Meditation was something Obi-Wan Kenobi had been fond of during the Clone Wars. It was something Lord Verrat had found solace in as well, though instead of focusing on the light, he let the darkness slither its way into his mind. What once was filled with white and blue and a welcoming pull towards something bigger than himself had been traded for black and red and an unrelenting pressure on his entire being.

In many ways, it was a horrifying thing to indulge in. It was dark and lonely, but the darkness hid him from his enemies and his past. The pressure he once found suffocating had turned into an embrace, a form of security. He was alone and constrained, but it was the power in the menacing side of the Force that became his family and his freedom. It was his escape.

"Shendira!"

He squeezed his eyes harder beneath his mask and shook the name from his mind. Stings of pain shot from his knees as he dug his gloved nails deep into his skin. Pain. Pain. Focus on the pain. Over and over and over, he repeated that phrase mentally until it was the only thing Verrat could hear. In a matter of seconds, the sith was brought back into the soothing void he now called home.

There was no telling how much time passed before the name returned to his mind, though it wasn't Rahm Kota's voice shouting it. It was a whisper, a faint flutter of sound from the lips of a woman he knew all too well. A woman he hated to remember and yet couldn't forget.

"Shendira... Shendira Kenobi."

He did his best to remain focused, but the voice continued to drift sweetly into Verrat's ears. Echoing like a dream from the past.

"Hello, little Shen. My strong, fearless little Shen."

Lifting a hand to his mask, Verrat pressed his fingertips hard against what used to be General Grievous' forehead in hopes that the pressure might push out the muttered words from his mind and banish the sudden ache in his heart. And for a moment, it worked. Denali's voice faded into the nothingness that had consumed him. But then the screaming began.

The world crashed in around him; the air was pushed mercilessly from his lungs and Verrat gasped as his body fell forward from his sitting-position.

"Shen!"

The voices varied between people the man knew and the people he had yet to meet, a rapid assault of screams of pain and desperation. So many emotions slammed through the sith's soul that he could hardly keep up. Pain, love, sorrow, terror. Then the cycle would begin all over again. Fear, anguish, joy, despair. He could feel the energy being sucked from his body with every yell, every cry and shriek as if Verrat himself were producing the noise.

"Shen, wait!"

"You're better than this, Shendira."

"Please, stop! You don't know what you're doing!"

"I've waited my whole life for this."

"He's not worth it!"

"Help me, child!"

Every word, every syllable dug into his chest like a knife, sinking deeper and deeper into his flesh with a force that physically pushed his body backwards. Before he knew it, Verrat felt the hard surface of a wall against his back with each shove of the blade pinning him there.

"Let go!"

"I trusted you and you betrayed me!"

"Don't do this to yourself."

"For once in your life, can you stop lying to me?"

"I loved you!"

"I'm going to kill him and anyone who gets in my way."

Then all at once, the horrifying sounds stopped. As if they'd been plucked from the air, the voices were cut off mid-scream, mid-sentence, mid-crisis; the sith lord felt like he could breathe once more, but had to choke back a sob as one final surge of emotion flooded his soul. One final phrase was whimpered into the air in a tone that hurt the man's heart more than any of the other suffering voices.

It was a man's voice; a broken man. A man who had started his life with nothing but darkness and had finally found the light, just for it to be extinguished before his eyes. It was the voice of a soul that had lost its other half and had been left with nothing in the universe that could fill the abyss created by such loss. It was the voice of defeat, of the end of beginnings and the godforsaken finale of the end.

There was no name for this feeling. It was the same feeling Verrat had felt when the love of his life died. It was a feeling he wouldn't wish upon his worst enemy. Because the one thing in the universe worse than torture, worse than death itself was the sensation of dying. The sensation of a soul being torn from someone's chest and stripped of the one thing that kept it intact. It was the throbbing ache where a heart should've been, now nothing but a gaping cavity.

For a split second, red turned to blue and the most empty, hopeless voice filled the room.

"Don't leave me... Please."

He knew that voice.

He didn't know how he knew or who the voice belonged to, but there was a feeling in his gut that told the sith he knew this person. The urge to remember scratched beneath his skin and crawled along his spine as his sorrow was suddenly transformed into a heightened curiosity. He knew that voice, he knew it.

It wasn't until the door to his private chambers suddenly slid open that the pieces fell into place.

"Master," The boy started, speaking between quick breaths of air. "I felt... something wrong... from across the ship..." Verrat's apprentice gasped with worry. "Are you alright?"

Lord Verrat could remember this child's "rescue" as if it had happened yesterday. That wookiee-infested planet, the smell of the burning trees and the color of the blood-stained beaches as Verrat's forces continued a relentless assault, the sound of his mother's screams as he tore the force-sensitive child from her arms and brought one of Kashyyyk's enormous trees down on top of her.

He didn't enjoy killing her, but the sith couldn't have any witnesses and being crushed was quicker than any wound a lightsaber could give. It was a mercy he rarely bestowed upon his enemies.

This child, this boy nearly the same age as his own daughter, had been a secret act of rebellion. Against the emperor and the rules Verrat had been forced to abide by ever since that fateful day in Emperor Palpatine's hidden arena, where Obi-Wan Kenobi had dueled for his life against others who were just as qualified in the eyes of Darth Sidious to become his second in command.

The inside of Grievous' mask was slick with sweat against the man's face.

"Get out."

"What?" The boy shook his head in confusion; Verrat could feel the child's worry in the force. That would be their next lesson for both of them: hiding their emotions even in their most vulnerable times. "But master, are you okay-"

"I said get out!"

