Lux usually found his morning ritual of standing under the sanispray with the water as cold as it could go refreshing. With the grogginess-inducing humidity of Kyzeron and his essentially perpetual lack of sleep, it was the perfect thing to kick-start his brain before the two or three strong cups of caf that would carry him through the rest of the day.

Or rather, near perfect. The throbbing bruise at the back of his head was a very unpleasant correction on that point, sending snaps of pain into his still fairly tender nose. Two hours of sleep was apparently the limit before he started zoning out despite of the freezing spray and dangers of slipping on the water-slicked tile. The latter was exactly what he'd done today.

There were still shampoo suds in his hair when he shut off the water and heaved himself out of the wide stall with its iridescent panes of glass. Lux toweled himself off quickly, only slowing when he grazed the bruise and sent another burst of pain arcing through his skull.

His servants wouldn't be along with breakfast for another forty minutes, if the hour on his comm was right. On principle, unless the situation was urgent, Dakharen never came to go over the day's engagements with him before he'd eaten. Provided he hurried through getting ready later, that left ample time to crawl back to his couch for a desperately needed power nap.

He could probably afford to skip styling his hair and shaving the stubble on his jaw, too – he wasn't scheduled to see his father or any of his advisors today.

Lux's comm trilled from its place in the pocket of his discarded sleepwear, the sound half-muffled by the swaths of fabric but still strident enough to bring him a little closer to wakefulness. He dug it out and pressed his thumb to the reader to check the caller ID – and nearly dropped it in his haste to tie his towel around his waist and answer it. The soft blue holographic letters spelled out his father's name.

"Good morning, Father. I apologize for my state of undress," he said quickly, forgoing his usual bow for a solemn nod to hold onto some scrap of dignity.

"Never mind – I know you'll rectify it soon enough," Zakhan said, his tone distracted but not unkind. Lux felt the flaming redness in his cheeks abate a touch.

"Is something the matter?"

"No. In fact, an opportunity has arisen for you to begin benefiting from some of the privileges that come with being my Heir-Designate."

"Privileges," Lux echoed, keeping most of his wariness out of his voice.

"My aim is not to coddle you, for succeeding me as leader of our family will be no easy task. You must be fully aware of what will be expected of you. But thus far you have seen only the obligations that come with the position, which is hardly fair to one as diligent and loyal as you."

That drew a smile from Lux before he could stop it. When Zakhan answered with one of his own, as bright and proud as the looks he'd so often had for him before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Lux had to avert his eyes. A pang of longing for the good times in his childhood and early teens dug sharply into his chest; the time he'd lived only for his mother's witty praise and his father's slow approving smiles. With how close to the anniversary it was, he wasn't strong to repel it.

"Clear you schedule for the afternoon," his father continued. "I will excuse you from your assignments personally if necessary. And bring that girl of yours with you – what do you call her?"

The bittersweet haze of recollection faded away at that. His earlier flash of wariness rose to take its place with all speed, shot through with a defiant instinct strong enough to reassure him some of his own power. "She calls herself Alynna," he answered. And she is her own person, not mine, he added silently.

If his father caught the barb, he gave no sign. "I'll adjust her tracker so she can leave the palace with you. It does well to keep up one's appearances in public."

Lux pressed his lips into a line and said nothing, opting to let his father make the next move. Granted, it had been awhile since his last public engagement, and his father rarely went anywhere without an entourage including a few alluring young slaves. Perhaps this was an attempt to get his often solitary Heir-Designate to start doing the same. But he couldn't help feeling that everything about this request – the timing, the suddenness, his father's upbeat manner, Alynna's presence – was wrong.

"I bid you good morning," Zakhan said. He was about to disconnect.

For a moment, Lux thought about defying him and slinking back to the safety of his legal documents and studies and the meeting or two he'd have to deal with over the course of the day. He really thought about it. But reason broke through soon after, and he shook the thought away.

