Vader's Mask
Athara stood looking at the melted, burnt husk that used to be a mask she recognized better than just about any face.
She'd retrieved Vader's destroyed mask from the Sanctuary Moon when she and Luke had decided to start their Jedi Academy. It felt like the right thing to do, to have it as a symbol and a reminder of the temptation and the cost of the Dark Side.
And it was the only thing she had left of her Master.
True, she did periodically see Anakin's Force ghost, but those visits were becoming fewer and farther between as the years passed. And she understood why. There was a desire for peace there, for rest. Especially in the years since Padmé had joined him.
A flicker through the Force drew Athara's attention from her contemplation of the mask. Realizing almost instantly who it was, she fought back an indulgent grin.
"You should be in bed, Ben," she said quietly without turning, knowing he would hear her, "what are you doing up so late?" With a faint, reluctant scuffle, Athara's nephew shuffled out from the nook where he'd been hiding.
"How do you always do that," he muttered petulantly, though the hint of awe all her students had when Athara's senses proved their sharpness was still in his voice.
She responded the same way she always did: "Practice." This time she couldn't hide her grin, laying an arm over his thin shoulders as he came to stand beside her, looking up at Vader's mask. He was getting taller too, Athara noted absently.
"What are you doing here," he asked her quietly, wincing at the way his voice cracked as he spoke. Even as she bit the inside of her cheek to keep her secret amusement at his erratic voice changes to herself, she didn't miss that he still hadn't answered her question. She thought for a moment, peering surreptitiously at the dark-haired boy. His gaze was firmly fixed on the charred mask.
"Thinking," she finally said, deciding that answering herself might prompt him to answer too, "remembering." They stood there together for a few moments, each contemplating the mask, as he thought over her answer.
"I was thinking too," he finally said, proving Athara's theory, "and wondering about him." He gestured toward the mask. Athara made a noncommittal sound, encouraging him to continue. After a few more moments of silence he turned to her, his eyes bright and eager as he looked to her.
"He was your Master, wasn't he? The way Uncle Luke is mine?" She took her time thinking over how best to answer him, studying the eagerness in his face, the curiosity. She supposed wanting to know more about his grandfather was natural—he had always begged Padmé for stories about Anakin, and after the explosive revelation that Anakin and Vader had been one and the same that he'd been caught up in? But a tremulous sensation in the Force warned her to be careful. She nearly frowned at the feeling.
"He was," she finally answered simply, necessitating him to ask after what it was that he wanted to know.
"What was he like?" What indeed. It was something Athara hadn't quite been able to puzzle out. Even years later, she couldn't quite explain Vader and her relationship to him, or her feelings for him to anyone but Luke—and arguably she hadn't even explicitly 'told' him, per se, more like shown him through feelings, behaviors and memories that he was able to read into by sheer virtue of knowing her so well. She took a deep breath, trying to formulate just what to say. It was a tricky situation; Ben was still hurting from the fact that he'd found out Darth Vader and his grandfather had been one and the same from the Galactic media and not his family. Athara hadn't agreed with keeping it a secret from the children, but it had ultimately been decided that it would be healthier for the children to be old enough to understand what had happened to their grandfather, to protect them from the horrifying truth. Only now Athara was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake. Eventually she sighed, deciding to be as truthful as possible.
"I knew him as Darth Vader my whole life. He was the closest thing to a Father I had. He was powerful, protective, and a hard Master, but everything he did, everything he taught me, he did to protect me. I didn't realize most of it at the time, though. I just saw someone who was infallible, strong, even assured, for all his volatility. I could recognize that he was cruel, but we lived in a cruel Galaxy so I never questioned it. I saw him do horrible things, and he ordered me to do horrible things, yet I never saw him as evil, not the way the rest of the Galaxy did," she finally said honestly. Ben's eyes had slid away from her as she spoke, absorbing her words as he looked wonderingly up at the mask. She sighed, slowly beginning to lose herself in her memories the longer she spoke.
