Let the Games Begin (LD)

[Akasha Khan]

Klatooine. If it wasn't the farthest planet from the bright center of the galaxy, it was a close second - a contemptible ball of dust and rock that circled too near its contemptible brownish sun, peopled by a contemptible species muscle-headed simpletons who worshiped the Hutts, for Maiur's sake.

It had only taken a month for Akasha to decide that by rights the whole planet ought to be sterilized, terraformed, and converted into something useful. But no one was interested in the opinion of a castaway slave girl.

The black-furred Orryxian wrinkled her delicate nose at a particularly horrible stench curling out of a grate in the floor of the corridor. She tried to step around it, but one of the Klatooinian guards jabbed her in the small of her back with the butt end of his shockstick, and she gave him a baleful, green-eyed glare. It was ridiculous, really. Two armed guards to conduct a single, teenaged feline girl in binders to the fighting pits for the afternoon bout. But she took some perverse pleasure in the thought that they were actually afraid of her.

She stepped carefully over the grating and looked back at the guard's scowling bulldog jowls, this time with a demure smile. "You look awfully familiar. I put one of you dogfaces in traction last week. Was that your big brother?"

That earned her a jab from the other end of the stick. Akasha winced at the stinging welt but made sure her captors couldn't see.

As they approached the staging room, Akasha could hear the rumble of the crowd as some other match raged on the fighting sand. She'd been terrified when she'd come this way for the very first time - after all, her master had thought he was sending her to her death in the arena and was glad to be rid of her - but she'd disappointed him by breaking the Gamorrean's jaw and twisting it until he'd passed out from the pain. Now that she'd won three fights in a row, she was almost looking forward to her next one.

The little entourage spilled into the staging room - little more than a dungeon cell with a few tables and scant medical supplies, then a ramp that led out onto the pit floor - and immediately a mass of Orryxian flesh heaved to her feet from the bench at the wall, a matronly, dun-furred female shorter than Akasha but nearly as wide as she was tall. "How dare you!" she hissed at the guards. "Take those binders off my daughter immediately, you curs! She's no criminal!"

As one of the Klatooinians bent down to release the binders, Akasha smiled at him, baring her predatory fangs. But it was hard to be intimidating when Shiraga M'runhn was wrapping you up in a crushing hug.

"My dear, dear girl," Shiraga said, and to Akasha's chagrin, she got a kiss on both eyes. "Are you ready? You slept well in the night?"

"Yes, Mahra," Akasha replied through grit teeth.

"You haven't been eating as you should be, especially with this exercise," Shiraga chided. "How's your ankle? Healed from last time? Never mind. Sit down and let me wrap it."

With a sigh, Akasha lifted herself onto a table and let the older Orryxian swath most of her calf and foot in gauze. The woman chattered freely as she did so. "You know I don't like this, Akasha. If you'd just done as you were told and respected your master, you could be doing honest work - cleaning the palace, maybe, or even helping me in the kitchen."

Akasha tuned out the familiar tirade and tried to hear what was going on in the pit outside. She wondered who was fighting - it was a close match from the noise of the crowd.

"You've brought this on yourself, you know. You're a pretty girl, you could have been a dancer if you'd worked hard enough at it. You could be in the throne room now earning tips from Master Jaarhu's guests. But there's nothing to be done now. Ah well. We'll still make something back if you win today."

The girl's ears twitched in surprise. "Wait, make something back? You bet on the fight? But the buy-in was--"

"One hundred credits," Shiraga interrupted. "And I had to borrow half of it, so you'd better not disappoint me."

She snipped off the muslin with her claw, and Akasha tested it on the dusty floor - it was pleasantly firm and still suitably mobile. Smiling wanly, she asked, "And how much are we making when I win?"

"One thousand credits." Shiraga stood off the floor and set about stretching Akasha's arms.

"One thousand?" Akasha erupted. "They set the odds at ten-to-one? Just what am I fighting?"

