Mekothemia and Confessions of a Sith

My mind whirls, refusing to allow me sleep. I've returned to the chair in which I awoke; perhaps that was my mistake. Perhaps this is a chair of waking. After all, for men to know their leader sleeps in a chair? It speaks of a never-sleeping awareness, of an omniscience of sorts that they will imagine long enough for fear to become rooted in them. They will think: If I do this, even while he is locked away in his chambers during the sleep cycle, he will know! It will be the death of me.

I cannot help snorting. What an illusion! What a thing to think, that one such as myself who is obviously human could be elevated to a god's position, simply because he sleeps in a chair.

A moot point. I can't sleep. Besides, such a fearful reverence would have to be reinforced by my behaviour during my waking hours. It seems those hours will never end.

I close my eyes again, running through endless little techniques to calm the mind and body. None of them do any good. Not the ones suggested to me by my teachers, not the ones my peers and I supposed would work, given a little practice. Not even counting Askajian lambs running across a salt flat in a calm desert evening helps me any.

Desert. Why does it keep coming back to me?

I found before I had awoke, my flagship had been headed—where else?—to the system of Tatooine. I silently inquired within the minds of the bridge crew, but they were all oblivious to my intentions there. From what I've gathered, that seems to have been Xiian's wont, to keep purposes within as long as possible. Why? Does my crew like surprises?

I sink farther back into the comfortless chair, opening my eyes to stare at the ceiling, hidden to me by the complete absence of light. I ordered the crew to redirect this ship to Coruscant—"Imperial Center", I said, the name foreign within my mouth—claiming that my attention toward Tatooine had been rendered obsolete now because of the Emperor's sudden death.

What a blatantly wistful lie.

I grit my teeth. Perhaps it would have been truth in other circumstances, but Tatooine will never be out of my thoughts completely, will always a part of me. My fingers trace the edges of the device implanted in my throat. There might still be a grain or two of sand hidden in the tissue there, somewhere.

Tatooine and Coruscant. It is these two worlds which have made me, and will break me. Have they wove me into what I am for a reason and purpose, or am I a collaboration of mere chance, created from a cruel randomness of this galaxy that thrives upon chaos?

Chaos.

I roll the word about in my mind. What a fascinating word, in both sound and meaning. Mêlée. Pandemonium. Order is such a flat, linear word in comparison. Yet balance fits into both opposites, somehow. Can I?

I grimace. My lines of thought do nothing to calm my mind into the rest I require. I wonder if I should simply let them rampage on until they have run out of fuel. Perhaps then I will find this elusive sleep.

My breathing slows and evens out under my command in a parody of sleep, almost perfectly silent now that I've rotated the vox-membrane away.

Patterns. Does the key lie there? Even the galaxy's natural state of disorder uses patterns, no matter how complex.

There is a sound. Barely perceptible, but it is there. Without making any noise of my own, keeping the rhythm of my breath, I slowly depress one of the buttons available to me on the armrest, and rise to a standing position with excruciating care, my danger sense whirling about within my head. The button will now keep the lights from flooding on upon any motion on my part, or the other's. Slowly, slowly I make my way around the chair. My would-be assassin is near the wall, I sense.

I smile grimly, and rotate the membrane, speaking the moment it is within place. "So you really think you could emerge unscathed of weapon or blame, then?"

I can feel his anger and frustration as I hear him stand. No longer does he bother hiding away his Force-signature.

"I would have thought you'd be able to sense when I actually fell asleep," I add.

"You would have known, if I'd have reached out like that," his flat voice retorts, and I hear a muffled click from about waist height in his area.

I finger my own lightsaber, unsure if he will bring his weapon back into his hand. "Are you still going to try it?"

"I'm no fool. I know how you are with your blade."

I cannot help being somewhat amused. "Do you really? What is this illusion I've never had a part in, Anakin?"

"The man you refer to is no longer a part of me." His voice turns low, grating.

I shake my head, a useless gesture in the complete dark. "Then are you a part of a new illusion? Or am I creating one for myself?"

His anger grows. "No one calls me by any name other than Vader."

