#honoghr

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[title]

Chapter One:

Sand and dust was kicked up in the wake of two speeders racing across the dessert night. One furiously gaining, the other desperate to shake and lose its tail. 

One arm wrapped protectively around the bundle clutched to his chest, the other trying its best to steer the small one-man speeder. Keep it steady. While simultaneously trying to shake off and lose his pursuer. But it was a tall order to fill. His hunter knew these sands far better than he did, had grown up here, was shaped by the sands and the winds. And he was driven. Driven by a a raging tumultuous storm of feelings to wild and varying to interpret fully. But Kenobi would have to say that rage was definitely at the forefront of that emotional storm. Rage and pain.

Pain over the death of Padme and rage at the one he credited with responsibility for her premature passing. 

Because goodness forbid Anakin Skywalker ever take responsibility for his own actions or their resultant tragedies. 

Kenobi clutched baby Luke tighter as he banked hard to the right. Taking them down a labyrinthine formation of shallow canyons and jagged rocks. For the majority of the journey, the baby had remained blissfully quiet. Something the Jedi master was sure was uncommon for new borns and infants. It might have given him cause to worry if he didn't currently have a much greater and more pressing concern tearing between rocks and sand behind them. 

But now, being rocked and jostled by the chase, and perhaps also sensing the violent storm of feelings behind them, Luke uttered his first loud, unhappy cries since slipping from the warmth of his mothers womb into the cold and uncaring world they lived in. 

Perhaps he was spurred on by the sound of his son's crying, or perhaps he'd just gotten close enough for the weapon to be useful, but from behind, Kenobi heard the unmistakable snap-hiss of a lightsaber.  Unable to simultaneously draw his own blade while still steering the speeder and holding Luke, Kenobi did the only other option open to him. He leapt from his own speeder just in time to miss being split in two by a jumping swing of the crimson-white blade. 

The red hot saber slashed the speeder in two instead. Each half banging and ricocheting off rocks and canyon before they came to skidding, crumbling halts. A few seconds later, Anakin's own abandoned speeder followed the Jedi's speeder into oblivion by crashing into the canyon wall. The spectacular explosion lighting up the night enough for Kenobi to see flames illyminate the new black armor and helmet in brilliant shades of orange and red. 

Lowering the red saber only slightly, Anakin -no, he wasn't Anakin anymore, Anakin had died on Mustafar, this man was a Sith Lord- Darth Vader extended his free hand. With a new voice, deep and baritone, nothing like Anakin's at all, uttered a single command. "Give him to me."

Shaking his head, Kenobi drew his own lightsaber. Ready to defend the innocent life in his other arm with his last breath if necessary. "Don't do this, Anakin. Let him live his life without the burden of your legacy."

There was a beat of silence filled only by the sound of the respirator, carefully counting breaths. Then, "You have taken to much from me. You'll not take my son as well."

With that, the sinister figure closed the distance. Dark cape trailing behind him. Kenobi just managed to bring his own blade up in time to block the blow. With only one hand holding the saber, he had less strength to hold the red-white blade at bay. The Jedi hoped that Vader would regulate his strength enough so as to not injure the baby he carried -it was, after all, the baby he was after- but remembering his actions towards Padme, Kenobi just couldn't be sure of anything anymore. Vader wanted the baby. But he also wanted the Jedi master dead. 

Pulling a bit of the Force to him, Kenobi pushed Vader off them. Taking advantage of the younger man's imbalance to swing an offense of his own, Kenobi aimed for that shiny and new black helmet. But the blow was only glancing, just melting a scratch on the surface, not even penetrating to the head beneath. Both men to a step back to regain themselves. Luke resumed his wails. The cries seeming all the louder for the echo off the canyon walls. 

"This is what Padme would have wanted for him!" Kenobi tried to reason with him. "To grow up with a family and love. Not be used as a tool for your ambition or the Emperor's power!"

"He will be with his family." Vader snarled. "I am his father!"

"You killed his mother!" Kenobi reminded him. 

"Because of you!" The other snarled. 

He swung his lightsaber at the man. The spinning blade arching towards his head. Kenobi jumped to the side, drawing on the force to help cushion his fall, not for himself but to ease the discomfort to the baby. The swinging blade came flying back to its wielder's hand and he slashed down at Kenobi's prone form. The Jedi struggling to regain his footing was quick enough to evade a death blow, but not quick enough to come away unscathed. He screamed as the red-white blade sliced through his ankled with a burning ferocity. Kenobi's scream of pain, adding to the chorus of Luke's. 

