Peace is a Lie
Chains are Broken
In the kitchens deep in the Dathomiri Imperial Academy, Veli stared at the nearly-prepared meal moodily bubbling on the pan before her. To be more precise, not at the meal, some thick stew she personally couldn't stomach, but into it, through it. She watched the interplay of energies, dancing back and forth. Electricity imbuing metal with heat, which was truly just kinetic motion at a fundamental scale, low-frequency light thrown out by the dance, the light captured after only a very short distance by the pan, which grew hot and radiated light out again in turn, travelling into the meal she was preparing for a particularly insufferable acolyte, the absorbed light making these atoms dance in turn. Many triads of atoms danced so intensely they broke their weak bonds tying them to other triads, rising in curling whiffs of steam, radiating further heat into the air around her. She could see it all, she could feel it all, that energy, that motion.
And through it, the Force, that energy behind all energies, that single source of motion that moved all things. Little peeks of it, hardly visible, tiny sparks of light and warmth in cold darkness.
For it was everywhere. She'd read a few treatises by a couple Lords claiming the Force was imbued in and only existed through the chosen, or whatever language they chose to use to declare their own specialness, and she had to wonder if they had truly been as sensitive, as powerful as they'd claimed. She would have to be willfully blind not to see it. Living things seemed to glow with it, even the tiniest of insects, hot packets of motion and passion, but it was everywhere else as well. In the water, in the dirt, in the stone and metal of the Academy, even in the air itself. It was everywhere, being, moving, acting, openly displaying its secrets for anyone patient enough to observe.
And it wasn't like Veli ever had much better to do with her thoughts.
She reached out for the interplay of power and motion and light before her. Not with her hands, which were occupied with slowly stirring the stomach-churning slop, but with something that was part of her, and yet bigger than her. She'd discovered it when she'd been very young, young enough she could hardly remember it not being there. It was much like her people's natural talents — the prevailing theory was that the specialized telepathy common in her species worked through the Force, though no one was sure how — but it felt distinct enough she'd always known the difference. It felt slightly different, in a way she couldn't put words to, but recognizable. Seemingly in a different spot in her head, she had to shift her thoughts slightly aside to focus on one over the other. But always there, like extra eyes, extra hands, always there.
This sort of heating method was, of course, extremely inefficient, much of the heat being radiated into the air, wasted. It had simply been maintained so long because certain culinary snobs felt the results were superior — and in the case of the Sith specifically, she thought they might appreciate the symbolism of people serving them. But, she could cheat a little. Reaching out with soft, encouraging fingers, Veli took a portion of the light radiating out into the air, absorbed the energy contained within, and turned it back into the stew instead. She spread it out, exciting atoms all through the mixture, molecules jittering and dancing in response. She worked slowly, gently, applying her stolen energy as evenly as possible, balancing out that convected directly from the burner, augmenting her stirring with her cheating.
All told, she felt the disgusting slop was fully cooked in roughly half the span it was supposed to take.
Good. She could use the time.
Switching to bleeding most of the heat off into the air, Veli reached for her pockets. Not with her physical hands, but with fingers of thought, turning heat into motion. Soon she had her battered old datapad out in front of her, below counter height and blocked from the others' sight with her body, had it switched on a moment later. Then she slipped a much nicer datacard out of her sleeve, the one she'd managed to swipe from that same insufferable acolyte while he'd been making his usual dinner demands, stamped with the Sith Academy Archives insignia. The card floated over into the open port at the side of her little computer, gingerly slid home with intangible fingers. With a few taps, Veli set the datapad to copy the entire contents, then perused the file and directory titles while she waited. She shook her head to herself at the elementary topics he was apparently studying — not surprising, she guessed, this particular acolyte never had anything too interesting. She took it all anyway, just in case there was something useful buried in here. She wasn't allowed into the Archives herself, so might as well add whatever she could get to her little personal library.
She soon had her datapad shut down, the card again vanished up her sleeve, and just barely in time — the others working her table were just finishing. With sharp, practiced motions, she dished out the proper portion of creamed grains of some kind, hard to keep track of alien foodstuffs, poured the thick, chunky stew evenly over the stuff. And somehow managed to hold back her own revulsion. Corellian cuisine, honestly. She'd snuck some ryshcate off some Corellian merchant once, when she'd been young, and that wasn't bad, but all of their stews and sausages always made her queasy.
It was a metabolic thing, she knew. Her people's homeworld didn't have large land mammals, like the nerfs or similar creatures usually used in these dishes, and at some point the genes to produce the enzymes necessary to digest such things had simply vanished in the vast majority of her species. There were aquatic fauna, which they'd eaten regularly — she could only assume that was why she'd especially liked seafood, the very few opportunities she'd had to try any — but those required different enzymes to digest, so the trait had been selected for. She'd read something about all that at some point.
That she knew why didn't mean she didn't still find this shit disgusting to even just look at. With long practice, though, it wasn't too hard to shove her queasiness down, order her body to behave.
A few pinches of greens, and she was done. She only had to wait a couple seconds for the others to be ready, and they headed off as a group for the acolyte dining hall, Veli carefully hiding herself deep in the center. It was almost surreal, how quickly her surroundings changed. One moment, the air hot and thick from preparing food, surfaces nicked and stained, walls, floor, and ceiling dull brownish stone, rough and unpolished, everything illuminated with white lights bright enough to be painful. Then, right on the other side of a double door, the air was comfortably cool and crisp, much moodier lighting gleaming off smooth black stone, glimmering reds and silvers shaped into pleasant, embracing curves. The difference in the occupants was obvious as well. In the first faces dirty and hands calloused, bent backs and hunched shoulders covered by cheap, threadbare cloth. In the second, Sith acolytes with their casually proud self-possession, exuding power and arrogance with every smooth motion, dressed mostly in silks or equally fine synthweave, gleaming and glittering as brightly as any of the decorations.