"Then this new reality also contains a new name." I turn, and run my hands along the chair, feeling for the button that will bring light to this room. I close my eyes as they come on, and with the room awash in white I will finally see the man I knew as a boy, lately as a question mark, and now as a killer.

Our eyes don't take long to adjust. Once he knows I see him, he meets my gaze levelly. "There's more of your old self leaking back into you every second. I still see the traces of Xiian in you."

"With any luck, then, you won't have to explain my own past to me." The trouble is, I can indeed feel a foreigner's presence within my mind. It's not anything like Good Friend, simply a different me. I have changed, and just now changed back. But not completely.

I draw my mouth into a straight line. "What do you think I could do to regain these lost memories, if they refuse to come on their own volition?"

"Consult the databanks," he says harshly. "I'm not a storyteller."

I shake my head as I wander to the opposite side of the chair. "The media inevitably distorts. Historians make errors."

"Why should I be any better?"

"Because you knew me," I press.

He averts his eyes, quite adamant in withholding his secrets. "I have nothing to gain from it."

"Then tell me at least what we were doing, heading to Tatooine."

He meets my eyes again. "No one knew for certain. You were quite the one for keeping your purposes to yourself, you know. But, from what snippets of rumours I heard, it was something about intercepting a Rebel operation."

I lift an eyebrow. "Rebel?"

"There will always be a group centred around dissension in every government, no matter the type. You know that."

"Of course. But are these rebels organised reasonably?"

The stare he gives me might well be classified as a shrug. "It matters not. Their group is small and scattered. Weak. And once it grows to a noticeable size, its factions will be all the more easily discovered and uprooted by Imperial forces. To be frank, they don't stand a chance."

"Have any important dignitaries gone over?" I ask quietly.

"There have been a few senators. Mon Mothma of Chandrila narrowly escaped execution on the grounds of treason, and there is reason to suspect Bail Organa of Alderaan. But who is to tell?" he mocks. "You? I think not. In truth, you're now a younger man than I."

"Without Xiian," I remind him.

He shakes his head once, and his eyes harden. "Such a small difference. By rights, I should be your master."

I chortle. "What do you think you could teach me? I don't doubt there are some things, but oh, Anakin, you rational dunce. You forget to look farther than knowledge itself!"

"Farther?" His eyes kindle in the consuming flames of blue rage once again, caught up in his Vader-self. "There is no farther! Strange as it seems, there are limits to infinity—"

"But only in us," I tell him. "Those limits are our own creations. We ourselves are finite beings, trapped in a galaxy that is moved forward in a straight line by one dimension it possesses. And yet time moves in a circle, no matter how vast. Can't you feel that, Anakin? While we may not know, we may yet feel."

He pauses, the rage draining, his eyes clearing as he stares at me with a curiously sombre expression. "You aren't what I thought you were. You're not Obi-Wan, you're not Xiian. You're something else entirely, made by both. Aren't you?"

I stare back at him, for a long time. He teaches me while I teach him. So if what he says is true—and I feel it must be—what and who exactly am I?

I can tackle that at a later time. "Tell me more about this rebellion."

Anakin—yes, it's indeed Anakin, I think—clears his throat. But Vader speaks. "They call themselves the Rebel Alliance. It's mainly an organisation of some separate resistance cells on various planets, and their go-betweens: seceded politicians and the like. They've formed a semblance of an army; some of their soldiers come directly out of the Imperial academy, it's said. On occasion they'll hire mercenary bands, but their funds don't run high enough to allow for this very frequently." He shakes his head. "The Rebellion does cause a certain amount of damage, and it would be a relief of sorts to annihilate them completely."

"And what," I ask, "is their professed reason to rebel?"

"Tyranny." The word that comes from his mouth is a flat thing, spat out.

