For the eight-year-old girl sitting in the gaping maw of a broken ventilation shaft that might once have carried smoke or toxic waste from some other district into the still-deeper bowels of the city planet, it was the only home she'd had for a year.
The Jedi were destroyed and the Sith had killed everyone good on the planet. Everyone knew this, and nobody knew it more than the mute little girl with the matted red hair, gnawing on a ration bar that had seen better days. She'd seen it all happen, of course. But she couldn't tell anyone. If the Sith found out that they'd missed someone who'd escaped the burning Jedi Temple through the sublevels right before it fell, they'd come after her and kill her, and then there wouldn't be any more Jedi left at all. The child felt the heavy weight of being the last survivor of her kind settle onto her tiny shoulders and shivered, drawing her ratty blanket up over her. She still had bad nightmares about that day a year ago, when everyone she knew had been killed by the red 'saber blades, and usually woke up shaking and silently crying. But she'd learned real fast to not scream, no matter how scary the dreams were. Noises got attention down here, and not the good attention either, so she'd learned to be completely silent like a ghost- she hadn't said a single word since the day of the Sacking, and the last thing she'd screamed had been her best friend's name as a pillar fell on her. She hadn't been old enough for a real lightsaber when the Temple fell, which meant she didn't have any way to fight here. All she could do if she got in trouble was run and hide... but she was real good at that!
The child who'd once been known as Xaja Taerich finished her last bit of the ration bar, chewing it slowly. It tasted terrible, all dusty and oily and it felt like duracrete in her mouth, but it was the first thing she'd had to eat since yesterday morning. At least, she thought it was yesterday. There wasn't any sun down here, or any clocks, so she guessed what day it was based on her hunger and her sleepiness. It had been a lot of days since the rest of the Jedi died, so she figured it might've been a year. Rumours (what she could hear from the big, mean thugs anyway, before they noticed her and tried to catch her to do bad things with her that happened to all the other little girls or boys they caught) said that the Sith had left after killing the Jedi and the Chancellor, but Xaja didn't quite trust that. The Sith could be anywhere, just waiting to find the one Jedi Youngling they'd missed in their terrible attack.
When Xaja got bigger and stronger, she'd fight off all the bad thugs and get out of the scary (but probably the safest) parts of Coruscant that she haunted. Maybe she'd see if there was a lightsaber or something in the Temple ruins that she could find and use, and then she'd pay back the Sith for what they did to her and to everyone she'd ever known. But first, it was time to sneak off to see if she could find or steal some more food for the day. If she could get something for tomorrow too, that was even better.
Neatly folding her precious blanket and hiding it in a recessed corner of the shaft with two equally-precious water bottles (some lessons from the Jedi's teachings lingered, after all), Xaja crept out of her little hiding place, taking a good hard look and listen for any nearby rivals. She heard nothing, saw no movement in the shadows, and most importantly sensed nothing with her mind- the Force had probably been the one thing keeping her alive this entire year. With a well-practiced bit of careful maneuvering, the tiny redhead wriggled her way to the topside of the shaft and scampered along the metal surface. She feared many things, but after having spent this long using the Force to keep her balance on here, falling to her death or crippling wasn't one of them. She had a secret shortcut that she knew about that would get her to the Old Galactic Market- and that place was every bit as dangerous as the Works, in its own way. At least in the Works, she didn't have to worry (too much) about getting shot or getting chased off by Republic security forces, who only ever saw a little street rat and not a one-time Jedi Youngling. The Works, she just had to worry about being kidnapped and disappearing like the few other children she'd seen, or maybe mauled to death and eaten by a cthon. The same risks were here, with an increased risk of gang cross-fire and a notably lower chance of being devoured by the local wildlife.
Xaja crept through the end of her tunnel, blinking in the brighter lights of the old market. There were lots of people around today, which meant she had a higher risk of being caught and taken away, but a better chance of finding some credits or some food to eat. And there- her first pick of the day, a Nautolan who looked like he was sleeping off stims. On silent feet, Xaja padded over to the alien and rifled through the pouch on his belt. Two credits- not very much at all, but it was something. The little girl put her find in her pocket, and scampered off into the shadows, already eyeing her next target. A spacer like the one who just came swaggering by would be dangerous if she was caught, but they sometimes had lots of credits or things to trade. Carefully, Xaja snuck up behind the spacer, reached for the pocket of his expensive-looking coat, and felt her fingers close on... a ration bar? And was this one of the meal packets that had a sweet dessert thing in it? This was-
"Hey!" The spacer had felt Xaja's hand and whirled; the little girl only barely dodged the outstretched fingers trying to grab her by her hair and raced off, clutching her prize like a lifeline. Heart pounding, the child darted past a group of gang members (and that insignia meant Black Sun, right?), then raced around a corner and hid behind a pile of rubble. The spacer came running around the corner a second later, furiously looking around for any sign of the little pickpocket. "A'right, you little ghost, get back here an' maybe I won't shoot ya..."
Instinct told Xaja to flee. Experience told her to stay right where she was and to not move a muscle. The pile of metal and duracrete was just big enough to hide her if she stayed very, very still and didn't draw attention to herself. She watched through a hole in the rubble as the spacer looked around, glowering for a moment, then patted his now-empty pocket. "And I was looking forward to that meal," he grumbled, then stormed off.
Xaja silently breathed out in relief, then eyed her prize. It was a little smushed now, but it was better than a ration bar- this was a proper travel meal! Those were super hard to get since they were so expensive, but they tasted way better than anything else Xaja had had in the last year. That prize went into her filthy tunic where she couldn't drop it or lose it to another thief, and she waited a few more minutes before creeping back out to go continue her thieving for the day.
The Jedi taught its students that theft was wrong. But there were no more Masters to protect the one surviving Jedi student. Xaja was all alone now, and she'd learned the hard way fast that if she didn't break some of the Jedi rules, she would die. Live to grow up and destroy the Sith. Then you can be a real Jedi again and follow all the rules. But you gotta live first. And if that meant a life of silence and thieving and sleeping in abandoned pipes, well, that's what it meant.
For a minute, Xaja felt a deep pang of sadness that she was the only Jedi alive that she knew about, grief so deep she didn't even have words for it, but it made her feel like she was going to throw up for a minute. She sniffled once, then wiped a grimy hand across her eyes. Jedi don't cry, even if they're the last Jedi alive, and street kids cry even less. She had to survive still, and she couldn't do that if she was looking weak and sniffly like a baby. She clambered to her feet, snuck out from behind her little shelter, and disappeared into the crowd again... one more red-haired wraith in the shadows trying to survive.
