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He first sought Mother Talzin out when he was twenty-nine years old. He relearned why he hated field missions, dragging himself through those damp woods, and that frustration was enough to put a Force-ful spring in his step.
He was fine with physical exertion, but did the outdoors have to be so soggy?
Whatever. Hate, murder, murder, Sith stuff, the apprentice thought as he descended. Down the slope, the glade of the witches burned, leeching a sickly sanguine light through the trees.
When he was just starting to make out faces, he realized he was being watched. His shields were perfect– he must have been tracked through animal means. How vulgar. The Dark was viscous and cloying this close to the Nightsisters’ magicks, but it still answered his immediate question: he was not currently in danger (although that could and probably would change at any moment).
He nodded in the general direction of his stalker, and continued towards the light.
“How long has it been since the Sith deemed me worthy of a visit?” she had said the moment the door of her hut shut behind him. Talzin’s eyes flashed with unnatural light, reflecting the embers of the fire she stirred with two bare fingers.
He bowed like a cat readying to pounce. “Too long, Wyrd-Mother. I’ve been correcting their oversight all on my own,” he soothed.
She delicately plucked out a coal. “Have you? You are not here at your master’s bidding?” She rolled it between her fingers.
The apprentice internally seethed. What happened in the Force when a Sith killed their teacher that his lack of mastery was so apparent? “No, I would never limit myself to his wishes alone.”
“Only your own,” Talzin said with a smirk and hungry eyes.
__
Sheev Palpatine was a (currently aspiring) Junior Senator. He was seventeen years old, a nihilist, and full of himself. He stood to inherit a vast fortune in sixty or so years when his vibrant, athletic parents passed peacefully in their sleep at the ripe old ages of a hundred twenty and thirty respectively.
All of this meant his name meant nothing to anyone.
Not yet.
The rowdy group of rich and aspirings tumbled out of the testing building as soon as the exam was over. Sheev walked slowly, and the gap between him and the crowd grew wider and wider.
“Are you not joining your age-mates?” a voice asked behind him.
“To ‘celebrate’ with alcohol and prostitutes? Certainly not,” Sheev sneered without thinking.
It chuckled, and he turned. It was a Muun, in a long velvet thobe, so blue it was almost black. Sheev did not recognize him, but it felt like he was getting repeatedly poked in the back that he should know who this is.
“How do you think you did?” the Muun asked, their dark eyes twinkling.
Sheev shrugged. “Full marks, unless I had a seizure and violently hallucinated the whole exam.”
“Ah, your placement is a mere formality.”
“Placement in the J.S. program is not guaranteed by any score. I still need to find a sponsor,” Sheev grumbled near the end. Why was he being so honest?
“Most of the applicants have sponsors lined up,” the Muun said, tilting his head. “Why not you?”
You should know who this is.
Sheev blinked. “When life tells you a door is shut, you learn how to lock-pick.”
And the Muun laughed. It was a wheezing, ugly thing, but it yanked Sheev in like a hook. That was how Sheev laughed, like it was all so fucking funny. Like everything, everything was a joke.
“Walk with me, young Palpatine.”
Sheev hadn’t told him his name. He knew this, and followed anyway.
__
Sheev Palpatine decided to prove his thesis. He knew he had to rid himself of weakness, of instabilities, of anything that could hinder his descent to utter clarity. Firstly, he must be alone, which started with the removal of his intended wife.
It was a shame, though. They had been companions for years; she was an equally conniving mistress to him, and in that lay a rare opportunity for complete frankness. She was the type to get anything she wanted, and she was very lucky that her wants never conflicted with his. Sheev supposed he was lucky too, if only to have a place to get advice on situations and practice chess with words.
He clicked his wine red cloak over his shoulders, and brushed one last hand over his hair. “It’s time for you to disappear.”
In the mirror, he saw her jump, her eyes widening. He saw the flash of shock, fear, and then anger– not at him, but at herself. She was grimly ashamed that she had not seen his timeline moving up and taken precautions in time. There was not even a second of betrayal. Sheev again marveled at Cordela’s strength of character and allowed himself to feel the slight loss. Through her, he received a complete acceptance of his nature that few beings would ever experience, and many would kill for what he was about to throw away.
“So, you mean to kill me?” she asked, for politeness’s sake.
He watched her a few seconds more, her strained lip, her tensed shoulders, and the cat-like narrowing of her eyes.
“No,” he said, turning to face her. “But fake your death as soon as it’s convenient, and as soon as it can be convincing.”
She slowly nodded, her eyes tracking him. “The man you aim to become would not offer this mercy,” she probed.
