Beyond - Legends Lest Ye Be Judged--Vader war crimes trial--Voted Best All-Around, thanks!

Since I went to get dinner and didn't get back in much time, this post will be up tomorrow morning. I would have had an hour more to write, except I've been keeping my best friend semi-sane through the preparations for her dad's funeral. It's not easy and it's driving me nuts to be 2400 miles away from her.

 

Never mind, the lab isn't closed yet. *KNock on wood.* Will go and finish up the post now.

 

Four years ago, she had never heard of Endor.

She had never had her spirit broken or her mind violated. She had never known murderous intent or what it meant to lose the will to live. She considered few her enemies and many her friends because, while she distrusted the powerful, she was a compassionate type.

Four years ago today, that had all changed.

Four years ago today, she had found herself stumbling in her first steps towards an observation gallery because the effects of interrogation had left her weaker than she had ever thought possible. She had held her head high, even though the starvation of the ?softening up? period had left her jaw more clearly pronounced and her neck looking thin rather than slender. She had clasped her hands in front of her out of diplomatic habit rather than the need to ease the pressure on her chafed wrists or hide the sweat stains beneath her arms.

She had been completely out of control in that situation, so she had simply taken control of every aspect of her personal bearing.

And then, she had found out just how futile that gesture was as well.

Vader, the one who had been so eager to seen her crumpled against the wall or cringing under his ministrations, the one who had knocked her across the cell with the force of his blows, had been the one to keep her immobile during the operation. She had struggled at first, had argued and pleaded until her voice began to crack with the effort of keeping calm, but in a moment, she was blinded.

And then the newly-made Orphan Organa had retched, unable to speak and unable to trigger any other response.

She remembered little of the ensuing moments. She could not pinpoint the route they took to return to her cell or how many stormtroopers had been in her escort. She could not tell how much time passed between the moment they left her standing alone in her cell and when they returned to deliver her meal.

She only remembered the fact that she had been unable to respond. While she was alone, her only focus was maintaining her composure. She had not had to work that hard at restraining her emotions since she was a small girl and she found herself reverting to the same methods as before.

Only this time, the clenched fists left bloody imprints of fingernails in her palms and when she unclenched the shoulders that were nearly raised to her earlobes, the trembling that had been induced in that gesture would not stop.

The tears, however, were still something she could control. By the time her escort returned with food that might as well have been topsoil for all the taste she gleaned from it, her eyes were bright with tears that were locked behind the impenetrable barrier of royal bearing.

She made it through two mouthfuls, choking on each one as her gag reflex kicked in, reminding her that she had just murdered her entire world with her obstinance. On the third forkful, however, her hand trembled so violently that she could not even make it halfway to her mouth and it finally fell, forgotten, from nerveless fingers.

And with that, her mind forgot that she was supposed to be the perfect Princess and she had known the meaning of words like ?all-consuming? and ?violent grief.?

More than anything, it had been the fact that she had lost her father in the moment that she turned away that broke her.

She had lost both of the mothers that she had known, had grieved inadequately for them both out of juvenile ignorance or diplomatic necessity. The father that had sired her was never spoken of, except to mention that they had not known him before his death.

The loss of the man who she had called Father was unfathomable. She grieved inadequately, but not from lack of trying. She recognized that her last goodnight kiss had been tinged with an inappropriate resentment because she had just lost her mother and he was still willing to make her a sacrifice to the Empire. She remembered the frustration that all of her efforts until death would be deemed insufficient by a man who gave orders from a desk. He may have be

 

That was for the family of Richard Farnham, who was the dad of my best friend Jess and her three sisters and who died on the 13th. Leia was based very heavily on Emily, the second-oldest of his daughters.

 

Up.

 

Excellent post, Ishy. Very heartbreaking and realistic.

 

Thanks, GO.

 

Oh, how sad!!

I hope that you and your friend are doing all right!

 

Obviously, I'm doing better than her, since I just was a friend of the family, but it's really hard to be this far away from her.

 

That was a wonderful post. I love how you portray Leia's character

My prayers are with your friend.

Note: I will be out of town with no internet access for the next week, just to let you know that I haven't abandoned reading!

 

Cool, we'll miss you, but thanks for the notice. I'm glad Leia's coming off well.

 

In his dreams, he had often seen their faces.

