dynasty ~ anakin skywalker/darth vader (BOOK 1) ✔️

survival of the fittest

"This is do or die. This is the winner takes it all. So, take it all."

For a split second, it seemed as if Anakin was made out of stone because he refused to move a single muscle. He wasn't breathing, he wasn't blinking his eyes, just watching his master with an emotion, Aaliyah somehow couldn't name. Only after that, he moved forward, bringing Aaliyah with him until they were standing at the end of the stairs leading up to the pedestal Palpatine's pathetic throne was sitting on. He just loved to show off his high position, didn't he? He loved to remind everyone and himself he is the man of power. All of this brought a weird sense of Deja Vu to Aaliyah. It happened once before. It happened on Mustafar when she was brought in front of Palpatine and during that very short visit, he managed to inflict pain on her. It's going to get worse this time, she just knew it.

Aaliyah was holding her head high, refusing to show any kind of fear or anxiousness. "Oh, yes," he mumbled in a sly voice, making sure everyone in the room knew how much pleasure brought him the fact that everything was going accordingly. And then, as if in a blink of an eye, his smile completely disappeared from his pale face, and he wore a frightening scowl. Still, she could only see the lower half of his face, until he pushed his hood down with one hand. His yellow eyes were boring into Aaliyah, wide open and without any particular emotion. It seemed as if even hatred was an emotion, he was not able to feel, anymore. "I should have killed you a long time ago."

This sentence came out of his mouth without a warning. It sounded weird coming from him because Palpatine doesn't seem like a person who would think about what he should and shouldn't have done. He just does it.

"You can do it now," said Aaliyah and as much as she would like to turn away from him, she stood her ground and kept looking into his sickly yellow irises.

"I don't think I will," he said slowly, in a low voice. It was coming somewhere from the back of his throat, making the last word sound like a low growl. He quickly looked at Anakin, who was as still as before, holding Aaliyah's biceps and when she looked at him, anything he could possibly think, or feel was perfectly hidden under a mask of indifference. But Aaliyah knew otherwise.

And it made her laugh, making Palpatine looked at her again. "He won't kill me," she was more than confident in the truth hidden behind her words. She was confident in Anakin. He won't kill her.

"No?" asked Palpatine and only slightly tilted his head before he stood up. He was moving slowly, his black robes moving like a cloud of smoke around his body in the dimly lit room. "I think you might be right," Aaliyah slightly furrowed her eyebrows before looking at Anakin, who was in the centre of the discussion but acted as if they weren't talking about him. "So, is he going to kill me instead?"

"I will kill you if I have to," and this time, her statement made Palpatine laugh. It was a cold, bone-chilling sound.

"You may think you can, but you're not strong enough for that," and then his highly satisfied, malicious grin was back on his face. Because he was right. She wasn't strong enough. She won't even try and deny it. Going alone against Palpatine was a death sentence. "I feel everything you feel. I see everything you see. I sense everything you sense. You can't fool me. None of you," after his booming voice faded, heavy silence resonated in the room. For a moment, nobody breathed. All three of them were anticipating, waiting for the next move from their enemy. And somehow, Aaliyah still couldn't tell where Anakin was standing in this battle. "You betrayed me, my young apprentice," and with that Palpatine took his first step down, closer towards us.