Archive of Our Own

When Pateesa settles, Anakin can feel it.

It starts at his hands, Dust collecting around his fingertips, making them glow gold like the suns back on Tatooine. It spreads up his arms, prickling a little as it goes, like sparks off his scrap welder.

It's a little scary, but he's not supposed to be scared, so he pinches the web of skin above his thumb until his head goes quieter. In that time, the Dust climbs up to his chest, little gold butterflies flying around him, prettier than any he'd seen in the meditation gardens.

Something in his chest loosens, and he can breathe easier, and he knows the Dust isn't going to hurt him.

He breathes it in, and he feels bright on the inside, too, like he's a big shining lantern, like the ones that hang in the gardens.

Master Qui-Gon had talked about being one with the Force, and maybe this is what it feels like, Dust inside and outside and all around him, making him feel safe.

And then the dust disappears, leaves him blinking in the sudden darkness.

"Pateesa," he says, and his own voice sounds all funny for a moment, deeper than normal. He wonders what shape she's taken.

Jakoli had told him about the shapes of daemons, when they were both done their day's work soon enough to sit together in the shade. He'd watched her clever rat daemon wander in and out of her lap, almost blind from old age, but still as agile as Jakoli herself.

Horse daemons were for those with free spirits, he remembers, and big cats were for natural leaders. Lizards were lucky, spiders were for deep thinkers and rats (she'd said, with smile lines crinkling around her big, starry eyes) meant you were smart and brave and divinely beautiful. He'd laughed at that, but not laughed mean, and Pateesa had been a rat for the next week.

"Pateesa," he asks, again, nails digging into his palms, hope hope hoping without being sure what he's hoping for.

He can hear soft padding behind him (so she's something with paws) and panting, loud and wet. A whuff of air, out of bigger lungs than he was expecting, and his throat goes hot and tight, and something feels bad but he can't tell what.

"Pateesa," he says, one last time, and turns around to face her. He knows even as he turns, and wishes he didn’t.

"Oh, Patessa," he says, tears prickling the back of his throat (but he doesn't cry because Jedi don't cry, because Obi-Wan wouldn't cry) "You're so pretty!"

And she is pretty, fur mixed black and gold, big white teeth shining in her dark mouth.

"You like it?" she asks, and Anakin walks up to her, hugs her, buries his face in her fur. It's soft, softer than the velvety chairs in the archive, and he holds her close.

"I love it," he says, pulling his face away from her so that she won't feel the sudden wetness. It's not her fault. He doesn't want her to feel all crumpled up inside, like he feels when he can't get his training right.

Jakoli had said that it wasn't bad having a dog daemon, that people with dog daemons were good-natured and loyal. Obedient, Anakin thinks, the word rising like vomit up his throat. Among the other slaves, the ones with dog daemons had seemed ... he doesn't have the words to explain it. The closest he can get is that they'd been hurt in a way that nobody could see, inside their heads.

It wasn't fair! He was going to be a Jedi, he'd gotten away, it was supposed to be better now!

Jedi don't get mad, he remembers. Jedi don't get sad. Jedi are calm and centred (even if he doesn't know what centred means yet). He swipes a sleeve across his face, sniffles up the last of his tears.

"C'mon, Pateesa," he says, standing up. "I wanna show you off. The other padawans are going to be soooo jealous, none of theirs have settled yet!"

None of them are from Tatooine. None of them know what a dog daemon means, to him. None of them need to.

***

Obi-Wan sighs, cracks his neck, and looks down at Anakin again. There is no emotion, there is peace, he reminds himself, for probably the fourth time that hour.

"One more time," he says, "And this time, focus ."

Anakin has a stubborn set to his chin. "I am focussing," he mutters, but takes the homing droid back from Obi-wan's hand. "Okay, Pateesa," he says. "Fetch!"

He throws it in a perfect arc, dark against the pale Coruscant sky. He probably doesn't even know he's using the Force to do it, that it weaves seamlessly through his movements, like thread through fine linen.

Pateesa runs after it, panting, tearing holes in the perfect grass of the training grounds. Obi-Wan can't suppress a wince.

For a moment, he thinks she's going to get past the barrier, that she'll be able to get the droid this time. But she hits the same barrier, the same time as last time, and the time before that. Whimpering with pain, she looks back at Anakin.

"Go on," he yells. Bròn calls an answering encouragement from his place on the ground, bushy tail waving like a banner.

But Pateesa can't get any further away from Anakin. She whines, claws at the grass, gives all of them an imploring look.

After a long silence, Anakin stretches out his hand, and the homing droid comes flying back to him. He doesn't look over at Obi-Wan.

"Anakin."

