Beyond the Saga Skyclawer [Luke, Leia, Vader fluff, humor, and crack] [Autumn Bingo]

Title: "Skyclawer"
Author(s): vader_incarnate
Timeframe: post RotJ
Characters: Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Darth Vader
Genre: humor, crack, fluff
Summary: He's just a normal cat, and that's hilarious?

Spoiler: Notes

Please enjoy this absolute crackfic where Vader lives but also is reincarnated as a cat. That's not how the Force works, I know; we're going to ignore that. Don't interrogate too closely, just enjoy the Skyclawer fluff.

Response to the Autumn Bingo Challenge. The words I used were:

Graveyard
Gratitude
Black Cat
Pear
Bonfire

---

Vader hadn't known what to expect after his body had been burned in the bonfire of the funeral pyre on Endor's moon, but it hadn't been this.

This was neither the immortality within the Force promised by the Jedi nor the eternal abyss of chaos theorized by the Sith, Vader reflected sleepily, but he didn't mind much.

He in fact much preferred it to whatever graveyard haunting that Kenobi and Yoda were no doubt up to, what he assumed to be the traditional domain of ghosts.

Vader was waking up after a lovely cat nap in a patch of sunlight, and he stretched out his back, quietly rumbling a soft purr of satisfaction. Golden rays of sunlight were beaming through the transparisteel window of Luke's Coruscant apartment, and the angle of the sun told him that it was late afternoon; he'd been asleep for a few hours.

He'd missed sunlight, during his years in the armor, and despite the glut of it available now, he always felt a bit of gratitude when the warmth of the sun touched upon his new body.

This was all very nice. Much nicer than he deserved, all told.

Except he was starting to get hungry, and Luke wasn't home yet. That wasn't nice at all, and in fact had the potential to become a disaster.

Vader opened sleepy feline eyes and lazily stretched, arching his back sharply and absently kneading the floor with his paws. Having a tail was still an odd sensation that he was getting used to, and he experimentally flicked it.

Luke should be back soon. But Vader was hungry now. And the boy had left a bowl of fruit sitting out invitingly on the table, and from his perch across the room, Vader could see a lovely green pear.

Of course, he could have been over there within a few jumps - but he'd just woken up and didn't really feel like moving that far.

Vader reached to the Force, and threw out a tendril of power to call the fruit to slowly float across the room towards him.

Naturally, that was when Luke chose to open the door.

"Father, what are you doing?" Luke demanded sharply, and Vader, who had been concentrating too hard on fetching his snack to notice his son's impending entrance, howled in consternation as his concentration was disrupted and the formerly flying fruit fell forlornly to the floor.

A beat, and then - of all the people he had distinctly not expected - Leia entered the room after her brother, and asked in disbelief, "Luke. You named your cat … Father?"

Vader the cat yowled, somewhat offended. What was wrong with that name? He liked it when Luke called him Father.

"What's wrong with that name?" Luke echoed, and Vader didn't bother to suppress his flare of satisfaction.

And then belatedly remembered that maybe he should suppress his satisfaction, because his daughter was Force sensitive, too, and would it possibly be suspicious if her brother's cat seemed inexplicably very satisfied?

He quickly slammed mental shields into place and sensed a quick thread of amusement emanating from Luke. Vader leapt down from the windowsill he had previously been happily perched on and padded on light feet towards his children.

He glared at Luke with slightly narrowed eyes, and cocked his head expectantly to the side. Luke got the hint and picked him up, sighing, and ran a reluctant hand through his fur. Despite his peevishness, Vader relaxed happily into his touch and nestled into the boy's arms.

"Given the identity of our father, it seems a little ... dark," Leia answered finally.

"It's dark because he's a black cat, and black is the darkest color," Luke countered a little too defensively. "And the name suits him. Better than you'd think."

"Is he a genocidal murderer?" Leia asked waspishly. Vader could feel his son blanch at the query, and he himself deflated slightly, mewling softly. Luke pet him again reassuringly. "I realize that our father saved your life on the Death Star, Luke, but really -"

"He's a black cat," Luke said again, somewhat more subdued. "And also he's cranky and fussy and an utter pain in my ass, so his name is Father even though he's not a murderous telekinetic Sith Lord, okay?"

