Author's Note: This next set of drabbles is coming from waaay out in left field. I'd like to blame vader-incarnate for all of her recent Dark Empire musings and fix-it fic and making Luke Skywalker a truly manipulative and terrifying Big Bad (see her fics Black Pawn and Black Knight, and gird thyself), and Gabri Jade for the rapid-fire brainstorming session that resulted after I suggested that her idea for a 'verse where Mara grew increasingly paranoid that Luke hadn't quite given up all those Sith teachings would mesh really well with his canon portrayal in the Dark Nest trilogy and the Legacy of the Force series.
Yep, that's right. It's another LotF AU. (This one is, weirdly, closer to canon than my Enter!verse. :P )
Enjoy?
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Week Seven
Fix-It-But-Not-Really Crack!fic LotF AU
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31. Infuse
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It starts as a seed. He can feel it take root in his chest, right where Shimrra's staff pierced him, and he wonders for a while if the poison is enslaving him somehow, unmaking him the way that Jacen was unmade.
He has been unmade before, though he never speaks of those lessons anymore. And yet… what if he had? Would it have made a difference, the lessons he learned on Byss? How many lives could that Luke Skywalker have saved? Could he have saved Chewie?
Could he have saved Anakin?
It's only a seed for now, but it grows.
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32. Immerse
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Jacen knew it was a flawed premise from the start – defeating the darkness from within has a nice ring to it, but he's always known what a slippery slope that would be. Still, what happened with Nelani was his choice; he's tried since to believe it was the only way to hold back this encroaching darkness, to prevent the coming of someone far worse. But the dark figure haunting the periphery of his visions only grows stronger, as does the feeling that everything is about to come crashing down around him – and there's nothing he can do to stop it.
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33. Obstruct
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He convinces them that it's Jacen. He doesn't have much choice; his nephew is clever and capable, and he doesn't fear the dark. He might have made an excellent apprentice, in another life.
It's almost scary, how willing his family is to believe it. Ben resists, because Ben loves Jacen wholeheartedly – but Ben loves his mother more, and as soon as Mara is found dead, Ben falls in line with the rest.
Luke shares these observations with the real Mara, locked in her padded cell, surrounded by as many ysalamiri as he could collect.
Despite everything, he still needs her.
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34. Dissipate
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"Was any of it real?" Mara asks one day. It seems like such a stupid thing to ask, in light of everything – how can it possibly matter anymore when his choices have led them here – but today she can't help herself. She has to know.
(she isn't so weak as to hope that he was ever truly hers, or that she was ever truly his)
He looks at her with those clear blue eyes – they're still blue, what does that mean? – and smiles a melancholy smile. "Of course it was," he says gently.
She believes him, and wishes she didn't.
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35. Obtain
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In the end, Luke Skywalker is the perfect student.
Yes, he may have taken a few detours along the way, but those are to be expected when one plays the long game as he has. And even if he didn't always intend to end up here, it hardly matters anymore. The last obstacles have fallen away, or been cut down, or removed quietly and with loving, surgical precision. The galaxy is his for the taking; all that's left for him to do is claim it.
They will love him for it. In the end, they will kneel, and be glad.
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