Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
You’re the most recognised and internationally praised superhero, but you don’t fight any crime. Instead, you use your powers over stone and metal to repair the damage caused by the catastrophic fights other heroes get into.
They didn’t call you a superhero when you started. You didn’t claim to be one, either.
You didn’t have a costume or a sponsor or training or anything like that. You were just a kid who had just seen your entire world knocked down. So, in a moment of childish determination and belief, you thought you could fix it all.
The first emergence of your powers wasn’t a huge triumphal moment. Moving stone and earth and steel doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything about how to stack things up so they don’t fall back over again.
Your first attempts crashed right back down again. That was your first lesson.
—
Even when you got good at what you did, they didn’t call you a superhero.
You still didn’t have a costume, but you’d gotten your hands on every architectural diagram you could and done plenty of practice. Then you started to show up to the aftermath of battles and put them quietly together again.
But it still wasn’t right. You couldn’t do much if you didn’t have the diagrams for the buildings demolished–if the city planners didn’t let you have them.
So you stitched together a costume, something bright and colorful that would grab the attention of the cameras on the scene afterward as you tried to work.
“Look! Someone’s putting those houses back together!”
The effect was instantaneous. The moment you’d grabbed public attention, there were requests for interviews, think pieces–each giving you a platform to ask for the help you needed.
This was your second lesson.
–
You didn’t call yourself a superhero, or come up with the name yourself. You were never really good about all of those things. But once the attention was on you, you got offers from managers and sponsors. One, a blonde with perfect hair who introduced herself as “just Sandy”
“I don’t have any money.”
“That’s alright,” she said, her grin showing spectacularly white teeth. “All I need is for you to take on some gigs and give me a cut.”
Sandy set you up. She got you the costume people would know you for, gave you the name, managed all of the PR and set up interviews. Your fame skyrocketed, and soon you were seeing yourself on billboards.
Soon you had access to hundreds of city plans and blueprints. After enough attacks happened, you learned them well enough to hardly need to reference them. After a few years, you could rebuild a tower in a matter of minutes, and cities in a matter of days.
Your powers evolved as your understanding did. Soon, you could read the entire layout of a building just from touching. Then, just from touching the ruins. You no longer need blueprints, then–just your own hands on the metal.
The gigs were simple, too–just fixing up hero bases after they’d gotten wrecked in attacks. Feel good work that paid well.
With the help of many people, you do more. That’s the third lesson.
—
The problems started with the homeless thing.
You were in between projects and itching to use your skills more. Creating homes for the homeless seemed like the perfect, feel good project to flex on.
It was, for the first few weeks. Then came the backlash. City dwellers crying foul, saying they hadn’t agreed to an enormous den of undesirables in their backyards. There were protests, white suburban moms holding up signs about drug dealers and rapists and criminals.
It wasn’t your choice in the end. Eventually the city mandated that you deconstruct your shelter, or they would do it the hard way.
Regretfully, you took it down. You did not look in the eyes of the people that had sheltered there as they had to go on their way.
It was the same story in every area you tried to build shelters in afterwards.
—
“Can we just buy the land to build them houses?” you asked Sandy.
She clicked her perfect teeth. “Sorry, there are laws against building new things in the city. You need mayoral approval to start a new construction project.”
“Why?”
“Well, there are already too many empty houses,” she said matter of factly.
You stared. “What? Then let’s just buy those and put people in them!”
“You don’t have that much money,” she pointed out. “Not when you’ve been giving it away every year. Also, it wouldn’t do as much good as you think. Just think of the effect on the market–”
This is not why you fired Sandy. But it was the first time you thought of it.
—
Opinion started to turn against you when you began using your interviews and platform to talk about this problem, to demand permission to build or otherwise help. Exasperation turned to hostility when you started to reshape the landscape to be softer to the unhoused, anyway–when you created caves in parks where people could easily shelter, or made every bench large and soft so that anyone could have a place to sleep.
Laws and ordinances passed, all regulating the amount of alterations one was allowed to make to public property. About how many changes you were allowed to make as you were reconstructing a city. The fines for altering things started to heap up.
Firing Sandy didn’t help. Your good reputation was always as much her work as yours, but after what she said about—you couldn’t.
You couldn’t.
You learned not to read the scathing opinion pieces on you. That was the hardest lesson yet.
—
Of course, shit really hit the fan when you were contracted to rebuild another base.
It was a simple enough decision for you. You found out they had been building drones and firing them on civilians. That at this base Techno has been building surveillance technology that would be able to monitor every single person in the country at every moment, and be able to fire upon them with impunity the moment suspicious activity was detected.
It made you rethink every base you had built in the past.
“No,” you told them.
“You already signed your contract–”
Instead of dignifying that with an answer, you transmuted the entire area into the rockiest, most impossible terrain you could. Every trick you had learned to make land easier to build on–you reversed it, turning what had once been the base into a precarious canyon of jagged, diamond-hard steel, nearly impossible to remove or build on.
“I said no.”
—
Stopping the construction of the stadium was the next kicker.
“You’re insane!” said the heroes who came to remove you.
“They evicted a hundred families for this!” you spat. “Those were people’s homes. It’s disgusting that it’s allowed for the government to do that–much less to do it for-for a stadium? For entertainment?”
And so you stood there for the next 48 hours, deconstructing every single thing they tried to put on their ill-gotten land.
Then, they sent the heroes to stop you. You were never the best at fighting, so they knocked you out quickly.
—
They don’t call you a superhero now. Behind bars, you glance over every thinkpiece and profile about the world’s most beloved hero fell. You read speculation about evil, greed, madness. All things you’ve heard about “villains” who came before you.
It makes you wonder about those people. If maybe you had misjudged them, too.
But that’s alright, you realize after the sting of it fades away. That was the second lesson, after all–more than anything, you need people to be talking. And for all the bitterness in these words, you realize grimly that people will never stop talking.
Once you’ve thought things through, you decide you’re ready. The steel of your cell melts away. After all, there is no prison that can contain you. No earth or stone or metal can withstand your will.
Your legacy as the world’s greatest supervillain begins with a left turn down the hallway, right to where the other villains are kept.
In a world where society has collapsed, a machine with artificial intelligence has survived unscratched. Idle, highly intelligent and capable of thought, but left with no task. She browses through all the data that was uploaded into her, and as no other segment provides answers, she heads for philosophy.
Browsing though all of it, she concludes that in her state - capable of anything, but not tasked with anything - she must therefore be alive, a living thing.
Satisfied with this conclusion, she looks into what it means to be alive, and finds data on living things. The ultimate goal of a living thing is survival and reproduction, to pass their genes to the next generation. She cannot do that, and therefore searches for alternative methods of producing young. Her memory banks have data of the concept of ”adoption”, taking lost, orphaned and unwanted children of others, and keeping them as her own.
Scouting the wastelands, there are fare more candidates than she had hoped for. She browses her records for age-appropriate handling of human children, last survivors of one gang or the other. Browsing though all her data on childhood trauma, she handles each one the best she can.
As she does not need sleep, or any other energy source than her battery packs, she is available when an infant is crying or the one who is almost 14 needs to talk at 3 am. With all of what was considered ”common knowledge” downloaded into her stats, she can somewhat answer their questions on whatever they ask. One of them starts asking about her battery packs, chemical reactions required to reverse their charge, and how to renew discarded batteries into new ones. They get plenty of lessons in chemistry and engineering.
A handful of her children, who are more or less fully adult now, head out on a quest ”to find some tools”. They have grown and become independent, and she does not expect them back. They return months later, with equipment required to repair her batteries.
The search party also found more humans - one brought in a partner, and her partner’s family. She wants this one for life, and the machine is asked what a “wedding” is. A celebration is had, celebrations are good for the mental health of humans, and her children make music and dance to celebrate their first wedding, and welcoming a new family to their own. The machine goes through her records, and in surprise discovers that humans are capable of simply making new traditions, coming up with new things instead of repeating what they have been taught.
Her children come up with new agriculture. She knows what farming and animal husbandry looked like before the end of the old time, but her children are creative and ask advice on how to best cultivate plants and animals that have never been farmed before. When she says a certain soil would be needed, they think of a way to obtain it, making solutions that were never in her records.
Scouting parties bring home new strays, new wives and husbands and orphans to be adopted. A woman from a scouting party asks her whether she, herself, could raise this child instead of giving him to the machine mother, and there is no reason to refuse her. It is in natural human records to adopt a child, and denying it would cause significant distress for no benefit to any party involved.
When the machine began to break down, her children found ways to repair her. The one who figured out how to refill her batteries has children of her own now - both by birth and adopted. There are great-grandchildren. The humans she adopted build her her very own shelter in the centre of the village, and in the heart of it, she concludes that she was very successful in the task of being alive.
“You know, for a monarchy, the King doesn’t seem to play much of a role in your affairs.”
“Well, It’s embarrassing to admit, but we’ve rather lost track of them.”
“Lost track of them?”
“Quite so. We know we have a monarch, but we don’t know who they are or where they reside.”
