Wartorn

Chapter 1 - Assassination

Author's Note: I edited this chapter, lost the edited version, and I didn't want to edit it again, soooo... xP

~ Amina Gila

Luke watches with a wide-eyed sense of awe as his father levitates a datapad with the Force. Anakin can use the Force to lift much larger objects, he knows, but he insists using the Force for trivial purposes is disrespectful.

"Can I learn to do that?" he asks, hopefully.

Anakin smiles down at him, a deep running adoration in his blue eyes. "Yes, Luke. I will teach you and Leia both, but you must be careful from letting anyone know you can do it."

"Why?" Luke pouts. It's not as if him and Leia would show off anyway – they don't have friends at the school they attend here on Coruscant, which isn't much, since their mother's handmaids teach them most everything they need to know. So much about their lives are secret, and really, he doesn't fully understand why. But the one thing both he and his sister understand is that they can't mention their father to anyone.

It's also for the same reason that they can't tell anyone that their mother is their real mother. She claims to have adopted them, though that's apparently not true. He just doesn't get why all the secrecy.

Anakin reaches down, lifting Luke onto the couch next to him, and Luke instantly snuggles up against his side. "If the Jedi Council knew of your abilities, they would take you and your sister. That... wasn't the life your mother and I wanted."

He can't help feeling slightly sullen, but it passes fast. "What was it like to be a Jedi?"

"It was... nice to help people, but it was lonely. I never had a sister, Luke. Attachments are forbidden."

"Maybe I'm glad I'm not a Jedi, then."

Luke shakes the memory from mind as he slowly returns to wakefulness, the blue and white swirl of hyperspace still outside the viewport.

That happened years ago now. He's sixteen, and he was very little back then, but still, he thinks the sentiment is the same.

Now, he's in his fighter, on the way to Coruscant, escorting the main Nubian ship. But for some reason, this is something he has an inexplicable bad feeling about. Why, he can't say, but something is wrong.

***

"We'll be arriving on Coruscant shortly," Leia says, entering the room where Aunt Dorme – dressed as her mother – is waiting with the others. Leia grew up with the occasional times her mother and aunt impersonated each other, but she still finds it strange.

She's never been fooled by it, obviously, but her aunts are her mother's handmaids, and it's strange to see them pretending to be royalty.

"Then we'll see if there was anything to Captain Typho's concerns," Dorme comments, shifting in the very fancy Nubian Senator clothes she's wearing. Leia's mother has been a Senator since long before she was even born.

Now that Leia's older, she knows how much that's shaped her and Luke's life, in both... good ways and bad. It's part of what sparked her own interest in politics.

"I don't have a good feeling about this," Leia admits. All she can feel when she reaches out with the Force – her training is fairly minimal, but still – is looming clouds of darkness. It feels like everything is about to go wrong, not necessarily about this, but just... everything.

"Then it's a good thing your mother isn't on this ship," Dorme replies, smiling slightly, though it's strained. Something easily could go very wrong, but Leia can't imagine any of her aunts actually getting hurt, no matter how real the possibly is.