Pateesa comes loping back towards him, tongue lolling out of her mouth.

"Anakin."

"She was hurting," he says, patting her on the head, still not looking up at him.

Bròn sighs. "There's no use," he says, and Obi-Wan can hear his daemon settling in the grass at his feet. "The boy just isn't listening."

"I am listening," he says, chin set stubborn, eyes dangerously bright. "Why don't you ever think I'm listening?"

"All right, Anakin. If you've been listening, then why are we doing this?"

Anakin looks at the ground. "A Jedi should not hold attachments," he says, in his perfect, singsong recitation. "Even to their daemon."

Daemons are just another manifestation of the Force, like grass or trees or exhausting, temperamental padawans. Which means Anakin should be able to separate himself from his daemon.

(Too soft, you are, on Skywalker, Master Yoda had told him, his daemon sitting on the arm of his hoverchair. Nobody knows what Master Yoda's daemon is; it has too many feelers, too many clicking mandibles. Late to this training, he is already. If want him to become a Jedi, you do, push him, you must.)

“If you’ve been listening, then, is the problem that you're not trying?” He brings his hands up to emphasize his point. Anakin flinches at the movement, face moving in a complicated way that Obi-Wan can't quite understand, and Pateesa slinks behind him.

"I'll try again, Master," he mumbles, down into his tunic-front, and takes the homing droid without looking Obi-Wan in the eye. The stubbornness is gone, replaced by a blank kind of acceptance that's somehow worse.

"Well, you don't have to sulk about it," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease his headache. "I just want to know what the problem is."

"Nothing's the problem, Master Obi-Wan," Anakin says, voice as mechanical as a cleaning droid. "I'll do better next time."

He throws the droid silently for Pateesa, and she retrieves it in the same kind of silence. When she brings it back, he doesn't even look at Obi-Wan for approval. He just throws it further, mouth a hard, trembling line. When he turns to throw the droid again, Obi-Wan can tell he's biting his lip enough that the skin around it has gone white.

Pateesa is panting after the fourth time Anakin throws the droid for her, fatigue obvious in her limbs.

"That's enough, Anakin," he says, expecting the boy to relax, point finally proven. Instead, his shoulders stay up, and he looks down at Bròn, not up at Obi-Wan's eyes.

"Sorry, sir," Anakin says.

It's frustrating when Anakin goes this way, all silent and wooden. Obi-Wan never knows what to do about it. And good luck trying to get Bròn to reason with his daemon; Pateesa can barely string five words together talking to anyone who isn't Anakin.

"I'm not asking you to ... listen, don't worry. That's enough for the day, you can go to the fresher to wash up. We'll try again tomorrow." He silently asks for forgiveness from Master Yoda. The small reprieve shouldn't be too much of a disservice to Anakin.

Anakin nods. He goes to pet Pateesa, then stops, bringing the hand back down to his side.

"Master Obi-Wan," he says, turning back to look at him. "Being separate from Bròn. Does ... does it hurt you, too?"

He's used to feeling too young, but Obi-Wan suddenly feels too old. Anakin's very young for his daemon to have settled. There has to be a reason for it, and Obi-Wan wishes more than ever that Qui-Gon were here to help him.

He'll be all right, Obi-Wan tells himself. He's got a tough desert daemon, sturdy and built for survival.

"Not anymore," he manages, and Anakin nods, solemnly.

By the end of the week, Anakin can send his daemon all the way to the other end of the training grounds.

***

Padmé lets her eyes float back and forth through the crowd, checking to see if anyone looks like they don't belong, if anyone looks like they might be concealing a weapon.

Megara returns to her, settling gracefully on her shoulder. All of her regular gowns are reinforced at the shoulders, so that her daemon's claws don't tear through delicate fabric. But she's not wearing one of her regular gowns now; she's attempting to pass incognito, to evade any more would-be assassins.

"Nothing I could see from overhead," her daemon coos, in their secret language. "We should be safe."

Padmé nods, and looks back at Anakin. The young Jedi looks troubled himself, probably doing the same kind of scan she had been. His daemon is sitting at attention next to him, almost perfectly still.

When Padmé thinks about Pateesa, she remembers a wild blur. She can't even remember the forms Anakin's daemon had taken, there were so many of them. It's strange to see her so ... so fixed.

"Pateesa, right?" she asks, and Anakin jumps slightly, before relaxing into a smile. "I meant to ask earlier, but we were so ..."

"Busy, I know," Anakin finishes. "Yes, Pateesa."

Megara nips gently at her ear, and Padmé lets her hop down her arm to investigate the other daemon; she's relentlessly curious, and will complain if Padmé doesn't let her.

