No. 10 POOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS
Taser | Whipping | Waterboarding

Hello! Continuing the Whumptober theme I've followed thus far, here is some more messed up horror :D Warnings: body horror, general Force creepiness, and also references to sexual slavery.

Inspiration for this fic came from the song No Good Deed from Wicked, though primarily the context around the song.


"You must be kidding me."

The Twi'lek woman offering her the costume apparently didn't speak Basic. She just tilted her head and gave Leia an unimpressed look. The sequined headdress she wore around her lekku and her ear cones had bells dangling around her forehead, into her eyes, which jangled with the motion. The heaps of bangles at her wrists clinked together musically as well, a thousand shades of gold and silver and every gem known to the galaxy set into them. Leia wondered how much only one of those was worth, and if it would be enough to buy this slave woman's freedom.

Wondered what the punishment for theft was, if she hadn't already tried that.

Clearly thinking her look had been enough to cow Princess Leia Organa, she held out the costume again. Another slave—a Rodian man, this time—stepped forwards and unzipped her bounty hunter disguise, tearing it off her shoulder without bothering to be gentle; Leia whirled around and smacked him, hard.

"I can undress myself," she bit out.

He just gave her that look as well. "Can you?" he asked in heavily accented Basic. He muttered in Huttese, "Arrogant princess."

"I am a princess. And I am arrogant. And I will not stand for this." But she gasped with pain when the Twi'lek woman closed her hand around Leia's now-exposed shoulder. With how tightly she clutched it, her long, painted nails were sharp enough to almost draw blood.

Almost.

"Are you going to put this on or not?" she murmured in Leia's ear in Huttese. Leia's blood boiled.

She glanced back at the costume. It was gold. Likely not pure gold—that was a cruel, tasteless extravagance even in the household of a cruel, tasteless Hutt. But it was all metal, in the anticipation that whatever slave girl forced into it would have to make her skeleton fit its contours, not the other way around. When she touched it, it seemed cold as ice despite the sweltering heat.

The Twi'lek woman was wearing a bikini of precisely the same make, though it had some more embellishments, and actually looked made to fit her body. More bells dangled from that, and she seemed to have earned some fabric or padding on the inside to make it comfier. She tilted her head again at Leia's silence.

"You don't have many choices, princess," she said again in Huttese.

"I won't be here long," Leia assured her, though she tried to keep the bite out of her voice. The woman wasn't cruel. She was just pragmatic, she could tell. Pragmatic and scared—even a little bit scared for her.

"I was in the throne room. If your Jedi friend is real, he can't help you. Even if he does, you're still stuck here until then. Do not make this more difficult for yourself," her face softened, "and you will make it bearable."

"That's the last thing I want to do," Leia informed her.

The Rodian man scoffed. "Stop coddling her!" he snapped. "Bring the whip. She doesn't have a choice—"

The Twi'lek's hand, still on Leia's shoulder, tightened painfully. "If you whip her," she said delicately, "the injuries will show. You know you do not whip the dancing girls."

"You won't get me to dance for him," Leia bit out.

"There are plenty of ways to dance, princess. Your job covers several."

"She can start work tomorrow," he said irritably. "But if she does not obey—"

"Whip that man she loves instead, then," the Twi'lek woman said, bored. "She brought him off the wall. You have access to the cells."

Leia started forwards, but the Twi'lek's grip was like iron. "Leave him out of this—"

The man's grin was more like a sneer. "You do have some good ideas, then, Irdina."

Irdina said nothing. Even when he left, and Leia yanked herself around to glare, she said nothing.

"You bastard. Why have you—"

"Jabba doesn't like his girls injured in places he can see," she said simply. "If you'll cooperate no other way…"

"Leave him alone!"

"He may not be allowed access to the cells." She shrugged. "And Karrd may not even do it. He's bloodthirsty, but—"

"But what?"

Irdina gestured to the bikini again. "You can stop resisting."

Leia was proud, but she was still sensible. She put on the bikini, watching anxiously for Karrd's return. It took long enough that he was starting to hope it would not come, until—

Grunting. Swearing. And, into this cellar where pleasure slaves dolled themselves up, Karrd dragged Han through.

Leia schooled her expression like she was back in the Senate and watched. Han was still blind from the carbonite, she could tell; he stared wildly around, spitting on Karrd where he could and getting cuffed across the face for his troubles. She swallowed at the sight of it.

Karrd, his hand fisted in the back of Han's shirt, looked up and smirked at Leia. "Good. She put it on. The hair?"

"About to do that," Irdina said, then reached for the clasp in her bun. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, long and sticky with sweat. Irdina didn't hesitate to reach for it, but Leia backed away.

"Not my hair," she insisted. Her hair was sacred. It was far too intimate, far too much of a violation, to let someone else touch it. She wouldn't put it into a style for someone else.