“No, he will not,” Sheev said, with a snort.
It wasn’t that he had qualms about killing her. The pain of her death could fuel his abilities like nothing before, he was sure. However, in order to use grief or loss, one had to admit there had been attachment in the first place. It left a pressure point, a weakness that Sideous could not allow himself to have. His thesis depended on it.
So, no, he would not kill Cordela. He knew where her best interests lay, and so did she.
“That is why I must never lay eyes on you again once you leave,” he elaborated.
“Right. Well, give me a few months. I’ll have to get a clone grown and all that. I do hope you’ll be helpful with all of this, Sheev,” she said, yawning and stretching up.
“Of course. It’s a matter of expediency.”
She nodded, “I’ll get us some tea, then,” and rose, wrapping her robe a bit more tightly around herself.
Sheev Palpatine was off planet when it happened. Her body had been cold when she was dragged out of the river. The coroner’s report revealed the presence of spice in her system at the time of death. Sweeping it under the rug became a matter of sympathy.
And when he returned to his home, he sat down, shut his eyes, and began cleaning out his memories. He left his memory of doing so and necessary information. However, everything in between, he peeled off in bloody strips, every moment where he had ever trusted another person.
He was thirty years old.
__
“Will you play me something?”
Hego Damask laughed. His fingers danced along the strings for a second, and sweet melody poured out. “Oh, never agree to listen to a Muun’s music.”
“I can’t see why. That was lovely.”
“And never compliment them either. Because then, they’ll never shut up.”
Sheev smiled dryly. “Nonetheless, I’d love to hear something.” Music was one of his few unsullied joys.
Damask looked at him carefully, and Sheev had the impression of being weighed and judged.
“I shall play a strophe for you, young Palpatine.” He adjusted himself in his seat, and Sheev sat cross-legged on the grass before him.
“Have you ever heard the tale of Darth Tenebrous?” The music, phrygian, gave the name power.
“I have not, and I feel the lack already,” Sheev confessed.
“Tenebrous, ah. The Patient and Bold, a fanatic and charlatan both. He was a Sith,” the Muun said mystically over the tune.
“A Sith?”
“The Jedi have smothered all mention of them. I’m not surprised you’ve heard nothing of this before. Tenebrous, yes, was a Lord of the Sith, so powerful and resolute that he could use the Force to shape the future.”
—
“And what price will you ask of me?” Sheev asked. “I doubt the Nightsisters have stooped as low as charity.”
Talzin laughed. “You seek to know the future! That is the price.”
He turned this over, then immediately binned it. Folk superstition. “How exactly does it work?”
Talzin was drawing a ring of ash on the rim of the rough bowl. “You will see everything that would and could have happened had you not drank the potion.” She grinned. “But then the door is shut to you, and you will have foresight no more.”
“Everything? You mean every possibility.”
“Yes, everything.”
What a cruel rose this was. To only know what would happen if he had not done the single thing that led him to knowing. It would be limiting, very limiting. But even the best Force visions were more like emotional impressions and half-heard gossip. This would be concrete details, facts!
It sounded worth the price. He’d have to go along with his parallel self to keep them relevant, but he could improvise.
She handed him the bowl. The tincture was so red it was purple, stinking of metal and sulfur. He fortified himself, drawing the Dark into his stomach, lungs, then veins, capillaries, and cells. No poison would kill him– he wouldn’t let it.
He drank.
__
He took off Senator Palpatine and put on Darth Sidious. “The power you seek is not found with the Jedi.”
Dooku’s head inclined just enough. Sheev gleefully tugged on the line before he started to reel the Count in: “Sifo surely saw this, too. Why else would he have kept this from the Council?”
The Count-ascendant’s frown grew deeper. “The Jedi’s short-sightedness prevents them from hearing the truth. They are simply willfully ignorant.”
“And at their most polished, malice and incompetence are indistinguishable, my friend. What good intentions could absolve the millennia of stagnation that caused this rot?”
Dooku’s brow was tight with concentration. “Yes, the longer one sleeps, the harder it is to wake.”
“The Jedi are long due to face the dawn of a new era. And they will remember their purpose.” He did not croon or entice. A will like Dooku’s did not need flattery. Show you have what they want, and they will come to you.
__
Well, I’ve stolen a child, Sheev thought. The ugly little thing had stopped crying, but was still sniffling pathetically where it was shackled. I could have thought this through a little better.
Nothing to do about it now. When did Zabrak become self-sufficient? Could he just throw it rats and call it a day? When Plagueis discovered this (and he would discover it), would it be more suspicious if Sheev were treating his definitely-not-an-apprentice well or poorly?
