Chapter Text
Anakin was having trouble breathing.
He wasn’t sure which emotion was strangling him so badly— the incandescent anger Ahsoka’s presence had provoked in him, the absolute fury at seeing her treated like— no. At seeing her be enslaved. The fear, because he wasn’t too proud yet to admit that it was there, bubbling under the surface, panic right alongside it because he was supposed to protect her and he didn’t know how.
Anakin was well aware that these were very un-Jedi like emotions. He knew they were clouding his judgment. He knew that a better Jedi than him would release them into the Force, focus on the mission, and would not fantasize about giving their padawan a real dressing down somewhere safer than this.
And oh, Ahsoka was going to kriffing get it as soon as they were out of here. And thinking about that, the fact that she’d snuck away with them after everything he and Obi-Wan had risked to try and spare her of this— the arrogance and impulsiveness required to pull a stunt like this was beyond what Anakin had even imagined Ahsoka capable of. And the thought of that set off the fury anew.
His blood boiled. His throat tightened. He wanted to hurt something. Not Ahsoka, never Ahsoka, because no matter how angry he was with her he would never stoop to that level, would never hurt those he’d sworn to protect. But the anger in him needed an outlet or it would burn him from the inside out.
The Zygerrian queen. Or the minister who had eyed Ahsoka in the throne room. They were worthy targets for his rage, but to his deep chagrin he needed them to find the colonists. And if he played his hand too early, Ahsoka would be trapped here— or worse, sold or taken off world.
The thought sent a new wave of panic racing down his spine. He forced a breath in through his teeth, trying and failing to steady himself, Anakin would tear the galaxy apart to find her if that happened. Kriff the Order, kriff the war. Padmé would understand, there was no risk there. But the things that could happen to Ahsoka before he managed to find her— it was unthinkable.
No. Blowing their cover had quickly ceased to become an option, and with it Anakin’s preferred if already risky backup plan of fighting their way out. There was no other way, not if he wanted to keep Ahsoka safe; not to mention Cody and Rex.
How was it that Obi-Wan had expected this and Anakin hadn’t? This entire world should be his wheelhouse, he should know these people inside and out. One Depur was just like another; there was a reason they were all the same in the Stories. He’d been foolish, he’d failed to remember. And somehow Obi-Wan had.
It had taken enough self control to let Obi-Wan and Rex go when Anakin had presented them as offerings to the queen. He’d known what fate awaited them then, but it was one thing to know and push to the back of his mind so he could try and concentrate on his part in the mission and another to see his old master bruised and bloodied with his own two eyes.
And another thing altogether to know he had to contribute to it.
Anakin knew the look Obi-Wan was giving him right now, knew exactly what his old master was trying to communicate to him, despite the force-suppressing cuffs hindering their bond. It’s okay. We discussed this. Don’t worry about me.
The truth of the matter was that Anakin had never actually intended on following through on his promise to Obi-Wan. What was worse was that Obi-Wan probably knew that. What would he think of Anakin now? Could he feel Ahsoka here, her force signature normally so bright and familiar, now dampened with fear? Did he know why Anakin would do what he was about to?
He thought through it again, rolled the backup plan over in his mind, and knew that it was hopeless. Even if he had a saber for Ahsoka hidden in Artoo, she was still collared and they’d shock her to the ground in an instant; same with Rex and Obi-Wan. Anakin was good, but he couldn’t fight off an arena full of guards by himself. Not with his best friends and his padawan so firmly under their thumb.
They don’t know who she is to me, he reasoned, a little desperately. He was certain if they did it would be her kneeling before him, not Obi-Wan. But it wouldn’t matter. The second he started to fight back Ahsoka would join him, and if they didn’t know who she was now they certainly would then.
There was no way around it. Panic crawled in his throat. He felt lightheaded, mouth dry, ears ringing.
Without meaning to, his eyes found Ahsoka’s. She was staring down from the queen’s box. It was too far away to make out her expression but he felt her horror, her fear. He remembered how her hands shook as she had poured his drink.
It was her fear that drove him, in the end. It sparked anger in his chest, because how dare she be scared, how dare she judge him for how he would save her life. It was not her place, it was not her right, she should be safe back on the Resolute and instead she was here in this hell where Anakin could not protect her.
Obi-Wan pushed something gentle across their bond and it nearly broke him in two. Instead, Anakin brought his arm down.