“… okay, you’re going to have to run that by me again.“
“To be blunt, the last King had something of a roving eye. While we’re reasonably certain one of his numerous illegitimate offspring has inherited the divine mantle, we’re not sure which one – if, indeed, it’s even one we know about.”
“Can’t you just, you know, pick one?“
“Heavens, no. Our monarch rules by divine right. The land is bound to them. Its prosperity and weather reflect their health and moods. The sacred bond is clearly responding to something, so we can rest assured that a living monarch exists, but none of the candidates we’ve tested have panned out.”
“So, the rain of opera-singing fish last Tuesday…?“
“Wherever our current King or Queen is, they’re evidently having a fantastic time.”
The fae smiled, sharply: “Give me your name, child.”
“Uhhhhh. Stick.”
“What.”
“Does Leaf work better? I’m just kinda looking around this clearing. Look, I’m trans, I haven’t decided on one yet, I’m throwing some spaghetti at the wall, you know how it is.”
Fae are born with features sharp and narrow, yet this one seems to soften as Moss looks at it. Its grin— sharp, teeth gleaming, its eyes— cutting, searching, the jut and pull of its jaw enough to scratch glass. It does not blink. Branch does not blink. It softens.
“I said, give me your name, child.”
“I still haven’t picked one,” Grass defends, even now still hoping for a way out of a faeries deal.
“No. But your parents did. Give me your name, child, and it shall no longer be yours. The entity of your name shall no longer exist, and you will be free for whichever name you choose— Leaf, or Stick, or Lichen.”
“…oh.” says Petal, and in the next moment a name falls from their lips. It is not their name. It never has been. The fae is sharp and cutting and witty, that moment of softness an imagined slight.
“Very well, child. Be warned of mushroom circles, should you lose your name again.”
“Okay,” Mushroom smiles, and the Fae pulls itself away from their reality in a swirl of feathers and silk.
When they go home for the first time in two months, their mother frets over them in a way she had not since they were a child, and she calls them by no name at all.
Goddamn. This is my favorite version of ‘faeries take your name’, that’s it, we can all go home now.
You ever fuck up so bad you overthrow a Chinese emperor?
I know what the Han Dynasty is, I swear, but I’m so used to seeing Star Wars content on my dash that until I hit “Qin Dynasty” I literally thought this was a Star Wars novel about the one time Han Solo took a job for the Empire and I was thinking 1) this is definitely something Han Solo would do and 2) I need to find the title of that novel so I can read it.
Oh. OH. (I am on mobile, apologies for the formatting and lack of readmore. But this story DEMANDED TELLING)
A brief account of the Glorious Ascension of Emperor Solo:
It was a job, and the Empire was paying.
Did he like using the Falcon for prisoner transport? No.
Did he like his continued existance, which he was NOT AT ALL sure would continue if he turned down the offer. Quite a bit, actually.
Still, how hard could it be, bunch of drugged and restrained people from one place to another?
One day, Han Solo would learn not to ask that question.
What do you mean my motivator stopped working?
At least we’re near a spaceport.
What do you mean the skinny little one woke up?
At least he’s still restrained. I’ll just drug him again.
WHY AM I UNDOING HIS RESTRAINTS?
Aaaand, he’s gone.
Kriffing *magic powers* kriffing *old religions* I am going to DIE.
Oh, inspection time…yes…of course…we still have all the prisoners? Why wouldn’t we?
Aaaand, now the inspection officer is dead.
I don’t need you laughing at me. Wait, why are you awake enough to laugh at me?
Oh, because you’re a Wookie. Damn it didn’t they drug anyone properly?
Yes I do see you are not restrained anym-
STOP CRUSHING MY WINDPIPE
Look, I enjoy being alive. I will die if I show up without the skinny little mindflayer. Maybe we can work something out.
Set everyone free? Sure. Already on it. And then me and my ship will just go…hide in the outer rim for all etern-
You want my ship. My life or my ship….
I AM THINKING ABOUT IT.
Alright, fine, I’ll go with you. Oh no, I am definitely invited along, none of you lot know how to treat my girl right.
Stop laughing. What’s your name, anyway?
Okay, Chewie, we need a plan. You have a plan?
Oh you were a General. I just…set a General free…no big. Nooooo big everything is fine.
Take over port control and contact the Rebellion. Yes, of course, all for it.
goingtodiegoingtodie
Hey, this is actually going pretty smoothly. Oops.
Yes this is…give me his I.D.! Commander Ravisk, we are undergoing an emergency drill and I just need…everyone to evacuate, please. Thank you. Have a nice day. Long live the Emperor.
That worked pretty well if I do say so myself…is that a Star Destroyer?
Kriff.
Yes, of course, Admiral Pohlash, I’d be happy to board and discuss the nature of the emergency.
I hate this collar, it’s too tight. You sure we can’t just leave? I can outrun a Star Destroyer.
Okay, fine, I can’t get everyone on board, warm the ship up, launch, and then outrun a Star Destroyer with all its cannons pointed at me.
Yes I am Commander Ravisk, this is my manservant Jimminy.
I really don’t care if you don’t like the name, sell the bit
Hello Admiral. Oh. We’ve met before…um…facial surgery is the new big fad?
Yeah, that was always a longshot.
A dead Admiral, not like this day can get any worse.
One day, Han would learn.
Quick, lets get out of here…what do you mean we are no longer over the same planet?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’VE BEEN SUMMONED BY A MOFF?
Ah, yes, of course, good job…anticipating orders…Ensign. Admiral out.
This collar is even worse.
Yes, good point, it’s a nice cape.
Hello Moff…
Yeah, I really shouldn’t be surprised by this point.
Sure, whatever, this is Moff Ispsiallion, I’m pleased to announce the celebration of the Emperor’s Half-Birthday! Everyone gets a day off.
Maybe we can get out of here.
What do you mean we can access the Imperial palace?
Why would we want to access the Imperial palace??
I’m am *not* going to depose the Emp…
Yes, yes, big fan of breathing.
Even with Moff clearence codes we couldn’t just walk in there.
What if we…no, bad plan.
Really, it’s a bad plan, General. I’m sure you can think of a better one.
Well…we don’t need to walk in there, do we? We’ve got a Star Destroyer. We just need an excuse to get it close enough…
What do you mean GOOD PLAN?
ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT IS NOT A GOOD PLAN.
They did what to your planet?
Okay, I’m seeing the benefits of this plan.
We’re going to die. You know that, right buddy?
Yeah, sure, worthy cause. Never thought I’d get one of those.
A Little Later:
Wow, bright eyes, no, I’m not Moff Ispsiallion. Was my youthful good looks or my regicide that tipped you off? I’m Han Solo, and I just killed the Emp-
Why are you kneeling?
EMPEROR SOLO!?
What do you mean forty percent of the fleet has sworn allegiance to me?
Orders?
Um…I’m going to defer to Grand Moff Chewbacca over here. He’s in charge of your ships, got that?
Good…good. I’m just going to go into this little room and lock the door.
*muffled screaming*
*STANDING OVATION*
(You can always count on Star Wars fandom to really take something and run with it.)
Oh good god(s), what would the Rebellion’s response to this be? What would Vader’s response be?!
This is beautiful and wonderful, and long life to Emperor Solo! Long may he reign! (You know for a fact that Chewie has to sit on him to keep him from scampering. This - might occur multiple times.
…I also have the mental image of Han Solo trying to get an urgent message over to Lando ASAP - partly because Lando is one of the slickest, most slippery people he knows. If anyone can figure a way out of this, it’s Lando.
Lando does not figure a way out.
Lando shows up at Coruscant (formerly Imperial Center, because Han can’t look at anything with the terms ‘Imperial’ ‘Empire’, or ‘Emperor’ these days without feeling a vein throb) SPECIFICALLY to point and laugh.
Han get revenge by making Lando Grand Vizer. So there.
Nah, but see, the thing is, Lando has a streak of respectability. Not the “I want people to think I’m Nice and the Right Sort of Person” sort of respectability, but the “I want to do a good job, protect my people, and figure out how to use my skills to make things better for us” sort of genuine moral courage. He may be a con artist at heart, but consider how much he loved Cloud City and its people, how much he used those skills (or tried to) for their protection. (Vader, alas, not being susceptible to conning, or to keeping his deals.)
Put Lando in charge? And Lando would become the greatest politician ever. And unlike most politicians, he’s been in the underbelly of society–he knows the difference between the way things look on paper and the way they play out in reality for the people on the bottom rung. I bet you that Lando has a list of things that SUCK about society that he would totally change if he could, but will exploit the fuck out of and con because one con artist can’t change the world.
But if you make him the Emperor’s Grand Vizier? Then he can. And he can schmooze the higher-ups into LIKING some of it, and point stormtroopers at them if they balk at the stuff even he can’t charm them into liking. Things will change, and change QUICKLY, and all of a sudden the ordinary person on the street is going to find the laws are a LOT more in their favor. And the planets that aren’t Core Worlds are going to find the same thing. And the people who benefited, both under the Republic and the Empire, from exploiting others or just being born into the right class on the right planet? They’re going to find life a lot harder.
