A/N: Fun fact - I partially wrote this at a wake (even this note).

A cemetery at night kinda sounds creepy at first, but it's actually an amazing spot to do writing. It's quiet, serene. and has a unique atmosphere that makes it conducive to a marathon writing session, kinda like a Starbucks or any other coffee shop.

Granted, all my work on this story so far has been nothing but marathon writing sessions, conducted at the expense of sleep, but hey - I was able to snag a boatload of coffee packets from the wake, so I'm gonna be a-okay in that regard (actually, I should probably just sleep).

The Thomas Newman music I listened to made it even more eerie and amazing. He has this calm, very emotional style that I love. You guys should seriously listen to his original scores sometime.

Hope you guys enjoy!

The canyon was bathed in darkness, illuminated only by the faint flickers of yellow and orange that came from the burning market they had been slowly limping away from. The heat was slowly replaced by cold as they went further and further away from the fire and into the dark night sky of the Tattooine desert.

Elsa trudged uphill. Every step was an effort in and of itself. With the fully outfitted Anna heavily wounded, unable to move on her own without further worsening her own injuries, Elsa had tasked herself with carrying the girl to whatever their way out of here was, wherever it was they were going.

It was a rough path, and she wasn't dressed suitably for the occasion. Her thin, roughspun boots that could barely be considered proper footwear

"Augh, shit," Anna swore in an attempt to take her mind off the immense pain of her accumulated injuries. "Elsa, stop for a bit. Set me down over there."

She hesitated, before helping the redhead over to the rock face of one of the walls that made up the valley. Anna leaned back, each breath taken lengthily and heavily, disoriented and tired.

"What's wrong?" Elsa asked. She checked Anna for any signs that her condition was worsening, and upon realizing that she had no idea how to tell, she'd resorted to simply asking Anna herself.

"Nothing," Anna grunted, despite evidence to the contrary. She huffed. "Just needed to take a little something to help deal with the pain."

Anna's hand, the one that was attached to her one remaining unbroken arm, reached for a pouch on her utility belt. She pulled out a nondescript, small cylindrical canister that had a nozzle affixed to its top. When she attempted to unstrap the gauntlets and plating that enclosed her left arm, however, she instead cried out in pain as the fractured bone began rubbing against each other.

Elsa immediately stopped her from continuing any further, the shout almost sending her straight into a worried frenzy. "Let me take care of this," she hurriedly said, pulling Anna's gloved hand away from the fractured limb. "Can you tell me when it hurts?"

The redhead nodded. "Right here," she said, grunting and gasping at the pain that her injuries wrought, indicating where exactly Elsa had to help her. The slave girl began to gently unbuckle the pieces of armor the were secured to her arm. When the plating was off, she delicately rolled up the sleeve and was greeted by the grisly sight of bloody and torn flesh and muscle, with a small part of fractured bone visible.

While she recoiled slightly at the little glimpse. Anna simply stared, wincing at her injuries nonetheless, but with a mild astonishment. "Oh, that's why it hurts so much," she remarked, somewhat unfazed.

"What do I do?" Elsa asked, a bit taken aback by the relative calmness of the person in front of her.

"Take this," she instructed, handing her the canister. "Spray it all over the wounded area. Be generous."

She did what she was asked to do, spraying the contents of the cannister over her arm.

"Alright, what next?"

"We wait," Anna said, patting the ground beside her with her uninjured arm. "It's numb-spray - it's supposed to deaden feeling in my arm. I'm gonna need it so that we can get to the speeder without you having to carry my unconscious body around."

Elsa was hesitant, unsure as what to do.

"Sit down," Anna said, patting once again. "It's gonna take while for the anesthetic to kick in - might as well catch our breaths."

She accepted, sitting beside Anna.

Elsa curled up, clasping her hands in front of her raised ankles and hugging them tight. It was a cold night on the desert planet, and her attire, while seemingly custom-fit and very comfortable, wasn't exactly suited to low-temperature environments, which could be attributed to it being a revealing metal bikini, with nothing more than two long red strips of cloth attached to the bottom piece.

She shuddered slightly, and Anna took notice.

"Oh, you're getting cold?" She pulled down her hood and unraveled the scarf that covered her face, yanking it off her neck, she handed it to the blonde girl. "Take this. It's not much, but it's better than nothing."

