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DarthNaughtious Registered: Jun '05	Date Posted: 6/8/06 2:11pm Subject: Through the Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ (A/V, Sidious, Luke) Replies - Date Edited: 1/23/07 12:29pm (7 edits total) Edited By: DarthNaughtious
	Note: this was written for the sw mythology community on livejournal, hence the themes listed. Themes: 21. Children of the Gods (Heros and/or Villains); 28. Nirvana (Spirituality) Claim: Darth Sidious/Palpatine Characters: Darth Sidious, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker Time Period: from the end of RotS - the end of RotJ Genres: Supernatural, Horror, Drama Summary: Dreams merge with reality, and the line blurs between Jedi, Sith, and the one that ties them together. Balance between light and dark is found through the looking glass. Disclaimer: Star Wars and the characters within belong to George Lucas. I am not making any profit off this story. The poem preceding it is by E.E. Cummings. Warnings: Surrealism; disturbing images maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach(to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and milly befriended a stranded star whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) it's always ourselves we find in the sea —maggie and milly and molly and may, by E. E. Cummings Through the Looking Glass Lord Vader watched the body of Anakin’s former Master turn to ash inside the burning desert homestead alongside Owen and Beru, the only living connections he had still had to his mother, to his former life. The angry, scarlet eyes of the setting suns bled behind the blazing building and into the endless waves of sand in the distance, like red tears being wrung from the sky to heal the parched land. The lightening of a distant sandstorm flashed, briefly illuminating the crimson heavens before brutally cleansing cyclones of sand dropped from the clouds and partially blocked the bloody sunsets from view. Something in him howled in sick remorse as he watched the flames consume the bodies of his step-family and brother, but the voice was muffled, smothered, the barely remembered echo of the conscience he had mercilessly strangled into silence nearly two years before. With unnatural suddenness, those twisting, angry tempests of sand seemed to appear right beside him; their howling winds would have been close enough, had the storms been more than illusions, to cleanse the charred flesh from his bones. As the twisting currents of wind somehow drew his mind into the brutal, writhing rapids of time and the Dark Side of the Force, he was mentally drawn into the eye of one them, swallowed by the ravenous savagery of his home planet like his mother before him. Abruptly, he was reliving a familiar scene from his nightmarish memories, but from a different perspective than he usually saw it from. This time, instead of watching himself fall to the Dark Side from his younger, undamaged eyes, he saw everything from the eyes of an old man, ancient as the black, primordial power that crackled and swirled about him, setting every cell in his decaying body on fire with incendiary joy as if the lava flow of Mustafar was some kind of perverse elixir of life for his soul. “Do you pledge yourself eternally to the Sith Order?” he rasped, feeling himself become drunk on perverse joy as he watched a younger, undamaged version of Anakin Skywalker kneel before him. Destroying the Chosen One was one of his greatest accomplishments, and though he had unwittingly begun to care for Skywalker over the years, he still got no greater pleasure than watching the one who was prophesied to defeat him and annihilate the Sith Order take such great steps to ensure his own destruction. The part of Vader that was not lost in this strange, out-of-body vision cried out in horror, yelled out a warning to his younger self, useless and raw. “Yes, my Master,” came the mechanically flat reply, his inflectionless tone bled dry of humanity, the voice of the living dead. “Then I dub you…Lord Vader.” The memory continued to play out to its conclusion with unforgiving candor, though he was forced to view the first crimes he had committed as a Sith from the eyes of his younger self, for his Master had taken no part in what he had done in the Council’s chamber. Younglings fell under his blade, small hands were severed from chubby arms, and the pathetic sobs of one of the youngest, cowering behind Master Yoda’s Council chair and holding onto it like it was a lifeline, were silenced forever by a blue blade that sliced through his voice box and spine. Sickness and joy warred for dominance within him as he expressionlessly watched the boy’s head fall from his shoulders and hit the floor with a thud, until a cleansing feeling of power and omnipotence, more wonderful than anything he had ever felt in his life— What about your love for Padme, or have you really fallen so far that you’ve forgotten her? —overwhelmed all other sensation like an icy wave flooding his mind, and he grinned with predatory delight. They were your family, your children, how could you? No! They were Anakin’s family, Obi-Wan killed Anakin on Mustafar. He’s dead—it’s too late for him! His mind was swept away from his memories and onward in time by the bloody currents of the Dark Side, and he was seeing flashes of a vision, witnessing vivid fragments of a horrible possible future...or was that all it was? Don’t make yourself relive this memory! You won’t ever have enough power to change the past, even if you sold your soul again, so why force yourself to relive something you can't change? He was in a detention cell in the Death Star, and a beautiful young woman lay writhing, screaming with animal desperation on the durasteel slab that passed for her bed, begging him to make the pain stop. His own laughter, as deep and dark as empty space, filled his ears as he impassively scrutinized the princess’s pain levels through the Force, and delirious joy rose in him as he fed on her growing terror and rage as if it was the most blissful of all drugs. —He wanted to comfort her, shield her from harm; something in him, some deep, long buried instinct begged him to heed her pleas, to make her pain stop and protect her at any cost— “Where is the rebel base, Princess? If you tell me that one simple piece of information, I promise I will make all of this pain go away.” He was torn away from the detention cell, and thrown into different shards of the same horrifying future with dizzying rapidity… “It’s too late for me, my son.” “Sister? Sister? Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. If you do not turn to the Dark Side, perhaps she will.” Tatooine again. The glaring red light of the setting suns spilled onto his natural, non-mechanical hands, making them look as if they were soaked in blood. The bodies of his loved ones were smoldering only meters away from him, and the sweet scent of their charred flesh wafted into his mechanical sensors, making his stomach churn. A weather-worn grave caught his eye… What would your mother think of what you’ve become? Stop! he ordered his chaos-torn mind, desperately trying to hold back the flood of feelings that were suddenly overwhelming him. They deserved it, all of them, Obi-Wan left me to burn alive— Did your children? Did Padme? Padme never did anything to you and you still killed her! You owe her a debt, a debt that can only ever be paid by joining her in the grave you put her in, joining her in the Light Side of the Force— Gasping, he reached out blindly for the soothing, icy blanket of the Dark Side, desperately trying to drown out his memories and conscience. He reached and found— Light. Pure, untainted, blinding light, so hot that it burned him, so good that it made him recoil, nauseous with the pain of self-knowledge, as bright as a star gone supernova but dimming every second. Suddenly, in his mind he was inside the burning homestead, choking on grey clouds of smoke. He staggered blindly towards the door, gasping desperately for air while he cried for his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. He was too little, he couldn’t find his way out on his own, and when some instinct told him that his aunt and uncle were no longer able to help him, he did the only thing he could think of to do. He called for his father, though Aunt Beru had told him that he was dead… I can’t let him die, I have to save him! He’s my son, and he still believes in me, he still forgives me, even after… …Electric heat screamed up every one of the nerves in his helpless body as two black-clad figures towered over him, one a half alive machine-man forged on a hell-fire planet, one the conductor of a galaxy of insidious, festering hatred, fiends right out of the worst of his nightmares. “And now, Jedi, you will die!” “Father, help me!” he screamed. The rapid cooling of that bright, soul-piercing warmth in the Force warned him that his time to act was quickly waning. The ghosts of the past and the whispers of dreams blended together under the cooling ire of Tatooine’s suns, and suddenly Vader was running straight into the hell-fire flames that were devouring the burning home as fast as he could, hoping, knowing that he couldn’t be too late, not this time. He spotted the two-year-old boy’s unconscious body, miraculously untouched by the encroaching flames, laying the middle of the only home he had ever known, the home that Vader had lit on fire with barely a thought, and dove through the circle of fire to reach him, shielding his body from the flames until they were out of the burning building… Tatooine, along with its nightmare blaze, began to slowly fade from sight like a horrible mirage as another place, as unwelcoming as the first, began to solidify before him: the throne room on the Death Star. The sweet smell of burnt flesh remained, however, and it was a while before Anakin realized that it was his own. Waves of white-hot electricity had shorted-out the circuits in his life-support suit and mechanical limbs, fusing his wiring together and partially cooking his internal organs. His physical strength left him completely as he collapsed near the rail surrounding the reactor core of the second Death Star, watching Vader's former Master and his worst enemy, his mentor and creator, fall to a death of his own making. Anakin smiled behind his mask as his grown-up son cradled his now useless body in his arms and told him that everything would be all right. In the distance, someplace beyond time, a little boy with eyes as blue as sparkling Naboo seas coughed up smoke and took a shuddering breath, beaming up at him from where he lay on the cooling sand with the innocence of a child that was too young to comprehend his father ever being unable or unwilling to protect him. “Luke, you were right…and you were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right.” No monsters would haunt his children’s dreams this night. -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=24083090&brd=10476&replies=0 Through a Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ http://boards.theforce.net/Before_the_Saga/b10475/22077549/?1 The Creature: Sidious, toddler Anakin
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CrazyAni Registered: Feb '06	Date Posted: 6/9/06 2:18pm Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) A weird, surreal look at the end of RotJ
	Amazing work! Beautiful language, and a very vivid look at what Vader might have thought before turning to Anakin again. -----signature----- Currently chased away from the boards by the Writers' Block Cage of Lies - post RotS A/P - Padme is presumed to be dead http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/25632570/p1/ HELP!!!Where is my muse?