Before any of them could feel it, Veli squashed the hot flare of envious hatred even as it rose. It wouldn't do for them to pay any more attention to her than they already did.
And the attention they paid her was already more than she was comfortable with. As her cadre reached the table, setting plates before the proper acolytes with the appropriate servile bowing and muttering, Veli could feel their eyes on her. That she knew why didn't make her any less annoyed. Even if she did nothing to encourage it, these acolytes would see her blue-black hair, her inhumanly deep red skin, and have only one thought in their heads.
In some respects, that was the lot of all Zeltrons, she supposed. She didn't think they were even necessarily wrong. She'd never been to Zeltros — she'd never been off Dathomir, actually. Her mother's ancestors had been living under the Empire for centuries, even millennia, and she honestly hadn't a clue who her father was, so she had neither firsthand nor indirect experience in how free Zeltrons were supposed to act. But from what she'd read, her people were almost pathologically hedonistic, in quite nearly every sense of the word. Their culture was famous for it across the galaxy, enough Zeltrosian space had been a favorite vacation destination of the liberally-inclined since quite nearly the formation of the Republic. Their interests were more varied than was often depicted — apparently the entire sector had long had a model public school system, since certain things could only be properly appreciated by a well-educated mind — but the common impression non-Zeltrons had of her people being highly indulgent and exceptionally licentious pleasure-seekers wasn't entirely incorrect.
Their natural emotional telepathy and uniquely voluntary pheromone system really didn't help that impression. To a Zeltron who knew what they were doing, there was no such thing as incompatible sexualities or species — they could make themselves attractive to whatever genders or species they wished, just by prodding at their minds and their endocrine systems a bit. Apparently, she'd read, it even worked on some non-sapient animals, but that was something she preferred to believe didn't happen.
It was best to play along, to a degree. There were lines she refused to cross, a privilege her mother hadn't been allowed, but there was no harm in playing into their expectations a little. Her clothes were intentionally one size too small, tunic altered to be somewhat briefer than the others' — about her back and stomach, mostly, she needed the sleeves for her habitual stealing. She'd always met the acolytes' leers with smiles, made her voice lighter and smoother than it naturally was, met the inevitable flirting with easy bantering.
Even now, as she bent to place the plate of disgusting slop in front of that especially insufferable acolyte she'd been stuck with tonight, there he was staring at her, his too-blocky human face narrowed in an almost comically obvious leer, a transparently thin suggestion on his voice. And despite the shivering disgust slithering up her spine, she just smiled at him, said something automatic, she wasn't sure exactly what, something about how she couldn't possibly, she had work to do, blah blah.
Even as she spoke, her hand passing him as it retreated from setting down the plate, she reached out with a tendril of power, slipped the datacard out of her sleeve. With the slightest, gentlest of touches, she slid it back into place on his belt. She carefully watched his face as she did — not quite meeting his eyes, as appropriate — saw absolutely no sign he'd felt her use of the Force. She could camouflage herself rather well, she'd found, and small pushes were difficult for even the best to notice, but she always watched, just in case. Good.
She jumped as, even as she started pulling away, a large hand clenched vice-like about her wrist, holding her in place. "Oh, but," the acolyte was saying, his voice low and thick, "I'm afraid I really must insist." One of the others at the table snickered, she wasn't sure which.
Her skin writhing at the acolyte's hand on her, her stomach churning at the pitying looks her fellows wore, she allowed herself to contemplate, just for a moment, killing the insufferable little shit. Right here, in the middle of the dining hall. Right now. She was certain she could do it. Based on what she knew of his study material, what she could tell of his power by the fiery black tendrils wrapping about him, she was confident she could squish this pathetic excuse for an acolyte like a bug under her heel. She doubted he could stop her. He'd be dead before he could blink. The others around would surely retaliate, but she'd be able to kill this one, at least, before they could.
And her mother's voice was echoing in her head, preserved soft and drifting through the years. Her hand combing slow through Veli's hair, whispered quiet, secret in her ear. "No one can know, Veli," she'd said, she'd said over and over, until it was a mantra always at the back of her head, inalterable law. "They can't know what you can do. The Sith don't accept slaves, Veli, they'll just kill us. Please, please, baby, be careful, keep it secret, please..."
Veli closed her eyes, took a long breath, just for a second. Then she gave the others a short, reassuring smile, and turned back to the table. "Well, unless you're willing to deal with Darth Endris when she finds out I haven't been doing my work..."
The acolyte — his name was Kalten, she knew, Orsa Kalten — gave her a dark, confident smirk, eyes sharp and vicious. "I can handle Endris."
Veli managed not to laugh at that, but only just. She was aware a lot of people underestimated Endris, since she mostly concerned herself with the day-to-day functioning of the Academy, eschewed the obvious displays of power most Sith were so prone to. But Veli was smart enough to learn absolutely everything she could about the person who technically owned her, no matter how rarely she actually saw her, though even her best efforts had revealed very little. With what little she'd learned, she still knew crossing Endris was very foolish. She was getting on in years, an age only the most dangerous Sith ever lived to, and Veli had learned by poking around that she'd spent an extraordinarily long time with Imperial Intelligence. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't much about her on record.
Very little, yes, but enough. Even slaves knew to tiptoe around Inquisitors.
Kalten was either a complete idiot, or had a dangerously inflated sense of his own abilities. Of course, comparing the way he spoke and acted against his study materials, she'd already known that, but it was still pathetic.
"Well..." Veli hesitated, injecting her voice with just the right amount of eager hesitation, shifting one foot against the other and cocking her head a bit. Just a touch of fear, as well, couldn't forget to look at least slightly afraid. It would be odd for a supposedly helpless slave to not have even the slightest bit of fear for practically any Sith, after all. "If you're sure."
