They threw her in, bruised, beaten and betrayed.
Twyla gasped as her back hit the wall, thrown by her own droids. She landed on her hands and knees, sweat pouring from her long black hair into her eyes.
Her teeth were clenched so hard she wondered if perhaps she would break them, if she tried for any harder.
"You can't do this!" she sprang at the door, defiantly, one last time. But it slammed shut. Twyla could not have cared less. With a feral rage, she slammed her fists against the ray-shield.
"Let me out! You can't do this! I am a general; do you hear me Grievous? I. Am. A. Separatist. Citizen!" At each word in her last sentence, she kicked the ray-shield furiously.
She did this for awhile; anger propelling her like a feral animal. She lost all track of time as tears poured down her face and slobber trickled out of her mouth with each scream.
Then the while was over, and adrenaline mixed with rage had been spent out. She leaned against the invisible wall, panting for breath. So this is it, she thought. This is what I get, for trying to be somebody. She shook her head and closed her eyes.
"This is what you get," she mumbled. "When you are a Separatist with mercy," she murmured and let her mind wonder into despair. Will I never see you again, Mackentai? She wondered. My girls, my beautiful daughters, please do not follow my path. You were right. I am a fool.
Before she could get all the way into the tunnel of horror, with dark walls and no escape, though, a voice met her ears. "Is it?" Twyla jumped and twirled around, holding onto the door with all her strength, ready for any attack.
However, what she saw instead took her breath away. There was no assassin ready to kill her quickly and with no witnesses. It was Jedi. Not only that, but one of the most famous.
The Jedi was just as she had envisioned. Handsome, bold, elegant, proud, yet somehow still... Childish. There was something mischievous in his face, almost teasing.
His keen azure eyes stared at her with wary curiosity, as if he expected her to either start sobbing or attack him. By the look of him, he should prefer an attack.
He looked nothing like Mackentai, but somehow the thought of her husband sprang to mind when she noticed the scar running across his left eye, as thin as if someone had merely drawn it there with a fading pen.
Slowly, as if it had no clue whether it should go on beating or just stop now, her heart slowed. Twyla stared at the Jedi sitting across the cell, staring at her passively. He was cross-legged, straight backed and tall. His brown hair curled at the back, creating a devilish look.
Twyla wondered what in the universe he was doing aboard General Grievous's prison ship. Then she remembered a vital fact, one she would have been severely scolded for forgetting, had she still been at the academy. She remembered that the Jedi were on the side of The Republic, the Separatist's sworn enemy.
Hadn't she just fought a battle with some Jedi a few days earlier? Had he been defeated? Yes, she had defeated him, but she had never read the name of the Jedi they had captured while his troops retreated.
Oh.
Twyla gulped and pressed herself against the door like a trapped animal. Jedi were harmless without their weapons, she hoped. She stared him down with as much dignity as she could muster, given the circumstances. She was sure she must have looked horrible.
Her hair was untied and filthy, her clothes torn and also repulsive, and the time in torture had surely put a crazed look in her eyes. The Jedi did not seem to notice nor care about this. He regarded her as one would an unfavorable but undeniably interesting insect.
"I must look awful," she said softly. Her mouth seemed to work at any rate, even if her brain was slow to catch up. The Jedi smiled feebly. "I've see worse, trust me," he assured her.
"Oh." She replied breathlessly. "Thank you. You don't look at all bad either," she said by instinct. That seemed to amuse him. He grunted and shifted himself slightly, still watching her unblinking eyes.
"It's alright," he said at last. "I will not hurt you," she did not believe him for a second. "Are you trying to tell me you're helpless?" She demanded, offended by his assumption that she had not any intelligence whatsoever.
"No," The Jedi snorted. "I'm not. Though, I'm not as powerful as I could be," now he held up his hands, which had been hidden in his lap. They were shackled together with force-resistant bonds. Twyla let out a slow sigh of relief. At least he could not hurt her with the force.
