I generally prefer tcw era [not the show, the era] anakin skywalker and anidala and fix-its [but I prefer like the half-fix it, where the galaxy still goes to shit but anakin doesn't fall to the dark side and padme lives because honestly I find that more compelling, the ones where anidala spilt up, each with one twin, hurts] and I also like darth vader redemption, and I do occasionally read vaderdala but I'm very picky with it because it is so often involves, for me, a mischaracterization of anakin and padme that I simply find unattractive
that's all to say things I don't like with regards to vaderala fanfic, ymmv
vader who is abusive towards padme, keeps her locked up in some way, etc. I think that the ROTS strangulation was an aberration and wouldn't be repeated.
padme who gives up on vader and doesn't always believe in his inherent goodness. I skimmed one today where she gave up on him without even trying after mustafar and I was like :/ that's ignoring a core part of padme's characterisation.
anyway give me vaderdala fanfiction where vader is Sad and doesn't believe he deserves padme's love, and padme who ignores his thousand red flags and does so anyway, because these two are devoted to each other to an extreme extent.
anyway ideal dynamic for me is vader thinks padme is dead, padme has gone into hiding/with the rebels, vader learns padme is alive, vader defects, padme is like: I am ignoring the hundred red flags and everyone else is like, to padme: wtf is wrong with you
anyway ideal vaderdala dynamic to me. btw. if anyone cares. read keep drawing breath.
OK SO I started writing this prompt and it just kept going and going and going. It is now a short multi-chapter fic that I want to wait until I have it all completely written before I post it. BUT here is the first chapter.
~.~.~.~.~.~
Padmé found herself in the bookstore. A true bookstore of old flimsi books. There were shelves and piles of books everywhere. Each one worth a nice sum of credits. Printed books were rare. Flimsi was expensive. Why make books when there were holonovels and holovids? But Padmé loved this store. She especially loved the smell. She stopped, took a deep breath and closed her eyes. No library or archive of holonovels and datapads ever had this wonderful smell.
“It’s the books dying,” came a man’s voice.
Padmé opened her eyes and looked to her left. Standing a bit down the aisle was a man. He was tall and dressed in all black. He seemed to scream Imperial, but his hair was long and wavy instead of kept short in a military style.
“Excuse me?” Padmé asked.
“The smell,” he said evenly. “It’s the books’ materials decaying.” He looked over at her. He was gorgeous with a strong chin and cheekbones. But the most telling feature was his eyes. They were golden.
“Ah,” Padmé said. The man grabbed a book off the shelf and left. She thought that would be the last she would see of him.
She returned to the bookstore two weeks later when she had some free time in the afternoon. Again she took a moment to savor the smell of the books. There was a sense of reality that holonovels didn’t quite have. Perhaps because these words would be forever branded into these pages. There was a permanence here.
There was also that guy. He sat at a small table that was shoved in a corner. A few books were piled at his table, and he was reading one. He was as she had last seen him. All black clothing. The long hair. This time she noticed a scar that slashed along his face next to one of his eyes. He stopped reading and looked up. At once his golden eyes landed on her.
“It’s you,” he said dryly. She held her head up high and nodded at him.
“I’ll admit,” she said, “it’s rare to see someone in here twice who isn’t a collector or trader.”
“Which one are you?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Which one are you? A collector or trader?”
“Neither. I’m just an admirer.”
He cocked his slightly to the side. His raised a single eyebrow. “I take it you’ve been to this store on several occasions, and not once you bought a book?”
“No,” she replied softly. “They’re rather expensive …”
He let out a snort. “You cannot afford it, Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo? Surely if you can afford that fancy penthouse apartment and those gaudy gowns, you can afford a flimsi book.”
She glared at him. “What I spend my credits on is none of your business, Mr …?”
“Skywalker,” he said quickly.
“And yourself Mr. Skywalker?” she asked. “Which one are you? A collector or trader?”
“If I had to pick,” he said as he collected his pile of books, “a collector.” He took the whole stack and walked down an aisle with towering shelves on either side. She slowly followed him to the front of the store. She peered around a shelf to see him buying the whole stack. That stack had to be worth tens of thousands of credits. The old Togruta man who ran the shop smiled and bowed at Skywalker repeatedly.
After he left, Padmé approached the store owner. “I can’t believe he bought all those books,” she said.
“Oh he has become quite a good customer,” the Togruta replied. “Though I do wonder what it is he’s researching in all those books.”
“Researching?”
“He seems to be looking up old histories. Old, old histories. The type that are obscure. The type that may have never made it into a holonovel.”
Padmé nodded not wanting to look too nosey. She next saw Skywalker again only a few days later. She didn’t want to admit, but his words had bothered her. She had always wanted to own one of these real books, but had been indecisive about which one to get. Should she get a history book? A long winded adventure? A prayer book on forgotten mythologies? None of the books had yet to completely strike her interest.
She had collected a small collection and settled down at a table. She had quickly skimmed the first three books. They hadn’t kept her attention, but the fourth one had.