"I'm very sure, pet." A flash of incandescent rage temporarily consumed Veli's thoughts, but she quickly controlled it, kept it tucked inside, held from radiating outward any sense of her feelings. She thought her left eye might have twitched a little, but it didn't look like any of them caught it. Kalten pulled her down toward the seat next to him; cursing a steady stream in her head, she let him. And he kept her close against him, arm loosely wrapped about her hips. She wanted to toss him away, she wanted to fill his steaming corpse with laughing lightning, she wanted to set his smirking face on fire. Instead she held down her gorge, forced herself to relax, let herself lean into him a bit as she might if she didn't hate this man's guts.
And did her absolute best to keep old memories from surfacing.
One of the acolytes at the other side of the table — Mieryn was his surname, she couldn't remember his first — giving her an easy smirk, said, "What's a pretty thing like you doing in the kitchens anyway?" It was quite obvious what he was implying. And he was far from the first person to ask.
Veli let out a high hum, tilting her head a bit to the side, letting the idiots' eyes run along the curve of her neck as she considered how to answer that. Make up a story, or tell the truth? Hmm. There were risks inherent in both. If she lied, it was possible, however unlikely, one of them might figure out about it later, which could cause problems. Problems likely worse than any ideas the truth might give them. Fine, then. "I did grow up in a brothel, yeah." The obvious implication being her mother had been a whore, but they'd probably guessed that already — most Zeltrons in the Empire were. As a Zeltron slave who wasn't bound to some sort of sexual service, she was actually unusual. "But, well..." She let her head tilt back around, bringing a playful smirk to her lips. "My old master decided I was far too much for most people to handle. So I was sold to the Academy instead."
Which was entirely true, if misleading. When she'd been...twelve? She wasn't entirely sure how old she was now, so she couldn't say for sure, but she knew her mother had died just a couple months beforehand, and that had been nine years ago, so twelve seemed about right. Anyway, the person whose property Veli had been born as — a snivelling, disgusting speck of a man, she didn't even think his name to herself if she could help it — had informed her she'd been getting old enough to switch careers, so to speak. She'd made it quite clear she would kill any clients he sent to her before letting them put so much as a finger on her. Using every bit of the very rough control she'd had over the Force at the time, she'd compelled the vile man to have her sent to the Academy instead. It'd been a near thing, she'd almost lost control more than once, but within the week she'd been sold to Endris, had been cleaning and cooking for these insufferable little pricks ever since.
And stealing as much in the way of study materials as she could, teaching herself in secret. That was why she'd picked the Academy to sell herself off to, after all.
It seemed the acolytes were buying her semi-truthful story in any case. All laughing it off, saying things about how, yes, she did seem like a feisty little thing, didn't she. And the topic was changed easily enough, the men now joking and bragging like the idiots they were. She let herself fall into the conversation, into the usual dance of flirtation and innuendo that developed seemingly every time she talked to anyone without some framing context, let herself relax a little bit.
But not entirely. She did not like the way they were looking at her. It was impossible to relax entirely.
Looking back on it later, she would honestly find it a little funny how thoroughly...bored she was. Hemmed in on all sides by five Sith acolytes — a prospect which would have most slaves terrified out of their minds — five arrogant, powerful men paying her far too much attention. With what she would later know they must have been planning from the beginning, with what would happen in the next days, she perhaps should have sensed something was amiss. She perhaps should have been taking it more seriously.
But she wasn't. She was just completely, desperately, sickeningly bored. These simple-minded, pathetic excuses for Sith kept blabbing at her, that stupid shit men such as they always spouted. She played the subtly flirtatious role that was expected of her — couldn't be too forward, she was a slave, after all — so unthinkingly she might as well have been switched out for a pre-programmed droid. Her thoughts were more focused on her to-do list for that night than what she was doing at the moment, waiting impatiently for them to release her. The longer they kept her, the later she'd be up doing her regular nightly duties, the less time she'd have for reading and practice. And she was just bored.
Perhaps if she hadn't already long ago written off all these particular acolytes as insignificant insects, she might have paid more attention. And, to be fair to herself, she wasn't even wrong about that. She'd later learn none of them would ever amount to anything. Even the ones who wouldn't be dead in the very near future.
Though, even if she had seen this coming, she would have thought they would at least entice her out of the dining hall before trying to rape her.
She had barely been paying attention to what was going on, flirting on autopilot, when she suddenly found Kalten's mouth above her ear. She repressed the automatic impulse to jump, or incinerate him where he sat, forced herself to remain still. "You are a pretty thing, you know." His voice was slightly slurred with alcohol, breath thick enough with sausage and liquor to turn her stomach. And, before she even had a second to respond in a way appropriate or not, she felt fingers sliding against her pants, intentionally too tight against her skin, running far further up her thigh than she was comfortable with.
The boredom boiled away in an instant, Veli almost painfully alert, life and power running through her veins like lightning. Eyes flicking around at the other men, taking in their stances, their faces, the set of their gazes, she started cursing in her head. She'd miscalculated, assumed this was like any other night, acolytes being stupid arrogant asses. It was obvious this wasn't an ordinary night. This wasn't the normal level of stupid arrogant assishness.
She was suddenly quite convinced they were going to have a problem.
Keeping any trace of her sudden wariness off her voice, she shot Kalten a coy smile, carefully watching him out of the corner of her eye. "You know, I do hear that. I think I've heard it from you already, in fact."
"It's such a shame," he said, airy and casual, as though she hadn't said anything at all. "Hiding away back in the kitchens. Such a shame." The arm wrapped behind her tightened around her shoulders, the fingers on her thigh slowly sliding upward, tipping around to the inside.
Breath turning hot in her throat, Veli took another glance around the room. At their table, no, their faces seemed almost eager, in one case simply a detached sort of interest, all of them projecting glee and lust into the air about them so thick it was cloying. Further out, no different. Most everyone hadn't noticed anything was happening yet, those who had showing nothing but either indifference or a tinge of vicarious excitement. They knew what was about to happen, and none were inclined to stop it. She knew what was about to happen, and...
