Two

Chapter 11

She grabbed the blanket that covered her with her hands, scared to open her eyes. If she opened them, she feared she would be back there.

She wasn’t.

She wasn’t back there in the horrible clutches of slavery.

“What is it?”

Maul.

“I… I had a nightmare again,” she admitted. “I thought I was… I thought I was back on Nal Hutta, as a slave.”
“You’re not a slave now.”
“No,” she said. “But I have been for a long time.” She had been a slave for almost as long as she could remember. Her few memories of living with her mother was the only reason she knew she was sold into slavery and not born into it.

“How long?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I was seven, I think. I can remember being with my mother for my seventh birthday but not my eighth. She sold me into slavery, it’s not uncommon for parents to do that so children don’t have to deal with the harsh conditions on Ryloth.”
“She sold you into slavery to protect you?” he asked. He didn’t sound convinced.
Nima nodded. “Yes. She didn’t have to worry about feeding me. She sold me to a rich woman who wanted a handmaid. I was promised food, decent clothes and somewhere to sleep. And it meant my mother didn’t have to worry about feeding two people.”

Nima recalled living as a handmaid. Despite the strict and exhausting routines, it had been far better than when she was a slave dancer.
“And you were seven?”
“I think so. I don’t really remember when my birthday is any more.”

Maul frowned and Nima looked away from him, seeing him frown made her feel worse.
“I'm sorry, you probably don't care about any of this so I'll-”
“No, continue,” Maul said, interrupting her. “If you wish to do so.”
Nima quickly nodded her head. “I was trained to be a good handmaid by a human girl, she was a teenager. Very pretty and very clever. Her name was Lexia. She taught me how to dance and how to dance with a metal pole. We slept in the attic and the poles were used to keep up the roof, she had found out that she could do all of these things years before and taught me.”

“How did you end up becoming a slave dancer for the Hutts then?” he asked.  Nima laughed a little, even though it wasn’t very funny at all. It was more of a nervous or awkward laugh.
“When I was dancing, I fell and it woke up someone who ended up coming upstairs to see what was going on. They ended up finding out and at first they didn’t do anything,” said Nima.

She closed her eyes and her lekku twitched as she remembered the slaps she had received for waking someone up. She felt foolish, thinking that was all the punishment there would be. “A few months later, I was sold to the Hutts, after I trained a new handmaid. The lady didn’t like adult handmaids for whatever reason anyway and I was nearly an adult. And thus began my slave dancing. It was only a few years ago, I was seventeen and I think I’m about twenty one now.”

Nima fell silent and watched Maul for his reaction. Her lekku nervously wrapped and unwrapped around each other. He watched her lekku move for a few moments before speaking.
“I am not much older than you,” he said, somewhat softly. “I am somewhat curious what your dancing is like, you must be fairly athletic.”
Nima shrugged. “A little bit,” she said. Maybe it would help with some of the training, though she hadn’t seen much of Maul’s fighting skills outside of the training. “I’d hoped not to dance again but perhaps I could make an exception for you.”

Maul didn’t reply and Nima realised she felt much better. Their conversation had distracted her from the nightmare she had.
“I don’t know where you’ll find a pole for it, but if you do, I’ll dance for you,” she said. There was a hint of a smile on his face and she considered that good. He wasn’t the type to smile and be friendly, but she didn’t mind. “I think I should try to sleep. Goodnight.”