Saga - Legends “May it be”, a NaNoWriMo contribution (Vader & OC Cassie)

Title: “May it be”, a NaNoWriMo contribution

Author: AzureAngel2

Co-editor and muse: @DarthUncle

Main beta editor: @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha

Length: 1.493 words

Summary: Being brave in the face of danger is sometimes a bit too much to ask for. From any hero or heroine. There should be moments of rest, for they are desperately needed.

This is the direct sequel to "An uninvited guest".

And it features the OC father of a SW character that is fairly new to cannon, but I could not resist writing him.

There is also a special thanks in order. It goes directly to @Kahara & @gizkaspice, because those two fuel my writing lust and, by doing so, made me gain my NaNoWriMo goal 2021!

Time frame: 3 ABY.

Place of choice: Mustafar

Reader warning: Please excuse my weird English! I am German. English is only my Second language!

Disclaimer: SW is owned by George Lucas, Lucas Ltd. and now The Walt Disney Company


I'm gonna marry the night
I won't give up on my life
I'm a warrior queen
Live passionately tonight

I'm gonna marry the dark
Gonna make love to the stark
I'm a soldier to my own emptiness
I am a winner

I'm gonna marry the night
I'm gonna marry the night
I'm gonna marry the night

I'm gonna marry the night
I'm not gonna cry anymore
I'm gonna marry the night
Leave nothing on these streets to explore

M-m-m-marry, m-m-m-marry

M-m-m-marry the night
Oh m-m-marry m-m-m-marry

M-m-m-marry the night

...


As usual, our skin contact hurts him, but he is brave and does not even flinch. My cousin has lived through worse. Each time he puts his mask on it's excruciating for him. Because countless needles try to interface with his tormented flesh by drilling deep into it.

“Don't give me that look again, Cassandra!” he whispers hoarsely and for a brief second his blue eyes have an ugly tinge of yellow.

He hates pity and therefore I steel myself. “As you wish!”

A shudder goes through him. “Pest!” he breathes.

Instead of reaching out for his vulnerable throat, where iron tubes got implanted about twenty-two years ago, I start rubbing my nose against his. “Dumb arse!”

Within a heartbeat, his gloved hands trap both of my cheeks. “Careful!”

“Likewise!” I give back and playfully place my hands on his armoured chest.

We stare at one another for a while, before I sigh deeply. He is in a very serious mood now and I should show him a little more respect. Not that he is very deserving, but he can't help being his sithly self. I should be forgiving about that.

“Okay, I am ready. Ready as can be.”

His gaze intensifies. “Are you sure?”

“Copy that!”

He snorts and a sparkle of his true self, the man he used to be before turning into Darth Vader, lights his eyes.

“No more games or smart mouth, okay? I promise.”

We know that my word counts when I really mean it. It's my loyalty to him that he likes the best. Of course, I do not shower him in flowers when he is cruel towards others. But I am honest with my opinion and stay on. Even though I feel like running to the hills most of the time.

“Do your worst!” I say softly and start to concentrate on his iris. It is as blue as a cloudless summer sky on Chandrila.

“Right,” he comments dryly.

Images and emotions flood into my own brain, until it's too much to bear.

Blood runs out of my nose and, to my utter embarrassment, I start to get seizures.

Then all light is gone until I wake up in my own bed without warning.

A dark-haired human in his late thirties is towering above me. He has a small moustache that desperately tries to connect with his dense beard.

“Do I really want to know?” I croak towards Doctor Pershing, Darth's personal medical caretaker.

He shakes his head in dismay.

“But I should, shouldn't I?” I continue, trying to get up.

“Milady, what you need to do is to rest,” Doctor Pershing addresses me gently. “You are no good dead to His Lordship. He made that clear.”

I puff up my chest. “Why does he not tell me so himself?”

“His exact words were: I went to far.” He cocks his head. “I should not have done what I did.”

I make a face. “This sounds like we…”

He raises his hand to silence me. “Of course you did not. I investigated you thoroughly, while you were unconscious.”

I blush deep red. To suggest that we have an affair is ridiculous. Not only are we cousins, due to some strange twist of faith, he is so not my type. But then again, what else can I tell the good doctor.