The roar of the crowd thundered down the ramp - one of the fighters had gained the upper hand, and the match was about to be brutally decided.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The Si'Klaata Cluster. You had to be a Hutt or know one of the oversized worms to be granted access to the Cluster and its planets. Lilaena wasn't sure, at this point, if all the trouble was worth it. Klatooine was a dry dustball of a planet, just barely more habitable than Tatooine.

Lilaena worked a bit of spit around in her mouth, and then expectorated it into the dirt. It was hard to see what Xim the Despot had found desirable enough to fight not one, but three wars over the area. She looked up, her green eyes catching the bright sunlight as the Chagrian majordomo of Jaarhu the Hutt beckoned her onward. She followed him, frowning in irritation at the dogfaced Klatooinians who bowed and scraped everywhere the Chagrian went. As the mouthpiece of the Hutt, the natives held him in reverence, as if he were a priest of some kind.

Perhaps he was. Lilaena tried not to glower at them from under her rough brown robe, but it was hard not to sneer at their blind servitude. A silly treaty signed millenia ago held them as virtual slaves to their 'gods' - but it was what such weakminded individuals deserved.

The roar of the arena grew louder as they walked through some cool stone corridors (cooler, not cool, she amended in her mind) and soon she arrived in the Hutt's private viewing box. Jaarhu had agreed to see her to discuss some business, but she'd had to meet him on his terms and on his turf. So she had to endure the indignity of waiting for him to have time to talk to her.

She had had some dealings with Jaarhu the Hutt in the past, before he had been set up on Klatooine. Before she had been set up on Onderon. Lilaena had spent several years fighting the Empire on her own, and Jaarhu had been one of her contacts for weapons.

The dark Jedi walked a few steps to the edge of the box, looking down into the sand filled arena just as the latest combatant had its head removed by a competent opponent. The crowd roared its approval as the sand soaked up the blood, and Lilaena felt bored.

[Akasha Khan]

The Chagrian came to stand beside her at the rail of the box and peered down into the pit. A Shistavanen raised his bloody arms in victory as a troop of guards removed the headless Weequay from the ring. The massive Hutt hmmmed cryptically and punched the result into an oversized datapad, calculating the match's impact on his winnings.

Lilaena caught the Chagrian's eyes, and he sensed her growing impatience. "Not yet," he said importantly. "There's still one match left on the docket - but, trust me, it will be short."

---

Akasha slowly advanced up the tunnel toward the fighting pit, and the rumble of the crowd grew louder and louder in her sensitive ears. She tried to look regal and composed, but she knew her frinetically bouncing tailtip was betraying her nerves.

One of the Klatooinians poked her again with his shockstick, and she glared balefully at him. Didn't he know anything about the importance of making an entrance?

There was no roof over the pit - just a few curved durasteel beams that spanned its width to hold lights and holoimagers to record the fights. The brown Klatooinian sun beat down on Akasha's black fur; after walking through Jaarhu's dungeons, it felt blisteringly hot. She tried to avoid the massive stain of blood-clotted sand as she stepped imperiously out into the pit, ears erect and chin held high.

"Eesoh mo pinku, ratta ha chinca Orryxiata, Akasha M'runhn!"

As the pit announcer introduced her, she was greeted with a round of boos from the crowd. Akasha had upset more than a few wagers over the last few weeks, especially when most of the lines were for how long she'd last before getting her head caved in. She located a box full of wealthy gamblers and flashed them a smile and a rude gesture.

"Sho patta ricoh, mahsa roh tatso, toh Barabel, Shaku!"

Akasha's left ear twitched. Had he just said Barabel?

One of the gates on the far side of the arena clattered open, and out charged a monstrous, predatory reptile with wickedly hooked claws, a grinning mouth full of fangs, and a swaying tail like a band of Mandalorian iron. The monster was at least two feet taller than Akasha and easily three times her weight. And she could smell its breath from all the way across the pit.

