#jubilar

She was on her knees, sitting atop some sort of elevated platform. Further, her wrists had been shackled together behind her back and secured above her head. As she tried to shift her weight, she realized her ankles had also been cuffed, leaving her practically immobile. As she gave her bindings a compulsory struggle, she felt the clinking sound of a taut link of chains above her. She estimated it ended about two meters up, most likely connected to the ceiling, but with the fugue hanging over her, she couldn’t be sure. But of a certainty, someone had taken great care to see that she could not escape.

Most humiliatingly of all, a gag had been secured in the mouth, leaving her unable to speak and forced to rely on her nose to breath. It wouldn’t normally have occurred to Tasiele to cry out for help except as a last resort, but it still galled her, nevertheless.

Finally, Tasiele realized that whoever was keeping her prisoner had carefully searched her, removing her weapons, her equipment and her body armor and leaving her in her tank top. Tasiele felt the absence of her lightsaber with immediate alarm; it was an extension of herself, after all. But on a more practical level, the absence of the lockpicks her father had insisted she carry hidden inside her gloves was a more pressing concern.

As she assessed her situation, Tasiele instinctively tried to center herself. To overcome whatever was cutting her off from fully immersing herself in the Force and calling upon it to serve her as it normally had for nearly her entire life.

After a few minutes, however, she was forced to give up, the sensation of defeat leaving a taste in her mouth nearly as bitter as the blasted gag. Only now did Tasiele finally realize she’d been drugged. Whatever chemicals of chemicals they had used to sedate her in the first place were even now keeping her disoriented.

It was only now that she remembered.

Jubilar. Bela. The mission. The town. The cantina. The Force Vampires. Striking down several of them before ultimately being pulled down. Neither she nor Bela had realized the danger they were in until after they’d sipped their drinks. There was no doubt in Tasiele’s mind that they’d been spiked.

A flash of anxiety crept up in her belly. Was Bela alright? Was she a prisoner like Tasiele? Or was she…

Before Tasiele could continue down that disturbing chain of thought, the door to the room slid open behind her. She felt cool air against her skin and realized that it was coming from the outside, and judging by the poorly lit darkness, that it seemed to be nighttime.

I must be in a shack. She silently determined for herself. Or some other outdoor structure.

Before she could piece together anything more, the door closed, and an intense blue light from above her flickered on, momentarily blinding the bound Force-user as the moaned into the gag in pain, eyes shut.

“My, my.” a feminine voice beamed mockingly. “Don’t you look delightful like this?”

Tasiele forced her protesting eyes to open. It took a second for them to adjust to the light and focus on the speaker, now standing right in front of her.

“Comfortable?” her captor teased.

Tasiele immediately recognized the young woman from the bar with the short skirt. The one who had borne her fangs at her just before Tasiele had lost consciousness. She could sense two more individuals in the room with them, standing at her sides. At this elevation – she realized she was sitting on a circular pedestal with the chains to her ankles rolling off the sides – her head was only slightly below the vampire’s own.

Now with some sense of what she was dealing with, Tasiele followed her training and focused on the person presenting themselves as the voice of authority.

“You and your little friend will make such delightful pets, darling.” The woman – rather the vampire – grinned evilly. “Once you’ve been properly broken in.”

Tasiele yanked at her shackles in rage at the threat, roaring into her gag.

Don’t you dare touch Bela, you kriffing bitch! She wanted to scream.

But the gag muffled her shouts. For all her anger and passion, they were impotent and feeble.

The woman in front of her laughed. The burly men at her sides – Tasiele could sense them more clearly now – snickered.

“Charming, my pet. Absolutely charming. Now let’s see how you taste….”

With that, the vampire started removing the long spandex gloves that went up to her elbows.

That drew a reaction from her companions.

“Hey! You said we could get a taste, Crysta!” the brute on Tasiele’s right grumbled.

The lead vampire’s brow glowered at the interruption as she hissed at her fellows, baring her fangs at the male vampire in an obvious sign of intimidation.

“Wait your turn, Bahshk.” Crysta sneered. “You know the rules. I eat first.”

The thug grumbled at the reprimand but kept his peace otherwise.

Satisfied that her companion had been cowed, the vampire reached out and touched Tasiele’s cheek with her bare fingers, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh.

Tasiele had started struggling instinctively at the contact, shaking her head violently, trying to twist away from the woman’s touch. She knew well what was coming, and that she was helpless to prevent it. Unfortunately, her reaction only seemed to encourage Crysta.

“That’s it.” She cooed. “Fight. It makes the Force I drain from you so much sweeter.”

Tasiele closed her eyes in denial of her situation as she started to feel her very life force draining from her. While her arms continued to spasm, her head started to fall forward in despair.

In response, the man on her left – who had been silent and docile up until now – reached down and grabbed Tasiele’s ponytail, using it to pull her head back. She screamed in pain and indignation into her gag as she was again forced to look Crysta in the eyes.

The lead vampire smirked again, both hands now caressing down Tasiele’s cheeks, gripping her possessively by the chin as she let out a pleasurable sigh, her eyelids flickering. Tasiele tried to keep struggling, but as more of her strength was consumed, she felt the fight draining from her.

Obviously noticing that her resistance was fading – and that Crysta seemed distracted in a state of ecstasy - the two men at her sides reached out and gripped Tasiele’s arms. Her rational mind knew their primary intent was to humiliate and degrade her before they, too, began to siphon the Force from her body. To her cold logic, that meant their actions should have been irrelevant.

But Tasiele was now drowning under the assault of all three vampires. For one of the few times in her life, she could not heed the warnings of her rational mind.