"She's a Tattooine mutt," Anakin says, laughing with a sharp edge Padmé catches but can't understand. "She's ... uh, she's skittish around other people's daemons. Nervous. Don't be offended if she doesn't take to Megara right away."

Padmé cocks her head to the side. "Do Jedi not allow their daemons to talk?"

"No!" Anakin says, loud enough to startle her. "She's just shy."

"Hello, Senator Amidala," Pateesa says, quiet enough that she can barely hear her. "Hello, Megara."

Padmé's relieved that Anakin still lets his daemon talk. "You can call me Padmé. It always seems rather silly to be called titles by a daemon. I always think you're rather above that."

Pateesa looks away. "Thank you, Sen - Padmé.”

Padmé didn't remember her being so solemn.

"Now, your daemon is - she's beautiful," Anakin says, and then looks down, embarrassed. "That is, I mean to say, what is she?"

Megara preens at the attention, and Padmé laughs. "She's a rock dove," she says. "They're endemic to the cities back home, especially around old buildings. Like the university district."

"A rock dove," Anakin says, rolling it around in his mouth. "What does that mean?"

It takes Padmé a moment to realize what he's asking. "Oh! So you believe in daemon lore, do you?"

Anakin looks down, again. "Well, I don't believe in it, really, I mean, I'm just ... Jedi are supposed to take an interest in cultural superstitions, that's all."

In Padmé's heart of hearts, she'd expected Jedi to be better liars. "No, I'm not making fun, I think it's sweet. Let me see ... my father always says that I have a rock dove because they're smarter than anyone realizes. My mother always says that it's because I'm a stubborn, persistent pest until I get people to see things my way." Anakin laughs. "Both of them thought it was hysterical when our biologists found out that rock doves practice a form of democracy."

Padmé's never really believed in daemon lore herself. Animals have too many different meanings to too many different peoples and species. A snake daemon can mean vicious cunning, or it can mean rebirth; it all depends on your point of view.

She and Megara will make their own meaning.

"From Naboo. Of course," Anakin says, and Padmé doesn't catch his meaning, for the second time that day. He’s a little like a Naberrian puzzle box that way, lovely in a way she can’t quite understand. ”Pateesa,” he says, turning to her, and then stops.

Pateesa is slumped over, boneless and relaxed, with Megara perched right next to her. They're so close they could almost be touching.

"Pateesa," Anakin says, sharply, "Be careful! That's the Senator's daemon, not ...."

Padmé feels sorry for him. Now that she's looking for it, Anakin is just as tense as Pateesa, even if it's harder to see. She's filled with the sudden urge to scratch Pateesa between the ears, see if that would wipe the look of care from both of their faces. But she's had the lesson about touching other people's daemons, the one that any well-brought-up child has had drummed into them from the time they were too young to have a proper one.

"Megara isn't frail," she says, instead. "She once clawed out the eyes of a daemon sent to assassinate her. Imagine her, attacking an osprey twice her size while berating it for its poor manners."

Anakin laughs at that, like she'd hoped, and Pateesa's tail thumps against the bench. For a moment, they both look as young as they really are, like they aren't carrying the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders.

***

Anakin looks at the man in front of him. CT-7567, the records had said, leader of his new company. One of the new Kaminoan clones.

"Hi," he says, and gives the clone commander a wave.

CT-7567 snaps off a perfect salute. "Sir, yes, sir! 501st ready for inspection!"

He's blonde, a standout in an army of dark-haired men, and close-shaven. Like Shmi had been, when they were sold to Watto.

Anakin speaks again, to interrupt his thoughts. "Hold on, Captain. I haven't even gotten to know you, yet!"

"Sir," the Captain says, and manages to make it sound like a question. There's something off about him, something tugging at Anakin's mind. He shakes his head. No time to get distracted.

"First of all, what's your name?"

"CC-7567, sir!" He seems to realize that's not exactly what Anakin was asking. "Uh, that's Rex, sir, to my friends."

He takes a second to look absolutely mortified. "Oh, I mean, you can call me Rex, sir."

Anakin laughs. "Don't worry, I won't tell the Kaminoans on you. My name's Anakin. Anakin Skywalker."

Captain Rex seems a little more relieved now that they're not talking about him. "Pleased to meet you, Sir. General Skywalker."

"I understand we're going to be shipping out soon. You seen action yet?"

"Nossir. Most of us are still shinies. That's new clones, sir."

Anakin's starting to get a stress headache, the kind he gets when he's away from Pateesa for too long. She's briefing Master Yoda on some developments from their last mission.

Oh, so that was the thing he'd been wondering about. “Where’s your daemon, Captain?”

