Chapter Text
It doesn't feel real, watching the Death Star fire at Alderaan, at home. Leia is forced to watch the impact, the nigh instant obliteration of an entire astronomical body which has been one of the pillars of the galaxy for the last twenty-five thousand years. Had been. Done at the behest of one man with a bruised ego and access to a level of fire power that shouldn't exist.
In the blink of an eye, all that's left of an entire planet is a dusty asteroid field.
That same man glances between the result of his actions and Leia, tiny movements that she wouldn't have seen if it weren't for the focused rage that's boiling up in her. He positioned himself to be able to see both the destruction of Alderaan and the destruction of Leia at the same time.
Father had gone to warn their people about Stardust, about those vague and outrageous rumours they'd laughed away as nonsense a week ago now being a very real threat. He would've been down there. With Mother.
She thinks in that moment that she could kill Governor Wilhuff Tarkin.
Every life she's been forced to take as part of fighting against the Empire so far has been a careful decision which she mourned—all life has value, no matter what a being may choose to do with it. She can regret and ponder could-have-beens, her bleeding heart wishing that people could be told the truth, convinced of their wrongdoing and allow them the time to make up for their crimes and mistakes.
Leia Organa, Crown Princess of Alderaan, who has just watched two billion, three hundred million, seven hundred and forty thousand people—two being her parents—be killed with little to no warning, time to escape, or a chance to plead their case, wouldn't and won't mourn Wilhuff Tarkin's demise.
If it weren't for the room of Imperials and Vader, she'd cross the scant metres between them right now and snap the bastard's neck herself.
No, no. That would be too merciful, too swift. If she had her sword, she'd run him through the gut with it. But even that would be a tragedy, for the blade that is, to ruin it with such a vile creature's viscera.
Strangulation. Pump him full of drugs beforehand so he has no choice but to be present and aware, letting it draw out as Leia draws out his last breaths, her hands tight around the throat. She'd dig in her nails to his carotid, thumbs into his windpipe, watch as what little life he had faded from those dead eyes of his, knowing exactly who killed him. Close and personal and not like a fucking coward.
It's the least that he would deserve. It would be the beginning of justice. Nothing could be done that would bring her peace, but at least those of Alderaan may begin to have an easier rest, knowing that their killer has been slain in turn, followed by the destruction of the weapon that did the deed. No more would follow them into the Beyond in such a way.
A wheezing cough brings Leia out of her thoughts, out of the hollow darkness in her spirit that threatens to drown her whenever she looked at the slowly spinning asteroids which were all that remained of her people, her planet.
Her heart.
Lord Vader is still behind her, still holding her shoulder—loose grip now, but remaining a heavy weight, thumb resting in the hollow between her collarbone and shoulder—but he is quiet. Too quiet.
It is then Leia becomes aware of the way her heart is pounding in her chest, aware of her blood rushing in her ears alongside a tinny ring that, together, deafened her the same way a flash-bang would. Her hands are clenched into fists at her sides, a tingling warmth in them lingering after her vivid, murderous, imagining. Leia can still feel Tarkin's throat in her hands.
She looks up at Vader, the looming brute, and feels an alien curiosity for—from—The Emperor's Fist. Vader has said nothing since Tarkin gave that order, done naught but hold her in place as she watched Alderaan be destroyed, forcing her to watch–
(Holding her back from killing Tarkin where he stood, no matter how much he would enjoy, in his own tired and distant way, to see that happen.)
Does Vader have an option on the matter? Would he have fired the Death Star? Leia doesn't—does—know.
(Behind her thoughts, in a space that she can't quite feel—not yet, one day, soon—one could sense Vader's opinion.
How he himself wishes he could end Wilhuff Tarkin, like the Princess is thinking of very strongly. But he cannot. His Master would know that it happened, no matter how well concealed, would how His most loyal dog killed a favoured servant of His. Would punish Vader for it until He found another mistake to focus on; as pain is ceaseless and will beat its relentless assault until his final rattling breath.
The Force betrays the Princess' thoughts, her intentions, her resolve. Few these days knew about the Force and it's power. Fewer still can perceive it's sluggish eddies, mostly due to Vader killing those who had the training and crushing those with the potential to learn.
So she would not and could not know that Vader can see the way she visualises it, broadcasting for him to hear, to feel.
To experience.
An echo of his own grief from a time long dead and gone, when a different man had existed in his flesh. The blood is still on his hands, slipping through his fingers like her life had, using her last breath to say she loved him. And then she was dead. His vision useless, for a warning given too late was no warning at all. Merely the Cosmos giving him the 'courtesy' of an expedited obituary.
They—he—would pay for this, for what they, he, did.
JUSTICE.
The Grand Moff coughs, his pallid and thin skin beginning to turn red from the neck up. It is this familiar sight that prompts Vader to cease pondering on memories of another man—your past, do not deny it—and instead focuses on what is real, what matters, and leave the clinging remains of the dead behind.
His grip on the Force is firm, absolute. It is not Vader who currently holds Wilhuff Tarkin's life in his incorporeal hands. As much as it is a thought that has crossed his mind more than once. It is not Vader, and it is not anyone else employed on the station, this he knows. This he made sure of.
Vader looks down as much as his body can, feels the minute trembling of the figure beneath his hand and almost sees those sluggish eddies pick up and flow into proper currents, exploding out from a single point in the galaxy like a concussive detonator. That point being...
The Princess; whose focus is determining reality.
The Princess, who is looking up at Vader.
Stars die and are reborn in that moment, in this breath between breaths, the diastole between two existences, two hearts, as meet and acknowledge one another, beating in concert for the first and last time.
An echoing, haunting, familiarity, a connection, and a fierce mien that he knows–)
The hand on her shoulder clamps down—Vader's hand is cold, she notes, and faintly humming, twitching even—to the point that Leia feels like her bones may snap under it. With that pain, the strange sensation in her hands and mind vanishes. She thinks she must have imagined feeling it in the first place, or it is some malignant influence left over from her interrogation. Though...
Though.
She looks away first, uncaring of how it could be taken as a sign of weakness, and immediately regrets it when the empty expanse beyond the view-port does nothing but ignite that rage in her again.
(How could he? HOW DARE HE?!)
Tarkin coughs once more, his face faintly red but quickly returning to the dour paleness that she has long loathed. The man tries to gather himself again, but Leia can tell that the Moff is unsettled, wary, keeping Vader in his line of sight. Presenting a weak imitation of the triumph that had filled him moments before.
… Did Vader do something?
No. She knows that the thought is wrong the moment it coalesces. But if it wasn't Vader... then who?
Leia thoughts continue in that vein as she's led to the detention centre, circling like an unreadable opponent against an impenetrable defence.
Who, and more importantly... how?
(The Force, a quiet voice murmurs, later. Barely audible, barely comprehensible. It's familiar to her. It is her, but not. Not quite. Older, wiser, a wry smile turned to sorrow—the voice SCREAMS with her, knowing and sharing her grief—Stay strong, Leia Organa, child of Alderaan. Hope is not yet lost.)
Hope is a boy with sun bleached hair and slightly crooked teeth. Hope is short, but earnest, naive but also not, for those eyes of his—familiar, familiar, hers—are shadowed with a darkness both known and unknown to her. Hope is a light in that self-same darkness, a guiding hand to pull her out before she drowns in it.
Hope arrives in a ship older than her father; alongside a scruffy smuggler type, a member of the Kachirho Wookie Militia, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.