She knew how to be invisible.
Shoulders forward, head down, chin pressed firmly into the harsh outline of jutting sternum. If she was invisible, she would be picked last. Those picked last were taken in by the kinder masters. She had learned early on that the cruel ones were always first in line for the slave auctions. Their false sense of entitlement and full pockets always jostled the mild-mannered farmers and retired pilots with soft voices into silence until the end.
An old scar stared back at her from her wrist – jagged, raised like Tatooine mountain peaks down the skin of her forearm (baked deep brown like old bread from years working hard in the desert sun). It reminded her to be quiet, to submit, and whatever she did – don't end up in the hands of another cruel master.
Raised voices pricked her ears. They echoed off the crumbling plaster of old walls behind the line of slaves which stood in the market square. Vendors were beginning to wheel in their carts, adding to the early morning bustle of the growing Tatooine bazaar. Many of the slaves looked up. She could feel the air shift uneasily as their heads snapped up, their questioning eyes searching for the origin of the skirmish. They didn't know any better. They were new, their bones still hidden under fleshy cheeks, eyes still soft with innocence. But she had seen the way the drivers were quick to punish, hungry even, poised at the edges of the scaffold with cat o' nines tied at their hips, the bits of shrapnel and Krayt dragon spikes embedded in the tails grinning back at her like crooked teeth.
The voices became clearer as they grew closer, and without raising her head she could tell that it was an unruly slave being beaten into submission. His cries of agony grated against her ears.
It wasn't long before he was completely subdued. One of the drivers shoved the slave toward the line of still, quiet figures. She could see his cat o' nine dragging behind him, the shock of fresh gore mingling with sand and turning it to mud. The slave was forced into line beside her, jostling her slightly as he struggled to stand on weak knees.
"Take it easy on my merchandise, would you?" The dealer groaned, grabbing the slave's chin and assessing the damage with furrowed brows. "They're worth nothing if they're severely damaged."
The driver grumbled under his breath as he retreated back to his station. Beside her, the new slave and his old master ignored him as he walked away. The dealer stared at his precious chattel. She could tell the man was devoting all of his focus to simply staying on his feet.
The metallic sting of spilt blood filled every breath she took. She felt it burgeoning sickly in her head. It made her stomach turn, remembering her own beatings when she had first been stolen and sold into bondage against her will.
Her old master stood before his new quarry. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he was still assessing the damaged goods, still breathing laboriously at her side. They had done a number on him; the man struggled to swallow air that burned and thickened like salt in the growing heat. The sound of his rasping breaths was painful to listen to.
"I expect you've learned your lesson?"
The muscles in the arms of the bare-chested man grew taut, unfurling in the shallows of his skin alongside the pale blue ribbons of veins. She remembered that anger, the urge to fight for freedom as it was being taken away.
But he had learned quickly. He did not answer.
"Good," hummed the dealer. "Consider your good fortune in that you were not beaten to death. I could have just as easily taken a loss to remind the others who might be entertaining designs of mutiny…and made an example out of your worthless hide."
Again, the slave did not respond. Assured by his defeated silence, the dealer moved on, calling out to familiar faces as buyers began to appear before the rickety scaffold.
She would have listened. If this were any other day, at any other market, she would have strained her ears to catch the words between her old master – and those who had the potential to become her new one. They would discuss them, the chattel. Who was built for hard work, who had the hands for the ship yards. Most often, if there were any Twi'lek among them, they were bought first – shipped off to cantinas and palaces to be chained to a rich merchant for the rest of their lives, forced to dance for those who owned her life. She felt worse for them – at least, when she ended up in a shipyard, in an underground warehouse, she was made useful. Hard work did not allow much time to think about the life she had lost the moment she had been sold.
The slave next to her had calmed his breathing – though still ragged – as his lungs began to work again.
A crowd of buyers formed before the scaffold. Merchants and farmers and advisors to wealthy nobility murmured as they assessed the property and she felt the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes watching her, scrutinizing the story of every scar, every fading bruise, and the significance behind them. Was that scar earned for trying to escape? Was that bruise a badge of dishonor, for showing her master disrespect or speaking out of turn? She felt bare, stripped down to her skin, the only worth she had in the world written out in the form of transactions and numbers. It did not matter that she could tell the most wonderful stories to the other slave children and they would listen with wide-eyed wonder. It did not matter that she loved funnel flowers for their resilience as they grew between the rocks of an otherwise barren planet. None of that mattered. Only the layers of callus on her hands and the meekness of her beaten down spirit were of any value to the men that circled her like hungry bonegnawers.