Vader hissed, baring his teeth - and actually actively offended this time, he twisted sideways in Luke's hold to give him a reproving bat across the nose with his paw.

He was not fussy.

I am a very good cat, he thought at Luke, and received in response the impression of eyes being rolled very hard.

And he was also a good telekinetic, mostly not-murderous, mostly ex-Sith Lord, the two were not as mutually exclusive as the boy seemed to think.

Leia laughed, and Vader suppressed the urge to sink his sharp but currently sheathed claws into Luke's gloved synthflesh prosthetic hand. "It's almost like he can understand you."

"Almost," Luke deadpanned, and Vader bat him across the nose again.

Leia reached out tentatively with the Force - she was still only slightly trained, a state of affairs that Vader distinctly disapproved of - and Vader panicked momentarily but then concentrated very hard on being a normal cat, and tried very hard to think about normal cat things.

Rodents. Sunlight. Um. Disdain for clumsy bipedal life forms. Love for Luke, maybe? Did normal cats feel love?

Oh! Boxes! Boxes were good, they were simultaneously vaguely comforting containment that recalled his armor in only the best ways and yet also completely escapable in case he needed to quickly get out. Sitting in boxes was an enjoyable and thoroughly normal cat behavior.

Luke had one day come home from somewhere with a large box, and though Vader had initially thought the box itself was the present, Luke had opened it to reveal a perfectly proportioned cat bed in the shape of a TIE Interceptor, and though Vader would personally have preferred a small Executor, he thanked the boy by sitting peacefully in his lap with only a very few utterly necessary interruptions while the boy was reading later that night.

"He seems like an odd cat," Leia finally said, and Vader frowned as much as his feline snout allowed, "but I like him."

Vader, surprised but pleased, perked up his ears at this welcome news, and stretched his neck over to the princess to greet her with a soft headbutt against her hand. She reached over unhesitatingly to scratch him behind the ears and ran a firm but gentle hand down his flank, and Vader let out a very satisfied purr.

"Aren't you a handsome boy?" Leia cooed, and as Vader preened, closing his eyes in delight as Leia continued stroking his sides, he again caught the impression of Luke's eyes rolling very hard.

Vader opened his eyes to slits and glared at Luke. Well at least one of my children appreciates me, he thought waspishly, and Luke choked out a sputtered laugh.

"What's so funny?" Leia asked suspiciously, and continued to pet him as Luke fumbled to find an answer.

"It's just - he's a cat," Luke finally got out. "He's just a normal cat, and that's hilarious?"

"You have an odd definition of hilarious," Leia accused. "It was almost like you were laughing at a joke, at something Father said."

It was distinctly odd but not unpleasant to hear that name for himself fall from Leia's lips, but Vader liked it, and preened further, butting his head against her hand again to encourage her to start petting him again. She obliged readily.

"I think he likes you," Luke observed, and it was Vader's turn to roll his eyes.

Of course I like her, she's my daughter.

"He's not usually like this with new people."

Because people are as a rule, completely terrible.

"He's a good cat," Leia cooed.

Vader jerked his head up at that, sending Luke a triumphant look of, I told you so! through slitted feline eyes. And not even the boy's quick and reflexive use of Jedi calming techniques could quell his full bellied laugh.

"I guess he is," Luke finally admitted, and Vader settled happily down between the two of them, accepting their gentle caresses. "Maybe I'll keep him."

---

End.

Spoiler: Additional notes

Hey look I just wanted Vader to have some nice physical contact with his children and also bask in sunlight for a while, I felt like he deserved it after two decades of sensory deprivation. But I didn't want to deal with the morass of legal and ethical complications, so now Vader is secretly Luke's weird angry cat with superpowers. [face_shrug] They're going to go on epic adventures together!

Thanks for reading!

 

(more feedback when I return )

 

This was hilarious. Vader as a cat. There should me more

 

This premise has no business at all being this hilarious

Understandable

Honestly, the sunshine and the naps will probably do wonders for his mood

This is probably the only unfeline part of the whole story. I've never known a cat who didn't think they deserved everything they wanted

Now that is extremely feline

I'm telling you, if my cats could do this I'd be in such trouble, nothing edible would be safe

Possibly!