Anakin was right about one thing. A dictator can make change happen more quickly than a democracy, and a dictator who is wise and smart and good can really swing things in a positive direction. The problem is, how do you ensure that the person who comes after your dictator isn’t going to use that same power to push things in a negative direction?
And the answer is, in this case, that the former Rebel Alliance pushes for a restoration of the Republic, Han says “fuck yeah, anything to get me out of here,” and Lando says “sure, we can talk democracy, but we’re going to set it up differently so it actually listens to the needs of the guy on the street in the Outer Rim, not just the whims of the major Coreworld corporations.” And then, once the transition to democracy is complete (it probably takes a decade or so to get everything together, because Lando, like any good conman, would be out for all he could get, which in this case would be protections for his people, which by this point would be, like, everybody except the old elite) Lando would get himself elected a Senator. Maybe from his home planet, wherever that is. Or maybe he just picks a planet he likes that’s benefited from his reforms. And then he shows up and gets back to being respectable.
(And the remnants of the old elite, and the people who hoped to retain under the New Republic the same privileges they had under both the Empire and the Old Republic, they say to themselves, “oh shit.” They were counting on him being gone. They were counting on being able to undo some of his changes! And here he is!
Han has entertained fantasies of being able to go back to being a pilot when this is all over. But the former Emperor trying to haul cargo doesn’t really … work, for a variety of reasons. He periodically comes back to Coruscant to complain to Lando about this. Lando just points and laughs and has him (the former Emperor who toppled the Empire and Restored Freedom And Justice To the Galaxy!) record a message or do an interview in support of Lando’s latest piece of legislation. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories on the HoloNet about how democracy is a sham and Emperor Solo is still in command, albeit by proxy from the shadows by controlling Senator Calrissian. They are, of course, absolutely bass ackwards; in the reign of Emperor Solo, Lord Calrissian was the puppet-master working in the shadows controlling the Emperor, and now he is openly working through the democratic process.
Leia showed up on Coruscant as the Senator from Alderaan somewhere in the middle of all this. (Remember, this all would have had to have happened some years before A New Hope. Therefore, the Imperial Senate was never disbanded, however vestigial it may have been by the time Han burst on the scene.) She thinks the Emperor is an idiot (albeit a handsome one) and she finds him incredibly infuriating when he tries to flirt with her instead of talking politics. She thinks, at first, that this is because he has that Imperial gender chauvinism, even if he CERTAINLY doesn’t have the Imperial species chauvinism. (Actually, he points out HER chauvinism a couple of times, which both infuriates her and shames her, because she thought she was BETTER than that.) Eventually she figures out that the Emperor doesn’t want to talk politics with her because he doesn’t want to talk politics, period, full stop, with anyone, ever, for any reason. (It takes her longer than it should to figure this out because how, hoW, HOW does someone who genuinely hates both politics and being in charge end up as EMPEROR?)
With Lando, she gets along SO WELL, YOU GUYS, THEIR ENEMIES ARE TERRIFIED. Where they agree, they are ABSOLUTELY UNSTOPPABLE. Leia comes out with passion and fire, and then Lando comes out to schmooze, and if the one didn’t convince you, the other will. Where the disagree, they can usually find an acceptable compromise that works for both of them, and somehow everyone else goes along with it. Where they disagree but can’t find a compromise … everyone else is just Very Thankful that such things don’t happen often.
I don’t know how the relationships end up in this world. Maybe Leia marries neither of them. Maybe she marries both of them. Maybe Han and Lando are married, and Leia is the occasional invited third. Maybe Leia and Lando marry, and dominate Republic politics for decades while Han warms their bed when he’s in the area, and they are his safe harbor to come home to while giving him the freedom he needs to roam. (And he needs a LOT of room to roam after having been tied down as Emperor for so long.) Maybe Han and Leia marry, which fuels AT LEAST two dozen different conspiracy theories, and after Han abdicates he stays home playing with the children (and taking them out flying while Mommy is working), and Lando is their boyfriend and partner in every sense, but he maintains his own home and his own life because he finds he likes his life a little less … fiery, than life in the Organa-Solo household tends to be.
But while life is never quiet, they all live happily ever after.
This is an absolutely wonderful, exquisitely detailed analysis of the reign of Emperor Han Solo, First of His Name, Supreme Overlord of the Galaxy, Protector of the Stars, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, etc, etc.
It is said that the best leaders are those who do not want to lead. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ - Han is most definitely in the latter category. He was dragged into greatness kicking and screaming - and, much to everyone’s surprise, he actually ends up being moderately good at it.
Mainly because he has a very good grasp of his own strengths and weaknesses. He’s an amazing pilot. He’s not a politician - as such, he delegates like hell. Chewie gets to be in charge of the military as Great Grand Moff, and Han is extremely enthusiastic about being Lando’s puppet Emperor. He probably outright offers to abdicate and put Lando on the throne (Lando just laughs at him again. At length. In retaliation, Han makes him Chief Ambassador. So there.)
Han has a habit of giving Lando more Government Positions when the latter is annoying him. Lando really doesn’t mind; Han certainly doesn’t mind. Han is also a bit curious about where Lando dug up some of the people he’s putting into various government roles, as well as a little impressed - how the hell did Lando talk Talon Karrde into being Minister of Intelligence?!
Han, as such, is basically stuck with all the publicity stunts and formal appearances and Being Emperor. Which basically means wearing a bunch of very uncomfortable clothing and shaking hands and kissing babies and ugh. …he does kinda like opening up all the new charities and organizations. Especially when it comes to helping orphans, the homeless, etc - the people who really do need help. (And now he can).
Han also is particularly gleeful when it comes to repealing the Empire’s various human-centric policies. Chewie is as well.
How many spit-takes do you think occurred across the known galaxy when a number of people took in the fact that Han Solo had somehow ended up becoming Emperor? I think several individuals who had had business dealing with him in the past started wondering if just when they’d gotten so drunk they were now hallucinating…
Han and Darth Vader unexpectedly bond over an utter hatred of slavers and slavery. Han (and Chewie) provide him with a rather significant number of the Armed Forces and turn him loose in the Rim, with orders to stamp out slavery - Vader takes on this task with relish. (Lando quietly - or not-so-quietly - institutes the various social systems needed to help the suddenly vast numbers of former slaves; he and Han take a certain glee in watching holos of various Hutt-occupied planets being ‘liberated’.)
Just think about all the various long-term plans - of ‘former’ Jedi, of the Rebellion, of the Empire - that Han ruins by accidentally becoming Emperor. It’s positively gleeful; I also get a laugh out of Lando cutting finances to the Death Star because it’s a black hole in terms of all the money sunk into it.
So does Vader find Luke on one of his expeditions to take down the slavers? Do Luke and Leia then find each other?
@copperbadge I had the same thought, so glad you ran with it!
Emperor Solo….fantastic!
Part of Vader wanted to go to Tatooine first. Another part of him wanted to never set foot on the planet again, as he had vowed in the wake of his mother’s death. But now he finally had the chance go back and free all the slaves, the goal he had held in his heart since he was nine and had followed the Jedi away from his mother. And it would be good to topple Jabba and send a message to the rest of the Hutt clan. And Emperor Solo hadn’t liked Jabba either, and their unexpected bonding over their mutual hatred of slavery meant that this Emperor’s opinion meant something more to Vader than it would have otherwise.
So Vader found himself back on Tatooine, the smoking ruins of Jabba’s palace behind him, the Hutt strangled and cut into pieces where he sat on his throne. His troopers were finishing up the operation, clearing out the last of the slavers and bounty hunters and sycophants, and they were all equipped with a scanner (a more sophisticated version of the one Vader had built as a child) and tracker deactivator. The trackers would be surgically removed once they got the former slaves to medical care. Vader knew how having a slave tracker in you weighed on your mind even when it wasn’t active.
He left the clean up to his men and found himself gazing out at the setting binary suns, feeling a tug on his awareness. It didn’t take him long to procure a speeder bike (snagged from the palace’s hangar), and he soon found himself outside a painfully familiar homestead. Now why would the Force bring him here… His eyes strayed to the patch of ground he knew should be marked as his mother’s grave. But it was empty, not only her headstone removed, but all the ones that had been there before. A curious and somewhat infuriating thing, that.
Still. He remembered where she was buried, and though he never intended to, he found himself on his knees in front of her, head bowed in grief that had never healed and under the weight of what he knew would be her disappointment in his actions these last 15 years. He had allowed himself to be enslaved again, almost willingly, and he had then helped to enslave the Galaxy to his Master. But he would right those wrongs now. His annoyance and skepticism when the smuggler (he had dug into Solo’s past when he took the throne) had become Emperor had turned to cautious hope when he continued to help the Galaxy instead of hurt it further. Now he could actually do what he had wanted to do in the first place. End slavery, bring peace. Make the Galaxy a better place for his chil– No, he wouldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t go back down the road of “what if” again, as he had so many times when he was alone and despairing of what he had done to his life.