“The Distant White Stars?”
Padmé looked up. “Mr. Skywalker,” she said. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. After you last impressive purchase, you’re back again so soon?”
“I have yet to find what I am looking for,” he said. He glanced down at book. “Have you?”
“Have I? I’m not … researching anything.”
“I did not say you were researching. I said you were searching. While else would you come back so often?”
“Since you seem to know so much, Mr. Skywalker, tell me what it is I’m searching for.”
He sat down at the chair opposite of her. He placed his elbows on the table and leaned over. “It’s easy to tell,” he said in a low voice. Padmé found herself leaning in towards him. “You’re here whenever you get a free moment. You’re not searching for a book, but a story. You haven’t found it amongst the bright blue lights of holonovels despite your best efforts. Something is eating you up inside. A hunger you can’t quite ease. And my guess?” He paused. Slowly a charming smile spread across his face. “You’re looking for a romance.”
She jerked her head back as she realized how close she was to him. She could smell him. Feel his warmth. Her cheeks burned red.
“Don’t be silly,” she said collecting herself. He continued to smile and raised an eyebrow. His eyes purposely darted to her book.
“The Distant White Stars. This was before the hyperdrive as we know it was invented. The young woman goes off to explore space. Her messages back to her lover take more and more time to reach him. He is aging faster than she is. Yet he never moves on. Never finds another lover. He dies old and waiting for her next message. She continues on in her days wondering why her lover stop responding to her messages.”
Padmé had to pause. “You’ve read this story?” she asked. “Are you searching for a romance too?”
“No,” he said quickly and lowly. “I am looking for a truth.”
“Oh?” she asked.
“If you are prying, dear senator, that is all you will get out of me. But if you enjoy that book, might I suggest looking at The Code of Uka or maybe you can find a translated story of a Brush of Air.”
He placed his gloved hands flat on the table and pushed himself up. He nodded and disappeared. The next visit to the bookstore Padmé looked up both books Skywalker had mentioned.
The Code of Uka was about a system ruled by a monarchy that passed along the females of the bloodline. A young princess was trying to prove she was more than her villainous mother by helping refugees of a planet her mother had ruthlessly conquered. She fell in love with her bodyguard. However, her family was not pleased with her pursuits. So they summoned her back home and put her through intense brainwashing. She returned to the refugees and ordered the army to kill them all. When her lover found her, she begged him to kill her. He did so.
The Brush of Air was just as sad. It was a myth about a goddess of the stars and a god of the earth. However, they could never be together. The sky and clouds constantly keeping them apart. The only time they could touch was when she dipped below the horizon.
Why was Skywalker reading these stories? The shop owner had said he was looking up old obscure histories. Skywalker said he was looking for a truth. An unsolved mystery forgotten by time? There were plenty to be found. The galaxy was old. Civilizations had come and gone. How many had gone unnoticed?
She was sitting down on a bench a week later when Skywalker sat down next to her. He placed a pile of books in his lap. He leaned over. His arm pressing against hers. He looked down at the yellowing page she was reading.
“A rather biased history of the Mirialan Trade Dispute.”
She could feel how warm he was. She should lean away or even just push him, but she didn’t. She instead became very still.
“Sounds rather dull,” he said as he leaned back over into his own space.
“I uh tried those books you recommended,” she said. “They were very good. Sad, but good.”
She looked over at him. A brilliant smile flashed across his face. Force. He was very good looking.
“Looking for more?” he teased. She couldn’t help but blush.
“If you know some more,” she said. “Though I am curious as to why you yourself know of such stories.”
“My mother,” he said a bit sadly. “She was quite an avid reader. These were her favorite stories. She would …” He paused and she noticed a bit of red on his cheeks. “She would read these stories and then retell them to me when I was a child.”
“Really? Such tales?”
He shrugged.
Padmé asked, “And she could afford such books?”
A sad look crossed his face. “No,” he said. “She was … tasked with organizing and keeping clean a personal library. She would peak into the books during her long days.” A small smile spread across his lips as he clearly thought of his mother. “I would suggest reading The Priestess of Hotorine.”
The two read side by side on the bench until Skywalker collected his pile of books and left. It wasn’t until her next trip she looked at The Priestess of Hotorine. In it the priestess had to drink water from a sacred spring to keep herself clean and holy. She falls in love with a traveling smuggler, but tries to fight off her feelings for him. When she finally decides to leave with him off planet, it was revealed she was dying. The sacred spring water had slowly poisoned her body.
Padmé also found a small note hidden inside the page written in a bit of a messy scrawl.
Try The Blue Expanse of the Tiphon System. -S
She couldn’t help but smile. She found that book. Like the others it was a sad story of star crossed lovers that never got their happy ending. But inside was another note leading to another book. And to another and another. Whenever she saw Skywalker at the store, she would thank him and smile. They would talk briefly of the stories she had read, and then they would both sit side by side and read quietly.