"No, it's alright. I'm fine, Anna." she responded, politely declining the fabric. "I was never bothered by the cold, anyway." It was somewhat true, but more than that, she wasn't going to inconvenience Anna just because of a little chilly wind.

"Take it," Anna insisted. "I don't need it. I'm wearing armor - you, on the other hand, are wearing…" She blanked out, eyes wandering over Elsa's shapely figure.

Elsa giggled. "Wearing what?" She asked with a grin.

"...just take the scarf, please?" Anna pleaded with flushed. She relented, taking the scarf and wrapping it around the collar still on her neck. It was long and heavy, and Elsa was able to cover her shoulders with the remaining length.

"You look much better in a scarf than in a collar," Anna remarked with complete honesty.

At that one single comment, Elsa found her cheeks blushing themselves, which only intensified as Anna began to rest her head on her shoulder. She turned her head away from Anna, instead gazing into the ruined setting below.

Residual heat could be felt from as far as they were, a fact that only served to underscore how intensely the entire place burned. Below the docked, and now abandoned, Trade Federation superfreighter was a sea of fire, consuming everything around it like a bacteria. Smoke rose from the base of the canyon in massive black plumes that blocked out the light of the stars. Waves of heat still emanated from the distant inferno, warming the pair with each surge.

Despite the chaotic scene before them, it was oddly serene. They were far enough from it that barely any sound made it over to them. All it was, was just a captivating sight, glowing brightly and brilliantly. It was just them and that.

And so they watched the fire together, the servant and her mistress, silently.

And then Elsa began to wonder. Was mistress the proper term? Anna was a lot of things, judging from what she has seen, but a mistress? Someone who owned her and expected nothing but complete and loyal servitude?

She looked over at the girl who was leaning her head on her shoulder, eyes half-lidded. The girl looked back at Elsa, concerned as to what was bothering her.

There it was again, that look of concern. She had seen it before when she was still a young servant girl, from the seniors who had taken to becoming her guardians, but never from her masters.

"What's bothering you?"

She can't be a mistress.

"Elsa?"

A mistress doesn't ask, she orders.

"Is everything okay?

She isn't a mistress. "You never bought me, did you."

The silence followed her inquiry in a way answered it, making the confirmation that came soon thereafter pointless.

"You're not my mistress."

"Yes."

What happened earlier, all the killing and violence, all the tribulations that Anna had endured to keep her safe, all she was enduring right now as a result of Anna keeping her safe, began to blur, blending together and forming the question of why exactly she did all of that. That's the question, isn't it? Why?

"Why?"

Anna looked puzzled for a moment, eventually comprehending.

"You were in chains," she said plainly. "No one deserves to be in chains."

Elsa was confused. What was wrong with being in chains? Her entire life was spent shackled to someone, one way or another. Since birth, she knew nothing but the life of a servant. Was there another way of living? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't imagine what a life such as that would be like.

But there was something else. Anna wanted her to experience that.

For the first time, someone wanted to give to her. It was always Elsa who gave, whether it be time or effort. She never received, she only gave. Now, there was one who wanted to give her the life of someone who didn't serve, someone who was free to do whatever they wanted.

Free. Such an alien concept.

And at that moment, as they both stared ahead, simply staring at the sea of fire that filled the bottom of the canyon, Elsa decided that she would stay with Anna.

For better or worse.

"A slave," Anna said, leaning on Elsa as they walked up the valley. "-is someone who's forced to serve another person. The slave is pretty much treated as an object, as property, rather than an actual living being."

The anesthetic did its job. Anna's arm was numb, deadened, and didn't hurt at all. Granted, she couldn't move it at all either, but it was a reasonable trade-off for the momentary lack of pain in her left arm. Anna was able to walk, but not without assistance from Elsa, who held her by her side and had her arm around her back of her neck.

Anna's speeder was somewhere in the valley, in a nook she had hid it in when she arrived. Hopefully, it was still there, or else they'd be walking their way out of here.

"I was never forced to serve," Elsa mentioned.

"Well, you were born into slavery, right?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't know any life other than slavery?"

"Yes."

"In a way, that's being forced to serve. You never had the freedom to choose whether you could serve or not," Anna concluded.

"And that's what you want to give me," Elsa stated, rather than asked.

"The freedom to choose? Yeah," she said, giving a soft smile. "Everyone should be able to live out their own life the way they want to, as long as it doesn't interfere with anyone else's life. That's actually part of the reason I stay here."