He decided on a very maneuverable middle-ground: he wouldn’t torture the child unnecessarily, but wouldn’t train it in the deeper, Darker mysteries. He was getting good with negotiations.
“Now, you will– comply,” Sheev said as he grabbed it by the arm. “And you will not be hurt,” he reassured.
The child nodded as insistently as it could.
“A Nightbrother… Now, what is your name?” Sheev mused to himself.
“... my name is–”
“Yes, Maul. Your name shall be Maul.” Darth Maul had a good ring to it, even if it never became a full Sith Master. Truly, Sidious was lucky Lord Plagueis concerned himself with optics. Otherwise he might be saddled with a name like Darth Cognus, or Darth Gean. He was looking out for the tot here.
The child, Maul, tucked himself into his rudimentary shields. In his mind’s eye, Sheev spun the hermit shell around until he found the hole Maul retreated into. Fear, stranger, fear, hate, distrust, curiosity, missing home– were the weak, shivering emotions Maul tried to hide.
“So,” Sheev started. Then stopped. “You are… carnivorous?”
“Huh?”
“Do not ‘huh’, Maul” Sidious sneered, jerking Maul’s arm. “Succinctly ask for clarification.”
Maul hissed and pulled. Sidious just stood there, grip vice-like, and waited until Maul tired himself out.
They stared at each other.
“Do you eat meat only? Do you eat other things?” Sidious relented.
“... Yes.”
“‘Yes’ what?” he snapped.
“... eat meat. And other things.”
This is excruciating. Sheev cracked open Maul’s shields and began rifling through the folds of his brain.
Five-year-olds had surprisingly organized minds. ‘Things to do to relieve pains’ gave Sheev most bodily needs. He also quickly evaluated any physical or mental training Maul had received. Not much, but he guessed that was usual for most children.
He retreated, doing his best to put everything back into its place, and mentally patted Maul on the Force presence. The child was frozen, trembling, cheeks wet.
“Are you crying?” Sheev said incredulously.
“...No,” Maul whimpered.
He whacked Maul on the back of the head. “You will never lie to me, Maul. Are you crying?”
“Yes, ‘m sorry.”
“There, good. The crying is pathetic, but I hate lying more. Understand?”
Maul nodded again.
Sheev stroked Maul’s little head again, rubbing his thumb along the ridges. Stick and carrot, stick and carrot. “Alright.” He pulled his hand away. Urgh, oily. “You need a sonic. Come, I’ll get you food and water and show you your cot.”
Sheev took a few steps, and Maul did not follow. He turned back. Maul shook his manacles once. Sidious frowned; Maul cowered.
Sheev scanned Maul’s naked surface thoughts again. For the moment, Maul could not even conceive attempting escape. Besides, he was five. He couldn’t pilot a ship if he couldn’t see over the dash.
Sidious waved. The manacles dropped to the floor. He held out his hand, and Maul forced himself to take it.
__
‘SIDIOUS, YOU WRETCH!’
Sheev grimaced as his master’s displeasure squeezed and shook him through their bond. He pushed his attention at him.
‘LEASH YOUR CURR IMMEDIATELY!’
Ah, kriff. Plaguey hadn’t described the imminent debowelling of anyone involved, so Sheev could jog towards the lab instead of sprint. Was it a nine-year-old thing or a raised-as-a-Sith thing that Maul seemed to constantly careen towards the possibility of death?
__
He fell onto his hands and vomited. The terror did not pass with the visions. It had immediately gripped the root of his being. “No, no, no, no,” he whispered.
Talzin cackled.
“This– it cannot be.”
“It is the future,” the Witch said gleefully.
“The future can be changed. It will be– it will be changed,” Sheev sputtered.
The fear was all-encompassing, and familiar as the back of his hand, and he used it to claw strength out of the Dark. But–
Desperation forms the necessary will to bend the Force to one’s complete command. This is the source of the Jedi’s failure. Their belief is strong in the Force the way a man believes in his sun. They accept what is. It is of course easy to believe in the self-evident; few are able to escape their shackles, and those who did were world-shakers, frame-shifters. This was the power of the Darkside, was it not?
Of course.
Talzin stared at him as he sat back and closed his eyes.
The images he had just seen flashed over and over again.
This is the future.
There was no limit to the Force. It is only limited by the wielder. Why should the future be outside the power of the Force?
His thesis was this, that man by will alone could overcome Death and Fate.
A fiber snapped.
__
Plagueis was beautiful, in the most abstract sense of the word.
The room around them was rough, volcanic stone, made holy with the black blood from their winepress. Old tritium lamps glowed steadily. The green light made his master’s face ghoulish and hollow, the smeared red streaks black and dripping.
