Entry tags:

Arrival + Open to all

Post-Medical/Around the Hospital:

After arriving and getting his debriefing, Vader took time to see to his own physical state. Awakening and not needing assistance breathing was been a shock he hadn't had time to process, feeling fabric on his skin - his skin, not a patchwork of skin, blisters, synthskin, and the wide swatches of scar tissue that was mostly still numb had bordered on sensor overload. Not that he still wasn't covered in scars - so many - but he could get a sense of feeling from them, not just pressure. It seemed his would-be captors understood his gloves and gauntlets served a practical purpose to protect his cybernetic arms and his heavy boots served the same function for his legs. And they must not have known how to take his helmet apart. The neck seal being open and having a breeze rush up against his face was certainly sensory overload. An exam - one he was unhappy about - later and a recommendation under the strongest possible terms he seek to establish care for further follow-up finished, he'd at least had a long list of options. Something he hadn't had before and some questions about the chip and a thick folder of paperwork in his hand, Vader started to explore the area. Making sure he could memorize the area in low light, as he knew his vision at nighttime would be difficult and if the helmet was damaged well.

That would be problematic at best.

Xin Night Market:

Two things Vader had purchased immediately: a large backpack in a familiar military style and a drop bag which fashioned around the waist and dropped down the length of one thigh to buckle behind his knee. He had no illusions he'd fill the military-style bag, it was partly for the familiarity of something on his back and in case of finding something bulky. The other bag, however - that was more purchased with purpose in mind. He'd spent time examining the various bags, the pouches: their size and durability of them, and the fasteners.

And he bartered expertly. He meant it for tools, bits and bobs, and technology he could salvage or break down for other parts. But he was also keeping an eye out for faces he knew.

Magic Markets

Given the odd dimensionality of this place, Vader made short work of hunting for things in the magic markets. Anything which looked like it may be related to the galaxy he was from, things relating to the Sith Order, the current one and the ancient ones. But also anything related to the Force. Be he was also searching for information on the Tethers, Tian, and Heba.

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"It's not," he agrees readily. The truth of that story is neither simple nor short, and definitely not meant for random passersby to hear. It's also not remotely a conversation he was expecting to have today, and that prospect is exciting, intriguing, and terrifying in equal measure. Ultimately, he has no idea how Vader might react to any of it, and he can only hope that the answer isn't somehow disappointment.

He doesn't intend to pass up an opportunity to speak directly to the man in front of him, either way. "Is there somewhere we can speak privately?" He can think of some, but nothing especially nearby. He hasn't spent enough time in this particular part of town to have a ready suggestion, but perhaps Vader has an idea.

Vader studies the young man's face as he answers. Searching his face, then his posture. It makes him even more curious.

"Not in a market. There are places for hirer but I would not trust them." They may be bugged. He would. Vader was quiet for several moments, considering. "There is an open place, one with enough vegetation to provide cover and muffle sound." Their voices, by which he mostly means Kylo's voice as his is most comfortable when he speaks softly.

The feeling of being inspected might bother him more if it wasn't mutual. He doesn't doubt that Vader has plenty of questions about him, given his cryptic introduction. But he has just as many for this man he knows far more about and yet not a bit of it first hand.

Kylo wouldn't trust places like that, either. An open spot, on the other hand, seems like the best they can do. He nods slightly. "Lead the way."

Vader was used to being inspected. By Palpatine, by Jedi, by Moffs, by Generals, by Troopers, by Masters. He stood, as always, inscrutable, in the face of it.

"And you will follow." It's not a question. Vader turned on his heel, a lifetime of military training and precision driven into him and it was more natural than breathing. He didn't look back, didn't focus his hearing behind him. Kylo Ren would follow, he had no doubt and even Force Blind didn't concern himself with the idea of an attack from behind. Too many years of instinct telling him it was fine.

Instead, he lead, walking at a quick clip at least for a typical human - all it seemed he was capable of here - a path that wove easily through the market, no missteps or hesitation, Vader lying on memory solely and refusing to show doubt. Until they were on the edge of the market, and then further away. Into the jungle, through the underbrush and branches, up a tiny hill of a rise with a natural shallow dip. They had the high ground, with the ground making for a small natural cover and the ticket protecting them from others' sight so long as they kept their witts about them.

Only then did Vader stop and turn to face him.

Of course he'll follow. There's no question, no need for Vader to even have said the words. His motion is just as quick and confident, if not quite as militarily precise. He had, in his time in the First Order, most often found himself in some way exempted from the typical command structure, and it shows.

He doesn't know for certain whether Vader still has his chip or not, but considering how little power emanates from him, Kylo assumes he must. That's a good thing, he thinks, for now. It means that he can't sense the hint of something almost giddy underneath Kylo's serious expression.

