Work Text:
“What to do…” Satine muses to herself as she stares down at a trussed Asajj Ventress knelt before her. She was awfully pretty down there snarling and gnashing her teeth at anyone who got even a hair too close.
Sharp blue eyes zero in on the Duchess standing atop her dais. Rage clouds them at their yellowed edges. A drop of spittle lands just a few feet short of the Duchess’s toes.
“How dare you!” The offense at being bound propelled Asajj forward and she was just as quickly stopped by the short leash of the energy cuffs. Her pride lay smoldering and crumpled on the ground beside her body as she shrieked and struggled.
“Calm yourself.” The level voice of a high born-lady floated down from her elevated perch. “The Death Watch want my throne. The Republic wants my planet. It’s my understanding you are familiar with both. You will only be kept in cuffs long enough to hear my proposal. After that, your choices are your own.”
Asajj’s shoulders rattled and shook in time with her heaving breaths. The flailing had ceased but no one present truly knew for how long. For the moment she was all ears.
“Help me defend my home from the Death Watch, if the Republic provides aid they will demand my allegiance in return.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“For you? You’re on the run, is my understanding. In exchange I offer you protection on Mandalore, a life among my people and freedom from the shadows for the first time in your life.”
“So in exchange for me defending your people you offer for your people to defend me?” A huff of laughter slipped from Asajj’s lips. “I think I’ll take my chances with the rest of the galaxy this seems like it’s more pain than it’s worth.”
“You know Kenobi?” The mention of his name caught Asajj’s attention once more. “He and I… well. We were once…” Satine rose, and moved closer to the woman on the floor, the dignified Lady struggled to find the words. “I loved him once, and he left me. You and he are familiar?” Satine knelt before Asajj. “Don’t you want your revenge?”
“We must force them to surrender.”
“They have completely different ideals and every single one of them wants you dead.”
“We do not kill our own!”
“They are not your brothers in arms. From what I have heard here in this room, the Death Watch soldiers on Concord Dawn are at best misogynistic men who take pleasure in beating the weak, and at worst they are rapists.”
“I… I have fought for peace on this planet. My pacifistic beliefs are the backbone of my policy as a galactic leader! What is left of me if I go back on my word?”
“Pacifism is a privilege.” Asajj’s sharp words meant to cut.
“Says the murderer.”
The words are muttered barely audible, and if Asajj had no proficiency with the Force, she would have missed them. Her jaw ticks with the strain of being clenched for far too long.
“Your insistence on there being no bloodshed cripples us.” Her pointed brow contorted itself into a frown as she stared at the map before her. They were outmatched and outgunned yet still the lady demanded a bloodless outcome.
“I will not sacrifice my beliefs.”
“Everyone around you sacrifices their beliefs every day. You can’t expect me to be able to help you with one hand tied behind my back!” Angry now, but showing an honestly commendable effort in her restraint Asajj slammed one hand and only one into the table, pieces representing each side rattled and shook as flickers of electricity sparked the datapads surrounding her.
One bolt struck a particularly old hand carved mythosaur figurine and a small curl of smoke trickled its way up to the vaulted ceilings of the grandiose meeting room. The paintings on the ceilings alone had to cost millions of credits. Asajj looked around the room as each piece of furniture, each ornate rug, formed into credit balances before her eyes.
The Duchess did not understand. The Duchess had no sense of consequences, she had lived in a world of yes all her life. A world of luxury.
“I am not everyone, do what you must but no blood is to be spilled here on Mandalore,” and with that, the Duchess stood from the table and left the council to bicker amongst themselves.
She had never gotten her hands dirty in her life. Those pale pristine hands don’t know how to make hard decisions. They are fingers built for a future, a future far brighter and more vibrant than the one Asajj was deserving of.
“No… no you are not everyone.” Asajj turned her eyes back to the unsolvable conundrum before her, as a solution formed itself behind her eyes.
Hand-tiled floors artisans had spent decades perfecting, smeared with the filth of death as it dripped from her very being.
Asajj was sure-footed as she made her way down the halls of the Sundari Royal Palace splotches and smears of coagulating red left in her wake. The blood would dry soon, and then it would flake from her robes and the dust of it would blind her once more.
She needed a shower.
“What have you done?” Moonlight shone through the window illuminating Satine Kyrze, who was for once not in her usual regalia clearly having just been pulled from her sleep. Her blonde hair braided and slightly unkempt from sleep. Her feet were bare and she was dressed only in a nightgown and shawl.
“I did what was needed.” The crusted blood on Asajj’s cheeks cracked and flaked as she spoke. Not one drop of it was her own.
“I… are… are you injured?” Worry overpowered anything else Satine could have been feeling at that moment.
“You said no blood is to be spilled on Mandalore. I went to Concord Dawn. The death watch won’t be a problem for you anymore.”
Asajj continued on her path to her room moving around the Duchess.
“Wait!” For the first time in the short few weeks, they had shared a space. Satine reached out and touched Asajj. “I feel relieved. Why do I feel relieved?”
“Your people are safe,” Asajj’s filthy bloody hands grasped the soft tender skin of Satine’s. “Your hands remain clean, metaphorically at least.”
A grin split across Asajj’s lips and clumps of nearly dried blood dirtied the pristine hands of the lady standing before her. The smile was violent like the crack of lightning across a darkened sky. White teeth framed by grey skin and splatters of crusted blood sent a shiver down Satine’s spine, and it was not a shiver of fear.
Satine grasped at Asajj’s sticky robes and pulled her into herself.
“May I?” Satine’s voice was gentle unlike the unyielding grip of her fingers that only dragged Asajj closer.
“I will dirty you.” Suddenly aware of the red staining the Duchess’s robes pink Asajj moved to pull away.
“Clothes can be washed and replaced.”
“Aren’t you angry?” Asajj was confused by how the attention had shifted, this felt odd.
“I’m enraged,” one of the firm hands on Asajj’s waist suddenly gripped her by the throat. “You twisted my words to do your own will. You snuck from my home in the dead of night to disobey me.” Long fingers dug into the soft yielding flesh just under Asajj’s chin. “You recklessly endangered your own life…” there was a brief pause as she thought over the next line she intended to speak, “and then you came back to me.”
“Unaddressed abandonment issues, perhaps we have more in common than I thought.” Asajj was provoking her. She wanted to see if the princess had claws to match her sharp tongue.
“I think I liked you best when you were bound and kneeling at my feet.” Satine appraised thoughtfully before patting Asajj on the cheek, detangling herself from the sticky mass she had become. “Clean yourself up and find me afterward. I’ll be waiting.”