Beyond - Legends Saga Saga - Legends We Suffer [Angstober 2023 Repository]

Title: "We Suffer"
Author: vader_incarnate
Timeframe: saga and beyond
Characters: Skywalker family and extended family
Genre: angst! (and things of that nature)

Summary: Exactly what the title says. Subtitle: dear Force, Elli, what did the Skywalker family ever do to you?

Notes: I took the summer off, sorta, due to a two-front attack from writer’s block and Darth RL, but Vi brought me back with those delicious Angstober prompts. No promises on how many I’ll be able to do or how quickly I’ll do them, but fingers crossed.

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Index:

Prompt 1: (untitled)​

 

No. 1: “Death twitches my ear. ‘Live,’ he says, ‘I am coming.’”
Mortality | Fade-to-White | “Stay with me.”

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Death has been a constant companion all your life, from the desert planet and slave hovels of Tatooine to the foxholes and space battles of the Clone Wars to the ever blood-tinged decades after Mustafar.

Nothing has lived under your skin - no light, no life - for years, and the only thing you hate more deeply than the accursed ventilator is the stubborn pacemaker that keeps your feeble heart pounding and pounding and pounding.

You cannot die. He will not allow it.

But like a fool you hold out the hope anyway, and every time the veil thins whether from combat or lightning or the inevitable countless infections - gods above, you’ve imagined it so many times it feels like a memory: that envied promise of the ever-beyond, of a fade-to-white like the streaking stars of hyperspace, and you can almost almost feel yourself elongating stretching drifting towards it -

Live, the Force whispers, and it whispers in the voice of the Father. But you don’t know if there is a trace of disappointment there, or a trace of vengeful satisfaction.

No, you try to protest, but you cannot articulate the word without the vocabulator. It hardly matters. No, no, no. Please. I cannot. I will not.

You must, my Chosen. Bring balance, the Force croons, and now you know, know you aren’t imagining the menace lurking behind the poisoned promise, and the Father’s voice takes on a tone not unlike your Master’s: edged and cruel and insidiously sweet under the silken words. Bring balance -

“Stay with me, Lord Vader - “ you hear -

And it’s over, and you open your eyes to the blood-tinged world and you hear him - and you cannot scream without the vocabulator.

End.

 

aaaaahhhhh but forever

I just love this (which is maybe a weird thing to say given the horror and despair of it, but you do have such a knack for unsettling yet beautiful descriptions)

Ooh, interesting

I really like how you shifted from the Father to Sidious and then they blended together and it's all just this surreal living hell for Vader.

Perfect, no notes

I'm so glad your inspiration returned for this, Elli. It was horrible and beautiful as ever.

 

AWW angsty Vader with all his thoughts. Perfect for this prompts

 

That's my girl

This is so pretty despite the horror, and extremely visceral, I love it

Ooh, that cuts deep

Look at this beautiful segue

Honestly, however willingly Vader embraced the dark and all the terrible things he did for all those years, it had to be a horror show to be him, too. Imagine all the memories and physical and psychological issues that he let fester, and imagine being on Palpatine's tight leash for all that time. You do such a good job of showing that

Can't wait to see what further awful things you have in store for us

 

It says something that I don't like the Mortis stuff, but I liked this.

 

I don't really know how to do this justice except to say that I'm so impressed with how succinctly you convey the absolute psychological horror of Vader's existence under Sidius' thumb.

I absolutely adore this imagery... not many writers can make the prospect of dying of sepsis sound romantic!

So unsettling. I love it.

This is a perfectly, horrifyingly creepy ending! This is a fantastic response to the challenge, and I'm looking forward to reading more!