The man slammed his fist forward, using the force to send his apprentice flying back through the doorway, smashing against the opposite wall just as Shendira had done to himself only hours prior. Verrat didn't hesitate to shut and lock the door the second his sudden distraction was out of the picture, then released a long, deep breath as he held his head in his hands.

What have I done now?

***

She didn't know what it was that made her wake from her death-like slumber. If she'd been dreaming, Kalani couldn't recall what about. The one thing she could remember was the end of a club slamming down on her skull.

The ache in her head was almost unbearable; the constant drumming sound of her blood flowing through her veins threatened to drown out all of her other thoughts.

What happened-

THRUM!

Ow! Holy kriff, this hurt-

THRUM!

"Ah!" The girl gasped out in pain, weakly opening her eyes for the first time in what felt like days. When she did, Kalani was met with the unpleasant sensation of dried blood stuck to her skin. With each blink, flakes of brown and dark red fell into her lap like cursed snow. This wasn't good. Not good at all.

"Arrrugh, arraraugha..."

Kalani gasped once more at the sound of her captors approaching her tent, then clenched her teeth together in regret as the pounding in her head grew louder with the sudden rise of her pulse.

Am I dying? She thought to herself. The girl definitely believed that club was going to kill her in that single hit, it wasn't an unrealistic expectation. But now, sitting on the sandy ground in a dried, crusty puddle of her own blood, hardly able to think coherently from the overwhelming pounding in her skull, the teenager was wishing for death to just hurry up and claim her. As much as she wanted to believe her father was looking for her, there was no way of telling if her mother would allow him to leave the farm unprotected.

Despite their differences, despite whatever reasons Padme had for not loving Kalani as much as her other siblings, she understood why her mother would want to be cautious. Luke and Leia weren't always the kindest to her, but Kalani was grateful to the universe that it was herself in this position and not them. It would be alright if her father didn't show up, all she wanted was the pain to end sooner rather than later.

As the flap of fabric was pushed to the side, Kalani did her best to remain calm. Panicking would only make things hurt more, and she was already in enough agony to last her a lifetime.

It caught her off-guard when the person entering the tent was not the one who had bashed her skull in. It wasn't even one of their warriors; the mask was different and the frame was too small in comparison. One of the women? They still had the same wrappings that covered their entire body, but didn't have a weapon or even a chaperone to attack their captive or protect themselves.

No words were said; Kalani didn't have the energy and her visitor didn't seem very chatty as she approached the teenage girl. As she got closer, the captive noticed the small wooden bowl the woman held in her hands. It was hard to tell what exactly was within it due to the crusty crumbs of dried blood still hindering her eyesight, but whatever it was didn't seem so terrible. If it was food, great. If it was medicine, even better. If it was poison, Kalani was at a point where she felt there was no way she was going to survive this brain-trauma anyway. There was truly no option worse than the other.

As if Kalani was a frightened animal in a trap - which she truly was in all perspectives of this situation, the lady slowly sat on the ground in front of her, careful not to make any sudden movements, and dipped her fingers into the bowl. As much as the prisoner wanted to shy away from the stranger's touch, she couldn't move without causing a surge of pain to rush through her body. Her only choice was to let this woman have her way.

The sudden cold of the paste was the first thing she noticed when the Raider-woman gingerly started applying the salve to Kalani's skin. The second thing was the smell, which oddly enough smelled fruity like some of the plants her father would buy from the market when they were in season; Kalani had to bite her lip to shake the sad memory from her mind.

Starting at her bruised cheekbone, running slow circles over her skin and muttering something under her breath, the woman was gentle in a way Kalani never would've thought a tusken raider could be capable of. With each circle marked on her cheek, each syllable of the woman's silent chanting, the girl could feel some of the pain in her skull beginning to numb. The process was slow and steady, but effective every time the captor dipped her fingers back into the bowl and continued to spread the pain-killing paste onto the side of Kalani's head.

"Thank...you..." It wasn't much, only two words, but it was more than Kalani had spoken since her abduction. They were less than what this shaman really deserved for soothing the prisoner's pain, but weakly croaking out those two words of gratitude was all she could give. It came as quite a shock when Kalani received a response.

"You... are welcome."

Her words were a bit slow and kinda choppy, but the fact that she could understand Kalani's words suddenly brought another wave of ease to the teenager's nerves. They could communicate; Kalani didn't feel quite so alone anymore, even if only for a moment.

The prisoner opened her mouth to speak once more, motivated by this new discovery to make the most of her time with a person who knew the words she spoke, but the shaman pressed a soft finger to Kalani's lips and shushed her quietly.

"Rest," was all the stranger said. Kalani tried to object, but was only met with another shushing on behalf of her caretaker. "Rest," She urged. "You slept for an entire day and lost a lot of blood. This will help you." The more she spoke, the cleaner her sentences became, as if the shaman had only fallen out of practice instead of just recently learning a new language.

Her voice was calming, but also oddly younger than Kalani would've expected. Despite the wisdom she held, this shaman couldn't have been any older than Kalani herself.

A day? Was that all? How long had she been held hostage in total? She would've guessed she'd been there more than 24 hours, 72 at the very least. Pain generally had the effect of making you feel every second of agony, but had the time really been stretched that much from her perspective?

With more and more questions swirling around her mind and her curiosity only growing, the prisoner needed answers. But with one final circular motion of the girl's hand, this time directly on the teenager's forehead, Kalani was pulled toward oblivion once more.

"Name..." She struggled to stay awake, each moment lulling her closer to sleep's edge. It was a simple request, and one she didn't expect to get an answer to. As the darkness claimed her once again, one word whispered into her ear. A name, a beautiful name spoken by the voice of an angel that resonated deep within Kalani herself.

"Ember."