Chapter Text
You've been called a lot of different names.
Little One. Twi. Tooka. Kali. Tail-Head. Princess.
Slave.
Your name is Kaliv'ida, and you've been a slave for as long as you can remember.
You don't know your exact age, but you know that you are old enough to work, and— for at least a couple of years now— old enough to reproduce. Your work is different now; not work at all, a more appropriate term is torture.
Your most recent master decided that Twi'leks make rather boring slaves once their estrus phase ends, and he'd had enough of you. He sold you to some slaver who is taking you offworld to auction you away in a market— on Zygerria, you guess. You're glad to be leaving; this master had you chipped, and now the chip is gone. You only regret that you didn't say goodbye to the other slaves before you left.
In the cramped, dark holding cell, you listen to muffled conversation on the deck above. Beside you, your cellmate shifts in her sleep; her lekku twitch as if in response to a nightmare.
You keep having nightmares, too- hence why you're still awake, wringing your hands in your skirt and asking the universe to be merciful.
You and Teeubov'en have only known each other for a day or so, but both of you are Twi'leks, and both of you are enslaved, and neither of you know where you are going, and therefore: you are sisters.
She wakes with a gasp, and you rest your blue hand on her pink forehead. You assure her that it was only a bad dream, that her next master might be kind, that we must hold on to what little hope we have; for even if they seem to have taken everything, no slaver can take what's in our hearts.
Teeubov'en cries. She's older than you, but was only enslaved just recently. It happened with little warning: her freedom gone overnight. She misses her parents, her siblings; and all you can do is hold her as she sobs.
It's always scary to be sold, even when you do want to leave your old master. While you soothe Teeubov'en, you are also soothing yourself. How can you be so sure that whoever buys you this time will not be even less merciful?
The darkness of the cell retreats to become stark shadows against the wall, as bright light emerges from the doorway. The ship has landed on the planet, and the slavers are ready to take you and your sister to market.
So this is Zygerria, radiant in all its garish glory. You must have been here before, unless the planet in your blurry memory was Ryloth.
The slavers push you and Teeubov'en along. You present yourselves on the stage and watch people pass by. They know what is happening, and they do nothing to stop it.
The cries of the auctioneer begin, as a crowd gathers to gawk and stare and consider what they're interested in spending their credits on. You keep your head up; you keep looking forward.
Teeubov'en is sold first, and she looks back at you as she's ushered down the steps into the grasp of a Hutt clan member. Your heart breaks for her.
Now you watch the crowd, waiting for the human and the Zygerrian to finish their bidding for you. Zygerrians tend to be more dangerous than humans. Yet, the human is more likely to traffick you sooner. The human may abandon you on some planet you've never visited before, where you don't speak the language or know the culture.
The human's final bid is higher; he makes deliberate eye contact with you and smirks. He shamelessly lets his gaze linger down the rest of your body as the auctioneer finalizes the transaction.
You descend the stairs and follow him to his starship; you don't look back.
Immediately after boarding, your new torturer gets the engine started. He tells you that he wants to get to know you better; once the ship is out of orbit, he'll have automatic pilot on for most of the trip. In the meantime, he lets you clean yourself up in the vacc tube closet, and you enjoy this respite, ever so brief, while you can.
When the man still hasn't emerged from the cockpit, you're curious how much time has elapsed. You stay where you are, remembering that he told you that he would come down to join you. Considering his enthusiasm before, you wonder what's taking him so long—not that you mind this moment of safety and solitude.
A sudden force, from outside the starship, knocks you against the wall. You slide to the floor and grab the vacc tube, hold on tight, as a barrage of thuds shakes your very skeletal system.
You steady your breathing as the ship stops rocking, and you tentatively stand up, pressing your hand against the wall in preparation for any more shaking. Your other hand rubs your tchun, then your tchin, reminding you that you're alive. The quiet stillness is interrupted by shouts, then several blaster shots.
Your new owner might be dead now, which makes you free, you suppose, but the idea isn't comforting; are these enemies of his going to kill you too?
Footsteps come closer and closer to the door, and someone knocks. You remain silent.
From behind the door, a voice announces something in Galactic Basic. He says that they killed the pilot, who claimed that there was one other living organism on the ship: a Twi'lek slave. You should come out now, or else they'll have to destroy you with the ship.
You open the door.
Two stormtroopers greet you by lowering their blasters. One of them chuckles about how he thought they would have to blast down the door. You look at them nervously, wondering what's next for you.
They tell you to follow them back to their TIE shuttle. As you walk behind them, they continue their conversation, talking about you as if you aren't even there.
You recognize the name Vader. These stormtroopers are working for the Emperor's Fist, the Emperor's own... body guard? You aren't sure what Darth Vader is, exactly, just that he's very powerful and extremely dangerous.
And it seems that these stormtroopers want to give Vader a gift. As a joke.
You don't see the humor in it.
They're talking to you, now. They guess you haven't met Darth Vader, have you, well you'll be meeting him soon. One of them tells you: there are rumors that Lord Vader can read minds. The other says: he can kill people without touching them, I've seen it myself. The stormtroopers look at each other. Silence falls.
