Tusk-Cat's In The Cradle
For a moment, caught up in the aftereffects of his vision, Vader wondered what it would be like to face his Master in battle, to take his small, frail body in his hands, lift it from the ground, and . . .
He cut off the thoughts, but his Master had sensed them, for his face split in a dark smile.
"I see you, apprentice."
"And I see you, Master. You think I long for the past when I see it in visions, but you're wrong. I don't long for it. I think of it and the man I was then and regard it all with contempt. And the only thing that makes it tolerable to ponder is that it ends with me here, in this armor, with you. I feel no longing. I feel no regret. My memories feed my anger and my anger feeds my strength and so am I able to serve you, and the Force, better. Your doubt . . ."
"Continue," said his Master.
Vader did, heedless of what might come next. "Your doubt is unwarranted and . . . angers me."
Several moments passed, each Sith Lord staring across the flames at the other. Finally Vader stepped around the fire and fell to one knee before his Master. He felt his Master's eyes on him, the eyes that saw deeply into everything. He imagined his Master considering options.
"The guards are returning," his Master said. "And they are not alone. Rise, Lord Vader."
He sees his Master's sallow and ruined face contort into a surprised expression when the Royal Guards come back with a young man and a little girl. The young man is a spitting image of his Master's long-gone youth. A ring of pastel butterflies encircle the waist of the young man's sweater dress, while shiny, black boots take up the lower half of his smooth legs. A silver scarf holds back his long, white hair and reveals the ghosts of scars haunting the young man's temples. His emerald eyes shine darkly like the dark liquid in its glass chute.
The little girl wears a rose-red dress that billows past her knobby knees, while her poufy dress sleeves barely cover her thin shoulders. Her twiggy legs wear white stockings, while red rain boots consume her tiny feet like sparkling slippers. Horns, gnarled like the false walking stick his Master uses in public, grace her fragile head like a dark crown. Light brown freckles dance across her nose and pale cheeks. She wears a cheeky grin that would give any tooka's a run for its credits.
"There's no rain here!" Her green eyes then look at the fire, consumed by the light like tea-green moths.
"For now, Armitage."
The little girl stares at the fire for a moment longer before acknowledging the Sith Lords.
"Who are they?" She waves her little hands at them.
"That," He tips his wine glass towards his Master, "is the Emperor."
"God Emperor Leto the Second!?" She smiles so widely that Vader fears the child will split her own face. The Royal Guard with blond hair and cheek tattoos splutters inwardly but keeps his face blank.
"No, my little Jedi Prince." He coos like a cuckoo. "He's just the Emperor."
"Oh." He has never heard so much disappointment conveyed in one syllable.
"The other one got eaten by a dragon."
"Really!" The boy practically hops with excitement.
"Then, the dragon laid a metal egg. Do you know what happened next?"
"The egg hatched?"
"Yes, and the Dark Lord emerged."
"You mean the Lord of Darkness?" He knits his ginger brows together.
"Unfortunately not, son of mine, the Emperor couldn't afford the make-up." The young man takes a delicate sip of his wine.
"Oh." There's no disappointment but resignation of a very mundane answer.
"Would you like to play with him?"
"Can I?" His voice warbles with childish excitement.
"Why don't you ask him?" The young man's thin lips curl into a mischievous smirk just like his Master would when he's in a theatrical mood. The boy nods and bounds towards Vader, more machine than man, without any hesitation. Then, he stops and curtsies like a Princess of Theed.
"Hello, Dark Lord, I am the Dragon Princess of Kesh." The boy adopts a formal tone that hides his very non-Coruscanti accent.
"Kesh?"
"It is a world that birthed the Great Dragon, and he graciously bestowed a fraction of his power upon me, so I can be a magical princess." He brings his hands together and then spreads them apart to form an arch like a rainbow.
"Why not a prince?"
