Corellia - 11 years ago

The soft beep of the monitors was the only sound in the small private room. The nurse made her rounds, checking vitals and fluids. Her final step before moving on was to roll the girl to each side and massage her legs. The older woman grabbed the chart pad off the end of the bed. She was almost finished giving her report when her eyes drifted up to the girls face. She laid in the bed peacefully sleeping, just as she had for the past eighteen months. The scars on her head, the burns, and the broken bones had all healed leaving a tiny nine year old girl in a stubborn slumber she just could not seem to shake.

Mary remembered the day they brought her in. The girl's hair was a matted dark mess which betrayed the blonde color. She looked as though she had been beaten by a team of experts, her little body broken and left for dead. The man that brought her in had a broken nose of his own and growled more than spoke proper words. The man gave the nurse a bad feeling, and security almost threw him out. Then he had a few words with the attending physician and he was aloud full access to the child. He came by every day, got an update on her condition. Something that had not changed in over a year.

"Any change?" Mary jumped. The man stomped past her to stand next to the girl his eyes never leaving his datapad. "I'm talking to you nurse. I realize the vegetable can't answer me."

She scowled at the name calling, but remembered herself and answered. "No, nothing yet."

He nodded. "What a surprise." He punched a few more buttons and nodded as the pad beeped. "Yep, boss says pull the plug." With that a huge smile came across his face as he winked at the unresponsive girl.

"W-what?" Mary stuttered and started to come around the bed.

"Go get the doctor." As he slowly spoke his hand fell to his waist, where he must have had a blaster pistol.

She stopped and stared at his hand for a long moment. She knew the odds. After the first month came and went the girls odds of ever recovering went out the window, but she hated giving up on the patients when they were so young. Her eyes traveled over to the sleeping face and whispered a silent, 'I'm sorry.' Then she nodded to the man and left with a heavy heart to get the doctor.

He watched her go. "Meddling women, they just can't keep their noses where they belong can they?"

His eyes wandered lazily over the figure of the girl, his glee at today being the last day he would have to come to the hospital he was finding difficult to contain. It had been his punishment, for letting her get shot in the first place. Raoul remembered that night well, the storm would have made it memorable regardless of the child's actions that got him into so much trouble with his superior. He thought for sure they would get struck by lightning, the power was out in most of the city. There were two of them, two identical little brats. They were already badly burned and beat up from the kidnapping that claimed their mother for sure, their father was still being dealt with. He met the group of mercs that carried out the job at the spaceport and loaded the fiesty girls into a transport in the rain.



"Aw hurry the hell up, I'm getting soaked out here." Raoul stomped around sending still puddles into chaos with every step. He was tired, sore, and his nose hurt from that cheap shot the bastard got him with before he was thrown out of the bar.

The merc was trying to control a tied up and gagged eight year old girl. The fact that she was actually giving him so much trouble almost impressed the brutish man. Usually when they had jobs like this, which wasn't very often, the targets were subdued and almost broken in a way. Not this girl.

"Ow!" The man tossed the girl into the speeder and punched her hard enough in the face to cause a gash next to her eye.

"Hey! You are not allowed to damage the merchandise, that is not what we pay you for." Its not that Raoul cared one bit what happened to the brats, he just wasn't in the mood to get yelled at when he got back to the headquarters.

The man pointed to the bruise on his shin. "Do you see that? The little bitch kicked me."

"Aww well let me find a mommy to kiss it and make it better. Get your ass to work and stop complaining."

Raoul smirked, fiesty indeed. The other sister was not nearly so much trouble, but something about the way she looked at you gave him the willies. The fiesty one, he understood that look. It was the, let me out of these restraints and I'll show you pain look. He almost admired the girls tenacity, but there was work to be done.

He was distracted, but that was the weather and the booze he had drank earlier in the night. His eyes were getting tired and that made the datapad difficult to read, it only seemed to come into focus when the lightning lit up the sky. Maybe if his eyes didn't burn so much he would have noticed the two girls working together to undo the bindings on their arms.

It happened quickly. The fiesty one jumped up and ripped her gag off, landing on the merc's back. While at the same time the clever one rolled out the other side of the speeder and searched for a weapon of some kind. Raoul drew his pistol, then hesitated since his instructions were to deliver the girls unharmed. "Argh, you have got to be kidding me. Get them!"

The merc threw the girl from his back, sending her flying several meters backwards and landing hard on her back. By that time her sister had found some kind of pipe and was rounding the speeder. The merc, being the moron he was, pulled his pistol and took aim at the pipe wielding girl heading right at him. Everyone seemed to scream at once, the fiesty girl jumped to her feet and yanked her sister back by her shoulder. Raoul was running towards the disaster, the lightening and thunder was deafining, he wasn't sure what had happened at first. The younger sister that had stopped her older sister from running right into a pistol wielding lunatic, stumbled as she tried to get up and fell awkwardly back to the ground. Raoul grabbed the merc from behind, slamming the mans hand into his knee forcing the pistol to drop to the ground.

