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What has he done?
A man sinks to his knees, collapses onto them, his unlit lightsaber nearly falling out of his loose grasp. His fingers, both of flesh and durasteel, grab at the carpet, desperate for any kind of anchor.
It is a plush carpet, a rich red colour that is only very slightly darker than fresh blood. Shards of shattered glass are scattered across it, the stray remains of the panoramic window.
It should be loud. The Senate Annex was right in the heart of Coruscant. Even if the building was high above the rabble, there should still be the familiar sounds of city life, the babbling murmur of nearly a trillion sentients all on one planet-city.
There is nothing. There is only the sound of the howling wind.
And from the window sill, the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic rises to his feet, gliding across the broken glass and the blood-red carpet with nary a whisper. His dark robes trail across the shards as he moves to stand over Anakin Skywalker.
Only yesterday was the Supreme Chancellor still in the visage of a kindly old man, besieged by the horrors of war. Now, the bright lights of the Chancellor’s office cast his features in harsh relief.
Supreme Chancellors are permitted to personalize their suites, a concession to the heavy burden of leadership. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is known for his love of artistry, particularly stonework, that illustrates the Jedi. Visitors may notice the stone frieze dating from the Ruusan Reformation on his wall, or the various statues of ancient Jedi dotted around his office.
On the walls, the Jedi and Sith depicted in the frieze watch the scene with shadowed eyes. In this sort of light, one cannot tell the difference between one and the other.
The statues are twisted gargoyles under the garishly bright lights. One is nearly melted through, its features sunken and burned away. Its mouth is almost open in a silent scream.
The Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic places a withered hand on Anakin’s shoulder.
Anakin freezes. He cannot bear the touch of the man that he trusted - still trusts - so much, but neither can he bear to shrug off the only comfort that is left to him now.
“My dear boy,” the Supreme Chancellor says, and while the words are horrifyingly familiar, the voice is not. It is doubled over and deepened, layered over and over with dark power until it is nothing less than an declaration into the Force rather than simply words spoken into air.
It is a monster’s voice, the kind that wafts up from dark caves and nightmares, but it is also the Supreme Chancellor’s voice. All at once, Anakin flinches from the sound while trying to lean forward into the familiar words.
“Anakin,” Supreme Chancellor Palpatine says, in that monstrous voice, “You’re fulfilling your destiny.”
Outside, the wind howls. Outside, a man is still falling to his death. His hand is still here, amongst the shattered glass.
Buildings on Coruscant are quite tall. If one would injudiciously choose to fall from one of them, it would take, on average, two minutes to hit the ground. The end result is not advisable.
In front of Anakin, lies Mace Windu’s lightsaber. It will never be lit again.
Reflexive horror builds up in his chest, terror and terrible guilt stopping up his throat.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine tightens his grip. Somehow, it grounds Anakin in this moment, draws his attention away from the slack grasp of Mace Windu’s hand.
“The Jedi are traitors,” Supreme Chancellor Palpatine says, “You saved the Republic.”
You saved me, he doesn’t say, but Anakin hears it anyway.
Supreme Chancellor Palpatine shifts a bit closer and suddenly Anakin remembers all the years spent in this office, the years spent pouring himself out to the Chancellor, the years spent as friends with the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic.
“You’re right,” Anakin says. Of course. Chancellor Palpatine is always right. The thought buzzes around in his brain, repeating itself over and over again.
Of course he’s right. The Jedi are traitors.
He’s too dangerous to be kept alive!
It’s not the Jedi way...
“Why didn’t I know?”
It’s a plaintive question. He had fought for the Republic, for the Jedi. He had bled for them.
Thousands had died for them.
“You couldn’t have. They have never trusted you; they would have never fully allowed you into their inner circle.”
A thin hand rests itself on Anakin’s head, long fingers working their way through his curls. They’re almost unbearably cold, but Anakin can’t make himself pull away.
This assignment is not to be on record…
...why are you asking this of me?
The Council is asking you.
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin finds himself saying.
“What about Obi-Wan?”
It’s said almost absent-mindedly, as if Obi-Wan is only an afterthought, a half-memory skittering away into darkness.
Obi-Wan trusts me, Anakin had almost said. Then he had forgotten all about it, the thought smoothed over with a guiding hand.
The hand warms, as it rests against Anakin’s skull.
“They feared your power, my boy. You are too strong in the Force for the Jedi. So they sought to control you, to contain your power.”