He wonders if all the clones have the same kind of daemon. Maybe a knife-grinning coyote, like Jango Fett's had been, maybe something battle-ready and hard. Maybe, he thinks, with a lurch in his stomach, they have dog daemons. Because that's what they're raised to, isn't it? Service to the Republic?

"Don't have one, sir," Captain Rex says, with a hint of pride.

Anakin blinks. "What do you mean, Captain?"

You can't have a person without a daemon. Everyone has daemons, whether they're humans or Togrutans or Mon Calmari or, well, whatever Master Yoda is.

"We're made without them," Captain Rex says, and beams as though he hasn't just said something awful. "Gives us one less vulnerability on the battlefield, sir. Droids can't target your daemons if you don't have 'em."

The Republic had bought the clone troopers, bought them in bulk, even, like they were straw or durasteel. Had it been easier to buy them because they were made without daemons?

Now Captain Rex looks genuinely upset. "I'm sorry, sir. I hope that's not a problem!"

Anakin shakes his head again, trying to dislodge the thoughts. He’s supposed to be preparing his troops. He's a Jedi Knight, and the men are looking at him to lead, not to ask hairsplitting questions about the Republic’s strategy.

Obi-Wan’s always said he’s better at tactics than strategy, anyways.

"Sorry, Captain," he says, forcing a smile. "I didn't mean to question you, or your men. I’ll be proud to serve alongside you.”

***

Stepping into the Chancellor's office, it takes Anakin's eyes a moment to adjust to the light.

"Come in, my dear boy," Chancellor Palpatine says, and Anakin has to squint to make him out against the bank of windows, the sun glinting on the glass. "You don't have to be shy."

The carpet is so plush and expensive-looking that it seems almost a crime to step onto it, but Palpatine had invited him in. He steps onto it tentatively, glad that Pateesa had cleaned her paws for the visit.

The Chancellor comes out from behind his desk, smiling. "I must say, it's lovely to get a chance to talk to you away from the Council. They're very jealous of your time."

Anakin clears his throat, awkwardly. "It's the war," he says, not sure whether he's defending them or himself. "It keeps us all busy."

Beside him, Pateesa is sniffing for something he can't distinguish.

"Ah, yes, the war," the Chancellor says, brow wrinkled. "A necessity, but a tragic necessity nonetheless."

His daemon sits perched on his shoulder, scales glittering in the sunlight. A Dathomiri rock dragon, Obi-Wan had called them, frowning slightly, and he'd said that usually, only zabrak had those. He'd been talking to himself more than to Anakin, clearly trying to bring some memory back to mind.

"And speaking of the war, I hear you're acquitting yourself quite handsomely," Palpatine says, jerking him back to the moment. "Your 501st is truly a force to be reckoned with."

Anakin flushes at the praise. "It's my men, really. They're incredible." And it's true. He privately thinks the clones of the 501st are the best in the whole army.

"My dear boy, when you've been in politics as long as I have, you get to know that a force is only as effective as the man leading them." Palpatine smiles. "But enough talk. I'm sure you're thirsty. Meiloorun juice? I hear you like it."

"Oh, sure."

Palpatine snaps his fingers at his serving droid, sending it towards the door. Then he sits down in the visitor's chair closest to Anakin, sighing happily as he does so.

"I hope you can pardon my informality," he says, smiling up at Anakin. "I must say, standing all day is an uncomfortable occupation for a man with knee joints as stiff as mine."

Still smiling, he reaches forward and strokes Pateesa's head.

Anakin can't stop himself from gasping. He'd gotten the bitterbright sickness in the field once, and spent days vomiting his guts out, fever so high he started seeing things that weren't there. This is worse.

"Alas, it's one of the burdens of my office," Palpatine says, still smiling, still with a hand on Pateesa's head. "A chancellor cannot just be fit to rule, he must be seen as being fit to rule. Hence, no chair for me."

Anakin forces a weak smile, terrified the effort will make him throw up on the Chancellor's lovely carpet. At the Chancellor's feet, Pateesa whines, frozen in place.

It can't be right. But it's the Chancellor doing it, in the gentle midafternoon light spilling into his office. The chancellor wouldn't be doing it so obviously, so smilingly, if it were wrong.

"I understand," he forces out. "When I'm out in the field with the 501st, I can't let them see me tired or scared."

Palpatine smiles even more widely. His daemon has gotten bored of the conversation, and has hopped onto his desk.

"Again, my dear boy, you have the instincts of a true leader." He scratches affectionately under Pateesa's chin. Pateesa looks as miserable as Anakin's ever seen her, as miserable as he feels. She tries to squirm away from the Chancellor, and Anakin frowns.

