Standard disclaimers - I don't own/profit from Star Wars or it's affiliated characters.

The Imperial Palace was always immaculate. Luke thought it was quite incredible how often the maids and cleaning droids went through completely unnoticed, keeping everything absolutely spotless. The design was heavily made up of white stone and gold accents, with red curtains and drapes.

Darth Vader preferred monochrome and darkness, their wing of the palace heavily reflecting this choice with the bland grays and blacks, but the Emperor preferred to show his power and wealth. Darkness was oppressive, light was impressive.

These days, Luke no longer preferred either because no matter how many times he looked, the design remained the same.

Walking slowly towards the dining hall from his rooms, Luke's black robes felt heavy as they weighed his feet to the floor. The sound of his guards trailing after was the metronome to his step.

The door to the dining hall was menacingly tall, made of heavy redwood that was currently reflecting the dimming sun so brightly the wood was gleaming nearly gold. One of his guards opened the door for him briskly, bowing his head slightly as Luke walked through. Despite having tried to get to know his personal guards better, Luke had yet to get them to say much more to him then "No, your Highness" or "Yes, your Highness".

After all, when you father was the Master of Death himself, who would brave formalities and risk losing his own neck?

The door closed behind him with a soft boom, the heaviness of the door reflected in the echo. The guards remained posted outside, supposedly ready for any danger that could possibly find the Imperial Prince, despite Luke being deep inside the palace walls. The last time he had been in any true danger had been nearly two years ago, when he had been kidnapped on the way to school.

But that was two years ago – he was no longer allowed to go to school.

The room itself was as lavishly decorated as the rest of the palace, mostly in reds and browns for this room. The seats were upholstered with red and gold, the tables a rich brown wood. When Luke was young, he could spend hours studying the grain of the wood, and often times he could be found hiding underneath the dining table, simply admiring the luxurious table.

Now, it was a set of chairs and a table in a room. What more was there to see?

Settling himself at his seat, his father was already seated across from him, Luke readying himself for the usual repetition.

"How are you, my son?"

Every night, it was the same question, sometimes matched with a loving caress of a gloved finger against his cheek or a solid hand rested upon his thin shoulders. The words were laid heavily with possession and protection and what his father must have believed to be love.

Luke felt smothered. "I am well, Father."

The droids came out, setting a covered tray before Luke and nothing before his father. It looked to be some fanciful sort of roast, something he once would have been excited to try. Now he merely pushed the food around on his plate.

"How goes your studies, son?" Vader asked, drawing Luke's attention away from his plate.

Hiding a grimace, Luke nodded slowly. "They go well, Father."

In truth, Luke was not sure when his last session was supposed to have been. The tutors that his father had found were dull and treated him with the same respect as the guards.

It made him feel horribly empty inside.

The mood in the room dipped. "Your tutor told me you skipped sessions again."

"If you already knew, why did you ask?" Luke muttered, staring down at his plate. But the room did not spike in anger or fury like he knew many would expect. Instead, it radiated fear and possessiveness, and perhaps just a little disappointment.

"I expected you to be honest with me. What is the matter? Do you not like your tutor, do I need to find someone else?" his father, Luke knew, was eager to keep him happy. But perhaps it was his eagerness that left Luke feeling anxious that he could not find happiness in his father's efforts.

"Please, can't I return to school with my friends? If I take the guards with me -"

"No. It is too dangerous. I will not allow it."

Dangerous. What did Darth Vader know of dangerous, Luke so desperately wanted to ask. Who would dare mess with a Sith Lord directly rather then attack his much more vulnerable son?

Sighing, Luke dropped the subject, returning to the job of pushing his food around the plate.

"Are you not happy with the meal, Luke? The droids can bring something else," Vader offered, not unkindly.

Shaking his head, Luke placed another bite in his mouth. It was not unusual to have dinner with his father, but Darth Vader was often pulled off world and Luke would be left eating alone. For the past several nights, his father had been off planet; this was the first night he had been back on Coruscant in nearly two weeks.

Thoughtful, Luke paused, his fork resting gently against his plate though still held in his hand. Despite the hardships placed upon him by his father's position, the Imperial Palace had been an easy enough place to grow up, where nothing was out of reach for him. Yet, something about his childhood seemed entirely missing.

When he was very little, younger then most had a memory for, he remembered a nighttime desert stretched as far as the eye could see. The cold had bit at him, the sand beneath his feet long cooled, and somehow he knew he had wandered out sometime in the early morning. Above him blazed trillions of stars glittering across the abyss of space, and he remembered wishing for that moment never to end.