Raoul pushed him as hard as he could in the chest. "What the hell is wrong with you? I said no damage, you're shooting at them. There are at least ten of us out here. I think we can grab two little girls without shooting them!" He was staring daggers at the man who continued to keep his eyes on the girls. Then Raoul slowly became aware that all his men were looking at the girls, who hadn't moved. Why hadn't they moved?

Slowly Raoul turned to see the pipe forgotten and the one girl crying hysterically over her sister's prone form. Raoul swallowed hard and spoke with a hiss to his voice, "hold this asshole."

He stepped slowly to stand above the two girls. The older one was leaned over gently shaking her sister, begging her to wake up. The other one was now breathing in long shallow breaths. The water falling from the sky was barely able to keep up with the blood pouring from her head. The merc had shot her, in the side of her chest as she fell she must have nailed the landspeeder head first to produce the very large gash in her forehead.

Raoul looked up and pointed at four of his men standing in a clump. "You guys, take her back to the boss." He pointed at the final two men standing to his right. "The rest of you, come with me, we need to get this one to a hospital. The boss will kill me if I don't at least try to save her." He turned to glare at the men holding the merc. "You go with them, take that asshole back to the boss."

The older sister screamed the others name the whole way back to the speeder. It was a sound he probably would never be able to get out of his nightmares.



Raoul shook his head to come back to reality, all of that was well over a year ago. "That was one hell of a knock to the head you took there, little one." He smirked, this girl had caused him nothing but annoyance. Why it was his fault the damn trigger-happy merc shot her? He just couldn't fathom, how the boss expected him to stop that. But then again, he knew who signed his paychecks and wasn't about to argue. "You're right to just lie there. Finally got some smarts in that stubborn brain of yours. Cause if you did wake up, oh man."

He crossed his arms and glanced up at the chrono. "Ah well, time for me to get back to work. They will take care of you, guess next time we see each other I'll be picking up your body bag." He smirked again at the thought of being done with this neverending job already. "You should know, you didn't really protect your sister from anything. We sold her to a real bastard two weeks later, she's probably dead herself. In fact, jumping in front of that bolt probably just caused her more pain. Enjoy the after-life, Ayme, you're long overdue for arriving there."

He winked at her and snickered to himself before turning and whistling all the way out of the building.

The nurse solumnly disconnected all the wires and equipment then planted a kiss on the girls head. "Won't be long now." She turned to leave the room then stopped. Something moved out of the corner of her eye. Mary turned back to the girl laying on the bed. After several moments she laughed at her silliness for seeing things. "Jumping at shadows now, guess its time I took a nap before they send me to the psych ward." She looked at the girl with a wistful grin then shook her head. She was about to leave when she felt her heart stop from shock. The girl groaned and turned her head. "Ayme?"

Corellia - 9 years ago
Gronto Street Orphanage - Coronet City - Corellia

The city was always busy this time of year. Shops some how found more lights and the number of shoppers increased. Two days until Life Day, you would think their shopping would be done by now.

Ayme stood at the third story window and watched the chaos below. It all just seemed so pointless to her. Of course she knew she was different than the vast majority of eleven year old's in the galaxy. She didn't remember having a family or feeling loved by someone. It was nothing more than a day on the calendar people gave gifts because they felt like they had to, not because they actually gave a damn.

"Hey, whatcha' lookin' at?"

She silently sighed. Ayme had grown to hate talking to the other orphans. She couldn't remember her family but knew that she had one. She couldn't remember the torture that had been her life in that place that gave her the tattoo she couldn't explain, but her nightmares proved she had been there. All she knew for sure was that she hated answering questions about her past, yet that's all orphans seemed to want to know. Hell, she didn't even like it when they said her name because it just reminded her of all that was lost and that she would never find.

"Ayme? Ya hearin' me?"

She growled and turned so quickly the small red-haired girl jumped back on her bed. Ayme just rolled her eyes and turned back to the window. "I'm looking at the street, obviously."

"You not, thinkin' bout leavin' again, are ya'?"

Ayme blinked and traced a design on the trasperiglass with her finger. "I'm going to the garage, tell Nurse so they don't send a kriffin' search party after me again."

"Well, if you'd stop runnin' away they wouldn' act like that."

Ayme sneered as she passed Kara. The girl had only just arrived less than a month before. Kara's family had been killed in a speeder accident or something. It bugged Ayme to even talk to the girl. Kara remembered her parents, her birthday, her home, Hell even her last name. Ayme knew it wasn't the girls fault, she couldn't help that she knew so much more about what it meant to be Cara then Ayme knew about being Ayme. Which is why she preferred the company of speeders and engines. Conversations with vehicles were so much easier to deal with.

She picked up a hydrospanner and gently tapped it against her other palm. They had a very old BARC speeder she had been trying to put back together, on of her many excursions from the orphanage had been to get a new energy converter for the rusty thing. She had no desire to revisit that lecture she had to sit through when she returned. The workbench was already a mess of tools and parts when she sat in the old creaky chair they left in the garage. She had laid out the handlebar mechanism and started collecting the pieces to put that back together. Every part had to be cleaned and the gears were a mess.

