Nobody
by TwinEnigma
Warnings/Codes: SUPER DUPER SPOILERS FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER, post-Battle of Endor, Missing Scene, Implied Dehumanization
He is no one.
He is a thing, a vessel, and it is the only reason he is alive.
Other children might have mothers and fathers, but he does not. He has been created by the Emperor for one purpose: to serve the will of the Emperor and no more.
The specifics of this are beyond his understanding. He knows only that he is a vessel for the will of the Emperor. What that entails is as nebulous as the acolytes and soldiers who serve as his protection from the outside world. His questions are left unanswered and he has learned not to ask.
He is, after all, just a vessel.
And here, in this place, he is meant to be hidden away and protected, until it is time for him to serve his purpose. He doesn't need to know anything more than that.
"Not even he could find him here," he's heard the acolytes say, sneering.
He does not know who he is, but this is someone he is to be kept from, apparently, and this place somehow prevents him from being found.
He doesn't ask. The Emperor has many enemies and only the most truly loyal serve here – this is something that has been drilled into him for as long as he can remember and he understands it to mean that this is the only place he is truly safe.
Never once has he feared.
Even the ghosts are something he does not fear.
It isn't something that happens often, but sometimes, he sees shining, ghostly figures in his room. He doesn't know what they are exactly or why they come to him, but he knows better than to ask questions and, besides, he is safe here. They don't do much anyway except look at him funny and it hardly seems like something to bother the acolytes with, so he doesn't.
They are better company, if he is honest about it. They always feel nice, especially the ones that are about the same age as him, even if they don't stay very long.
The acolytes feel… slimy. There really isn't another word for it. They don't linger long after checking on him – after all, he's just a thing made to serve and it isn't time for that yet – but he always breathes just a little bit easier once they've left again.
One day, a ghost comes.
This one is different and he knows it. He does not know how he knows it, but he feels it in his bones. This ghost is more here than the others ever were. He can almost touch him.
"Who are you?" the human ghost demands. The scar running down his face stands out starkly. It just barely has missed his right eye.
He stares, for a moment, totally surprised. The other ghosts did not speak – or, at least, if they did, he couldn't hear them at all.
"I know you can hear me," the ghost glares at him. "And you can obviously see me."
"I am no one," he explains, as soon as his voice finds him again, "Just a vessel for the will of the Emperor."
The ghost stares at him with a hard, furious expression, his long robes billowing in a breeze that is not there. It is a heavy gaze, one that feels like it pierces straight through him, and then the ghost's face softens a fraction, a deep, weary feeling rolling off of him like a tide.
"He has had so many victims," the ghost says, sighing heavily, "But I did not expect this."
He doesn't understand and it must show on his face because the ghost smiles at him with the same sort of sad smile that he has seen from some of the other, older ghosts. "And maybe I should have," the ghost adds, then. "This is exactly the kind of cruelty he would enjoy."
He very much wants to ask who the ghost is and who he is talking about, but the very idea of asking is daunting and who knows if the ghost will answer him anyway. This is the first time any of them have ever talked to him, after all.
"To end this, it seems there is one more thing I must do," the ghost murmurs, almost to himself. "Tell me, did anyone ever tell you what being a vessel for the Emperor's will means?"
He shakes his head in the negative.
"I thought so," the ghost sighs, running a hand through his hair. "Let me show you."
The whole world ripples suddenly, a great rush of something passing over him, and he is suddenly standing somewhere else, unable to move but aware. The ghost is beside him, still and silent.
The acolytes are there, as is the Admiral, and it takes a moment before he realizes that this is the command center. Though he has never left his room, he knows it is not all that far away, not really.
"The retrieval team is on the way," the Admiral states. "We should have the body on board and on the way soon."
"Excellent," the senior acolyte says, smiling. "All this time, keeping the vessel safe, and we shall finally see a true miracle of the Sith when the Emperor returns."
The Admiral lets out a snort, turning his head away. "Does that brat even know he's going to die?"
"He's a thing," the senior acolyte sneers, "Things don't need to know anything."
Again, the Admiral snorts, this time hiding a laugh.
The world ripples again and they are back in his room and he can move again. He gasps, gulping great breaths of air as he shakes in horror. In between breaths, he can see flashes of a throne, hear a terrible laugh, and he knows, he knows that this is real and the truth. They are coming to take him and if he goes with them, he will die and the Emperor will live and so many will die.
"This is what has been kept from you," the ghost explains, solemnly. "You never really were nobody. You were born in the darkness, to serve as the vessel for it and to die to keep it alive. This has always been what you were made for."
The ghost pauses: "But it is not you. You may have been born in the dark, but you are light. Even I can see it. And, believe me, I know more than a bit about these things."
"I don't understand," he says, through tears. "I'm nobody."
"No," the ghost says, kindly, "You are a person and you didn't deserve any of this."
