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The throne room was quiet, much like ancient cathedrals. Not silent, but full of something. History, maybe… Or power it held, symbolic or not. This kind of stillness felt curated, preserved by fear and obedience. Muted white marble walls gleamed under the skylight’s pale glow. The light fractured through the giant glass wall, casting shadows across the floor like fractures in ice.
Lewis sat alone on the floor just beside the impressive throne. Legs crossed, back straight, palms open. Eyes closed.
No imperial outfits. No crown.
Just a white robe.
Not sterile white, but luminous, warm, the kind of white that seemed to drink in the light and give it back cleaner. The fabric draped like liquid, heavy and deliberate, layered with tailored precision. Along the seams ran delicate purple threading. It was imperial, not flamboyant. To Max, each stitch seemed to catch the light like it was meant to be noticed only by those who paid attention. The pattern wasn’t ornamental. It curved like constellations, like something whispered from temple walls soaked with legacy and discipline. Across the cuffs and hem, the lines deepened into bolder sigils of Empire. The collar stood just high enough to suggest authority. The sleeves, wide but structured, moved smoothly like water when he walked. And beneath it all, the faintest shimmer of armorweave. It was ceremonial, yes, but still capable of stopping a blade if necessary.
It wasn’t Jedi. It wasn’t Sith.
It was Lewis.
Max stood behind him, assuming he looked inverse in every way.
Where Lewis’s robes were luminous and ceremonial, his armour was utilitarian. It was black and graphite-grey, matte-finished, designed for function, not spectacle. The high collar of his undershirt was frayed from too many training cycles. His tunic hung close to his frame, stitched with reinforced thread and bracketed by tactical panels, scuffed at the ribs, burn-scored near the hem. His boots bore the mud of unprocessed worlds, and his belt carried not just a saber but a tracker, a blade, a blaster, and a detonator he’d never admitted to owning.
He carried no insignia. Only a small bull was stamped on his belt, barely visible to anyone but Max.
Max wore command like pressure in the air. It was something you felt before he entered. It wasn’t elegance. It was readiness. And yet, standing behind Lewis, he looked like a shadow trying not to flinch in the sun. His hand rested lightly against his saber, more from habit than intent.
At least, that’s what he told himself while Emperor Lewis sat in front of him without his lightsaber.
Max’s thoughts moved in loops. Unfinished plans, the blurred outlines of alliances not yet made. The pieces were yet to be in place. He could feel Lewis’s presence at the centre of it all, so still it felt unnatural. Like gravity waiting to be disturbed.
A single doubt twisted its way through Max’s focus, then another. And then another and-
You’re thinking too loud again.
Lewis’s words echoed in his mind, spoken through the Force. Max shifted, jaw clenched. “I’m standing still.”
That’s not what I said.
Lewis’s voice was gentle in his mind. Precise. Each syllable deliberately placed, as though carved from crystal. He didn’t turn to face Max. He didn’t need to. Max let out a breath through his nose. He suddenly felt threatened as if Lewis could actually hear his thoughts. He wanted to deflect the attention. “I was thinking maybe meditating is a waste of time. I don’t need to beg to the Force for it to bend to my will,” he said. “Your highness,” he added later, as if Lewis’s rank was an afterthought.
Lewis remained motionless but spoke out loud, sounding very sarcastic this time. “No. You don’t beg.” A pause. “You demand… as soldiers do.”
Max didn’t answer. Any response felt like defiance. He held the silence instead, even as it grew heavier. The room felt too wide. Lewis took up so much space without even moving. “Is that a problem?” Max asked, sharper than he meant. It slipped out, an instinctive defense, a deflection.
Lewis’s hands remained open on his knees. “Not for me,” he said unbothered.
Max looked at him. Noticed how still he was. Controlled. The kind of stillness that unnerved people. It wasn’t empty, it was coiled. Waiting. And yet, today, Lewis was speaking. He was… tolerating curiosity. Maybe even inviting it. He crossed the room slowly and stood in front of Lewis. Max’s boots made no sound on the polished floor, but he was sure Lewis still knew where he was, could probably feel the movement in the air pressure, in the way the light shifted.
The little lion is curious. Lewis’s voice echoed in his mind, soft and amused. He was still motionless, eyes closed.
Max hesitated, then spoke. “The Force…” He frowned. “I don’t always understand it. Some things come easily. Others don’t. I can lift a ship, bend a steel rod,” he paused, brow furrowed, “but some things feel… off-limits. Like there are boundaries I can’t see.” Lewis remained silent, still unmoving. “Why is it,” Max went on, “that we can split a rock but not… crush someone's heart?”
