Chapter Thirteen

Aaylas'ecuras'ecura sighed sadly as she moved around her small room among the slave pens. It was separate and somewhat nicer than the others, which made her feel guilty when she thought about it. Yet even so, it was still a cage, and she was still a slave. Sent here to be a slave by her own uncle, ostensibly to hide her from their clan's enemies, but after more than two years she was beginning to think that maybe there was some other reason why.

But now her thoughts were not on her captivity, but on the human ghost-woman she had seen. A human ghost here was a question in and of itself, humans were rarely taken as slaves, at least as far as she knew. And how would one of them become a ghost anyway? And why couldn't no one else see it?

The ghost-woman had simply been hovering there in plain sight above one of the mansions, her mouth moving as if she was talking to someone. But it'd been obvious that she had seen Aaylas'ecura noticing her, because after a moment her eyes widened and she had looked straight at Aaylas'ecura. I wonder what that was?

Her thoughts ended abruptly when someone tapped on the cage door of her cell. She turned, expecting one of the guards to be there summoning her in her master's name for some reason or other, only to see a small human boy, taller than she was and possibly a little older, but not by much. He waved at her and she hesitantly waved back, wondering where he had come from.

Could he be an escaped slave, but there's no collar on him, and the slave masters always put those on all the non-twi'leks. Twi'leks like her didn't require it so much, since most of them had been brought it up into slavery.

Aaylas'ecuras'ecura watched as the human boy raised a finger to his lips in the universal gesture for silence, then waved to one side. From out of Aaylas'ecura's range of vision the ghost-woman appeared, smiling gently down at Aaylas'ecura waving her hand. Aaylas'ecura waved back even more shyly, but looking between the two her eyes began to widen at the mystery that was happening here.

"See, I told you she could see you!" Harry said looking up at his mother in triumph.

Lily rolled her eyes and nodded. "All right Harry I believe you, now what are you going to do?"

"This." Harry said with a grin, and teleported through the bars with only a faint pop. His mother gaped at him, shaking her head in astonishment. Harry was really, really good at that, he hadn't even had to concentrate for long now that he could actually see what was in front of them. Oh sure, teleporting like that at so short a distance isn't anything to write home about, but he's very young to be so good at it already.

Aaylas'ecura backed away quickly, her mouth opened but the boy gestured for silence again and pulled out from a bag what looked like a children's reader. Aaylas'ecura cocked her head, watching as the boy pointed at it and his mouth saying something in a language she didn't know.

"I can't speak the local dialect, so I'm trying to teach myself." Harry said conversationally, keeping his tone light and conversational, knowing that the girl must've been frightened by his sudden show of magic. "I was wondering if you'd like to help?"

"Harry she can't understand you." Lily rolled his eyes.

"I know," Harry replied "but I think she can point and say things can't she?"

Lily nodded, thinking it a very inefficient way of you learning a new language, but they were really at their wits end right now and she was impressed and proud of Harry's problem solving skills. One more sign that he is not the average wizard.

The boy opened the picture book, pointing at the first picture and saying a word. The picture was that of a food animal, and Aaylas'ecura frowned, before understanding dawned. "You can't speak Ryl?" she asked aloud, watching as the boy stared at her blankly. She switched to Galactic Standard, which she was learning, and spoke hesitantly in that language. Still nothing. But then where did he come from? Everyone from off-world speaks Galactic Standard, don't they?

Still she understood now what he was asking. And said "that is a Rycrit, Rycrit!" she repeated pointing at the picture.

The boy smiled lopsidedly, and Aaylas'ecura found herself smiling back. This is kind of fun!

He put the puncture put down, and slapped his chest saying "Harry."

Aaylas'secura did the same to her own chest "Aaylas'secura."

The boy frowned trying to say her name as two different names, then saying hesitantly "Aalya, Aayylaa, Aayla?"

The girl nodded. "Close enough." She'd been told humans tended to do that, taking apart the two portions of the Twi'lek name as they did their own.

Harry nodded "Aayla." Then he gestured at himself and the ghost woman and said "Human."

That took a bit more time before Aayla got it and she nodded tapping her own chest again. "Twi'lek."

Harry smiled again, raising a thumbs up gesture to her to which Aayla did the same. Then she looked around, wondering why no one else was hearing this. The boy smirked, seemingly understanding what she was wondering, and wiggled his fingers. Suddenly underneath his fingers there appeared a small furry thing of some kind.

At first Aayla thought it was an animal and backed away quickly, but it didn't move and the boy picked it up, tossing it to toward her. She caught it cautiously, feeling it's fur against her hands, and giggled a little. "It's furry!" she exclaimed, holding it up to her face and rubbing her face against it for a moment.

Harry watched her with a smile on his face, then gestured around. Harry teleported back through the doorway, then back again into the small cell. "Magic."

Aayla looked at him thoughtfully then shrugged her shoulders. Such things were children's stories, but she understood what he was trying to say. So she nodded her head. "Whatever you say, strange human Harry." She smiled, her lekkus' tips waving excitedly. Whatever this was, it was a lot more fun than simply going to sleep or playing on the reader her master allowed her.