The body, braindead, was splayed before them, its involuntary heart beating.
“I will slit the foot here,” Plagueis said, using a pen to mark it. “We are starting from the crown and fingertips. Push the blood through the veins– we need to maintain a perfect vacuum, so avoid puncturing the vein walls. Once it is drained, you will hold the vacuum, and I will hold the elixir–” he glanced at the device he was holding, “tube? To the opening, release the vacuum, and it will draw the elixir evenly throughout the body.”
“Why is the vacuum so essential?”
The Muun looked thoughtful, glittering, malicious curiosity in his eyes. “My current theory is oxidation.”
__
Sidious’s lightsaber carved through his master’s face. He stared at the charred halves beginning to curl away from each other, his master’s yellow eyes drifting in nonparallel planes, as his blade sheared through Plagueis’s groin.
__
Maul, fifteen, stumbled and collapsed. All his legginess made him look like a foal dropped from its mother’s womb, slick with blood.
Sidious snarled and flicked lightning into the boy. It whimpered. “You disappoint yet again, Maul,” Sidious said as he crouched beside him. “You will be facing opponents far less merciful than me.”
“I want to die,” Maul whispered.
Sheev raised his eyebrows. He was silent. “You don’t want to die, Maul, no living thing, no Sith could succumb to nonexistence. You want to change your situation.” He seized Maul by the collar, and shook him, until his eyes lolled open again. “So, Maul. You are a Sith. The pain, the fear, the despair that holds you is what will give you the power to escape it.”
He smiled. “To be conscious is to suffer, Maul. Those who cannot face it turn to gods, to philosophy, drink, war. They lie to themselves. You will suffer until you die, Maul. Such is the way of the Sith, and the price of truth.”
He stood. Then, he slammed his foot down on Maul’s hand, and the boy bit back a cry. “The weakness of Jedi means they shy away from this, but true strength is only found on the other side.”
__
“Apprentice, if you learn nothing from me, learn this: you are only limited by your ability to focus.”
__
Maul was gone. The bond had been snapped, it had not withered like death. So, although Sidious could not sense his apprentice in the furthest reaches of space, he knew Maul must be alive and plotting.
It was the way of things. He stood on the balcony, hands gripping the rails. Above and below were the stars. He looked past into the endless darkness behind them.
He didn’t care whether or not Maul was loyal. The Zabrak did not have the constitution of a Sith, and held no real threat to him. He loathed having anything taken from him, though.
And training new teams was always a chore. Nevertheless, Senator Palpatine sent Dooku an invitation to meet.
__
Palpatine met a very interesting boy at the Senate.
__
The Jedi–!
They!
Sidious could feel them winking out, one by one. Thousands of stars being swept away in an ocean of blood. The Dark ravished him. The murmurs of the All Sith cooed sweet nothings against his ears and heart.
The universe bent with a horrible groan, and cracked.
But Sheev was elsewhere. He was looking at a single thread of history.
It was fraying, and fraying, as it had for years, but finally–
snapped.
The Dark fled, as Sheev’s heart overflowed with joy.
__
The flayed meat-nugget in front of him was barely human, let alone Anakin Skywalker.
Pardon, Darth Vader. The name became him like a fine cloak, giving dignity to his utter wretchedness.
He was whimpering as Sidious brought him to surgery. Palpatine was ill-advisedly reminiscing. Vader was many things. He was loyal, powerful, predictable. His impulses were so simplistic that he was more like a pet than a human. Maybe that was why, despite all reason, Palpatine did enjoy Vader’s company, ever since Anakin had been a child. Manipulating him was a dance he could lead in his sleep.
His Empire was assured, his thesis proven. He had other goals, but– for now, he would be content.
The droids slowly lowered Vader into the bacta tank. Only his hatred would keep him alive now. He could force Vader into the suit early. Vader would be too weak to betray him, and the pain would make him even stronger in the Dark Side. Despair was a delicious oxymoron.
However. The one virtue of Anakin’s that he wanted preserved in Vader was loyalty. He was won so easily, too. Darth Vader had no one left; for just crumbs, he would follow that spark of love into the deepest Dark.
He would let Anakin heal. He could easily twist Vader’s guilt into willing self-punishment.
He inhaled. He slowly took Sidious off. He took Palpatine off. And Sheev smiled softly to himself.
It had all gone perfectly, hadn’t it? Hellfire rained down, the young were killed in their beds, brother turned against brother. He would be a god among men, finally revelling in the inheritance of the Sith dynasty. For his own selfish desire, why should he not take a reminder of his mortality with him?
