Forging of the Heart

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Disclaimer: All characters and settings belonging to the great George Lucas are to be regarded as his personal creations. I am just a very poor woman with an overactive imagination… and a very persistent plot bunny.

Setting: Coruscant, Pre TPM.



Shaena was simply another human living within the glorious city of Coruscant, the jewel of the core worlds. However, the gleaming city top hid the Real Coruscant from the eyes of the galaxy. Many levels below the sunlit rooftops of the Senate Building and the Ancient Towering Jedi Temple lay the living breathing Coruscant.

While ordinances for keeping the city clean of refuse were strictly enforced, little could be done about the pollution choking the air of this great city. The air was filled with thousands of passing vehicles, and transports. The many spaceports this great city held added to the problem. The common citizen had to wear protective clothing and equipment while traveling out of the protective confines of their particular building. Many however were too poor to afford the elegant air filters that the upper class used, designed to slip invisibly within what ever breathing orifice your particular race used. Most made do with a basic air mask device that allowed them to breath freely when traveling from building to building.

The bottom dwellers, as the more well off citizens called them, however usually could not even afford the cheapest of these devices. They had to scrape together what they could, usually a thin scarf was all they could find to protect their lungs from the punishing air. They lived on the very lowest of the civilized levels of the city. The levels below these were forbidden areas where no one was officially allowed access.

Shaena however long ago found ways past the large bolted security doors that blocked the ways down into the bowels of Coruscant. Long ago, these buildings were inhabited; a resourceful person could scavenge something of a life from these ruins of the past. But one had to be very careful, there were many rumors of the dangers that waited for the unwary, hidden in the darkness below the feet of proud Coruscant.

Shaena was returning from a successful trip through an abandoned airshaft, when she heard a strange sound. Her hands froze on the shield plate that covered the opening to the shaft. She heard the sound again; it was like a low cry. It was hard to tell where it was coming from; the thick metal of the grate muffled her hearing. Carefully, she opened the grate and slipped down to the hard duracrete floor.

The cry seemed to be coming from somewhere to her left Cautiously she moved against the wall towards the sound. Her hazel eyes blinked to try to focus in the darkness that was past the open doorway. The cry was a little clearer now, it sounded too much like a baby's cry. But that had to be impossible. Most people avoided being this close to lower levels.

Shaena hesitated, her curiosity warring with her common sense. The cry increased in its urgency. If that was a baby then why was no one taking care of it? Making a quick decision, she pulled out one of her essential luxuries, a very small hand light. Shining the light into the darkness, she could see some crates and other rubbish formed together to create some semblance of furniture. There room was bare otherwise. A rather strong unpleasant odor assaulted her nose. She wrinkled her nose in distasted and pulled her scarf up around her face to try to block it. There was another open doorway that led deeper into the darkened chambers. The cry seemed to be coming from there.

Moving around some strewn boxes, she made her way towards the doorway. Shining the light through the doorway she could she nothing but a large pile of rags that lay in the middle of the room. The smell was stronger here, causing her to gag even through the blocking scarf. It reminded her strongly of the faint smell that wafted up from the very depths of the city. There was a small movement from the pile of rags, the cry louder now, closer. Shaena walked slowly around the pile of rags, her light flashing as she kept looking around for any threat. The rags moved again, she crouched down and quickly pulled back the tattered bit of cloth that covered the crying moving mass.

Shaena was surprised by what she saw. It was most defiantly a baby, which was what she was expecting. What surprised her was the horrible condition the little creature was in. What she could see from her poor light source caused her heart to ache, the baby was painfully thin, its tender skin was covered in fierce red insect bites, and its shabby rag it wore as a diaper was the source of much of the stench that permeated the shabby chamber. Shaena's maternal instincts overcame her disgust and she lifted the wailing baby into her arms, cooing softly to sooth its cries. Her light shined on something else that lay within that makeshift bed. Tucking the little one in the crook of her right arm, she carefully moved the rest of the rags that covered the pile. She drew back in utter revulsion and shock. Lying on the bed was the decaying corpse of the poor baby's mother. Pulling the baby even closer to her as if to protect it from this horror, she ran out the doorway.

Stumbling over some crates in the outer room in her haste she found herself falling forward towards the ground. Quickly twisting so she didn't fall on the baby, she slammed her shoulder against the hard duracrete. Pain flashed behind her eyes and her vision clouded over. She lay there on the ground for a few minutes until the frightened cry of the baby pierce through her dazed mind.

Shaena slid herself painfully to lie against the cold wall, cooing to baby to try to calm it down, trying to catch her breath. What should she do, what could she do? The mother was dead, and the baby did not seem to have anyone else. She could not leave it here to die. By the gods, her shoulder hurt. First she needed to get this baby some nourishment, and then she would worry about her own pains. Shaena gritted her teeth against the fiery pain in her shoulder as she pulled herself to her feet. Fortunately her little hole in the wall was only a few levels above this one.

The baby's cries softened as she brought it out into the fresher air of the darkened corridor. Now the only trick would be to figure out how to climb that narrow maintenance ladder encumbered by a sick baby and quite possibly a dislocated shoulder. Gazing up at the long climb of the ladder, Shaena paused for a long moment. Cradling the baby carefully with her bad arm, she pulled her pack from her back. After a moment's thought she pulled her tattered coat off as well. She swaddled the baby in the warm folds of her oversized coat. She laid the baby gently on the ground, and then opened her pack. She emptied out the few items that she scrounged that day. Taking the baby up into her arms again, she carefully put the baby into her pack. Closing the opening enough to make sure that the babe would not fall out, yet open enough that there would still be air. She shouldered the pack with a pained hiss. Hugging her hurt left arm against her body, she began to climb the ladder using her right arm.