Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

stylishbutdefinitelyillegal asked: So because I am evil and curious, what would Vader and Amidala do if they found out Obi-Wan was still alive (and doing his best to just sink into the background of the universe). Would they leave him be or hunt him down?

suzukiblu:

… relevant to that “she would sooner get a second HUSBAND” ask from earlier, probably. :X Vader’s instantly like “he is a traitor and a liar and I must re-murder him” and Padmé is instantly backed into a corner with no warning all like “WELL WHAT IF WE DIDN’T, THO??” and desperately grasping for LITERALLY ANY EXCUSE–

“You love him that much?” Vader asks, looking hurt. Or furious. Or both. Probably both, oh Force, this isn’t going to end well for Obi-Wan at ALL. 

“He loved YOU that much,” Padmé says in a flash of terrible, reckless inspiration. SHE WILL TAKE ANY EXCUSE, AT THIS POINT. “Don’t you want to know how much more he’ll love you now, without the Council in the way?” 

*sits* I am HERE FOR THIS.

Anonymous asked: I'd love to hear any outsider POV about Empress Amidala verse, people looking at Amidala/Vader shenanigans with great fear and confusion (or maybe they're not confused at all hahaha XD)

suzukiblu:

No one says “Darth Amidala”, but so many people think “Darth Amidala”. Constantly. All the time. They do their good Force DAMNEDEST to never think it in front of Vader, but even if he picked the thought out of their heads he would just be like “well yes, of course, obviously”. 

Vader is so obviously Amidala’s. Like, as loyal and terrifying he was as the Emperor’s fucking CYBORG TANK RUN ON NIGHTMARE FUEL, he is worse for Amidala. Amidala he is HAPPY to serve, and Amidala he did not have to shut down his emotional reactions to survive. Also, like, he’s not missing all his limbs, on a respirator, or in CONSTANT FUCKING PAIN. Like–that helps, definitely. Not being in constant fucking pain pretty much ALWAYS helps. 

Also-also, he does not give two fucks what anyone not Amidala or the twins thinks of him, and so follows all his random impulses and does all sorts of looks-weird-to-people-not-in-his-head shit. W-why is Lord Vader petting the velvet curtains in this king’s office? Why is Lord Vader rubbing the back of his soup spoon against his neck at this very important dinner party? Why is Lord Vader climbing the outside of the Senate building? 

As far as Vader is concerned being Dark means he can do anything he wants, pretty much. He doesn’t need to put on a show of being dignified or do anything to demonstrate that he’s scary or dangerous; he just DOES things and that’s it. People who do not want to be under Imperial rule and people who try to subvert Empress Amidala’s orders RAPIDLY learn how terrifying it is to one moment be dealing with a man who’s playing with a pretty little compact mirror he got from who knows where to a man in fucking MURDER MODE because you said something that could be interpreted as less than entirely worshipful of his Empress. 

And as terrifying as he is, he still spends literally all his time on Coruscant trotting after Amidala like a fucking puppy trying to get scritches. He has literally DIVERTED TROOPS’ MOVEMENTS in the interest of getting five minutes of direct attention from Amidala before going back to decimate the surviving dissidents. 

So yes, the outsider POV of their relationship is FASCINATING. And kind of traumatized, sometimes. Frequent times. MANY times. Oh Force, Lord Vader, please don’t kill us, WE’RE VERY SORRY WHAT WOULD THE EMPRESS LIKE IS THERE SOMETHING WE CAN DO FOR HER. 

modularnra40 asked: I just read through your Empress Amidala tag. I love it. I love Padme's trauma. But. I want to know. Are there ever any times when Padme. forgets? To be horrified? Like, something will happen - some horrible thing, and she can just *fix* it. And every now and then it's soooo eaasy. Instead of bickering senators immorally arguing politics, she can just order the starving citizens fed. Or on a personal level (Vader is still Anakin, she still loves Anakin, qed she loves Vader) Then she remembers.

suzukiblu:

That sounds like the kind of thing that Padmé is going to occasionally have a problem with, yes. Like, yes, sometimes Vader shows up all happy and sweet and kisses her face and plays with the twins and is entirely useless at helping her get her paperwork done and is just so content and KIND, and sometimes there’s a natural disaster or a pirate attack or problems with the Hutts and she can just send aid or drop the FUCKING hammer and it’s DONE and sometimes some senator or another is being fucking selfish and hateful and greedy and she can just LOOK at them and they will backpedal for their FUCKING LIVES and it’s–it’s–

Fuck, it’s TERRIBLE, actually, it’s the worst thing Padmé’s ever done IN the Senate, short of accidentally playing right into Palpatine’s hands and getting him elected. But what else is she going to do, exactly? 

… really. What else could she do. 

Anonymous asked: Empress Amidala for the meme, please?

suzukiblu:

suzukiblu:

• Luke and Leia have exactly zero percent fear response to sensing the Dark Side. This will definitely never backfire on anyone ever. 
• The handmaidens regularly take turns going on missions with Vader. Usually there’s two of them; there’s almost always at least one. Padmé slightly hates herself for sending them, but has no intention of stopping sending them. She hates herself a lot more for a lot of other things she’s still doing. The handmaidens don’t answer to Vader and Vader doesn’t answer to the handmaidens, but they DO occasionally remind him what Padmé said in the briefing. 
• Padmé has nightmares every time that Vader is too far away to sense her having nightmares. She has no idea if this is because that’s when she has the room to or if it’s just because he’s out of her reach, and she doesn’t want to know either way. 
  
• I may have mentioned this before but OH MAN, does Vader feel SO CONTENT in the Dark. Like, it is warm and soft and cozy as FUCK to him. He loves it. It’s GREAT. Which, well, he’s probably accessing it through mostly positive emotions, barring some murder-rages and the like, so that should probably make sense, buuuut that also means he’s fueled more than a few horrible slaughters on the power of love, lol. Not even in the VENGEFUL AND PROTECTIVE sense, either, just literally the soft happy feeling of Padmé’s lips pressing to the corner of his mouth or the twin’s little hands in his. 
• Eventually, Padmé is accidentally going to genuinely injure Vader in bed. It is not going to go well. The WAY in which it is not going to go well remains up for debate. 

ohhhhhh my gooooddddddddd yessssssss padme padme PADME oh god how does she eventually injure him i’m dying to know DYING I SAY the twins who are so calm about the dark side HELL YES AND SOMEDAY THAT GOES HORRIBLY HORRIBLY AWRY and on that day some people probably learn that yes darth vader and his handler his empress are terrifying and their children sunshine-sweet luke and wild laughing leia are worse because some people lay a hand on luke and leia flies into a rage that would make her father shudder someone touches leia and luke goes cold and hard and bright and lethal as plasma and the whole time where is there to fall when you have grown up standing beside the darkest creature in the universe his lips on child-soft cheeks and his hands holding you up where is there to fall after that luke and leia are nothing the jedi could have foreseen because they’re raised by the darkest beings in the universe (one by choice one by force and Force) and they’re…not light side but they’re not quite fallen either i love this au so much SO MUCH

I genuinely don’t even know what I wanna do with Padmé accidentally injuring Vader, Padmé accidentally injuring Vader is just SO MUCH POTENTIAL DOOM and SO MUCH POTENTIAL AMAZING. 

But okay, I see you about the twins being fucking terrors when the other one is hurt, and I raise you the twins when one of their PARENTS is hurt. Because Vader is the Dark, to them, he is the vicious protector that is the monster under all the other children’s beds, and Amidala is untouchable, immovable, a universal constant that cannot be broken. Vader is the rock and she is the hard, hard place that he is about to smash the galaxy against, always. One of THEM gets hurt–seriously, really, DANGEROUSLY hurt? Somebody puts a lightsaber to Vader’s neck to make him pay for his crimes or a blaster to Amidala’s head in a play for her crown? 