"I told you," The Jedi said, putting his hands back down. "I'm not going to hurt you. If I was planning too, don't you think I would have done so already?" he asked. Twyla frowned, allowing her overwhelmed brain to think. It gave her no helpful answers that she did not already know.
"I haven't the slightest clue," she admitted, after a moment's deliberation. "I've never met a Jedi before. But I saw the way you maneuvered your troops in battle. And I could see you aren't stupid," she concluded, proud of herself for that earlier observation. The Jedi ducked his head, and she could tell she'd pleased him.
"Yes, well, your tactics were very impressive as well," he looked back up at her, and now his eyes were slightly less studying and more friendly. "Why don't you sit down? You look ready to faint," he said. Twyla supposed she was. She let herself droop to the floor, still pushed against the door.
"It's been a long day," she explained pitifully. He nodded. "It sure has been. Forgive me, but I never got your name…?" He looked at her expectantly. She glanced him up and down. He had manners, surely.
"Twyla," she said at last, deciding that it could not be of any harm to her now to let him know. She was going to be executed in the morning, anyways. "Twyla Pnolder," he nodded and outstretched a hand. "Anakin Skywalker," she stared at the hand warily.
Anakin chuckled. "Come on," he shook one hand, making the chain around it jungle. "Do you think I could do anything chained up like this? Besides, why would I kill my only source of company?" Twyla could have given him many reasons, but she stayed silent, staring.
I'm going to die anyway, she thought. Hesitantly, expecting it to be gone the next second, she held out a hand and took his. Anakin grabbed her hand and shook it warmly, with a reassuring, strong grip that made her bloody hand tingle with renewed blood circulation.
She took her hand back, and was surprised to see the multiple cuts on it were-in front of her eyes- melding themselves cleanly.
"What…?" She gasped, wondering what in the universe he had done. The Jedi smiled. "My apprentice showed me how to do that before the battle. She said she learned it from a Jedi physician she met while on Alderran. Interesting, isn't it?' He asked, looking at her hand with frank pride.
"Oh," Twyla said again, deflated with awe. "Yes, that was quite nice. Thank you. My daughter would love to meet your apprentice. She would have loved whatever you just did and known all how it works," Twyla had no clue why she had said that.
She had not meant to start talking about Brilla, but her eldest daughters name popped put before she could control it.
Tears folded her eyes. She would never see her beloved child again. "Oh?" The Jedi asked curiously, unseeing of the tear that rolled down her cheek. "Is your daughter studying medicine, then?" He asked. Twyla wiped the tear away angrily, desperate to distract herself.
"She wants too, but women are forbidden to do such things on my planet. I encouraged her to fight the law, as many women are doing nowadays, but she believes that women were born to marry and raise children, apparently," she rolled her eyes at the beliefs of the past.
Though she had gotten married, both her and her husband knew that women were capable of doing just as much as men were. Besides, Twyla had also fought the regime by struggling her way up to become a Separatist general, the first woman on her planet to ever do so, as well.
The Jedi snorted. "My apprentice would cure her of that notion," he said confidently. Twyla studied her enemy. "Where is your apprentice?" She asked, wondering if maybe she might have been captured, too, and was sitting in the cell at the exact moment.
He glanced away, and Twyla saw concern flash in his eyes. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I told her to stay down when I was captured, but knowing her, she probably did the complete opposite," he sighed.
Twyla felt a smile quirk at her lips. "She sounds like Millie, my youngest," she said softly. "She's reckless?" Anakin asked, looking up with sparkling eyes.
"Impulsive, big-mouthed, naïve, and brave," Twyla sighed longingly. "My daredevil. Yet she does not have the drive to go very far. That is why I struggled so hard to be a General, to give them something-someone- to look up to who wasn't a male," rage was building up again, tickling at the embers it had left before.