“You know,” she said after a few months since they had met, “I still don’t know what it is you’re looking for in those books. Perhaps I could help you out?”
Skywalker paused. He looked at her. His striking gold eyes seemed to dig into her. It felt he wasn’t seeing her on the physical level, but on a spiritual level.
“I am looking for a planet,” he said slowly.
“A planet?”
“Kesh.”
“Kesh?”
“Yes. It exists out in Wild Space.”
“Why are you looking for it? How do you even know it is there?”
He smiled. That smiled sent a shiver up her spine and a twist in her stomach. “My mother was from there.”
“And she does not know about her home planet?”
“Oh she knew about it,” he explained. “She ran away when she was pregnant. I’m not completely sure what she ran away from. I only know she wanted a better life for me …” He sighed.
“So, this is the truth you are looking for? The truth about who you are? Perhaps about your family?”
“Perhaps,” he said. “There have been some … interesting claims about my father. But perhaps I just want to know more about the place. Problem is I can’t find it. My mother never told me its location.”
“I take it she’s dead,” Padmé said softly trying not to sound too crass.
“Yes,” he said. “And it’s hard to find much of anything about this planet. Doesn’t help there is a mid-rim sector known as Kesh.”
“Anything I should look for to help you?” she asked.
“The Old Sith Empire after the Great Hyperspace Wars settled on an outer rim planet known as Dromund Kaas. From there the empire rebuilt itself and launched its attack on the Republic in the Great Galactic War. The old Empire eventually dissolved until recently when Emperor Sidious returned the Sith Empire to its proper place in the galaxy.”
“Spoken like a true Imperial,” Padmé muttered. Skywalker eyed her.
“Not a fan?”
“I was only fourteen when the Republic fell,” she explained. “But Naboo is a religiously democratic planet, despite birthing our current Emperor. I still believe in democracy.”
He smiled and continued. “Well during the Great Hyperspace War, there was a great Sith dreadnought. The Omen. It was mining ore to use for the upcoming invasion of the Republic, but was attacked by Jedi. It was knocked off course in hyperspace and crash landed on the planet Kesh. The surviving Sith crew convinced the natives they were the Skyborn. Gods of the Kesh religion.”
“Does this have anything to do with your name?”
He let a small laugh. “Yes it does. I am a descendant of those on board the Omen.”
“So you are a Sith?” she asked in a low voice. Her heart squeezed in her chest fearing the answer. He didn’t respond. He only smiled, and it did not reassure her. There seemed to be a glint of danger in those gold eyes of his. There were only two known Siths in the current Sith Empire. The Emperor Sidious and his heir Darth Vader.
“The Omen crashed on Kesh some 4,500 years ago,” he continued. “It is an isolated planet. How my mother got off, I do not know. I only know that she barely escaped with her life. There are no known current routes to the planet. My only hope is that perhaps there is something in old texts such as these.” He waved to the shelves around them.
“And once you find its location, what will you do? Go to it? Go be the god they think you are?”
A crooked devilish smile spread across his lips. “Who wouldn’t want to be treated like a god?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t.”
He sighed. “That’s a shame,” he said. “You would make a fine goddess.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you flirting with me?”
He leaned in. “What would happen if I say yes?”
His side was pressed against hers. She couldn’t help the heat racing through her body as her heart started to pound faster and faster. She glanced down at her lap. One of his hands covered in a smooth leather glove came gently under her chin and tipped her head up so she had to look at him.
“Hmmm?” he purred. He leaned in closer. She could feel him. Smell him. She took a deep breath of it. “You haven’t found your story yet. Perhaps it isn’t one you’ll find in a book.”
He was so close. She could feel the breath of his voice against her lips. Then she felt his lips against hers. She gave a small startled jump, but didn’t pull away. Instead she leaned into him. His other gloved hand slid up into her hair as he pulled her closer to him.
And then he pulled away. He licked his lips. There was a satisfied look on his face. “I’m afraid it’s time for me to go,” he said. “Until next time.” Then he was gone leaving Padmé alone on the bench in the bookstore. Her fingers came to rest on her lips as she remembered their kiss.
thinking about a tiny feral force ghost padmé telling vader what to do during the rotj palpatine scene. NO ONE gets to hurt her baby boy!!!! especially not that wrinky old man!!!
beep boop beep here's a rough lil sketch of cyborg dad who has it bad for force ghost mom
more of these: feral ghost padmé
thanks to all those who sent asks and requests! i'll be focusing on the events of the original trilogy movies for now because i have yet to watch the rest of the spin-offs hehe oops but i will get to them as soon as i can!
does feral obi-wan like to hang out with Vader? Maybe he hides under that hood thing in his helmet while Padmé is in his palm
i think obi likes to hang around vader but im not sure if the opposite is true. padmé likes to make him sit through ghost tea time.
(he does love it; he's just a drama queen and is too proud to admit it. he starts to miss him more now that his anakin is starting to show lol)