For someone who says she doesn't know much about cats, you have their attitude down pat; my three make their expectations exceedingly clear just like this

This is an entirely valid and understandable naming process, anyone who knew cats wouldn't bat an eye at Luke's reasoning

He is!

Look, if I had cool retractable claws, I'd be tempted to use them too. How much more so would Vader, of all people?

Absolutely, though I suspect Vader would be one of those cats who would prefer that people think otherwise

Perfection in every detail and also I want a TIE Interceptor cat bed now. Coulson would probably love it, he loves beds shaped like caves

Honestly, it is

He's not entirely wrong, and also I now want to see him interact with all sorts of other new people

I AM HERE FOR THE SKYCLAWER CHRONICLES, GIVE THEM ALL TO ME

 

Weirdly cute fic. Just let's not think about Vader having a litterbox.

 

Vader as a cat?! Never in a bazillion years would I ever! Brilliant!

 

Oh, all of this is brilliant, but this was where I burst into giggles. The comforting-ness of boxes! It's like an armor suit, that you can leave. (Just let me not think on the fridge horror of that. )

I've seen character-as-a-cat stories for years, and they're always fun, but this particular twist is new to me and it works so well for Vader for all the reasons you've mentioned, and moreover because Vader, Anakin, whatever you call him, is kind of a feline sort anyway. I Do What I Want is pretty much in his nature, and that's about 2/3 of being a cat. Love that Leia is starting to like Darth Kittycat, and how smug Vader is about it!

Edit: Now I just can't stop thinking about Vader finding Palpy's old favorite chair and using it for a scratching post.

 

What do this story and cotton candy have in common? They're both fluffy crack.

I'm honestly shocked that gizkaspice hasn't found this one yet.

 

Heehee! This is just too cute.

 

And there will be!

Honestly, Vader's suit is a walking medical malpractice lawsuit, and the very least he needs is an uninterrupted nap.

I learned about cats mostly from memes, and occasional catsitting in which I'm under the impression that I'm mostly there to provide pets and keep them from running into cabinets

Here, I have given more of an explanation for Luke's cat named Father than Tom Veitch gave for Leia's kid named Anakin in DE II

He is distinctly right and he knows it, and it's clearly only Luke's unfathomable sunshiny optimism that keeps the boy from agreeing completely

Coming up!

I deserve a degree in overthinking this truly insane cat Vader universe, and thus I propose: Luke and Vader worked very hard to find Vader an appropriate kitty litter that wasn't too sandy, and eventually they just gave up and Vader chose to use the 'fresher like other sentient beings. He has to balance himself a bit precariously on the lid, but he's figured it out.

Thank you!

He's an angry little ball of fur with superpowers now, and I love this for him. I have all sorts of weird misadventures planned for him and his boy, and yeah, definitely a weird array of vaguely Imperial themed cat specific merchandise once Luke's friends and family notice that Father the cat seems to really like his novelty TIE cat bed. They get it on GFFA Etsy, probably.

I don't actually have a cat and have acquired all my cat knowledge from memes and also asking Gabri_Jade weird questions like what temperature cat noses are.

Just every once in a while you really need that fluffy crack, y'know?

Thank you!

 

In which your author couldn't write anything she actually meant to write and decided to write more cat Vader crack instead.

---

Luke Skywalker was dying.

Or at least that's what it felt like.

The sun was too bright. The everything was too loud. And there was a warm, fluffy creature butting his head insistently against Luke's nose, and a familiar presence knocking insistently on his mind. Familiar but ominous, like durasteel wrapped in velvet.

Luke opened his eyes to find Father nose-to-nose with him, glaring as threateningly as a tiny adorable cat face allowed.

"You will remove your sanctimonious braggart of a 'friend' from my presence, or I will choke him now and deal with the consequences later," his cat sent, seething.

There was an angry parade of banthas marching painfully through his skull, and one of them seemed to have acquired a sledgehammer with which to pound out an erratic beat on his temple, and Luke struggled for a moment to recall the series of events that would have led to this particular pronouncement.

The Rogues. A Bar. Drinks. A lot of drinks. Comm. Must have gotten home somehow. With all of them? Sanctimonious braggart? Oh right.

