A Place of Horror

There's a regular at the cantina, and the barkeep knows his secret...and what he can get for it. Written for Fandom Empire Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Death and Sweet and Short September 2025 - Prompt: Glass and /r/FanFiction's Trope Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Drunk Confession and @fandom-free-bingo Virtues and Vices - Prompt: Being Outed and @horrortember 2025 - Prompt: "When I want to stop, I can." | addiction | bargaining | responsibility

The barkeep eyed his latest regular as the man entered the cantina. Without a word, he poured a glass and slid it across to his guest, who gave him a grateful nod of the head and an appropriate amount of credits.

It was a light crowd at the moment, still early in the afternoon. People would filter in later, after the Empire Day festivities died down and the bar crawls began.

It was no real surprise that his guest wasn’t joining the celebrations. It’d been questionable whether he’d even turn up at the cantina at all today, perhaps preferring to hide away from it all, but the barkeep supposed that the lure of the drink could tempt even a Jedi to crawl out into the world for another sip.

Not that his guest had admitted that he was a Jedi; no amount of alcohol had loosed those words from his lips. But there’d been little things: turns of phrase, references to the now-over war, other oddities. Hundreds of little confessions drug up from the depths of a bottle or two, that all added up to a very nice payout for the barkeep if he had put them together right.

The Jedi was quiet today. But that was fine, the barkeep didn’t need to hear any more from him. He’d already struck his bargain.

could you travel in the dark

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen, M/M, Other Fandoms: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Relationships: Nico Diath & Quinlan Vos, Nico Diath/Dooku/Sifo-Dyas Characters: Nico Diath, Quinlan Vos Additional Tags: Mentioned Nico/Sifo/Dooku, Jedi take Prisoners, Psychometry, Sith AU, Jedi Culture & Customs (Star Wars), Jedi worldbuilding, Jedi Shadows, Sith Tae Diath, Nico/Sifo/Dooku Baby, Don't think about it too hard, Alternate History, Different Clone Wars, First Meeting, different first meeting, Established Relationship, Captives and Captors Language: English Words: 1,399

Summary: Nico has been looking for a lead on Sifo for almost twenty years now. But recently the war with the Separatists has begun, not between the Separatists and the Republic, but between the Separatists and Somebody, and like his lost mate, no one has any information.

Most people don't know that the Jedi Temple on Coruscant has cells.

For @sithseptember : Alternate Prompts: First Times, Angst For @horrortember : Day 25: lineage

Bingos: Bingo Laws: Checkov’s Cat Diath Challenge: Alternate History, Established Relationship (Nico/Dooku/Sifo), Free Space (Sith AU) Sifo/Dooku/Nico Bingo: Free Space (Established Relationship), A/B/O @killacharacterbingo Make A Character Happy: New Book/New Chapter

@lotrweek 2025 Day 7 prompt: black/white | the night/day | above all shadows rides the sun

and

@horrortember Day 9 prompt: "Nine"

The Reverse Sun [AO3]

Fandom: J. R. R. Tolkien "Lord of the Rings"

Words: 1310

Rating: General Audiences

No Archive Warnings Apply

Summary:

A story of a young Jedi looking for the wrong kyber crystal. Written for Fandom Empire Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Hyacinth(purple) I am sorry! and Sweet and Short September 2025 - Prompt: Promise and /r/FanFiction's Trope Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Snowed In and @horrortember 2025 - Day 24: “And so he felt he had to prove to everyone he was evil.” | Inadequacy | back against the wall | debt

The initiate was confident that he would have the best, most powerful kyber crystal ever grown. So he went deep into the icy cavern in search of it.

But to do this, he ignored the pull of the Force, guiding him towards his true crystal. He had seen it, glittering in the ice, but it was so small that he thought it could not possibly be his. Without trusting the Force to guide him, he soon got lost. But that did not matter, he reasoned, as soon as he found the right crystal, he would listen again and find his way.

And there! He could see one, bright and larger than his hand, that must be his crystal! He did not think about how it could fit into a lightsaber, he only thought of showing off the giant crystal to his friends.

It was not easy to reach, but he had expected a trial, so he was not dismayed. He climbed, carefully, across the treacherous ice, and at the edge of a precipice he reached across it and grasped for the kyber. His fingers closed on the edge of it, too large to get a good grip. But slowly, he worked it free.

But as it came loose from the ice, it came loose from his fingers, too. He lunged for it, forgetting his caution, and tumbled into the depths.