“Don't do that,” he says, by brushing a finger across his throat in their silent sign language. Maybe this is just what the Coruscant elite do, and he's just too stupid to know. he doesn't want to be rude to the Chancellor, especially when the Chancellor has been nothing but kind to him.

Jedi are supposed to be detached from their daemons. He can put up with this.

The serving droid returns with drinks for both of them, pressing a frosty glass into Anakin's hand. Finally, finally, the Chancellor takes his hand off of Pateesa's fur to take his glass, and Anakin goes weak and boneless with relief.

Palpatine looks concerned. "You look tired. Is everything all right?"

Anakin's shot through with shame for thinking badly of the Chancellor. "Of course."

Palpatine gestures to the empty chair next to him. "Sit, sit, Anakin," he says, and Anakin's knees bend without him even thinking about it.

***

There are many Sith legends, and some of the oldest ones are about the Sith's fascination with daemons.

If you were to read the books in the restricted section of the great Jedi Archive, they would talk about the alchemical experiments the Sith had performed on their daemons over the years; how they learned to sever people from their daemons, how they tested the limits of the bond between human and daemon, how they looked into precise methods of controlling other people's daemons. You would even hear whispers of a Sith Lord who had learned how to cheat death by killing his daemon and replacing it with something else.

Mace Windu knows more about the Dark Side than perhaps anyone else in the Order, so it's him who notices what's wrong with the Chancellor's daemon during their fight. The scales gleam all wrong, like the oily residue of a tibanna spill, and the daemon casts shadows from light sources that aren't there.

“Ipivi," he shouts, over the noise. "Stay away!”

His eagle-daemon pulls out of range of the dragon, ducks around a column.

Unlike the Sith, the Jedi avoided the study of daemons, ceding the field to the Dark Side. In the last few moments of his life, with Pateesa's teeth embedded so deeply in his arm that they splinter bone, Mace wonders if that might have been a mistake.

***

Pateesa struggles in his arms, scrabbling at the floor to escape. As though they were wrestling, or training before hunting down Separatist droids together.

"Come on," Anakin mutters, half to her, half to himself. "The Chancellor said ..." The Chancellor told him to leave Pateesa with him, that she would only distract him from his mission. And he needs to be able to do it right, otherwise ... he thinks again of Master Windu falling, falling. Maybe he will never stop falling in Anakin's mind.

"Pateesa," he says, louder this time, "I order you to stay with the Chancellor."

But Pateesa looks up at him with dark, frantic eyes, tries to squirm out of his arms. Anakin knows she’s gone too frantic for words. He can’t stop to think about it. He can’t stop or he’ll freeze up and it’ll all be for nothing, it’ll all …

“Fine!” His voice cracks at the end, disgusting himself. “You’re not leaving me any choice!”

He gets Pateesa in a headlock with one arm, then reaches up onto the chancellor’s desk, feels for the stick of smoking cedarwood incense the Chancellor had left on his desk.

Pateesa fights even harder, at first, but her squirming gets slower as the cedarwood smoke fills her sensitive nose. Instead, she whines, a low noise Anakin has never heard before, that sets the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

"It's for Padmé," he says. “Padmé and Megara, come on, Pateesa, it’s the only …”

But she keeps whining, until her eyes close, until she slumps into a reluctant sleep. He lays her down on the Chancellor's elegant carpet, then stands.

When Anakin sets off for the Jedi Temple, he goes alone.

***

Even grievously wounded, even troubled by the Jedi’s treasonous betrayal, Chancellor Palpatine is at his finest on the Senate floor that day. He stands tall, speaks so beautifully that some of the more sentimental senators are almost moved to tears. With his magnificent eagle daemon on his shoulder, he looks the very picture of what the Republic should be, what the new Empire will be. Everyone agrees.

(Almost everyone. A few of the more observant senators ask themselves what exactly the Jedi had done to betray the Republic, how becoming an Empire is supposed to make them safer, what this all means for the Senate. And whether the Chancellor’s daemon had always been an eagle.)

***

No matter how many times Darth Vader replays the scene in his mind, he can never quite remember: When he held his wife's daemon in a closed fist on Mustafar, did he feel the crackle of delicate bones breaking?

***

"I was just thinking ..."

Dangerous words from Jib-Jab, especially after lights-out.

Dizzy props himself up on his elbows, looking across at the bunk next to him. "Jib-Jab," he says, warningly. "I want to get some shuteye tonight."

But Jib-Jab sits up on his bunk, clearly too excited to stop. "You know Lord Vader, right?"

Dizzy rolls his eyes. "No, Jib-Jab, I'm not aware of him. Of course I kriffing know who Lord Vader is!"

Jib-Jab's a newbatcher, one of the clones made to replace recent casualties, and maybe the Kaminoans have stopped selecting for common sense.