As the Barabel hissed and flexed for the cheering crowd, Akasha felt her jaw drop. Okay, so she knew that Chagrian sycophant wanted her dead, but this was getting ridiculous.

Of course, the Barabel may have been big, but he was slow - she could see that even now, cold-blooded, bad reflexes. She could circle around him and tire him out, win a battle of attrition if only she could keep her distance -

Something cold and heavy clamped around her neck, and she clapped her paws against it to find a metal collar there. The Klatooinian guards locked it in place, then brought out a long chain.

"Oh, no," Akasha said, putting out her claws. "Oh, no, you don't--"

Another two whacks from shocksticks subdued her, and the chain was attached to her collar. The only way this could be worse would be if...

She took the chain in her paw and gave it a tug. A length of it rose from the sand on a line that led straight toward the Barabel.

Shaku grinned like a Firaxan shark and tugged on the length of chain that ran from his own collar. Akasha lurched forward, nearly pulled off her balance.

Her ears sank. This was going to be bad.

Up in his box, Jaarhu the Hutt motioned to the game master with one flabby arm, a gong sounded, and Shaku yanked on the chain, sending Akasha flying toward him across the arena.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena raised an eyebrow at the last matchup, a small felinoid and a Barabel who looked big enough to fit two of the other inside him. The Orryxian female looked to be the much weaker opponent, and the Hutt seemed overly pleased at the match.

The felinoid was there for disposal, either for being irritating. When the gong sounded she was pulled off her feet immediately and it looked like the fight was half over already.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha somehow managed to get her paws out in front of her so she didn't land nosefirst in the sand - thank the gods she hadn't wrenched any cervical vertebrae out of joint - but she still hit the ground hard and rolled several meters in front of the Barabel. Dazed, sore, and dizzy, she couldn't tell which direction was up, much less which direction her opponent was.

But then a sixth sense warned her of a hundred fifty kilograms of danger looming over her shoulder, and she rolled away from it just as a massive fist pounded the sand where her head had been moments ago. She tried to leap to her feet but flattened again as the Barabel's tail swept through the air at her with enough force to shatter bones.

Hastily, she scrabbled backwards and saw Shaku coiling up the chain in his huge claws, trying to eat up the slack so she couldn't escape from him. Thinking quickly, Akasha seized as much chain as she could carry.

Shaku pulled again, but this time she was ready and leapt along with it, flying overtop of him. She dropped her armful of chain, almost twenty kilos, as she passed overhead so it clouted him in the face. The big Barabel went down to the sand, and Akasha tumbled right behind him.

The Orryxian girl grabbed the chain and wrapped it around one of her paws, then brought it down with all the force she could muster on Shaku's jaw. There was a sickening pop - but it hadn't come from the Barabel. Akasha screamed with pain and dropped the chain, pulling her paw back to her chest. She'd just broken two fingers.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The girl was outmatched, and she seemed to know it. Despite herself Lilaena found herself watching closely as the Orryxian worked with the heavy chain rather than against it, sending the huge Barabel crashing to the sand.

She clicked her tongue as the fighter tried to smack the scaled Barabel in the face with the chain, a small smile forming as the girl yowled in pain, clutching her hand to her chest. "The female - she is an experienced fighter? She seems young." Lilaena looked at the majordomo who was watching the proceedings with fervor.

[Akasha Khan]

"Young? Oh, yes," the Chagrian replied. "She is a new addition to the pits - a slave who didn't know her place. Still..." The horned alien licked his lips as Akasha rolled out of the way of another thunderous blow from the Barabel's tail. "She has been surprisingly resilient. It seems she can be quite an animal when it suits her."

Akasha had found her feet again and was trying to circle her opponent, trying to tangle his feet in the chain, but he was too canny for that. He spun with her and then snapped the chain toward her with brutal force.

If not for her quick reflexes, the Oryxxian girl might have lost some fangs, but she ducked the brunt of the chain - it snapped back and clipped her on the back of her ear, and she felt the sting of a fresh, bloody cut opening. If this was a battle of attrition, she was losing it.