The boy smiled, not understanding her words but her tone. Tone and body language were the same for humans and Twi'leks, only missing the subtle gestures of the tentacles that were in point of fact a whole other language on their own. Still humans didn't have tentacles, poor things, so couldn't be asked to know about them.

He turned to the ghost woman, and began to speak in that language that Aayla couldn't follow. "What do you think mum, should we take her with us? Or should we just keep coming back every night?"

"What do you mean take her with us?" Lily asked.

"Well she's a slave isn't she, she'd want to be free right? And I can find enough food for the both of us easily enough."

Lily nodded thoughtfully, also understanding this would be a chance for them to strike back in a small way against what they thought of as a great wrong: the fact that slavery was so pervasive here. "I suppose, and she is a magic user, she can see me easily enough, and she's able to talk to you too before you put up that silencing spell." Harry had figured out how to create his own version of a muggle repelling charm easily enough. "All right, but teleporting between the bars with another person is going to be a lot more difficult Harry."

Harry nodded, then turned back to Aayla who'd been watching the conversation but unable to follow it. He gestured at the book that he had brought along, then at himself then at Aayla, moving his fingers back and forth between the two of them. "You teach me this," he said gesturing down to the book again "and I'll get you out," he went on, gesturing out past the bars.

For a moment Aayla cocked her head, trying to figure out what he was trying to say, but after another repetition she got it. "You want me to teach you how to talk, and you'll, you'll get me out of here?" She asked hesitantly, standing up from where she had been sitting on the floor of her cell and moving forward, gesturing out past the bars then pointing at Harry and herself.

Harry did the same, then back at the book before holding out his hands palm up.

"So in return for me teaching you, you'll get me out?" For a moment Aayla frowned at that. She had it much better than most of the other slaves here, but she knew it would be only a matter of time before she was sold to another owner, and not that long a time any longer either. Rutian Twi'leks like her were very rare, and there was always a buyer out there who didn't care about the age of the slave so long as they were past the fresher-training stage.

For a moment her thoughts went to her uncle who had sold her to her Hutt master supposedly in an effort to hide her, or so he said. Then she shrugged her shoulders, but she had become certain that was a lie over the years. And besides, it has been so long since something new and interesting happened! Whatever this is, it is both!

So Aayla nodded her head eagerly and reached forward with her own hands to clasp Harry's. Harry grinned at her, pulling one hand away to point up to his eyes and closing them for a moment squeezing them tight before opening them before indicating Aayla with that hand. But he didn't let go of her other hand. After a second Aayla nodded closing her eyes. For some reason she trusted this boy, and the strange ghost-woman.

There was a moment of disorientation, and she opened her eyes quickly, only to gasp aloud as she realized they were now outside her cell. She looked back into it, then at Harry and grinned. She nodded her head rapidly. "Good!"

Harry smiled and turned as did Lily, who reached down to ruffle his hair with her fingers for a moment before leading the way off while Harry made several strange gestures around Aayla, covering her with spells. With that he began to pull her along, having to pull quite hard when Aayla noticed a guard further up the passage moving towards them. But then she noticed he wasn't looking at them, almost as if he couldn't see them.

Harry leaned in whispering in her ear "Magic."

The girl looked at him, then mouthed the sounds. "Ma'gic." She grinned and nodded her head, then hastened on with Harry out of the Hutt's mansion, avoiding vid-recorders where the ghost-woman pointed them out. Aayla reasoned that whatever strange ability the boy was using couldn't work on electronics.

Soon after that Aayla found herself in a small but very neat and very comfortable hideaway. It had some food set up on top of a cabinetthat looked to be part of a wall, plates and other things all around. A large bed rising out of the ground dominated the small room, complete with soft mattress and even blankets. She trailed her fingers along the blanket for a moment, looking all around her in wonder, a wide, happy smile on her face.

Harry smiled back at her and said simply "Welcome to my home. I always wanted a big, comfy bed, and then I found out how to transfigure things, so here we are." With that he moved over to the food, cutting up some kind of meat animal that Aayla hadn't seen before. Actually, it was simply transfigured Twi'lek cuisine, but Harry had got into the habit of transfiguring it to things he recognized as food, chicken in this case.

He held it out to her, and she reached forward without hesitation, plucking it out of his fingers and chewing on it then smiling happily at the taste nodding her head. Harry nodded back, while behind them the ghost woman entered. Aayla and Harry both turned, and she smiled down at them in a way that made Aayla looked away shyly. There was something happy and very kind about that smile, something Aayla had never seen before.

She looked up as she felt fingers on her for head, and gasped in shock seeing Lily gently touching her lekku near her head, but with that same kind of smile on her face. Then the ghost woman gestured at herself and said "Lily."

Aayla nodded dutifully. "Lily".

The woman smiled and gestured towards the bed. "She's definitely magical Harry. You might want to teach her a bit about how to perform some spells just in case."

"You don't think she'll need a focus? You always made it sound as if that was a must for most wizards and witches."

"She might, but even learning that would be a good thing, don't you think?"

Harry nodded then pulled out the children's reader again and sat on the bed, gesturing Aayla to sit next to him. "That's a good idea, but first I think we need to start to learn how to talk to one another don't you?"

Having not followed the conversation and not really caring, Aayla sat cross-legged in front of him and the language lessons began.