In the bunk over Jib-Jab, Stripes stirs. "What about Lord Vader?" In the low light, the jagged scars across his face are especially harsh.

Jib-Jab sits up on his bunk, shrugs. "I dunno. I mean, his daemon."

From the other end of the room, Bolt groans. “Don’t! Or we're going to get reconditioned. And then executed. And then our corpses'll get reconditioned again."

"Shut up, wet blanket," Jib-Jab says. "What I mean is, he hasn't got a daemon. Or, at least, he hasn't got a daemon that we've ever seen. Outsiders always have daemons, right?"

The last question is clearly addressed to Dizzy. As one of the company’s firstbatchers, he has the dubious honour of fielding practically everyone's questions. And there are a lot of them.

"Yeah, aruetti always have daemons," he says.

Clone troopers don’t. At least, clone troopers weren’t supposed to. But, well, clouds of shimmering Dust gather around them, twisting and turning in the air as though they’re trying to be something. And there are whispers that some clones’ daemons had gone further, that some of them had become … solid. One clone, Dizzy’d heard, had his daemon settle after challenging bad orders from a superior, another just before he died defending their homeworld.

"See, okay then, do you think Vader's a clone trooper?" He wavers under Dizzy's unimpressed expression, then rallies. "I mean, not like a regular clone, of course, but a special one. Like maybe he was an experiment, like those old holofilms about supersoldiers that Ranger tells me about."

Ranger should stop encouraging him, but Dizzy's too tired to get into that.

In the bunk to the left of him, Wrench stirs. "Doesn't mean he's a trooper, though. He could be a droid, see? I mean, nobody's ever seen under his armour."

Dizzy shakes his head. "Droids can't use the F - do his magic hand thing," he says, waving his hand around in a loose approximation of Vader choking someone.

Oh great, now Stripes looks interested, and Dizzy's not getting any sleep at all. "Maybe his daemon's really tiny. Or maybe his daemon's special, cause he's a wizard, and it doesn't need to be around him all the time."

There are memories associated with that last sentence, and Dizzy slams down the gates of his mind before they can come out. "What, like a sand flea, or something? You think he’s got a sand flea hiding in his glove?“

Jib-Jab looks almost offended. "Lord Vader doesn't have a sand flea for a daemon! It’s gotta be something special, like ... I dunno, a lion, or a bear."

"Hey," Wrench says, in his low, heavy voice, "what if he used to have a daemon? What if he killed it, to be able to do his magic stuff."

"Wrench," Stripes says, "that's fucked up. You can't kill your daemon. It would be … ugh.”

Wrench is ... sad in the head sometimes, when he's not talking about droids. He’d been transferred into the company after the rest of his unit died on Malastare. Dizzy worries about him, worries he’s gonna go jareor when Dizzy isn’t around to watch out for him.

"I was just asking," Wrench says, his voice more resignation than annoyance.

"But, y'know, maybe you're part-right," Jib-Jab says, getting excited. "Maybe Lord Vader used to have a daemon, and someone killed it.”

“Yeah, but who?” Wrench asks, a note of petulance still in his voice. “Who’d be able to kill Lord Vader’s daemon?”

“I’m with Wrench,” Stripes agrees. “Who’d even want to try? Dizzy said he saw Lord Vader kill an officer’s daemon in front of him, just turn it back to Dust, when he found out he was passing secrets, didn't you?”

“Maybe it was a Jedi,” Jib-Jab says, even quieter than he’d been before.

"Jib-Jab," Dizzy says, his voice feeling like it's coming from outside of his body. “We’re not talking about this.”

“No, but maybe it was! Cause, see, Ranger tells me that the Jedi were basically magic too, that they could see into your head and make blaster bolts miss them and -“

“Shut up,” Dizzy snaps, and Jib-Jab gives him a wounded look.

"It's not any weirder than what Wrench said. All I was saying is that -"

“Shut up, shut up, I mean it, shut up!” They're not supposed to talk about the Jedi. They're not supposed to know about the Jedi. "And stop listening to Ranger. Bastard’s jare’la, crazy. He’s gonna get himself reconditioned, and you with him."

The others are staring at him, Stripes with something approaching concern in his eyes. He can feel his hands start to shake again, and his brain go blank.

Dizzy wishes he didn't know about the Jedi.

"I'm going to bed now," he grits out. “If any of you want to keep committing treason without me, you’re welcome to do it.” He rolls over to face the wall. Maybe then they won't see him shivering.

In the quiet darkness of the room, Naas slips out of his sleeve and nuzzles up close to his face, her spines brushing gently against his stubble.