Before she could recover, the Barabel tugged again - not hard enough to injure her, just hard enough to throw her off-balance. He had to know a single, solid blow would ruin her - why wasn't he just attacking? Surely he wasn't afraid of a few scratches...

And then she looked up at his stupid, saurian grin and realized - he was playing with her.

Akasha's venomous green eyes narrowed as she felt her rage rising. And then she moved faster than was physically possible.

She darted between the Barabel's legs, then around, tearing at him with her claws for what good it would do, seeking the cracks of soft tissue between monster's scales, stinging him like a swarm of wasps. Snarling, the Barabel swung at her with arms, legs, tail, trying to trample the little furry nuisance, but he couldn't lay a claw on her.

At last Akasha appeared in front of him again, sneering coolly at the big reptilian. With a grunt, the Barabel took a step toward her. But then the chains drew taut around his legs, and he crashed heavily facedown in the sand.

At once Akasha was on him. She threw a length of chain around his neck, twisted it, and pulled back with all her strength, bracing her muscular legs against his back. But the folds of skin at the Barabel's throat were too thick; he gurgled angrily, but she just couldn't draw it tight enough to cut off his air supply.

Back in the box, the Chagrian glanced nervously at the game master, whose hand was on the gong to signal the end of the match. But before he reached a point of decision, Shaku worked one of his legs free and suddenly heaved to his feet.

Akasha yelped but managed to keep her footing on his shoulders. And just before the Barabel could leap backwards to crush her against the nearby wall, she leapt up onto one of the steel beams spanning the width of the pit.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The fight was stretching longer than Lilaena had thought it would. The felinoid was quick, very quick, and more resourceful than the Chagrian's description had indicated. Quite an animal, indeed.

Lilaena felt a surge of anger at the majordomo's unconscious xenophobia, but pushed it down. Not the time, nor the place. Callidus was slowly teaching her patience, if only by continually making her wait. "She almost bested your Barabel," she said, looking sideways at the Chagrian. "Something I assume you were not expecting."

He stroked his lethorns, his irritation showing on his face. "She does not have the strength needed. It is only a matter of time."

Lilaena inclined her head as though she agreed with him, but couldn't help but hear the crowd. There were those who were cheering for the diminutive Oryxxian. "She is not without her supporters. But the quicker the better, I am anxious to talk to your master."

[Akasha Khan]

"Yes, yes, I am certain it will be over soon," the Chagrian said with mounting impatience, and he pointed to the Orryxian crouching on the rafter. "She... she can't do that! Where's the official?"

Akasha was busy spooling up as much of the chain as she could on the steel beam; the last thing she needed was for her opponent to pull her down ten meters headfirst into the sand.

Meanwhile, the Barabel struggled to disentangle himself, but every time he loosened the chain around his throat, Akasha pulled up the slack. She looked frantically at the lengths of chain draped over both sides of the beam - if she could find a way to tether him there, take away what was left of his mobility, the game master just might, might give her the mercy of calling a draw.

Suddenly a couple meters slipped off of the beam, and there was a cheer from the crowd, and Akasha looked down to see, unbelievably, the Barabel, still wrapped in the chain, climbing up the cage that surrounded the pit to meet her.

Ears flat, tail puffed like a bristle-brush, Akasha slowly backed away as the massive reptilian hauled himself onto the beam. For a lumbering hulk, he seemed to have extraordinary balance--

The Barabel lifted his tail and swatted it down hard against the beam, setting the whole thing swaying, and Akasha fell to her hands and knees, gripping it on both sides to keep her balance. Then the reptilian leered at her and charged.

Akasha fumbled with the chain, trying to take enough of it in her paws to make a whip, but the Barabel stepped on it, leaving her only a few meters of slack. There was only one escape she could see.

She grabbed a hold of the chain and jumped off the side of the beam, swinging underneath the Barabel like a pendulum. The Orryxian grabbed at the beam again on the other side, clawing for purchase amid the piles of loose chains.

