ii. a gown of flame.

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Technically, it's more than a little illegal to remove or cover up the branding numbers of a prison tattoo with another, but as the ink sinks into her skin, there's no lingering conscience weighing down on Zoya's shoulders, telling her that she shouldn't break the law again. There's only a soft, gentle lightness that fills her stomach with clouds and her lungs with warm sunlight, a feeling that a great boulder has been lifted from her chest, allowing her to breathe to fill without being constricted. There's some pain, but she's gone through much, much worse.

          This is like a summer breeze.

          Besides the fact that Zoya's been wanting it covered or removed for a long time, she'll need it concealed if she's going to infiltrate the fighting arena without raising suspicion. The dress she's set on wearing is sleeveless, and it'll reveal her entire forearm (along with much else). If even a single guard or patron were to spot the marks branding her as an inmate, there's no guarantee she'll be able to wander about as she pleases. Ex-inmates (let alone escaped ones) are known to be dangerous.

          Zoya's brow creases as she stares at the pockmarked table, picturing the target who'd come into the cantina a couple weeks before, how the pale-skinned Twi'lek had grinned hungrily when she'd slid him a few coins. She'd dared to go against her gut and bought his silence and his information, learning that there'd be a religious attendee at the near-nightly fights who could help her.

          "She'll be wearing a black cloak, hooded and long enough to reach the ground," the Twi'lek had murmured, sliding a slimy tongue over teeth sharp as fangs, eyeing the coins like he wanted to take a bite out of one of them. "She's pale, like me."

          Zoya tilted her head, jaw sharp. "Her name?"

          "You'll know her when you see her." Another slippery smile, revealing the teeth that he must have had filed into points, and Zoya hadn't been able to help looking away, restraining a disgusted curl of her lip. "The Jedi are very distinctive, even if they are a dying breed," he'd said cruelly.

         Zoya hadn't owned the dress yet then, now tucked away in a secretive corner—it was a recent gift from Cara, which solved her problem of finding something to wear. It's about ten times flashier and more extravagant than anything else the other attendees will be wearing, but she can't find it within herself to be bothered. Though she could've wrapped her arm to hide the prison brand and been gone ages ago, she'd already been waiting months for the tattoo artist to arrive, and the vain side of her didn't want anything taking attention away from the dress—which she looks an absolute vision in. After the Twi'lek's information, Zoya had barely been able to keep herself occupied, and waiting another seven days to go find the informant would've been torture, so, she considers, watching the artist's needle work, it's lucky that he'd been able to move their appointment up.

         As her thoughts diminish into nothingness, a colorless plain of glass without ripples or viable noise, the artist lifts a damp cloth from the table and wipes it gently across her forearm, revealing her new tattoo. "Done," he says, passing the back of his other hand across his forehead, brushing away the thin sheen of sweat that clings to his skin.

          Zoya twists her arm from side to side, hummingbird wings aflutter within her stomach, examining the linework and the darker, fuller spots of ink where the numbers once were. As a smile presses up the corners of her mouth, the birds beneath her ribs take flight through her lips, relinquishing the nerves she's felt since the beginning of the process. She hadn't thought it would turn out this good.

          He quirks a brow at her silence. "Decent enough for you?" he asks, though he must know how good of a job he's done.

          "It's fucking perfect," Zoya says with a grin, with a rush of happiness that she hasn't felt in a long time. For a moment, she considers kissing him, because the tattoo really is that good, but she settles for a simple handshake, restraining the beautiful flush of emotion that presents itself on her cheeks, rosy and reveling. "Thank you."

          "Yeah. Send me the credits," is all he says in response, but his smile betrays the satisfaction he feels. He's gone in seconds, leaving nothing behind but the residual smell of fresh ink and cigarra smoke, but Zoya barely notices, gaze fixed to her forearm, drawn by some magnetic force.

          Her fingers trace the design, a kaleidoscopic pattern that draws the eye. It's simple yet dramatic and striking all at once, and exactly what she'd pictured. The smile that draws across her lips is nothing short of arrogant, but after having to see the degrading mark of ownership and you are worth nothing upon her skin for so long, it's deserved.

         This will compliment the dress beautifully.

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The others at the underground arena aren't half as well-dressed as Zoya is, but that's what she likes about it. That's what sends satisfaction curling in a ferociously gratifying wave down the length of her limbs, her torso. Their attention fuels her, wills grace into her fluid movements, a lethal quality to the softness of her steps.

         This silken thing draped across her body is more flame than actual dress, incandescent ripples of crimson and tangerine and flares of gold, seeming to nearly writhe with heat and color all at once as it sparks around her ankles. The sleek garment reveals the gradual slope of her back, her lean arms, clings to the curves of her hips before flaring about her legs, and dips low in the front, exposing her collarbones and the smooth, tanned skin of her chest. Everything else in the room pales in comparison, becoming gray and lifeless in the presence of the magnificent silk dress and the fiery-eyed woman who wears it like a knight would don steel armor.

         The gown clings to her lines of her thigh, the arches of her ribs, rippling at her heels as she moves, and with a surge of satisfaction in her chest, Zoya notes that not a single eye in the room has been able to keep itself from looking at her at least once. The attendees steal glances and settle long, lingering looks upon her, drinking in her appearance like dehydrated, wilting flowers blooming beneath rainfall, and best of all, she knows the affect she has and wields it like a weapon.