"But now look where my drive has gotten me. Now I will never see either of them again," she ground out, and suddenly she was weeping. Rage had dulled down to grief and dread.
She put her face in her hands, shaking with emotion. Brilla, Makentai, Millie, oh, my family. I don't want to leave you. Please, I don't want to leave you. If I could go back, I would. If I could go back and change things. If only I could say goodbye…
Then there was a hand on her shoulder. Something like warm air rushed over her and suddenly her eyelids were heavy. Her mind fell calm like a wave that had just settled after a storm.
She let her head fall back against the door. "Feel better?" The Jedi asked. He was very close now, and in the blurriness of her mind, he looked very much like Mackentai.
"Yes. What did you do?" She half-demanded. "I… just helped you calm down a bit," Anakin said hesitantly. He was kneeling right over her, his face obscuring her vision of anything else. He smiled, and suddenly she was seeing an angel instead of a Jedi. She blushed, embarrassed to be receiving the attention of this angel.
"Will they execute you too?" She blurted, wondering how she could have beaten this man and put him in this situation. Anakin cocked an eyebrow.
"No," he said shortly. "They don't execute Jedi, not at first anyway. I'll probably be taken to some interrogation camp where I'll be tortured for information," he seemed perfectly fine with this plan.
"Probably?" She asked. Anakin grinned. "Unless Rex, Ahsoka, or Obi-wan comes to get me out," Anakin finished with a confident smile.
"How do you know they'll come?" She asked, wondering at his confidence. She wanted Mackentai to come save her. "Jedi do not leave each other behind," Anakin replied, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.
"Nice of them," she said dryly. "Separatists certainly do," she grumbled. Anakin studied her. "You were leader of the droids a mere few days ago, why are you here now, General Pnolder?" He asked. Twyla laughed bitterly, why was she here? She had no clue. The reason she was there made no sense.
"For being merciful," she answered. Anakin cocked an eyebrow at her, inviting her to go on. Twyla sighed. She did not actually want to go into this, but someone-anyone, even a Jedi- needed to know what she had done, why and how she had died. She wanted someone to know that it had not been due to mere casualties. It had been due to cruelty.
"My orders were to capture the people of the village you and your troops were defending, after the battle," she began, as she set her head against the wall and closing her eyes.
She could see the village now, and the eyes of the fearful people who had watched as the Republic troops had run off in a reluctant and honorable retreat.
"I would have done so, I knew that those were the conditions of war. If only Grievous had not told me what I had to do with them. He wanted to use them as slaves or hostages. Imagine, children, hostages to use in war!" Anakin nodded somberly.
"You didn't do it?" He asked. Twyla shook her head, how could anyone do it? she had children of her own, and she had seen the eyes of the mothers who had overheard the conversation.
What if that had been her daughters and her husband? No, she had not done it, by any means. "No, I refused. I absolutely refused, and that droid monster charged me with insubordination and compliance with the enemy," she shrugged, exhausted by her own tale.
Anakin was watching her with new respect. "You are a brave and honorable woman," he said, almost cautiously.
She received the distinct impression that he was debating whether to believe she was telling the truth or not. "Do you know what your punishment is to be?" he asked. "Execution," she was going to die.
Anakin's expression did not change. She imagined execution did not terrify him as much as it did her. After all, he did not have a family waiting for him at that temple of his. "Your daughters should be proud. Courage like yours is rare, nowadays," he said. Twyla shook her head.
"They'll never see me again. Dooku will tell them I died in battle or something of the sort. They won't know what ever really happened to me," there were the tears again, but when Twyla closed her eyes, only one fell out of her pupil. She was out of tears.
"You won't be punished for your mercy, general. I won't promise I can get you back to your family, but I will get you out of here," she opened her eyes at his resolute tone.
Anakin's eyes reflected his tone, determined and reassuring azure pupils stared back at her. Twyla wanted to laugh; he thought she preferred life to never seeing her girls again?
