A Snippet Of Japor

One

Leia huffed. The stormtroopers took the girl to where Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith and second in command was.
She had never liked that... man, but secretly, she had always imagined him as someone who had suffered, and had lost too many people in his life. That was the only way his actions could be explained.
Leia grabbed the pendant she always wore and pressed it to her lips one time, before putting it back under her clothes.
She wasn't very tall, well, she wasn't tall, and the Sith's figure next to her own would look like a father with her eight-year-old daughter.
She spoke first.
"Darth Vader" she spit the words with no fear "only you could be so bold. The Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear you've attacked a..."
"Don't act so surprised, Your Highness" said Vader, with a pinch of sarcasm scaping from his mask "You weren't in a mercy mission after all. Several transmissions were beamed up to this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you"
Leia shook her head.
"I don't know what you're talking about" she lied " I'm a member of the Imperial Senate in a diplomatic mission to Alderaan!"
"You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take her away!" The Sith commanded.

~¤~
Darth Vader stood silent in his chamber. The images of his last little chat  with Princess Leia made him wonder. He had had the feeling... the strange feeling, indeed... that he knew her. But... know her from where? Or more likely, when?

He decided then he should pay their lovely guest a visit. He came out of his chamber and started walking to the cell were Leia was captive. When Vader came in he realized he had gotten the politician by surprise. Now that was a surprise. Get a politician by surprise... it had been hard even with Padmé... He shook his head, as if negating the sole memory of that woman could make him forget all he did, and how he lost her.
His eyes swiftly jumped from the door to Leia's left hand, and his surprise increased. She was holding a pendant, a little square-shaped snippet of japor, a snippet carved so long ago by a nine-year-old slave who later gave it to the love of his life, a valiant and beautiful queen that later turned to be a Senator, and later, no other than the wife of this little boy of the Outer Rim.
Darth Vader recognised the necklace. It was exacly the same way it was the last time he'd seen it, twenty years ago, back when he thought his life would be perfect.
That necklace he once held on his fingers, his hand almost touching her inminent belly, a bump that carried joy and happiness but that was taken away almost before he could even notice. It had been twenty years since that happened. He had carried that burden for twenty years. He had lost them because of his pride. Because of his lust for power.
It seemed now that Obi-Wan might have been right about him.
He had lost his beautiful Padmé, his angel, and he had lost their child, the one that would have given him light.
Anakin had realised there had been no dragon. No Darth Vader. It had been him. Only he was guilty.
And now his past had come back to torture him, and laugh at his face once again.
He felt a tear fall, running through the burnt flesh of his cheek.
"Where did you get that from?" He asked. Now he didn't care about anything else. He knew Leia was Bail Organa's daughter, a twenty-year-old woman, strong and powerful, as once Padmé had been. And she wasn't only like Padmé in political achievements, but also physically.
She turned to him, Padmé's fire burning in her dark eyes.
"It was my mother's. Apparently a nine-year-old boy from Tatooine gave it to her once. She always wore it"
And, in that blazing moment, everything made sense to Anakin Skywalker.