          Zoya stops at the bar set into the wall of the room, which is dark enough that shadows seem to drip from the corners of the ceiling like old leaks needing to be patched. She nearly leans forward to drop her elbows down against the counter, but stops herself abruptly when she notices the film of something sticky looking covering the surface. To hide her misstep, Zoya pretends to adjust her dress, brushing her fingers over the folds of silk to feel the knife strapped at her upper thigh. There's a hidden slit built into the fabric, somewhere up by her hips on either side. She hopes she won't need her weapons tonight, but she'd practiced drawing the blades through the slits enough that she could do it with her eyes closed.

          The bartender stares unabashedly, red hair pale next to the flaming silk of Zoya's dress. "What c-can I get you, miss?"

          An answering smile curves her lips, lethal poison, enough to flush his scarred cheeks. "Strongest thing you have."

          The crowd behind her roars, and the first fight begins.

          Zoya turns while the bartender makes her drink, scanning the crowd and the fighters in the upraised platform in the middle. As far as she can see right now, there aren't any other women besides the girls carrying around platters of drinks and appetizers, and none of them are wearing long cloaks—or much of anything.

          "Here," the bartender calls.

          "Thank you," says Zoya while she turns, the long skirt of her dress flowing around her ankles, accepting the drink with a gracious dip of her chin. Without loitering further, she makes her way around the edge of the crowd, which is nothing civilized—merely a sea of bodies crushing against each other, far removed from the slightly more dignified attendees who have chosen seats for the fight, flecks of sweat and sin staining the floor.

          The wet, snapping crunch of a fist slamming into a jaw splinters the silence, and the entire crowd howls animalistically, united in the fog of their bloodthirst. Zoya's eyes don't stray the direction of the fight, already visualizing the blood and fragments of broken teeth that will be scattered across the platform, marking the vanquished fighter's grave.

          Ahead, cast in a shroud of shadow the color of ebony, she sees it: a hood made of a fabric darker than jet, the razor edges of a sharp-featured profile, slicing out from beneath the darkness collected beneath the hood. Something sends an arc of electricity through her body, stiffening her muscles and pinching the base of her spine, and yet Zoya forces herself to continue forward at a normal pace. As the figure looms closer, she finds that she can barely breathe.

          It has to be her.

          Zoya's only a few paces away when the figure turns, exposing their face to the light. Anticipation swells, rearing its violet head, but when her eyes fall upon their features, she nearly stumbles back in shock, flinching out of her skin.

          The figure's face is grotesque; ripped from the top of its forehead to the end of its neck curves a gnarled, puckered scar, cutting over where one of their eyes should be, but is now reduced to just an empty socket. Catching her gaze with its one, glowing umber eye, the creature curls its malformed lips into a leering grin, reaching out with broken, twisted fingers, stepping forward with its back hunched.

          She barely manages to fumble out an apology before whirling away. "Fuck," Zoya says between her teeth. The corrupt, iniquitous air of the room smothers the sound, curls it into a shadowy embrace, allowing her to escape noiselessly, heart nearly jumping from her throat.

          The next hour proves just as futile: every cowled figure that enters soon discards their cloak, and even if they do not, as soon as Zoya's close enough it's clear that they're neither female nor Jedi. At the beginning of hour two, she's frustrated and ruffled, hair slightly messier than it was when she arrived, and yet the dress seems to have absorbed all of the light in the room, iridescent enough that Zoya can't hide from the people that are unable to look away from her.

          As she lingers near the back wall, across the room from the entrance, a seat becomes newly vacant in the front frow, and Zoya eases through the crowd, a lithe phantom in her movements, avoiding the press of exposed, tacky skin and foul breath descending from other attendees, frustration on a whirling tantrum within her mind. As she lowers herself to the seat, reluctant to sit close enough to get sprayed by arcs of spiraling crimson blood, Zoya's mind wanders.

          Did that Twi'lek lie to me?

          It's more possible, and more likely, than she wants to admit to herself. He probably just lied to me for some fucking extra money. Gritting her teeth, she focuses on the upraised platform and the rope barriers around it. She came seeking help, seeking a way to control this agitated, potent force within her chest, but she'll leave it with nothing but vexation and exhausted eyes. I'm a fool.

          The fight ends, and a new one begins. Zoya scans the room every few minutes, searching for another hooded figure but finding nothing but drunken idiots of all races, cavorting in a haze of barbarity and debauchery. Close to her breaking point, Zoya nearly stands to leave, eyes flicking across the ring, past the fighters, stumbling about in a violent embrace, but her eyes lock on something familiar, something that glints underneath the galvanized lights. Memories surface, burning and so loud, clawing at Zoya with technicolor flashes and unworried bursts of brazen emotion.

         The curve of a helmet, the arch of a jaw, plates of unfeeling beskar, hands of unbreakable iron that soften against the curve of her back.

          Every bone in her body turns into sharp ice.

          Her mouth opens slightly, imagining the taste of the word that her brain attempts to refuse to let arise, a word that breaks free from a locked away furnace now scorching red hot and rabid, hidden deep within the frozen recesses of her mind.

          Din.

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a/n: getting right into the action ‼️ ik it's only chapter 2 but i don't wanna bore you guys do we're jumpin right in. updates won't be nightly for this like they were for cataclysm—i have no clue what i was on when i was writing that,,, just straight caffeine and sleepless nights and pure rage at my classes, bc how i updated that EVERY single day, i have no clue 🤠 anyways lmk ur thoughts 👁