Most clones don't live long enough for their daemons to settle into something solid. And, even if they do, clones with obvious daemons tended to ... disappear. At least Naas settled as a lizard, small enough to hide in a sleeve or an empty cartridge belt.

'Usen'ye," he says, quietly, but his daemon doesn't listen, and he doesn't have the heart to enforce it. She's trying to help, even if she makes Dizzy think about memories he'd rather bury.

They'd tried to make soldiers without daemons, and sometimes, Dizzy wishes they'd succeeded. Something the Jedi’d never told them about having a daemon: it hurts.

***

"Come, my apprentice," the Emperor says, and Darth Vader steps towards the throne, dragging his wounded weight. "Tell me of your fight with young Skywalker."

"He has ... potential," Vader says. "But he is no threat to us.” He had fought like a padawan, the thought rises to Vader's mind. Shut up, he thinks, as though that will stop the horror show midreel.

"No threat, certainly. But perhaps a promise." The Emperor idly strokes his daemon. "Tell me, my apprentice, does the boy survive?”

The moment unspools, no worse than many other such moments, but sharp for its newness. Luke down, bruised, bleeding, cupping his daemon to his chest with his remaining hand, thumb smoothing a path down its feathers. Vader had expected he would have a harder daemon, something with claws or teeth, ready for a fight.

Shut up, he thinks again. Anakin Skywalker once had a daemon. Darth Vader does not, and he doesn't particularly care about the daemons of others, except as a pressure point.

"Yes, Master. I feel him still, in the Force.”

"Good, good," the Emperor says. "We may have use for him yet."

The Emperor's daemon stops mid-pace and goes stiff, teeth bared as though to a challenge. The Emperor laughs. "Oh, you don't like that, do you? Which reminds me, what of the boy's daemon?"

"A swallow," Vader says, with great difficulty.

There's surprise, real surprise in the Emperor's face for a moment, and then a smile. "A swallow," he says, chuckling to himself. "The Jedi have put their hopes in a boy with a swallow for a daemon. I thought I had seen them at their most desperate."

There's a memory then, a rare good one, of an planet with wide oceans. Nests on the cliffs and a voice in his ear: swallows stay close to the shore.

But he’s thought that too loudly, because the Emperor’s expression shifts, takes on a glitter of malice. “I am aware of the meaning attached to swallow daemons. Those with them are said to bring hope to others, are they not? Well tell me, my apprentice, what did our swallow-daemoned boy do when you told him the truth about his father?”

Vader looks at the floor. "He jumped."

There are stress fractures through his spine, and sometimes he has to adjust his posture to prevent it from aching. He doesn't move.

The Emperor's smile widens. “Good. I’m glad that you understand his place in the grand scheme of things. And your own.”

“Yes, my master.” The last time his suit had been repaired, the droid had told him he needed to stop grinding his teeth before he wore them down entirely. He had taken its head off cleanly, left it chattering on the floor.

"As for you, my apprentice, I sense a disturbance in your thoughts about the boy. Search your feelings, and find the source of the malfunction.”

He would rather not examine his feelings in any great depth. They have never done anything but betray him. But it had been an order.

He closes his eyes.

Pain first, made meaningless by its constancy. Anger, then, at the boy's recklessness, facing him with his training so incomplete. Hate, too, but not connected with the Skywalker boy, almost as familiar as the pain. And an emotion that he can't name, something in the deep dark space behind his helmet, saying not a dog, not a dog, for all that Luke was raised on Tatooine, not a dog.

Shut up, he thinks, more viciously than ever. He twists his spine the wrong way, against the fractures. The pain, at least, makes things simple.

***

If he focuses very carefully, Luke can see people's daemonlink, the faint bright thread of Dust connecting people to their daemons.

When he sees his father for the third time, he doesn't have one.

Darth Vader stands there awkwardly, looking at Luke's daemon, and Luke realizes he's waiting for an introduction.

"Elpis," his daemon says, proudly, and Luke almost laughs at the strangeness of it. "And you?"

He hadn't been looking for a daemonlink before. He hadn't even known Vader was human.

Vader is silent. "The Emperor has been waiting for you," he says, finally.

"My father had a daemon," Luke says, pressing his question. ”Pateesa."

Aunt Beru had whispered the name to him when Uncle Owen wasn't listening, had given it to him like a cup of water in the desert summer. She hadn't told him any more about her, she'd said that was for his uncle to tell him when he was older. When he was ready.

"That name no longer has any meaning to me."

Luke looks at the empty space around Vader, the space where his daemon isn't. Obi-Wan had told him that Vader no longer had a daemon, that his daemon had died when he betrayed the Jedi.

Luke can't imagine how lonely that would be.