The Barabel twisted his head around, trying to see what she was doing, and thumped the beam again, and again - each impact sent agonizing vibrations through Akasha's injured paw. Her grip on the beam slipped, and she fell, screaming, certain at this height she'd break both legs.

But somehow she'd made a knot around the beam above her, and instead of plummeting straight down, she swung again, back and forth above the sands, like a bird on a snare, gripping the chain with her good paw to keep the tension off the collar at her throat. And then she felt herself ascending.

The Barabel was reeling her in. Struggle as she might, there was nothing she could do. A massive hand closed over her neck, raising her by the iron collar, and the reptile held her in front of his face with a serrated grin of victory.

She'd lost. This was it. And she was sure Shaku had been told in no uncertain terms to see she didn't leave the ring alive.

A part of her wanted to resign herself to her fate - hope it wouldn't hurt too badly, hope she'd pleased Maiur enough that she would merit even a humble berth on the Ship of Souls...

As the Barabel's claws slipped beneath the collar to close around her throat, another part of her welled up, a part full of rage and pride - this wasn't the way she was supposed to die, a slave and a pauper, losing a fixed match for the amusement of a slimy bureaucrat and his filthy worm of a master!

Akasha reached out with her own paw toward the Barabel's neck - a silly, useless gesture, since his reach was far greater than hers, but she imagined crushing it in her grip, piercing his windpipe with her claws, searing him with all the retribution for all the indignity, all the fear, all the pain she'd had to endure in Jaarhu's household...

The glint in the Barabel's eyes dimmed. He reached with his free hand and tried to loosen the chain around his neck. But against all reason, it tightened.

Akasha felt the blood pounding in her ears, but still she squeezed the air with her paw. The chain tightened by another two links, and blood began to seep from the Barabel's neck folds.

With a gurgle, Shaku grabbed Akasha with his other hand, determined to squeeze the life out of her. But he couldn't fight the mysterious force that was squeezing back. His eyes were dull now, and he began to sway.

He swayed just a centimeter too far. Both Barabel and Orryxian tumbled from the beam.

But the slack gave out first on the Barabel's side of the knot. He jerked to a stop with the crunch of snapping vertebrae.

Akasha rolled out of the Barabel's lifeless grip, rolled again as the chain caught her in the side, and swung freely at the end of her chain, a scant two meters above the surface of the pit. She fought feebly to haul herself up, to keep the collar from pressing in on her neck, but her strength was failing her. As she spun slowly, she saw a pair of Klatooinian guards rushing toward her. They hastily unclipped the chain from her collar, and she crumpled to the sand floor.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Her eyes narrowed as she watched the end of the fight, feeling the unmistakable tug of the Force being used. The slave girl collapsed to the sand as the Klatooinian guards unclipped the chain, and Lilaena turned to the majordomo. "Well, that was interesting." She smiled, enjoying the Chagrian's consternation at the result of the match.

"Jaarhu is available now, yes?"

[Akasha Khan]

The Chagrian's lethorns quivered, and he had acquired the look of a man who has just made a very expensive mistake. Lilaena's voice shook him back into the present.

"Oh... ah... indeed." He leaned over the box of the rail and cleared his throat. "Your excellency!"

The Hutt stirred as if out of slumber, rolling his huge, glassy eyes toward the Chagrian.

"Miss De'Ville to see you, Master," the majordomo reported.

Jaarhu hmmmmed again and turned his eyes back toward the ring, where a team of guards were rolling out a ladder to cut down the Barabel. "Ah, the anarchist," he rumbled in his native tongue. "The price on your head has gone up since we met last. You must be doing well."

On the sand below, Akasha groaned as the Klatooinians dragged her out of the arena.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"Yes, I have been quite successful, your Excellency," Lilaena replied, adding a thick slather of flattery. The little Orryxian was dragged out of the arena, and she couldn't help but follow the movement with her eyes.

"The fight was very entertaining," she added. "The Orryxian is quite resilient."