A Yeerk keeps up appearances around friends, family...but not around pets. Written for Fandom Empire Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Loneliness and /r/FanFiction's Trope Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Sad Ending and @horrortember 2025 - Day 3: “You can’t change fate, but don’t feel so bad.” | pre-determined | acceptance | passive observation and 100 Fandoms - Prompt 54: Inside and Lyrical Titles Bingo 2024 - Prompt: Sad Song ("A New Way to Bleed" - Evanescence)

There was a terrible loneliness in never being alone, to being trapped inside herself as something else went through the motions of her life, the only brief respites just replacing mental confinement with physical confinement.

But as much as it ached to helplessly observe the parasite taking from her the moments with friends, family, coworkers, any passing connection with another human being, it was worse when it dropped the facade. Because that was when the only other ones around were other people also puppeted by Yeerks... or those who had no way to communicate what was happening.

And that meant that the Yeerk felt no need to act with even pretended kindness towards her cat. No one else lived with her in her apartment, so there was no one to keep up appearances for.

They shoved the cat roughly away as he tried to rub against her legs. He let out a pitiful meow, but her own cry went unheard by everyone except her captor.

<What does it want?> the Yeerk thought, in clear irritation.

<He’s hungry! You didn’t feed him this morning! And his litter box is getting full, and his water running low...>

<Why do you even keep such a bothersome creature? It serves no purpose.>

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka flee the zombie apocalypse with heavy hearts.

Written for Fandom Empire Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Waterfall

and Sweet and Short September 2025 - Prompt: Strength

and /r/FanFiction's Trope Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Road Trip

and @tropetember 2025 - Day 19: Apocalypse | Zombie | Locked In Together | (Natural) Disaster

and @horrortember 2025 - Day 15: “Don’t let me out, ‘cause you know I can’t help myself.” | caretaker | reluctant | blood on your hands

and AU Challenge Bingo: Zombie AU

Obi-Wan drove the car as far as it would go, until the gas finally ran out and the car sputtered and coasted to a stop along a remote stretch of highway, surrounded by trees on either side.

From there, he and Ahsoka gathered their limited supplies from the backseat and hiked into the wilderness.

Her hands were still shaking.

Obi-Wan couldn’t muster up any words to comfort her. How could he? He should have been the one to pull the trigger, not her. But even though he knew how the infection worked, knew that Anakin was gone, in the critical moment he had looked into his former friend’s face and the strength of Obi-Wan’s resolve had crumbled, and his hands faltered.

But Ahsoka’s hadn’t.

He tells her that her name is Padmé.

Written for Fandom Empire Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Confusion

and Sweet and Short September 2025 - Prompt: Afraid

and /r/FanFiction's Trope Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Amnesia

and @horrortember 2025 - Day 5: “We have the right to know.” | creation | unreliable narrator | paranoia

Her first moment of awareness comes with a gasp, and she surges upward. The movement leaves her dizzy, and she nearly sinks back down, but the thought of lying down, lying exposed, strikes deep fear into her, so she curls into herself instead and presses her knuckles against her face.

“…Padmé? Padmé, can you hear me?” a deep voice burrows below the ringing in her ears, but it takes her a few moments to realize that she’s the one being addressed.

She looks up, and flinches. The figure looming over her is a void of a man, the expected features of a face absent, or present only in the abstract impression. But he clenches his fist like a man in response to her recoil, and the room seems to shake in response. A beat, and it settles, and he releases his grip.

“I am not going to hurt you, Padmé,” he says. “I saved you.”

“Who are you?”

Fic: Prisoner

Fandom: The Gaslight District

Characters: Melancholy “Mel” Hill, Diligence

Relationships: none (Mel vs Diligence as in they hate each other)

Original prompts: “How scared should I be?”/“I’m not going to be quiet.”

Description: Diligence finally finds the human. Mel finally meets a fate she can’t escape on her own.

Read the fic here!

He gains nothing from his senseless cruelty.

Written for Fandom Empire Bingo 2025 - Prompt: Murder

and Sweet and Short September 2025 - Prompt: Hands

and @horrortember 2025 - Day 8: “I know you can hear me.” | pursuit | out of sight | consequences

and @fandom-free-bingo : Virtues and Vices - Prompt: Roman Mythology AU Punishment Befitting the Crime

and Lyrical Titles Bingo 2024 - Prompt: 00's song ("Sleep Apnea" - Chevelle)

READ ON AO3 (100 words)

Thousands of lives, weighed against Padmé? There’s no question, no contest, so he buries any conflicted feelings deep down, as if they never existed.

No one buries his victims.

Their corpses are either preserved as cruel trophies, or used for experiments, or left to rot until cleaning droids clear them away like refuse.

But the fire that should have claimed the murdered dead instead claims him, alive. The agony visited upon him will never match what he has inflicted, yet it is a punishment he grasped with his own hands.