Her breath turned thicker and hotter, her head buzzing with the incessant noise of a million hoarflies, Part of her already wasn't here, was back in the city a decade ago. Holed up in her room, converted from what had been her mother's closet. Trying not to hear what was going on on the other side of the thin door, usually it wasn't bad, sounded like everyone was having fun if anything, but this time it sounded bad, this time her mother was screaming, like whoever it was was hurting her, but Mommy had said to always stay in here, to be silent and still no matter what happened, to never let anyone know she was in here, it was very important she be a good girl, so she sat in the back corner, she hugged her pillow around her head, and she waited for it to stop, she begged for it to stop—
Too busy trying to not exist to notice the hint of smoke building in the air, too thin for the sensors to pick it up, but there, she'd smell it on her sheets later, after—
Veli clenched her fists to stop her fingers from shaking, with a supreme effort of will kept the shadow of her memories from her smile, from her voice. "My, my, are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, milord?"
Chuckles crossed the table, sickening leers turning her nauseous, but she kept it off her face, they can't know, please, baby, keep it a secret— "And if I am?" He sounded so sure of himself, so annoyingly arrogant, a child playing at being a Sith Lord. It would almost be amusing.
Veli swallowed the fire back, desperately grasping at her self control as her guts writhed with disgust, her chest ached with fury, her mother alternately screamed and whispered in her ear. "Well, then, I suppose you would have to have a talk with Darth Endris." A cloud of confusion settled over the table, in any other situation Veli might have rolled her eyes. "I belong to Darth Endris, you see. I'm afraid I can't speak for myself. You would have to ask her."
Another one of the men, Mieryn, he gave her a sharp, cold sort of leer. "If I we were asking permission, yeah, you'd be right about that."
Another one, "We're not asking permission, see."
No. She wouldn't have it. She'd promised herself, nearly a decade ago, after her mother had wasted away sick and tired and broken, she'd promised herself she wouldn't allow it, she would die first. "Stealing from a Darth?" She noticed a hint of icy steel had slipped into her own voice, but she couldn't help it at this point. And she'd ceased caring. "I know it's not my position to say, but that seems unwise."
"You're assuming she gives a rotten rancor's toenail what happens to you."
She wasn't, really. Raping her would be, legally speaking, stealing from Endris — what kind of Darth lets people get away with stealing from them with no consequences? If Endris found out about it, she'd have to do something, to prove such violations of her domain would not be tolerated; she had once been an Inquisitor, so she would find out. And besides, it wasn't an assumption in any case. She'd been somewhat surprised, when she'd gotten herself sold to the Academy, to find Endris was a shockingly considerate master. Veli wouldn't say she was kind, not exactly — she wasn't certain Sith Lords were familiar with the concept — but she wasn't cruel to her slaves. She made sure they were fed, she made sure their illnesses or injuries were properly attended to, she made sure they were not too brutally treated by the Academy's students. She made sure they were as comfortable as slaves anywhere in the Empire could possibly be. Veli had no idea why Endris went to such effort, but it was quite clear she put more value on her slaves than most people did. If these men thought Endris would just ignore them having their way with her, they were blind fucking fools.
Also? Rancors didn't have toenails, they had huge bloody claws. For some reason, that extra bit of idiocy just annoyed her. They were on Dathomir, for fuck's sake, they should know that.
She forced her rage down one more time, teeth gritting and fists clenched on the table. "Are you quite certain you want to do this?"
She didn't wait long enough for a response. She didn't need to — it was written all over their faces.
Fuck. This was going to be messy. She somehow doubted she could make it all the way to Endris's apartments without using the Force.
But she had to try. She took a last breath, tension radiating out from her shoulders and across her limbs. She turned into Kalten and dipped, her head slipping under his armpit, then pushed off the bench with both hands, and one of the legs of the table with both feet. Kalten's arm had lost purchase with her turn, she'd slipped away from his other hand, and her push brought her face-first toward the ground. It was easy enough to tuck her head in, bring her hands up, take her momentum into a roll over and down her back. A quick push through the Force against the ground, hopefully light enough for no one to feel it, and she was on her feet. Barely a second having passed, she set off running toward where Endris should be, the men behind her only now jumping to their feet and—
Veli saw it coming before it arrived, descending as invisible fingers of power and will, and — they can't know, please, baby, keep it a secret — she barely stopped herself from neutralizing it. The sudden jerk dragging a yelp out of Veli's throat, she was plucked off her feet, whipped backward through the air. The top of her hips came hard against the table, flipping her back to slam against the surface, hard enough it should have hurt, but she couldn't feel it, her head was too full—
Power was power; energy was energy. It was in everything, the great tapestry that contained all of existence, variations on a single theme, different expressions of a single form—
Mom's voice ringing in her ears, she was being hurt and there was nothing she could do about it, and she hated this place, she hated them all—
After, her mother bruised and sluggish, a cauterized cut across her forehead, airing out the smoke in the former closet, putting out the tiny little fires, holding Veli and stroking her hair, just an inch from crying, she could feel it, "No one can know, Veli," she'd said, she'd said over and over, "They can't know what you can do. The Sith don't accept slaves, Veli, they'll just kill us. Please, please, baby, be careful, keep it secret, please—"
She'd sworn, she'd promised herself, she would not become her mother. Sitting in the room, listening to her labored breathing when she'd fallen ill, diligently wiping the sweat from her brow and changing her sheets and bringing her broth and juice, all she'd been able to stomach in the end. Veli had promised herself, this would not be her. She loved her mother, she did, and she was not ashamed to be her daughter, no matter how even the other slaves might whisper and snigger, but she would not. She would not permit herself to be used the way her mother had, she would not become her, broken and tired and sick, she would not. She would die first, she would kill first, there was nothing she would not do, she would not, she would not, she would not—
As Kalten forced her back on the table, hips trapped by his, wrists held against the surface at either side of her head, the argument grew to an agonizing cacophony behind her eyes. Blood hot, throat tight, ears ringing not with the laughter and jeers of the apprentices, but the duelling voices in her head. Her mother's, please, baby, be careful, keep it secret, please. Her own, I will not I will not I will not I will NOT—
There was no doubt which voice would win. Even as she felt Kalten's fingers fumbling at her waist, she tasted smoke on the air, just the barest hint.