You can take a good thing when it comes your way from any other direction – why not this, now, from him? Lux chided himself, and replied, "Good morning."

His father ended the call before Lux had gotten the last word out in full. He pressed his lips into a line. That was more like it.

Lux sighed, but didn't begrudge himself the pessimism this time around. If he was to go out in public, his appearance and dress had to be flawless, which left no time for that nap. Luckily he was an old hand with rouge to help his complexion, and concealer to hide his dark circles; some touches of mascara would sell the illusion of alertness more completely and help hide any puffiness that remained.

But before that, Lux still had to dress, shave and try to bring some semblance of order to his hair. He was going to need a fourth cup of caf today.

He left the bathroom, tossing his sleepwear down the laundry chute as he went, with every intention of making a beeline for his dresser and doubling back for the caf-maker in his office. But he slowed to a stop as he crossed the bedroom, his eyes drawn to the slender form lying half-curled on the far side of the bed.

He'd never seen Alynna look so peaceful. She'd set the pillow above her carefully aside to recline on one arm. The other was tucked in front of her like the goddesses painted in the temples of the old faith. Her forehead was free of any hint of tension, and her long lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. What he could see of her full lips, half-obscured as they were, was curved up into a sweet half-smile.

Lux felt an odd warmth blossom in his chest. It rose up until it left his lips as a serene sigh, rather than his usual exasperation at something he'd done to make a fool of himself. It was good to find her so relaxed when he was beginning to suspect she never let her guard down while awake. Her calmness was contagious, and made that warm feeling grow even stronger – he just wanted to shut his eyes and dive in...

He heard the sheets shifted fractionally, a whisper of a sound he would have missed if not for the early morning quiet. When he opened his eyes, Alynna was sitting upright, her figure obscured by the tunic he'd lent her save for a slight hint of roundness level with her chest. It suited her much better than the skimpy outfits the overseers gave her to wear; Lux made a note to send for the tailor later.

His own attire was sorely lacking, however, and she was staring curiously at his bare chest and arms. What kind of pervert must he look like, barely dressed and close enough to the bed anyone else would think he'd been watching her sleep? The warmth in his chest instantly deepened to that familiar flush of embarrassment.

"Good morning, Alynna," he said with a smile, trying to salvage the situation. "I was just on my way to get dressed, but I wanted to check up on you."

"I'm all right, thanks. Do you need something? Master," she asked in turn, the title tacked awkwardly onto the end of the question like she'd only remembered to say it at the last second. Despite himself, Lux smiled wider than before.

"No. Well, sort of. My father sent word that he wants us both to be at a public engagement this afternoon. I'm busy this morning, so I'm getting ready now."

Alynna furrowed her brow, and her white markings bunched. "Me too?"

"Yes. You're expected too. I'm not entirely sure why." It was only half a lie.

Alynna looked down and pursed her lips, weighing his words. He knew the gesture was meant to convey thoughtfulness, but he was struck again by how young it made her look.

There was such a sharp contrast in her face: full lips and big eyes and a little nub of a nose that were at odds with the serious expressions that so often played out upon them. He'd often seen the looks defeated slaves wore, weighed down by all they'd been through, but Alynna was different. There was something more about the way she carried herself, something in her eyes he couldn't place save with memories of his ill-fated rebellion against the Separatists.

Steela – he winced to think the name – had looked the same, affected but still unbowed even once they'd been captured and imprisoned. Then had come the news that all the rebels were to be executed publically. It was the only time Lux had ever seen her cry – not for herself, but for their followers who had fought for her and whose lives she wouldn't be able to safeguard in return.

"Master?" Alynna asked, and Lux schooled his expression. "Are you all right?"

If Alynna had that same strength to her as Steela had once had, then maybe she too had known open combat in some capacity. It wasn't impossible she'd seen it firsthand in one of the thousands of conflicts that had raged across the galaxy during the Clone Wars two years before – at least if she was the age she claimed to be. He hoped she hadn't, but if she had, that was something they had in common.

