"It is."
"So... I mentioned earlier that I was born into slavery." Quiet, thoughtful pause. "I was made intentionally," she says, "By a dark sider, at the time an apprentice Sith working behind his master's back. He paid a Hutt, Gardulla, for use of one of her slaves, and then - to raise me, selling me to him as a guaranteed buyer, though Gardulla believed there would be no retaliation if I ended up more valuable to someone else. And... Force sensitive slaves are very, very valuable."
Pause. Deep breath.
"She made use of me. Whatever she could think of, to exploit my powers, to raise my profile - so my market value would increase. I was remarkably talented at hiding myself, so she had me kill or sabotage her rivals. I had quick reflexes and a useful amount of precognition - she mostly put me to pod racing with that. She didn't trust me as her guard. She knew I loathed her."
"She - figured out enough of the dark side to encourage me in it, to train me. Hatred, fear, pain, anger, are - the classic dark emotions, and the easiest to instill."
"Keeping me from killing her overlapped with that. She - encouraged me to make friends. To develop attachments, and then she used them as hostages against me. If I defied her - she wouldn't lay a hand on me. She'd just hurt the people I loved."
She closes her eyes, centers herself.
This is, actually, much easier without a body, without physiological reactions clouding her mind.
(It's something she grapples with a lot, why the next part hurts more, why her childhood under Gardulla feels like a plain, simple fact. About as much emotional valence as a clinical report. And the next part feels... Not raw, not like an open wound, but like an ancient break that healed a bit incorrectly.)
"When I was nine," she says, evenly, voice tight, "We were doing business in another Hutt's holdings. Gardulla liked it when I screwed with the others, as long as I didn't get caught in a way that would damage her negotiating position, so - I tended to free everyone else's slaves when I got the chance. I sometimes let her convince me it was a kindness she was giving me."
"That other Hutt had captured a Jedi. I freed her. She offered to take me with her, and I refused. I told her about Gardulla's hostages. So, she left, taking the other slaves I'd gotten free to safety."
"She came back for me."
"She freed everyone I cared about, and then me, and - she offered me a place with the Jedi, as her padawan. To - learn a different path than the one I'd been forced down."
"I accepted."
She opens her eyes, not meeting either girlfriend's gaze. "She was Elesse," Anakin says, very quietly. "I already liked her a lot, and felt - very grateful. Like I owed her, somewhat, and she'd - impressed me. I wanted to help her, and be like her, and make her happy - "
"It... Wouldn't have been hard, to slot her into my head as a - Gardulla I actually liked. She - did her best not to let that settle."
"But... The Jedi very, very strongly disapproved of attachment. They believed it would lead you into the dark, inevitably, because it would always lead to pain. I - couldn't argue with that, and I was tired of being hurt, of having my loved ones used against me."
"I never saw - anyone Gardulla had taken hostage ever again. Not my mother, or my friends, or - anyone who'd helped guide me. Elesse let me see proof they'd been settled somewhere nice, at least, with a good refugee program."
"I was a weird child, traumatized, told attachments would harm me - Elesse and I kept on the move a lot, too, rather than spending all our time in the Jedi Temple, because I knew enough about my father to alarm their Council, so we - followed leads on him."
"I ended up with no friends other than Elesse. No one I trusted, or even knew how to talk to. Very few people I felt anything even vaguely positive for."
"This... Would have been extremely harmful on its own."
Very quietly: "I developed romantic and sexual feelings for Elesse, as I hit puberty. I... Was submissive, and it's actually very reassuring that Fay is too - a large chunk of my thoughts about loving her that way were - I wanted to be her slave. I couldn't reconcile that in my mind, with anything about my life or identity."
"And... On top of that, there were - a thousand small things she did, sometimes, that hurt me... And deep traumas, violent urges - things I needed to unroot, but that I couldn't without extreme vulnerability to someone I trusted, to get their help - detangling the mess in my head."
"And I had no one to talk to but her, and some things were - too terrifying to bring up to the one person who cared about me anymore. Anything that I feared would turn her away. Anything that - would insult her, or give her ways to harm me. I never believed, consciously, that she ever would try to harm me - but I acted like it was an ever present threat. Anything - very personal, especially my feelings about her."
"We... Could have untangled that, maybe, but - the Clone Wars started, and I turned out to be indispensible to the war effort, and Elesse encouraged me to take my Knight Trials, meaning I was no longer her padawan... And then she accepted a place on the Jedi Council."
Pain flicks across her face. "I barely saw her after that. Some, at first, but she was always busy when I was free. Distracted, even when she could be present. It got worse over time, and - by her death, I think I'd seen her once in passing over the year before, though there might've been - other incidents during my blackouts. I don't know."
"I - knew something was wrong with the blackouts. With Palpatine, too."
"And I had no one to turn to, or to talk about it. I liked many of my soldiers, but - I didn't trust them."
"When - I learned Palpatine was my father, and the Sith Lord, I forced myself to go to the Jedi Council with that information. They decided to arrest him and died in the attempt - I was just glad Elesse had been off planet."
Long pause.
"And then - the fight I spoke about earlier. After her death... Palpatine wore me down. Convinced me even that much attachment was utterly useless. Harmful. I was - more complicit than I'd like, in being reshaped into Vader. That was - another long harm. At the end, Luke convinced me to be attached again, so I killed Palpatine to protect him."
"...It's technically true that my injuries from that contributed to my death, but I could have survived. I refused medical care, and turned off the life support that had been built into the suit, so I could die. I - fully endorse having done that."
"Those final years with the Jedi and then my years as Vader are - a very large part of why I dislike being embodied more than briefly. I don't like dealing with - the body's response to emotion."
"I've healed, since, by and large. Being dead was - very good for me. Time's dulled things. Not having a body makes my emotions much easier to handle. I grew closer to Luke, made friends with odd desert hermits... Found Lily."
Small smile. "And I found you two."
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