Elsa looked around. This place looked dreadful, nothing but sand, dust, and rocks as far a the eye could see. Why would anyone want to stay here?

"What is that reason?" Elsa asked, curious.

"The Empire doesn't have a strong presence on Tattooine, or any of the Outer Rim colonies for that matter," she said. "They essentially legalized slavery with the whole dissolving of the Rights to Sentience thing. It's not just that - the entire government is xenophobic and human-centric, and there's no freedom of speech. Did you know that they massacred almost an entire species, just because they valued peace and free-speech? I mean, who commits genocide on a culture like that because they-"

Anna stopped. Her rant became more and more livid as it went on, and now Elsa stared at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh," Anna said. "Sorry if I'm babbling on. This must all be confusing to you."

"No, no. I've heard of the Empire."

"You have?"

"Some of my masters and the other servants," she began. "They mentioned something about an Empire sometimes. I'd assumed they were nice - my masters always spoke of them in high-regard."

Anna scoffed. "They're just grateful because they legalized slavery."

"Perhaps," Elsa said. "It's a bit daunting. I don't have much knowledge of how a life outside of servitude would be like."

"Oh, it's great!" Anna exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. "You're free to do whatever you like. There's a lot of things I want to show-hey!"

They arrived at the speeder, and she saw two tiny, hooded figures tinkering with the lone speeder bike that rested inside a nook in the canyon wall.

"Shoo, shoo!" Anna shouted at the pair. "That's not yours!"

The Jawas hopped off, scampering up the pile of rocks and disappearing into the valley. Anna let go of the slave girl, hobbling over to the LC-4, looking for any sign of tampering. A fair reaction, given that they were dealing with Jawas.

They must've been attracted by the battles, Anna thought.

When she got to the speeder bike, with Elsa following directly behind her, she came across a very distressing sight. The bike was in shambles - pieces from the underside of the front-end lay scattered across the ground. No doubt the bike was in the middle of being taken apart, scrapped for valuable spare parts to be sold off.

"Fuck!" Anna swore out loud, sitting down on the ground. "Bike's in pieces. Can't get out of here the fast way."

Elsa said nothing - instead, she just strode over to where the bike was.

"What are you doing?" Anna asked from down on the ground, trying hard not to look at Elsa's swaying backside as she walked past her.

"Bikes usually have a toolkit somewhere," she said as she was searching the entire bike, sifting through all the compartments and looking in all the nooks and crannies. "If I can find it, I can get to work on putting this back together," she added, just as she pulled out a pouch from somewhere on the bike. "Found it!"

Immediately, she got to work, grabbing pieces and pulling out tools as she inspected the bike. She moved with precision and purpose, affixing pieces and adjusting parts with a sense of familiarity and knowledge to her actions.

"You know how to fix up bikes?" Anna was a bit surprised.

"Yes," Elsa, taking a tool from the pouch. "I wasn't always a dancer. When I was younger, I was always assigned to fix up machines and the like."

"What changed all of that?" Anna asked. "You look like you know what you're doing. How come you were turned into a dancer?"

Elsa paused. "I grew up."

And Anna got the story.

Of course as a kid, she wouldn't be made into a performer. There were people who were depraved enough to do that, sure, but from what she gathered, Elsa never had any of those kinds of people as masters. The older she got, however, the more her looks would develop, and eventually she would grow up into the radiant figure that stood before her now.

She wondered what Elsa felt, suddenly thrust from fixing up machinery to being put on display like a slab of meat.

For the rest of the time Elsa spent fixing the bike, nothing was said between them. The slave girl simply took to fixing up the bike, while the bounty hunter took to keeping guard. It was an all but soundless affair - only the soft pangs and screws of wrenches were heard.

Anna kept watch, looking out for signs of any other enemies, monster, stray creatures, anything she could find so that she didn't have to look at the titillating sight of the scarf-wearing, bikini-clad blonde working on the rented speeder-bike, bending over and lying down…

Nope, nope, Anna thought, shaking her head. She was a slave. You have no right slobbering over her like that.

"Anna?"

She looked back. Elsa was finished. The bike was back in one piece, and even seemed to be in better shape than it was before.

"Just like new," Elsa said. "I even took a look through the systems. There was something wrong with the repulsorlift. Some of the power converters were underpowered, so I went ahead and fixed that up. We should reach faster speeds now."

"Wow," Anna said, dumbfounded. "You know your stuff."

Anna stood up, limping towards the bike.