There is a flood of something that washes through him from the ghost. It is tinged with great sadness and it is a feeling he cannot name, but it is something he has never felt from any of the soldiers or acolytes, and yet it is something he realizes he has been longing for all his life. There is a greater meaning there, too, but it is utterly beyond his capacity to understand more than the most basic sense that the ghost knows him somehow, better than anyone. Overwhelmed, all he can do is cry and he desperately wants to hug the ghost for comfort, but, to his utter dismay, his hands pass through the translucent fabric of the robes when he tries.
"I am sorry," the ghost murmurs and there is a very gentle pressure as his translucent hands brush away his tears. "I am so very sorry. But you cannot stay here much longer."
He sniffles, snot and tears running down his face, and wipes them on the back of his sleeve. He doesn't know how he knows, but he knows that the ghost is right.
"Come on, kid. I'll show you the way," the ghost tells him and with a flick of his wrist, the door opens.
He pauses, staring past the ghost and out the door. The very air beyond the threshold feels bad. It makes his skin crawl. "I'm scared."
"I'm scarier than anything out there, I promise," the ghost says, laughing a little as if at a private joke. "But the Force is with you and I'll make sure you're safe. Now, come on, it's time to go."
He hesitates once more, foot hovering over the threshold; then, he puts it down and it is like a wall has broken and he is running, as fast as he can through the choking, horrible darkness. The ghost is always just ahead of him, a shining beacon through the gloom and terror, causing some doors to slam shut on soldiers and acolytes, while others snap open to clear corridors. He runs, following that light, all the way to a small ship. Once inside, it is like he automatically knows what to do, although he has never seen a ship's controls before and he knows it. Something is guiding him, rejoicing in the fact that he is leaving this place, rejoicing in his freedom, and it's the most wondrous feeling he's ever felt.
The ghost laughs, appearing in the seat next to him as the bleak sky blurs into stars and the streaking light of hyperspace. He looks younger, happier, and he gives him a knowing smile.
"Well, who are you?" the ghost asks.
"I'm nobody," he replies, "Just a person, right?"
It's the first question he's asked in a long, long time and he has a funny feeling that it's also the right answer.
The ghost nods and places a hand on his shoulder – it isn't really there, but he can almost feel it like it is. "And now you have all the time in the galaxy to find out who that person is."
"Oh," he says, looking out at the stars streaking by.
When he looks back, the ghost is gone. There is a strange smell – wood-smoke and soil, something tells him quietly – that lingers after him, but it doesn't seem scary at all. It actually feels kind of comforting, almost peaceful, like a long-overdue rest.
He's not sure that ghost will come back, but that's okay, he thinks: he's unlikely to forget about him anytime soon.
"These are your first steps," a voice whispers to him. It is familiar and not, as if he's hearing it clearly for the first time in all his life. Maybe he is.
"To where?" he asks aloud.
Anywhere is better than where he was. But the voice has already faded away and the ghostly murmurs that come after are indistinct.
"I have time to find out," he decides, and it feels like that's right.
The galaxy is bright and alive with possibility and he is free.
Notes:
Finally think it's safe enough to crosspost over here lmao
After the initial shock of "oh my god, who did the do with you know who part 2" (and subsequently remembering the sheevy deeds of the you know who we're talking about here), I said "wait a minute - Junior here clearly knew enough to know that under no circumstances could dear old Sheevy get his skelegrow hands on baby and straight up Odysseus'd himself so hard that even Kylo got the whammy by extension, so there had to be more going on there."
And good old Sheevy has proven multiple times in virtually every end of the franchise that he's up for any sort of gross Sithly shenanigans, including body snatch no jutsu, cloning, and robots (thankfully, he never got his hands on the time travel temple, good job, Lothal crew, you the best). Just up and creating a kid for use in Sithly rituals is like basically aesthetics(TM) for him (and depending on your stance on midichlorian manipulation, he's implied he's done it before).
And then I'm like "wait, Rey's dad gotta be around the same age as the OT team (or younger, given Sheevy's propensity for backup plans within backup plans, like some matryoshka doll of Sithly Sheevy shenanigans)" and then I'm like "well, Darth Vader had to know or guess that there was some kind of weird Sith backup plan and if he knew, Anakin post-imperial-YEET definitely knew" and there was some downtime between when he died and the funeral pyre, where he was probably learning how to steer his new Force Ghost Projection, so he could conceivably go off on his own to screw up one Sheevy Backup Plan as a final Up Yours to Palps. As one does.
And then I was like "OH NO, if the initial unconfirmed age guess was accurate, Anakin's ghost is busting in the wall like the Kool-Aid Man, expecting Gross Sith Zombies and instead he's probably got a dehumanized probably younger-end teen who needs an adult pronto and he's like OH NO I AM THAT ADULT." (Granted, when I went to actually write it, I had Anakin hint that Palps setting up his kid for body snatch no jutsu was a new low, but one he probably should have expected, just on account of knowing how gross Sheevy can be, and, like, hard relating because Yikes He's Been There/This is Just a Kid, plus having died in Full Dad Mode.)
And then I found I had written a fanfic about a character who doesn't even have a minute of collective screentime, much less a name, and I should be sleeping probably
maybe I'll add to this idk
anyway get wreckt, canon, I'm alive and idegaf