Death and the Maiden
This will be his shuttle one day. He stares through the window as the ship breaks from the hyper-jump with remarkable smoothness. All the vehicles he ever used were built by the New Republic and by the Resistance – shaky, growling, howling trash. He remembers the "Falcon"… Solo making etchings on the door to indicate his growth over the years…
The blood he tasted is bitter and revokes myriad of memories and shattered hopes and fear and pain with which its owner ended her life. Something in him is set on fire with envy. Everyone has an easy way out, except him. He'd welcome the other half of the Jedi pupils, and kill these miscreants he's stuck with instead. Irin is probably the most loyal to him now – and what a joke that is.
They are on their way to the First Order's base in the Unknown Regions. He is eager to meet with Snoke. He'll erase the remnants of the weak fool Ben Solo that still lingers in him, causing him an irritating, useless sort of pain.
But first they make a stop on Ord Martell.
"Supreme Leader's orders," the Inquisitor grins, and bows to him again. He follows the creature like an automaton. The planet… he remembers it from Solo's tales, and only fragmentary. A littered planet, full of criminals, pirates and Imperial refugees. Those who weren't positioned highly in the Empire were left here to rot. Rumor has it he atmosphere of the planet was toxic and induced dementia after longer exposure.
Realizing just where they're headed, Kylo Ren frowns. It is demented, indeed.
A tavern and a brothel above it.
And this is not the first time the Inquisitor visits this establishment, as clearly testified by the reactions of the owner and of the prostitutes. No wonder the Empire has collapsed before that Jedi and rebel scum, he thinks and clenches his fists, tensing his new gloves to a breaking point. Stench of cheap booze, of lust and of bad food permeates even the filters of his mask. He glances over his shoulder at other Knights of Ren.
Knights – what a preposterous title for these half-lives. Half of them already removed their helmets with an eagerness that he finds insulting under the circumstances.
"Easy now, men," Inquisitor holds them behind with a gesture. "Respect the hierarchy. Let the Master choose first."
Damn Pau'an laughs at his own joke.
„Our friend here is untried." The Inquisitor gestures at Kylo Ren, and then grins lasciviously. „Be gentle to him, ladies."
He's so tired and almost insane that he has no energy left to feel self-conscious or ashamed. Or to lash out and swipe them all out.
„Which one is to your own liking, My Lord?" The Inquisitor turns to him with his eyes of red and gray and sneers. He makes the title sound as mockingly as it is physically possible.
A Jedi killer. He can practically hear his mother's lamentations from across the galaxy. She rushes to the first X-wing to track him down and bring him back, but a younger man, a pilot most loyal to her prevents her from the suicidal mission. She slaps him in the face and buries her fists in his chest, incidentally reading his name-tag as she does. „He is my son! My boy… Dameron!" Her husky voice breaks with rage and anguish. And then she collapses into his arms, sobbing.
Good man. Who knows what would happen had she somehow come to his side. It is too late, mother.
„The Twi'lek," he says in a hoarse voice. His feverish eyes dart from her beautiful and sad features onto another one. Pale blonde, almost silver-haired. And that's all the similarity. The woman licks her lips and beholds him in all his height and muscles. „And you. The blond girl."
The demonic laughter around him becomes an incessant howl.
„Our Master was famished all his life," Korwin laughs wildly. „Feed him well, ladies."
Inquisitor throws money at females. He doesn't spare his purse. War money. Weapons' trade. He'll bring them back to business. He'll feed the Dark Side with all his means and all energies. He'll bring them war they so craved for: he asked for it and Snoke will not fail to deliver. Dorn smacks the blonde girl's ass and she giggles lecherously, while the Twi'lek just stands there, absent-mindedly. He should probably punish Korwin and Dorn for their insolence – but he's so weary of the bloodshed. And he's not even started.
His fingers tight around woman's throat, he hisses to her face: "Kiss me."