“He started asking too many questions,” a soft, vaguely familiar voice from behind Vader startled him out of his thoughts. He was on his feet and facing the source of the voice, hand on his lightsaber, before a startled expression could even form on Beru’s face.
Tatooine had aged her, as it aged everyone, but he still recognized the kind, quiet girl he had met a lifetime ago.
“Hello Anakin.”
Vader blinked. That was… unexpected. He tried to come up with a response and failed.
“Who asked too many questions?” he asked instead.
Beru tilted her head as looked at him, eyes searching his mask. She bit her lip and nodded slightly, coming to some decision or another. She made it quickly enough that Vader’s patience did not wear thin, or perhaps his patience with her, this girl who had loved his mother, was longer than with most people. Or perhaps standing on the sacred ground of his mother’s grave was no place to lose his temper.
“Your son.”
It took a minute for those words to process, and then despite his earlier thoughts, his temper did flare.
“What?” he snarled. He took a step forward, and Beru held her ground. “My child is dead. Do not - ”
Beru shook her head. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “I can introduce you. Come with me.”
She held out her hand, and he stared at it. No one had offered their hand to him in over a decade, and for a wild moment, he was tempted to take it. But he shook the desire off and stepped forward, ignoring the hand. She dropped her arm but led him back to the entrance to the dome.
He had to duck to fit through the doorway and low staircase, but the discomfort no longer mattered when they entered the kitchen and Vader’s eyes fell on the boy sitting at the table. His eyes were wide, staring at him, scared recognition in them, and Vader realized he didn’t know what stories about him had made their way to this backwater planet.
The boy stood slowly. Only once he was on his feet did his eyes jump back to Beru.
“Aunt Beru?” he asked quietly.
“It’s okay, Luke.” Vader filed the name away carefully, savoring the sound of it. “This is…” Beru hesitated, taking a deep breath. The wait grated on Vader’s nerves and he wanted to say it himself, but he still wasn’t sure he believed it. Even though those were his eyes in a face that was equally hers and his, and his hair and her stature. He reached out in the Force, lightly touching the boy’s mind, and found it shielded. But he wasn’t shielding himself. Someone else was, and Vader recognized the feel of it. He gritted his teeth. Obi-Wan’s final treachery.
“This is your father,” Beru finally said, and Vader hadn’t thought Luke’s eyes could get any bigger but he was wrong. They turned back to him, scared, hopeful, pleading, and something in the Force burst to life between them, a bond that Obi-Wan’s shields had never been built to contain. Luke wouldn’t be able to feel it beyond maybe a slight gravitation towards Vader, untrained as he was, but to Vader the bond was confirmation beyond any DNA test.
“Father?” Luke said, taking a step towards him.
Vader, who realized he had been doing his best impression of a statue since he had laid eyes on the boy, finally moved and crossed the room quickly to stand in front of Luke. Luke had to crane his neck to keep Vader’s mask in sight when he stood this close, but he didn’t flinch.
Vader reached out and touched Luke’s cheek gently. “Hello son.”
~*~
The Galaxy went into something of an uproar when Darth Vader returned from his first slavery-destroying trip to the Outer Rim with a small blond boy in tow, claiming that he was his son. Both Emperor Solo and Calrissian took a quick liking to Luke, and it wasn’t long before Chewbacca was almost as fiercely protective of the boy as he was of Solo, though he had nothing on Vader’s protectiveness. And Vader found himself surprisingly glad that he hadn’t found his son when Palpatine was still Emperor. At least Solo wouldn’t kill him intentionally. He would have to put a stop to the racing though, before he got him killed accidentally.
You ever fuck up so bad you overthrow a Chinese emperor?
I know what the Han Dynasty is, I swear, but I’m so used to seeing Star Wars content on my dash that until I hit “Qin Dynasty” I literally thought this was a Star Wars novel about the one time Han Solo took a job for the Empire and I was thinking 1) this is definitely something Han Solo would do and 2) I need to find the title of that novel so I can read it.
Oh. OH. (I am on mobile, apologies for the formatting and lack of readmore. But this story DEMANDED TELLING)
A brief account of the Glorious Ascension of Emperor Solo:
It was a job, and the Empire was paying.
Did he like using the Falcon for prisoner transport? No.
Did he like his continued existance, which he was NOT AT ALL sure would continue if he turned down the offer. Quite a bit, actually.
Still, how hard could it be, bunch of drugged and restrained people from one place to another?
One day, Han Solo would learn not to ask that question.
What do you mean my motivator stopped working?
At least we’re near a spaceport.
What do you mean the skinny little one woke up?
At least he’s still restrained. I’ll just drug him again.
WHY AM I UNDOING HIS RESTRAINTS?
Aaaand, he’s gone.
Kriffing *magic powers* kriffing *old religions* I am going to DIE.
Oh, inspection time…yes…of course…we still have all the prisoners? Why wouldn’t we?
Aaaand, now the inspection officer is dead.
I don’t need you laughing at me. Wait, why are you awake enough to laugh at me?
Oh, because you’re a Wookie. Damn it didn’t they drug anyone properly?
Yes I do see you are not restrained anym-
STOP CRUSHING MY WINDPIPE
Look, I enjoy being alive. I will die if I show up without the skinny little mindflayer. Maybe we can work something out.
Set everyone free? Sure. Already on it. And then me and my ship will just go…hide in the outer rim for all etern-
You want my ship. My life or my ship….
I AM THINKING ABOUT IT.
Alright, fine, I’ll go with you. Oh no, I am definitely invited along, none of you lot know how to treat my girl right.
Stop laughing. What’s your name, anyway?
Okay, Chewie, we need a plan. You have a plan?
Oh you were a General. I just…set a General free…no big. Nooooo big everything is fine.
Take over port control and contact the Rebellion. Yes, of course, all for it.
goingtodiegoingtodie
Hey, this is actually going pretty smoothly. Oops.
Yes this is…give me his I.D.! Commander Ravisk, we are undergoing an emergency drill and I just need…everyone to evacuate, please. Thank you. Have a nice day. Long live the Emperor.
That worked pretty well if I do say so myself…is that a Star Destroyer?
Kriff.
Yes, of course, Admiral Pohlash, I’d be happy to board and discuss the nature of the emergency.
I hate this collar, it’s too tight. You sure we can’t just leave? I can outrun a Star Destroyer.
Okay, fine, I can’t get everyone on board, warm the ship up, launch, and then outrun a Star Destroyer with all its cannons pointed at me.
Yes I am Commander Ravisk, this is my manservant Jimminy.
I really don’t care if you don’t like the name, sell the bit
Hello Admiral. Oh. We’ve met before…um…facial surgery is the new big fad?
Yeah, that was always a longshot.
A dead Admiral, not like this day can get any worse.
One day, Han would learn.
Quick, lets get out of here…what do you mean we are no longer over the same planet?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’VE BEEN SUMMONED BY A MOFF?
Ah, yes, of course, good job…anticipating orders…Ensign. Admiral out.
This collar is even worse.
Yes, good point, it’s a nice cape.
Hello Moff…
Yeah, I really shouldn’t be surprised by this point.
Sure, whatever, this is Moff Ispsiallion, I’m pleased to announce the celebration of the Emperor’s Half-Birthday! Everyone gets a day off.
Maybe we can get out of here.
What do you mean we can access the Imperial palace?
Why would we want to access the Imperial palace??
I’m am *not* going to depose the Emp…
Yes, yes, big fan of breathing.
Even with Moff clearence codes we couldn’t just walk in there.
What if we…no, bad plan.
Really, it’s a bad plan, General. I’m sure you can think of a better one.
Well…we don’t need to walk in there, do we? We’ve got a Star Destroyer. We just need an excuse to get it close enough…
What do you mean GOOD PLAN?
ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT IS NOT A GOOD PLAN.
They did what to your planet?
Okay, I’m seeing the benefits of this plan.
We’re going to die. You know that, right buddy?
Yeah, sure, worthy cause. Never thought I’d get one of those.
A Little Later:
Wow, bright eyes, no, I’m not Moff Ispsiallion. Was my youthful good looks or my regicide that tipped you off? I’m Han Solo, and I just killed the Emp-
Why are you kneeling?
EMPEROR SOLO!?
What do you mean forty percent of the fleet has sworn allegiance to me?
Orders?
Um…I’m going to defer to Grand Moff Chewbacca over here. He’s in charge of your ships, got that?
Good…good. I’m just going to go into this little room and lock the door.
*muffled screaming*
*STANDING OVATION*
(You can always count on Star Wars fandom to really take something and run with it.)
Oh good god(s), what would the Rebellion’s response to this be? What would Vader’s response be?!
This is beautiful and wonderful, and long life to Emperor Solo! Long may he reign! (You know for a fact that Chewie has to sit on him to keep him from scampering. This - might occur multiple times.
…I also have the mental image of Han Solo trying to get an urgent message over to Lando ASAP - partly because Lando is one of the slickest, most slippery people he knows. If anyone can figure a way out of this, it’s Lando.