"Father," he managed weakly, and pulled his pillow - my pillow, my cat, my bed, all evidence points to the 'successfully made it home' scenario - over his ears to block the oddly, uncharacteristically loud ambient noise, "if you kill Corran here in my apartment, all the evidence will point to me, and you know it."

Feline eyes narrowed, and Vader's little face twisted into a scowl that Luke had not previously realized could fit on a cat's muzzle. "Then you will remove the sodden fool from my presence - or I will claw his eyes out the next time he mentions the word CorSec. No doubt that will be in less than five minutes from now."

Vader's mental voice no longer conveyed the rumbling basso menace afforded to him by his suit's vocoder - but sometimes when he was trying very hard to be menacing, he subconsciously deepened it, noticeably dropping it in register like a child trying to sound like an adult. Luke had not yet called his attention to this.

"You know I am serious, do not test me in this, young one," the cat warned, in his artificially deep mental voice.

Four and a half minutes later, Luke had found himself a pair of sleep pants, summoned a taxi, and managed to shove a half dozen former and forever Rogues out the door of his apartment just as an equally hungover pilot-cum-Jedi-student was musing, "Y'know, this reminds me of a time when I was in CorS-"

Luke slammed the door shut in time to stop Father from running out the door and pouncing, and he deftly caught his personal furry missile by the scruff of the neck in midair.

"You are terrible," Luke complained, putting his unoccupied hand to his still pounding forehead.

The cat was unperturbed by the criticism. "I am merely accustomed to crushing that which annoys me both swiftly and judiciously." Luke could only sputter in response to that, his mind too thick with the aftereffects of the previous night and the rude awakening of this morning, and the awful creature's eyes narrowed. "There are," the cat sent, sniffing disapprovingly, "meditation techniques that can be utilized to assuage your problem, had Kenobi bothered to show you."

"My training," Luke managed to grind out, "was cut short by someone's lightsaber."

The cat sniffed again, and squirmed his lithe little body enough that Luke was forced to drop him, whereupon he landed daintily on his feet and paced lightly away, tail flicking in what Luke was able to read as a casual dismissal. "Such unbecoming excuses," Vader threw over his shoulder as he left.

Luke sighed gratefully and turned back towards the bedroom when his comm chimed, its cheery jingle sounding particularly, mockingly painful this morning. He closed his eyes briefly and groaned. Nevertheless, he fished it heroically out of his pocket. "This is Luke Skywalker," he answered.

"Luke," Leia's voice bit out, seething, in a tone remarkably similar to the mental voice of Luke's angry cat, "why is the HoloNews covering videos of the Republic's heroes being ferried around Coruscant by a black cat driving your speeder?"

Luke winced. "Leia! Dearest sister," he began, trying to stall, "surely it's too early to - "

"It is past noon, dearest brother, and I was going to leave it alone until I also received word of the traffic officer who stopped your speeder last night. His dispatcher reported that he called in the stop and called back to check in without remembering what he'd called in in the first place."

"Are you accusing me of Jedi mindtricking my way out of a traffic ticket?" Luke huffed, trying to sound offended, as if he'd never done such a wild thing.

"It was either you," Leia deadpanned, "or your cat."

Luke paused to digest that. "Hey," he cajoled, "maybe the good officer was just confused by the thread of my breathtaking argument." Leia said nothing, unamused, and Luke plunged foolishly forward. "Because as you know, Father is a sentient adult cat. And as you also know, because you drafted the laws on this, there's nothing in the laws of the New Republic that prevents him from obtaining citizenship. Or a driver's license. Because that would be discrimination. Speciesism of the worst sort."

"You," Leia began icily, "are deliberately muddying the waters - "

"I would never deliberately muddy the waters! I'm from Tatooine, water is a precious resource - "

" - and you are avoiding the central question, which is this: he might qualify for one, but does he actually have a driver's license to drive on Coruscant?" Luke remained silent, and Leia sweetly and triumphantly twisted the knife. "Also, dearest brother, you admitted your mysteriously intelligent cat is sentient."