"Do you have anyone you truly love, Jedi?" She asked evenly. The look of pure shock on his face was hilarious. Twyla was almost sure she had surprised the living force out of the poor man, after all, it was a well known fact that Jedi were not allowed to have attachments.
However, from the look on this young man's face (a man, who, Twyla suddenly realized, was several years younger than her) he did not care much for the rules of conduct. Just like Millie.
"What business is that of yours?" Anakin finally found the breath to gasp. "Just answer me," Twyla answered passively. She leaned back and crossed her arms, feeling an odd sense of accepting calm float over her, accompanied by sadness. She knew she was going to die.
Anakin glared at her defiantly for a moment. She answered with the same calm, serious stare that she had used to curb Millie's rebellion. "Perhaps," the Jedi answered at last, cautiously. He was no fool.
Twyla nodded. "And if you had a choice whether to live or die, knowing the only stipulation was that you'd never see that person again, would you do it?" She asked. "But…" The Jedi began doggedly. "Would you?" Twyla pressed. For some reason she wanted-needed- to know his opinion. It meant more than it should have.
Anakin looked away, and his handsome face contorted into thoughtfulness. Twyla watched him, and wondered if perhaps he did have a secret wife out there.
Ridiculous, impossible, illegal, she thought distantly. Then added; but goodness, she would be a lucky woman to find a face like that. He really as quite a looker, youngling or not.
What bothered her most about his appearance, though, was that he was so young. He was younger than her; anyway, she could see that, yet the military techniques he had used were for someone who was three times his experience.
A few days ago, they had been enemie's, she had aimed tanks at this Jedi, at this barely out of boy-hood Jedi. She had gotten him captured, and he wasn't even old enough to grow sufficient hair on his chin.
"No," The boy-Jedi murmured. Twyla was snapped out of her brooding. "No?" She asked. "No," he shook his head. "I would rather die than live knowing that there was no way I'd ever see them again," them, interesting. So there was more than one person he loved.
"Then you see my point," her completely foolish, suicidal point. He nodded. "I understand. But are you so certain that you'll never see them again? Maybe I could…" He was sweet, at least. Naïve, but sweet.
"If I'm ever caught within Separatist territory, I'll be arrested and have to go through this all over again," she pointed out, interrupting him. Anakin's shoulder's sank. "Oh," he said dejectedly. Twyla smiled feebly, wanting to cheer him up for some reason, as if he were a sad child.
"Do not grieve over me, general. Before I die, I got the chance to meet a famous Jedi, that's a chance I never thought I'd get, except on my last breath," Anakin smiled feebly and nodded. She cocked her head at him.
"What Dooku says about the Order is wrong," she told him, softly. "You don't seem at all like a hypocritical, thieving, manipulative liar," she concurred. Anakin surprised her half out of her wits by laughing.
It was a deep, loud sound, that made her jump and let out a small gasp. "That's what he says about us?" Anakin gasped out, having found this assumption hilarious. "And you all believed it? Force, I oughta tell that one to Obi-wan, he'll go red laughing. Though, I suppose Dooku might have us on some accounts. I'm a very skilled liar, my old teacher is known for manipulation and stealing is something we don't think twice about, admittedly," he said, not at all rueful.
Twyla shrugged. "But you aren't cruel or evil," she pointed out. Anakin shook his head. "I hate unfairness," he informed her firmly. He stopped, thinking a moment.
"Actually, now that I stop and think about it, none of us are. When I was small I used to think the Jedi were unfeeling and cold. But now, looking at Dooku and his methods," he gave her a pointed look.
"I'm glad I was found by the right side. I can't ever imagine the Jedi doing things like this to people like you. Not even in war. It's not who we are," he brooded out –loud. Twyla had to smile. Mackentai used to think aloud.
"You are a deep-thinker, I see," she commented. Anakin snorted and rested his chin in his hand. "Uh, no. That would be Obi-wan the great and annoying philosopher," he sighed with a roll of his eyes.
