Pain. Lots of pain dancing across her body like the lights dancing in the sky surrounding her. She can't stand it. She needs to scream, to thrash against the electric waves searing through her nerves and she can't even tell if it's working.
She thought this would be easy. Quick at the very least. It was going to be a noble death, short and tragic just like her life, but this pain was turning into eternity.
Buffy is so glad that Dawn wasn't the one who jumped.
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After an immeasurable amount of time Buffy comes to realize that the pain has receded. Her entire body is sore and twitching with leftover muscle spasms from the exposure to what ever energy Glory's hell portal was putting out, but now there is no more electric light in the air. If she thinks about it she can almost tell that she is no longer flying and falling. She is lying down on a flat surface, face up and watching a sunset sky.
Buffy doesn't know how she missed the landing in this hell dimension, but she did. She doesn't know how long she has been lying here under the sky, which is only the vaguest location ever, but it's all she's got. She knows she's going to be lying here a lot longer at least.
Buffy is alive, and however unlikely that prospect sounded right before she jumped, she now decides that it's a good thing. Or it would be if there wasn't so much hurting right now. She wants to stay that way. Alive, that is.
On one level she knows that wherever she is now has no cover, Buffy is completely open to attack. She should get up and check out her surroundings, find food and shelter and water. Because she just leapt through a portal to some hell dimension. Its dangerous. It's almost night-time. Just because there haven't yet been any nasties trying to eat her alive doesn't mean there won't be. She needs to get up and find a weapon. And get back home to Dawn. It's urgent.
On the other hand Buffy's everything is screaming at her. And when she tried to move her head to the side just now she twitched.
She has been conscious of herself for at least ten minutes now and has yet to gain any control over her badly abused body. And she's tired. And it's nighttime, and pleasantly warm. What ever she's lying on is soft.
Buffy falls to sleep.
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Jawa didn't trade slaves.
This was not a moral stance that they took, simply a matter of convenience.
Jawa would trade anything from droids to drugs as long as it got them decent cash. But they didn't trade in flesh, because slaves, generally, came in inconvenient shapes.
The slave market was big on Tattooine, it made lots of traders rich. But not the Jawa. Jawa were small and slaves were bigger stronger faster and heavier. The Jawa were longer lived though, and smarter than any other predominant race on the planet. So they knew how to make decent money with the lesser trades. The only reason Jawa didn't participate in the slave market was because it was inconvenient to do so.
They weren't stupid, the Jawa knew that's where the real money was, but they weren't stupid, a Jawa would make a miserable slave trader.
Jawa were cautious canny and clever.
That didn't mean a Jawa would ignore a good opportunity.
That didn't mean the Jawa had any reason to oppose selling one person to another.
And it sure as hell was no reason to assume that while on their way to do business with the local Hutt crime lord, if they stumbled across an unconscious human female who could be considered attractive and valuable that they would just leave it there in the sand.