The hand slips down to brush Anakin’s cheek, the fingers spread to grasp it and hold Anakin’s head into place.
“I do not fear you, Anakin. With the Jedi, you were the Hero With No Fear, but with me, with the Sith, you can be greater still. I believe in you. I trust you; I have always trusted you, my dear boy.”
Anakin lets the hand tilt his head up, as helpless as a child in a sandstorm.
And he sees Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’s face. It is the visage of a corpse, long-dead and rotten, the flesh having swelled and shrivelled in turn. Grey lips are upturned into a thin smile, the skin pulling back from the teeth.
And his eyes…
They are as cold as dying stars cast adrift in the void. They are the yellow of the monster in the dark, just beyond the light of the fire, howling, snapping, twisting, snarling.
Something cold tingles down his spine, a whisper of horror brushing across his brain, but Anakin is frozen, staring at the creature Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has become.
Or was he always like this?
Perhaps Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was always the monster, the Sith Lord, and everything before was only the illusion.
The Sith Lord sighs, and it is surprisingly human. His hand slips away from Anakin’s cheek. Anakin is momentarily bereft at the loss.
“Don’t look so surprised, my boy. Palpatine served well enough for his time, but now it is Sidious’ turn. He will do just as well.”
A twitch of his ruined hand smooths his Chancellor’s robes. Anakin stares.
They are normal robes. Anakin has seen them at least a thousand times before. Darth Sidious wears them just as comfortably as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine had.
The Jedi say this about the Sith: whoever they once were are dead and gone, you are only fighting the thing that killed them and took their skin.
Darth Sidious is Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. Or, perhaps, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is Darth Sidious.
“Anakin, my dear boy,” Darth Sidious says, “We’re running out of time. The Jedi have made their move. They would kill me and wreak chaos across the galaxy. You know this to be true.”
Anakin stays silent. Inexorably, his gaze drifts to Mace Windu’s fallen lightsaber, still held loosely in his severed hand.
He is dead by now. If not by the Sith Lightning, then from the fall.
No. Not the fall. The landing.
“Anakin,” Darth Sidious says, drawing his attention back to the present. The here and now. “Fulfill your destiny. Become my apprentice. Learn the dark side of the Force and help me bring order to the galaxy in our new Empire.”
Pledge yourself to the Sith, Darth Sidious doesn’t say. Pledge yourself to me.
Anakin feels like he is far away, watching the Invisible Hand fall towards Coruscant all over again in slow motion. And this time, Anakin isn’t at the controls. This time, he doesn’t have Obi-Wan.
Perhaps he never had Obi-Wan.
He is completely and utterly alone.
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can.”
Anakin is still on his knees. He is paralyzed, frozen. Shaking his head takes a greater act of will than he would have ever thought, but once he starts he cannot stop the trembling.
“I can’t, I can’t. I- I am a Jedi. I can’t betray-”
“Obi-Wan? Don’t be silly, my boy, Obi-Wan has never fully trusted you, has never truly been at ease with you. Even now, after so many years, he still lies to you.”
Anakin, it was my decision to keep the truth from you.
Your decision?
...I did what I had to do.
Anakin has no answer, no witty rebuttal to that. His left hand shakes until he closes it into a fist and pins it down by his knee. His other hand, his mechanical hand, is as silent and still as the grave.
Darth Sidious smiles at him, the gesture almost familiar. He folds his hands over, exactly the same way he did when he was Palpatine and for a moment, Anakin is at ease.
“Do you know what lengths the Jedi will go to in order to keep their power? Do you truly think that they will stop at a handful of Jedi to kill me?”
Outside, a few thousand metres below, Mace Windu is nothing but blood and flesh. His lightsaber is just to the front and to the side of Anakin, just out of reach.
“You have to choose, Anakin. Them or me. And only I can save Padmé.”
Them or Padmé, he did not say.
For a long, terrible, moment, Anakin Skywalker considers.
For a singular moment, he tries to imagine an existence without Padmé Amidala. He tries to grasp the idea of a complete and utter dissolution, without the relief of death.
He tries to imagine a galaxy where there is an Anakin Skywalker without a Padmé Amidala, and finds that he cannot bear it.
Padmé Amidala’s life is worth anything.
Padmé Amidala is worth everything.
In a holodrama, Anakin would have said that he started speaking without knowing it, that his body had made its decision on its own without consulting his brain.