When Vader turns, Kylo is right behind him as he expects. Which only leaves the question of how precisely to start explaining anything, now that they're in a suitable place for it. Even having the time they'd spent walking to think it over, he's still not too sure. But ultimately, he decides the only way to proceed is straightforwardly.

"I'm not simply from your future. We're related."

He can hear Kylo's steps aren't in time with his. It's been...he doesn't even know how long since that has been the case.

With Padmé. It was with Padmé.

But of all the things Kylo could have said, that wasn't what he expected. Yes, he knew his mother had a sister. Knew it was possible her parents had other children once they were separated. Surly he must have had cousins out there. And despite Luke and Leia (Leia!) being young adults, it never dawned on them to think about their children.

"We are? Explain." He wasn't refusing the answer - he just didn't know how of all the options.

He can tell it's not a refusal to believe that answer. He's relieved that that itself doesn't seem to cause skepticism, just a need for more information.

"You're my grandfather. My mother is your daughter, Leia Organa." After so much time denying his parents at every opportunity, that feels like a strange thing to say, but it's the truth.

His expression twists a bit at the recollection of his most recent conversations with the girl who is not yet his mother. "If you haven't found her yet, she's also here, and a child. Clearly this place does strange things with time."

"I have met her." He was even fond, even before he'd learned the truth.

Vader reached over and took Kylo Ren's face in his have, holding him by the chin. Studying his face. His hair is far darker than his mother's or Padmè's. Or Leia's. And his eyes were darker too - Leia's were the darker shade of Padmè's - but there was something of his mother to the look of them.

The scar is long, and he's seen enough lightsaber injuries to know one when he sees it, healed or no. Strong boy. Very strong.

"My grandson." It's hushed. Quiet. Just a touch of wonder to his voice - very similar to when he'd learned he would be a father. A little shock. A little anxiety. A lot of wonder and even joy - not an emotion Vader was acquainted with.

It takes everything he has not to recoil from that touch. There's too much in it that's reminiscent of that last moment with his father, and all the conflicted feelings that stirs. But he stands his ground; if Snoke taught him anything, it's how to do that.

And when he hears the way Vader speaks those words, something inside of him utterly shatters. It carries all the feeling he's ever wanted, spoken by someone he'd desperately wanted acceptance from. Not for his reputation or his power, but for simply being his grandson.

He doesn't dare try to speak, and he wills away the tears welling in his eyes, bidding them not to fall. But the emotion is plain on his face no matter how he might try to keep it in check.

Vader doesn't withdraw his hand, at least not right away. He can't, it's a if he's magnetically attached.

And he see those tears, although he says nothing. He's shed plenty himself. He has a grandson. He finally let's go off Kylo's face, putting his hand on his shoulder instead. "Tell me about you."

It's both a relief and a loss when his grandfather's hand moves. He's grateful for the continued contact, and stunned by the interest that shows even through the unchanging shape of the mask.

He opens his mouth, and closes it again. He's not sure whether anyone has ever in his life simply asked him to talk about himself. Most people bring too many of their own assumptions to ask something so completely open ended. He has no idea where to begin.

"What do you want to know?"

Vader is almost afraid if he let's Kylo go, he'll vanish. Like so many progeny in dreams. So he holds on. Warmth and flesh under his hand to remind him what was really there.

Everything.

"How old are you? Where were you born?" It was a start. He'd prompt from there.

Kylo feels much the same. He's used to Vader being something mostly in his own mind, a memory cobbled together from stories and vids and occasional visions. Him being alive and here with him is a reality difficult to grasp.

"I'm 30. I was born on Chandrila." Those are easy questions, at least, and enough to provide a starting place. There's so much to tell. So much that has to do with the entire state of the galaxy as much as his own place in it, because there's never been a moment those two things haven't been somehow intertwined.

"The Empire had fallen, and my parents were trying to rebuild order in the galaxy from nothing. I didn't see much of them, a lot of the time." He's aware that they cared about him. He won't deny that. But that doesn't stop him from feeling that they cared about their optimistic vision for the galaxy more. "They sent me to train with my uncle when I was ten."

Thirty. Older now than his wife ever got to be. There's a moment of sheer rage howling in his mind over the sheer unfairness of that. The Empire falling is...disappointing and another tick in ratcheting up his rage.

If the Empire falls, then everything, every loss, every betrayal, every nightmare, was for nothing. There's a fraction of a second where his fingers flex into Kylo's shoulder. He doesn't mean to grip so hard and immediately relaxes his hands, rubbing the spot to try to soothe the hurt he inflicted. "I began my training at the same age. Leaving my mother was difficult." It had broken both of their hearts and shattered any sense of security he'd had in the universe. But sure. Difficult.

"Your mother wouldn't train you?" He couldn't imagine Leia wasn't a powerful Force user.