The crowd roared in approval. Obi-Wan barely grimaced, though Anakin knew the pain had to be excruciating. And yet, he still managed to flash Anakin a quick field sign with his fingers.
Again.
Anakin followed his command. One, two, three more times, and that had to be sufficient because Obi-Wan was nearly passed out and Anakin could not make himself focus on the carnage he had caused. He looked instead up at the queen.
He found Ahsoka instead. He didn’t need to see her eyes to know that they were wide and welling with tears. In any other circumstance this would trigger something primal and protective in him; today all he had to give was anger.
You caused this, he thought, spitefully. Do you understand now? Do you see?
Ahsoka turned away, back to the queen, his original target. She was stroking her finger down Ahsoka’s right lek, looking down at Anakin approvingly. However mad he was at Ahsoka, it was nothing compared to how he felt about the queen.
Anakin had never wanted to strangle someone so badly in his life.
(He imagined it then, indulged himself for one brief exquisite second. The delicate feeling of her throat crushing under the Force and his fingertips, the life slowly, luxuriously leaving her body. Fear, panic and pain all melding into one and then nothingness.)
He would go back to the balcony, watch over this abomination and do nothing for the sake of the mission. He would watch Obi-Wan and Rex be dragged away to Force-knew-where, with no concrete plan in place to find either of them.
He would sit beside Ahsoka as she poured him another drink, her Force signature dredged in pain and fear and confusion.
Anakin knew he should summon her to his rooms once the event was over. The queen had practically told him to; it was an easy cover on that front to keep her safe. But every time he so much as looked over at her anger threatened to drown him from the inside out.
He should summon her. He should push his emotions aside, out into the Force, and keep his padawan safe in the best manner available to him.
But what if she needed keeping safe from him?
The thought was not sobering. It actually scared him more than he wanted to admit, how completely out of control he felt. How he couldn’t actually guarantee he wouldn’t take it out on Ahsoka if she was in front of him and they were alone.
The queen, on the other hand… well, at least if he snapped while alone with her she would deserve it.
One way or another, he was going to get some answers.
Ahsoka wanted to throw up.
She understood now, more fully than she had before, why Anakin had been so insistent in keeping her away from this mission. She had never thought he would be capable of– of what he’d just done.
Ahsoka understood that it had been necessary to keep their covers intact, that refusing would’ve put them all in a more compromising position. That Master Obi-Wan was probably in on it to begin with, had probably told Anakin to do what he had to do before the mission even started.
None of that helped ease the fear in Ahsoka’s racing mind as Master Obi-Wan was dragged back under the arena along with the governor. He looked nearly unconscious. Anakin made his way back up to the balcony, expression tight and hard.
His face was splattered with Master Obi-Wan’s blood. He made no move to wipe it away.
The rest of the auction passed slowly. Ahsoka could barely keep herself present enough to follow the queen’s subtle, unspoken demands. Anakin was not looking at her at all. The low vibration of suffering in the arena had crept from her under skin to her ears and her skull. It was miserable and nauseating.
Finally, finally the auction finished and Ahsoka was dismissed. A guard— a real one, not Cody— escorted her back to the slave quarters under the palace. Ahsoka had been expecting it to be the same as how she’d left it a few hours ago; sparse but bustling.
Instead, there was a crowd cramped into the small quarters, a sort of semi-circle forming around some center Ahsoka couldn’t see. But then a cry of pain rang out through the stone room, a collective wave of fear and disgust following in the Force.
Ahsoka pushed her way to the front of the crowd. It wasn’t hard— there still weren’t all that many people, and none of them objected to their view being obstructed. As soon as she got a look, she understood why.
Tivva, the girl who had led Ahsoka to the arena, was lying face down on the floor, shivering. A guard stood over her, electrowhip poised for what looked like another strike.
“Hey!” Ahsoka cried. She didn’t even think— for a minute she forgot where she was, who she was supposed to be pretending to be. Instincts that had been instilled in her since before she could walk took over. When she jumped between the electrowhip and the slave, she was a Jedi.
When the whip came down on her raised arm, she was reminded of just who she was pretending to be. Of who she— maybe was.
She didn’t cry out; she’d gained just enough awareness to grit her teeth against it, but it hurt. Her show of grit might’ve been more impressive if she’d managed to fend off a snapping kick to the back of her legs that sent her knees crashing to the floor.
Another snap of the electrowhip, this one against her back, had her gasping for air.