One by one, the slaves were sold off. The new and strong were bought first, and for them she felt the most sympathy. Their story would be marked by tragedy. Often, they were prisoners of war, men of greatness and strength and valor. These were the brave pilots who would risk their lives for their cause, the soldiers of resistance who stood firm in the face of the brewing storm. They had the most fire, the most life, and they were chosen first because of these qualities. There were masters who thrived on the act of breaking in a new slave. They loved watching the light drain from their eyes, the straight line of their shoulders – once held high with pride, with dignity – wilting in defeat like a dying flower. She had seen it before – the ones who had their souls crushed by sadistic owners. It was more painful to fight than to submit. She had learned well that a man who fought for his freedom would often lose his life at the hands of those who oppressed him.
The colors of the day had begun to change, and that was how she knew it would soon be over. Her morning had been spent watching the horizon shift from lifeless gray into bright gleaming shades of orange and red and yellow as the desert caught fire in the wake of dawn. Everything had felt so new, fresh, as though the day before and all its atrocities, all of its horrors had been erased from existence. She knew she could never simply let go of the memories of what she had seen – but those days were over. With the beginning of a new one, she could look forward to change, to the prospect of a new life that was worth living – if only fortune would smile upon her and give her a kind new master.
The novelty of watching the sunrise and the stirring of the embers of new hope had long since worn off. She had sunk back into the mire of despair. There was no such thing as a kind master. They were all cruel, in their own way, if only for the fact that they imagined themselves as gods over the creatures who submitted to them.
She watched as a pair of black boots appeared before her line of vision. They were clean, likely polished just that morning by the way they reflected the sun with such clarity. Her heart sank even further. It was likely that they had been polished by the hands of a drudge just like her.
The tone of apathy that filtered through the man's deep voice did not help to soothe her raw nerves. "How much for this one?"
"Five hundred credits. Jaia is in good condition, a hard worker. Won't give you any trouble."
"You name your pets, do you?"
"Only the ones I like."
The buyer seemed amused at the thought of a slave with a name. "No trouble, huh?" He roughly grabbed her arm, where a long scar traveled down the length of it. "So she earned this here racing stripe for good behavior?"
"An accident, perhaps."
"It looks an awful lot like a cat o' nine stripe to me."
The dealer sighed heavily. "Do you want her or not?"
"Why are you selling her?"
"You know very well my policy of disclosure. I have told you everything of relevance, answered your questions without complaint. Why should you question my motives now?"
"Easy. I don't trust you," said the buyer, turning toward the one that was still bleeding at her side. "This one…new, is he?"
"Yes. The First Order sold him to me," her master replied, the glow of pride in his voice as excitement over his new quarry grew. "I paid a hefty price for his pretty head. He will not be cheap."
"You would sell me an unruly slave full price? You know as well as I do, the hard work that comes with breaking them in."
"Yes, yes, but look at his physique. Tall, muscular, yet wiry. He will not require much sustenance. And he is strong. He nearly knocked the teeth out of one of my drivers with that right hook of his."
The buyer hummed thoughtfully as he inspected the figure before him. "There is a lot of fire in those eyes…I doubt this one could be broken at all."
"And yet look at how quietly he stands before you now."
The buyer laughed. "He is exhausted from a sound beating, not showing obedience!"
Her master was silent for a moment. "Then buy Jaia as well. She would be a calming presence for him, would she not?"
"Full price for two worthless slaves?" The man snorted audibly, taking a step backward. Jaia felt a flutter of hope loosen the pit of her stomach, which had been curling in on itself like a tight fist in anticipation of a sale. Perhaps she would stay with her master…he was not as cruel as some she had had before, and certainly not as cruel as the man who was surveying them now.
"I will give her to you for half price," her master contended, and the tightness returned to her slowly unraveling muscles. "It is only fair that I make a profit as well."
For a long time, the man stood in silence, his booted feet still visible. There were now traces of sand appearing on the toes, smudges staining the smooth, black surface. It was likely that she would be the ones to polish them that night.
"All right, Darma, you've convinced me," he said. "I'll take them both."
For the first time in hours, she lifted her head and watched as the paper credits were counted and exchanged for two human souls.
.
.
.
As soon as they reached the shipyard that would be their new home, her new master disembarked, instructed her to stay put, then disappeared. She was left sitting on the loading dock of the small aircraft with the man who had been purchased as a worker – and for whom she had been bought as a companion.