HA. HA. HA. FUCKING GOOD LUCK, BUDDY. 

Anonymous asked: Empress Amidala for the meme, please?

suzukiblu:

• Luke and Leia have exactly zero percent fear response to sensing the Dark Side. This will definitely never backfire on anyone ever. 
• The handmaidens regularly take turns going on missions with Vader. Usually there’s two of them; there’s almost always at least one. Padmé slightly hates herself for sending them, but has no intention of stopping sending them. She hates herself a lot more for a lot of other things she’s still doing. The handmaidens don’t answer to Vader and Vader doesn’t answer to the handmaidens, but they DO occasionally remind him what Padmé said in the briefing. 
• Padmé has nightmares every time that Vader is too far away to sense her having nightmares. She has no idea if this is because that’s when she has the room to or if it’s just because he’s out of her reach, and she doesn’t want to know either way. 
  
• I may have mentioned this before but OH MAN, does Vader feel SO CONTENT in the Dark. Like, it is warm and soft and cozy as FUCK to him. He loves it. It’s GREAT. Which, well, he’s probably accessing it through mostly positive emotions, barring some murder-rages and the like, so that should probably make sense, buuuut that also means he’s fueled more than a few horrible slaughters on the power of love, lol. Not even in the VENGEFUL AND PROTECTIVE sense, either, just literally the soft happy feeling of Padmé’s lips pressing to the corner of his mouth or the twin’s little hands in his. 
• Eventually, Padmé is accidentally going to genuinely injure Vader in bed. It is not going to go well. The WAY in which it is not going to go well remains up for debate. 

novellafreak13 asked: in the empress au who does vader care more about, padre or the twines (ie. if she ordered him to do something like kill them, would he?)

suzukiblu:

… ha. ha. ha. hahahahahahahahahaha THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION, FRIEND. 

Look, there is not really a “care more about” there, he literally can’t parse that between those three, but I think we can all agree Vader is not quiiiite hitting on all eight cylinders here. He has LITERALLY dissociated from “Anakin” as thoroughly as he is able to except for when Padmé wants the persona trotted out and oh yeah he’s still convinced Obi-Wan deserved, you know, to be SKEWERED and LEFT FOR DEAD in a FUCKING LAVA PIT. And look, sure, he murdered basically everyone he ever fought beside who isn’t currently under lifetime mind control, but that was for PADME, so it’s fine. Like, obviously. 

But long story short, yeah, Padmé COULD get Vader to kill the twins. She would have to do it in a very specific WAY–one that fit the script, one that was For The Best–but she could do it, yes. And he WOULD do it, yes. 

Alternately, the twins could get him to kill HER, if they came up with a reason that fit the script. It would be REALLY FUCKING HARD to do, though, and the likelier result would be ending up with a broken Sith Lord, and possibly whoever was trying to talk him into killing the other person being the dead one instead. Or, you know, both! ‘CAUSE YOU KNOW, HE DOES HAVE A HISTORY OF THAT KIND OF BEHAVIOR. 

Basically, you do not want to force Vader to choose, because if you do? He’s probably not choosing you. 

suzukiblu:

suzukiblu:

suzukiblu:

beckyh2112 replied to your post:beckyh2112 replied to your post:I want to hear…

*rolls over, bares her tummy* yesssssss

Also NONE OF THIS makes Vader less vicious or violent out in the world. Sometimes this makes Vader MORE vicious and violent out in the world, in fact, because he figures out slightly quicker than Padmé exactly how much SHARPER she is with him when he’s gone farther than she wanted him to go. And it’s not even the sharpness he wants specifically–it’s the ATTENTION–but he’d never say no to it. When she figures THAT out … hah. Haaaaah. She doesn’t even have to fucking TOUCH him, when she figures that out. 

She DOESN’T touch him when she figures that out. He goes fucking CRAZY with it; he falls the fuck APART with it. She doesn’t even look at him for a full week, not even when he goddamn BEGS her to. The Empire could probably have collapsed without either of them noticing, if the Senate hadn’t known exactly how dead they all would’ve been if it had. 

