Learning to Live (COMPLETE)

8.7.3

Ahsoka didn't know how long Rya wanted to embrace for, since she had barely ever done so herself. Not wanting to offend her any further though, she stayed still and waited for Rya to be ready to let go. When she did, tear trails shone on her cheeks. Ahsoka smiled, not really knowing what to do or say next. Now that the actual medical job was done, she was out of her element.

Rya walked over to the wall, where a shelf was supporting dusty pictures of her as a child, usually with her mother. She picked one up, brushing the dust off and smiling back at the woman frozen in the frame. "My mom had this taken the first week I was born. She always said it was the best thing that had ever happened to her." Putting it back, she didn't look that convinced to Ahsoka. "She's always had to work to keep me safe and healthy. Sometimes I wonder if she really thinks it was worth it, to have a child."

Ahsoka had no idea how to respond. She didn't know anything about children, or parenthood.

"Did your parents want you to become a Jedi?" Rya asked, changing the subject quickly.

She shook her head. "I don't know. I was at an orphanage before I was brought to Coruscant, and so they never knew. I don't think they did, at least."

Rya looked ashamed for asking, but she moved on to what she had intended to say. "I was born here, but my mother grew up on Ryloth. She was taken by the Zygerian Empire and sold into slavery."

Ahsoka wasn't surprised to hear it. Twi'leks were often enslaved, both as children and adults. Some were even born into it. So why wasn't Rya?

"How did your mother escape?"

Rya smiled. "My father helped her. They snuck onto a cargo ship and managed to hide until they got here. They used to live up closer to the surfaces, too, when they had me." Her face darkened and turned downcast. "Bounty hunters found my father, I don't know what happened to him. My mother came down here and hid, and started working on her own to support us."

"And you started working for Fuller," Ahsoka guessed, "so she wouldn't have to."

She nodded. "That, and I want to send her home."

"To Ryloth?"

"It's all she's wanted ever since she left," Rya explained. "She's done so much for me, and all I want is to give her something in return."

Ahsoka was stunned into silence. Never before had she ever met someone willing to work for something like that. Is she really that close to her mother? "How close are you to paying for passports?"

Rya looked up at her, confused. "What?"

"To travel. You need passports to travel between systems, or at least some kind of permit."

The blue Twi'lek shook her head. "We can't get passports. We're undocumented since my mother came here illegally."

Ahsoka tried to remember the legal process behind documentation. "I suppose it would take a while. How are you going to get her home then?"

"There's someone who can take her, but he wants 10,000 credits before he'll do it. He says that it's the only way he can sneak her out of Coruscant."

A million alarm bells went off in Ahsoka's head. "Are you sure you can trust this person?"

"Well I don't have a choice, do I?" Rya said defensively. "Without papers, she can't get out any other way!"

"Why can't you apply for citizenship?" Ahsoka asked. She knew it was probably pushing boundaries, but she felt that something was wrong here.

"They said it was more expensive to pay for documentation and a passport than it was to pay him."

"And you believed him?"