He winced. Leia had already been growing suspicious and was circling ever closer to the cat's real identity. He really shouldn't talk to Leia while hungover; he was already ill equipped to spar with her over New Republic rules and regulations when he was stone cold sober.

"I'll try to talk him into getting his license," Luke grumbled.

"Try very hard," Leia warned, and even across the voice-only comm channel, Luke could imagine her unamused glare - again, disconcertingly similar to the cat's.

"He was my designated driver," Luke explained, and he heard Leia audibly choke on what he assumed was her midday cup of caff. "And aren't you proud of me for calling my designated driver instead of driving home myself?"

"Your designated driver is a cat, but taxis exist," Leia managed weakly, coughing and sputtering.

"I had forgotten that taxis exist," he admitted sheepishly. "They're not a thing on Tatooine."

Leia finally hung up on him.

Luke gratefully pocketed his comm and massaged his temples briefly. After a long moment, he lifted his foot to start making another attempt to return to bed before he noticed -

He closed his eyes and concentrated very hard on concentrating.

Eggs. He was smelling eggs cooking, and hearing the sounds of those same eggs, he assumed, sizzling on the cooker.

A Jedi is patient, a Jedi is patient, he reminded himself impatiently, thinking of his warm bed in sharp longing. Because really, what was the worst that could happen if he let his oddly intelligent formerly murderous Sith Lord of a cat unsupervised in a standard kitchen? He turned away from that train of thought in a hurry.

But, come to think of it, why was Father cooking eggs in the first place?

His stomach suddenly rumbled, and Luke realized he had an answer. Sighing, he turned around on his heel and headed to the kitchen, idly massaging his head all the while.

It wasn’t just eggs cooking. To his chagrin, as he entered the kitchen, he found himself looking at a breakfast assembly that would put some restaurants to shame. The Force was opening cabinets, riffling through nonperishable goods, and as he watched, a bag flew from the cabinet to the counter, where a measuring cup waited dutifully to scoop the flour into a bowl. A whisk hovered nearby and swooped in to slowly stir.

For whatever reason, Vader’s taste in dairy products were eclectic, and when left to his own devices - that is, when Luke forgot to buy groceries as he often did and left his computer in a state where Father could order groceries to be delivered to their doorstep on his own - Vader preferred shaak milk and butter, from a creature native to the planet of Naboo. Luke’s brain would explode, especially in its current state, if he thought too hard about the logistics of interplanetary dairy imports. But as he watched, that milk and that butter obligingly removed themselves from the conservator, and the Force gently and deftly closed the door on them once they’d left.

Father was sitting back on the kitchen island, flicking his tail thoughtfully, almost like a conductor in a symphony, as he directed the proceedings. As Luke watched, a spatula carefully removed the over-medium fried eggs from the cooker surface, depositing them on a plate.

“Father,” Luke inquired finally. “Did you make me kick my friends out because you wanted to privately and telekinetically make breakfast?”

The cat turned, and Luke caught the impression that if he’d been capable, he would have raised an eyebrow. “No,” Vader said simply and carefully, shaping the sound with a tongue and lips that had not been designed for Basic speech.

Luke nodded - then yelped. And not only yelped, but jumped half a meter into the air, stumbling backwards in shock and nearly knocking over a lamp that he haphazardly caught as it almost touched the floor. “You said that out loud! Not in my head! You said no out loud! You can’t do that, you’re a cat - ”

A sharp prickle of amusement from the self-satisfied cat cut his semi-hysterical diatribe off mid-sentence, and then Vader sent, “Search your feelings. You know it to be true.”

“You are absolutely awful,” Luke fumed. “Since when have you been able to talk?”

Father said nothing for a few long moments, and Luke realized he was concentrating on ladling the dyla cake batter into little circles upon the cooktop surface. “I have decided that I do not wish to be beholden upon your whims to be understood, young one,” the cat finally sent, a distinct note of peevish ire in his mental voice. “I have been practicing since last night.”

Luke closed his eyes and tried urgently to remember what that passive aggressive accusation might mean. He remembered clambering into the speeder, debating gamely with Wedge and Tycho the merits of the newest generation of -

“Father. Are you learning how to talk out loud because you want to argue about starfighter specifications with my friends? And I wouldn’t translate for you? Are you learning to defy all the physiological barriers presented by a feline mouth because of your incessant need to be right about starfighters?”