Under the blue glow of the tank, he sunk into his mind. The Dark chittered and chided, but he pressed on. He began to shape a little box in his mind. With surgical precision, he wove the shield together, to allow thoughts to enter, but no influence to escape. Then, he slowly transplanted the sharp bond into this space.
Only with the illumination of Vader’s presence did Sheev pause. The space smelled like holy blood.
There should always be two.
Sith Alchemy was a delicate art. It was before that bacta tank that Sheev revitalized his scholarly interest.
__
“Padme?” was the first word out of the respirator.
Sheev shook his head. “I’m sorry, my friend. Had I known she would not willingly accompany you, we could have ensured her presence some other way and saved her life. I simply– I thought she loved you, and was blindsided by her betrayal.”
Vader let out a pained cry, and flailed in his bandages. “No-! No…” He collapsed. “It was Obi-Wan! He turned her against me!” he howled.
Sheev pushed comfort and grief through the bond. Vader jerked somewhat, as Palpatine had never revealed his presence like this before. “Truly, the Jedi’s betrayal was absolute. You will have your vengeance, Vader.” He crushed the grief into anger on that name.
“Yes, my Master,” Vader replied, in a dazed tone. Sheev dipped his hands into Vader’s suffering, just to taste it.
Darth Vader was drunk on agony, with the free conscience of a man with nothing to lose and no further to sink. Such a man can only be stopped by himself.
__
“This is your Empire, too. Your suggestions will be taken into account.” If they’re not stupid.
Palpatine folded his hands over his lap.
Darth Vader jolted and stilled, resisting the urge to surge forward. “A primary goal should be the elimination of slavery.”
Sidious did a second of calculations. “You seem uniquely suited for the task. I leave the organizing to you; subject to approval.”
Vader pulsed with gratitude and almost childish bloodlust. “It will be glorious, my Master.”
The massive doors hissed shut. Palpatine pulled up his holocom.
“Yes, your Majesty?”
“Slavery is, of course, illegal in the Empire.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Barbaric compared to our robust and humane indentured servitude program.”
“It shall be done, your Majesty.”
__
The Death Star was a crime against nature by design. Its very concept was malice. Not enough to decimate a people in fire and smoke, it blew planets out like candles, to show the absolute dominion of military might over life and death.
The Dark was filling the vacuum Alderaan left behind.
The real battle was not fought with sabers or men. This was a war for the soul of the galaxy; perhaps Sheev’s understanding of this led to his success where many failed.
He took a single ship in secret to the rubble. He could only see the metal ceiling, but all around him were sensations. His most practiced sense, his fifth sense, reveled in the anguish that wept from this wound in the Force.
He was, admittedly, a sadist. A very useful quality for a Sith. The Dark answered at his pleasure as well.
__
The Emperor deigned to dine with the Moffs. The kitchens of the Imperial Palace had been preparing since yesterday morning– the young shaak were slaughtered, the pelikki drowned in honey, and the best barrels of Nabooian wine were cracked open like the most tempting chestnuts.
__
“The Son of Skywalker lives,” Sidious hissed.
“He does?” Vader asks, begging for his reality to be defined.
“Yeah,” Sheev shrugged. “I’m as surprised as you are. Obi-Wan’s betrayal ran deeper than we could have possibly imagined. If she did not die from your assault, then he ensured her death by concealing her, all to keep you from your children,” Sidious riled. Vader’s guilt and rage flared in a predictable chemical reaction.
The energy in the Force was palpable (Palpa-ble?).
“How are we to proceed?”
“The boy should be with his sire, Vader. Surely you know the root of that word?” Sidious leaned back. “Seek him out: bring Skywalker to me, and he will join the legacy of his father.”
__
As Talzin’s draught hit the back of his throat, he was already sinking back into the cushions and losing himself in visions. Places and people he didn’t know yet, but recognized. He saw the unformed clay that the universe was, his to shape.The future spread out before him, and all of them that he could see spun back into a single thread and end.
No matter what, it would end like this:
In his mind, he walked through the scene. It flickered; different planets. Different clothes. Different times. Different people. All surrounding a hole and a six-foot-long box.
He watched the man of ceremonies dust a coffin with good salt.
“--guide his spirit to eternal peace and rest,” they murmured.
There were maybe four or five people standing here. They helped to lower the box into the ground and cover it. They stood silently for maybe a minute, only enough to be proper, and then all left.
He crept, silently, to see what the inscription said.
‘Sheev Palpatine.’
Unknown, uncelebrated, unremembered: not even an epithet.
He was going to be no one.
No one at all.