[Akasha Khan]

"And when Trakkin asked for Shaku against an Orryxian cubling, I thought he was arranging an execution," Jaarhu replied, eying the Chagrian wickedly. "I should not have underestimated your appetite for drama."

The Chagrian smiled plasticly. "A pity the Barabel slipped at the end. A fight like that should not be decided by chance."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"Perhaps it was fate that she should live to fight another day," said Lilaena. She smiled thinly. "I am looking to pay for your services again, Jaarhu."

"Oh, ho," he boomed, "Looking for some new and interesting weapons? I have a new disruptor rifle you might be interested in."

"Not exactly," she said, "But I am looking for a lot of guns."

Jaarhu's eyes rolled around, whether because he was high from whatever was in his hookah or because he was trying to read her, Lilaena couldn't tell. "Bulk sales, thats more of a Black Nebula thing..." His bulbous eyes settled on Trakkin. "Not that I mind dipping into their profits."

She raised an eyebrow, "I prefer to keep this as much off the books as possible. I've never gotten involved with Black Sun or Nebula and I prefer not to." And then, "I want to buy the Orryxian as well."

[Akasha Khan]

Trakkin gaped. "You what?"

"Oh?" Jaarhu dropped a rubbery hand into a bowl of live paddy frogs, which thrashed about trying to escape. "I didn't even know I owned her."

"Acquisition from a spice trader some months ago," Trakkin explained hastily. "She and her... mother, I believe. The mother works in the kitchens. But I'm afraid the younger one hasn't taken well to the domestication process."

"Slaves are Trakkin's business. Weapons are mine. Buy enough, and I might throw in the girl as a gratuity."

The Chagrian, completely flustered, blurted out, "Master, she may still be worth something in the pits..."

The Hutt waved dismissively and shoved a squealing paddy frog into his ponderous mouth. "Work out a price, then. It doesn't matter to me. Now, leave me. The next fight's about to start."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Why had she said that? She didn't want a slave - didn't approve of slavery - and certainly didn't want a wet nosed kid following her around. But as the Chagrian and Hutt talked, the more she felt that she'd made a good decision. It just felt right.

Trakkin's lethorns quivered, but with what emotion she couldn't tell. As he guided her away from Jaarhu, she said, "You wanted her dead anyway. I'll give you a hundred credits to take her off your hands." Before he could accept or protest she added, "I am going to be placing a very large order with your boss... I'm sure he would be upset if this Orryxian slave girl was the reason he lost my business."

[Akasha Khan]

Trakkin looked perturbed, but he clearly wasn't about to let a matter of pride override his business sense. A hundred credits was robbery for a slave, but he couldn't well demand a premium price after what he'd said about the girl. "Very well," he said. "But don't expect to get any good out of her. In fact, you may want to keep one of those guns at your side."

He led her down the causeway that ran between the arena and Jaarhu's opulent palace. The sun overhead somehow contrived to be dull and hot at the same time. "Shall I take you to the armory now?" the Chagrian asked.

---

Akasha tried to get her feet underneath her as the two Klatooinians hauled her back down the corridor to the dungeon, but at last she gave up and let them drag her - she was simply too exhausted to offer any resistance. They lifted her onto a table and left her there, and she lay silently curling and uncurling her limbs to make sure they all worked.

The door to the cell clanged open again, and an austere-looking medical droid wheeled in, but it was nearly knocked over by Shiraga, who was hard on its servos.

"Akasha! My dear, poor, precious girl, let me look at you!"

Once more Akasha was crushed in the older Orryxian's arms, and the best she could do was to hold her injured paw out of Shiraga's way - all her aching muscles burned from the strain, but she ground her teeth and bore it.

"Maiur's eyes, you're a sight," Shiraga lamented. "I'm so sorry, Akasha. I should never have made such a wager, I didn't know what that horned rat put you up against."

"The medic," Akasha rasped.