But besides that one night under the stars, he did not remember living in or near a desert. In fact, the memory always confused him because Imperial Center had no deserts. Imperial Center had nothing but speeder lights and buildings in the sky, day or night.

Glancing back at his father, Luke noted Vader seemed content to simply sit and watch him eat. When there was nothing more to be said, his father was always content to sit in silence. How empty it made Luke feel inside that he could think of very little to start a conversation with his own father.

"Father, have I ever visited a desert?" his voice felt hallow now. Once, he was certain there had been a certain tune to it, light and airy, perhaps even cheerful. Now, he couldn't be certain it had ever been anything more than a somewhat hoarse whisper.

Darth Vader turned to look at him, curiosity singing across the Force. Even if he couldn't sense it, Luke could tell by his father's posture – the slightly angled body with head crooked at an obtuse angle, as if considering his words.

"No. You have never visited a desert."

Luke bit back a sigh. The Force sang of truth, but of something still undisclosed.

Some nights he still dreamed of that desert sky, the beautiful stars, the startling clarity of air in his lungs, and as the dream continued, the horrid cries of pain and misery. In the dream, he begins to turn around and sees burning houses in the desert, the red flames arching high into the sky, and the silhouette of a dark, caped man with ruby red blade standing before the ruins.

There is a woman in there, calling to him, and a man calling to her. But the dark shadow does nothing to help them, and Luke is helpless but to watch.

"Did I ever live in one?"

"Is there a desert in the Imperial Palace that I am unaware of, my son?"

But Luke had long learned that his father's deflections were not true denial. If one pressed too far in a subject that his father did not wish to discuss, undesirable things happened. Not to him, but to Vader's men.

Luke didn't want any more blood on his hands, whether they fell from his own hand or from his father's, so Luke didn't ask any more about sand, and instead returned to picking slowly at his plate.

"The Emperor is throwing a party to celebrate the newest acquisition of the Empire next week," his father suddenly said, as if to change the subject to something happier.

Unknowingly, he had hit another sore spot for Luke.

"Oh? Will we be attending?"

Darth Vader sighed. "No. The Emperor requested your presence, but I do not think it to be wise. There will be many people from off world coming, and it would be easy for someone to grab you."

There was a time in Luke's life where he would have argued. Certainly, the paranoia could not have reflected well on the Empire, but his father had not budged on this subject for nearly three years now. It was overkill, and Luke knew it, but his father did not or could not see it.

Now, Luke simply sighed again, and returned to his plate.

When he was younger, his father used to take them out in one of his space-worthy ships, and they would fly high above the atmosphere and see those beautiful lights. Luke lived for those moments, lived for the times he had a chance to see the stars. To survive a never sleeping city was always an adventure, but it did not bring him the same joy as the openness of space.

Those trips, however, abruptly ended after an attempted kidnapping where Luke ended up with a blaster bolt to his shoulder and a hospital stay. It was the event that marked the beginning of a series of attempted kidnappings and assassinations to hurt his father.

Now, Luke spent most of days wandering aimlessly through the guarded palace walls or shut in his room, alone.

"Please excuse me, Father, I think I am finished."

Half his plate was untouched, the other half mostly pushed around rather then eaten, but his father merely nodded his assent, and Luke left, his guards joining him on his way back to his rooms.

Now dark outside, Luke wandered out onto his balcony, wishing desperately for the guidance of those stars. To believe that at only fifteen years of age he would feel so hopeless seemed impossible, the mirror only showing him how dead he already looked every time he bothered to look.

Blank eyes, pale face, withdrawn expression.

How could anyone look at him and see a prince? Truly he was nothing more than a lost boy with no where left to run.

On his table he had left his final note, the words etched permanently into the front of his brain. They were words that would follow him forever.

"I'm sorry, Father."

"I'm ready," he said softly, as if under his breath.

It would be selfish, Luke knew, but before the guards could react, he pulled himself up onto the rail of the balcony and swung over, feeling the tear of the wind at his hair and clothes. So loud was the wind that he could not even hear the cries of the guards as they came after him, but he could feel their terror in the Force. Terror that the Prince had jumped, terror that they had not seen it coming.

Terror about what Lord Vader was going to do to them for not saving his son.

Tears floated up off his cheeks instead of falling down, and perhaps it was a metaphor of what was to come.

"LUKE!"

The anguished cry through the Force could do nothing to stop him now.

It would be a hard day for a father who had protected his son from everything to realize he had failed to save him from the most dangerous enemy: himself.

To be continued...