Note: Here we are, first chapter. This is rewritten, even though the themes are the same, I was very unsatisfied with how it read, so. This is a Vader redemption fic, although, what I believe to be a slightly more realistic, more despairing take on what might have happened. Obviously, it's based on the C.S Lewis novel of the same title, as was covered the first time I posted this.

Universal, fic-long disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and any OC's that pop up.

One.

I am older now, and have little left to fear from the anger of the Emperor. I have no wife, nor the child she would have bore me, and not a being to call a friend through which he can hurt me. Not anymore. My body, as if it can be called that, is trapped in this infernal suit, neither washed nor fed through any normal means. He may kill me as soon as a successor is provided for. I know this now. It is the way of the Sith.

Thick-soled boots sloshed through the endless puddles of rainwater and mud. The birds high above the forest floor hushed and stilled in the thick, muggy air, their idle chatter reduced to whimpers in the suffocating fog. The clouds above rolled, black and restless in the heavens, steaks of lightning crackling through the dark expanse, but their thunder was muted, hushed as whispers of warning. Where the rain had drizzled against the leaves of the trees earlier, it now cascaded from the heavens, drenching the earth and it inhabitants.

Water soaked through a black cape, rivulets running down a dark helm, the droplets clinging to the edges of the mask.

The forest held its breath.

A mechanical exhale.

And the earth erupted.

Birds and animals sprung from the undergrowth, fighting through sheets of rain falling from the skies, disappearing into the thick mist. The natives darted from their huts and from watchtowers in the trees, panicked, desperate to escape-

Air split, seared, as a sabre ignited.

Vader turned, cleaving through a young boy that tried to run past, spinning to spear another native through the back. Another moment and he cleaved through a hut, beheading the family that tried to escape.

Blood boiled beneath his skin, his circuitry sparking, his vision flashing red as a sound like thunder cracked across the clearing, the trees, the trees breaking, groaning under the weight of the darkness spilling from where Darth Vader stood amidst corpses, bending, buckling to their knees before the Sith Lord.

The rage that had hissed through his senses before, after his rebirth, the escape of the Princess, the battles of Yavin and Hoth – it was all nothing.

Nothing compared to now.

Death clung to him like a plague, now; a heavy, suffocating shadow that trailed behind him, leaving bodies in its wake. The lightsabre hummed in his hand, thirsting, begging for more blood.

He would not deny it.

He turned his attention towards the sprawling valley below.

Clicked off the sabre.

And stalked towards the heart of the village.

The Force only screamed a second's warning before he whirled, igniting and raising his lightsabre just in time to catch the blue blade of a young jedi, the lone dissenter from the massacre, and he threw his weight forward, the force of his inhuman limbs sending the child hurtling through the air and summersaulting through slicks of mud and tangled undergrowth.

A beat.

The jedi shuddered and staged back to his feet. The boy's cloak lay plastered to his shoulders, drenched from the torrents of rain and streaked with dirt, his blade quivering in his shaking hands.

The child let out a cry and charged, and Vader moved, the Force whispering commands as he slipped seamlessly into Form Five, parrying on a smooth upstroke, and letting the Force surge forth, sending the young Knight flying back again.

The boy rolled, flipping backwards, landing on his knees in the mud, chest and shoulders heaving. A breath. Another. And he rose again.

"Vader. I won't let you harm these innocents." The boy's voice still cracked with puberty, so young and untrained, his stance open, sabre slanted enough that it could hardly be considered a defense.

"You will not have a choice, youngling," he seethed, the words twisted, ripped from the vocoder, and the boy shook and shook, stood straight, waiting.

Vader shifted, changing his stance to Shien to Djem, waiting, waiting.

"I am not a youngling! I am a Jedi Knight, and on this day, I will stop your reign of,"

Vader ran his blade clean through the boy's chest. "You will do no such thing," and ripped the blade free, the knight crumpling to the ground, ashen and pale and still, still as death.

He kicked the body aside, the gentle thunk of flesh against his durasteel of his boots muted beneath the patter of the rain.

The lightsabre sang in his hand, a bloody smear against the lush green of the forest.

He turned towards the heart of the village, taking in the empty huts and dying fires.

His fingers tightened on the hilt of the sabre and he choked back a snarl, the vocoder spitting and popping, sparking loud in the still of the planet. His blood burned under his skin, flesh flashing too hot, his gut twisted to knots, the muscles along his right shoulder twitching, the nerves beneath them quaking and the Dark Side swelled around him, bubbling, boiling, suffocating and his hands shook and shook and shook and-

He swung the sabre clean through a tree, the hint of drag as the tree ripped apart doing nothing to satisfy the burning in his chest.

A yelp, and a tiny Lellish girl jumped from her hiding place, stumbling into a run, but her foot caught in the tree's snarl of roots and she crumpled to the ground, her blue eyes wide, so wide, sweat and dirt staining her brow, cheeks and clothes.

She made only one feeble attempt to move as he advanced. Around him, the trees groaned under the suffocating weight of the Dark Side rippling, trailing from the sodden swish of his cloak.

He raised his blade.

She was hardly a child, only just past the stages of infancy. Her tiny fingers clenched in the earth and her eyes went wide and tears, tears spilled down her cheeks but still she made no noise, no begging, not a prayer, not a plea, just fear and sorrow and sorrow and fear and sorrow and no, no that's impossible, that's not true-

He stumbled back, the Force suddenly alight with the weight of memories of shear hatred snarling through the air between them as he spat the words 'you killed him', and threw himself from the platform.

He opened his eyes. The girl was long gone.

A sigh hissed through the vocoder. The boy was right, in a way.

Skywalker was dead, truly dead.

But Vader. Vader was very much alive.

The flicker of amusement faded as the memory replayed, echoes of his son's voice trapped in the Force around him.

The violent rage, it had. Vanished.

And Skywalker-

His son's face had twisted, going pale and drawn, age suddenly lining his brow and the anger, the anger faded, and there was so much, so much he could hardly read, shock, denial, disbelief, desperation, terror, agony, agony, sorrow and agony agony agony-

And then.

Defeat.

His face went smooth, his eyes hollow and blank as he slipped away.

Vader's voice had lodged in his throat, and not a sound had escaped the mask.

Something, something deep in his chest constricted, sharp and violent.

He would need to recheck his support systems, for-

For-

His heart.

It had died, long, long ago.