deercountry | (no subject)

He's remains quiet for a long time, studying her expression. Studying her presence in the Force, even, as much as he can without...touching the edges of her mind.

Then he nods, slowly. "Ok. Just calling him Vader from the moment he swore to serve Palpatine would probably be easiest but...I don't want to do that. I've seen the damage it did, that both Anakin and Ben, by the time Luke grew up, convinced themselves Vader destroyed Anakin, in some sort of spiritual sense. So I'm going to keep calling him Anakin, even though he hasn't done any of these things yet."

"I understand," she said.

The Red Dragon once had another name too. One that very few people knew. Ariadne did, of course. Because Aunt Lysia did. But neither of them ever dared to utter it. Except in whispers by the fire, alone in the privacy of the room they shared. And then, only on the rare occasions when they could sit and talk together.

But wasn't used. But it's who he was. Beneath all of the awful things he'd done.

So let it be with Anakin too.

"I don't really know why he chose to join Palpatine. I know why I chose to use the Dark Side for a while until I realized I didn't like who I was turning into. And I know the method Palpatine used to try to manipulate me - he offered me the chance to change the past, so I had my parents back. I think...that Palpatine wasn't lying exactly. It's a long story, but I did pull Ahsoka out of the past - a fight where Anakin was trying to kill her, actually. We thought he'd killed her, but I saved her."

He takes a deep breath. "But I'm also sure Palpatine wouldn't have tried to get me to do that unless it got him something he really wanted. So even though I love my parents, I let them go."

Another beat of silence. "So I think he offered Anakin something he couldn't bring himself to let go."

She listened, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Her face. Her face, although everyone insisted that it belonged to Padmé Amidala. And maybe there was some truth to that. After all, she lived her life in disguise.

She'd just never intended to disguise herself as someone real.

Ariadne shook her head. "I think it's pretty clear what Anakin desires, above all other things. He's very Alastrian, that way." They were loyal to their mates. Sometimes to extreme circumstances. "He loves her. She's his whole world."

Edited 2022-03-26 19:29 (UTC)

"And I'm not saying that you're wrong...but he hurt her. Badly. As soon as he thought that she wouldn't go along with all the terrible things he'd done."

He rubs at his face. "I saw this through Ben's memories. It's sort of a jumble. But. Anakin was choking her with the Force and Obi-wan was yelling for him to stop, and Anakin was yelling about Obi-wan had turned Padme against him. And then Padme collapsed and Anakin was talking about how if Obi-wan wasn't with him, he was an enemy, too. So they fought."

He wraps his arms around himself, with a shudder.

Edited (Realized that probably needed warnings) 2022-03-26 20:56 (UTC)

His shudder reached her.

For the first time, Ariadne was truly, genuinely shocked. Alastrians would do anything for their mates. And she'd believed Anakin would too.

But to hurt her? No. That made no sense at all. Not in any reality that Ariadne could imagine, except for one where Anakin didn't actually love her.

So no reality at all.

She stared at Ezra, lips parted. Until she realized that he was probably seeing it again. Which sounded pretty horrible. So she draped her arm around his shoulder, gently pulling him against her side.

He learns into her, without any shame about it.

"Obi-wan won." That time. Luke, the Knight he met in Temba, told him about how Ben dying to give him and Leia time to get away.

"That was...also horrible. But Palpatine was coming. And that's the memory ended. But Ben told me he got her away from there, to medical care, but by then she was in labor. She lived long enough to give Luke a name. He took Luke to where Anakin had family from before joining the Order and stayed close enough to watch over him and keep him hidden."

Given how common it was for women to die in childbed in the realm, Ariadne didn't question it. But she strangely found herself grieving it.

Grieving a woman she'd never even met.

Padmé really was remarkable in that way. Echoes of her reverberated across the multiverse.

"His aunt and uncle. He's told me about them. They sound like they were wonderful." And Ariadne was very glad that Obi-Wan broke with tradition, to give Luke a family to call his own.

"Owen and Beru. They must have been a pretty good job. Although Owen insisted Ben have minimal contact, is what the version of Luke in Temba told me," he says with a scowl.

As as far as Ezra is concerned Master Kenobi was just as much Luke's uncle as Owen. He doesn't like the idea of Obi-wan being kept away from what family he had left.

They'd done a pretty good job indeed. Of course, Ariadne was fighting against a bit of a bias. She was deeply fond of Luke. Not to mention the fact that she'd also been adopted by an auntie and uncle. And felt that they'd done, if not a good job, at least the best they could do, under the circumstances.

"They were probably afraid that he would try to take Luke away," she said, with a small shrug. "Obi-Wan once told me that Jedi were raised by a temple, not by their families."

He slowly straightens from where he'd leaned into her.