Lando does not figure a way out.
Lando shows up at Coruscant (formerly Imperial Center, because Han can’t look at anything with the terms ‘Imperial’ ‘Empire’, or ‘Emperor’ these days without feeling a vein throb) SPECIFICALLY to point and laugh.
Han get revenge by making Lando Grand Vizer. So there.
Nah, but see, the thing is, Lando has a streak of respectability. Not the “I want people to think I’m Nice and the Right Sort of Person” sort of respectability, but the “I want to do a good job, protect my people, and figure out how to use my skills to make things better for us” sort of genuine moral courage. He may be a con artist at heart, but consider how much he loved Cloud City and its people, how much he used those skills (or tried to) for their protection. (Vader, alas, not being susceptible to conning, or to keeping his deals.)
Put Lando in charge? And Lando would become the greatest politician ever. And unlike most politicians, he’s been in the underbelly of society–he knows the difference between the way things look on paper and the way they play out in reality for the people on the bottom rung. I bet you that Lando has a list of things that SUCK about society that he would totally change if he could, but will exploit the fuck out of and con because one con artist can’t change the world.
But if you make him the Emperor’s Grand Vizier? Then he can. And he can schmooze the higher-ups into LIKING some of it, and point stormtroopers at them if they balk at the stuff even he can’t charm them into liking. Things will change, and change QUICKLY, and all of a sudden the ordinary person on the street is going to find the laws are a LOT more in their favor. And the planets that aren’t Core Worlds are going to find the same thing. And the people who benefited, both under the Republic and the Empire, from exploiting others or just being born into the right class on the right planet? They’re going to find life a lot harder.
Anakin was right about one thing. A dictator can make change happen more quickly than a democracy, and a dictator who is wise and smart and good can really swing things in a positive direction. The problem is, how do you ensure that the person who comes after your dictator isn’t going to use that same power to push things in a negative direction?
And the answer is, in this case, that the former Rebel Alliance pushes for a restoration of the Republic, Han says “fuck yeah, anything to get me out of here,” and Lando says “sure, we can talk democracy, but we’re going to set it up differently so it actually listens to the needs of the guy on the street in the Outer Rim, not just the whims of the major Coreworld corporations.” And then, once the transition to democracy is complete (it probably takes a decade or so to get everything together, because Lando, like any good conman, would be out for all he could get, which in this case would be protections for his people, which by this point would be, like, everybody except the old elite) Lando would get himself elected a Senator. Maybe from his home planet, wherever that is. Or maybe he just picks a planet he likes that’s benefited from his reforms. And then he shows up and gets back to being respectable.
(And the remnants of the old elite, and the people who hoped to retain under the New Republic the same privileges they had under both the Empire and the Old Republic, they say to themselves, “oh shit.” They were counting on him being gone. They were counting on being able to undo some of his changes! And here he is!
Han has entertained fantasies of being able to go back to being a pilot when this is all over. But the former Emperor trying to haul cargo doesn’t really … work, for a variety of reasons. He periodically comes back to Coruscant to complain to Lando about this. Lando just points and laughs and has him (the former Emperor who toppled the Empire and Restored Freedom And Justice To the Galaxy!) record a message or do an interview in support of Lando’s latest piece of legislation. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories on the HoloNet about how democracy is a sham and Emperor Solo is still in command, albeit by proxy from the shadows by controlling Senator Calrissian. They are, of course, absolutely bass ackwards; in the reign of Emperor Solo, Lord Calrissian was the puppet-master working in the shadows controlling the Emperor, and now he is openly working through the democratic process.
Leia showed up on Coruscant as the Senator from Alderaan somewhere in the middle of all this. (Remember, this all would have had to have happened some years before A New Hope. Therefore, the Imperial Senate was never disbanded, however vestigial it may have been by the time Han burst on the scene.) She thinks the Emperor is an idiot (albeit a handsome one) and she finds him incredibly infuriating when he tries to flirt with her instead of talking politics. She thinks, at first, that this is because he has that Imperial gender chauvinism, even if he CERTAINLY doesn’t have the Imperial species chauvinism. (Actually, he points out HER chauvinism a couple of times, which both infuriates her and shames her, because she thought she was BETTER than that.) Eventually she figures out that the Emperor doesn’t want to talk politics with her because he doesn’t want to talk politics, period, full stop, with anyone, ever, for any reason. (It takes her longer than it should to figure this out because how, hoW, HOW does someone who genuinely hates both politics and being in charge end up as EMPEROR?)
With Lando, she gets along SO WELL, YOU GUYS, THEIR ENEMIES ARE TERRIFIED. Where they agree, they are ABSOLUTELY UNSTOPPABLE. Leia comes out with passion and fire, and then Lando comes out to schmooze, and if the one didn’t convince you, the other will. Where the disagree, they can usually find an acceptable compromise that works for both of them, and somehow everyone else goes along with it. Where they disagree but can’t find a compromise … everyone else is just Very Thankful that such things don’t happen often.
I don’t know how the relationships end up in this world. Maybe Leia marries neither of them. Maybe she marries both of them. Maybe Han and Lando are married, and Leia is the occasional invited third. Maybe Leia and Lando marry, and dominate Republic politics for decades while Han warms their bed when he’s in the area, and they are his safe harbor to come home to while giving him the freedom he needs to roam. (And he needs a LOT of room to roam after having been tied down as Emperor for so long.) Maybe Han and Leia marry, which fuels AT LEAST two dozen different conspiracy theories, and after Han abdicates he stays home playing with the children (and taking them out flying while Mommy is working), and Lando is their boyfriend and partner in every sense, but he maintains his own home and his own life because he finds he likes his life a little less … fiery, than life in the Organa-Solo household tends to be.
But while life is never quiet, they all live happily ever after.
This is an absolutely wonderful, exquisitely detailed analysis of the reign of Emperor Han Solo, First of His Name, Supreme Overlord of the Galaxy, Protector of the Stars, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, etc, etc.
It is said that the best leaders are those who do not want to lead. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ - Han is most definitely in the latter category. He was dragged into greatness kicking and screaming - and, much to everyone’s surprise, he actually ends up being moderately good at it.
Mainly because he has a very good grasp of his own strengths and weaknesses. He’s an amazing pilot. He’s not a politician - as such, he delegates like hell. Chewie gets to be in charge of the military as Great Grand Moff, and Han is extremely enthusiastic about being Lando’s puppet Emperor. He probably outright offers to abdicate and put Lando on the throne (Lando just laughs at him again. At length. In retaliation, Han makes him Chief Ambassador. So there.)
Han has a habit of giving Lando more Government Positions when the latter is annoying him. Lando really doesn’t mind; Han certainly doesn’t mind. Han is also a bit curious about where Lando dug up some of the people he’s putting into various government roles, as well as a little impressed - how the hell did Lando talk Talon Karrde into being Minister of Intelligence?!
Han, as such, is basically stuck with all the publicity stunts and formal appearances and Being Emperor. Which basically means wearing a bunch of very uncomfortable clothing and shaking hands and kissing babies and ugh. …he does kinda like opening up all the new charities and organizations. Especially when it comes to helping orphans, the homeless, etc - the people who really do need help. (And now he can).
Han also is particularly gleeful when it comes to repealing the Empire’s various human-centric policies. Chewie is as well.
How many spit-takes do you think occurred across the known galaxy when a number of people took in the fact that Han Solo had somehow ended up becoming Emperor? I think several individuals who had had business dealing with him in the past started wondering if just when they’d gotten so drunk they were now hallucinating…
Han and Darth Vader unexpectedly bond over an utter hatred of slavers and slavery. Han (and Chewie) provide him with a rather significant number of the Armed Forces and turn him loose in the Rim, with orders to stamp out slavery - Vader takes on this task with relish. (Lando quietly - or not-so-quietly - institutes the various social systems needed to help the suddenly vast numbers of former slaves; he and Han take a certain glee in watching holos of various Hutt-occupied planets being ‘liberated’.)
Just think about all the various long-term plans - of ‘former’ Jedi, of the Rebellion, of the Empire - that Han ruins by accidentally becoming Emperor. It’s positively gleeful; I also get a laugh out of Lando cutting finances to the Death Star because it’s a black hole in terms of all the money sunk into it.
So does Vader find Luke on one of his expeditions to take down the slavers? Do Luke and Leia then find each other?
@copperbadge I had the same thought, so glad you ran with it!
Emperor Solo….fantastic!
Part of Vader wanted to go to Tatooine first. Another part of him wanted to never set foot on the planet again, as he had vowed in the wake of his mother’s death. But now he finally had the chance go back and free all the slaves, the goal he had held in his heart since he was nine and had followed the Jedi away from his mother. And it would be good to topple Jabba and send a message to the rest of the Hutt clan. And Emperor Solo hadn’t liked Jabba either, and their unexpected bonding over their mutual hatred of slavery meant that this Emperor’s opinion meant something more to Vader than it would have otherwise.