She did love her mother, but she loved herself more.
Power was power; energy was energy. Variations on a single theme, expressions of a single form.
Her fury was a wild thing, red and hot and alive and unceasing. It filled her, so much she shook with the hard, thick energy of it. Emotional energy, but that was but another form, she could use that.
She took her own anger, the burning and the stinging that made her chest hurt and her fingers shake, grasped it in mental fingers smooth as the finest shimmersilk, unyielding as durasteel. And she turned it, shifted, reformed it.
Kalten screamed, the piercing keen painful in its suddenness, hands leaping off of her, his weight pulling away. He screamed, but not for long.
Veli pushed herself to her feet in time to see the body fall, lines of black char crisscrossing pale skin in a web mirroring the veins beneath, wisps of steam gently curling in the deathly still air. She was momentarily distracted by the sight of the fresh corpse, staring with a curious blankness at the half-cooked flesh that until recently had been a Sith apprentice.
She'd never killed anyone before. She didn't feel guilty, of course, not over this little shit. It just felt...odd, knowing he was dead, and she had done it.
But she didn't have time to puzzle over this development right now. She was still in the dining hall, and she was still surrounded by Kalten's friends and peers.
A glance up showed them staring at her. Some with shock, some of with an academic sort of curiosity, more than a few with building rage. She felt the tension on the air, an instant from snapping, and knew she would have to be extremely lucky to make it out of here alive.
At least she didn't have to worry about anyone raping her now. She was a slave, and she'd just murdered a Sith. They'd almost certainly just kill her.
She stood, waiting, for several long heartbeats, for someone to make a move.
The first thing Veli thought when she woke was that someone was apparently torturing her.
The second thing she thought was that meant she was still alive.
At the moment, she wasn't capable of thinking any further than that. She was rather busy screaming.
The traditional Sith ability that took the form of lightning was, despite what it looked like and what it was usually called, not truly lightning. It was instead the will to cause someone suffering made manifest, hatred given form. It did not truly act as lightning when assaulting a living body, did not burn like electricity, not really. It severed a person's conscious control of their body, leaving them partially dissociated, like a puppet with the strings cut. It sought out pain receptors with perfect precision, slamming down every button a person had at once. It was neither hot nor cold, blunt nor sharp, but all of them at once, stabbing and smashing and freezing and burning, one sensation that was every agony that had ever existed, all rolled up into one. Thundering through a person so overwhelmingly they could feel nothing else, could think nothing else but to beg for it to stop.
Keep them under it long enough, and they would lose the ability to think even that.
She didn't know how long she was kept under. Everything was white and black and blue and red, her vision dancing with blinding shadows and indistinct light, everything pain. She was certain she was screaming, she was certain she was moving, but she couldn't hear her own voice, she couldn't feel her surroundings. The pain was all there was, boundless and impenetrable.
Until, suddenly, it stopped. The veil of agony was lifted, and Veli was left shuddering, aftershocks running through her like boiling water in her veins. She felt hot and slow and tired, but she forced her eyes open, blinked in an effort to force them to focus. The room was dark, she couldn't see well. There were lights from displays, of what she couldn't tell, illuminating the crosshatching of supports in the ceiling, but she could see hardly anything else. She could feel, through the pounding left behind by the assault that had drawn her to consciousness she could feel...
She was on a table, she decided. A cold, hard table, made of some kind of metal. The cold part was more of an annoyance than the hard part, honestly — she seemed to be rather naked, and the metal against her lightning-heated flesh made her shiver, the lingering pain flaring anew with each slight movement. She was held to the surface with manacles, also metal, about her wrists and ankles. There was odd tension on her back, a pain at her wrists, and she decided after a moment the table was tilted, friction and the restraints all that was keeping her from sliding to the floor.
That was all she needed to know. She knew where she was.
'Ah, good morning, slave. Generous of you to finally grace us with your presence.'
Veli turned to her side, toward the voice, even while knowing what she would find. There, standing over her, the angle of the table putting his head about a foot above her own, was Lord Iniksal, his red skin almost purple in the gloomy darkness, the fleshy crests at chin and brow throwing deep shadows over his face. He was an Inquisitor, one of the few attached to the Academy. Veli had read his specific area of expertise was interrogation — she was certain that really meant torture.
The thoughts raced through her brain with their usual energy, but with none of their focus. She let them pass, blinking sluggishly up at the Sith. When she finally found her voice, it came scratchy and weak, shaking so hard she could barely understand herself. 'You'll forgive me for being slow to rise, milord. Last I recall, a twelve-person dinner table was flying straight for my head.'
'Hmm, quite.' Iniksal's head tilted a bit to the side, his eyes trailing along her form. She was well aware his thoughts weren't at all sexual — she could feel he was slightly amused, mostly intrigued — but the gesture still had her shuddering. Finally his examination was finished, his eyes tipped up to the ceiling, letting out a slight sigh. 'I have one and only one question for you, slave. If you cooperate, your death will be quick and painless. If you remain intransigent, it will be quite the opposite. It makes no difference to me, in the end.' His eyes flicked down to hers, pointed teeth glinting as his lips curled. 'People always tell me what I want to know, you see. One way or the other.'
Somehow, Veli really didn't doubt that. Iniksal was powerful, she could sense that easily enough, and he seemed so...unconcerned. As though this were any ordinary day, nothing unusual were happening. Which she would admit was somewhat unnerving, but she brushed it off easily enough — much of her daily life was unnerving, when it came down to it. 'And what question is that, milord?'
'Who taught you?'
Veli blinked. 'I'm afraid I don't understand. Taught me what?'