Although she rarely spoke to others of it, not even to Bela, Tasiele was incredibly proud of her genetic heritage, particularly of the famous Force-users from whom she claimed descent. She was the daughter of the most cunning and resourceful Sith of her generation. More still, through her father’s side, she could claim ten generations of Jedi as ancestors, dating back to one who had come closest to mastering both the Light and the Dark than any Force-user on record.

For her Force sensitivity to be turned against her, to make her a target… it filled her with an indignation and shame that she’d never felt before.

And in that sinking instant, she felt fear and doubt start to overtake her. For one fleeting moment, she started to accept that she would inevitably break, and become a plaything to these… wretched creatures. That she was unworthy of her heritage after all.

But then – in her darkest moments – a new sensation entered her consciousness. Not from within, but from without. Beyond her mind. Beyond this room. It was a feeling of unbreakable determination and resolve… and one which Tasiele was intimately familiar with. This sensation reassured Tasiele, easing her anxiety. Reminding her of who she was. Not just through her intellect or her blood or even through the Force, but in her heart and soul.

Despite her present physical weakness, she found herself smiling, grinning up at the vampire woman in front of her as she ignored the others.

The expression apparently caught Crysta’s attention, shaking the vampire from her reverie.

Crysta paused in her ‘feeding’ and regarded Tasiele curiously. She reached down and unfastened the gag in Tasiele’s mouth, tossing it aside and caressing her cheek again.

“Something to say, my pet?” she pressed her. “Are you ready to surrender to us already?”

Tasiele merely swallowed, relieved that cursed gag had been withdrawn. Then she turned her head to look up at Crysta again.

“I’m going to be honest with you…” she smiled grimly. “You’re in terrible trouble.”

The look of confusion on Crysta’s face was broken when the distinctive sound of durasteel being cut through rang out through the room.  Alarmed, all three vampires pulled away from their prisoner, turning to see a yellow lightsaber blade cutting through the ceiling in a circle.

“Huh. I thought she’d come in through the door.”

The ceiling collapsed as the vampires scrambled away to avoid being crushed by the debris.

As the dust settled, Bela stood there in the middle of the room, standing tall and brandishing her yellow lightsaber in a pose that she couldn’t help but find heroic. (And more than a little attractive if she were honest.) Her own body armor was also missing. She had clearly escaped circumstances like those Tasiele now found herself in and had obviously regained possession of her lightsaber besides.

She looked every bit the part of a hero from some holovid drama.

The look of rage on Bela’s face left Tasiele no doubt what was going to happen next.

As she watched her wife rip through the vampires like some mythological goddess of war, Tasiele reflected on a reality she usually avoided.

Tasiele could rightfully claim descent from some of the greatest Force-users in history.

But Bela was the daughter of the champion who had toppled the closest thing to a veritable god anyone had ever met, ridding the galaxy of the greatest threat it had ever faced.

More than bloodline, though: Bela was the daughter of heroes.

Privately, Tasiele suspected that Bela was even more powerful than her father.

She certainly took her display on this day as a sign of that.

Within seconds, it was over. Bela pulled her lightsaber free of Crysta’s neck where she’d fatally impaled the villain, and the vampire’s body turned to ash.

Wasting no time, the heroine turned and rushed over to her wife, quickly freeing Tasiele and embracing her with her strong arms.

“You alright, Tas?” Bela whispered, holding her tenderly in a manner that would be nearly inconceivable to someone who had just watched her brutally dispose of their captors.

Tasiele felt her face flush at Bela’s attentions, a hundred emotions bubbling up all at once. She buried those down into her gut, knowing full-well that there was no time for that now.

“I… I don’t think I can walk right now.” Tasiele swallowed, hearing the hint of shame in her own voice.

Bela just smiled.

“That’s okay. I can carry you.”

Tasiele couldn’t quite manage a withering glare at her wife, instead settling for a scoff.

“I’m not a damsel in distress.” She grumbled.

Her rescuer laughed, leaning close and pressing a quick kiss to Tasiele’s lips.

“No. You’re my wife and my partner. You’re also the smartest person I know. Which is good because I need a plan for us to get out of here.”

Her body could barely move, but her confidence bolstered by Bela’s words, Tasiele’s mind started whirring.

“Alright, I think I can come up with something….”

Ten minutes later, Bela had fought her way out of the vampire’s encampment; her lightsaber carried in one hand while holding her wife unceremoniously over her opposite shoulder in a form favored by emergency personnel rescuing people from a fire.

Annoyed as she was by the undignified rescue, Tasiele couldn’t help but marvel at Bela’s strength and skill, even as she gripped the hard muscles of her wife’s shoulder and torso for support.

She could always trust Bela to save her from trouble. She could always trust her to be the hero.

More, she could always trust Bela to be her hero.

Bela didn’t need Tasiele’s ancestors or bloodline; she just needed her to be Tasiele.

Tasiele resolved that she would focus on being herself.

Author’s Notes: In case it wasn’t obvious, this piece was inspired in part from Raven’s whump fics. The emotions I’ve drawn from Raven’s Kelsa Kine character are an homage of sorts.

Tasiele’s lines of dialogue directed at the vampires is a reference to Hera’s line to the Stormtroopers in the “Jedi Night” episode of Star Wars: Rebels. Because I like to include Easter eggs in my fiction to other Star Wars media.

The vampire ‘turning to ash’ bit was a Buffy reference. (Leave me alone – I’m old.)

(My Tumblr followers, of course, will know more about who Bela and Tasiele are.)

I like to think the concept of a ‘firefighter carry’ exists in Star Wars.

Thanks for reading, and may the Force be with you.