DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN STAR WARS
Dark Lady of the Sith: The Tale of Darth Kaela
PROLOUGE
Darth Vader stormed out of his shuttle and onto the terrain of Geonosis. There had been whispers of remnants of the Separatists' droid army and the Emperor had sent Vader here to wipe them out.
Once Vader and his Stormtroopers had been seen by the few droids, the droids had immediately opened fire on them, but were soon wiped out by the Stormtroopers.
The natives had come running at Vader, falling at his knees and declaring their gratitude to him for freeing them from the threat of the droids. Vader had growled in annoyance, his mission not being about the good of others, but the good of the Empire. He swatted the natives away, using the Force to push them, and beckoned the Stormtroopers he had left back towards the shuttle.
Except.
The girl. With hair bleached by the sun and pale blue eyes, with a splattering of freckles across her nose, the young girl who came running at Vader with the dark-skinned natives was a strange sight, to say the least. She clung to Vader's leg and wailed when a dark-skinned man tried to pry her off. Vader, however, grabbed the girl's arm before she could be hauled away by the man. He sensed the girl's quivering, yet dark Force signature as she sized him up while his leather-gloved hand still clamped on her arm. "Who is this girl?" Vader boomed.
The dark-skinned man came forward and bowed nervously. "She's a sorceress, my lord. She has magic. Dark magic…"
Vader looked at the man sideways. "Magic…"
The man nodded fervently. "Yes! She kills things, milord. She kills them by grabbing the air until they fall down dead."
So. The girl had already mastered the Force Choke, being extremely young and apparently having no training whatsoever. "How old are you?"
The girl matched Vader's gaze. "Four years old."
"They say you are a sorceress. I say that you are strong with the Force."
A spark came into the girl's icy eyes. "Like you," she stated. "I am like you."
Vader was startled, but none would ever know the expression that came onto his face behind the mask. The natives here knew of Darth Vader, the second-in-command of the Empire, yes, but hardly anyone knew that he was strong in the Force. Yet this girl…somehow already knew. She must be strong indeed to be able to read other's Force signatures at four years of age. "Who are her parents?"
The man ran his tongue over his lips. "Her parents are dead, milord. They have been for as long as anyone can remember. And she is an outcast here." The man tried to say it in a sorry-sounding voice, for the girl's sake.
However, the girl shot a withering glance at the man. "I don't like to be pitied, Javon."
Vader's hold tightened on the girl's arm. "What is your name?"
"Moriah."
"Moriah. Would you like to be freed from the life of an outcast? Would you like to become a powerful Sith, and a ruler of the Empire?"
Moriah's face was serious. "Would I get to kill things?"
There was silence for exactly one of Vader's respiration cycles. Vader was quietly very unnerved at this girl's…darkness. He himself had never wanted to grow up to kill things…but here he was. Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and the Emperor's right-hand man. But this icy-eyed young girl already had far more darkness in her than Anakin Skywalker ever did. Vader had no idea what this dark-minded girl's capabilities were, but he decided to take the gamble. If she didn't work out as an apprentice, Vader could dispose of her very easily. So he sighed, and spoke. "Yes. You would get to kill things. And you will be my apprentice."
The girl smiled and grasped Vader's hand, with apparently no thought of the people she was leaving behind. That suited Vader just fine, and he began walking towards his shuttle with the girl's hand still held tight to his.
Javon, meanwhile, stood gawking. "Vader!" he said, all respect forgotten, "If she is strong in the Force, we want her! She will be of use to us! She will –" Javon's sentence was cut off as Vader used the Force to crack his neck and fling his body up against the nearest tree. He looked down at Moriah, expecting to see tears in her eyes or a shocked expression on her face.
Moriah was shocked, but pleased. "You are powerful." A glint came into her eyes. "And I shall become even more powerful."
Though nervous at the girl's lust for power at such a young age, Vader relished the darkness in her mind. He knew he'd picked the right apprentice.
