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day 1
Protective rage erupts inside Anakin, wild and fierce as he feels his mechanical fingers close around the Zygerrian queen’s throat in a remote grip through the Force.
”My friends…” he hisses, clenching the lethal fist into a claw as she scrabbles at her throat with her long painted nails. ”Where are they?”
”Continue to misbehave…” she rasps through the invisible hold. ”…and they die.”
Horror and fear flood Anakin’s chest like ice-cold water, putting out the fire of his rage and causing his grasp on the queen’s neck to snap open. He reels backwards, stumbling until the backs of his knees hit the footboard of the bed he woke up on only seconds before, backed into a corner in the most literal sense of the expression. On the floor, the queen is curled up in a ball, coughing and wheezing from the assault before finally managing to croak out, ”Guards!”
day 2
Unyielding durasteel digs into Anakin’s wrists, flesh and metal, like freshly sharpened knifes flaying away the hide of a hapless, wounded animal. Suspended above his head and shackled by a short length of chain to the overhead canopy, numbness spreads from his palms down his forearms and slowly into the core of his being, banishing away such unwanted feelings as dread, shame and fear. It grips bitterly at his gut as after however many hours of thrashing and tugging at his bonds, he resigns himself to his current position; Forceless, helpless, stark naked and kneeling at the center of the Zygerrian queen’s bed, the same spot where he'd first come to his senses after the ill-fated showdown at the auction. Every bare patch of his skin seems to tingle and thrum uncomfortably as his bent legs press flush against the bedcovers whenever he shifts, though it is not from anything that remotely resembles excitement or anticipation of pleasure to come. Just the slight friction from the sheets, his circulation rushing to the surface in the humidity of the room, separated by what seems like a torn sheet of paper from the outer layers of his body, broken and bruised and coated in smears of dirt and sticky, dried brown-red blood.
Through the fog in his mind, it is impossible to say how much time has passed since he was beaten by the queen’s guards into submission, violently stripped of his clothing and dignity, roughed up again for good measure, and finally manhandled into Force-suppressive shackles and strung up for this humiliating display, but it is quite long enough to have made one thing unforgivably clear: the queen intends to make him wait. It must be part of his punishment, the dread, the anticipation of… what he assumes will be the main event. Or perhaps he should think of it as less of a punishment, implying an isolated occurrence, and more the opening exercise of what is sure to be a long and grueling processing into long-term servitude.
day 3
The humid heat is growing overbearing as it flows inside the room in oppressive waves through the window, raising a beads of sweat on Anakin’s exposed skin that run down his bound, benumbed arms in narrow, itching trails. His muscles ache all over from having remained in the same position for too long, his forcibly bent knees scream with soreness as he tries to arrange them into a different formation against the sheets. Each time he swallows what little saliva he has left in his mouth, the sensation is reminiscent of sharp pieces of gravel being force-fed down his throat, scraping the inside raw with tiny, thinly bleeding wounds. He only knows by the view outside that a night has come and gone, and suspects by his dimmed state of awareness that he spent most of it in that uncanny place between sleep and wakefulness, his mind swirling around in a loop of images of people touching him, long painted talons clawing at his bare skin until it broke, bleeding out a strange, metaphysical stream of nothing but hoarse screams.
There’s one word that pierces through the thickening fog in his head, loud and accusing, one word to describe his mental state, every relevant emotion he feels, every feeling he can muster the clarity of mind to apply to himself: worthless. He is back as an unwilling participant in a system that ranks people based on their perceived value and usefulness to their masters, and yet he feels utterly devoid of any real worth. Over and over, he tries to call on the Force to assist him, to help him out of his predicament – his sensitivity to the Force has always been the most useful and valued part of him, after all – without success. He has been brought down to a state of normalcy, and normalcy in his case, it seems, might as well be called non-existence.