"Are you able to sleep any better, my child?" Nurse silently padded to the rust filled table and gently rested a large glass of juice next to the blond girls arm. She had kind eyes, which threw Ayme off everytime she looked at her. She'd never known kindness from someone that didn't expect something in return. In fact the more kind the act the greater the payment which was expected in her experience. The woman really freaked her the eff out.

The Nurse smiled as she watched Ayme glance suspiciously at the drink, then continue working. "You know, I recall the day you arrived here. It was during that awful storm, hadn't seen a storm like that in oh ten years. You had that terrible confused look on your face and couldn't remember anything."

Ayme squirmed in her seat, the conversation sounded like it was heading somewhere. The kind nurse was probably going to ask her to pay up or get out, which would have been pretty annoying since she did kinda want to finish the speeder.

"You're a survivor, Ayme."

She raised an eyebrow and looked at the woman oddly. "So now's the part where you tell me to leave, right?"

Nurse laughed. "No, no, not at all. I would love you to stay with us, I think you're a lovely girl." Ayme frowned at that. "No Ayme. There are many children here in our walls I genuinely worry about once they are too old to live with us. I worry that they are not ready for the world out there. You I lose no sleep over. Regardless of what life throws at you, you'll be just fine. Look at what you've overcome already."

The older woman tapped Ayme on the knee and stood. "Don't forget, dinner time in thirty minutes. I expect you to be washed and ready by then." She started to leave and turned back around after taking several steps towards the door. "Their is one thing. I worry about you shutting yourself off from others, your emotional well being. I can only pray that one day you will find someone to open up to, Ayme."

The woman smiled a final time and exited the garage.

"Pfft, not bloody likely lady." Ayme shook her head and returned to her handlebars.

Corellia - 7 years ago
Coronet City


Ayme sat on the dirty street, her back leaning against the wall. She had already checked the usual places: the dumpster behind the fancy restaurant, the grocery merchant, outright begging. But the food she so desperately needed was no where to be found. She started to consider going back to the orphanage. She hated being cooped up there, but at least she could get some food.

A few well dressed businessmen passed her, giving the eight year old girl an idea. Ayme pushed herself off the building, using it to stabilize her weak legs as she stood. Another man, fairly well dressed passed in front of her. He had dirty blonde hair and was tall with an awkward gait. The way he walked it seemed to Ayme that he had already walked too far in those shoes. Putting her hands in her pockets she picked up her pace to get in a rhythm with his. Ayme could only manage a few steps without getting paranoid and looking around thinking she was being watched. The hunger was bringing out the fear, she just needed to eat and she would be fine.

Reaching her small hand to his waist, she slipped the wallet out of his backpocket. Before she could celebrate he grabbed her wrist in one swift motion. Then slammed her up against the wall at his eye level, her feet dangling against the building. The man's eye twitched, he didn't seem to expect someone so small to be the thief, in fact it was almost as if he was relieved to find the miniature pick pocket there.

She knew not to show weakness, that was how you got yourself beat up on a daily basis. You show weakness you could kiss your desert at dinner every night goodbye. Weakness was her enemy, and she knew better than to let it get control of her.

He half carried, half dragged Ayme into an alley. Her face showed defiance but she made no attempt to fight him, not there in the middle of the street where the officers could find her and take her back to the orphanage. If she wanted to go back, she would make that decision not have it made for her.

He lifted her up again against the wall. "So what's your story?" He started to look her up and down, it was hard not to notice the lack of meat on her bones and the tattered condition of her clothing. It must have amused him, because he smirked. Then his eyes came to rest on her wrist, and his face suddenly lost all color.

"What is your name?"

Ayme just stared at him she noticed the pause in his gaze and the sudden change in the demeanor of his voice but she had no clue why that stupid tattoo would cause it. She didn't even know what the symbol was supposed to be, nobody seemed to.

He shook her. "I asked you a question." Ayme continued to stare, her lips a solid line, no emotion but pure anger and frustration behind her blue eyes. "You are a tough little one aren't you, I bet you create nothing but havock when you're around." He shook his head. "Maybe that's what I should call you."

"I don't care what you call me just let me go." Ayme started to squirm against his large hands, she could have kicked him, but she still didn't want to get the police involved.

"You live in the orphanage down on Gronto Street, right?" Ayme stopped squirming and looked at him, he had started to look around. It seemed as if he was worried about being followed. "Yea, you do. And you look hungry. Listen, I have some other kids living with me. Why don't I take you there and give you some food. You don't have to stay, just some food in exchange for that wallet in your hand."

Ayme looked at him and swallowed. She wasn't sure if she should trust him, but the offer of food was almost too good to pass up. She nodded, and he immediately put her down so she could stand on her own. She solemnly handed him the wallet. "Thank you." Then he turned to head back to the main street and paused reaching into his jacket for something. He pulled out a handkerchief. "Tie this around that wrist, and tell no one about that tattoo, you understand?" Ayme nodded and started to tie the handkerchief. "I'm Jed by the way."

"Hi Jed."

He chuckled and shook his head. "Still no name of your own, huh? Fine, lets go Havock."