May The Way Be With You

Backstory

Mando didn't let me leave the table for the rest of our time on the moon. Any time I got up, he would make me sit back down unless I had to use the fresher or was getting a drink. Eventually he let me help catalog what supplies he has, and what he needs to get. I'm quite surprised he didn't scold me for wondering off.

We're back in hyperspace, on our way to his first quarry. I'm with him in the cockpit, debating with myself. I told Fiona a part of what went on at the orphanage, why am I afraid to tell Mando? He hasn't done a thing to make me think he'd throw me off his ship for it, or think less of me. So why am I so afraid?

A little voice in my mind tells me he might treat me like fragile glass for it. Or hurt me like Madame Grizel did. But I remind that voice that he's Mando. He only hurts bounties who fight back. He saved me from falling, has given me a space of my own, and likes me enough to waste credits on useless trinkets if it makes me happy. I take a deep breath, knowing he has a right to know about my past.

"What's wrong?" Mando asks, turning his head from his holopad to me.

"Nothing... Just thinking." I sigh, looking out the window.

"Anything I can help with?" He asks, turning the chair to face me. I take another deep breath, and decide to test the waters.

"Would... Would you think less of me if-" I don't get to finish.

"You could tell me you killed people and I wouldn't think less of you. Over the last couple of months, I've gotten to know your character." He tells me, leaning his arms on his knees, "Never fear that I will ever think poorly of you." Tears well up in my eyes, and I swallow past the lump. I take a deep breath, then just monologue.

"As I told you before, I was found in a vegetable basket after an Empire raid. An old lady brought me to the orphanage. I was cared for by a very nice lady. Once I was old enough to hold a wrench, Madame Grizel put me to work. All us kids were. We had to earn the one pitiful meal we got at the end of the day, and our bed for the night.

"If any of us kids fucked up, we were punished. How we were punished depended on how many credits we cost Madame Grizel. If it wasn't much, we just didn't get dinner that night, and had to sleep in the drafty foyer. If it was a considerable amount, but not a lot, we would be beaten with whatever she could get her hands on on top of no dinner and no bed.

"If we cost her a shit ton of credits.... We were lucky to be alive when she was done with us. Most kids didn't survive." I take a few breaths, remembering watching the kids die. "The nice lady that raised me for a little while did all she could. Snuck me food, slept cuddled up with me in the foyer, whatever she could to make it easier for me.

"Madame Grizel didn't like that. She would punish us both for it with extra beatings, weeks without food, withholding the lady's pay, anything she could think of to make the nice lady stop helping me. Nice Lady never stopped, somehow getting enough food for us to survive.

"One day, she tried to escape with me. We got about two miles from town before the guards caught up to us. When Madame Grizel got her hands on us... I was dragged naked through the orphanage, and everyone was allowed to hurt me any way they wanted. The nice lady... She was killed." I take a few more shuddering breaths, missing the nice lady. I never even knew her name.

"That's how I lived every day. All the way up until I got my first cycle. When that happened, Madame Grizel had the most wicked gleam in her eye. I was made to bathe in a super hot bath, the soap and shampoo she used on me burning me along with the water. What happened next is a bit of a blur.

"I was on a stage with a few other girls, and the crowd was full of men ranging from young adults to half way in the grave. They kept yelling out numbers, until a cold voice carried over the room, calling out three billion. I was then whisked away to a hotel room. The man kept me in the bathroom until my cycle ended. After it ended, he made me wash again, brought me into the room, threw me on the bed and-"