"Because princes are only good for breeding in magical girl shows. Endymion only throws roses and says pretty words. The Moon Princess and Sailor Scouts do all the hard work!" The boy huffs like a stuck-up pittin, and Vader can feel his heart skip a beat.
"Would you play with me, Dark Lord?" He looks to his Master for an answer. The Force burns like the fires of Mustafar, but his face is politically blasé.
"I would be honored, princess."
And that was the smartest decision anyone will make for the rest of the day.
Darth Sidious knows his son is tucked away on the Dromund Kaas, shivering under his voluminous robes like a baby gualama alone on the Gallo Mountains. His son craves his love like a moth entranced by the flame. Every year on his son's life day, he lets his son hold his hand and whisk them both away to an opera of the long, distant past. The music and dancing sate his son more than love could. Or at least, that's what Sidious believed.
"My name is Rama." His future son's voice lacks the reverent fear that his present-self has.
"Pleasing? Beautiful?"
He sees into the mirror and sees his own cruel smile.
"Heavenly."
Sidious mentally orders his guardsmen to patrol the area. They depart without question and gladly.
"You know," Rama pauses for a sip on his sour-smelling wine, "this isn't how it's supposed to go."
"How old are you?" Sidious remembers himself looking virtually the same between his teens and twenties. He hopes his son is in his late twenties.
"The clone captain and Sergeant Erstin Deez were supposed to come through that thicket." He tilts the glass in the direction where Armitage and Vader went off in.
"A gaggle of lyleks followed them. You and Vader do the killing, but you get really into it. Lightning, back-flips, and lightsabers. The lyleks were still able to herd all four of you into the Lylek Queen's egg chamber. The clone captain dies, but you are victorious. An innocent Twi'lek girl takes all of you to her village. You call yourself Krataa and Vader gets to be Irluuk because you're so fucking clever!"
Rama takes another sip of his wine.
"The village gets massacred. Nothing but ghosts. Oh, and the lesbian widower Moff redeems herself, and you all live happily ever after." Rama sneers and tosses the rest of his wine into the fire making the flames leap.
"I am twenty-one." He flashes his wine-stained teeth. "I bore Armitage at eighteen because no one told me I had a mutation that allowed me to carry a child, but only once. You knew though." Accusations are laced with hysterics, but his future son tells the truth with chilling calmness.
"I never thought you would do such things." It's a murmur that should've been a thought, but his voice betrays him.
"Thought? Wanted is the more appropriate word, father. And believe me, I never wanted to either." The darkness yaws between them, and Sidious knows his next words will determine who gets control.
"What do you mean?"
Rama tosses the glass into the fire and then whispers the near-future into his ear.
Armitage blows visible puffs of white into the angry face of a lylek. The jaws would've snapped the little redhead's head off if not for the fact that it's part of a frozen corpse. It's only one of dozens upon dozens of lyleks forever trapped in the last seconds of their beastly lives. But the lyleks are not the only casualties, the trees have been remade into ice fixtures that remind him of the chandeliers in the Royal Palace. Vader wonders what kind of Sith sorcery that his Master's son employed to accomplish such a feat.
"My father can make ice like Iceman!" The boy in a princess dress declares proudly.
Cyrokinesis allows the user to freeze their victim to death by draining their life force, but the user doesn't get the life force, rather it goes back into the Force. The lyleks look how the victims are depicted in the pictures from Master's books. But none of the pictures show this many victims, especially of this size, being frozen at once. If my Master's son can accomplish this feat, then what can the grandson do? Vader wonders if Armitage is even Force-sensitive; he can't sense the Force in the child. He'll ask his Master if they can get Armitage's midi-chlorians counted.
"When I get my magic wand, I'll do magic just like father!" The child waves a fist into the air.
"Why would you need a wand? I thought the Great Dragon imbued you with a fraction of its power."