At irregular intervals, people will commute in and out of the bedchambers without so much as sparing him a glance or acknowledging in any way his presence, much less his very conspicuous placement, in the room. Servants mostly, bringing fresh linen or decorative servings of fruit or unreachable carafes of water, or taking out something already used. They are the same as him – slaves - yet Anakin can’t help but feel more of a kinship towards the objects being carried in and out of the room. At first, he too would avert his gaze at each entrance, squirming and shrinking away from pitying eyes in misplaced anger-shame, before one careless glance told him that there never were any eyes or pity there at all, and if there were, they are already spread too thin, grown too desensitized to extend to him, the new arrival. He is not special. Hundreds, maybe thousands have preceded him on this very spot, probably forced into an identical position of degradation.
It is after this realization that a part of him starts craving the contact. Just a single, however brief glance; an observation that he is there, that he’s not invisible, that he has not already transitioned from a living thing to just being part of the furniture, an expected and normalized feature of the room. Even in his current, humiliating state, beaten to a pulp and strung up as grotesque decoration, he yearns to be seen. Even reduced to less than nothing, he longs to be recognized as such.
day 4
Four standard days pass before Anakin stoops so low as to beg for that acknowledgment, try as he might to dress it up as something else, to present himself as still being in control and not desperately desiring simple human contact, much less rescue.
”Hello. What’s your name?” he croaks through his shriveled-up vocal chords whenever a servant passes him across the room. His thirst is such a constant at this point as to have become a mere afterthought when he opens his mouth, as his true needs run deeper, far more dire and difficult to satisfy. ”Mine is Anakin. I’m a Jedi. I can help you escape far away from here. My friends and I are here on a mission, we're… we're going to free the slaves. All of them. Don’t let this… these shackles fool you, this is just part of my cover. Why don’t you give me a hand here real quick, so we can team up and raise some hell?”
Nothing. No one. The servants scurry in and out of the room, going about their duties with a glazed-over stare in their eyes, without a word of reply, without so much as a single look thrown his way.
And Anakin can sympathize. They've been here for too long; seen too much with those glassy eyes, heard enough futile petitions to last them a lifetime. Still, he’s not asking much. He already knows he's unworthy of help when he should be the one to be giving it to them. He doesn't need their eyes or other senses to tell him that he's weak and disgusting and sitting on his knees on a bed smelling of his own bodily fluids. But no one will even spare him a look so as to recognize his worthlessness.
This distinction he makes in his mind: he’s not worthless because he got caught. How many times has he been captured on a mission before? Dozens, if not hundreds. Nine times out of ten it’s nothing that warrants concern, just an inconvenient detour on the way to a hard-won victory. And he’s not even worthless because he’s tied up and naked and waiting around helplessly to be subjected to whatever further methods of degradation the queen thinks will work on him best. If he thought himself worthless because of that, what would that say about him? Is that a word he would ever use to describe the palace servants who have enough to worry about without his pitiful pleas for help, or whomever has been strung up in his place before, or those Twi’lek women dancing away for their lives under the metaphorical thumb of one Jabba the Hutt?
By assuming the identity of a slaver and acting charming and flirtatious around a being so despicable as to render the word ’scum’ both obsolete and downright flattering, he was already all but prostituting himself for the supposed good of this mission. This is just the logical culmination of that. Had this part been included in the plan from the beginning, he would have gladly volunteered if it would have meant the liberation of the Togruta slaves and downfall of the Zygerrian empire, or even just an all-important step towards that end. In fact, he finds himself wishing that the Council had demanded this from him instead of his reluctant consent to have his underage Padawan brought here and included in their sickening, doomed excuse of a plan. Dressed up in silk and gemstone for unsavory gazes to leer at in one of the evilest, most scum-filled corners of the Galaxy, like some unholy marriage between a princess doll and a crash test dummy.
No, as for the real reasons why he’s worthless, he can think of two. The first is that he let his friends down. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and Rex, but most importantly Ahsoka. Force knows what’s become of her since their capture and subsequent separation at the auction. It’s not that he isn’t worried for Obi-Wan and Rex’s sakes as well, but at least they are grown adults and trained soldiers. Ahsoka is some of those things, but at the end of the day she is still a child who really should have no business running around on battlefields and most certainly never should have been brought along on this mission or been made to play such a dangerous and visible role in their poorly thought-out ruse.