But. Here and now, Anakin slows his racing heart. He slowly comes back to himself, becomes aware of every breath, every muscle ache, every twitch of his stilling fingers. He becomes aware of his durasteel hand, constructed of electrodrivers and crystal circuitry, still so very motionless.
Long ago, a lifetime ago, Anakin had borne witness to a sandstorm. He had nearly been caught outside in it, being all of six years old, and while he had managed to make it inside in time, he had never forgotten the preceding howls and slashes of wind and sand.
In the storm, there is only chaos and the screaming wind. It destroys everything it touches, reduces everything to dust. It shrieks out fear and death and pain.
It roars out the death of everyone Anakin had ever loved.
In the end, it is Anakin’s choice.
“I will do whatever you ask,” Anakin says. “Teach me the power to stop death. Please. Be my Master.”
Darth Sidious blinks slowly at him, the ruin of his face made clear under bright lights of the Chancellor’s office.
“The Force is strong with you, my dear Anakin. With your power, you can do anything.”
“I give myself to you,” Anakin says, and means it. He looks into the hollow, rotten corruption of Darth Sidious’ face and no longer feels revulsion or horror or any sort of fear. In Darth Sidious’ face, he sees his only salvation. Padmé’s only salvation.
He will buy Padmé’s life with his power. He will make it so.
He gathers himself up, scrapes back together whatever scraps of himself that he can to swear-
“I pledge myself to the Sith.”
And Darth Sidious places a thin hand on his head, fingers curling into his hair like a father would to a beloved son come in from the cold.
“The Order of the Dark Lords of the Sith accept you. Cast off your old name of Anakin Skywalker; for now and forevermore you shall be Darth…”
A whisper of power, cast out into the void. The Dark Side of the Force is called.
The moment in between is the slow death of a dying star. The quiet fall of a bird from the wing. The dark rot of corpse in a cold grave.
The Dark Side of the Force answers.
“Vader.”
He closes his eyes and repeats his new name. Vader. Va-der. It is the beat of a battle-drum, the short repeating bars of an Imperial march.
It is his name.
“Thank you,” Darth Vader says. “My Master.”
And Darth Vader means every syllable.
“Rise, Darth Vader.”
And Darth Vader does.
As Darth Sidious, once Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Galactic Republic, makes his way to his desk, he kicks away the fallen lightsaber and its accompanying severed hand. They roll and then tumble out of the window, disappearing into the city below.
Darth Vader pays them no notice.
He repeats to himself, standing tall across from his new Master, I am Darth Vader.
Once, Anakin Skywalker had borne witness to a sandstorm and had been afraid of its howling winds that promised death to all he loved.
Darth Vader does not calm the storm. It is not the way of the Sith.
He becomes the storm, and with it, casts away his fear along with his dead name.
He is Darth Vader. Now, and forevermore.
He will buy Padmé’s life. It is worth everything and more. Even Anakin Skywalker.
When Darth Vader marches on the Jedi Temple and slaughters them all, they call him by many names. Anakin and Knight Skywalker and traitor and-
Master Skywalker, there are too many of them! What do we do?!
He does not know the name. Anakin Skywalker is dead. He was weak and Darth Vader destroyed him.
Darth Vader grew out of his shadow and bloody footprints, and when the time was right Darth Vader consumed him. Skywalker was less than flimsiplast, less than spun sugar and glass; he was only ever the illusion papering over the real, monstrous, Darth Vader.
This is what is true. So, Darth Vader kills them all.
But oddly, in the moments between battles, maybe in the instants after yet another Jedi traitor passes into the Force, his face grows wet.
At first, he is concerned. Perhaps it is blood.
It is not.
Darth Vader will buy Padmé Amidala’s life. In return, he will give Anakin Skywalker to the Dark.
In the end, after he has been cut down and burnt to ash, after he has been reconstructed from durasteel and electrodrivers, after he has wept and screamed and-
And known with awful, terrible, certainty that-
Padmé is dead.
He killed her.
When Darth Vader looks over the hollow shell of the Death Star, entombed in his suit, still acclimating to the red filter of his helmet, he reflects on what he has bought with the power of the Dark Side.
He has bought a new Empire, he has bought peace and security, he has bought an end to the war.
And in return, he has paid - lost -
Everything. Everyone.
Ruthlessly, Darth Vader crushes down that odd hollowing feeling in his chest, the one that wrests control of the sandstorm to whisper-
It wasn’t worth it.
Because it is worth it. He cannot go backwards. This is all there is. This is all that will ever be.