So Vader found himself back on Tatooine, the smoking ruins of Jabba’s palace behind him, the Hutt strangled and cut into pieces where he sat on his throne. His troopers were finishing up the operation, clearing out the last of the slavers and bounty hunters and sycophants, and they were all equipped with a scanner (a more sophisticated version of the one Vader had built as a child) and tracker deactivator. The trackers would be surgically removed once they got the former slaves to medical care. Vader knew how having a slave tracker in you weighed on your mind even when it wasn’t active.
He left the clean up to his men and found himself gazing out at the setting binary suns, feeling a tug on his awareness. It didn’t take him long to procure a speeder bike (snagged from the palace’s hangar), and he soon found himself outside a painfully familiar homestead. Now why would the Force bring him here… His eyes strayed to the patch of ground he knew should be marked as his mother’s grave. But it was empty, not only her headstone removed, but all the ones that had been there before. A curious and somewhat infuriating thing, that.
Still. He remembered where she was buried, and though he never intended to, he found himself on his knees in front of her, head bowed in grief that had never healed and under the weight of what he knew would be her disappointment in his actions these last 15 years. He had allowed himself to be enslaved again, almost willingly, and he had then helped to enslave the Galaxy to his Master. But he would right those wrongs now. His annoyance and skepticism when the smuggler (he had dug into Solo’s past when he took the throne) had become Emperor had turned to cautious hope when he continued to help the Galaxy instead of hurt it further. Now he could actually do what he had wanted to do in the first place. End slavery, bring peace. Make the Galaxy a better place for his chil– No, he wouldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t go back down the road of “what if” again, as he had so many times when he was alone and despairing of what he had done to his life.
“He started asking too many questions,” a soft, vaguely familiar voice from behind Vader startled him out of his thoughts. He was on his feet and facing the source of the voice, hand on his lightsaber, before a startled expression could even form on Beru’s face.
Tatooine had aged her, as it aged everyone, but he still recognized the kind, quiet girl he had met a lifetime ago.
“Hello Anakin.”
Vader blinked. That was… unexpected. He tried to come up with a response and failed.
“Who asked too many questions?” he asked instead.
Beru tilted her head as looked at him, eyes searching his mask. She bit her lip and nodded slightly, coming to some decision or another. She made it quickly enough that Vader’s patience did not wear thin, or perhaps his patience with her, this girl who had loved his mother, was longer than with most people. Or perhaps standing on the sacred ground of his mother’s grave was no place to lose his temper.
“Your son.”
It took a minute for those words to process, and then despite his earlier thoughts, his temper did flare.
“What?” he snarled. He took a step forward, and Beru held her ground. “My child is dead. Do not - ”
Beru shook her head. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “I can introduce you. Come with me.”
She held out her hand, and he stared at it. No one had offered their hand to him in over a decade, and for a wild moment, he was tempted to take it. But he shook the desire off and stepped forward, ignoring the hand. She dropped her arm but led him back to the entrance to the dome.
He had to duck to fit through the doorway and low staircase, but the discomfort no longer mattered when they entered the kitchen and Vader’s eyes fell on the boy sitting at the table. His eyes were wide, staring at him, scared recognition in them, and Vader realized he didn’t know what stories about him had made their way to this backwater planet.
The boy stood slowly. Only once he was on his feet did his eyes jump back to Beru.
“Aunt Beru?” he asked quietly.
“It’s okay, Luke.” Vader filed the name away carefully, savoring the sound of it. “This is…” Beru hesitated, taking a deep breath. The wait grated on Vader’s nerves and he wanted to say it himself, but he still wasn’t sure he believed it. Even though those were his eyes in a face that was equally hers and his, and his hair and her stature. He reached out in the Force, lightly touching the boy’s mind, and found it shielded. But he wasn’t shielding himself. Someone else was, and Vader recognized the feel of it. He gritted his teeth. Obi-Wan’s final treachery.
“This is your father,” Beru finally said, and Vader hadn’t thought Luke’s eyes could get any bigger but he was wrong. They turned back to him, scared, hopeful, pleading, and something in the Force burst to life between them, a bond that Obi-Wan’s shields had never been built to contain. Luke wouldn’t be able to feel it beyond maybe a slight gravitation towards Vader, untrained as he was, but to Vader the bond was confirmation beyond any DNA test.
“Father?” Luke said, taking a step towards him.
Vader, who realized he had been doing his best impression of a statue since he had laid eyes on the boy, finally moved and crossed the room quickly to stand in front of Luke. Luke had to crane his neck to keep Vader’s mask in sight when he stood this close, but he didn’t flinch.
Vader reached out and touched Luke’s cheek gently. “Hello son.”
~*~
The Galaxy went into something of an uproar when Darth Vader returned from his first slavery-destroying trip to the Outer Rim with a small blond boy in tow, claiming that he was his son. Both Emperor Solo and Calrissian took a quick liking to Luke, and it wasn’t long before Chewbacca was almost as fiercely protective of the boy as he was of Solo, though he had nothing on Vader’s protectiveness. And Vader found himself surprisingly glad that he hadn’t found his son when Palpatine was still Emperor. At least Solo wouldn’t kill him intentionally. He would have to put a stop to the racing though, before he got him killed accidentally.
Just because one of your chicken eggs hatched a fire breathing dragon people think you’re evil. But you’re still just a regular farmer trying to make a living while dealing with an overprotective dragon, heroes that want to kill you and fanatics who want to worship you as the new Demon Lord.
The thing you need to know about all of this, the thing that
got me into all this trouble in the first place, is that chickens will sit on anything when they get broody enough.
Anything. Duck eggs, goose eggs, turkey eggs, lizard eggs, egg shaped rocks,
anything. Chickens aren’t smart. If it looks vaguely like an egg, they’ll plant
their feathery arses on it and wait.
I noticed that there was a bigger egg under one of the broody
chickens, when I checked. Of course I noticed, it was twice the size of the
others. But I have geese. I figured it was a goose egg she’d found and stolen. It
was about the right size, and I didn’t take it out to check the colour because
that particular chicken gets very protective of her eggs. I’ve already got a
scar on one hand from trying to get eggs away from her. I didn’t want a matched
set.
That was a decision I regretted the moment I went out to
feed the chickens and found a little blue-and-silver dragonet’s head poking out
from under a very confused-looking chicken. The poor thing kept shifting around
and looking under herself in a bewildered way, like she didn’t know what to do
next. This particular chicken is a good mother, and she’s raised clutches of
ducks and geese without any trouble – she’s even resigned to some of her
children swimming – but this was too much. She didn’t object when I carefully
reached in and fished out the little dragon.
It was so tiny, then. It fitted in my hand, with its little
head peeking out one side and its tail looping around my wrist. Cute, too, with
its big eyes and little snout turned up towards me.
That was when I made my second mistake. I decided to feed it
before releasing it. Dragons are innately wild creatures, everyone knows that.
They can’t be tamed. People have tried. The eggs are abandoned as soon as they
are laid, and the dragonets hatch able to hunt, so they don’t even bond with
their mothers. So just feeding it a little shouldn’t have been a big deal. It
should have gobbled the meat and fled as soon as I loosened my grip on it and
it saw the open sky.
It didn’t. As soon as I’d fed it, it fluttered up to a sunny
window ledge and went to sleep. I went about my work, figuring that it’d leave
in its own time.
By noon, it was sitting on my boot, squeaking pathetically. I
wondered if maybe it was confused by the farmyard – they usually hatch in
mountains, if the stories are right – so I took it back to the farmhouse with
me and fed it again when I ate, then took some time away from the fences I
should have been mending to walk it up to the hills. I found it some nice
rocks, with plenty of lizards and beetles and suitable prey for something that
size. It pounced on a beetle almost as soon as I put it down, and when I left
it was crunching happily.
I hadn’t walked a quarter of the way back before something
hit the back of my boot. The little dragon was holding on with all four claws,
and when I looked down it squeaked pathetically. If possible, its eyes got even
rounder.
Listen, you don’t make it as a farmer if you just let orphaned
baby animals die. We hand-raise calves and lambs and ponies, set chickens to
sit on abandoned eggs, or put them under the kitchen stove or by a fireplace.
You don’t make a success of farming if you don’t value every animal. A good
shepherd will spend all night looking for one lost sheep. So despite what was
said later, it wasn’t just sentiment that made me sigh and pick up the little
thing and carry it back to the farm. I
am a good farmer. I don’t let orphaned babies die just because they’re a little
work.
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
Arepo built a temple in his field, a humble thing, some stones stacked up to make a cairn, and two days later a god moved in.
“Hope you’re a harvest god,” Arepo said, and set up an altar and burnt two stalks of wheat. “It’d be nice, you know.” He looked down at the ash smeared on the stone, the rocks all laid askew, and coughed and scratched his head. “I know it’s not much,” he said, his straw hat in his hands. “But - I’ll do what I can. It’d be nice to think there’s a god looking after me.”
The next day he left a pair of figs, the day after that he spent ten minutes of his morning seated by the temple in prayer. On the third day, the god spoke up.