He had lost consciousness on the journey home, the blood loss from his beating taking its toll. She knew that, often, new slaves were not just prisoners of war, but also captives of different sorts. He could have been beaten and tortured countless times before he ended up in the hands of his dealer. Unlike her own body, which was dark and riddled with scars that stood out pearly-pink against her russet skin, his body was pale and beautiful. It gleamed like marble under the artificial lights of the ship, his white chest rising and falling with each breath as he sank deeper beneath the crushing surface of an ocean she could not see. Dreams flitted before his black lashes like ghosts. He was likely remembering, seeing the faces of old loved ones he would never look upon again, watching ambitions and plans curl in the fire and float like ashes into the darkness of his head. She pitied him. The ache of loss would not go away soon – he would suffer it for years to come.
Trained to follow orders, she sat down on the cold metal floor, watching the man as his head rolled back against the walls of the hull. He was finally still, at peace with the world while he could not remember his circumstances within it. Sleep was an escape, she knew. She often looked forward to it – not the kind that was haunted by faces and voices and pain, but the one that reminded her of death. It was like slipping into the afterlife for a little while, the aches and pangs and misfortunes of this life left behind. She was sure, by the way his face crumpled in pain, that this was not the kind of sleep he experienced now. But soon, when the work began, he would see it as a gift – a sign of compassion given to them by merciful gods.
Her master reappeared again, a pail in one hand and a bundle of white cloth in another. Steam rose from the pail like tendrils of gauzy ribbon, disappearing quickly as he marched with purpose through the deepening purple dusk.
Without ceremony, he threw the rags in her lap and set down the pail so forcefully that the hot water broke over the rim of it and splashed across her bare feet. "You have ten minutes to clean him up, then you come inside. You take more than ten and you get a beating, get it?"
Jaia nodded wordlessly and took a rag into her trembling hands, dipping it in the warm water that felt like a balm washing over her cool fingers. She squeezed the excess water from the cloth and settled on her knees beside the prostrate body. He was as still as a corpse as she worked, wincing only as she grazed the cloth over a new, seething gash. His dark brow knitted together as he experienced more pain than she could imagine – a prisoner of his own fear and doubt even in the depths of sleep.
"You'll be all right," she told him, glancing at his ashen face. "It might be bad, but at least we have each other."
She smiled slightly as his countenance seemed to soften. "I'm sorry this happened to you…we never ask for this kind of thing, do we? It's not like we grow up wanting to be someone's property. We grow up wanting to be pilots or soldiers or to marry a noble prince from a faraway galaxy. Sometimes, we just want a life that is ours, where we have peace and quiet, and nothing ever happens at all."
Dropping the rag into the water, she watched it turn vermilion as the bloodstained rag released the gore like ink spilling across a table. She traced the patterns as they twisted and danced and finally disappeared. Looking back at her new companion, she studied him with the same childlike wonder, all at once fascinated by the prospect of who he might have been in the life he left behind.
He had not moved since they had been shoved inside the hull of the ship. His stillness began to worry her. Had they gone too far?
"You'll be all right," she repeated, this time more to herself than to him. "We'll be great friends…we'll take care of each other, won't we? I think that's what friends do…don't they? I wouldn't know…I never had one. I've always wanted one, but never stayed long enough. I could never work as hard as they wanted me to. I was never quite strong enough, even for Darma. But maybe this time will be different."
She didn't expect him to answer, but there was something so comforting in talking to him. It had been days since she'd spoken more than two syllables to anyone and the silence had taken its toll on her. In her solitude, she had been allowed to think. To let her anxious mind wander, and it often drifted into old memories, where she tried so hard to remember her mother's face – to remember her own name before she was stripped of it and given Jaia instead.
"I don't even know your name," she murmured, brushing the black hair that had been plastered to his forehead back, where it mingled with the rest of the dark, unruly waves. "We're not supposed to have them, but we do – before they take us."
Taking her hand away from his forehead, she put it back in her lap. She squinted at him, cocking her head as she tried to find the right angle to slip into his head where all the secrets were hidden away. "Where did you come from? I wonder if anyone has realized that you're gone…"
For a moment longer, she lingered – until, with a burn of regret, her master called and she realized the mistake of letting her mind wander.
When she met him at the door of the house, she bowed her head in submission, the tears already stinging her eyes as he pushed her outside.
author's note: if you had read this story before and reviewed it, thank you so much! i appreciate the feedback so much. i took the story down with the intention of revamping it, but after hours of trying to figure out how i wanted to change it, i decided i liked it as it was. so, i apologize for giving you nothing new in return for the inconvenience of deleting your wonderful reviews - but it's back up, and i hope to have the next installment out soon!