On the two occasions he’s been able to ask, his inquiries after the well-being of his friends have been met with scornful amusement and clipped, cryptic replies that boil down to ’safe, so long as you behave’ which doesn’t exactly strike Anakin as a sacred promise. But maybe, just maybe, if he plays his cards right, it could be negotiated into one. The queen seems to have a soft… wet spot for him. If she didn't, he would probably be inhabiting a very different-looking environment right now, one that would involve a lot more strain and less pins and needles on his muscles. That’s good, he tells himself. He can use those… feelings. Even if the queen's infatuation with him also ties into the other reason why he feels so worthless.
In contrast to the servants who turn their gazes away, the queen was happy to ogle at him, eat him alive with her eyes – seeing right through his cover and one by one, peeling away the layers of disguise – slaver, general, Jedi, hero, powerful, unafraid – until none remained and she could recognize him for what he really was. What he now is, again.
At least back when he was enslaved on Tatooine, everyone was always saying how special and talented he was and how blatantly he stuck out from the crowd, and even if he’d never really believed them, let alone developed any sort of superiority complex around that, supposedly it was that very special-ness that had eventually caught the eye of one Qui-Gon Jinn, and the rest is history.
Now the reverse has happened. He already rose above his station once, went from being Nothing to being Something. He may have worn the trappings of a Jedi, the confidence of a war general, but he never quite shed that core identity of a slave instilled in him during those formative years, continuing to drag it around like a ball and chain on his leg. The queen was observant enough to recognize that in him, and that’s why he’s here now, back where he belongs.
day ?
Sleep evades him like a profound understanding of the Force, or even just a distant flicker of it, in his current circumstances. Full wakefulness is nothing short of an utopian pipe dream, even as Anakin keeps falling in and out of some semblance of consciousness, varying states of alertness to his stagnant reality.
The rings of durasteel cut deeper into his deadened flesh wrist as he adjusts his position, eliciting some kind of phantom reaction even in his metal one. His entire body is locked in a deep-set state of numbness and discomfort, but to keep his mind distracted, he keeps picturing in excruciating detail things like blotches of dried, still-sticky blood stinging and prickling at his skin and mixing with sweat and probably tears, if he could produce them. He can no longer smell his own urine or describe with any measure of accuracy the things he hears, let alone gain any sort of purchase on the thoughts that flit in and out of his head much like the palace servants, whom he now suspects might have indeed been but products of his mind all along.
At long last, the queen returns to see him; cutting a swaying, would-be seductive figure against the light that flows in from the open doorway. Through the haze in his brain, Anakin finds a sick sense of appreciation for her body language. A captor trying to seduce her prisoner. A slaver putting the moves on her latest acquisition. It's like a predator cleaning its teeth with mouthwash before sinking them into the flesh of its prey.
At least the wait is over. A part of him is relieved, even glad, just to be in the prolonged physical presence of another person. Unless she, too, is but a figment of his imagination. He can’t quite decide whether that would be better or worse.
”Where are my friends? Where are Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Rex?” Anakin demands in a raw, barely-there wheeze which he is surprised he can even grind out after days without a drop of water, and yet is still horrified at the sound of it. Not the raspy quality of it, which is to be expected, but rather the mechanical, defeated tone, as though he’s not expecting a serious answer to the question, anymore. Like he’s just going through the motions of asking at this point. If his hands were free and functioning, he’s not even sure he could summon any worthwhile measure of anger to try and choke the answer out of her again with.
Honestly, he’s not sure he’s even inhabiting a reality where an Obi-Wan and an Ahsoka and a Rex exist. Maybe he just imagined them too. Maybe he never left slavery and was bought from Watto by a procurer from Zygerria at an undetermined point in time and his life as a Jedi is but a pathetic fantasy he constructed in his head. It's only slightly more ambitious than his other hallucinations, such as occasionally having company in the room.
”Why, I missed you too, my little misbehaving pet,” the queen’s accented voice sneers, sing-song, as she approaches his cushioned cage.