Just–Padmé Amidala literally riding the FUCKING TIGER here, with the fine line of giving Vader enough Dark to be content with but not enough to damn himself with. As if that even matters, now. As if that COULD matter, now. 

It matters even more, now. 

But what Vader wants from her is so much tenderness, and so much terribleness, and so MUCH, and sometimes Padmé isn’t sure if she’s the bloody bite-mark smeared down his throat or the soft hand stroking through his sticky, sweat-soaked hair. Or worse–if she’s both. What is she, if she is both those things to someone? 

What is she if she is both those things to the GALAXY? 

@words-writ-in-starlight: honestly padme’s internal riding the whirlwind half-panic is so glorious and like i am SO HERE for vader who is so much her servant in every way and when she realizes that ah when she realizes that things change vader goes out and runs wild against her orders and returns with blood on his hands and she greets him with a cool nod and a cursory kiss to the cheek and then she goes back to her work and doesn’t say anything further except a brief reprimand for the wreckage and he is SO LOST in the absence of her grounding him vader goes out on another mission and follows her orders to the letter and when he returns padme makes herself smile and opens her arms and asks ‘what do you want tonight’ ‘what can i give you for making me so happy’ and he falls into her like she is a black hole and he is so far beyond the event horizon and padme holds him close and bites and kisses and bloodies him and he is drunk on it on HER and she is so so afraid of him of herself for the galaxy for her children I LOVE THIS AU SO MUCH

Like I would add more here but WHAT IS THERE TO ADD?? What. What could I even put here? Except maybe the part where Padmé realizes that even as she’s wrapping a tighter leash around Vader’s throat than anyone else ever has, he’s fucking THANKING her for it. He’s always had a leash or a collar or a slave chip, he’s always been OWNED by something or someone, and he’s always hated it. But HER leash, HER rules, HER orders–those aren’t like anyone else’s. He’s HAPPY under her, and all it took was a few thousand murders and betrayals, all it took was killing himself for her. 

Vader doesn’t know how to be free, because the Force doesn’t expect him to be free and even Anakin never really knew how to be. Even though this is the MOST free that either of him has ever been. He could do anything he wanted, go anywhere he wanted, and all he wants is his Master. 

Padmé realizes this. Padmé HATES this. 

Padmé also rewards him when he obeys her, and punishes him when he doesn’t. 

@words-writ-in-starlight: okay so vader’s relationship to the concept of ‘master’ here is super interesting because when he was young (when ANAKIN was young padme thinks but doesn’t say when it comes up) it was attached to pain and punishment and grief and tears and suffering and then it was about the jedi ‘master this’ he says 'master that’ and yet he was expected to care for them love the jedi ideal in the perfect courtly manner they expected in the perfect passionless jedi way and then it was about palpatine all manipulation and coercion and he could tell he knew he was being wielded but he was a thing for wielding wasn’t he? and then and then he realized that for the first time he had a choice three masters to choose from palpatine and obi-wan and padme and padme’s hand around his throat is sweet and electric and he is hungry for it and he probably tells her that at some point and she has to take a deep breath and let it out slowly without letting her hand in his hair go tense so that she doesn’t scream or cry or shove him away but she breathes and combs her fingers through his hair and murmurs that she is glad he chose her that he is so good for her so perfect for her and he rests his head against her knees and sighs

Absolutely. Absolutely and ENTIRELY. The only choices Anakin Skywalker ever really made were picking his master, picking the person to follow, to swear himself to, and he was never a good slave or a good Jedi or a good Sith, but he’ll be good for HER. Padmé is the only one who didn’t betray him or try to make him deny who he was, didn’t lie to him–Palpatine wanted him to think she had, but that was just more proof that Palpatine wasn’t the right master. The right master wouldn’t have needed to lie to get his loyalty. 

The Jedi told him he couldn’t have attachments; they told him he couldn’t be Dark; they told him he couldn’t have HER. That he couldn’t GIVE himself to her. 

