Episode II: Orphan

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95 BBY

Zerranah was now five years old, spending her time as a child, playing and waddling around with other children of her age. It was a fun life for her. Her parents worked hard mining ipsium and selling them in the market, though it didn't get them enough credits to spend life in comfort.

One such normal day, her mother fed Zerranah in the morning before going out to work. Her father had already been gone before dawn, down to the mines with other villagers.

"Be good and don't wander off alright?" Zana kissed the girl's forehead as Zerranah reached for her mother's face, grabbing her cheeks with tiny little hands as she cooed softly.

"Yes..mumma...." She spoke in broken words since she was still a child.

Zana carried her back to the crib and placed her inside the bed, putting all of her toys and dolls around. "I will be back before dinner." Closing the door she left for the mines.

                                         Hours passed by, evening turned to night but her parents didn't return. The village men and women began searching for the lost miners, travelling to the mines to investigate what was wrong.

Back at the hut, Zerranah grew restless for her parents, as she could sense that something wasn't right. "Mumma...papa?" She kept uttering their names until she fell asleep on the bed.

Morning broke, but her parents didn't return. They were never to return again. The villagers discovered the lifeless bodies of several miners, her parents among them.

She somehow managed to crawl out of the bed, waddling over to the window to see what happened. Outside, it was a sight of sorrow. Women crying over the death of their loved ones, children hiding behind the doors of their cottages.

"Don't look outside. Please, stay inside." One of her mother's friends took little Zerranah inside the hut. "But...mumma and...papa?" She looked at the woman with a look of sadness in her eyes. Unaware that she would never see them again.

"It was attack by Krayt dragons... the mine had a family nesting inside the caves." Few villagers who managed to escape discussed with the other villagers.

"What do we do with the child? She is an orphan now." The other women asked the village headwoman, who seemed to always have a solution to every situation.

"I will raise her as my own." The headwoman said, walking to the hut. The other woman was holding Zerranah in her arms.

"No! We cannot keep an orphan in this village. This child is cursed!" One of the villagers yelled out.

"Yes...yes! Cast her out from the village!" Slowly one after another the villagers began to revolt.

"She is the reason so many lives were lost today!" They continued.

The headwoman had nothing else to do but to listen to the words of the villagers. After she cared about Zerranah, and if these people did something to her, it would be dangerous.

"But she's just a baby!" The woman holding her replied, as the older woman signalled her to stop.

"Sell this child to the slave sellers!"

And so it was, little Zerranah was sold out to a Hutt clan on Tatooine. A new life began for her, a life of misery and pain. A scar that would live on in her heart forever.

She cried and cried, but there was nobody to save her. Boxed up in a cage with other slaves, she was transported offworld to the desert planet of Tatooine.

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