"She was my wife!" Vader roared. "And you used her. Turned us against each other. I might have been the instrument, but it was you who killed her! Its your fault! Your fault!" The dark shoulders shook with unchannelled emotion. It sent reverberations through the Force, washing other both of them. Causing the Jedi to forget the pain in his leg for a moment and the baby's sobs degraded into hiccups, having already cried himself hoarse. "You took my wife from me, Obi-wan. I will not let you take my son from me as well."

The Sith Lord bent down over them. Black gloved hands reaching… and with unexpected care, plucked the hiccuping child from the Jedi's arms. He held the baby for a moment or two. The only sound apart from Luke's nervous hiccups and grumbles, the mechanical breathing of the respirator. Vader -or perhaps in that moment he was Anakin again- looked down at the child in his arms who squirmed uncomfortably against the cold leather pulled over unfeeling bionics. There could be no warmth in that hold. No physical warmth. But perhaps there was some emotional warmth from the father for his son. For Luke seemed to calm ever so slightly. His child in his arms, Vader's own raging storm of feelings also subsided to what Kenobi decided must be the new baseline for the Dark Lord. 

The relative serenity of the scene was broken by an errant breeze whistling through the canyon. The soft sound string them from their brief moment of peace. Kenobi called his lightsaber back to his hand. But Vader was quicker on the draw. The Jedi froze with the glowing crimson tip a few centimeters from singeing distance of his beard. 

[I cannot yet decide if Ben would serve the story better alive of dead. So I'll leave this scene here for now. Perhaps you can think of a suitable way to close this little skirmish. ]

And so he had his son. Padme's son. The last living remnant of the woman he'd loved. 

But what to do with him. 

Taking him back to Corescant was out of the question. Loath though he was to admit it, Obi-wan did have a valid point. Padme would not want her son to be used as a tool for Palpatine's power. Not to mention that there was that tiny matter of the rule of two. It was possible that the old man might not even allow the boy to live. Either that, or order the father's death and take the boy as a new apprentice. Young, and malleable, and still whole. But if he was gone, then who would protect the boy while he grew?

Vader unconsciously tightened his grip on the boy, wrapping him in an invisible cloak of dark and territorial feelings. A gesture protecting him both physically and psychically. He needed to keep his son safe. That was priority one. Everything else was detail. It could be sorted out later. First thing first, he needed to get Luke to a secure location. After that he could figure out what to do. Corescant was out. But Naboo didn't sound to appealing either. While he was sure Padme's family would be more than happy to take in her motherless child, it would be to easy to find him there. 

Briefly, he considered Tatooine. They were already here, after all. And it was where he grew up. But no. The environment was too harsh. Both ecologically and culturally. Slavery was to prevalent and to many households were just a few credits difference away from selling their own children into bond to feed themselves. He would not risk his son becoming a slave. He would not allow his son to grow up believing slavery to be a common and acceptable practice. Slowly, he ran through the list until he finally thought of one that might just be perfect. 

Remote. Out of common knowledge. Honor-based culture. And most important of all, completely dedicated to him. 

Vader didn't know why he didn't think of it first!

Now with a destination, they set course for Honoghr.

…

[And then I realized Anakin/Vader wouldn't have had time to construct a new lightsaber. Between "NOOOOOOOO!" and Obi-wan taking Luke to the Lars' there just isn't the opportunity to make one. So the fight between Kenobi and Vader couldn't have gone like that. I'll have to re-write the scene. ]

Kabarakh braced one arm against the speeder's dashboard, his other hand gripping the side panel so tightly his gray knuckles threatened to turn white. He was a Noghri warrior, trained to remain calm and composed even under great strain. …But none of his mentors had ever had the 'honor' of riding passenger in a speeder piloted by the Son of Vader. 

"Wha-hoooo!" The young human whooped as they banked a hard turn just in time to save them from plummeting down a rather steep ravine cut by the rushing waters of the Vas'ser river. Kabarakh let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in. If the fall hadn't killed them, the waters surly would have. They sped off over the short scrubby kolm-grass of the wastes. 

...

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE

I’m not even sure I had an end-game for this. Just a vague idea of a premise. Like, was I gonna have Luke leave Honoghr at some point? Was the whole fic gonna be him growing up steeped in the culture? Some combination of the two?

Who the fuck knows?