Lewis opened his eyes. The brown eyes of his shone under the strong rays of sunset. Max couldn't hold the eye contact. He looked away. “We can move water,” he said, almost to himself. “And the human body is mostly water. So why not bend blood inside the veins?”
A long pause.
Lewis didn’t move and closed his eyes again. A few beats passed before Max assumed that was the end of that conversation. He mentally shrugged and was ready to move back to his previous place but before he could Lewis extended his hand toward him. Slowly. The Emperor’s breathing picked up speed, and the serenity of his demeanour vanished. A small crease between his eyebrows formed.
Max blinked and-
It was like someone brushed against him without touching skin. A weightless pressure settled over his chest. It was not painful, but intimate and careful in a way that made him instinctively tense. Then Lewis lowered his hand only ever slightly as if tapping the head of a newly born bird. Max felt the ghost touch in his heart. He felt the Emperor’s hands weight inside of chest… on his heart.
Max’s breath hitched, looking down at his chest. The feeling consumed him, drowned him, frightened him. Max felt exposed. Not because Lewis could easily kill him if he desired.
No.
It was because Lewis was too close. Closer than anyone ever could ever be to him.
Lewis's presence was inside him.
Max looked up sharply. To see if Lewis was as overwhelmed as he was.
The Emperor’s eyes were open again. Lewis’s eyes, always that deep, contemplative brown, had bled into something else. A molten red-orange shimmered where warmth used to be, like embers behind glass. He looked like he was using all his power to make the moment they were sharing happen. A single string of sweat dropped from his hair to his forehead.
“You feel that?” Lewis asked, voice almost tender. He was slightly out of breath.
Max averted his gaze and didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The pressure in his chest, the eyes, the tone of his voice, the goddamn sunset. Everything was too much. Then Lewis lowered his hand, this time in one swift motion as if letting his arm free-fall. The pressure vanished as the air between them lightened. For a split second, Max wanted to chase after the gone feeling but he stood there, trying to control his breathing and looking down.
“Max,” Lewis said. “Look at me.” Max obeyed. Not because Lewis was the emperor and he had to.
It was just an instinct.
His eyes found Lewis’s again and he watched, astonished, as the fire in Lewis’s gaze receded, the colour bleeding back into warm brown, like shadows sinking beneath still water.
“That’s why we don’t try to crush someone’s heart,” Lewis said softly.
Max stared at him but Lewis only stood there, unreadable as ever. A god returning to human form. The young guard cleared his throat. “Because it’s hard?” he managed, voice thin.
“No,” Lewis said, chuckling. “Because it’s alive.”
Lewis stood up with elegance. His white robe rippled faintly with the movement, but his presence didn’t change. He was still calm. Still controlled. Like the Force bent to accommodate him.
As if it wasn’t him a moment ago struggling so much against the Force. Or with the Force, Max was not sure.
“The Force is the living and the living resist,” Lewis explained, walking closer to Max now, slowly. “They fight back, even without knowing they’re fighting. The Force can move stone because stone doesn’t beg. It doesn’t feel.”
Max tried not to focus on Lewis’s closeness and just spoke without thinking. “Maybe you are rusted a little with the Force, your highness. You have been without a challenge for so long now.”
Lewis tilted his head slightly. Then he turned, slowly, almost idly, toward the far glass wall of the throne room. A soaring panel of transparent crystal stretched across the chamber, a single, unbroken sheet of reinforced glass that overlooked the palace courtyard. Below, the Imperial Guards stood in still formation, mere silhouettes against the afternoon haze.
Lewis raised his hand.
And snapped his fingers.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
A second later, the entire glass wall shattered outward in a violent bloom of glittering shards. Not a crack, not a fracture, but full annihilation, as if the material had simply ceased to believe in its own structure. Wind howled through the breach, carrying dust and sunlight and the sharp, metallic scent of control.
Max flinched, instinctively moving closer to Lewis. He was not intimidated by the debris, which curved around him like rain around stone, but from the violence of it. The precision. The scale. The ease.
And without meaning to, his hand moved, just a fraction, toward the lightsaber at his side. This earned him a little smirk from the normally stoic or even bored emperor. Lewis leaned in and whispered, “You still have much to learn, Max.” He took a step back and stared at Max’s still-dazed face. Lewis's face changed like he had found the expression he was looking for then the Emperor mask slipped back on. “Tell Sebastian to replace the wall, Be careful, he can be... daunting.” With that he moved, walking toward the exit, the wind lifting the hem of his white robe as it dragged a long shadow behind him.
Max remained frozen in the aftermath. Surrounded by glass shards and the kind of silence that followed a natural disaster, chest still tight, breath shallow.
His fingers still hovered near the lightsaber.
There was something he wanted to fight. Maybe it was the ghost of that touch that hadn’t left him. Like Lewis had planted something inside him that no blade could reach.