24. What Am I?
His eyes leveled on the man on the rocks in the distance. Clad in all black, including a helmet, facemask… He had even been this close to a man who's appearance was the spitting image of the imposing man in black, but he had never had a notion that it would be linked to a feeling like that of Anakin Skywalker. Anakin had died. He watched in agony and then wept when he saw his once apprentice fall to the flames on Mustafar. This man was the image of Darth Vader, the Sith Lord apprentice to Darth Sidious, the ruler of the Empire. This was the image of a man who had been credited for some of the most unthinkable atrocities.
Obi-Wan Kenobi's hand slowly but surely fell to the hilt of his lightsaber hanging from his hip. It struck him as strange when re realized that he was only acting upon the appearance of this man. Solely on who or what he looked like. His actions due to the man's appearance were dramatically different from what the Force told him of this being.
He was in no danger from this man, the Force rang out to him. As well as not feeling any danger, he felt the welling of questioning pouring from the man on the small outcropping of rocks. Then, just as slowly as his hand lowered to his hilt, it fell back to his side at rest, and waited.
Across from Obi-Wan, Vader watched as the mans hand slowly reached for the saber at his side. It startled him slightly, at the sight of his former master reaching for his weapon as if in defense. It was then that he noticed two things at once: One, the last and only time he had ever seen his master reach for his saber against him in defense was on Mustafar; Two, he felt a question in the man's Force signature that stayed his hand.
Vader immediately knew what it was. Obi-Wan saw him as Darth Vader, but somehow felt through the force that it was somehow his former padawan. The question was "how… and why?" Hadn't Anakin Skywalker fallen to his death years ago?
Perhaps this was a sort of the cliché "things aren't always what they seem." But only a sort of the saying, because in his heart, he knew that somehow he still was, and would always be Darth Vader. Even if he were to once again come into the light, he would no longer technically be Vader, but he would always carry with him his former life and the ghastly horrors that came with it. Things that were becoming more and more horrendous to him as the days passed.
For once in his life, he didn't know what to do. He realized he didn't even know who he was anymore. He felt as if he were in a swirling void, somewhere between the man Darth Vader, and the lost Anakin Skywalker. As he gazed across at his former master lowering his hands from his weapon, more pounding in his head erupted over the corruption, the lies, the deceit. He knew Sidious was capable of it. Sidious knew that Anakin was in love with Padme Amidala. Sidious knew he would do anything to save her. Sidious had drawn him in with false promises, then knowingly let him believe that the woman he loved was pregnant with his child, when in fact, it was another man's child all together, and that Padme was just a pawn of the Sith Lord. He would never forget the day after the day on Mustafar how Sidious had told him that Padme was a lying cheater. He felt the whole world was against him. But he saw the pleasure at the grief and anger he had instilled in his new apprentice, and now he had to find out from the one man whom he had never thought would lie to him.
Vader's fingers did the thinking for him as they deftly felt their way to the latches and unhooked his mask, and in one fell swoop, he removed both the mask and the helmet from his head. And just like that, it was gone, and he felt the sandy wind whip against his cheeks, blowing through his sweat soaked locks. He stared at the desert earth for a moment and then quickly looked up to the man across the sand. Straight and quick as an arrow, he locked gazes with Obi-Wan Kenobi.