"It is the name of your true self. You've only forgotten. I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't cut you off from it fully." Vader's mask moves slightly, following Elpis as she takes flight, settles on the railing near him. “That’s why you weren’t able to destroy us. That’s why you won’t take us to your Emperor now.”

The daemon troubles him, Luke realizes. Not enough to be a danger to the light-winged little bird, but enough that it filters over his usual psychic defences.

Be careful, he whispers over the link between their minds.

"I can sense your bond with your daemon," Vader says, tearing his attention away from Elpis to look back at Luke. "And your skill with the daemons of others. Indeed, you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen."

Luke has never seen it as a power. He thinks of it as a different kind of listening.

He feels for Vader's daemon again. All he can feel is absence, a quiet pain.

"Come with me," he says, in a rush of emotion.

"Obi-Wan once thought as you do.” Elpis hops closer to Vader, bright, inquisitive eyes darting back and forth. Vader is still, almost painfully so. "You don't know the power of the dark side. I must obey my master."

Can you see where his daemon is? he asks Elpis. His daemon is good at following the golden trail of Dust bridging daemons and their humans, better even than Luke.

He doesn't have one, Elpis says, finally. At least, not one with a trail I can see.

Trauma can change daemons, Luke knows. In the days after the first Death Star was destroyed, Leia’s Pericles had shifted form even though he’d been settled already. He’d become a wildcat, flecked black and gold, almost up to her shoulder. A year later, Luke had seen the image in a salvaged holo on the wildlife of Alderaan.

But he’s never seen anything like this. What had the Emperor done to his father’s daemon?

"I will not turn, and you'll be forced to kill me." He'll die before he lets the Emperor hurt Elpis, he knows. She's part of him, as much as his heart or the smallest bones of his fingers.

"If that is your destiny," Vader says, but his voice twists strangely at the end.

"Search your feelings, father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you," and Luke sees a single glimmer of gold above Vader's head. It's not a daemon. It's not a trail. It's barely even a spark.

But it's a chance.

"It is too late for me, son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now, the master of you both.”

Luke almost smiles, for all the gravity of the situation. The Emperor has made a mistake. Even the slavemasters of Tatooine weren't arrogant enough to think they could own someone's daemon.

"Then my father is truly dead," he says, calling Elpis gently to his hand.

Whatever happens, they'll face it together.

***

There are many Sith legends, and almost all of them are tragedies.

Take the tragedy of Darth Sideous the Cunning, a Sith Lord so powerful that he unlocked daemonlore that had been hidden to every Sith before him. He had such a knowledge of the Dark Side that he could separate himself from his true daemon and put something else in its place, making him invulnerable.

Almost invulnerable.

His tragedy: he thought he understood everything there was to know about daemons right up until the moment Luke Skywalker begged his father to save him, right up until the moment Anakin Skywalker's daemon broke his hold on her and buried her teeth in his throat.

***

The boy-beloved-by-Anakin is kind and strong, but he can't carry them both. He still tries.

Pateesa has blood on her teeth and black alchemical oil in her fur, but the boy still carries her gently with his mechanical arm, careful not to touch her directly. She can feel him shudder under Anakin's weight, and so it's no surprise to her when they fall, stumbling on the ramp of a ship.

She can feel the soft rumble of Anakin speaking through his chestplate, but she can't hear him. Maybe her hearing is gone entirely, with her left eye and the clump of fur burned from her back.

His hand drags across her back, the familiar weight of his prosthetic settling right over her heart.

(I'm sorry, Anakin had said after he'd stumbled back from the edge of the pit, with his hand circling his heart in the clonesign they'd learned when they were generals, I’m sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. She'd licked his hand like she used to do when he came back from long missions, when she wanted to let him know she’d forgiven him for leaving her behind. She's never needed words.)

She coughs up a clot of oil, red-tinged. Anakin looks over at her with concern, his own face a maze of scar tissue and burn marks.

"Don't worry about me," she says back, though she can't hear herself speak, nudging his face back towards the boy's. "I'm fine.”

She's dying, she knows, she’d be dying even if Anakin weren't. Outside the Emperor's field of influence, her injuries from Mustafar are too much to survive; she's blind in one eye, one of her legs won't support her weight, her insides feel all sharp and broken. That's all right. She's with Anakin, and Anakin is with his son.

Even through his armour, she can feel when his breathing stops.

The-boy-beloved-by-Anakin is cold and heavy with grief, his daemon silent on his shoulder. "Don't cry, little bird," she says, pushing her nose into his hand. "You did everything you could."

The boy's hair is gold. It's one of the few spots of colour she can see, smearing in her blurry vision to ring his head in light. For just a moment, as she dissolves back into Dust, she can see the same golden light ring Anakin's as well.