Jabiim. Ninel hated this planet, almost as much as she hated the war itself. The Clone Wars were entering their second year, though it felt to the Padawan more like its twentieth. One year and four deployments. It was a modest tour of duty compared to what so many others in the Jedi Order had endured, and yet it had taken its toll on her mind and body none the less.
Ninel ran a finger down the gouge on her left cheek and cursed. She had never considered herself pretty to look at, but she mourned for her face all the same.
There was a stirring beside her. She'd woken the prisoner. A green face tattooed in traditional Mirialan patterns emerged from the adjacent sleeping bag to regard her with annoyance. They both lay in silence, staring each other down in the faint light as they listened to the rain and wind batter their shared tent like the din of distant artillery.
"Still sad about that scar I gave you?" the green face asked. Cedee Tomo was her name, a Mirialan orphan somehow turned Mandalorian Mercenary. She and Ninel had something of a history, stretching back to before and during the war. The galaxy seemed a small place with their repeated encounters.
"Go back to sleep, deycoot." Ninel said, mocking her with the use of a Mandalorian word she scarcely knew the meaning of.
The woman screwed her face up in contemplation and disgust. "You mean di'kut?"
"Whatever. I don't have the time or will to perfect a dying language." Ninel sighed as she rolled over, turning her back on the ever indignant Mandalorian.
"We're not dying you arrogant little Aruetii." Cedee hissed. "When you realise that it will already be too late."
"Blah blah, imperialist regimes always fall under their own contradictions, blah blah. I'm too tired for this right now, Cedee." The padawan was certainly not up for more of the Mandalorian's political sparring, she never could win when Cedee got started on those.
Cedee was a topic on her mind often. Even when they weren't sharing a small tent. There was something Rougeish, idiosyncratic about her that Ninel rarely saw in her Jedi colleagues. An orphan adopted by nomadic warriors of a culture as ancient as the Jedi themselves, and yet so radically different. She often seemed like the most interesting being in the universe.
Ninel retrieved a personal datapad from under her blanket. It was one of the many items that had been confiscated from the captive. "I never had one of these, what are they for?" she asked nonchalantly.
"Hey, how the kriffing hell did you get that?"
"The Clones that brought you in didn't question me. I'm a Jedi, I outrank them."
"Gimmie it back you little..." Cedee trailed off.
"You're not in a position to make demands here." Ninel said, flashing her an evil smile.
Cedee bit her lip. "Please, would you stop looking at my personal things." There was clear panic in her voice, the reddish hues of humiliation darkened her green face in the faint light of the heater.
Ninel ignored her. The woman's pleas only made her more curious. What secrets did this device contain that would trouble such a being as her? She scrolled through various applications until she came to one labelled simply "Holonet Explorer". She clicked it, and her jaw subsequently dropped to the floor of the tent.
Cedee had evidently not closed her last browsing session. Ninel was greeted with a video of a scantily clad twi'lek with a Mirialan woman bent over her lap in a similar state of undress. The sound of flesh slapping flesh and moaning filled the tent as the Twi'lek landed blow after blow on the Mirialan's upturned green and now rapidly reddening backside.
There was an unbearable eternity of silence, save for the sharp reports of flesh smacking flesh emitting from the datapad.
The Jedi was the first to break the silence "Is... Is this spanking? Oh my... That's... That's a little weird, Cedee." Ninel let out a chuckle. Her smile was pulled taught like a damn holding the river of screaming laughter at bay.
"Give it back you little creep!" Cedee got to her feet, only to remember that her hands were bound. She sat down again, recalculating.
"So... Is this your fetish or something?" Ninel probed, not quite able to take her eyes off the bizarre yet enchanting scene taking place on the little screen.
The Mirialan ground her teeth and pulled a face that looked like it had been carved from beskar. Yeah... It is. What of it? Try as she might, she could not hide her embarrassment. Ninel could sense it radiating from her so powerfully that the dam broke and the sound of her laughter eclipsed that of the spanking.
"You laugh all you want, girl. Now you know what I'm going to do to you next time the tables turn and it's you in the binders."
Ninel was very quiet after that.
"Hey, Cedee." Ninel cautiously tapped the elbow sticking out of the sack next to her. "You awake?"
"Of course." The Mirialan opened her eyes. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to apologise for going through your things." Ninel meant it, the scene had played itself out in her head multiple times that day. Even if Cedee was an enemy combatant, she deserved to be treated with dignity in captivity. That was something Ninel had not afforded her the previous night.
"I shouldn't have done that, it was very... Unjedi like of me. I was curious, and I let that curiosity get the better of me, and I'm sorry."
The captive woman had turned over now. There was a kind of puzzled, incredulous look on her face. "Huh... Didn't expect that." She chuckled. "Are you only saying this because I threatened to spank you afterwards?"
"No!" Ninel blurted out a bit too fast.
Now it was Cedee's turn to laugh. "Don't worry about it. I was only joking. Or was I?" She laughed again.
"I'm serious." The Padawan insisted. She went quiet for another moment before adding: "If there's something I can do that doesn't involve letting you walk out of here, let me know."
"Really?" Cedee let her surprise show once again. "Well in that case, shimme on over a bit so I can slip into your sack. Its kriffing cold."
Ninel was about to protest, but the Mandalorian had already slotted herself in beside her before she could get a word out. She froze at the sudden intimacy. She felt the woman's breath on her neck, her chest pushed up against her back, her legs intertwining with her own, her arms wrapping around her waist. Ninel gasped in realisation.
"Your arms are free, how?!" she turned to face her captivating captive, very conscious of how close her smiling face now was.
"Well duh, how am I supposed to cuddle you if my arms aren't free?" the Mandalorian's response was nonchalant.
"But how?!" Ninel exclaimed.
"Ssshh." Cedee laid a green finger gently to Ninel's lips. "A woman must have her secrets."
"You're treading a fine line here." Ninel summoned her best approximation of a serious look as she pushed the hand away. "Don't make me regret my generosity tonight." In truth she wasn't sure if she could get the binders on again now that they were off. This Mandalorian was notoriously slippery. Something more should have been done, better precautions should have been taken. But the Padawan was too exhausted to deal with it. Her energy had been fully spent, and curiously she found herself more and more inclined to the idea of being held on this cold night.
Cedee made a petulant "hmpf" sound. "You tried to humiliate me last night. With much glee too. I think that warrants some concessions, don't you?"
"I already let you get away with threatening to spank me." Ninel said as she turned her back toward the woman again. Even saying the words disturbed something inside her.
"Oh don't act like you didn't love the suggestion. I could tell by how quiet you went."
Ninel only growled in response. There was another long period of silence. Her mind was a roiling inferno of conflicting emotions now.
"Cedee?"
"Yeah?"