Vader refused to dignify that with an answer, either spoken or unspoken, and instead flipped a dyla cake over with his spatula, the buttery smell causing Luke’s stomach to growl once again. “You should take better care of yourself, and you should make more time to ensure you provide yourself with adequate nutrition,” he grumbled instead, and through the Force Luke caught something like fond exasperation. "Also, your adrenaline junkie friends are painfully misinformed about many aspects of TIE design and function."

“Your TIE Fighters are death traps,” Luke accused, continuing a long-standing argument. He sat down at the kitchen island, collapsing gracelessly onto one of the counter height stools, arms crossed and distinctly not pouting at his cat.

“Hardly. Have you never seen a podrace? TIEs are perfectly safe in comparison. There are safety harnesses.”

“The bar surely can’t be that low. But if your expectations for survival of your pilots was that low it’s no wonder - “

Vader cut him off by launching a plate in his direction. It was, to Luke’s bafflement and bemusement, breakfast presented as a smiley face: two dyla cakes with a fried egg on each as the eyes, the orangey-yellow yolks providing the illusion of pupils, and three strips of bacon arranged to form a smiling mouth. He was so absorbed by this that he almost missed the fork Father had also sent flying in his direction, reaching a hand up to catch it reflexively just as nearly hit him in the head.

“Eat, young one,” his cat demanded, and theatrically poured him a hot cup of caff. Luke’s stomach prompted him to oblige.


End.

 

Aww, nice kitty! This story is a delight.

I'm really enjoying the image of drunken Luke & co. getting caught by the paparazzi with a cat in the driver's seat. Did he have his paws on the steering wheel? Did his tail have a role in this? Was he blasting "The Lovecats" by The Cure on repeat because the driver chooses the music? I have so many questions.

Am I the only one who was expecting Vader to just eat the breakfast in front of Luke?

Please keep the insanity coming, because I am here for it!

 

The cat is teaching Luke and he is funny and hilarious with his comments. More coming?

 

"The everything was too loud" is such a great turn of phrase And let me tell you, those tiny adorable cat faces can convey threats very well when they want to

This makes me so happy, I just can't even tell you

LOL, even Luke can identify the friend in question by that description

I hate Corran too, Vader. So. Much.

LOLOL Luke took the threat seriously and he knew the time estimate for another CorSec reference was accurate, I'm dying

Also, when my mother was a teenager her family had a Siamese cat named Lady, and Lady deeply and fervently hated anyone who wasn't family, so she had to be confined to a bedroom when visitors came over, and if someone forgot or if she escaped, Lady would launch herself at the guest and bury her claws and teeth in their leg, and it's bringing me a great deal of joy to imagine that scenario playing out here

So many things to love about this. Of course Vader would know this. And of course Obi-Wan would ("Where are you going?" "To get a drink"). Training cut short by a lightsaber The casual dismissal tail flick, which is absolutely a thing. "Such unbecoming excuses" - I love it all

lollll

He would NEVER

You tell her, Luke

That would be a serious problem with having a sibling with Leia's resume, how would you ever win any arguments

Poor Leia

And now I'm thinking about it, and while I'm only sleepy, not hungover, my brain still isn't up to the task

Remember the TIE vs X-wing argument in Meet the Skywalkers? Vader would 100% never give in to anyone else's opinion about starfighters

LOLOL

This is impossibly absurd and wholesome, I don't know how you do it

 

I'm picturing ... paws on the steering wheel, no idea how he reached the pedals. Let's say he had Artoo helping him. Blasting the Imperial March as he rolled up to pick up the boys, because he would.

On the way!

I honestly googled "angry cat face" and tried to put those images into words.

Gabri, if I could fit a few paragraphs or lines of dialogue into every fic yelling at Corran Horn, I'd do it. Alas, it only works sometimes - but when it does, I'm there with bells on.

Yes yes, that's exactly what happened.

Gah, I had fun with this. And I have so many questions about that whole AotC scene! It's wild by itself, but especially like ... what's the context for the random offering of deathsticks? Do Jedi on Jedi business routinely seek out deathsticks, why would you offer that unless there's an underground deathstick addiction at the Temple? I could spin a dark backstory off of this whole thing.