In the moment before he had struck the first youngling down, he had memorized the face of each child in the room. He remembered the blue eyes of one, the cleft in the chin of another, and remembered each species.

Much to his chagrin, he had worked with the children enough to be able to name them without thinking.

The man who was a child in the persona of Darth Vader had not hesitated throughout the course of his efforts to slaughter his colleagues at the Jedi Temple. Few had taken the time to wonder why and only one had bothered to ask the question out loud.

The most unusual, however, had been the man who kept the gates of the Temple at this time of night. He had not asked why, only "Are things really that bad?"

As he had pressed the lightsaber to the underside of the man's jaw, hand trembling around the grip, he had simply answered. "You have no idea."

Standing in the Council chamber, Lord Vader had hesitated because he had been incapable of thinking that things could be this bad.

He had hesitated because he had seen in that first youngling's face a reflection of himself and wondered if he would have had the strength to do this were the child his.

He had pushed those memories from his conscious mind for two decades because he could not afford to remember that hesitation, but the dreams remained in place. They were the only things that interrupted the subconscious fantasies of murdering Obi-Wan on the slopes of a Mustafar volcano or turning his lightsaber on Palpatine in the moment following Mace Windu's demise. No matter how hard his mind tried, he could not find himself extinguishing the saber in his dreams.

He was too well-aware of the monster he had permitted to hold his lightsaber that day.

He regretted very few things, since there was no place for compassion or sentimentality on the Dark Side, but those moments were his coveted and hoarded exceptions.

It was this regret that had staid his hand at Bespin, when his son's chin trembled millimeters above the blade of his lightsaber or when Luke had clung to the end of the gantry.

It was a lack of regret, a lack of atonement that had allowed Luke to choose a fall to his death over an alliance with a fallen angel.

He wished in the days that followed Endor that his heart had found an excuse to stay his hand against Leia, but he had never been able to see her as a child, much less his child. He had seen in her the defiance of Bail Organa and Padme Skywalker, the kind of idealistic determination that had allowed the downfall of the Republic.

Because he could never call that determination innocence, he had counted her ambition as criminal and he would be cursed for it to the end of his days.

Because nothing would stay his hand against determined souls, the end of his days might come sooner than he had anticipated.
*****

 

Good stuff.

 

I missed an update! Anyways,

7/14 Update

Oh, wow, that was really sad! Great job with that! Poor Leia. I hope that you and your friend and her family are doing well.

7/17 Update

Great job! I really liked this post. It showed Vader's regret and the fact that he is now going to have to live up to his mistakes. A line that really stuck out in my mind was-

It was this regret that had staid his hand at Bespin, when his son's chin trembled millimeters above the blade of his lightsaber or when Luke had clung to the end of the gantry.

Really, really good.

 

Fantastic posties Ish!

Hope all is well with your friend.

 

ccp--Good stuff.

Thanks.

Siaynoqsbride--I missed an update! Anyways,

Oops, that's okay.

7/14 Update

Oh, wow, that was really sad! Great job with that! Poor Leia. I hope that you and your friend and her family are doing well.

Thanks. I'm glad you liked that and my friend seems to be doing better, though the wake was yesterday and the funeral will be today.

7/17 Update

Great job! I really liked this post. It showed Vader's regret and the fact that he is now going to have to live up to his mistakes. A line that really stuck out in my mind was-

It was this regret that had staid his hand at Bespin, when his son's chin trembled millimeters above the blade of his lightsaber or when Luke had clung to the end of the gantry.

Really, really good.

I loved that sort of twisting the scenes of the movies around my idea, and this was very much based on ideas that I talked with Dana and her mom about, which was half of why I wrote it in the first place.

Sethathoryunet--Fantastic posties Ish!

Hope all is well with your friend.

Thanks and she's doing better.

 

Unfortunately Ish, in about 4-5 years time I'll know exactly what you're going through with your friend.
One of my friends' father has a disease (which I can't remember the name of) that will kill him (very slowly) over the next few years.

It's very unfair, because she's from a normal family in a normal suburb, normal everything.
Just when you say "it can't happen to me".

Anyways, I'm not very good at constructive critisism (sp?!) so I'm sorry my posts aren't very informative. Trust me when I tell you that I'd let you know if they were no good!!!!