"What I didn't know was how broken he truly was; how consumed by grief and guilt he was. His very existence became a punishment he believed he was meant to bear for the things he had done. When I was younger, I think he even genuinely believed in every horrible, evil thing that he'd done, that it was his destiny to have committed such atrocities. That he was on a predestined path that required blood to bring order and stability to the Galaxy. But now, knowing what I do, having learned more of his past and having seen what lay beneath his shield of anger and power, I think before the end he had come to believe that his pain and guilt, his tormented conscience and physical agony, was his penance for his deeds.
"I caught my first glimpse of that when he sent me away," she said. Ben tensed under her arm, drawing her attention back to him as he stared up at her again, his dark eyes wide and bright. Ah, she thought as she recognized the hurt that had surfaced there, that's what this was really about.
"He sent you away too?" He sounded so young and vulnerable, his voice shattering back to its childish tenor. Athara felt her heart constrict; he was so lost, she realized. She inhaled deeply, pushing away the sorrow his expression sparked in her. She nodded slowly.
"When Alderaan was destroyed, I lost control of my power in my pain," she explained softly, "it was enough that the Emperor sensed I was powerful and because of that he wanted to kill me; an act that would simultaneously end the threat I posed to him and punish Vader for deceiving him. So Vader ordered me off his ship, to run, to go into hiding.
"He did it to protect me," she finished emphatically, pulling away from Ben in order to turn the boy to face her, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders as she looked him square in the eye, "just as your parents sent you here to protect you." His young jaw clenched, the hurt in his eyes intensifying.
"Protect me from what?" his voice was pleading and demanding all at once, his hurt and anger beginning to swirl inside him.
"To protect you from you," she said firmly. "Ben, take a deep breath, and calm your mind." His lower lip threatened to shift into a pout, his eyes ducking from hers as they grew bright and damp. But he did as he was told, his eyes squeezing shut as he breathed deeper, trying to calm himself as Athara and Luke had been teaching him. How oddly fitting, she thought, studying his almost delicate features, that of her grandchildren, the one who bore the most visible traces of Padmé on his features was the one who had been hit the hardest by her death. Once his breathing had steadied and she felt the traces of Darkness in him ebb away, Athara lifted a hand from his shoulder, raising it so her finger cupped his chin to make sure he was looking at her.
"We all know how much losing your grandmother hurt you," she said softly, "we understand, and it's okay to miss her. It was sudden and unexpected, and you were very close to her. You need to remember that she's at peace now, that she's been reunited with your grandfather. But I also know that won't stop it from hurting.
"And I also know that you feel betrayed that she of all people didn't tell you the truth about your grandfather. None of us—your parents, your uncle and I, and especially your grandmother—didn't want to burden you with the truth at such a young age. I know that doesn't seem like a very good reason now, that it's of little consolation. But there was never any intention to deceive you. We just weren't sure you were ready to know. Neither were we eager to risk diminishing your memories of your grandparents, few as they were.
"But Ben, your mother could feel the Dark Side calling to you, and she grew worried that you were answering it." A flash of guilt surfaced in his eyes and he tried to look away from her knowing gaze, but Athara wouldn't let him.
"Your mother, your father, your Uncle Luke and I all know the cost the Dark Side exacts on its servants. And none of us wants that for you. So your parents sent you here, to Luke and me, so that you could learn to control your feelings, to keep them from controlling you."
"They didn't have to send me away," he said bitterly, his voice wavering, "I can control it." Athara felt a sympathetic expression growing on her face.
"Not yet," she rebuked him gently, "but you will. You have to," she finished seriously, "or you risk the Dark Side taking a hold of you, and it never lets go." He was quiet for a long time, resuming his contemplation of the mask.
"What does it feel like? The Dark Side, that is?" She frowned down at him. There was a glimmer in his eyes that worried her. But she couldn't lie. She knew she couldn't lie to him. It was something that he was going to need to know.