The Sith didn't seem at all amused, but he clarified anyway. 'We know you are not a plant. We have gone over your provenance, and it checks out — your birth was registered legitimately, you were sold to Endris legitimately.' She couldn't help a hot flash of rage at the use of the word provenance, about calling her sale legitimate, but she suffocated it instantly. Iniksal didn't react, so it was possible he hadn't even noticed. 'Which means you were taught in the ways of the Sith here. Under our very noses.
'I want you to tell me, slave, who among our number took it upon himself to sully our noble traditions by sharing them with vermin. You will tell me who taught you to use abilities far beyond your station. You will tell me, and you will be given a merciful death. Which is more than your presumption and your crimes deserve.'
And Veli was angry again. Her "crimes" — defending herself from rape at the hands of some arrogant twat who was nowhere near as powerful as he believed himself to be. Her "presumption" — using the abilities she was born with, but that Iniksal and those like him thought she ought not have, due to the accident of her birth.
They believed themselves special, the Sith. They were the chosen few, a class above all other beings in the galaxy, selected for greatness by the Force itself. It was a gift from the universe itself, a gift only the best sort of people deserved. They believed this, but then they saw someone like Veli existed. A kitchen slave, born of a bed slave, but carrying in her heart the same gift they were so proud of, as powerful as any of them.
And this offended them, oh how she knew it offended them. She hadn't needed her mother warning her to know this. A couple years after being bought by the Academy, one of the other slaves had become pregnant, had a son. This in itself was not unusual. The slaves of the Academy did have relationships with each other, not to mention the occasional assault — though that was uncommon, most acolytes smart enough to not risk the wrath of Darth Endris. After a year or so, it was becoming clear this child was Force-sensitive. They eventually had blood taken, to remove all doubt.
They had killed the child, tearing him to pieces before his mother's eyes, in the slave hall where they could all see. Then they'd taken the mother away. She'd returned weeks later. She'd never said what had happened to her in those weeks, but she'd never been the same since.
A Sith was no slave; a slave could never be Sith.
And so they would hate her, she knew they would. She must certainly die, for her presumption. But whoever taught her, they must also be punished. Because she couldn't have learned on her own, of course not. She was a slave, vermin, she couldn't possibly have the intelligence or ability.
Despite the pain she was still in, despite how she knew it would only provoke the Inquisitor who had her at his mercy, she was entirely incapable of stopping it.
Veli burst into black laughter.
She was rewarded with another episode of overwhelming, absolute agony.
Rage and hatred and will and power were storming within her, tearing at her body and her mind. It hurt, of course it hurt, but the pain didn't truly hold her attention. A thought was occurring to her, not yet fully realised, like the sky lightening in advance of the approaching dawn.
Power was power; energy was energy. Variations on a single theme, expressions of a single form.
In time, the pain retreated, and Veli was left gasping, shaking against unforgiving durasteel. She clenched her jaw shut, narrowed her eyes, willing herself to hold on to her epiphany. And Iniksal spoke, voice still easy and casual. 'I'm afraid I fail to see the humor in the situation.'
'You would.' Veli's throat shook, her lungs ached, every inch of her protesting, but still she smiled, turning to meet Iniksal's eyes, finding their black depths near sparking with quiet rage. 'But it is funny. You're looking right at it, but you still don't see what it is. You Sith are so blind and fucking arrogant sometimes, makes me laugh.'
She only had an instant of warning. Iniksal's eyes narrowed, just slightly, a single finger raising, barely visible at the corner of her vision, a halo of light blooming to life, a sharp actinic blue, her sense of the focusing energy black and thick and furious.
She had only an instant, but when the lightning came for her, will to cause suffering made manifest through the Force, she was ready. It touched her, it tried to penetrate her, but before the world could fall away into agony, she grabbed it. She took the power of the assault into herself, convinced it to obey her will, not by any cajoling or persuasion, but by the sheer knowledge that it would, it would obey her, there was no question in the matter, no doubt, the sun rising in the morning, a dropped object coming back to the ground. She took it into herself, tendrils of fury snapping at ephemeral fingers, but she ignored the sparks of pain flickering in her mind, and forced her will upon the energy she had stolen. She put her own fury into it, twisted it to her own purposes, made it hot and eager and ready.
When she felt it was ready, before Iniksal could respond, she released it again.
And it was not her screams that split the air.
Veli ignored Iniksal as he quickly died, ignored the sick scent of burning flesh, and turned to her restraints. Hard metal, thick, definitely not something she could break with muscle alone. But she had far more than muscle at her command. She reached into herself, reached through herself, and—
She gasped as the electricity stabbed into her wrists and ankles, coursing all through her body with a single hard throb. A brief jolt, just enough to break her concentration. Clever — apparently the table had been designed to detect a prisoner reaching for the Force, and prevent them from managing any real escape attempt. That would work for most people, but most people, she'd noticed reading her way through her stolen library, didn't realise that most important truth.
Power was power, and energy was energy.
Veli reached for the Force again, until she felt that niggling at the back of her mind, that itch at the back of her neck. When the shock came again, she was ready for this too. She accepted the power into herself, twisted the electrical energy into kinetic, directed it where she needed it with an almost reflexive force of will.
With a keening sound that made her teeth shiver in her skull, the manacles were torn away, and she was free.
Veli slid down the angled surface of the table, skin stinging where the metal pulled it. Her feet met the floor after a second, and her burning, shivering legs folded under her the next, pitching her chest-first against the floor, hands too slow and weak to catch her. Veli laid there for a long moment, stealing shuddering gasps half-muffled by the tile against her face.
Okay. Ow.
Once she'd properly gathered herself again, she closed her eyes, focused herself inward. Searched for the power hidden deep within herself, drew it forth, let it meet her frustration with her own weakness, her fear one of the Sith would find her before she could escape. She turned it upon herself, flowing through her blood, dancing across muscle and skin, finding the black, rotten residue left by the lightning, boiling it away bit by bit.