He remembers vaguely there's a sort of unspoken agreement on non-kissing in her profession, but the sheer look of terror on her pretty face tells him she'll do whatever he demands, money or not, unspoken social agreements or not.
The feeling is as vacuous and as emotionless as he expected. He wants to extract something from her, something he knows can't be found in this place. He bites on her lower lip and draws her blood until she squirms and yelps in pain. He stops her movements, wedging his knee between her legs, crushing her hands with his. The elementary instinct of bodies pressed against each other instigates some reaction in him and in her: and the energy of her many lustful nights pours from her blood, so he quickens. One of his hands let go of her and find her opening, sufficiently moist and ready. He goes in.
He then leaves her lips and howls at the sensation of her walls closing around him. It isn't altogether unpleasant – it even brings a sort of numbness, oblivion, and a relief.
But again, the relief is short-termed.
"You'll be paid for your… damages," he barks to her dazed, flustered face. "Go to your Inquisitor and tell him I sent you."
Girl's eyes grow wider, but she quickly scrambles into her torn clothes and scurries off through the door.
Crawling on his hands and knees like an animal, he goes to Twi'lek, who lets him climb on top of her. Beautiful and sad sapphire colored eyes. He takes her oval face into his hand and inspects her.
"If you want to leave, run now," he recites again the same damn text he's been reciting the night before.
She shakes her head.
"No, it's already been paid," she says softly.
Indeed, both of them were bought for a blood-price. But she doesn't mind about the money… there is something else on play here, and he can't exactly put his finger on it. The mystery draws him in and manages to keep his thoughts at least in some kind of order and focus he lost days ago.
"Do you know Kora Rhysode of Lothal?" He howls.
"No," the female responds softly.
"She was a Jedi," he continues. This woman, this humanoid is no stranger to sorrow – her eyes now definitely inspire something in him, and now he can't let her go even if he wanted to. "She had a great potential. I killed her. She was Twi'lek, just like you."
She smiles bitterly at him, showing the set of naturally beautiful, shining teeth. "My race is especially prone to death, My Lord."
"But not you," he says to her, mesmerized for a moment with her beautiful despair.
"No, not me," she answers and sighs. The movement of her ribs and her flesh and her breasts entices him. Slowly, she wraps her legs around him and then rubs her face against his palm and sucks on his thumb until he shivers. And then she stops to look up into his eyes and to find again something that makes her speak further. "Until you prove it otherwise, My Lord."
She is desperate. Trapped. She's been living in the state of utter despair for almost her whole life. She weeps over her fate in short spans of time she's left alone. Born into the life of slavery. No one in the whole galaxy to turn to, to come back to. Just like… someone. He can't remember who. Her face disappeared from his memory in that carnage. There was a Light there, and now there's only darkness. Blood washed all of it away.
"Would you like me to kill you, Twi'lek?" He says the next most demented thing he's ever uttered in his entire existence.
She doesn't respond – at least not with words. She kisses him and this is like the new world to him. She kisses him long and gently, probably like she'd kiss her loved one had she gotten the chance. Her tender hands close around him and caress his back and his neck, detangle his unruly hair, stroke his face and his ears. She leads him to between her legs and rubs herself against him until he's stiff again. They move against each other slowly and with compassion. She's comforting him the best way she knows how – and he'll return the favor.
The blonde is completely forgotten.
When she's back to fetch her friend and kick that brute out of her bed-chamber, the Twi'lek is lying peacefully on her side. That beast is already gone. Good.
"C'mon, Sei," the blonde exclaims crudely. "Can't be that the boy has exhausted you that much. He's big, but not that big."
Blonde frowns and makes an awkward movement to avoid rubbing the soreness between her legs.
"C'mon, you Twi'lek wh*re," she yells again, irritated. She loses money because of this stupid…
But then something attracts her attention. The Twi'lek is not breathing. She is dead, lying on her side with her eyes closed and something resembling a smile of relief on her lips.
Strangled, but without visible marks.