But that kind of history, paired with the serious and cleverly adaptive nature Alynna tried to hide from him, could also be very dangerous. Lux kept having to himself he knew almost nothing about her. He hadn't been able to make more than a few deductions on his own; her motivations, if she had any, were as much a blank slate as the rest of her. If she found out what he was hiding, or even if she didn't, she was perfectly placed to betray him.

"No," he answered at length.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

Remembering her offer a few days prior, Lux swallowed thickly and shook his head. "No, thank you," he said. She looked unconvinced, so he summoned a warm smile. "I'll be fine. I'll have something sent up for you to wear."

He started walking, and left the room before she could reply. Alynna was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one. Though he'd only known her for a week, he wasn't eager to lose her. All he could do was try his best to put his suspicions aside, and hope that he didn't get a knife in his back in return.

The morning passed much as the few before it. As usual, Lux had invited her to take breakfast with him. From the tone of his voice and careful, chaste way he'd studied her earlier – like he hadn't been a sight to see before, wearing only a towel around his hips! – she'd thought he was hoping for an opportunity to ask her about her outburst the night before.

Instead, he'd made some small talk about the weather and the progress on his computer security system and getting the tailor to make some new garments for her. Then he'd motioned to a datapad and begged leave to review a document as he ate. (She'd given it with a twinge of guilt; he'd lost hours of sleep the night before staying awake with her until she'd finally pushed the flashbacks far enough away to shut her eyes.) They'd finished their food in silence before he'd finally excused himself to go to a meeting, and left her to continue the upgrades.

In other words, nothing was out of the ordinary. So why did the Force, when Ahsoka dared to cast fleeting glances into it, feel like a low-hanging storm cloud, grumbling thunderous warnings into an atmosphere so charged with electricity it made her skin crawl?

Another would've said the likely culprit was Auction Week – it was only a day or two away, if her math was right. But this was different. It was more personal and localized than the Onderon slaves' fear of being sold away from families and friends that rose as the three months between one Week and the next elapsed. That was a feeling she knew, and she had already taken her usual precautions against it by cutting herself most of the way off from the Force.

This was new. And something new so close to one of the most volatile parts of year on the planet was a bad sign.

The door separating Lux's quarters from the rest of the palace slid open, and the sound of approaching footsteps reached her. Ahsoka took a breath to stop her connection to the Force from welling up again, falling back on her other senses to divine the new arrival's identity. In the last week she'd gotten in the habit of using her gifts regularly, but in such dangerous times reaching pettily into the Force for answers the tangible realm could tell her was a luxury she could not afford.

Besides, despite what the old Jedi teachers had always said about physical senses being deceptive, she could rely on them well enough in her day-to-day. That was Lux's stride, and his scent ­(the sweet herbal soap he'd smelled of this morning within a citrusy cologne), and the quiet flutter of his short cape behind him. How strange that such things could be so familiar to her after a single week...

"Good afternoon," Lux said pleasantly, and Ahsoka turned off the terminal.

"Hi. Is it time to go?"

Lux's smile shriveled. "Unfortunately, yes."

" 'Unfortunately'?" Ahsoka echoed, raising a brow. The candid admission was unexpected, but it was a chance to press the advantage and learn more about him using what little she knew already. (It was to her benefit that he hadn't done the same that morning. No use calling herself immoral over it.) "I thought dealing with people was your thing. Weren't you once a Senator?"

"You have me at a disadvantage, I see. It is, and I was." He turned to set a few datapads down on a low table before motioning to the door and starting towards it. Once she'd fallen into step beside him, he added, "It's just not often that I see people on my own terms, nowadays."

"What do you mean?"

"I am, as ever, my father's servant." Lux crossed his arms behind his back and pulled himself into a straighter, more dignified gait, as though the mere mention of his father had been enough to remind him to watch his posture. Ahsoka, for her part, was too busy trying not to bristle at his choice of words. "I am assigned paperwork or permitted to attend meetings almost entirely at his discretion."