 

Yeah, I had an uncle who essentially died of leprosy here in America this year. It's easy to think there's so much safety around here, a false sense of security and sometimes, that makes it so much harder.

 

Sounds like you've had a pretty bad year then, so far!

You need somebody to send you a warm fuzzy! If I could work out what one
looks like, I'd send it to you!


Do we have a postie in the works?

 

Working on it. Yesterday, I was in the situation of having black-outs every once in a while. I'd be sitting down and have lots of energy, but then just wake up 3 minutes later, really confused. As a result, writing took a lot more effort. Today, I slept a bit more and have only had one of those. They're pretty scary.

 

OOps, just realized that I never updated the title on Saturday.

 

In honor of the struggle fought there and the lives lost, the New Republic designated Endor as Base Aurek, the first fortress of a new era.

Within weeks, Bases Besh and Cresh followed by conquest or alliance and the rest of the existing bases were redesignated. Nevertheless, out of practicality, they designated Base Besh, a well-constructed installation on Novquizor, as the headquarters of the fledgling government.

The installation had room for six hundred ground troops, pilot barracks for four squadrons, and enough space for one hundred of the leaders and support staff.

What only fifteen people on base knew was that the sixth room on the right of the east wing was not, as the room assignment claimed, a designated officer's quarters. Those who cared to notice would assume that the twelve men and women who visited it on a regular basis were assigned to the officer's unit.

In a manner of speaking, they were.

The chosen dozen were eight men and four women. Four were non-humans. Two were Alderaanians. Two were Corellian. One was from Tatooine. One was from Raltiir and the remaining two were from Coruscant. Five had been Imperials and one had even flown under Vader's command.

But they were the ones that the Inner Council trusted to be Lord Vader's guards.

It was not so much a matter of protecting him as in reining him in, ensuring that he would not escape to betray them all to his allies.

It was, some reflected, a near-to-futile gesture, since he had completed Jedi training and enhanced his tendency for evil under the Emperor's personal tutelage, so he could ruddy well escape if he wanted to, but it was a precautionary measure that they took as the first step towards giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Their trust was manifest in the fact that he didn't have five dozen guards.
*****
"I'm here," Leia explained as she took her seat, "to detail the manner of your trial."

"It's come to that already, then," Anakin observed.

"The preparations must begin now," she retorted. "If we don't start early, this could very well take years to simply establish the parameters."

"Fair enough," he said with a slight smile, "though I suspect you'd like to see me under house arrest for as long as possible."

"No," she corrected, "because that would give you as long as possible to escape."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "You really think I have any intention of escaping?"

Immediately, her gaze refocused on her datapad and her cheeks colored, but not from embarrassment. She was restraining her natural ability to be angry with him.

Her natural right.

All victims want vengeance. Is this cold-blooded determination your way of getting yours?

"I don't trust," she said quietly.

Then, a long pause as she strained to draw breath into lungs that were being crushed by the weight of her unnatural responsibility.

"I don't trust," she repeated, "that you intended anything by coming here except to survive what you consider a temporary victory. You could be here as nothing more than..."

She didn't trust herself to finish that sentence, only turned her gaze to the rolling savannahs beyond the window.

"I don't trust myself, either, which is why I allow a dozen guards, my future son-in-law included."

Her cheeks darkened again, but this time it was the pleasant flush of affection. "I think the commanders allowed him on the team out of the hope that he'll lose his temper," she rejoined.

His mouth quirked into a smile. "I don't doubt it."

Leia sighed, then turned her gaze back to the datapad, then finally regarded him with frank distrust.

"As it stands," she began, "we plan to carry this out under a Tribunal."

"But this is no military matter," he protested.

"Which is why it will not be formed uniquely by military personnel," she pressed on. "We are sending emissaries to the Empire to see if they will lend their aid to the effort. If so, they will have one representative on the Tribunal. Mon Mothma will representative our government and General Rieekan will be repr

 

Lovely!

More V/L; I like this.

Blackouts? That sounds pretty disturbing. I hope you're going to
a doctor about this . . .

UP!!!!!

 

I'm going to if it continues. As it is, thanks for liking my V/L. I rather am fond of it. Next time will be a lot more detailed and will finish up the explanation of the trial itself.

 

"Do you really want me passing judgment on what you did to me?"


Wonderful line!! Wow...I've been waiting years to read a line like that from Leia!!! *sighs*