waste of valuable time, and unworthy of a Sith."
"But you will seek vengeance one day, won't you?" Kenobi asked wearily, knowing she'd one day try to murder his old master. While Obi Wan could sense that Leia hadn't lied to him, he could also feel her anger went far deeper than Luke's deprivation of their father. She might have it under control at the moment, but it was still very much present, as if on slow boil.
"Honestly, I don't know. Vengeance against someone like Master Yoda is tricky, and it's not just his being a better swordsman, having far greater life experience to draw from, or even his strength in the force. No, Yoda would be hard to break because after so many years as a Jedi, his individuality, his sense of self, has been almost completely drowned by the force. That's why it was so simple for him to murder my mother. There isn't really that much of a person left to take vengeance on," Leia surmised, the conundrum something she would think about later. Vengeance was in order; that much Leia knew in her soul, but she also knew she wouldn't have it for some while, not until she had a better handle on who Yoda was and how to make him suffer as her mother's absence these seventeen years had made her father suffer.
"Master Yoda would be honored by that assessment," Obi Wan stated flatly, Yoda's implacable nature no longer giving him the comfort it had given him all his life.
"Master Yoda would kill me before I could even open my mouth to make that assessment. The moment he sensed my strength in the force, coupled with my connection to the dark side, I would be as good as dead and he would end my life with the same unshakable confidence that he was doing the will of the Force as when he murdered my mother," Leia insisted, knowing she spoke the truth, but also needing to weaken Kenobi enough to escape. She had no doubt he was indecisive about whether or not he would permit her to leave his hovel this time around.
The first time they'd met, they had come to an agreement; Luke and the Lars must continue to be protected by Kenobi, and Leia would leave Tatooine the next day to continue her mission to ultimately bring down Sideous. Both had left the encounter with greater understanding and there were no significant risks taken that day. Now she, a Sith, would have to be trusted not to run amuck and kill someone Kenobi could not allow to be killed, but whom Leia and her beloved father had every reason to seek vengeance against.
"May have murdered your mother, Miss Skywalker," Kenobi corrected, still not 100% convinced of his former teacher's guilt on the matter.
"May have murdered my mother," Leia stated, rolling her eyes at Kenobi's last grasp at hero worship. She understood it, but honestly, she didn't care about Obi Wan's inner turmoil. After what he'd done to her father, and to her and Luke, she was glad to cause him any pain or distress she possibly could. He deserved it and so much more. Leia felt the dark side concur, and she took a moment to savor its confidence.
As Leia started the speeder's engine, Kenobi grabbed it with the force, necessitating Leia to idle the vehicle. "What do you plan to tell your father about what we discussed here today, about Yoda?"
"You've been out in the suns too long if you think I'm gonna answer any of your questions without getting something in return. So, Master Kenobi, what do you have to offer me if I answer you now?" Leia mocked the annoying Jedi. She had believed them through with the conversation, and she wanted to get back to the Lars homestead. The extensive drive would give her time to organize her feelings and gain greater control of her anger so that the dark side couldn't turn it against her interests. Now her attention and control reasserted quickly.
"Your life," Kenobi stated firmly, igniting his saber and using the force to shut off the speeder's engine.
"Funny, I thought killing force-sensitive children was father's shtick. Maybe there's room for you on the dark side after all, Master Kenobi," Leia shot back, knowing her father's killing of the Jedi younglings would be a particular sore spot with the old man in front of her.
"You find what your father did to those younglings at the temple something to joke about?" Obi Wan asked with disappointment. He remembered Vader explaining how from his point of view the Jedi were evil and Obi Wan hated to think that was the perspective Leia held.
"What do you think would have happened to those younglings if Father hadn't ended their lives? What do you think Sideous would have done to them, or more accurately, with them?" Leia postulated, wanting to confuse Kenobi even more. She was playing a dangerous game here. She had to unhinge Kenobi enough to get back to the Lars homestead, but not enough to make him truly regret letting her live the last time they'd met. Still, it was a game she played daily with Siri Tachi. She was a skilled player.
"Point taken," Kenobi admitted, completely unconvinced by where the girl was taking this argument, but not interested in debating what was already a painful subject for him with someone who obviously relished a good argument as much as her mother once had. From what little he knew about her, one thing was certain, her tongue was as deadly as her lightsaber.
As much as the idea of killing kids disturbed her, Leia also knew that like herself, Jedi were trained young, so that even the littlest ones were potential future threats if their indoctrination, which began even earlier than their martial instruction, had taken hold. Killing the younglings then had made sure they could never be used to unseat the Sith, or strengthen the Emperor had their lives been spared and they'd been taken and trained as Emperor's Hands or Inquisitors. Considering the last two alternatives, from a certain point of view, her father had euthanized them, freeing them back into the force and sparing them from a far worse fate, one he'd gladly embraced to save his wife and children.
Her love for her father and his many sacrifices on her behalf flooded her heart at that moment and the dark side retreated a bit more, but it didn't matter. Her point was made. She was not obligated to answer any Jedi's questions unless she chose to. She would not be bullied by such weak beings, nor would any non force-sensitive sentients in any empire she held sway over. She would see to it that the Jedi never reclaimed civil authority when Sideous was taken out and the criminal decrees against the Jedi were lifted. The remaining Jedi had a right to life and self determination, not to power over others, and certainly not to implement legally sanctioned violence, as they had in the days of the Republic. But that was a debate for another time. Getting into a Jedi/Sith pissing contest here wasn't necessary and would be counterproductive.
"I won't tell my father of what I've learned today until I feel he can absorb it rationally, or I figure out a way to make Yoda suffer to my satisfaction. To Yoda, dying at the hands of two vengeful Sith would be a reward, martyrdom, a well-earned rest, and I'm not feeling at all generous where he's concerned. He's safe for now," Leia explained, making sure her contempt was heard, even if it wasn't accompanied by the dark side.
Obi Wan mulled over what he'd just heard, but still had not released the speeder.
"If I don't get back to my aunt and uncle's homestead, I can't very well send my Jedi teacher to you, now can I?" Leia stated, rolling her eyes with exaggerated annoyance. She knew Kenobi was right where she wanted him psychologically. She could feel it. He just needed this extra push and she'd be tuning up swoop bikes with Luke in under two hours.
Kenobi released the speeder's engine, and Leia started it up again. Getting another mischievous smile, Leia called out over the engine. "See you in five days, Master Kenobi. And in regards to my Jedi teacher, I don't want her coming home with Tatooine crabs. Remember 'no glove, no love."
"What?!" Kenobi exclaimed, completely confused at Leia's last statement, which he'd recently heard in a public service announcement about STD prevention, while shopping for supplies in Mos Eisley.
But it was too late. The speeder was already just a dust cloud on the horizon. Sighing, Obi Wan shook his head and returned to his home, his mind shifting to greeting the guest that would likely arrive this evening.