They lead you from the passenger pod to the cockpit and they crack a few jokes about whose lap you'll sit in during the flight, but ultimately they let you have the passenger pod all to yourself.
You sit on a viewportside bench and fasten your acceleration strap. For most of the trip, you stare out the viewport, watching as the deserted pirate ship shrinks with the distance until it eventually vanishes from your line of sight.
The stormtrooper co-piloting enters from the cockpit to offer you a travel biscuit. Apparently he opened the package expecting to eat both biscuits, but now that he's eaten one of them, he's satisfied. Do you want the other one?
You haven't eaten in a few hours; you accept the biscuit and offer the man your thanks.
After the co-pilot returns to the cockpit, the ship begins to approach a very large Star Destroyer. The pilot comms in to let the crew prepare for the TIE shuttle's arrival.
When you and the troopers land in the hangar of the Devastator, they remind you that you are to see Darth Vader. He isn't here in the hangar, they inform you; at this hour, he's usually in his meditation chamber, so hopefully you'll catch him in a good mood.
As you exit the ship and descend the boarding ramp, you can't help but notice the astonishing difference between the interior of the TIE shuttle and the interior of this enormous Star Destroyer. Both are official Imperial ships, and both have the same muted color scheme, but on the Devastator, everything is so spread out. You wonder how far you'll have to walk to get to Vader's meditation chamber.
You aren't left to wonder for very long: swiftly, a man in a grey-green uniform strides toward the two stormtroopers, barking some orders in a language you don't understand. The stormtroopers respond in Basic that they destroyed the ship they were tracking, but the pilot must have spent all his stolen credits on... you.
You make timid eye contact with the commander, and he gives you an unimpressed glance-over. He turns his attention back to your captors, looking at them sternly. He asks them what they plan on doing with you, and they respond that they're taking you to Lord Vader.
Without so much as a change of expression, the officer indicates to his subordinates to get on it, then, and make it quick. There's documentation to be filed about the stolen credits, no matter what Vader decides to do with this Twi'lek.
So the troopers usher you along to a turbolift, and this is the first time you've been on a spacecraft with a lift. Gentle instrumental music plays through a speaker in the wall, and for a moment you forget to be afraid.
The turbolift stops just before the topmost level of the ship, and the troopers lead you down a long corridor with a transparisteel wall, through which you can see the hangar far below. The people down there look so small, and from this angle, you can observe nearly everything that's happening in the hangar. You vaguely hope that you'll be able to linger in this corridor later, once you've met your new master and been situated.
In the meantime, you continue following the stormtroopers to the end of the corridor and through the entryway to a room, in which they stop. This is it, they tell you, just wait here for him. You can tell him that you're a gift, the one says, to which the other adds brazenly: For his personal pleasure. This comment garners a smack on the arm from the other trooper.
What, he needs to get laid! We're all thinking it!
The doorway shuts behind them, leaving you alone to wait in the low-lit, empty room. Well, not entirely empty; in the middle of the room, there's a black, hexagonal box that's large enough to hold a Wookie, and along the wall adjacent to you, there is a stack of uncomfortable-looking chairs. Behind the black box, on the opposite wall, is a closed door.
You decide to take down the top chair from the stack, and note that yes, the chairs are just as hard as you suspected.
You realize, staring around the room, that you weren't given an estimated time of arrival for Vader. You have no idea how long you have to wait, or even where he is, except that he must still be in his meditation chamber, which must be through that closed door on the other wall.
You decide to get up and take a look for yourself.
You lean your ear cone against the door and don't hear anything; you crouch down and peer underneath the door, seeing only darkness. There must not be anyone in there, you figure, turning back to stare at the big hexagonal box in the middle of the room. You notice the steps that lead up to the box and deduce that this door must be to a closet, while the box could very well be the chamber in which Darth Vader is meditating.
You return to the uncomfortable chair and slowly sit down, staring at the box—or rather, meditation chamber. You've never seen Darth Vader in person, and you aren't sure what to expect, and that —not knowing— is what scares you the most.
Not knowing anything about how true the rumors are, you have to prepare for the worst. Not knowing if he'll be happy to receive you, you have to be ready to face his annoyance, his anger, even his brutality.
But now you're just scaring yourself.
Based on what the stormtrooper said earlier, Lord Vader hasn't been intimate with anyone in a long time, perhaps months, even years. But then, for all they know, he may simply not be interested. When you first reached maturity, a Chiss man gifted you to his nephew for his seventeenth birthday. Your master publicly pretended that he enjoyed the gift, but admitted privately to you that he had no interest in sex whatsoever, and he would treat you as a friend. Perhaps Lord Vader would be like that. If so, you hope to spend more years in his ownership than you did in the young Chiss man's, who died of an aggressive illness.
You will find out soon enough how Lord Vader will receive you, if the sounds emerging from the hexagonal chamber are any indication. The middle of the chamber clicks, then the top rises with a hiss, as if releasing pressure. The bright white interior surprises you.
You immediately rise to meet the large black figure that erupts from the chamber. The figure passes you briefly, then stops.
A hiss of oxygen breaks the silence, and Darth Vader turns to face you.