But Padmé is his Master. The only worthy one he’s ever had. 

(shut up, Obi-Wan, bastard, traitor, liar, you don’t know you refused to understand you would never have treated me like that if you REALLY–)

Padmé is Vader’s Master, so he gave her everything. His loyalty and an empire and the lives of every soldier in it, the lives of every Jedi who’d ever served beside Anakin Skywalker, the life of every other Master he’d ever sworn to. If he has to belong to someone–if he’s always going to be a slave, a servant, a tool, a possession–then at least he’s strong enough to pick who owns him, now. He’ll take all her orders, do everything she asks of him, make the GALAXY do anything she asks, and he will thank her for it every time. It’s better this way. 

Sometimes he thinks it would’ve been better if it’d always been this way. 

suzukiblu:

suzukiblu:

beckyh2112 replied to your post:beckyh2112 replied to your post:I want to hear…

*rolls over, bares her tummy* yesssssss

Also NONE OF THIS makes Vader less vicious or violent out in the world. Sometimes this makes Vader MORE vicious and violent out in the world, in fact, because he figures out slightly quicker than Padmé exactly how much SHARPER she is with him when he’s gone farther than she wanted him to go. And it’s not even the sharpness he wants specifically–it’s the ATTENTION–but he’d never say no to it. When she figures THAT out … hah. Haaaaah. She doesn’t even have to fucking TOUCH him, when she figures that out. 

She DOESN’T touch him when she figures that out. He goes fucking CRAZY with it; he falls the fuck APART with it. She doesn’t even look at him for a full week, not even when he goddamn BEGS her to. The Empire could probably have collapsed without either of them noticing, if the Senate hadn’t known exactly how dead they all would’ve been if it had. 

Just–Padmé Amidala literally riding the FUCKING TIGER here, with the fine line of giving Vader enough Dark to be content with but not enough to damn himself with. As if that even matters, now. As if that COULD matter, now. 

It matters even more, now. 

But what Vader wants from her is so much tenderness, and so much terribleness, and so MUCH, and sometimes Padmé isn’t sure if she’s the bloody bite-mark smeared down his throat or the soft hand stroking through his sticky, sweat-soaked hair. Or worse–if she’s both. What is she, if she is both those things to someone? 

What is she if she is both those things to the GALAXY? 

@words-writ-in-starlight: honestly padme’s internal riding the whirlwind half-panic is so glorious and like i am SO HERE for vader who is so much her servant in every way and when she realizes that ah when she realizes that things change vader goes out and runs wild against her orders and returns with blood on his hands and she greets him with a cool nod and a cursory kiss to the cheek and then she goes back to her work and doesn’t say anything further except a brief reprimand for the wreckage and he is SO LOST in the absence of her grounding him vader goes out on another mission and follows her orders to the letter and when he returns padme makes herself smile and opens her arms and asks ‘what do you want tonight’ ‘what can i give you for making me so happy’ and he falls into her like she is a black hole and he is so far beyond the event horizon and padme holds him close and bites and kisses and bloodies him and he is drunk on it on HER and she is so so afraid of him of herself for the galaxy for her children I LOVE THIS AU SO MUCH

Like I would add more here but WHAT IS THERE TO ADD?? What. What could I even put here? Except maybe the part where Padmé realizes that even as she’s wrapping a tighter leash around Vader’s throat than anyone else ever has, he’s fucking THANKING her for it. He’s always had a leash or a collar or a slave chip, he’s always been OWNED by something or someone, and he’s always hated it. But HER leash, HER rules, HER orders–those aren’t like anyone else’s. He’s HAPPY under her, and all it took was a few thousand murders and betrayals, all it took was killing himself for her. 

Vader doesn’t know how to be free, because the Force doesn’t expect him to be free and even Anakin never really knew how to be. Even though this is the MOST free that either of him has ever been. He could do anything he wanted, go anywhere he wanted, and all he wants is his Master. 

Padmé realizes this. Padmé HATES this. 