“Looks like someone volunteered for a little entertainment,” the guard sneered. There were two now, one in front of her and one behind. If Ahsoka wasn’t undercover, if she could use the Force, if she didn’t have the stupid collar around her neck… it wouldn’t even be a contest. They’d be on their shebs before three seconds were up.
But Ahsoka was undercover, she couldn’t use the Force, and she did have the stupid shock collar on her neck. And if she beat these two, what then? She had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She was stuck here.
Ahsoka sort of wished she’d thought of all that before diving in front of the electrowhip, though she still wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have done it anyway.
“She didn’t do anything,” Ahsoka protested, though she realized as she said it that she actually had no idea if that was true or not. Not that anything Tivva could’ve done would warrant this, but still. Ahsoka could feel the guard behind her still leering over Tivva’s unmoving form.
At that, both guards laughed. And the one behind her gave her a jab with his electroprod for good measure. Ahsoka swallowed the pain down, trying to force the tears welling involuntarily in her eyes back down.
“Did she, now?” the guard in front said. He sounded amused. Ahsoka felt a bright flare of anger in her chest, which only doubled when the guard snapped his whip down on Tivva again.
Tivva groaned in pain but didn’t open her eyes. Her shirt was stained blue with blood. It took everything in Ahsoka to not grab the whips out of the guards hands with the Force, but she knew now if she did she’d only be condemning both Tivva and herself to a worse situation than she’d already put them in.
There is no emotion, there is peace, she thought, a little desperately. No emotion, just—
The whip snapped down again, and this time Ahsoka was too focused on her meditation to keep a gasp from slipping out.
“Maybe this’ll teach you to mind your own business,” the guard in front of her said with another snap of the whip, a burst of electricity following.
“Watch it,” the other guard grumbled. “Molec wanted her face untouched.”
Ahsoka’s head was spinning. Sparks seemed to be racing up and down her spine even after the whip left it, leaving her limbs shaking uncontrollably.
“Have you had enough, skug?” the guard above her taunted.
Answering either way seemed entirely too dangerous, so Ahsoka kept her mouth shut. It turned out that was a dangerous decision too, because the whip came down again, harder than before.
“I asked you a question,” the guard snarled, though it was clear he was deriving some sort of sick pleasure from torturing her.
“I–” Ahsoka stuttered, but not quickly enough, because the whip hit again and again and again, each strike more painful than the last.
“Clearly not,” the guard said, snapping the whip through his fingers, something coppery and orange flicking off the ends.
Oh right. Her blood.
“I’m– I’m sorry,” Ahsoka gasped.
Wrong answer again. The whip hit her legs this time, which should’ve been a relief– new, unmarred skin— but instead hurt worse than before, her muscles twitching with the electricity coursing through them.
“Why are you sorry, little slave?” the guard in front of her taunted. “You should be thanking us for showing you your place, since you seem to have forgotten.”
Ahsoka breathed in raggedly, then out. She had never felt the pull of anything other than the light, but she had never once before felt the urge to hurt somebody like she wanted to hurt them—
Tivva moaned in pain on the floor beside her, and Ahsoka came back to herself. She had gotten them in this situation, and it was up to her to get them out of it. The guards were waiting, goading almost, daring her to say the wrong thing. To try, fruitlessly, to resist. Fighting back, fighting for what was right, standing up for herself and those around her were convictions that Ahsoka held in her very soul. And yet, in this moment, she knew that they were worse than useless. She was nothing here. Worse than nothing.
Ahsoka swallowed down her pride. It took every ounce of conviction she had, and something deep inside her seemed to crack irrevocably with it.
Was she really so weak? One good beating and she would abandon who she was? Her sense of self gone over a little pain?
But Tivva was still twitching weakly on the ground. Ahsoka had never witnessed abuse like this before, but she wasn’t sure how much more of it Tivva would survive. Maybe it was worth it, leaving herself behind, if she and Tivva made it to tomorrow.
“Thank you, Masters,” Ahsoka croaked out. It was easier, at least, to keep her eyes deferentially down than to look at them as she debased herself for their amusement.
And amused they were. Ahsoka could feel it in the Force, could feel too the mild disappointment that she had not held out longer. It seemed they found more enjoyment out of torturing an unruly subject into submission than a compliant one.
The whip still cracked down, but it was her back and not Tivva’s. She swallowed down the shout of pain that came with it.
“You’ll have to be more specific. We do so much for you, after all.”
