Rey's Ancestry (A Star Wars Fan Fiction)

CHAPTER 10 - A Few Years Later

Jadma had named her daughter Ridda, because she hoped that her daughter would grow up to be as beautiful as the flowers from Oyotom and as powerful as the dragons from Diark.

For the past five years, Jadma and Ridda had lived alone together on a ship that Jadma had purchased by selling some of her lightsabers, a ship that was big and roomy enough for them to live in comfortably and fast enough that they could outrun anything.

For a while, everything was fine.

Then came the night that Jadma had feared.

She felt a great disturbance in the Force. She felt the deaths of many young, Force-sensitive beings. She touched the carving that Ben had given her, hoping that it would give her focus, and she had a vision of a teenage Ben, holding a long, green lightsaber, and cutting down his classmates with it.

With a breaking heart, she knew that the time had come to hide Ridda.

As she set down on Jakku, she went to her sleeping daughter, kissed her on the forehead, and administered a drug that would block out some of her memories. She did not want her daughter to come looking for her and risk getting killed in the process, so she figured that the best thing to do was to block out her daughter's memories of her. She had an antidote that she would be able to give her upon their reunion, but even if she died before she could administer the antidote, the memories would be likely to return on their own later in life.

She knew from personal experience that Jakku was not the best place for a little girl to grow up, but there was currently only one person she could trust to protect her daughter.

Jadma, with her sleeping daughter in her arms, set out onto the dust ball that she had hoped to never see again, and headed straight into town.

She found Scruffy playing cards with some other old men, and when he looked up, it was clear that he recognized her right away.

"Jadma!" he cried. "It's been, what, twenty years? Look at you! You're all grown up! Who's the kid?

"Scruffy," said Jadma, "remember when we first landed here and I saved you from sinking into that quicksand? Well, I'm calling in a favour. I want you to take care of my daughter until I get back."

"What?!" said Scruffy. "When you saved my life, I never thought you would try to get something in return someday! I thought you were better than that!"

"And I'm warning you," said Jadma, "I have training in the Jedi Arts now. If I get back and find that you've mistreated her in any way...!"

"Fine! Fine!" said Scruffy. "Maybe this will be a way for you to make up for some of the mistakes I made raising you. But you're coming back for her, right?"

"I promise," said Jadma, "as soon as I'm sure the danger is over, I'll come back for her."

Then Jadma handed the sleeping Ridda over to Scruffy, kissing her on the forehead as she did so."

"Goodbye, Ridda," she whispered, "I love you, and I'll miss you!"

And then she walked back to her ship, blinded by her tears.

She sold her ship at a shipyard and bought a new one. Even though it was probably futile to try to throw off a Force-sensitive being this way, it still felt better than nothing.