Title: I would not ask and neither would you
Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 229
Content note: canon typical slavery
Author's note: early canon, ze/zir pronouns for Sith Warrior
Summary: Ze is rising rather rappidly, as these things are measured. From Acolyte to Apprentice, from resource to ... asset?

To be awarded a prize is not the same thing as given a gift. A prize earned is marginally less likely to be trapped, for one, due to the nature of being won. Gifts are clearly, inescapably hierarchical - a whim, an amusement, a trap; or, from the other direction, an attempt to curry favour - bartering precious trinkets for influence against the power of a Lord, an Instructor, a Darth. Sith, where ze is only an acolyte.

That distinction fades when the object won is a sentient being. Questions of equality aside - the comparison is laughable, when comparison is burgeoning Lord of the Sith - impossible for sophonts to not have agendas of their own. For the more broken examples, that agenda survival - which comes with its own risks.

Vette the raider and explorer of tombs, is very much not broken. Willing to work with zir, at least. Better than most else ze has encountered in sands and tombs of Korriban, though the soldiers were polite enough. Didn't even try to shoot her in the back when ze was occupied by Vemrin's posturing - although, with her rival the only other being around shows perhaps her intelligence rather than sentiment.

(Ze would like a little, non-threatening, sentiment.)

Ze can work with intelligence. Might even, with a dash of optimism, get a degree of loyalty. Given time.