"But your father's mastery over you is voluntary," she bit out, much louder than the inaudible murmur she'd been aiming for. "You're allowed to say no."

Lux stiffened and quickly turned wide eyes on her. "Oh, I didn't mean–"

"Forget about it," Ahsoka said quickly, and picked up the pace until Lux had to lengthen his stride to stay beside her. If she had to spend Force knew how long playing Lux's pet today, coddled and groped and talked down to, she was in no mood for apologies. A spark of anger in her center powering her resolve was welcome reinforcement for the trials ahead.

Even so, a slight twinge of disappointment reared beneath her usual mental defenses. Lux was aware of the differences between them, and usually he was delicate enough to avoid mentioning them. Clearly even masters as kind as hers weren't above the derogatory sort of language that had become the norm.

She forced herself to ignore it. It wouldn't serve her. Lux seemed eager to look past the invisible chains binding her wrists and the tracker in her chest to see the complete person beneath, but how much could she really trust him to put theory into practice? And was that really what she wanted from him?

It would be easier to fulfill her mission if she could be her truest self. The fewer lies and altered personality traits she had to keep track of, the better.

They descended one floor in silence. Then Lux took an unexpected turn away from the rest of the stairs down to the Great Hall and stately main entrance beyond, and it was only out of reflex that Ahsoka came back to herself in time to match him. She consented to slow her pace and drop behind him as they strode down a new hallway. It was better if she wanted to take in her surroundings unobserved.

The hallway itself was unremarkable – the same style of art objects and tacky golden detailing adorned the alcoves and walls as anywhere else in the palace – but Ahsoka was surprised to find it sleemo-free. The reason revealed itself when pairs of Lux's personal guards began stepping out of the dim corners they'd been hiding in, standing to strict attention as they passed by before forming ranks behind them.

Two more stood at the end of the hallway on either side of a door, facing toward them rather than outward as the others had been. The woman on the left pushed a button on the door's control panel, and suddenly Ahsoka was blinking in the bright sunshine of early afternoon.

A quiet hum of pleasure left her lips as she stepped outside. Sensing Lux and his escort had come to a stop to converse among themselves, she shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was as muggy as ever, but after a week cooped up in the cool, stale palace, the sheer motion of everything around her was a welcome change. She could hear the distant hum of speeder traffic, cries from the nearly market, tinkering from the city's thousands of construction projects as the workers toiled to push Kyzeron's frontiers even farther into the wilderness beyond.

The sky was a perfect lavender-blue when she opened her eyes again, and Ahsoka drank it all up, committing as much of the wonderful expanse stretching up overhead as she could to memory. She could always retreat inward beneath the anger and picture herself here with Anakin and Rex and Master Obi-Wan, free of any obligations to anyone, if the day ahead got the better of her.

Lux came up alongside her and flashed her a smile that tempered out after half a second; their quarrel was still fresh in his mind. "I forget, sometimes, how good it is to get outside once I've spent awhile buried in my datapads," he began hesitantly. "Hard as it is to believe with all this–" he gestured to the nearby buildings, "–we're not all that far from the countryside. I've been meaning for some time now to take a trip to our villa. You're welcome to come along, if you'd like."

"Don't concern yourself with me. If you want to leave Kyzeron, I'll accompany you. If you want to stay in the palace, that's where I'll stay as well," Ahsoka told him levelly. The promise of gallivanting through the wilderness made her legs itch, eager to get out there and run, but the sooner she turned her position in the capital into a ready source of information, the sooner she could get out of there. It was in her best interest to stay put.

"Oh, nonsense. You don't need to be afraid to tell me what you want."

Ahsoka hid a wry smile. Her list of demands – Anakin and their friends by her side, her freedom restored, the Emperor dead and his Empire in flames – was perhaps a little beyond the son of the (unofficial) leader of a single star system.