After what had to be at least a couple minutes, Veli felt she was healed well enough to get moving. She crawled toward Iniksal's gently smoking remains, stripped off his cloak. It smelled rather awful, a stomach-turning mix of urine and burned meat, but she didn't have a whole lot of options available at the moment. She wrapped herself up in the heavy cloth, pulled the hood over her head, and stepped out into the hall.
And now she had to get all the way from the interrogation rooms in the basement to one of the gates at the edge of the grounds. Which would involve slipping past at least three security checkpoints and who knew how many Sith.
There was no way this was ending well.
Veli was starting to run out of options.
She'd managed to slip out of the detention hall, past the Inquisition offices surrounding it. She'd made it all the way to the ground floor, before the alarms had gone off. Someone must have found Iniksal, she'd known they would, but she'd been hoping to have at least made it onto the grounds by then.
For good reason: the instant the alarm had been raised, durasteel barriers had slammed down before all the doors, the windows. Soldiers and Sith patrolled the halls, checking papers, plundering minds, taking those without sufficient proof of their right to be here into custody, beating those who resisted. They were sweeping the building, floor by floor, room by room, person by person. Efficient, meticulous, ruthless.
She'd managed to avoid them so far, but she knew she couldn't forever. All the exits were sealed, guards posted at every lift and stairwell, there was nowhere to hide. She could feel Sith through the Force, grasping fingers, reaching, searching. She could make herself small, unnoticeable, but only on the unwary, those not already suspicious of her. If she got too close...
There was no way. They would find her eventually. There was nothing she could do.
She was walking down a back hallway, only used by maintenance and slaves, looking for something, anything. Well, not walking, exactly — limping was a better word, steps uneven and unsteady, hand against the wall for balance. She was still weak, her body aching and shivering, but she couldn't stop to heal herself more thoroughly. It could take too long, they might feel it. She had to keep going.
She knew she was almost certainly about to die, of course. But she was going to make the fuckers work for it. She wasn't going to lay down and die like a good little slave, oh no, if they wanted her life they'd have to—
Veli froze. She wasn't alone in the hallway. Some distance ahead, leaning against a door frame, someone was watching her, Veli hadn't seen them approach. She couldn't make the figure out, loose hooded robes of black and red hiding all distinguishing figures. Save what they were holding anyway — a cane, gleaming silverish metal and sparkling crimson gemstones, casually gripped in both hands, just about at the figure's waist.
Veli didn't have to see her face to have a pretty good idea of who that was. Knowing there was likely no chance she'd survive, knowing she'd be dying in agony in a few minutes, she reached inside of herself anyway, drew as much power as would obey her forth to—
"There's no need for that, Veli. I'm not here to fight you."
More than the words, it was the tone that surprised her, enough the power she'd gathered disintegrated into nothing. Not warm, exactly, but casual, calm. Almost friendly, for a Sith. Veli risked a brief blindness to the Force, reached out for Darth fucking Endris's mind with her own. It was hard to tell, Endris did always seem very cold and empty to her senses, bit she did catch a hint of...
Relief? That couldn't be right...
"Forgive me, Your Grace, but..." Veli hesitated a moment, running the tip of her tongue along her lip. "Ah, why are you here?"
Endris let out a low grunt. "Come, follow me." She pushed herself from the wall, then turned and started down the hall, slow shuffling steps broken with the harsh ticking of her cane.
Veli stared after her, glanced over her shoulder along the empty hall the opposite direction. Then, sighing to herself, she turned to follow the elderly Dark Lady.
It wasn't like things could get any worse, after all.
A few minutes of walking in tense silence — tense on her end, anyway, Endris seemed perfectly calm — they were stepping into a room Veli had never been in before. A break room, it looked like, probably for the maintenance staff. "Sit down," Endris said, gesturing to an armchair with her free hand.
Veli slowly drifted toward the chair, paying more attention to Endris. She was headed for what looked like a miniature kitchen area against one wall. When she started filling a chromed pot with water from the tap, Veli finally figured out what she was doing. "Ah, Your Grace, I should—"
She cut off when Endris turned to look at her over her shoulder, sharp yellow eyes bright under her hood. "Believe it or not, child, I am capable of fixing a pot of tea. And besides, I'm not the one who was tortured today." She nodded toward the chair. "Sit down."
Well, Veli certainly wasn't about to make her say it a third time.
In a few moments, Veli spending most of it trying not to moan at the relief coursing through aching muscles, Endris shuffled her way toward the chair opposite Veli. A floating tray laden with pot and cups and those tiny little sandwiches settled itself on the low table between them, and Endris slowly sank into her own chair, groaning so softly Veli wasn't certain she'd even heard it. She set her cane to lean against an arm rest, her hood falling back of its own accord to reveal red skin darkened and wrinkled and spotted with age, a narrow scar running where a near-human's left eyebrow would be. Then she reached for the cup closer to her and took a slow sip, eyes resolutely fixed on Veli.
And Veli just sat there, staring back. She had absolutely no idea what she should be doing with herself. She hadn't exactly ever taken tea with a Dark Lady of the Sith before, and this wasn't anything like a normal situation either. She still wasn't entirely sure Endris wasn't going to just kill her the second she glanced away.
After some moments, Endris's head tilted slightly, eyes flicking down toward the tray for just an instant before meeting hers again. Well. All right, then.
She'd made it though five of the little sandwiches — vegetables and cheese, she could actually stomach it — before Endris finally spoke. "You're having an interesting couple of days, aren't you, child."
Veli froze, simply staring at Endris for long seconds. Eventually she managed to unstick her jaw, swallowed her sixth sandwich before opening her mouth. "Ah, I suppose that's one way to put it, Your Grace."
The Sith's black lips twitched with a mostly-repressed smile, only for an instant before she was blank again. "How did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"You know what I mean." Endris set down her tea, leaned forward in her chair, propped against her cane. "I examined Kalten's remains, you see. I only briefly checked Iniksal, but it is obvious he was killed the same way. I've never before seen something of the like."