Karrd rolled his eyes and reached for a whip. "Alright, then."

"Leia?" Han rasped. "Is that you? Don't give them anything—"

The whip cracked. In a flash, it had left a long line of blood down Han's back, splitting his shirt and skin alike. He screamed. Leia screamed too.

"Han! Stop! I'll let you do my hair!"

"Good," Irdina said, grimacing as she turned away from the horrid display and taking Leia's hair in her hands. "Quickly, now—"

But Karrd didn't move to put down the whip. "Han?" he asked. "I didn't know that. You're Han Solo?"

Han spat, "What's it to you?"

He leaned in close, his needle-like teeth bared. "Greedo was my brother," he said, and cracked the whip again. Han shouted, his back bucking, head wrenching back.

"Stop! Stop it, I'll cooperate!"

"It's not about you anymore, princess."

Leia pulled forwards, but Irdina didn't let go of her hair. She was still plaiting it, her strong hands slowly but methodically weaving the strands together. When Leia pulled, it just pulled the line taut.

"Stop this," Leia begged. "Get him to—"

"I can't," Irdina said, and the genuine pain in her voice made Leia hate her all the more.

"Leia," Han got out in thumping, stinging breaths, spitting blood onto the ground. "Are you—alright?" Every word seemed to enrage Karrd more: the whip strokes were faster, weaker, messier now, splattering Han's back like shrapnel.

"I'm fine, Han, you—"

The whip caught around Han's throat and bit in deep. Han choked and clawed at it, but the recoil nearly took his fingers off. When he fell to his knees, Karrd did not stop: he kept beating, and beating, and beating

Blood dripped into the sand at their feet. It drained into them, absorbed, like Han had never been there at all. He was losing far too much of it.

"Stop," Leia whispered. She stared at the whip, glaring, wishing—

It did not stop moving, but it missed. Karrd cursed, reoriented himself. Struck again. Missed.

Even if he kept missing—and he did—Han was on the ground, half-conscious. His back was a waterfall of blood. He needed it to heal. Stitches—they were outdated, but surely…

"You must have stitches," she murmured to Irdina. "Can you save him?"

Irdina shook her head.

That wouldn't do. Leia pulled away again, but Irdina did not let go. She stared at Han's back, feeling her fury build inside her, staring at Karrd with enough hatred to put out the suns.

Han jerked back, crying. She gasped, but Karrd was just as confused. He cracked the whip again, but aborted the motion halfway when Han flopped onto his front, exposing his red, raw back for them all to see.

It was… bumpy.

She peered at it in the dim light of the underground hall. The violent red marks were still there, but they were subsumed by flesh—pieces of skin, tissue, cells that had twisted into ropes and bridged the gaps where the skin had split over muscle. She reached out a hand, though he wasn't near enough to touch. His back was an unnatural tapestry of flesh, blood, and bone. Veins were used in the thread of those stitches as well: she could see them pulsing, where the flesh was thin and spindly, betraying his racing heart. Sweat bled from his pores to slowly cut through the drying blood, beading on his macabre embroidery.

Stitches.

Something dark awoke inside her as she stared at that mess of flesh. It was absurd, but the truth was clear. She had done that.

What else could she do?

Karrd snarled and threw all his strength into one last stroke. It cleaved through her handiwork. Leia watched them break apart, as fragile as chains of mountain daisies, and then, when she willed it so hard that her teeth hurt from clenching, she watched them wriggle in mid-air like bisected worms, reach across the fresh canyon of flesh and blood, and reconnect with their other half.

"What the hell is this?" Karrd demanded.

Han laughed. He couldn't see his back. He had no idea how kriffed this was. "What's the matter? Can't even see straight enough to hit me?"

Karrd lashed out, seizing Han's hair. "There are other ways to kill you," he swore, and dragged Han back.

She hadn't bothered noticing it before. In the corner of the cellar that they were in were stacked barrels, three high and many deep. Karrd dragged Han to the nearest column, tipped one over, and sent them crashing to the sand. Then, with one foot on Han's back to keep him down, he unscrewed the lid.

Water. Fresh water. A luxury.

Irdina realised what Karrd was about to do before Leia did. "Karrd! Stop! We'll all get in trouble!"

"Worth it, for this bastard."

"That's such a waste—"

"Han, hold your breath!" Leia shrieked.

Han didn't question her, thank the stars. He sucked in a breath half a second before Karrd seized his hair, dragged him upright, and shoved his head into the water.

Leia's mouth dropped open. He held Han under there for seconds, long seconds, minutes—she found herself holding her breath alongside him. Her pulse thundered in her head. Her chest swelled and burned from strain.

Karrd yanked him back out.

