The woman shouldn't be very strange. She's human, and the cut of her clothing is odd – but there's a dizzying variety of fashion in the galaxy, so that doesn't mean anything at all except that she's possibly not from Chandrila. She's leaning against the railing when Palpatine sees her, looking out at the mists over the river, arms folded along the handrail. She isn't looking at Palpatine at first, but glances up as she approaches, and…

Her eyes are older than her face, and her gaze is heavy and intense.

The woman straightens and turns to face her more, and says: "My name is Vader."

And then, as Palpatine blinks, she's gone.

The reverberation in the world cuts out. It's massively disorienting, and Palpatine reels before regaining her balance in the world. She hurries over to where the woman stood – sees no puddling of water, no footprints, no dry patches, no indication anyone ever stood here –

Palpatine didn't hear her leave, and she shouldn't have been able to move that fast, not in the tiny moment Palpatine's eyes were closed. Not even Jedi are supposed to move that fast. 

She takes a deep, shaking breath, and she stares out at the same misty river that had caught the woman's attention. 

Over the next few days, the mystery does nothing less than consume her. She fits researching local legends, local people into every spare moment not taken by her other obligations. She returns to the bridge again and again – chafes as she realizes her father's spies have adjusted to that routine.

She doesn't know why this fever has overtaken her. She just knows that she needs to see that woman again. 

She doesn't need to wait long, at least. Only a week after Palpatine arrived on Chandrila, on another path through the city, in a deserted square after dark...

The woman's sitting on the edge of a fountain, and she looks to Palpatine as soon as the teenager enters the square. "Good evening," she says, voice soft. She no longer looks at all ordinary, a soft blue glow suffusing her form. Palpatine can see the faint waver of the fountain's water through her.

Good evening. Such inconsequential words, from a woman who's threatened to turn Palpatine's life upside down. 

"Where did you go?" she demands, rather than responding politely. "How did you disappear like that? How do you look like – like this?" Normally she wouldn't slip like this, would retain control of herself – but she's shaken, and she wants to know –

The woman smiles a little. "I apologize. Sometimes my ability to influence the world of the living is… Unreliable."

Palpatine's breath rushes out of her chest. "You're saying you're a ghost?" she asks, trying for skeptical, but... Somehow, she believes the woman. 

"Yes; I've been one for a long time, now."

Palpatine steps forward, almost involuntarily. "I've heard legends about that – ancient Sith Lords who overthrew death." She'd have dismissed it as mere campfire tales, if not for the scant traces of historical archives she's found.

"...They didn't. They just trapped themselves within it."

"Wouldn't eternal existence even as a ghost be better than oblivion, though?"

"There are worse things than death; worse things than forgetting," she says quietly. "Many of those ancient Sith Lords preserved only shattered remnants of themselves. Cursed angry things, unable to grow or learn, and their influence on the world is reduced to yet another scary tomb."

"I've kept my selfhood, but my freedom is still limited, just... Differently so. And my influence is even less than that of a cursed tomb – I've been reduced to no more than a whisper in the minds of the few who can hear me."

Palpatine nods slowly. "You're more than a whisper to me, though," she says. "And even if all you can do is observe... You must know a lot."

That gets Palpatine a pleased smile. "You're the first to see me so clearly, yes," she says, then she quietly pats the ledge beside her. "Come sit, and I'll tell you some stories."

Palpatine sits, of course, as something warm sparks in her chest. But: "My father's security will catch up sooner or later, and they'll want me back at my dorm."

"They won't find us. The Force shelters us tonight."

"Are you a Sith Lord?"

Vader sobers. "Yes."

"I'm not quite so ancient as your ghost stories, and it could be said I've grown beyond the Sith – but my proper title in life and death is Darth Vader." It has a heavy resonance to it, a weight that settles between them.

Palpatine should flee – should at least be scared – 

She leans in, instead, noticing in a quick moment that the woman's taller than her – Palpatine still hasn't hit her teenage growth spurt in full. "Tell me more," she insists, nearly breathless. Her history books are censored, she knows they are, and the few Jedi she's crossed paths with won't answer questions –

Vader smiles down at her, then begins to talk, and if Palpatine doesn't stop her she'll talk through the night, on history of both the Jedi and Sith, on philosophy, even on the Force and what separates the light from the dark, the Sith from the mere darksider...

Palpatine does nothing to discourage her, asking as many questions as Vader will entertain, slowly leaning ever closer over the course of the night.