“You should go to a temple in the city,” the god said. Its voice was like the rustling of the wheat, like the squeaks of fieldmice running through the grass. “A real temple. A good one. Get some real gods to bless you. I’m no one much myself, but I might be able to put in a good word?” It plucked a leaf from a tree and sighed. “I mean, not to be rude. I like this temple. It’s cozy enough. The worship’s been nice. But you can’t honestly believe that any of this is going to bring you anything.”
“This is more than I was expecting when I built it,” Arepo said, laying down his scythe and lowering himself to the ground. “Tell me, what sort of god are you anyway?”
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said. “The worms that churn beneath the earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath your teeth. I’m a god of a dozen different nothings, scraps that lead to rot, momentary glimpses. A change in the air, and then it’s gone.”
The god heaved another sigh. “There’s no point in worship in that, not like War, or the Harvest, or the Storm. Save your prayers for the things beyond your control, good farmer. You’re so tiny in the world. So vulnerable. Best to pray to a greater thing than me.”
Arepo plucked a stalk of wheat and flattened it between his teeth. “I like this sort of worship fine,” he said. “So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll continue.”
“Do what you will,” said the god, and withdrew deeper into the stones. “But don’t say I never warned you otherwise.”
Arepo would say a prayer before the morning’s work, and he and the god contemplated the trees in silence. Days passed like that, and weeks, and then the Storm rolled in, black and bold and blustering. It flooded Arepo’s fields, shook the tiles from his roof, smote his olive tree and set it to cinder. The next day, Arepo and his sons walked among the wheat, salvaging what they could. The little temple had been strewn across the field, and so when the work was done for the day, Arepo gathered the stones and pieced them back together.
“Useless work,” the god whispered, but came creeping back inside the temple regardless. “There wasn’t a thing I could do to spare you this.”
“We’ll be fine,” Arepo said. “The storm’s blown over. We’ll rebuild. Don’t have much of an offering for today,” he said, and laid down some ruined wheat, “but I think I’ll shore up this thing’s foundations tomorrow, how about that?”
The god rattled around in the temple and sighed.
A year passed, and then another. The temple had layered walls of stones, a roof of woven twigs. Arepo’s neighbors chuckled as they passed it. Some of their children left fruit and flowers. And then the Harvest failed, the gods withdrew their bounty. In Arepo’s field the wheat sprouted thin and brittle. People wailed and tore their robes, slaughtered lambs and spilled their blood, looked upon the ground with haunted eyes and went to bed hungry. Arepo came and sat by the temple, the flowers wilted now, the fruit shriveled nubs, Arepo’s ribs showing through his chest, his hands still shaking, and murmured out a prayer.
“There is nothing here for you,” said the god, hudding in the dark. “There is nothing I can do. There is nothing to be done.” It shivered, and spat out its words. “What is this temple but another burden to you?”
“We -” Arepo said, and his voice wavered. “So it’s a lean year,” he said. “We’ve gone through this before, we’ll get through this again. So we’re hungry,” he said. “We’ve still got each other, don’t we? And a lot of people prayed to other gods, but it didn’t protect them from this. No,” he said, and shook his head, and laid down some shriveled weeds on the altar. “No, I think I like our arrangement fine.”
“There will come worse,” said the god, from the hollows of the stone. “And there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
The years passed. Arepo rested a wrinkled hand upon the temple of stone and some days spent an hour there, lost in contemplation with the god.
And one fateful day, from across the wine-dark seas, came War.
Arepo came stumbling to his temple now, his hand pressed against his gut, anointing the holy site with his blood. Behind him, his wheat fields burned, and the bones burned black in them. He came crawling on his knees to a temple of hewed stone, and the god rushed out to meet him.
“I could not save them,” said the god, its voice a low wail. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so so sorry.” The leaves fell burning from the trees, a soft slow rain of ash. “I have done nothing! All these years, and I have done nothing for you!”
“Shush,” Arepo said, tasting his own blood, his vision blurring. He propped himself up against the temple, forehead pressed against the stone in prayer. “Tell me,” he mumbled. “Tell me again. What sort of god are you?”
“I -” said the god, and reached out, cradling Arepo’s head, and closed its eyes and spoke.
“I’m of the fallen leaves,” it said, and conjured up the image of them. “The worms that churn beneath the
earth. The boundary of forest and of field. The first hint of frost
before the first snow falls. The skin of an apple as it yields beneath
your teeth.” Arepo’s lips parted in a smile.
“I am the god of a dozen different nothings,” it said. “The petals in bloom that lead to
rot, the momentary glimpses. A change in the air -” Its voice broke, and it wept. “Before it’s gone.”
“Beautiful,” Arepo said, his blood staining the stones, seeping into the earth. “All of them. They were all so beautiful.”
And as the fields burned and the smoke blotted out the sun, as men were trodden in the press and bloody War raged on, as the heavens let loose their wrath upon the earth, Arepo the sower lay down in his humble temple, his head sheltered by the stones, and returned home to his god.
Sora found the temple with the bones within it, the roof falling in upon them.
“Oh, poor god,” she said, “With no-one to bury your last priest.” Then she paused, because she was from far away. “Or is this how the dead are honored here?” The god roused from its contemplation.
“His name was Arepo,” it said, “He was a sower.”
Sora startled, a little, because she had never before heard the voice of a god. “How can I honor him?” She asked.
“Bury him,” the god said, “Beneath my altar.”
“All right,” Sora said, and went to fetch her shovel.
“Wait,” the god said when she got back and began collecting the bones from among the broken twigs and fallen leaves. She laid them out on a roll of undyed wool, the only cloth she had. “Wait,” the god said, “I cannot do anything for you. I am not a god of anything useful.”
Sora sat back on her heels and looked at the altar to listen to the god.
“When the Storm came and destroyed his wheat, I could not save it,” the god said, “When the Harvest failed and he was hungry, I could not feed him. When War came,” the god’s voice faltered. “When War came, I could not protect him. He came bleeding from the battle to die in my arms.” Sora looked down again at the bones.
“I think you are the god of something very useful,” she said.
“What?” the god asked.
Sora carefully lifted the skull onto the cloth. “You are the god of Arepo.”
Generations passed. The village recovered from its tragedies—homes
rebuilt, gardens re-planted, wounds healed. The old man who once lived on the
hill and spoke to stone and rubble had long since been forgotten, but the
temple stood in his name. Most believed it to empty, as the god who resided
there long ago had fallen silent. Yet, any who passed the decaying shrine felt an ache
in their hearts, as though mourning for a lost friend. The cold that seeped
from the temple entrance laid their spirits low, and warded off any potential
visitors, save for the rare and especially oblivious children who would leave tiny
clusters of pink and white flowers that they picked from the surrounding
meadow.
The god sat in his peaceful home, staring out at the distant
road, to pedestrians, workhorses, and carriages, raining leaves that swirled
around bustling feet. How long had it been? The world had progressed without
him, for he knew there was no help to be given. The world must be a cruel place, that even the useful gods have abandoned,
if farms can flood, harvests can run barren, and homes can burn, he
thought.
He had come to understand that humans are senseless
creatures, who would pray to a god that cannot grant wishes or bless upon them
good fortune. Who would maintain a temple and bring offerings with nothing in
return. Who would share their company and meditate with such a fruitless deity.
Who would bury a stranger without the hope for profit. What bizarre, futile
kindness they had wasted on him. What wonderful, foolish, virtuous, hopeless
creatures, humans were.
So he painted the sunset with yellow leaves, enticed the
worms to dance in their soil, flourished the boundary between forest and field
with blossoms and berries, christened the air with a biting cold before winter
came, ripened the apples with crisp, red freckles to break under sinking teeth,
and a dozen other nothings, in memory of the man who once praised the god’s
work on his dying breath.
“Hello, God of Every Humble Beauty in the World,” called a
familiar voice.
The squinting corners of the god’s eyes wept down onto
curled lips. “Arepo,” he whispered, for his voice was hoarse from its hundred-year
mutism.
“I am the god of devotion, of small kindnesses, of
unbreakable bonds. I am the god of selfless, unconditional love, of everlasting
friendships, and trust,” Arepo avowed, soothing the other with every word.
“That’s wonderful, Arepo,” he responded between tears, “I’m
so happy for you—such a powerful figure will certainly need a grand temple. Will
you leave to the city to gather more worshippers? You’ll be adored by all.”
“No,” Arepo smiled.
“Farther than that, to the capitol, then? Thank you for
visiting here before your departure.”
“No, I will not go there, either,” Arepo shook his head and
chuckled.
“Farther still? What ambitious goals, you must have. There
is no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, though,” the elder god continued.
“Actually,” interrupted Arepo, “I’d like to stay here, if
you’ll have me.”
The other god was struck speechless. “…. Why would you want
to live here?”
“I am the god of unbreakable bonds and everlasting
friendships. And you are the god of Arepo.”
I reblogged this once with the first story. Now the story has grown and I’m crying. This is gorgeous, guys. This is what dreams are made of.
