DISCLAIMER: bows to Lucas They aren't ours. We wish they were, but they're not...unfortunately. I wish I owned Qui. We're just...borrowing. And if anyone tells you credits will do fine, they will NOT! However, most characters you don't recognize will be our original characters, the twins, for example. Have a nice day.

Just so you know, this storyline is set to start a few years before Xanatos leaves Qui-Gon Jinn. This could go under the genre Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice, but it won't, since this story extends to the Great Jedi Purge or so. It should, when we finish writing it, at least.

So enjoy.

Into the Hands of Destiny

Sand was whipping everywhere, cutting through what might have been a beautiful sunset of the twin suns of Tatooine. Out of the blurry cloud staggered a young woman, unknowing of where she was going and tired from struggling the fierce storm. The sand stung her eyes, only adding to the pain of her extremely pregnant state. She managed to look above her in time to see the large wall she almost had collided into, and follow along it until she reached a door. Weary and swaying on her feet, she knocked heavily on the door, having to throw her entire body onto the rough metal surface to make sufficient noise to alert those inside of her presence.

As the door she was leaning on swung inwards, she fell in with it, sprawling out on the floor, twisting on her side to prevent her distended stomach from hitting the hard floor. As she lay there, gasping, she felt two hands roughly grabbing her shoulders, but then she saw or felt no more, for her exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she fainted.

The two door guards had flipped her on her back to get a good look at her, when a tall Twi'lek woman walked over to them and looked down at her with disdain. "She'll make a good slave, Master Hajja will likely find her useful, especially since she comes with soon-to-be newborns... Excellent. She needs medical help, take her to the medic's rooms, and be careful of her. We don't want to hurt our new possessions, now do we?"

Nodding, the guards hoisted her up onto their shoulders and carried her off down a small hallway. When they reached the quarters of the old woman who served as the doctor to all the slaves in the household, they kicked open the door and deposited her on the bed, then, without checking in at all, stalked out the door. After making sure that they hadn't been there to cause any trouble for her, S'ratha, the medic, stood up from her small corner to take a look at her new patient.

She didn't look good at all. Her breathing was rough and ragged still, her stomach huge and distended. When she awoke several minutes later, her face took on an immediate grimace from the pain. "Twins... save them. I don't matter...My children...please..."

She could only whisper, and soon only gasp out broken breaths. S'ratha stroked her head, trying to calm her, anything to help save this woman.

"Shhhh... you'll be fine, it's not that bad. You were lucky to find us when you did, though. We'll save you, all of you. Don't worry... don't worry." She kept talking to her until the serious contractions began, and then forced her concern to more important matters.

The childbirth was long and painful, the young woman screaming the whole time from lack of pain medication. The first child came out alright, but the second was more difficult, prolonging the poor woman's pain far more than anyone should have to endure. But as the screams died down, S'ratha brought the two little girls up by their mother's head so that she could see them for the first time. Somehow, they both knew that it would likely be the last as well, for she was obviously dying. S'ratha figured that she may as well try to discover some information about who these twins might be, asking the young woman her name.

"I'm- Marea. From Naboo." she whispered.

"Who was the father?" S'ratha asked the dying woman.

"No... father. I- don't know what happened. Care for them for me."

S'ratha could feel her patient slipping away from her. She needed to find out the names of the girls, but Marea was dying quickly now.

"The twins- What are their names?"

Marea took a couple of gasping breaths, now nearly unable to speak at all. When she did, it was so quietly that S'ratha could only understand part of what she said.

"Ele- Kai- my little girls...I love-"

Her head rolled back onto the makeshift hospital bed where she lay as the life fled her body. S'ratha looked down at the now sleeping girls in her arms, unaware of the death of their mother. Ele- the older, and Kai the younger. Not very full names, but good enough for slaves.

As that thought struck her, she instinctively hugged the twins closer to her chest. They would indeed become slaves, with no mother and no father. Slavery was a brutal life for newborns, but with protection they might survive. And she knew what she had to do. The twins were hers now, she had failed their mother, and would repay that by watching after her twins. They likely wouldn't be too much of a hassle, and S'ratha knew how valuable to young girls like that could be.

Well, she'd best report the presence of the new additions to her Hutt master's collection. Wrapping the two into a blanket and laying them on the bed, she quietly walked out of her rooms towards the central buildings of the complex where she would be more likely to find the Hutt, or even better, Ebri, the Twi'lek slave who managed most of the goings-on at the residence.

When she returned to the rooms later, she found the twins awake, but not crying or squirming, but merely holding onto each other, looking deep into each other's eyes. Hopefully they'd stay like this, not cause her too much grief caring for them, now that she had been officially assigned the duty of caring for them, along with her previous work. Ah, well, that's the story of a slave's life...

The babies didn't make a sound all night, merely lay there together, seemingly engrossed in each other. Between them they sent impressions of the world around them, as well as a strong feeling from something that tied them together, to each other and to everything around them. It kept them warm and happy, comforted with a sense that nothing could hurt them now. Though they didn't know any words, they communicated in their own way through this vast resource of power, reinforcing the bond between them that had formed even before their birth.

They settled happily into this new world and situation quickly, and learned to love and trust the woman that cared for them, even though they somehow knew that she was not their mother. But as they started to grow, they began to learn more of the unpleasantries of the world around them, but they, born from suffering as they were, learned how to live with it... and indeed began to flourish in the warm Tatooine sun.

We know! It's an odd story... But it's ours!
And you won't find one like it anywhere. Promise.
We promise you also that it's based on the wonderful world of Star Wars...what else?

So tune in later!
We should have an update by next week, two weeks max, since exams are coming! Please R&R, we'll owe you lifedebts if you give us good advice...

-Yavië and Anij Jinn, aka Jinn Twins