The day marked her 10th year on board the Finalizer. Staring into her small, square bathroom mirror, El began to reflect on what she'd achieved in those ten years.
After being traded off for gambling money by her parents in the lowest levels of Hosnian Prime at the age of nine, El had landed herself in the possession of a kitchen chef; his name was Tal. Tal was a large jolly Besalisk with kind blue eyes. El always questioned how he could willingly work on a First Order Star Destroyer; however, she was thankful she'd fallen into his care and not that of a brothel owner.
El's first few years on The Finalizer had not been enjoyable. She was a young child after all and had been treated with the lowest of respect. She helped Tal in the kitchen and cleaned up after the officers and storm troopers that occupied the ship. It was a large ship, with one mess hall. She had scrubbed hard at the floors, her hands became calloused and she always looked dirty in her ragged clothes. The storm troopers would often discard their uneaten food messily around the hall, dropping it off their trays as they made their way to the bins. El was not unaccustomed to having food trays shoved in her face whenever she was present in the mess hall for a meal.
Although she would spend some nights crying and washing sticky food residue out of her silver hair, the mistreatment had hardened her. She grew to loathe particular troopers, when she got the chance to interact with them she would torment them. El would trip them or spit in their food depending on her duty for the night. Coming into physical contact with some troopers earned her a few bruises and black eyes, but it also made her reflexes faster.
Tal was always around to comfort and treat El for the injuries she acquired. He was like the father her own couldn't be. One day she had repaid his years of kindness towards her by saving his life.
After an incident in the kitchen one night, El had leaped into action to save his life. El hadn't told anyone about her abilities but she found herself able to heal wounds at an unnatural pace. Although her abilities went unnoticed, she was offered a promotion at the age of fifteen, to train as a medic. El had suspected that Tal had an input into the promotion, but she was thankful to finally be recognised as a 'clever girl', rather than the girl who cleaned the kitchen.
It took four years of training to get her to where she was on this day. El had saved lives, lost lives and treated all those who came into her care with the most professional care she could provide. It didn't take long for her to be promoted to a senior medic on board The Finalizer.
Reflecting on her past, she had made a lot of mistakes but she had also made a lot of progress. El exited the bathroom, leaving her reflection behind and began her journey to the all too familiar med-bay.
The sterile grey walls welcomed her as she switched on the bright white lights. The smell of disinfectant filled her nose and she made her way through, to the small office at the back of the med-bay. There was no one in the infirmary, there hadn't been any patients in the last week. El reorganised the stationary on her desk so that it was all perfectly in line and began entering notes into her computer.
El hardly had an hour to herself when she heard the med-bay doors swoosh open. She swivelled around in her chair to see General Hux walking towards her office. El stood to greet him, rather coldly as she did not like the General very much.
"General Hux," El addressed him formally. He stood before her, a couple inches taller than her already tall frame.
"I am here to inform you that Commander Ren has been injured in a training incident," Hux said "He is currently unconscious and is being brought here for urgent medical assistance," He finished, his tone showing nothing but contempt for the man he spoke of.
El had very few encounters with the commanding officers and generals of the ship; she had come into contact with General Hux a few times but she had never crossed paths with Kylo Ren in all the years she had been on board the ship.
"What is the extent of his injuries?" El asked, fetching a holopad from her desk to take notes.
"Sabre wound to his left thigh," Hux scoffed "The fool never saw it coming," He chuckled. El frowned as she took down notes, she couldn't stand the man's arrogance. The metal doors of the med-bay opened again, revealing two storm troopers hauling in the Commander by his arms.
"Over here," El gestured, leading the men to an empty stretcher bed. The troopers placed Kylo Ren on the stretcher and left. El assessed him quickly, he was still wearing his mask. Her eyes travelled down his body to find a scorched hole in his trousers.
"I'll see to it that the Commander is properly treated," El said, moving to fetch some medical equipment and her surgical gloves.
"Supreme Leader Snoke expects him to be recovered and ready to train again in three days," Hux said "Or it's your head," He added menacingly. With a sharp turn, the General left the med-bay, leaving El alone with Kylo Ren.
"Three days is a ridiculous time frame to expect someone to heal from an injury like this," El said to herself as she measured out a local anaesthetic to inject the commander with.
