The Comfort of Family Warmth

Father & Son

The Emperor was meditating in his personal chambers when he felt it, fear. 

As a Sith, no THE Sith, that wasn't a feeling he was unaccustomed to feeling from others, but this was different. This was personal. 

A type of fear he hadn't felt in years, since he killed his Master, since he killed Sidious after he was no longer of use.

Vader knew it wasn't his fear, he didn't feel fear anymore. The idea of experiencing fear became unfathomable years ago, when he became the strongest Force User. So, it had to be someone else's, but who's? 

For him to feel it so strongly, it would have to be someone who he shared a bond with. A particularly strong bond, too. Yet Vader didn't have any of those, not anymore. Not after the death of his Wife..

So what was this new bond, and why was it radiating fear?

He chose to sink into The Force. If he couldn't find the answer on his own, The Force would tell him. 

He focused his emotions, letting The Force flood his body. He dove into it, demanding for it to show him the source of the presence. 

The fear was still radiating from it, tangible to him through the Force, so he grabbed onto it. The Force would show him-

XXXX

He was back on that cursed planet, the one he refused to step foot on, even now. He was sitting inside of a homestead, the Lars' homestead. 

He wasn't in his own body, though it felt vaguely similar to his own. Smaller, younger, yet similar.

He was smiling up at two adults; Owen and Beru Lars, he remembered, though they were older. He tried to look around, but he was unable to. It was from someone else's view, then. 

Perhaps they had a child? 

But why would he be seeing from their child's point of view? He was never particularly close to the family he'd never held any resentment towards them, they had freed his mother, after all, however short that freedom was.

Then the vision skipped time, and he was screaming, crying. He tried to stop, Sith Lords did not cry, but the tears wouldn't stop running. So, he had absolutely no control. Tears watered his vision, but he could make out forms Owen and Beru fighting, and losing, against Tuskens.

They were killed quickly, they didn't stand a chance. It was a pity, but he didn't particularly care for them one way or another. They had freed his mother, but they'd been unable to keep her. Now, they were dying like she had. Though Vader didn't care, the child clearly did. The tears were flowing even more harshly now, and that was when Vader felt it.

This child had a strong Force connection, one he'd only felt in one person himself. That was intriguing, but he could focus on that later. 

The child was untrained, so they weren't able to fight back as The Tuskens kidnapped him. Likely, he'd be forced into a life of slavery. 

That was one practice Vader had cracked down on once he became Emperor, but laws wouldn't stop savages like the Tuskens. He was still working on the Force-forsaken Outer Rim as a whole.

XXXX

The vision finished, and it left Vader with as many questions as it had answered. So, the fear was coming from a child, raised by the Lars family.