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leia_naberrie Registered: Sep '02	Date Posted: 6/9/06 2:39pm Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) A weird, surreal look at the end of RotJ
	Surreal. -----signature----- http://io9.com/5111680/avatar-casting-makes-fans-see-white Upset about the casting for the Last Airbender movies? Write to Paramount about it. http://aang-aint-white.livejournal.com/1007.html
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Just-Plain-Shmi Registered: Mar '06	Date Posted: 6/9/06 3:48pm Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) A weird, surreal look at the end of RotJ
	Surreal is right! His physical strength left him completely as he collapsed near the rail surrounding the reactor core of the second Death Star, watching Vader's former Master and his worst enemy, his mentor and creator, fall to a death of his own making. Anakin smiled behind his mask as his grown-up son cradled his now useless body in his arms and told him that everything would be all right. In the distance, someplace beyond time, a little boy with eyes as blue as sparkling Naboo seas coughed up smoke and took a shuddering breath, beaming up at him from where he lay on the cooling sand with the innocence of a child that was too young to comprehend his father ever being unable or unwilling to protect him. “Luke, you were right…and you were right about me. Tell your sister, you were right.” No monsters would haunt his children’s dreams this night. JPS -----signature----- “The heart of a mother is deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always discover forgiveness.”- Honore de Balzac
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DarthNaughtious Registered: Jun '05	Date Posted: 6/10/06 1:51pm Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) A weird, surreal look at the end of RotJ - Date Edited: 6/10/06 3:05pm (2 edits total) Edited By: DarthNaughtious
	To all: Thanks, everyone, for reviewing! I was rather ambivalent about posting this in the first place, as it is so incredibly...unorthodox. I wrote this entirely on a whim, with the hope, but not necessarily the expectation, that anyone else would understand it well enough to truly enjoy it. My goal was to try to write this story as if it was a dream, and with all the logic of the dream world (hence the Alice in Wonderland reference in the title), while still attempting to make it understandable to the waking world. I hope I at least partially succeeded at the latter objective. If anyone reading this thinks I didn't, I would appreciate constructive comments detailing what specifically I could do to make it more understandable and effective, while still maintaining the surreal, dream-like quality of the story. Crazy Ani: Beautiful language, and a very vivid look at what Vader might have thought before turning to Anakin again. Thanks so much for the kind words! I'm glad you liked it. I was trying to show Vader's thoughts by visually representing them, in a way. So am I correct in assuming, from your comment, that you understood the nature of Vader's visit to Tatooine? Leia: Yep, I definitely wasn't lying about the surreal part. I wanted to write it like one of my dreams, and with (hopefully well enough explained) dream logic, too, which is why I wasn't sure if I should actually post it here. But it was one of those things that I was compelled to write primarily on a whim as a writer, just to see if I could write something with all the logic of a dream (i.e. suddenly becoming someone else, jumping forwards and backwards in time randomly), while still making it understandable enough to the people reading it. This whim was, partially at least, instigated by the debate ranging amongst the readers of your story, Kaleidoscope. All that talk of, "is it a dream, or a different reality?" got me thinking: "what if a story was told like a dream is told?" Then I started thinking about the stories I've read or heard of that imitate the logic of dreams to a certain extent, and "Alice and Wonderland" came up (along with its sequel, Through the Looking Glass). You should check out the sw_mythology site on livejournal (I wrote this story for it). You seem to enjoy incorporating mythological/religious themes into your stories, and it would be right up your alley. JPS: Surreal is right! Another person I shocked with the weirdness of it all, lol! Rubs hands together in glee Muahaha--ahem. Where did that come from? I'm glad the emotional impact was still conveyed, even considering the odd way it was told. Anakin didn’t truly realize what he’d lost until the end. -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=24083090&brd=10476&replies=0 Through a Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ http://boards.theforce.net/Before_the_Saga/b10475/22077549/?1 The Creature: Sidious, toddler Anakin
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rocketscientist Registered: Nov '05	Date Posted: 6/22/06 7:26am Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) Replies
	Wow! Poetic! Honest and beautiful! -----signature----- I write to find out why I’m writing what I’m writing. M.J. Harrison WIP - Doppelgänger - http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=24328635&brd=1 my fan art- http://boards.theforce.net/fan_art/b10020/25738915/p1
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DarthNaughtious Registered: Jun '05	Date Posted: 6/22/06 12:09pm Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) Replies
	Wow! Poetic! Honest and beautiful! Wow, thank you . I'm glad you liked it so much. -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=24083090&brd=10476&replies=0 Through a Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ http://boards.theforce.net/Before_the_Saga/b10475/22077549/?1 The Creature: Sidious, toddler Anakin
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David_Skywalker01 Registered: Nov '06	Date Posted: 12/22/06 6:00am Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: (A/V, Sidious, Luke) Replies
	That was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!! -----signature----- "A blind man should not lead a blind man or they will both fall into a hole." - Jesus IndyCar- One series, All the stars http://www.freewebs.com/therebelallianceofstarwarsgeeks - my website Worst EU people- Jacen Solo, ANY Yuuzhan Vong, Ashoka
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DarthNaughtious Registered: Jun '05	Date Posted: 1/23/07 12:33pm Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ (A/V, Sidious, Luke) Replies
	David_Skywalker01: Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading! -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=24083090&brd=10476&replies=0 Through a Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ http://boards.theforce.net/Before_the_Saga/b10475/22077549/?1 The Creature: Sidious, toddler Anakin
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ROTSFan Registered: Jul '06	Date Posted: 6/29/07 1:25am Subject: RE: Through the Looking Glass: A dream-like look at the end of RotJ (A/V, Sidious, Luke) Replies
	That was quite surreal, and if you follow it, a brilliant move--Anakin was reawakening inside the Vader suit, remembering (paralleling) things dear to him in time to save his son. Very different, very nice -----signature----- Fics in profile; ask me to unlock ~I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I hoped it would be." - Office Space
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