ANGRY

Disclaimer: Last I heard Uncle George hadn't insert my name on is will. So, SW still belongs to him. I'm not hearning any money (dollars, Rands, Euros, Yens, shells, beads, or whatever with this.

It was raining in Coruscant. 13 year old Mara Jade stood at a window at the top of the palace looking at the strange sight.  Usually rain was never seen at Coruscant. She had seen rain at other places, but not at the night landscape of the panet size city. But sometimes, when the polution levels were too big, they allowed the rain to drop. The air felt better afterward and the people would calm down.

She was supposed to be sleepping. It was quite late. But she thought she was old enough to be awake. Besides she liked to explore the palace at night. It felt dangerous to do something that no one knew about, not even the emperor.

Today she had a target. Vaders suit.

She could never forgot the day he had covered her with pink sweets and since that day she thought about revenge. The climate change some weeks ago had given her an idea, and she had been plotting it all that time. Today was the day.

Some time ago, wondering without permission, she went to Vaders quarters. She was really curious about his closet. Did he had a closet like normal people? He seemed to wear always the same, but it surelly was not the case. It sure saved lots of time deciding in the morning, or when going to a party, besides he had a reputation and a look to maintain, but so did the emperor and in some of his private parties he would wear other stuffs, bright colours or dress up to mascarade balls.

She was not allowed on many of the wild and really private parties, but the emepror always wanted her opinion. After some time and some days on the medical wing of the palace she learn how to lie and how to put a smile (the emperor was not to happy when she fainted the time he dressed as a shepherd girl or her horror face whenever he used a toga).

So, she had never seen Vaders costume, but he could not go in black. She could imagine him in red too…  He was too serious and sad for that, but he sure have to had some other colourfull outfits. But that day, opening Vaders closet, she found out that all it had were lots and lots of the same black life supporting suit. Nothing more. She was sadly closing it when Vader caught her. She thought she was going to be killed by him, but all he did was to lock her in the closet for more than a day.

She had run away from him since. Not that she looked for his company, of course, she was always afraid of seeing again the other boy and to feel again the sadness and despair she felt the other time.

Carefully, one with the shadows, she arrived her destination. The private meditation cloister of Vader. He used it to meditate and in his rare free times. Oddly, he was growing tulips. He also asked his personal staff to let the fresh cleaning suits there. He didn’t like people on his private quarters.

She went to a package and opend it. She grabed the black suit. It was heavy and full of a complicated mechanism. She looked to the fresh soil, waiting for new tulip bulbs to be planted.

Her first plot had been, seing all the mud the rain created, to, so to say, plant the suit in mud. But has she felt the weight of it, she started to got angry. Angry with Vader and for Vader. Angry for the emprire and with the empire. Angry with her and for of her.

Swallowing tears and with a streght she didn’t really had, she pulled the suit out of the package and put it at the middle of the coister, akwardly in the heavy chair that Vader used. She observed it with angry eyes. A Vader without head was sitting in front of her, a defeated Vader, positioned as asking for mercy and to be saved.

Grabing the fresh soil she aimed for it and hitted it again and again. For her, for him, for all the thing she was angry for. Throught her eyes memories of lives that were not her own passed, battles yet to fight were lost and won in half seconds and faces that were to familiar to be the stragers conjured alien warm feelings, that left her with a hollow space that recalled her of the one she had felt in Vaders heart, and that only made her angrier and made her hitting the suit with more vigour.

Sundenly, the galaxy was opened to her and a thousand starts passed in front of her. She felt to the ground. Surprise she turned away. At the door stood Vader. He had hitted her right on the head and he had more soil on his hand.

For a moment they stood looking at each other. Then he raised his free hand and she felt the force grabbing her. Her life passed in front of her eyes and she was sure she was death. But almost gently he put the really dirty and silent teenager next to him.

Looking briefly at her he aimed to his suit on the chair and hit it hard with the soil in his hand. Then he looked up. The rain making a strange effect at the transparent dome of the cloister. Mara looked up too, noticing it for the first time. The time had stopped and she could not recall any past nor hope for any future, living that strange present. Vaders strong voice took her off the reverie, talking slowly.

“It’s a pity the water can’t wash away our sins. But neither the blood does. Don’t think that you are darker for feeling angry. Your anger and despair is not towards your deeds, on the contrary, you’re feeling angry because your counciousness is too good yet, your despair is because you feel traped, but it’s not the despair of having being  traped by yourself. Maybe that should be the way, the balance, all colours. Like the tulips. I wonder if the reason I cannot grown a perfect black one is because it’s not off their nature to be completely black. Or if not of my nature to create it.”

He stopped and looked around. Unsure of what to do Mara waited. She had never heard Vader talked so much. And usually he was a very objective person. What he said was a conundrum to her, but she felt that it was somewhat important, a thing to remember.

Grabbing more soil Vader turned to her.

“If you talk or share this with anyone, even, mainly Palpatine, I’ll make you wish you were never born and I’ll whip all this from your memory. This night is not happening. Do you understand me?”

Mara smiled. She could almost sware that Vader had winked at her. Nodding she accepted the soil he give her.

Both aiming to the liveless suit they hit it hard again and again.

“You see, young Mara, it seems we are both angry for some of the same things.”

Beted by Karen