Chapter One: Silhouettes

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"Get up here, now, or I'm gonna have your head, Sei'Lya!"

Her head shot up, and the pain that followed from banging her skull into the top of the sleeping chamber ached immensely. Thell held her head, only for a moment; it was the only time she was allowed, before slipping her brown and gray garments over her head. Her tattered grey cloak was last, securing the gold pin tightly around her chest as she swung her legs over the chamber to slip her feet into her boots. Her toe was nearly sticking out through the front again; she would have to ask Miko for news ones, if he could afford to risk it.

Thell stumbled down the steel corridor, tying her hair into a knot to make herself look at least a bit more presentable. The hallways turned to a sudden stunning white that reflected the fancy interior of Bespin's greatest business lord, Bleys Darand's, mansion.

Thell had worked and lived with him for as long as she could remember. Her mother had been with her too, until the sickness that had ravaged Bespin for two years took her too, along with many of her friends. That had been over ten years ago. She was twenty nine now, nearly thirty, and twelve when her mother had passed. She had never known her father, and for the most part, she was alone. Miko, another servant in the adjacent building, was the only one she could scarcely call her a friend. He was a grumpy old man who only took pity on her because he had been fond of her mother.

That's what it had been for years now; sympathy from others, for the people who she had come from, been born from. She herself had never been able to prove her own worth, and it was what she wanted more than anything else. For someone to appreciate her for her own self, her own spirit, to actually see her, and not someone she had been associated with.

Bleys Darand came into her view much sooner than she had expected, whirling around the corner so fast she had to skid on her heels to avoid crushing him.

"Where in the Maker have you been, girl?" He growled, tugging her forward with a harsh grasp on her arm. "I needed the entire room to be cleaned before my guests arrived, and you are twenty minutes behind schedule!"

Thell gritted her teeth and tried to stop the tears she knew were coming. She only looked away, nodded, and waited for him to release her.

"Insolent child," came Darand's harsh voice again. "I don't see the reason in keeping you around if you can't do the simplest of tasks. Don't make me regret making that promise to your mother all those years ago."

He shoved her forward, so hard her knees slammed into the smooth marble flooring, and when she raised her hands they were streaked with red. Thell waited until she had heard Darand move from the room until she rose to her feet again, dusting off her pants.

She hated the cleaning, the constant need to have everything perfect, when Darand already lived in the most perfect place in the galaxy. But the view was nice. For at least now, it would suffice.

The sun was rising, casting golden glows and beaming rays of yellow and orange across the cityline. Thell stepped closer to the window, closer and closer until she could let her fingertips rest against the glass, hoping, wishing, that one day she could fly past that swirl of clouds and sunshine and make it into that neverending void of space and stars.

. . . . .

The day had been lonely, like most. The other servants never made eye contact with her, wanted nothing to do with her. They knew the promise Darand had made her mother the night she died, wasting away from a sickness no doctor could cure.

"Please, momma."

"You have to be strong, my star," her mother whispered, her voice strained with sickness. "You have to be strong for me."

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