Calming herself, she said, "Let me rephrase. I've never had the best grasp on politics, but from what I've seen and heard, the work you're doing is important and geared to help people. Stay where you feel you can best accomplish that. The country is remote and more disconnected, but it'd be free of distractions."

"Thoughtfully put. In that case, I'll consider both options more closely. But if ever you want to get some sunshine, let me know, because I'll probably need it too."

The compliment warmed her, but at his veiled callback to his comment about wanting to hear her thoughts and opinions, her heart sank. Again she found herself wishing this were a simpler conquest: seducing some sleemo rather than having to befriend a young man whose wits could be cumbersomely sharp at times. But with the events of the previous night still close at hand, perhaps it was better this way.

When she said nothing more, Lux guided her to an airspeeder with wide, glassless windows that had been cleverly shrouded in lightweight but darkly hued purple curtains. As she hiked up her skirt ­– which was shorter than usual, today, but unfortunately no less bothersome – and made to board it, he offered her his hand.

"Please, allow me."

Ahsoka pursed her lips. The single step it would take to board the vehicle was far from strenuous. She mounted without taking it. "I can handle it."

"Believe me, I know," Lux said with a secret smile as he followed her up and made himself comfortable on a plush seat across from her. The telltale whining hum of a ray shield activating beyond the curtains sounded a moment later. "But it serves to be polite in such good company."

Ahsoka laughed shortly. "Two compliments in two minutes? You know, anyone else would think you're after something."

"And you think I'm not?"

"A week is enough to get a sense of your character," Ahsoka shot back nonchalantly, crossing her arms. It was close enough to the truth. She was starting to get a good idea of what kind of person Lux wanted those around him to see. She knew enough about his world of politics and subterfuge to know pinning down the veil was the first step toward figuring out what it was concealing.

Lux paused midway through adjusting the curtains for a measure of privacy as the airspeeder took off. The snort he gave in answer was so far removed from his gentlemanly disposition it drew a chuckle from her in turn. "Gods, I hope you're bluffing. The most interesting people are the ones you can't figure out, even if it's hard to get close to... them..."

He trailed off, transfixed by something that, by virtue of the way he'd started drawing the curtains nearest to him shut, he could see and she couldn't. His knuckles went white around the gauzy purple cloth, and Ahsoka's brows knotted together in concern.

"What is it?" she asked. Curiosity overcame standard protocol for being out in public with one's master, and she leant forward to see out as well.

Her heart sank. Fragments of memory given new life by the previous night rose rapidly to the surface, nauseating her. The spot of resolute, righteous anger she'd been counting on to give her strength was next, destabilizing the image of her loved ones walking beneath the pristine sky.

She'd expected bad. This was worse. Their destination was a slave market.

With Lux and Ahsoka, it's seems it will always be one step forward, two steps back. Much has been left unsaid between them, and while they've made amends on some points, now they have a new hurdle to overcome. Will they manage to come on top, or, between Ahsoka's recent brush traumatic circumstances and Lux's conflict of interst, will the slave auction appeal to both their darker tendencies? What is Zakhan Noreino planning? Only time will tell...

Here's where the story is gonna start to pick up.

Instead of dividing it into a couple of acts like a standard novel or movie, I'm looking at it much as I did with UAAT Book 10: in individual arcs that reflect the smaller conflicts the characters will go through that lead up to a larger one. The end of the first arc is in three chapters, and then after a change of pace as Ahsoka and Lux recalibrate they'll jump right back into the thick of things. A new antagonist will be introduced, and our two heroes will have a tough time staying ahead of the curve.

Not to mention, the connection they've started to develop will start to deepen more quickly, so needless to say, I'm excited. Hopefully Ahsoka will pick up some healthier coping mechanisms along the way, but I can't make any promises there. As it is with most things, it has to get worse before it gets better...