Veli was only slightly surprised. She hadn't read of any Sith doing anything similar, but she would hardly claim she knew everything. That an Inquisitor of Endris's experience would never have seen anything like it was unexpected. But, well, "'The Force is the prime motivator, the determiner of all possibilities. There is nothing that is impossible, for the power of the Force is without limit.'"
This time, there was nothing faint about the amusement she felt from Endris. "Yes, you did do the thing properly, didn't you." Endris drew up her cup of tea again, relaxed back into her chair. "It is quite impressive. The manner of Kalten's death is indicative on its own, but to manage the same against a Lord Inquisitor?" Endris took a slow sip from her tea, shook her head. "I knew you were talented, of course. But all the same, I am impressed."
Despite how exhausted she was, the words still sent a thrill of adrenaline through her veins, a chill sinking through her smelly borrowed robes. "You knew I was...talented."
Endris gave her a flat, blank sort of glare. "Honestly, child, you think I hadn't noticed? That vile little bottom-feeder who sold you to me, I forget what his name was, his mind clearly had not been his own. I knew in seconds you had him under your unpracticed control. And not with the natural gifts of your kind either. It was very good work for an amateur, of course, but I am not an amateur."
It took a moment for Veli to refocus herself. She'd thought she'd hidden her abilities, that no one in the building knew, she was anonymous, safe. But Endris had known, she'd known from the very beginning. A last pained swallow, and she managed, "I would never mistake you for an amateur, Your Grace."
"I wouldn't expect so. Unlike most of our acolytes these days, you do not strike me as a fool." Endris paused a moment, sipping at her tea, eyes on Veli hard and sharp and all too intense, she had to bury the impulse to fidget. "That was the whole purpose, was it not? To do the thing correctly."
"I'm sorry?"
"You got yourself sold to the Academy on purpose, with purpose." Endris reached into the folds of her robes, pulled something from a pocket to set gently on the table between them. When Veli recognised her cheap, battered datapad she couldn't help a wince. "You have been swiping study materials from our acolytes. And you've been teaching yourself, in the few leisure hours you have."
There was really no point in denying it. Endris had her datapad, she'd probably gone through her things, found the cards she had hidden way. She had everything. So, between calm sips of her own tea, voice as casual as she could make it, Veli drawled, "My leisure minutes really — I don't exactly get a lot of off time."
Endris's mind again glowing with amusement, her black lips pulled into the slightest of smiles. "Yes, well. You can relax, Veli. I'm not going to punish you."
For a second, Veli could only stare at the elderly Sith, blinking. "Forgive me, Your Grace, but I find that hard to believe."
The smile twitched, shifting into something more a smirk. "We claim to reward merit, we Sith. The Emperor wills it, that we may find and refine the greatest talent, no matter its source. Many of my peers have lost that message, have lost all memory of where they came from, what we, ultimately, are. I am not so arrogant as to not know my own history."
Endris leaned forward in her chair, fingers lightening about her cane. "You know what you are, Veli. You may have stolen knowledge straight from our hands, you may have killed a lord and an acolyte, but in doing so you have proven your talent, clear to see for all who have not blinded themselves with empty pride. Proud I may be, but I am not blind. The Emperor wills that the greatest of our talent be allowed to flourish, and I give you my word, child, you will have that opportunity. I will not allow it to be otherwise."
She saw immediately what Endris was saying. She was saying Veli would be allowed...well, allowed to become a Sith. It wouldn't be handed to her, of course, nobody was owed anything in the Empire. She'd probably be admitted to the Academy, afforded full honours when she graduated.
When she graduated, of course. From what Veli had observed of the general level of talent among acolytes, she had no doubt she'd make it.
She would make it, if she had the opportunity. Which she would not, she could not. She was a slave, and the Academies did not recruit slaves. More importantly, she had just murdered two Sith. Sith being murdered was not entirely unusual, and there were situations it wasn't even illegal. Self-defense was one of those situations, and would definitely cover Kalten, and even Iniksal.
But it didn't apply for her. Only Sith. The punishment for a slave killing a Sith was death, no exceptions. There was no way, even for a Darth, to get around—
Veli froze, straightened in her seat somewhat. Her back protested, the muscles spasming from abuse and exhaustion, but she ignored it, kept the pain from her face. And she stared at Endris, for a silent moment. The words tasting almost absurd on her tongue, she whispered, "How long have I been free?"
"About twelve hours." Lips curling with a smirk, Endris broke for an annoyingly drawn-out sip of her tea. "Though, I did have the papers backdated to a little under three years ago. I'm very good at what I do, it'll hold up. I even set up a bank account complete with three years worth of backpay. You're clean.
"It's not so surprising it wasn't reflected on the administrative database until now. You know how bureaucracy can be, these things get lost sometimes. It's not unreasonable young Kalten and Lord Iniksal assumed you were a slave — paid citizens are a minority of the staff. An unfortunate mistake, that's all. These things happen. It wasn't even a total loss: the Empire got a promising young acolyte out of the debacle. Don't you agree?"
Veli could only blankly stare back at Endris, too disoriented by the universe shifting around her to find her voice.
I really don't know why Veli amuses me so much.
As some nerds might have guessed, this fic is based off of the Inquisitor story from Star Wars: The Old Republic. That Hero of Tython guy will have a significant role too. The timeline has been shifted around a bit, plus some of my trademark fucking with worldbuilding. And the plot goes gradually off the rails, losing it entirely by the third act. But this is me, nobody should be surprised by this.
This one should be...comparatively short? Well, small number of chapters, but the chapters will be long. This one is still missing a scene or two, even. It'll just be, you know, snapshots over the next few years. Of Veli being a complete badass, and ruining the plot and even a couple prophecies because fuck the police.
Right, one more tonight. Uh, this morning, I guess.