I pictured him doing his very best Threepio impression.

I think I wrote this shortly after we were reflecting on the sheer impossibility of Coruscant's food imports. A citt-wide planet?? How? Maybe vertical farms?! But surely still A LOT of imports, especially for animal products.

Exactly what I was picturing.

I write two flavors of fic easily, and they are apparently wholesome cat Vader fics and Skywalkers being angsty. Everything else comes with a struggle.

 

Title: "Freedom Night”
Genre: angst, fluff, family stuff
A/N: Here, have some pensive thoughts about Tatooine slave culture with your wholesome cat crack.

---

Luke Skywalker arrived home to his apartment on Coruscant to find his angry cat sitting and waiting for him as he walked through the door.

This itself wasn't an entirely unexpected or uncommon occurrence, but the degree of the anger was enough to give him pause - an undercurrent of it had been pulsing across his bond with his father for nearly an hour now, and Luke had made his excuses at Leia's party as hastily as he could, trying to get home to see what was causing the cat such distress.

It had taken longer to extricate himself from the clutches of the Coruscanti elite than he would have liked - and longer still to escape after Leia grabbed him by the arm whispered through a frozen smile, "Don't you dare go to off to save the galaxy in the middle of my holiday party, brother," in a tone that unsubtly threatened murder. But Leia had eventually accepted his frantically whispered pleading and let him go upon extracting from him a solemn promise to get his damn cat a driver's license if he was going to continue to have him play designated driver. Luke wasn't looking forward to playing the middleman between Leia's stubbornness and Father's.

But that would be a battle for later and for now - sure enough, there sat Father in front of the door, feline face somehow set in grim lines that uncannily recalled the durasteel death head's mask that had been the face of the Empire's justice for decades. And like a guilty child, Luke froze in the doorway, palm still pressed to the door control, foot raised halfway up and yet hesitant to enter what felt to his Force-sense like a cloud of wrath.

Luke had learned that Vader didn't ask questions. When there was something some other being might have phrased as a question, Vader turned it into a dry observation, or an accusatory statement. Vader didn't question; instead, he demanded answers.

In point of fact -

"There is a candle in the window," Vader sent him tersely, somehow making the simple sentence sound like a deep personal offense. The cat's hackles were raised, the fur along his spine standing straight up as if he'd seen a ghost.

Luke mentally sighed and mentally shook the stubborn creature: frustrated not for the first time with his father-cat's peevish peculiarities, frustrated by being summoned from halfway across the district to be met with demanding non-questions, frustrated by Vader's ... Vader-ness.

But two could play at this game. "There is," Luke affirmed neutrally. "It smells minty," he added helpfully when the cat narrowed his eyes to offer an eloquent glare. "The mintiness covers the smell of cat."

"It is almost midwinter." Another short, terse observation.

"It is midwinter," Luke corrected brightly.

Vader's feline eyes narrowed. "Coruscant's planetary weather systems are artificial. There is no true midwinter."

Puzzled by the seeming series of nonsequitors, Luke said nothing. He frowned slightly leaning against the threshold of his own doorstop, trying again to read his father-cat's mood, but Vader's shields were up - up and reinforced and prickly, more defensively impenetrable than they'd been in months. He'd thought that Vader had been growing relaxed with him, had been settling into his new life; now, though, the cat was suddenly guarded again, fur prickled and spine arched in defense or - fear? Anxiety?

"You were freeborn," Vader spat finally, the statement almost but not quite a question. Not exactly asking, but still needing the confirmation, the reassurance.

And then with a pang of guilt, Luke understood. He saw with sudden clarity the specter that had spooked the cat, heard the questions Vader had not dared to give voice.

Why should a freeborn son of Tatooine know about the tradition of Freedom Night? Had Luke ever been enslaved, as his father had been?

Vader was afraid, because he truly didn't know - he had never before broached the subject of Luke's childhood and guardians with him. It had been too painful for both of them, Luke thought: from Vader's end, a reminder of his failures as a father, and from Luke's, a reminder of the aunt and uncle the Empire had taken from him.