"Of course." I sit in the chair and mutter again, "Of course. The Imperials wonder why these Rebels enjoy squirming in the iron grip of the Emperor." I smile, the movement feeling humourless. "They don't understand that mainly, rebellions are on the outside, hammering on the fist itself and trying to make it let go of what they think belongs to someone else, especially if a part of the rebellion is still within the fist. Only a part of it, though, is ever inside." Under my command, the chair turns around and I face him again, raising my eyebrows. "You see? The difficulty of the situation is that the Empire cannot seem to bring them all back inside without letting go of everything else, even if just for a moment. What sort of choices does it have? There must be a compromise, one way or another. If this faction is exterminated, another will occur. Haven't you ever heard the story of the fenix, Anakin? The creature that arises from its own ashes."

"I'm aware of that old legend," he says, clearly irritated. "Whether it may be an appropriate analogy under some circumstances or not is irrelevant. The point is, you're going to have to do something about this Rebel Alliance before the populace begins to wonder. It may already be too late."

"Possibly," I agree. "Which brings me to the question of the Emperor. What, exactly, do you think happened? Just give me facts and your conclusions on them."

He pauses for a long moment, as if to collect his thoughts and memories into a presentable bundle. "Very well."

The light is all he knows. Blinding light, penetrating through his skin. It feels to him like harsh radiation, a light of darkness if there could be such a thing. He would cry out in pain, except for the unavoidable fact that he cannot. And this time, the fact has nothing to do with the presence or absence of vocal chords. This time, all semblance of control has fled from his body. He is a spectator within himself as something else intrudes on the last day of his twelve-year-long sleep.

He can't remember entering the hibernation chamber. The part of his mind able to recall memory is silent; something else that is part of him is awake, but only that part, and all it can do is observe. Perhaps it is a blessing that this part cannot take notes and make him remember. Or perhaps it is a curse.

Despite the fact he is, for all purposes, completely unconscious, Good Friend cannot rise up and seize his hibernating body, to claim it for his own. He's also trapped like an animal within someone else's persona, a foothold he made himself but now begins to curse it, raging against the mental chains that hold him back.

The intruder finally notices, recognises Good Friend in a moment of startlement, then offers him a suggestion: I'll bring him out of hibernation, and you can take him and become my apprentice once again.

Good Friend still rages. What is this intruder to give him such a bold offer? He can remember what he once was, at the beginning of a war that had burned on far past his own death at the hands of this boy he occupies. He could have defeated his Sith master if Kenobi hadn't shot him down. No—Good Friend has already discovered the sweetness of one revenge, as ensnaring as it might be. Now he wishes to savour another in his addiction.

The intruder tries to pull away as he sees the dangerous madness that has taken hold of his former apprentice, but Good Friend has a tenacious grip. Now all three are held inside this sleeping Padawan: unconscious Obi-Wan, the parasite being once known as Darth Maul, and Darth Sidious, his quest gone astray.

Sidious attempts to pull out. He can remember flaws in Maul's mental attacks, and searches for them in a precise and methodical manner, probing every iota that makes up the fist that holds him in.

He finds one. One flaw is all he needs, and they both know it.

Maul's demented, raving voice echoes inside them in an inane babble. You can't pull me out, I'm too valuable, you'll kill him and ruin your plans, you don't know what a mistake you're making, I can…

Then it's done. Would it have been performed in the physical realm, one might have heard a loud ripping noise, but Sidious manages it with all the true silence of a master.

There is a large, raw wound where Good Friend had taken root, enough evidence that Maul has disappeared forever, cursed to wander in absolute nothingness.

But Sidious finds there is one small problem that has arisen. He sticks to that wound. He tries to withdraw, tries desperately, but without success. One tiny thread of his existence has adhered to the bloody surface, and he can do nothing with it.

Then comes another problem. Nothing so violent within a person's mind, especially not a Force-sensitive, will go about unnoticed even while the body is under the influence of tranquillising drugs. Obi-Wan's mind awakes in a confused and agonised swirl.

Sidious recognises the new danger and pulls with all the considerable strength he has. Perhaps it is Fate that holds the thread to the wound.

The pull aggravates the spot. Obi-Wan, in a certain state of delirium, goes to investigate, finds this thread that causes him the terrifying pain. He seizes it, and begins to pull back.