Padmé also rewards him when he obeys her, and punishes him when he doesn’t. 

suzukiblu:

suzukiblu:

words-writ-in-starlight:

suzukiblu:

words-writ-in-starlight:

suzukiblu:

words-writ-in-starlight replied to your post: okay my inbox is full of cute stuff and funny…

Okay but say more????

Things Vader has probably asked Padmé for/done his damnedest to provoke her into doing to him: 

• tie him to the bed 
• hit him in the face 
• leave hickeys/bite marks/bruises in places he can’t hide 
• wax/heat play, possibly to the point of burning 
• choke him 
  

Things Padmé has probably ordered Vader to do: 

• answer to “Anakin” 
  

Okay on the one hand OW that got painful real fast, but on the other hand that is exactly what I was hoping to get out of that question.  This AU is just so fucking fantastic, I love it.

Look, I’ve been very cracky and fluffy and fun around here lately, I know, but if I go a month without someone being at least mildly traumatized by something I wrote then I will lose all my writerly powers and turn into a pillar of salt and blow away, okay, that’s just how it is. Therefore, Darth Vader is gonna have to learn real quick that every time his Master tells him to lay back and close his eyes, he better start answering to “Anakin” again ASAP or he’s not gonna get hurt the way he likes at ALL. 

*coils protectively around this EXTREMELY EXCELLENT thing*

Cracky fluffy Mace Windu taking Anakin out for truckloads of glowing space ice cream and making morbid jokes is great, but for real I just want to talk about Empress Amidala and Vader and their twins who are probably really strange in this world and how the galaxy reacts when Queen Padme of Naboo is suddenly (and aggressively) promoted and the intricate details of how the Jedi flip their collective shit.

@words-writ-in-starlight: i continue to be trash this au matters to me so much i would murder someone for a movie trilogy set in this au my priorities probably need rejiggering ehhhhhh who gives a fuck not me and not padme because she’s busy trying not to let the galaxy go to shit now that she’s been involuntarily promoted to empress and sith master and person-holding-vader’s-chain (and the whole thing with her ordering him to answer to anakin is SO EXCELLENT) (this is exactly the kind of pain i feed on)

I think she ordered him to answer to “Anakin” exactly once and after that he just kind of had to learn the tells of when she wanted “Anakin” behavior out of him–the difference is so subtle for BOTH of them that it’s sort of a nightmare to get it just right, especially since “Anakin” is not exactly who Anakin actually WAS, just certain parts of Padmé’s perception of him that she knows damn well she’s exaggerating but wants anyway–especially because Padmé does NOT respond well when she does/doesn’t get him when she doesn’t/does want him. 

Vader has an excellent sense of balance, at least. 

It might be funny, if there was anyone left he could make the joke to. Definitely not any of the surviving Jedi. >>;; 

MAN you are right, though, Luke and Leia are probably gonna grow up VERY UNUSUAL children, especially because Padmé will occasionally say things like “here is the list of things you need to lie to your father about no matter what” and VADER will occasionally say things like “eventually you’ll probably want to destroy each other and that’s a very natural feeling but I would recommend not following through on it because ruling the galaxy with a partner to do the parts you don’t like is just SO MUCH better”. 

And meanwhile Luke is such a fucking sunshine bomb and Leia is so very fiercely JUST and KIND, no one is ever gonna believe they’re the Empress and Vader’s. Did–did Obi-Wan Kenobi maybe get Mustafar-ed for causing these two? Are these two HIS fault? 

Okay, no, never mind: they’ll believe it the first time someone lets Princess Amidala anywhere near a lightsaber. They will believe it and FEAR IT. 