As El began to cut and peel away the Commander's scorched trousers from his wound, she began to realise how damaging his injury was. At a glance it didn't look too deep, but El soon realised on closer inspection, that there was severe damaged to the Commander's muscle and blood vessels.
El soon realised that the Commander's injury would require him to be submerged in a bacta tank for up to a week, if not more. Hux's threat rang in her ears, she wasn't going to lose her head for taking too long to treat the Commander, even though under the care of anyone other than herself, that would be the only option.
After clearing the cauterised wound of melted fabric and dead skin, El cleaned and disinfected the wound. She was thankful there was very little blood to deal with thanks to the sabre cauterising the wound.
Taking off her surgical gloves, El placed her hands above the gash. Closing her eyes, she fell within herself, finding the centre of her energy and reaching out from it. It flowed through her body, to her fingertips and into the Commander's body. El could see the wound from the inside, out. She could see the severed muscle tissue and blood vessels. With all the energy she could muster, she began to pull the vessels back together, rejoining them to allow the blood flow to return. El then stitched the muscles beneath the wound back together. Her head began to ache from the strain of the task but she pushed on; finally closing the opening of the gash. It sealed in a thin pink line that would likely remain as a faint scar on his body.
El opened her eyes and caught herself on the end of the stretcher to prevent herself from passing out. She rested on the metal bars with both arms, opening and closing her eyes in a futile attempt to release the pressure that had built in her head.
Upon opening her eyes she discovered dark red droplets staining the white bed sheets. El brought her hand to her nose to find it was bleeding. She slowly stood to her feet and moved to find a tissue to clean the blood from her nose, it had already began to clot.
As El moved across the room, she was unaware of the pair of eyes that followed her beneath a black mask. She felt herself involuntarily jump when she saw the Commander sitting upright on the stretcher he was previously unconscious on.
"You're awake," She said breathlessly.
"Who are you?" The distorted voice of the Commander questioned. He was certainly intimidating with that mask on his face, El thought.
"M-my name is El, I'm a Chief medic on this ship," She stammered. She had heard many stories about the infamous Kylo Ren. Many officers and storm troopers spoke of his outbursts on the ship, they also spoke about his resemblance to the ancient Sith.
"You're force sensitive," He stated, his masked eyes staring directly into hers. El could feel him trying to see into her mind; she tried her best to keep him out but healing him had exhausted all her mental energy.
He broke through her weakened walls, combing through her mind in search for something. El felt him pulling at old memories, ones she had kept in the far reaches of her mind, ones she didn't want to remember. Before he could delve too deep into her thoughts, she managed to muster enough strength to push him out.
"How have you managed to hide yourself from us for ten years?" He asked.
"I don't know," El whispered, her head hurting from all the exertion she had put on it.
"Sold for gambling money; given away just like your sister," El looked up at his masked face, how had she forgotten she had a sister?
The memories came flooding back into her head like it had happened yesterday. Her parents had sold her sister when they were six years old to someone on a hot, desert planet. She had been furious at her parents for what they had done, defying them for three years before they sold her as well.
El could feel anger bubbling inside her, she hated them to her core; she couldn't believe they would sell their own two daughters for money to gamble and drink away.
"I sense the anger inside you, you've buried it so well but it's there," The Commander said "Let it fuel you, let it strengthen you," He added in his dark, menacing tone. El hadn't realised he was standing until his boots were under her nose. She looked up to find Commander Ren standing in front of her, trying once again to read her thoughts.
"Please leave my mind alone," She said through gritted teeth.
"You murdered them," He stated. El felt a rush of emotions take over her, anger, hate, pain.
"You shot them with a blaster when they begged you for mercy," Kylo Ren added, feeling the fire within her. El felt tears escape her eyes, she had never regretted the day she took revenge on her parents for what they did.
"They deserved it," She growled.
"Yes they did," Kylo Ren said. He lifted a hand to her chin and brought her face to look at him, tilting her head slowly to each side, as if he were sizing her up.
"You don't even realise the power you possess," He said, his tone softer than it had been "You have so much potential, I will see that it is not wasted in this sterile room," The Commander dropped his hand from her face and turned on his heel, leaving the med-bay as if he had never been injured.