"We don't," he says, voice low and tense, "Steal children. I've risked my life to keep Force sensitive babies with family that wanted them."

It was easy to tell she'd touched a nerve. Not intentionally. Because Ariadne never intentionally wounded. But hurt was hurt, regardless of intention.

Her expression softened. "No," she said. "Not steal. I didn't mean it like that."

At least, she didn't think she did. Her feelings were still confused when it came to the way Obi-Wan had described his youth.

"I suppose I mean they were afraid Luke would leave them. He's..." How to put it? "Well, he's a lot like me, I think. Eager to be out in the world. Or worlds, in his case."

He eyes her, still a little wary, but then he slowly blows out a breath.

"Afraid that he might be drawn to someone who...he could probably feel on some level is like him? That he may have had some form of Force bond with, just because Ben was there when he was born and was the first person to hold and soothe him? Sure, maybe. The first time I saw Kanan, my head sang. He felt it too, before he even saw me."

"Yes," she said. "Afraid that they might lose him forever." Because he chose someone over them. Not because of kidnapping or theft or anything like that. "My mother was the same way, every time someone from the outside came to visit us. She was convinced I would try to sneak away with them. And to be honest, I thought about it, sometimes."

She hadn't exactly been the most obedient daughter.

Which ultimately had saved her life. In a poem or song, it would have been the ironic twist of fate. In her reality, it just made her...kind of sad. Painful. Like an open wound.

Ariadne's eyelashes fell. Their last fight often echoed in her ears in the quiet moments. In the place between dreams. But she was wide awake, listening to it now.

"You can't keep us away from the world forever!"

"You don't know the first thing about the world!"

"I know that it's better than you!"

She pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut. Regret and shame filled her throat, nearly choking her.

He might have said something about holding on too tight not being a good solution. Or actual state out loud his feelings about Ben being Luke's family, too.

But he could feel the shift in her emotions, as much as see the change in body language. He moves back closer to drop a gloved hand over her shoulder, this time.

"Hey. We all think things we don't act on."

Ariadne nodded, feeling just a little bit silly. Trench had a way of dredging up the past. And always when she least expected it.

By the gods, she'd actually cried once. When Anakin killed Dean.

And Ariadne had vowed as a ten-year-old not to cry again.

She leaned into Ezra's touch, grateful. "I guess that's what separates us from the not-so-nice guys out there."

Shame at crying is one hang up he's mostly managed to avoid. He certainly wouldn't have tried to shame her for it.

"I think so," he agrees, softly.

"That, and trying to let the thoughts and feelings we don't want to keep pass through us and settle, when they bubble up. Instead of choosing to make them a litany, we keep coming back to."

"Some of the feelings." She wouldn't mind occasionally drowsing in happiness or contentment, like a cat who had found a spot of sunlight on the floor.

Smiling gently, she turned to look at him. "I wish I were stronger. I'd take you flying with me. It's the most incredible feeling. Like the whole sky is open and it can take you anywhere you want to go."

Like all futures were possible.

"Sabine took me up with her jetpack a few times." She was a natural pilot in a way he wasn't. He was competent in ships and starfighters, with practice, but he hadn't had enough time with the jetpack loaned to him on Mandalore to be really feel in control, much less for it to feel nearly effortless.

"But wings, no machinery - that would be different and very cool."

"It is. Very cool." She looked entirely too proud of herself for getting the word right.

At least she hoped she got it right.

She got so many of them wrong...

"It's...it's freedom." She laughed softly. "That's what it is. I miss it so much but...well...I traded it for a different kind of freedom."

Ezra asks, very hesitantly, "....traded?"

As in, a choice? He hopes she means something more fanciful.

She looked sideways at him, nodding slightly. "Traded. To be Human. Or close enough, anyway." Obviously, she wasn't Human. But most people didn't bother looking deeper than the skin. Which worked in her favor. Even if it could be a little sad, sometimes.

Ah, well. There were the rare, wonderful gems who understood better. And Ariadne so treasured them, when she found them.

"I don't regret it. Not really. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that I sometimes missed flying."

He twitches a little, in empathetic distress on her behalf. "You couldn't hide them. Your wings."

"Maybe under a very, very big cloak," she said. "But it would look a little funny and out of place. Especially in the summer."

To say nothing of the grand chambers of royal courts. When she was pretending to be a visiting lady or diplomat. Humans passed for important people. Alastrians so rarely did. And under the Red Dragon's reign...

Better not to think of that.

He's quiet a few seconds, wrestling with sadness and anger.

"You never have to pretend to be human with me. You know that, right?"

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demonicbeauty - 2022-04-04 00:14 (UTC) - Expand

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CW: Choking, domestic abuse

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