There is no emotion, there is peace, Ahsoka repeated to herself, even as her heart spiked in righteous anger. She forced a deep breath into her lungs, forcing out the whirlwind of emotion buried in her chest.
There was no peace— just emptiness. But it was better than the pain and the anger, at least.
“Thank you for showing me my place, Masters,” she said, her voice unwavering.
Apparently, she had chosen the right thing to say, because the guards only flicked one small final strike of the whip to the back of her thighs. A warning.
“And don’t forget it, skug,” one said, spitting on the floor by her hands.
And then they were gone, and Ahsoka’s body gave up. One moment she was still kneeling, the next her arms had given into their shaking and her face was pressed against the cool stone floor, slippery with tears and something hot and slick dripping down her hand. The pain was— immense. Her body was trembling, from the pain or the phantom sparks that seemed to even now race up and down her spine, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that the world had narrowed, and she wanted nothing to do with it.
Something touched her arm, the one not dripping with— blood. Blood. Ahsoka flinched, but the grip around it only tightened. Vision blurry but desperate, Ahsoka searched the Force, trying to find the intention of whoever was grabbing onto her. There was exasperation, a little disappointment, but no malice, so Ahsoka stopped fighting. Not that she had that much fight left in her to begin with.
“Foolish girl,” someone sighed, and someone else grabbed her other arm, pulling her toward the edge of the room. She was sat down. It took a lot of effort to keep her head from rolling, but she thought she managed it.
Someone handed her a cup of water, guided it towards her lips. Ahsoka drank, not realizing how dry and hoarse her throat had become.
“Thank you,” she choked out. Blinked hard, tried to clear the spins from her vision. The voice sighed again. It was Asara, Ahsoka realized, the older twi’lek woman.
“Don’t do that again,” she said, guiding the water towards Ahsoka’s mouth again. Ahsoka didn’t argue. The next words from Asara’s mouth sounded garbled, it took Ahsoka too long to realize she’d spoken in Ryl, not basic. The presence on her other side disappeared, pressing something into Asara’s hands.
A rag, stained orange. Her arm was dry. They’d cleaned up the blood.
“Is Tivva—” Ahsoka started. Asara’s grip tightened suddenly, long nails digging into the flesh of Ahsoka’s arm. It hurt, but it was a different sort of hurt, grounding.
“Alive,” Asara said, though her voice was flat. “No thanks to you. They might’ve left her alone if you hadn’t jumped in.”
Ahsoka swallowed, guilt and fear bubbling in her stomach. If Tivva had died because of her, because she hadn’t thought—
“’m sorry,” Ahsoka said. Asara’s grip lessened a touch. Ahsoka almost missed it.
“Don’t do it again,” she repeated. “You should rest.”
She stood, letting go of Ahsoka for good. As she started to walk away, a spark of something flickered in Ahsoka’s consciousness.
Molec wants her face untouched.
“Asara,” she called. The other woman turned.
“Who’s Molec?” Ahsoka asked.
Asara’s force signature dipped, suddenly slippery with fear. She bit her lip.
“I’m sorry,” she said. It sounded sincere.
She turned again, walked away, and Ahsoka’s tenuous grip on her consciousness fell away.
It wasn’t quite sleeping— it wasn’t peaceful enough for that. Time passed in odd flashes.
Everything hurt. Her arms, her legs, her head, her montrals. Her lekku, which were more sensitive than the rest of her skin, absolutely burned the few places the whip had caught them. Dreams came uneasily, swirling confusingly and disappearing again.
She woke to something shaking her arm. Blinking her way back into some sort of awareness was more difficult than she’d anticipated. It was impossible to tell the time in the stone underbelly of the compound where no light could reach, but most people seemed to be asleep. It must be night, evening at least.
Ahsoka didn’t recognize the girl shaking her arm. It was a human, her age or a little older, a grim expression on your face.
“Quell asked for you,” she said. For half a second Ahsoka’s heart seized, then she remembered the queen had called Anakin by that name. Quell was Anakin. He’d sent for her.
Half of her would almost rather take another round with the electrowhips. The other half of her, the childish, desperate half screamed in relief. Anakin would be angry but he’d keep her safe. He always kept her safe.
Ahsoka nodded, pushing herself up off the bunk she’d been deposited on. Her whole body ached, pain shooting through her muscles as she slid onto her feet.
It was time to face Anakin.