"I wish I could say it's awful, painful or wrong—and it is in some ways—but…it's wonderful; heady and intoxicating when you let it in unchecked. It feels…good. You feel strong." She knew she shouldn't sound so wistful, but part of her knew that he needed to understand how strongly the Dark Side could call and the only way he'd know that was if she was honest with him. Otherwise he'd end up being helpless to its draw. "But it changes you, Ben. It turned your grandfather into a monster." Ben looked defiantly up at her again.
"But you said—" Athara nodded, understanding his confusion.
"I know. You have to remember that your grandfather was a complicated man who lived a tragic life. He loved your grandmother with everything he was, and when he learned of your mother and uncle's existence he loved them just as much without even meeting them. But the Dark Side corrupted that. He tried to kill your Grandma, Ben, when she was pregnant with your mother because of the Dark Side's hold on him. It was one of many awful, evil things that Vader did, things that we wanted to protect you from until you were old enough to understand." As Athara spoke Ben's face grew pale. No one had told him what Vader had nearly done to Padmé, though Athara, Luke, Leia and Han all knew; they'd only told the children that Vader had betrayed his wife and put his children in danger, necessitating hiding the Skywalker twins from their own father; the truth, but not all of it.
"He never would have hurt her—he wouldn't even have conceived of it—had the Dark Side not twisted him into something he was not. That is what your parents fear will happen to you if you don't learn to control your emotions." His jaw clenched again as she spoke, the hurt resurfacing.
"My father fears me," he said quietly. Athara didn't know quite what to say. She knew he was right, after a fashion. Han feared that there was too much of Anakin—of Vader—in the boy. He feared losing his son to the Dark Side, remembering vividly everything that Vader had done to him, Leia and Luke. He feared what his own son was capable of, knowing what his father-in-law could do. Ben was sensitive and perceptive; he could sense it, but he was too young and naïve to understand the history behind those feelings in Han. Athara fought back her sorrow at the thought that Han was, at times, woefully ill-suited to being the father of a Force-sensitive child. Especially given that she also knew just how fiercely Han loved his son.
"He fears for you," she finally said. "He loves you, Ben. He worries about you. He only wants for you to be safe." His shoulders tensed again and Athara could tell he wanted to believe her, but that he couldn't. A small stab of pain went through her at how obstinately he refused to believe anything but what he had concluded to be the truth…as did an inadvertent trace of amusement; Ben was very much like Han in that respect, that was for sure. Both his parents, really; Leia was just as stubborn about her convictions as her husband, after all, if not more so. But Ben didn't say anything more, his eyes fixed firmly on the remnants of the mask. She just stood with him, giving him space to try and sort through the well of conflicting feelings she could feel in him. After a few moments he inched closer, and sensing he was craving the contact, she again drew him under her arm, letting him lean against her. The conflicting emotions had begun to quiet, though she suspected that had more to do with the exhaustion written all over his face and posture than anything else. She patted his shoulder gently.
"It's time to go to bed, Ben," she urged quietly, her tone brooking no argument. He was tired enough that he didn't balk at the pointed suggestion, though he was reluctant as he pulled away. Athara smiled reassuringly at him, earning a small appreciative smile in response before he turned away from the mask's plinth toward the library's entrance.
"Goodnight, Ben," she said softly, her hand brushing over his dark curls. His footsteps heavy with deep thought and exhaustion, he walked slowly out of the library, pausing only once at the door to look back. At first she thought it was to see if she was still watching him, but she realized that he was looking back the Vader's mask one last time, his dark eyes unsettlingly thoughtful. Athara couldn't help but frown in worry as he turned and disappeared out the door, heading for bed.
Once he was out of sight, Athara turned back to Vader's mask, her own thoughts decidedly more troubled than they had been before.
A/N: I know many of you have been waiting for something like this, so I hope you all enjoyed!
Be sure to review! It's the only sort of compensation I get for sharing these effusions of imagination with all you lovely readers! And I am unashamedly addicted to them ;)
Until next time!