"What?" Shiraga released the girl and turned toward the droid, then to Akasha, and back again. And then she swept out a heavy paw. "What are you doing, standing around?" she snapped. "See to her, will you?"

With a longsuffering warble, the droid wheeled forward and began examining Akasha. It sprayed disinfectant and medical sealant on her open wounds and began wrapping a splint around her broken fingers.

"So what's to happen to you now you've lost a fight?" Shiraga asked mournfully.

"What?" Akasha's ears twitched. "I didn't lose."

"You... you didn't?"

"I left the Barabel dead," Akasha said irritably. And then there was a distant look in her eyes. "I... I killed him." The shocking finality of it settled on her aching shoulders.

"Akasha, you... won?" Shiraga grinned and clapped her paws mirthfully. "Ah, praise Maiur! A thousand credits, Akasha, just think of it!"

"Yeah..." Akasha stared numbly into a dark corner of the cell as the droid continued its ministrations.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

"Yes," Lilaena said, following along behind Trakkins as he led her away from the arena.

Once they arrive in the armory, it was just a matter of placing the order for two hundred blaster rifles and a hundred vibroblade long knives. She had her eyes on the DXR6 Carbine, a heavy carbine model with a longer range than any other on the market, black or otherwise.

At a thousand credits a piece, the carbines were a huge purchase, but her credit chits checked out and the Chagrian was quick to help her make the arrangements for pick up and delivery. The slave girl would be sent along with the weapons, which would be ready in a few days time.

[Akasha Khan]

The days passed as slowly as ever on Klatooine.

Akasha had been given the rest of the evening to recuperate before she went back to whatever menial labor the head slave saw fit to give her - mucking out the eopie stables, sweeping the back corridors of the palace, whatever solitary assignments would keep her out of sight of Trakkin, Jaarhu, and their many guests. As long as she was far away, they really didn't care how good a job she did, so neither did she.

She was more sullen and less abrasive than usual. Any time she had a spare moment to think, her mind went back to that bloody struggle on the beam where she should have died. Her neck was still bruised under her short, black mane, and she could remember what it felt like as the Barabel's claws closed on her throat; she also remembered how it felt to reach out with all her fear and anger and hatred and will the chain to draw tighter on her enemy's neck. She couldn't explain it. But she knew it had happened, whether it was the grace of Maiur or something else... something else entirely.

It was three days after the match that she was summoned, unexpectedly, by the head slave and two of the house guards. With a sigh of resignation to what had now become routine, Akasha offered her paws for the magnetic binders and let the guards conduct her through the palace.

But when Akasha turned toward the dungeon corridor that led to the fighting pits, she took a swipe from a shockstick. To her surprise, they were driving her further into the palace - to the civilized quarters where she was rarely allowed.

They crossed into a marble corridor where the air was pleasantly cool and the walls were hung with opulent silk curtains; ahead Akasha could see what looked like a vacant dining room or meeting hall, and she could hear Trakkin's voice echoing from inside.

A strange, uneasy feeling fluttered in her chest as she stepped into the room. Trakkin sat conversing glibly with a human woman with dark hair and some kind of plain brown robe.

Trakkin turned toward her and gave her a slim smile she didn't like at all. "Ah, here we are. You may collect her at your leisure, Ms. De'Ville."

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Lilaena stood, turning towards the short Orryxian slave and revealing a jagged black design inked over one eye and cheek. She looked at the girl, and held out her hand towards her. "I will take her now, thank you. The cargo is stowed and I don't want to miss my departure window."

Trakkin nodded, and the two guards prodded the slave forward. Lilaena could see a fire in the girl's eyes, mingled with confusion, but there would be time for explainations later. A slight Twi'leki female appeared in the room from a door hidden behind some of the curtains, walking quickly and lightly to the Chagrian's side.

She bent towards his ear, and Lilaena was striding towards her new slave, grasping her by the binders. "Lets go." The felinoid looked up at her, green eyes with slit pupils a contrast to her own, round ones. "And quickly," she murmured, for her ears only.