“I understand though that you are both able telepaths.”

Well, Darth must trust him enough to tell him that part. Or I really had some problems back in the meditation chamber.

“Your medical files tell me that you ran into similar problems before.”

I frown.

“His Lordship is well versed when it is about you, milady. As a child you almost had a craniotomy.”

How can Darth know about Eadu? Daddy deleted everything about the entire affair in order not to alert Child Protection Services.

I think hard.

Then it occurs to me. Our connection works both ways. Of course, he must witnessed several stations of my childhood.

Suddenly, I am very worried that he also knows about my regular night sessions with Qui-Gon. Or even the World Between Worlds. That would be worse! Especially after what he did to bring back his beloved Padmé Amidala from the dead.

I push my covers aside. “Pardon me, doctor, I must see him now!”

“Which he has foreseen.”

The injection needle is in my neck in no time. Dizziness claims me.

“Get some rest as ordered, milady, and I will stay here to monitor you,” the doctor says sternly.

I grant him the darkest look possible, try to fight the relaxation that is about to turn my entire body into bantha butter.

“You wanted the truth from His Lordship and he gave it to you. In mental sequences very hard to process. It almost fried your brain.” He sits down next to me, reaches out for one of my hands that starts getting limb. “As you may have guessed, I am Force-sensitive myself. Otherwise I would not be in this position. Once upon a time I was with the Medical Corps, an organization within the now forbidden Jedi Order.”

This comes as a true surprise.

“I survived Order 66 and went into hiding. But my call as a healer was so strong, that I could not let go entirely. In the Outer Rim I build up a new life, even got married and had a son. But talents like mine did not go unnoticed and so I ended up in His Lordships service, instead of getting killed.”

Even though I cannot talk back, I am very calm. The man in front of me is no danger. He indeed wants to help.

“Most of the time, I am not sure what is going on, but I recognize a servant of the dark side. Therefore, I am pretty certain that I deal with a sith lord. And I can tell that you are also fully aware of that.”

Weakly, I blink in agreement.

“You stay with His Lordship out of love, which proofs me that he is still human behind his sith armour. That makes it much easier for me to serve him. Of course, he could eradicate me and my family any time it pleases him. But he keeps me on, even got my son into a special school.”

I am sure that Doctor Pershing will round up his speech any given moment now.

“And today, he has made it clear that he wants me to keep a benevolent eye on your health since he is too busy to do so himself.”

If I could raise my voice, I would cheer loudly now. And at the same time, I do worry for Luke Skywalker. The young rebel commander is still the focus of unhealthy attention.

“This is what we will do now, you take things easy and I will do my best to fix whatever is wrong with your brain.”

Not much later, I have test sensors attached to my skin.

“Since I was told that you have trouble sleeping, I would like to do a Polysomnography for tonight. It's a sleep study in form of a non-invasive, overnight exam. I would like to record your brain waves, the oxygen level in your blood, heart rate and breathing.”

Due to the medication my panic level is very low.

I am basically married to the night since Daddy died above Scarif. When I am not having shaman sessions with Qui-Gon, I talk to the local Force phantoms or lose myself in all the literature I can get my hands on.

“You. Must. Not,” I manage to protest.

“Ah,” Doctor Pershing exclaims. “You prove me that I am looking into the right direction. I get it from the Chamberlain that you work yourself into exhaustion in the library.”

I make a mental note to kick Vaneé straight into his bony butt any time soon.

“And Admiral Piett confided to me that you often fall asleep in the weirdest moments on-board His Lordship's flag ship.”

I pull all my strength together. “Shamanistic journeys!”

The elderly gentleman beams at me. “That explains a lot, but not everything. But do not worry, milady, we get to the bottom of it all. And then we will heal you from the inside out.”

“Do. Not. Need.”

One of his hands rests on my brow. “And this is where you are wrong. There is too much going on in your poor brain non-stop. You seldom grant yourself moments of rest and self-regulation. In order to get better you will learn those. I can help you more than you think.”

His thumb and index finger close my eye lids.

“But now find sleep! Just sleep.”