If he ever was a Jedi, he certainly isn’t that anymore. A Jedi’s question would be treated seriously. He’s just a slab of meat strung up for drying; a warm, barely moving composition of flesh and blood and hair, most of it hanging out in limp clumps over what feels like far outside of his own body.
”Just tell me what I need to do to save them,” he slurs out a desperate plea anyway as she sits down on the bed to stroke his cheek. ”Please. I’ll do anything.”
”Yes, you will,” the queen replies nonchalantly as her hand trails down the contours of his chest. ”If I wish it. Your friends have no part in that arrangement.”
At this chilling assertion, Anakin musters up the energy to lift his head. ”There has to be something I can do.”
”Hm,” she says after a pause of consideration. ”I must say, I am disappointed. I was hoping some time alone would give you some much-needed perspective and clarity as to your current standing in my court. But alas, you are still as stubborn and deluded as ever. If and when I do let your friends go, it will be as a personal favor to my loyal servant and willing companion, not as a part of some reluctantly struck bargain.”
Horror seizes Anakin as the beginnings of what must be that much-needed clarity start to sink in, ”So you’re saying that… in order to save them… I have to… want to serve you. I have to… want to stay.”
It is this realization along with the queen’s curt nod of confirmation that breaks Anakin out of his stupor and sends him into a rampage. He finds the strength in his muscles again, twisting wildly against his shackles, snarling through his teeth and struggling and struggling until there’s no struggle left in him and then longer still.
”Better,” the queen observes. ”Give it a week or two and you will fit right in here.”
With that, she turns on her high heel and leaves him there, panting and despairing.
day ?
A gulp of water is a personal favor, and so is the occasional chance to relieve himself in a dignified manner. Getting to sleep in a different position should also be considered a gracious gesture of goodwill from her highness.
Hours continue to stretch into days and days turn into nights, a lonely pale moon replacing the orange sunset on the horizon each evening as Anakin watches the passage repeat itself from the window facing him and waits for the next kindness.
day ?
For the first time since landing himself in this nightmare, Anakin’s thoughts drift to Padmé, and he is disgusted with himself. How can he do this to his wife? How can he be doing this – whatever is going on down there, because he can’t bear to think about it – to anyone other than his wife?
Padmé. Although Anakin’s regained much of the mental clarity that would slip away from him during the first stage of this exercise, making him doubt the existence of his friends among other things, he now begins to loop back into that particular brand of insanity. Was there ever a Padmé in his life? Did he just dream up their reunion? Her confession of love minutes prior to what is rapidly falling to the spot of the second most significant arena showdown in his life?
He must have, at least that last part, because surely there isn’t a woman in the whole wide galaxy capable of such a feat.
”Mmmm…” the queen moans into his skin.
day ?
As the days float by and his solitary hours stretch longer and lonelier; slowly, insidiously, he begins to look forward to the queen’s daily, occasionally less frequent, visits. He finds himself craving her attention, relishing her small gestures of grace. Even just a single word from her lips, a passing glance of eye contact, even her demeaning remarks and patronizing reassurances of better times to come, a future of mutual devotion. He leans into her touches, gazes blandly into her eyes, and when he speaks, the sound of his voice is even and pleasant. And though he knows on some level that this must have all been a conscious psychological strategy to earn his gratitude, to render him receptive to her attentions and compliant to her whims, he is too far gone to care.
Maybe, if he just surrenders himself to the feeling, lets it fill him up little by little without resisting; maybe, before long, he will actually want to stay, just like she wants, and then Obi-Wan and Ahsoka and Rex will go free.
day ?
It is not the delicate clack of heels from the doorway that breaks his solitude that morning, but a sharp collective gasp.
”Anakin!”
If he’s hallucinating again, he’s hallucinating them in impressively accurate detail. Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Rex stand in the doorway, rooted to the spot in what looks like frozen shock on their faces. They look like they’ve been through hell, but have come out on the other side all the more strong and powerful for it. Not like him.
He’s not ashamed or embarrassed or even relieved.
In that moment, what he is is seen. Seen as he really is.