Fortress Vader

Twenty-four - Logomachy

Jedi hits targets no one else can hit. Geniuses hit targets no one else can see.
Year 6

———

Kat

I'm pacing the first level of the fortress late one morning, over a month after Vader's crash, when suddenly, Yellow-Eyes is standing around a corner.

I shriek, my drink splattering to the floor. "Kriff, when did you arrive?"

He cocks an eyebrow upward and I think he looks slightly amused. It makes my stomach dance. "Are you saying you watch for me?" As he speaks, his hand waves in the air without breaking his gaze from me, and the liquid is put back into the cup, but it remains on the floor.

"I watch for everyone, you know that." I can't help but look back down at it, perplexed at seeing the Force used for something so simple.

"Well, if I tell you my secret, I wouldn't be able to enjoy scaring you like this."

"Just leave the scaring to your master," I mutter. I almost ask him where he's been, but I'm too busy trying to be professional and not ask to go to the trophy room. I have a lot of tension I'd like to work out. "How can I be of assistance, sir?"

"Did he like his chair?"

I narrow my eyes at him. "Seriously? Your master almost dies and your hypermnesia is on that sumptuous chair? Do you even know what a chair should cost? And to suggest I would outlay those kind of credits—"

At his roguish grin, I stop and release a puff of air. "What?" I snap.

His smile widens, and for an instant, I soften. But then he opens his mouth and the moment is ruined.

"You're doing the thing."

"What thing?" I watch him school his face, though some light remains in his strange eyes. Humor, I guess.

"Sometimes you forget you're supposed to be merely a touch above average." For just a moment, I register his words as an insult.

Then, an odd tingle sparks on the back of my tongue and moves down my body, blossoming deep in my gut. It is fear, this much I recognize, but it's not right. It isn't like any variation of fear I've ever experienced. It's like...being exposed and unprotected in the face of danger, but it isn't my physical body on display. It's my soul—something I didn't think I even believed in. I am a woman of science, not mysticism.

Yet, I feel as if he is digging through my spiritual underwear drawer and just told me he found my hidden...what? Ego? Essence?

He snorts, dragging me out of the daze I hadn't been aware I was even in.

I meet his eyes as he says, "It's not a big deal, Kitten. So you're smart." One of his shoulders lifts and he looks away. "There's no reason for you to hide it anymore. Use your big words. I can find a dictionary."

That fizzling sensation grows until my fingertips and toes are tingling. It's like static, like there's an energy to my touch. I manage to keep my mouth shut and I think my face is still neutral, but I have absolutely no words. Lines of thought are stumbling over each other in my mind—certainly no 'big words' involved. A lot of what-ifs, that's for sure.

The corners of his lips curve up ever so slightly, and though nothing about him softens, something inside me allows a tiny sliver of calm back through me.

"It's actually exactly why we're talking right now."

"Oh?" I don't think my casualness is all that convincing, but he nods anyway.