"He did, but that doesn't mean I know how to use it. I need a wand, so I can direct it and blasts these dastardly foes!" The boy then roars like a kitten believing himself to be a lion. "Then, maybe I can breathe real fire like the Great Dragon, Dark Lord!"
"It's Darth Vader, princess."
"Lord Vader, I wish to extend you an invitation to have tea with me in the future." Armitage sounds all prim and proper like the stuffy elite that infest the galaxy.
"I must inform you that I cannot drink or eat." Not necessarily true, but I would rather not scar the child for life in describing how the suit sustains me.
He furrows his ginger brows together and then claps his hands.
"I'll arrange for something else, but my invitation still stands, My Lord." He bats his blue-green eyes and wears such a genial smile just like the Chancellor's.
"I–"
A scream rattles the trees and rives the lyleks. Cracks form in the ice and then grow into hairline fractures, until, inevitably, the ice shatters into thousands of misshapen shards. He throws himself on Armitage, acting as a literal shield for the boy princess. It's only a minute later when the boy is tapping at his knees that Vader unfurls and lets him go, rather reluctantly.
"Father?" The child says, and a creamy blur emerges from the forest. Vader sees the young man wearing a placid smile like he didn't rend his own soul for half of Ryloth to hear.
"My Jedi Prince, we must be going." He kneels down and scoops up his son. He turns his back to Vader, allowing one last glimpse of Armitage.
"Bye-bye!" Armitage giggles. The young man begins to walk deeper into the forest, most likely returning to wherever they came from.
"Stop!" Vader commands, and the young man halts mid-step. He cranes his head back less than amused.
"You should go to him, Lord Vader. I left him shaking, and he doesn't have his cane with him." He advises and then speeds away into a creamy and rosy blur before Vader can say anything more.
Vader wants to chase after them, but his Master needs him.
Space waffles are the best breakfast in the universe in Armitage's humble opinion. The tiny tower of golden discs are coated in sticky, brown syrup and then topped with a healthy helping of homemade whipped cream.
"Careful, you're about to vibrate out of your seat, dragonling." The Commandant warns jokingly while reading a holo-comic.
"Only if I'm a speedster!" Those will be last words for the next couple of minutes as his father just places his plate before. Armitage devours the sugary fluff of the waffles like dragons of old would do with their royal captives, but he's a princess, so he makes sure to eat with a knife and fork.
After finishing his breakfast, he hears the front door chime like a million screeching bats. Maratelle stretches her arms over her head and slinks out of the room like a cat. A few minutes later, Maratelle comes back but not alone.
"VADER!" Armitage screams in utter delight and hears his chair clatter to the ground as he rushes up to the Dark Lord. Maratelle claps her hands like she has an announcement.
"Brendol, I'm leaving you." And then she leaves. The blonde man with cheek tattoos has a hurt look like he thinks he's responsible.
"Don't feel so bad, Mister–" Armitage looks at his father for help.
"Sergeant Erstin Deez. The other one is Captain Fox." His father supplies.
"–Sergeant Deez, the Commandant and Maratelle only married each other for convenience. So of course they're going to get divorced!" He looks back at his father. "Now, you and the Commandant can get married!"
"Do not compound your mistake, my son." The old man with a face like a withered mushroom commands with more authority than Empress Leeya in her public broadcasts.
"Wait, did he just call my father 'son?'" Armitage examines the old man more closely. The shape of his face, his long nose, his ghostly paleness, and even his slightly crooked teeth are identical to his father. He then looks to his father and notices the rage, cold and hard like ice, in his father's eyes. He looks back at the old man, his grandfather, and sees the same rage reflected in those yellow eyes.
"If you're an emperor that makes father a king, which means I'm a real princess!" Armitage grins toothily causing his father to soften his expression. Then, he hears girlish laughter and sees Maratelle returning to the kitchen with a flimsi in her manicured hands.
"Would you kindly move to the side?" She waves at Deez and Fox, and they both politely move to let her through. She lays the flimsi on the table before the Commandant.