Slowly, so as not to further spook the cat, Luke stepped into the room, gingerly letting his foot drop to the floor and the door close behind him. He bent carefully to the ground, offering his arms - and Father shot straight into them, a furry little black missile looking for comfort. Luke obliged, running a firm but gentle hand through Father's fur and felt - physically as well as through the Force - the little former Sith Lord noticeably relax. He even caught a quiet, rumbling purr, softly tinged with relief.

Luke brought Father over to the apartment's couch, still stroking, and sat himself down. "Aunt Beru's family - the Whitesuns," he began softly, imbuing the words through the the Force with a thread of comfort, "was from Mos Espa. They were slaves a few generations back, and they kept the traditions."

The remnants of Vader's anxiety scattered, like a gathering sandstorm suddenly banished, and Luke felt Father's shields lower slightly, felt the seeming avalanche of relief that his fears had not been justified. "Ah," the cat sent simply, and Luke caught the distinct feeling that, if confronted with this at some later date, Vader would furiously deny feeling or fearing anything.

The winter solstice on Tatooine had been a tricky thing, the binary suns making it difficult to keep track of the longest night of the year. But still, Aunt Beru had seemingly always knew when it was, and she had reminded him in the weeks before Freedom Night about its impending arrival.

On the longest night of the year on Tatooine, the suns stayed down for ten hours, and slaves and their freeborn descendants had a tradition. They would light a candle in the windows of their homes.

The candle wished luck to escaped slaves on their journeys to freedom.

The candle brought warmth to the hearts of escaped slaves searching for succor in the cold desert nights.

The candle drew the attention of the slave masters and distracted them from the runaways.

Beru had told him stories of his grandmother, who had been born and raised within the slave quarters of Gardulla the Hutt. Shmi Skywalker, Beru had told an eager young Luke, had been a midwife. Even in the slave hovels, she had sought to preserve and protect life, as best she could.

“Did my father escape on Freedom Night?” Luke had asked once, when Beru was tucking him into bed.

She'd paused. “What do you mean?”

“You told me once that my father - not Uncle Owen, but my father - was a slave who escaped. Did he leave on Freedom Night? Did the candles light his path?”

“Not exactly,” Beru had finally said, and kissed him on his forehead. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Luke hadn't lit a candle the year of the Battle of Yavin, but he'd started again in the wake of Bespin. In the wake of his realization that his father had never really escaped slavery at all.

In the hopes of guiding him home.

"I would like to hear more about your guardians," Vader rumbled sleepily into his mind, his mental voice jolting Luke away from his reverie. "And for next year, perhaps you can procure two candles."

Grinning, Luke started telling his aunt and uncle's stories.

End.

 

A beautiful story for this time of the year. Great traditions for Luke to follow. Vader had been a slave all his life

 

Kind of disappeared from the face of the Internetz but now I'm back for a while! Thanks for the shoutout.

Ok, so I have wrote fanfics where I gave Darth Vader a black cat but I never imagined actually making him a black cat and in particular, Luke's black cat

And I love the whole thing about Vader being reincarnated as a cat--why not? It works! Plus I loved getting Vader's introspective on the world and everything works really well here.

I will be here for moar! Meow!

 

This little series of fics is ab-so-lu-te-ly priceless in that it manages to be hilarious and very touching at the same time

There is so much that had me rolling off the floor: the cat named Father, the cat that pilots a speeder without a driver's licence, the cat's very Vader-ish temper combined with typical feline behaviours (boxes! we need more boxes!) and the bit that was for me the cherry on the cake, namely, Leia trying to make sense of it and growing to like the cat.

At the same time, the latest entry actually made me emotional. The whole concept of freedom night was wonderfully developed, both as a standalone bit of world-building and as a plot element that deepens the relationship between Luke and "Father". Suddenly, this little crack!fic somehow managed to become very serious while remaining completely improbable.

I have a particular fondness for cats-in-SW stories, not only because I like cats but also because the very first story I posted on these boards was a cat story (don't judge, it was a dare challenge). Between @gizkaspice 's writing antics and the Autumn Bingo prompt there seems to be something of a feline epidemic around here, but your stories are among my faves for the combination of sheer zaniness and actual relationship-building. So I'll be here, purring on my cushion and waiting for more.