Twyla glanced around at the cell. Her heart was starting to race, for some reason. She could very well imagine why. Morning was almost upon them. "You love him," she guessed. Anakin glanced at her, surprised.
"You love him, your Padawan and someone else, I can tell," he blinked, apparently speechless. Another first, I got a Jedi to fall out of words! She had to smile at the thought, as dull as the smile may have been. "She's a lucky woman, you know, whoever she is," Twyla continued delightedly.
"You're a good catch in the woman world. Worth ten slouch husbands. Most men don't depend upon honor, intelligence, or manners, but rather looks. Not that you lack those, either," she studied him a moment.
"You're rather cute," she observed. The Jedi's mouth fell clean open as he spluttered unintelligibly, staring at her. Twyla chuckled and closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the smile on her mouth. She might as well.
She had about ten minutes left. I wonder if the sun is out, she thought dreamily.
"Cute?" Anakin repeated in a squeak. "And fluffy," Twyla added, eyes still closed. "Fluffy?" Anakin nearly screamed. "I am not fluffy!" He objected.
"I think Ahsoka would beg to differ," Twyla laughed. "Nor am I cute!" Anakin added, glaring death daggers now. "Again, your secret woman might disagree, ask her. Us women are always honest," she told him.
Anakin remained speechless, still gawking at her boldness. "Cherish every moment with her, Anakin," Twyla whispered as she heard the clank of feet outside the door.
You will not cry, she thought, opening her eyes. Anakin was blurred in front of her. He was also still glaring at her indignantly but also with confusion.
"Cherish every moment. Tell them you love them every day," like she had not told Mackentai. "And most of all," she gave him a wan smile. "Stay a good boy," just as she had told her daughters.
"Stay good girls," she had to hope they would. Anakin opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the door slid open. Twyla looked up and smiled pleasantly at the five battle droids standing above her.
"Its morning already? A shame. I was having fun," she said, and the racing of her heart increased. She was going to die. She glanced at Anakin, whose face had smoothed back over into maturity as he stared passively at the droids. His eyes met hers.
She stood, her legs trembling. "Your courage will not go in vain," Anakin promised evenly. She nodded. She knew it wouldn't. Not with Anakin still left in the world.
"I never had a doubt," she felt her arm sear with pain as suddenly the droid snatched her arm tightly in a cold grip.
She kept her eyes on Anakin. She would not be afraid.
"It was an honor to meet you," his head dipped in a bow of respect that she had never seen with so much sincerity. Good, she had done something for this war, even if it had been for the wrong side. She had given this Jedi strength, and what else mattered?
"I'm sure," she chirped. "It was also a pleasure to meet you," she raised her eyebrows. "Have fun fighting Grievous," she wished him luck. The Jedi ducked his head and grinned. "Oh, I will," it was a promise.
"Good boy," Twyla half-laughed and half-sobbed as the other droid took her other arm in its grip. Anakin watched her, his entire body tensed as if he wanted to go after her. But he knew what decision she had made. The one she wanted. The only way she could ever be happy.
She would die a fulfilled woman.
"Let's go, prisoner," the droid snapped, in a squeaky, mechanic voice. She rolled her eyes. "Don't be rude," she felt the need to scold. She looked back at Anakin, who was still watching her.
Twyla gave him a single nod, which he returned, and in that moment, she could have sworn she saw Mackentai.
"Oh, Twyla, you are a brave but stupid thing. I love it."
"Mom, women are only good for birthing and house tending, but you might be good at whatever it is you plan on doing too."
"You're going to war. Of course. With all due respect, ma'am, you're an idiot. But only you would be idiot enough to be the first woman to become a kriffing general."
The droids shut the door, and Anakin was gone. Twyla only laughed as they dragged her away, bruised, beaten, betrayed, all the way until the bullet ended it all. She died with Anakin in her mind and heart.