Han gasped for air; Karrd spat in his face. Leia gasped for air. Irdina kept plaiting Leia's hair.

While Han was still gasping, Karrd shoved him back under. Leia bucked in Irdina's grip, feeling the cold, stagnant water flood her mouth like she was there too. Still, she held her breath alongside him.

What was this? She stared at him and shook, his pain as acute to her as if it were her own. Like Luke had described the Force felt like. She couldn't stitch this up. She couldn't save him here. Humans could heal wounds, but humans couldn't breathe underwater—

He dragged Han back up. Han breathed. Leia breathed. And the oxygen seemed to light a fire in her brain pathways, raging all the way to her heart. Han went under again, but not before the white skin of his neck grew very, very red.

Humans couldn't breathe underwater. Han was human—so painfully, thoroughly human that it made her smile. But he didn't have to be.

Something—that assurance deep inside her—told Leia that she wasn't exactly fully human, either.

She reached out in her mind's eye, seized Han's fragile neck in her tiny hands, and cut. Blood seeped into the clear water, permanently corrupting that source of life Irdina wanted to leave untouched, but it vanished soon after. She wrung his neck, changing, changing…

Karrd kept him underwater for a long, long time. Leia held her breath for the first half of it. But when Han started breathing, she did too.

Ripples touched the surface of the water. Han was very still. Very calm. She could feel their breaths synchronising: she ordered him to breathe with her, despite the novelty of it.

When Karrd grinned in her and Irdina's direction, she kept her face blank. But when he turned back, dragged Han out of the water, and gaped at him, she smirked.

Han's neck had unfolded into gleaming slits. They fluttered awkwardly in the air after he was dragged out, before he got his mouth open and sucked in a breath through there. The slits in his neck—his gills—folded closed again, only thin lines of skin indicating they were still there at all.

"Is that your best shot, pal?" he gasped out. The gills twitched with every exhale. "Didn't your brother tell you I'm hard to kill?"

"What is wrong with you?" Karrd spat, shaking him.

Han shrugged his lazy shrug and—like the brief connection she'd forged between them meant he could seek her unerringly, blind or incapacitated—he turned towards her. And winked. "I dunno. I've got people who love me anyway."

"So did my brother," Karrd choked out around a sob that wrenched his shoulders back. He grabbed a knife from his belt and drove it through Han's torso.

Irdina let go of Leia's hair. It was in a neat, perfect plait that hung down her back, pinned up with a golden clasp that matched her bikini. Leia stood up, stepped forwards, reached out her hands, and pushed them apart gently.

Han's flesh was like clay in her hands. It gathered up into two rolls and let her peel it back as the knife drove through, to the broad daylight on the other side. His internal organs jostled for space, but with a flick of her hand she rearranged them until they were comfortable. The knife and the hand that held it drove straight through Han's belly, meeting no resistance, doing no damage.

When it pulled back, she closed the hole anew.

Irdina was staring at her in terror. Karrd turned to look at her too, her still-outstretched hands. She schooled her expression into one of dead-eyed, unflinching determination.

"Step away from him," she ordered. "Before I open a hole in your head."

He stepped away from him.

"Drop the knife."

He dropped it.

She nodded, baring her teeth. "Good."

Han was feeling around his stomach, where the hole had been. It was gone—almost. A narrow tunnel remained, right the way from his belly button through to his spine, light peeking through. He found it by touch, then flickered up to touch his gills, their fragile flapping out of water. The artistic bumps on his back, a composition of love and hate.

She had saved him. She had redesigned him in order to do it.

It was too much to bear. She stepped forwards; his gaze followed her motions. Even blind, even if he never got his vision back again, she knew he would always be able to see her. But when she reached for his hands, he grasped them strongly, and pulled her against his chest, holding her tight.

She ran her hands down his back. She felt proud of it—of him. Her masterpiece.

"Glad he didn't shoot me in the head," he quipped in her ear. There didn't seem to be any question in his mind how she had done it. She wondered if she had always been magical to him. "Wouldn't want you digging around in there. A lot of stuff in my brain you shouldn't have to see."

"I wouldn't have bothered," she muttered back. "You're brainless anyway."

He kissed her, the briefest and most chaste kiss they'd had so far, in response.

She stepped back, still holding his hands, and glared at Karrd. Did not spare a look for Irdina that wasn't one of pity.

"My Jedi friend is real," she told her instead, who did not seem to doubt her anymore. "And he has training."

Irdina swallowed. Karrd backed away.

"You'd better run while you can," Leia told Irdina. But to Karrd, she said: "Not you. There will be no escape for you."

The stench of urine emanated from him. She just kept smiling, showing all her teeth.

She glanced at Han. Her Han. Human or not. He was still with her; she could do anything.

Once all of them were here, she would bring about a reckoning.