Slaves Of The Empire {1}

Forty-Three | Reprieve From Grief

The hand on her waist slid up to her back to embrace her properly, and with a hum he angled his face tighter into the kiss. Ahsoka's smile grew, and she latched onto his plain, loose-fitting shirt to pull him closer. Lux's kisses were a rush of pure oxytocin, and here in his arms on an expedition to a new city she could only imagine he'd orchestrated for her sake, she could almost forget...

Sister-leader. It was too easy to picture Rex saying that in the affectionate tone he'd always had ready for her off the battlefield. It was easier still to imagine his voice warping to the accusing yell he'd reserved for captured enemies, his kind face tight with fury as he demanded to know why his vod'alor had abandoned him.

Sensing her change in mood, Lux planted one last peck on her lips and drew far back enough to speak. The hand on her chin rose to gesture at a building that at a glance looked like a small apartment complex. "First stop on our grand tour of the city, since it's the easiest to reach from Kyzeron: our former rebel base."

Gazing up at the tall, thin building that looked so much like the others on the street, something twitched at the edge of Ahsoka's awareness. Perhaps she was only sensing Lux's strong connection to the place, but... it felt like she knew it. Like she'd been here before, in another lifetime.

She pushed the feeling away to address another question. "Why is it so small? Were you keeping your equipment at a secondary base? There's no way you could fit an entire fighting force here. This has, what? A dozen apartments, tops?"

"It suited our needs perfectly, actually," he said, something wistful coloring his aura in the Force. "We weren't a large group, and even in the stints when we had a decent number of people, we never stayed in one place very long. It was better to be cramped but undetected than to give everyone their space."

"Oh. I just... I know time and distance can dilute anything, and tale-tellers like to play things up for their listeners, but all the stories I've heard about the Rebellion made it sound so much bigger."

"Unfortunately, that's all it was – tale-telling. At the height of our power, in the few weeks before we fled to the plateaus, this place was our command center."

"And after that? The stories never said."

With a leisurely stride Lux crossed the street and laid a hand affectionately on the brickwork. Ahsoka was reminded of someone comforting an old friend after a funeral, and in a sense, perhaps he was. "I think you can guess what happened," he said softly once she'd followed him.

"The final battle," she murmured. He nodded, bowing his head, and Ahsoka stepped closer to wrap an arm around him. He melted into her touch, arching down to kiss her left montral in thanks. Deciding a subject change was in order, she butted his shoulder to get his attention. "Why was the Rebellion of Onderon so small? The conditions for working-class people who wanted to chip in back then couldn't have been as bad then as they are now."

Lux wet his lips, brow furrowed, and Ahsoka wondered if she shouldn't have asked about something else. "In retrospect, they weren't much better," he said. "The commoners were well-treated by the bourgeoisie and the nobility, and the poorest had many avenues for help other than filing for bankruptcy. But the class system kept a lot of the wealth circulating in small circles, and that isn't fair. The largest change is that back then, there was no chance of getting your citizenship revoked."

Ahsoka sighed. "Listen, I know the Empire played a huge part, but I never understood how Onderon went from advocating the freedom of all people to an– an authoritarian oligarchy with the legal infrastructure to enslave millions of people."

"It wasn't as simple as jumping from one to the other, that's for sure. It was a lot more convoluted. But the inciting incident was a witch hunt."

Ahsoka frowned. "Witch hunt?"