Sidious has no means to brace himself. He can only pull, but it's not quite enough. The boy's grip grows stronger with each passing second as he inexorably reels more of the thread in, becoming relentless in his accelerating work.

It doesn't take long. The thread eventually reaches its end, and Sidious is jerked into the very grip he can no longer avoid.

I stare at Anakin in horror. "You mean to say I controlled him?"

He shakes his head. "It's my only conclusion that fits. When you came out of hibernation as Xiian, he was your puppet, and when you finally awoke from being Xiian, you lost the control because you no longer knew of it, and he died."

The explanation makes sense. I wish it weren't so, but it does. It explains the absence of Good Friend, and…

I sit up and look at him sharply, remembering suddenly. "How did you know about Good Friend?"

"I took the liberty of probing lightly in the early twelfth year of your hibernation, a few months before Palpatine meddled with what he shouldn't have," he explains. "I found something that was awake in you, something that wasn't you, that shouldn't have been there." His eyes grow hard. "The same thing nearly happened to me, except I didn't try to extract him. Perhaps that was why I was able to escape intact, and Palpatine couldn't. But that makes little difference now. The point is, Maul is gone, Palpatine is dead, and you're going to have to figure out how to keep the Empire from falling apart."

I rub at one of my wrists thoughtfully. "You tried to assassinate me. Do you think you could do a better job of being Emperor than I?"

"You lack a basic knowledge of this Empire," he points out. "Regardless, I don't believe I want to kill you any longer."

"Why not?" I ask flatly. "Surely it would be easy enough to frame a scapegoat. Surely the gain would far outweigh the risks."

"What sort of power would I gain from sitting upon a throne?" he counters. "It simply is not what I want for myself." He slowly begins to walk across the room, my eyes following him every step of the way. "I've discovered power to be a slippery concept. You made me Sith in all but official name after you took over Palpatine, and yet I found titles to be a tiresome collection of words. You're familiar with the idea of meaningless syllables, I know. We both can realise nothing is to be gained from these additional names except a handful of extra privileges." He turns to begin walking back. "But privileges can be gained without names, without fearful recognition." His smile is cold. "That is the concept of what it is to be Sith, am I not correct? I may have wished to be Emperor once. Now I would much rather remain a faceless shadow. Fame, or infamy, is not something I find I need. Others feed upon their reputation and think it makes them strong. I wish to pass nameless."

"Then you would instil nameless dread in the Empire's collective mind," I tell him. "That is a sort of infamy in itself, although the populace would not know who they fear. So you wish to disappear?"

He nods grimly. "That is the ultimate freedom. With reputation comes restriction, with public stature, tiresome responsibilities. If I will truly belong to myself, then none other shall know me."

His idea is a curious one, intriguing, though possessing a certain senselessness in my eyes. "So what will you do with yourself in this freedom?"

"Everything and nothing." He smiles again, more fearfully this time. "You've taught me many things, things I might not have learned in other circumstances. I've discovered many meanings of things, and many things that have a lack of meaning. I think that is possibly what's driving me away from the restrictions of society. I will find myself, and I may return in the years to come."

"You've arrived at an interesting decision." I stare at him for a moment more. "Then perhaps you should be gone from here, though I might come to miss these fascinating ideas you've expanded upon."

His smile almost turns merry for the barest second. "I doubt you'll need assistance with your governing. Force knows you've probably learned enough from playing marionette for the past twenty years." And with that, he turns about and leaves the room, leaves me to my own company.

The door holds my gaze long after he's passed through it, long after it's shut. I don't focus upon the door; I focus on the world behind it, the world of my inheritance by some freakish design.

Very well, I think. If this is my inheritance, then I shall claim it. Perhaps it's not too late to mend what has gone awry. The Imperial throne would likely be one of the best places to oversee a mending of this galaxy. I get out of the chair to head back to the database computer. First to learn as much as possible about the last thirty-seven years. Then to arrive at Coruscant and take on the leadership of this Empire. And then…

I walk through the door into this world that will soon have me at its head.

...This Rebel Alliance deserves some personal investigation.