@words-writ-in-starlight: WOOOO weird fucked up force twins who are on orders to lie to their father and who are a mystery to the galaxy luke who is just like a fucking space labrador retriever and his sister who is here to kick ass in the name of JUSTICE (maybe they don’t have labs in space because luke is taking up all of the sunshine cuddliness?) and their mother is like on the verge of a breakdown every time leia is talking to vader because it is VERY IMPORTANT that leia and vader have a very particular relationship in which leia doesn’t come down like a hammer on the whole ‘empire vs democracy’ thing (it’s KILLING padme that she can’t publicly train her daughter as a democratic politician) and in which leia learns the force from vader but doesn’t learn…his kind of thinking because padme is sitting there looking at these two kids who are just spilling power left and right like a goblet overfull of wine and she’s just thinking ‘if i let him vader would raise these two as the next part of our dynasty’ vader ADORES his kids he would give them the galaxy in a heartbeat laid out all starlight and fire on a silver platter and he has that option like that option is AVAILABLE to him and padme is TERRIFIED and padme does what needs to be done to save her children

No, no, not here. Padmé does what needs to be done to save the GALAXY. Padmé would die right now if she thought it would leave the galaxy a free Republic again; Padmé would’ve died in the delivery room, would’ve taken the twins with her into the Force, would’ve given up ANYTHING to avoid so much death and darkness. Anakin could never do the math, but Padmé knows that one or two or three versus three THOUSAND is not even a real sacrifice. 

It is a sacrifice, of course. But there’s giving up your own neck for a greater purpose and there’s slitting three thousand unwilling throats on someone else’s altar. 

And Vader really was right when he handed her the Empire. Padmé Naberrie can be Empress Amidala and still be Padmé Naberrie, and she can do the math, and she can hold him back when he’d tear the galaxy past the blood and to the bone and never, ever stop. She knows the difference between making a sacrifice and TAKING one. 

She knows what a Queen must do for her people and really–is an Empress all that different from a Queen, when all is said and done? It’s just another name for something very similar. A sacrifice, and a sacrifice. 

So yes. An Empress is very, very different from a Queen. 

“Let me tell you about how to make a sacrifice,” Padmé Naberrie says with Empress Amidala’s mouth one day when Vader is far away cutting the galaxy to the blood, and the twins look up at her curiously. “Let me tell you what a dynasty is and should never be.” 

Anonymous asked: I am curious about what the twins think of their parents in the Empress Amidala 'verse. What are the things they are told to lie to their father about?

suzukiblu:

The twins have four parents. They recognize this fairly early in life, and are mildly surprised when they eventually realize that other children DON’T recognize this about their own parents. 

The twins’ parents are: Empress Amidala, Darth Vader, Padmé [redacted], and [redacted]. They don’t know Padmé’s last name or Darth Vader’s other one, but they know there ARE other names there. Their absence is obvious. 

(once, one time only, one of them catches their father coming home very late and very injured, stumbling into the apartments with his own blood all over himself and his prosthetic smashed and torn and a dazed, distant expression on his face, and on the other side of the room Empress Amidala drops her datapad and Padmé whispers, “Anakin”) 

They see more of Padmé than they ever do of Anakin (whose name they don’t know, really, honestly, they’ve never heard it once). Amidala has missions for Vader, far-away places to send him for long times, and to the twins, for some time, a father is the kind man cloaked in warm Darkness who drifts in and out of their lives to touch their minds with an overpowering love and show them the proper way to hold a lightsaber and throw a full-grown adult in full armor a hundred yards back with just one push. They always know him in the Force, but he is not often close enough for them to see or speak to, at a certain age. 

And at that certain age, every night that Vader is off-planet Padmé closes the apartment doors and teaches them every secret she knows how to. 

And, very importantly, how to lie. 

The twins don’t always understand why knowing how to lie is so important, and especially not how to lie to their father–about certain thoughts, certain feelings, certain reasons for certain things. Leia thinks it’s just Vader they’re supposed to lie to, because of course the two of them are different men. Luke thinks they’re the same man, just they don’t admit it. Either way, they both know that Mother can be Padmé and Amidala in the same breath, doing the exact same thing for two opposing reasons, but Father is only ever Darth Vader. 

(except when Mother calls him that other name, of course; the one that they don’t know) 

God, can you image what these kids start to turn into as they grow up?