Exempt

Summary: Is Vader completely exempt from everything?.

Timeframe: Somewhere in the OT

Archive: In the unlikely event that someone would actually want to archive this – ask and I'll say yes. Just let me know where it's going.

Disclaimer: All things recognisably Star Wars belong to George Lucas. I just like making up my own stories. ALL HAIL LUCAS!

A/N: This is a fic that I wrote after selecting a word at random to write about. The word 'exempt' just kind of stuck in my head after a meeting, so I wrote about it. Please review! Exempt – to free or release from a duty, obligation, etc. Vader POV. More to come in this series.

I know what they think. I am not deaf to the mutters in the corridors. I am strong in the Force, after all.

My troops see me as a cold, calculating machine. Heartless. Blank. And to some extent, this is true. It's what I am. I am not a common man.

I heard one trooper mention that I am exempt from feeling emotion after I disposed of a Rebel traitor.

Exempt.

I like the sound of that word beside my name. Lord Vader is exempt. Set apart. Isolated. That is undeniably what I am, and what I have been since birth.

Lord Vader is exempt.

I am exempt from the limitations of the ancient Jedi Code, restrictions that I dispelled long ago. I was exempt from them even when I began my training – the rule of age had been broken for me. I set myself apart from the rule that forbade attachment. Yes, I am exempt from the rules.

But am I exempt from feeling?

Surely this is not so. I am still a man. I am more than a man – I am a Sith. I draw unimaginable power and strength from allowing my boiling emotions to course through me. Daily I feel the fires of rage and hatred burning within. I am not exempt from feeling those.

And though I will tell no one, I am not exempt from the burden of loss and loneliness. Deep within the recesses of my chambers, when the galaxy is silent and brooding, my mind fills with the pain and desolation of losing everything, everyone I had once loved. Their memories haunt my mind, and they do not excuse me until daylight burns again and my Master calls me to do his bidding.

The trooper was incorrect. I am exempt from many things, but I am not exempt from feeling emotion.

Not exempt at all.

Fin