There are various times my soul leaves the body, during dreaming or to protect myself from trauma. For tonight I am grounded, with the strict order to get better. I find sleep to be totally overrated. But I cannot stop it to claim me anyway.


Sources:
The first lines of the song “Marry the night” from Lady Gaga (2011)
Wookieepedia – The Star Wars Wiki
Hidden quotes from SW movies and the SW universe

 

Very fine sequel and congratulations on meeting the writing goals.

 

Thanks, @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha. Now, I am off to bed. For I have to function at work tomorrow despite being not 100% healthy again. But I slept most of today, the fever is gone, my air ways are more free, my voice is okayish once more and the stomach bug gone. All Covid tests were negative in so far. My excruciating head aches remain and so does my low energy level. But I have a new toddler waiting to make my acquaintance as his mentor for many years to come. Plus the Christmas decoration at work needs to be put up between 7am and 8am. And two of my other colleagues are still ill at home. Not much choice, really!

The unions also have another strike day this week, which will be hard on the parents, but I will be a strike breaker. Not happy to go marching around in the middle of a pandemic. I rather work without a mask for 8,5 hours with babies and toddlers. That way I feel more safe. And besides, there will be ill kids around me anyway. I simply stop worrying around them, otherwise I would lose my mind.

Just a shame that our employer, the state, does not give us more money for the health risk we take each day in times likes this and even wants to tear down the salary system, giving us less money. That is inhuman, really.

 

a great story with the healer being saved too by Vader
Good to see you without Covid and other bugs.
That pandemic stays. Here in Holland more restrictions are coming for sure.

 

Bedankt, beste @earlybird-obi-wan. Ik ben blij over jouw feedback.

And yes, I do like the idea that some jedi or Force sensitives were left alive by Vader on purpose.

 

There were so many good character moments in re-reading this; as always I love Vader and Cassie bickering like siblings. And it's interesting to see more of how being so close to a Sith has impacted on Cassie; she's always determined to act in the way that she thinks is best for her last living family member (well, last one she's on speaking terms with). And she doesn't necessarily take her own limits into account, though in this case she was able to withstand that secondhand trauma (more literally here than usual, since she'd taken on the task of seeing his actual memories).

There's something endlessly entertaining about how Cassie brings out Vader's immaturity (and yeah, some of his more caring and human side too). I get the feeling that she respects him as a person as much as she does anyone, but she has ZERO respect for his dramatics. Which is a lot of fun to read, and I suspect confuses the Sith out of him. But it's also part of how he's able to trust her as much as he does, which is really a lot more than most anyone else in his life at this point.

Cassie has a lot of secrets to juggle; though she gets some extra knowledge out of it, it sure puts her in an unenviable position. Too many really weird metaphysical mysteries for one girl to keep hidden without a lot of stress. Worse still when now there are TWO Sith trying to raise the dead for their own ends in her family.

Ouch! That seems like it could have been avoided -- but of course neither of these cousins know the meaning of caution or looking before you leap.

Though Cassie does quite a job of projecting devil-may-care invincibility, you can really see how it's all taking a toll on her in this section. This kid needs a nap, and probably someone to talk to who isn't, y'know, literally Darth Vader. (He's doing his best for her, I'll give him that. But he also doesn't know the first thing about the care and feeding and how not to brain-fry your grieving teenaged cousin.)

Pershing was a surprise; I actually didn't know his name from the show so until I googled wasn't even sure if he was an OC. This is a really intriguing idea of what he may have been up to back during the Imperial era, and it makes his later even-more-shady involvement with Force-sensitive experimentation seem very sad. This version of him still has more idealism than that, it looks like. I'm glad to see that he's figured out that Cassie needs more rest at the very least!

Though I still haven't read the new comics, I'm really happy to see that they've been such an inspiration to you in this latest series of tales. It's nifty to see how the events of those stories can be a jumping-off point for further exploring the characters.

 

@Kahara, I just noticed that I still owe you a big hug and a warm thanks for your wonderful review. You are, as always, straight to the point and found out about all my, more or less, hidden agendas. Brilliant analysis of Cassie's and Vader's characters, too. And this is why I write them this way. To show how they give their best to save one another and their own dreams/ wishes.