"Here's your copy of the divorce papers." She takes her seat back at the table and sips at her caf delicately like the lady she pretends to be around the society people.
"Huh, that was fast." The Commandant comments.
"Well, it's been a slow morning for the divorce clerks." She picks up her datapad and starts reading it again.
"Father, do we have any breakfast left?"
"A little bit, but I can make more." His father sighs, knowing exactly where he's going. Armitage smiles up at Vader.
"You came back to have tea with me, didn't you, My Lord?" Vader tips his helm down and just stares at him for a moment.
"Yes."
"I'll be right back." Armitage says before running out of the kitchen. It takes him ten minutes for him to return, and he finds that the imperial entourage is seated. The Commandant is sandwiched between Fox and Deez, while the Emperor and Vader are seated together. Maratelle isn't there, most likely retreated into her library, and he doesn't blame her. None of the men at the table are smiling, and considering how stiffly his father is holding himself while making waffles, neither is his father.
He goes to Vader's chair and tugs at his cape to get his attention. The Dark Lord turns his helm and looks down at him.
He holds up a simple white cup, and Vader takes it.
"It's caf, Lord Vader."
"It's not real."
"It was, but then I rubbed my hands together." The Commandant smiles and holds back his laughter, while Deez looks at him in horror. Fox looks at Deez in utter confusion. The Emperor still doesn't smile, but Armitage doesn't care.
He has performed magic with only a teacup.
Author's Comments- Here are the links:
Here is a video of Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" where I used the cover of her in a sweater dress as the basis for Rama's outfit: a href=" watch?v=qgDrpWWxuto&list=FLDUNpQvIuyyRAQhQJw8Hu4A&index=29&t=0s"Link/a
Here is an image of Rama's rain boots because even rain boots have to be fashionable: a href=" vader-prod. . "Link/a
Here is an image of Hanako from Kemono Michi; she's pretty much a dragon princess and I wanted to incorporate her cuteness into Armitage's cross-dressing, but I also added more length to the dress and sparkly rain boots: a href=" . /revision/latest?cb=20191030161349"Link/a
In Legends/EU, Triclops's story literally ends with screaming as the device in his upper right molar that drove him crazy on Kessel comes back to life, just as he searching for his son (Ken named after Kendalina the Jedi Princess aka the mother of his child) so they could be a family again. I'd like to imagine that he sounded a lot like Laura Palmer in this scene. He screams his pain, sorrow, loss, and anger at his father much like Laura/Carrie does at Coop/the viewer: a href=" /R36ww3q7nqE?t=217"Link/a
It took me a while to figure out what Maratelle Hux would look like until I found cover art for X-Men Gold with Kitty Pryde on the cover. I decided she looks like that but with freckles: a href=" "Link/a
The nameless clone captain in Lords of the Sith is Commander Fox because Fox deserved a better death. Apparently, in the New Canon through the Darth Vader comic, Vader kills him for no reason and he does this quite often in his comic where he kills people for no good goddamn reason. But I'm under no obligation to follow New Canon and I never will: a href=" v1/images/databank_clonecommanderfox_01_169_ ?region=0&width=960"Link/a
The coffee scene is directly lifted from Twin Peaks: a href=" watch?v=ab-l6vhq5vc"Link/a
The excerpt from the beginning of the story is lifted from pages 233-4 of the paperback copy of Paul S. Kemp's Lords of the Sith. I know it's supposed to be taken as an admission from Vader that he wants to kill Palpatine, but my shipper brain likes to believe that he wouldn't mind banging him before killing him. Most likely with the Force since he is presumably missing a penis.
I was feeling bad about giving Rama OP cryokinesis, but then I remembered Palpatine's OP Lightning Storm in Rise of Skywalker and felt completely justified in giving his Legends/EU son that power. I may dislike RoS, but it has given me fuel for these past few weeks for all these one-shots.