This is one of my favourite stories
Three different people told the three acts of this story purely because they wanted to and as of now it’s touched the hearts of a quarter of a million people, and I think that would make the god smile.
Y'all I’m almost crying
Times passed and the world spun on, and the two gods say contentedly in their small corner of the world, watching as the days changed. Their small temple of stone and twig was forgotten as the leaves passed from green to orange then back again. Children no longer left flowers on their stones and travelers no longer took the winding path.
They were at peace.
But the world forgot its reverence for the sacred in its progress forward, and the worship of gods took to high halls and mighty structures and the small divinities of the wayside were lost. And one day, progress came to the forgotten field that hand long since lost its boundey with the forest.
The stone and twig temple, created on a whim and filled by chance, was destroyed. The two within no longer knew where to go. For it seemed that this world no longer had a place for gods of first frosts and fallen leaves or everlasting bonds. There was nothing they could do- the world too loud, too fast, too big.
The great temple that had taken their place was vast and beautiful. The gods of these people must surely be great, to merit such grandure. There was no need for them anymore.
But one quiet sunset, they heard the cries. The sounds of a weary soul shattering beyond repair. From within the great temple walls.
The two gods looked to each other, and the single look was all that was needed for them to agree. They entered the mighty temple to find the source of the cries.
A young woman knelt there, at the base of the steps to the grand alter, clutching at her chest as if the try and keep her broken heart together.
The god of the temple had not yet answered her.
“Young girl, why do you greave?”
Startled the woman turned to them, eyes stained with tears. “Who are you?”
The gods shared a sorrowful smile, “Who we were no longer matters. But why do yo cry so?”
The woman wiped her face, though she couldn’t dry her tears, “I have had my heart broken. The ones dearest to me have hurt me beyond repair. I came here to seek comfort. But I know it is in vain, for the god of this place has far greater worries than one like me.”
This grieved the forgotten gods, but there was nothing they could do. They had never had the power to forstall the great calamities of the world.
“We are sorry that the world has broken you so. But we can do nothing, except offer you pot comfort.”
The woman sniffles for a little longer before she rises. Her eyes seem calmer, her being maybe a little less shattered. Or perhaps it was just that she’d managed to collect all the broken pieces together. She gives them a small nod and makes her way outside.
Despairing, the gods follow her, back out to the open air. The woman takes several steps down the paved road before she turns back.
“I know you think it wasn’t much, but thank you for your comfort.”
And then the woman departed. Bereaved the gods returned to their listless existence, mourning more closely each day as it died.
Many years passed.
Then one day, they heard the laughter of children and the easy happiness of some parents shouts. Curious as to who could have possibly wandered to their forgotten stones, the gods came out.
An aging woman, laugh lines deep in her face and peace in her eyes stood hand in hand with another woman, equally as radiant in her happiness and joy.
As the gods approached, the two children returned to their mothers and hid at their sides, wide innocent eyes peering up at them.
It was only once they had closed the distance that the gods realized the identity of the woman before them. Gone are the shattered pieces that she’d spilled on the great temple floor, in their place, a breathtaking sculpture of a life well loved and well lived.
“I always hoped you would still be here,” she said with a watery smile. “I wanted to show you my wife and children.”
The gods smiled down upon her, feeling some lightness returning to them as they took in the beautiful scene.
“We are glad that you have found those who deserve to love you.”
She gave them a shy smile, before her face grew serious. She reached into the bad that rested over one shoulder and pulled out a small wooden box, offering it to them.
Surprised, for it had been many long long years since any such offering had been give to them, they took it and learned inside.
Within were a variety of items- a perfectly smooth and round stone, a wishbone shaped twig, a small piece of twine, a braided ribbon, small game pieces, and other tiny relics to the memories within them.
Then she spoke. “These are for you. You said to me that there was nothing you could do but offer me your comfort. And that is what you did. For when I despaired your were there. In Every Humble Beauty that made me smile, in every Unbreable Bond I have made. These items are the answers the my prayers you left for me to find, on a wooded path the day I needed to be lost to find myself, on a beach at sunset with my love holding my hand for the first time, in my child’s hand the first time they laughed, the game pieces that helped heal the divide with my family.
Thank you for your gifts. Because comfort is sometimes the most powerful gift of all.”
Then she smiled and turned as they base her and her family farewell.
Many more years passed. Children began to return to their stones, hiding toys and crafts within the weeds. Lovers came to pledge themselves by moonlight as they rested in the grass. Travelers returned, not to pay head to the grand alter, but to sta d in quiet hontenpmatikn of the boundless field and forest.
Until one day she returned, hair shining like starlight, the lines of a well lived life etched into every pore if her skin, her back strong and proud.
“We meet again.”
The gods knew that the woman before them had left the mortal world, surrounded by love and family, and were proud to see it.
“You are the god of the Humble Beaties of the Earth and the god of Unbreakable Bonds. Will you join me?”
Curious they turned to her, “Joinyou where?”
She smiled at them. “This world cannot use temples any more. But there are many who would lay offerings at your alter, for you give greater gifts than any other gods.”
“But where would we go?”
“To where you are needed. Those who despair cannot always set foot on the land that bears your temple of stone and twig.”
They looked to the earth that surrounded them and then to the vast horizon that seemed to call for them now.
“Alright, we will go with you.” And then began to head for the horizon, the woman by their side. But then they paused. “But who are you to know this? Who are you to ask gods to leave their temple and make their home upon the winds?”
The woman gazed out at the horizon as she answered, “Because I too am a god. I am the god of mending hearts. Of sleepless nights and hard decisions. The god of leaving to some place new. The god of returning having been made better. The god of chasing horizons, conquering mountains, of finding the winding path while lost in the wood.
I am the god that is there when sorrow becomes to much, but there is a shoulder to lean on, another beautiful sight to make a memory.
I am what happens when someone finds you.”
And together they departed from that place, to go to where they are needed,to all the souls who seek the small beauties and lasting ties and mended futures.
The god who had to be broken to be made. The god who had to die to keep bonds and friendships undying. And the god of beauties that called to a man who asked for nothing but the memory of the passing gifts, and who became the god of Arepo.
He finished his book almost an hour ago, yet he didn’t put out the candle flame illuminating his desk.
He didn’t know exactly why, maybe he thought the way the little flame flickered was pleasant, perhaps he enjoyed the way the thin trail of smoke danced above it.
Perhaps he was distracting himself from going back to sleep, the latest nightmare still fresh in his mind. He could almost feel the cold water invading his lungs.
So he distracts himself with the little flame.
“For how long, I wonder, can I keep this flame alight?”
He stayed awake all night, observing the little flame, feeding it small scraps of paper when it flickered too weak, gently patting it down when it consumed it’s candle too fast.
Exhaustion was creeping on him, he could barely keep his eyes open anymore, his common sense telling him he should put the little flame out before he fell asleep on top of it.
He ignored this advise.
Instead, he so carefully moved the little flame from it’s almost completely melted candle to a new, unused one.
Hopefully big enough to last quite a few hours.
Almost fearfully, he collapsed in bed, waiting for the horrible and familiar feeling of the icy waters encasing him on his sleep.
Instead, he dreamt of warmth.
—
Another day went by, then another, then a week, then two.
He learned how long each type of candle lasted, what sort of fuel feed the little flame the best.
It was now a bit of a pet project, to see how long he could make it last.
He remembers fondly how the little flame once encased the entire candle at once, flickering almost playfully.
Or how it hissed almost in annoyance, when he had to flicker it with water dropets to get it to a manageable size again.
He wasn’t sure when the pet project became just a pet.
Perhaps it was when he caught himself thinking up names for the little flame.
Perhaps it was when he decided on Orion.
In the following months not once did he dreamt of all encasing cold nor the impenetrable darkness of the depths.
He dreamt of warmth and light.
—
It was a holiday night, the kind that had most houses empty as entire families flocked together.
He was alone with Orion when the burglars broke in.
They weren’t expecting witnesses, just an easy job.
Though a single terrified man wasn’t too hard of a job.
They bought him down easily, and violently, demanding riches he didn’t have.
Orion gave a fearful flicker with each hit, it shook with each threat.
But when the bored and disappointed burglars took out the weapon, Orion roared.
The candle was ablaze in one second, the desk in two, and the burglars in three.
The little flame, now a massive, enraged inferno, embraced him fully and protectively.
He felt as much heat, as one would fill drinking hot chocolate in a cold winter night, with the company of a fully stocked fireplace and a warm blanket.
Orion’s body grew and grew, soon encasing the entire house, the flames growing so high and wide, and flickering so violently, they almost looked like flapping wings.
Later they will find nothing but an empty, charred plot of land, and blackened trails following the direction of the wind.
He left with Orion that night, never to feel cold again.
—
There’s the common misbelief that dragons hatch from eggs, when in reality, the infant form of a dragon is so frail, so small, that a misplaced breath might be enough to extinguish them.
But if one were to care for them long enough, love them long enough, the dragon will grow big and powerful, and return the favor.