That moment of harsh grip is noted, and Kylo internally kicks himself for just how casually he'd revealed the fate of the Empire. But it is a fact of his time, one that his life can't be explained without. Something to come back to whenever he gets around to talking about the First Order. He'd like his grandfather's advice on that front, when there's a chance.

The question about his mother inspires a bitter frown. "She wasn't a Jedi. She learned, but then chose to give up on her power." He shakes his head. "She didn't feel qualified."

Kylo's easily forgiven (because Vader plays favorites) because he doesn't know the cost of the birth of the Empire was. Doesn't know how much and how dearly his family had paid, and paid, and paid, decades before he was born.

"The Force doesn't work that way. It doesn't care how you feel. And atrophied abilities are still there, ignoring them doesn't make them vanish." Ask him how he knew.

Regardless, he'd have to have a talk about things with the tiny Princess.

The words are true, and he has no doubt that his mother could have taught him. He expects she has been teaching Rey, though he has no solid confirmation of that. One more way that Rey keeps ending up with things that should have been his.

But in the end, it's not that his mother couldn't have taught him. It's that she wouldn't.

"She didn't feel qualified to keep me from the Dark Side," he clarifies. "As it turns out, my uncle wasn't good at that, either."

"Because she herself knows how close she is to it. I've only known one other person to carry that amount of anger and hatred so close to their hearts. And I know what it did to them." He wondered if this future version of his daughter understood the truth of that. How she in so many ways people may not understand was much more like him than Luke was. Maybe could be.

"Tell me. I can't imagine he wouldn't have tried but he wouldn't be the first to fail."

"He tried too hard." That's all there was to it, in the end. He couldn't accept the parts of Ben Solo that had been dark from the moment he was born, and because of that, they had no choice but to grow.

"He tried not to let it show, but he was afraid of me. I saw it." Long before he'd ever expected that fear to turn against him in the way that it did, he had seen the cracks forming. For a long time, he tried to live up to what his uncle had wanted from him. What a silly notion that was. "And then one night, I woke up to him holding a lit saber over me in my sleep."

Vader's reaction was out of his mouth before he had time to consider his words. "I shall endeavor to teach this younger one to not be such a coward." Because both moves were in Vader's mind, the mark of cowardness.

He lifted his hand back to Kylo's face, his forefinger under the boy's chin, as his thumb traced over his cheek. The touch was light. He knew all too well the feelings of having to struggle under teachers and masters who feared you. Windu, he thought, would have done the same thing, had he been gifted with Foresight and the future not cloaked by Palpatine's efforts.

"I'm sure you were a brilliant student."

Cowardice. Kylo would agree with that, and it's refreshing in a way to hear someone call it what it is, rather than try to make excuses for the galaxy's great hero. He has his doubts as to how well Vader can get through to him, but his intent to attempt does more to give Kylo hope of a different future than any assurances from Luke himself ever would.

"I was the best of us." The strongest. The most skilled. Probably even the most knowledgeable, though he might have had competition from Hennix on that one. "Most of the other students feared me, too. Or were jealous."

"How familiar." Too familiar. He remembered his classmates and their treatment.

And his teachers.

"I haven't the slightest doubt in you. It is tragic this is how we have had to meet." Because not once had Kylo mentioned him. He could assume what that meant.

He can tell how honest Vader is when he says that, and it moves him enough to nearly bring back the earlier tears. When has he met anyone who didn't doubt him? Whose respect for him wasn't based on him fulfilling some requirement, spoken or not? He had spent so long wondering whether he was failing his grandfather's memory, and he barely has any idea what to make of that question being so firmly settled in the other man's mind.

After all of his other experiences, a part of him still wonders, how long will that last?

"I've spoken to you so many times. This helmet." He reaches up to touch it, similarly to Vader's touches to his face, resting his fingers on the cheek of the mask. Even the texture of this is different.

"It was broken, but I kept it. I often felt that you were the only one who would listen, even if you didn't reply." He's never admitted that out loud to anyone, and it feels strange to do so, but also right.

The number of people Vader allows to touch his suit, much less so intimately touch him is probably frighteningly low. Normally at best someone would be smacked. But his grandson he allows. It's even welcome. A circuit of types.

His helmet is highly polished and smoothed, given it's one he's currently wearing. And he tends to keep them in good shape. "Even as a shadow, I am honored to have been your confidant." He did understand, completely.

Somehow that makes the fact he had a real family out there even more real than the people he's met. Spoken with.

Once that touch is allowed, he can't help but let it linger. He had laid his hand on that mask so many times, searching it for any vision or memory it might hold, but this is the first time there's been a real, living person underneath it.

"I'm glad." He truly is glad. He'd held such conflicting images of Vader in his head. One, the steely powerhouse that Snoke had wanted him to perfectly emulate, and another, the grandfather who could care and accept him without fear. Somehow, he's seen some of both in the very short time they've been together here.

Post-Medical/Around the Hospital:

Xin Night Market:

Magic Markets

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