Lord Vader paced the shiny black corridor during what was turning out to be yet another sleepless night.

Tormented, he couldn't find peace, yet the Darkness within him granted him endless reserves of vigor and physical strength. Couple a blurry, haunted mind with that, and the result was bound to be destructive.

Padme wouldn't cave, neither would Sidious. The forces battling to win over his will unsettled him, as he recognized something he never thought he would have to contend with: the Sith Lord and his wife de facto occupied the same position on his list of priorities. No matter what he fabricated to convince himself otherwise, his actions and mental processes spoke louder than words of self-reassurance.

"Sidious has played you so subtly so as to make his values and expectations yours" a voice in his brain told him. A voice he tried to shake off, without much success.

Oh. How hurtful. No, no, no it... couldn't be! It was him who had wanted everything to go the way it had... it was him who slayed the Jedi... it was him who loved Padme... oh.

Vader yelled, sending a couple of servicing droids running in all directions and prompting a terrified clone trooper to lock himself inside the closest closet. The fear of the new him was slowly consolidating among his men.

A slight twinge of regret biting back at him, Vader caught a glimpse of his reflection on the shiny metal wall. He was tall, more handsome than ever, powerful and strong. And yet, he felt like he was rotting, inside.

Moreover, something familiar was amiss. Obi-Wan's presence. Vader itched to have him there, next to him, where he rightfully belonged. Though if his craving was due to a need for violent confrontation, or to a selfish desire to be rescued from himself, Vader couldn't fully know.

Still shivering from the bucketful of ice cold water, Obi-Wan resumed digging with his spade as soon as the electro-whip began hissing. Hours and hours of pointless labor and undeserved misery spared no one, younglings included.

A ruthless slaver maliciously threw a tiny piece of stale bread at two enslaved Zygerrians who had been fasting for days as a form of punishment, then walked away.

In the span of few seconds, the men were at each other's throats, hitting, biting, scratching, kicking and wrestling just to reach that filthy piece of bread. A crowd of slaves circled them, shouting, cheering them on or imploring them to stop. Each and every one of them was miserable, no matter the motivation behind their shouts.

Sensing danger, "professionally deformed" Obi-Wan, who had been a Jedi protector for a lifetime, didn't think twice about separating them, using the staff of his spade. He did that so swiftly and apparently effortlessly that the two disputants barely noticed anyone touching them. Dumbfounded, finding themself on the ground, they looked up at him, as did the incredulous crowd.

Now Kenobi had everyone's attention.

"If you kill each other over a squabble, they win" he attempted, picking up the stale, filthy bread and giving a piece each.

Slaves were being stripped of everything, their dignity first and foremost. It wasn't unheard of in such dire situations to see desperate people turn against each other.

"How did you do it?" a togruta from the crowd inquired somewhat aggressively.

"Do what?" Obi-Wan feigned surprise using his best acting skills, a twinge of fear pervading him.

"Separate them"

"Oh" Obi-Wan absent-mindedly shrugged "I've done it many times"

He attempted leaving the scene and crawling back to his digging spot, but was prevented from doing so by wide-eyed, venom-hearted tortured prisoners.

"I have only ever seen one category of individuals move as you did"

"Come think of it, I have seen your face somewhere"

"Everywhere! It was all over the HoloNet!"

"You Jedi scum!"

"It's all your fault we're here now!"

"You deserve to be stoned!"

"Death by stoning!"

Before he realized it, Obi-Wan was circled. The prisoners collected soiled stones from the ground and threw them at him. He attempted protecting himself, but didn't even try that hard, because the situation was surreal, and the weight of injustice was crushing him. He was both unfeeling and ultra aware at the same time.

Hopeless victims of abuse and torture raged over their Jedi scapegoat, the one who in good faith attempted helping them, the one who, like them, had been stripped of everything, as their tyrants and persecutors looked on and grinned, gloating over the effectiveness of their "training".

They would only intervene at the last minute, as Sidious had expressly asked to keep the Jedi alive for future purposes.

It was a great small-scale metaphor of what was taking place in the galaxy.

After spending a night in the hollow tree, Satine, with the baby and F-39, made her way to the closest shelter in the span of miles: a two-story droid storage shed on the fringes of the forest. They reached it after a morning's walk. It wasn't much, but it would have to make do.

Inside, Satine found lots of dust, rusty haphazard droid parts and a number of assault weapons which looked old but potentially functioning.

She was so tired that she completely forwent the ground floor and climbed the few metal steps to the "living space", where she found a refresher and a near bare room with a burner and cupboard for gihaal storage opposite to a thin mat on the floor. She opened the windows and threw buckefuls of water on the floor to remove the dust and dirt, then, after laying out her few possessions, she literally collapsed on the thin mat, her eyelids closing without her even noticing. She was exhausted.

When she woke up, it was dark outside. The shed was cold, so she lit the burner hoping that it would generate some heat, warming herself a mug of water. She had anticipated a hot shower to relieve her sore body, but there was no such thing as running hot water in there. She desperately needed to recover from the stresses of the past few days. First, the birth, then the fancy little nighttime swim. She could do with some quiet time, even if she was in a rush to reach her Ben.

F-39 buzzed quietly, keeping a dim light on as she arranged blankets around her and the baby, trying to find a decently restful position.

"Keep watch, F-39" she told the droid.

She was uncomfortable, but she could be sure her daughter wasn't, as she contentedly slept in the crook of her arm. There were so many things she would have to work out the next day.