"Wait, are you sure you can ride the bike?" Elsa said, concerned. "You're not exactly in the best of shape.

"Yeah, I should be able to," she responded. When she neared the bike, she winced at the slight stinging sensation.

Oh no, Anna thought. It's going to wear off soon.

Elsa took notice. Before the redhead could get her hand on the handle, Elsa got on the driver's seat.

Oh dear, Anna thought.

She looked positively sexy. No effort was expended on her part, yet with her on the bike, hunched over the controls, one foot on the ground, and wearing something that could barely be considered clothing, Anna blushed with the intensity of a thousand suns. Elsa looked like the quintessential trashy biker girl she'd always see hanging around near cantinas back at Mos Eisley, but a great deal more appealing to her tastes.

"Uhh," Anna blurted dumbfoundedly. "Huh."

"What is it?"

"Nothing! Nothing." She was still speechless for a moment. "Do you know how to ride that?"

"Well," Elsa looked sheepish for a bit. "In theory, I do. I know how something like this works, but of course I was never allowed to ride anything."

"Good enough for me," Anna said. She was about to get on the back of the bike when Elsa stopped her.

When she looked at the blonde, Elsa instinctively withdrew her hand. "Sorry, but I don't think you should get on the back."

"Why?"

"You have a broken arm," Elsa explained. "You won't be able to hold on. It's better if you sit in front of me."

"Oh," Anna's blush intensified. "Umm, okay."

Ducking under Elsa's arms, she sat herself on the gap between the front of the girl and the controls of the bike.

"Alright, just tell me where to go," Elsa said.

"Just up ahead," Anna pointed up the valley. "When we're out I can just show you the general direction we need to go."

"Alright," Elsa revved up the speeder. "Let's hope I can drive this alright."

The bike lurched forward, catching both of them off-guard.

"Okay, let's try that again."

She turned successfully the second time around. Gliding out of the nook and out into the pathway, Elsa sped up, making a beeline for the exit of the canyon.

As the sounds of the speeder faded away, the valley, bathed in a light orange glow, became deathly silent once again.

Under the light of a million stars, the speeder hurdled through the vast empty landscape.

The wind flew by fast, blowing loud in Anna's ear and chilling down to the bone. With her hood down and her scarf with Elsa, she could feel the wind blowing in her face with full force. It was cold for her - she, who was dressed in a full, thick battle outfit, was shivering.

How much more for Elsa, who didn't have the luxury of clothing at the moment?

"Aren't you cold?" Anna asked.

"No, I'm not," Elsa responded. "I'm not bothered by the cold, remember?"

"Yes," Anna conceded. "But that was when we were near a fire. We're not anywhere near that anymore."

"I'm fine, Anna. Really," Elsa said, looking back at the aforementioned valley that was quickly shrinking behind them. By now, they were far enough that the valley had just become a glowing light in the distance, with a massive column of smoke the rose from it.

Elsa spotted something else, though. Just off to the side were three blinking lights, looking as if they were headed towards the place they had just come from.

"Anna, what are those?" She asked, pointing towards the lights.

The redhead looked back, spotting what Elsa had spotted. She squinted her eyes, until she came to a realization. "They're Imperial probe droids. They must've detected all the explosions."

"You can see them from this far away?" Elsa asked, astonished at her friend's vision.

Anna paused. "I… no, I can't," she realized. "I just… know."

As she moved back, she cringed. The anesthetic was starting to fade away, and she was worried it wouldn't last much longer. Elsa noticed, and she shifted her position on the seat.

"Hey, hey," Elsa said to her. "Please rest. Just point me to where we need to go and then you can sleep."

Anna weakly nodded, lifting her arm to point in a general direction. "Just… keep heading in that direction, across the Dune Sea…"

Elsa turned, adjusting her vector to head for where the redhead pointed at. "Do you want to rest?"

Anna said nothing, instead just leaning into Elsa's front, snuggling as best as she could for someone who was sitting upright.

Despite how cold it was, as the wind whipped around her, she found that Elsa was soft and warm, and she became comfortable enough to start feeling drowsy. She then rested her head on Elsa's shoulder, eyes slowly drooping until they fully closed.

Having gotten the affirmation she was looking for, she simply continued on, speeding up the bike in the hope that she would find wherever Anna needed to go to get help from.

Under the stars and the moonlit night, a lone speeder-bike rode across the desolate desert landscape.