Though born to an upper middle class family on Mon Cal, Zel never quite fit in the way he was expected to. An only child, Zel felt stifled even from an early age. In a society that prized intellect, creativity, peace, and temperence, Zel was boistrous, impulsive, and bored by the things his parents and teachers tried to instill in him. The academic inclinations of his mother and father only exacerbated things for him. This came to a head one day when he was about ten years old, and Zel made a decision to run away from home. He stowed away on a freighter leaving the planet, and soon found himself in a sort of hell he'd never experienced: Nar Shaddaa.
Ironically, though he found himself far worse off financially, he also found a greater degree of freedom and even belonging on the Smuggler's Moon. Zel began running with a small-time gang on Nar Shaddaa, mostly young people like himself. He learned, among other things, how to hold a blaster, how to run all sorts of different scams, and how to talk his way out of trouble. And he did end up having to talk his way out of trouble quite often.
By the time he was sixteen, he'd gotten quite good at his craft, but he was itching to see more of Nar Shaddaa, more of the galaxy at large. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life committing petty crimes and never seeing where else his skill and his wit could take him. He talked his way onto a small ship crew that primarily did smuggling jobs for the local Hutt bosses. He already knew how to shoot decently and how to run his mouth, but there was a lot he still didn't know. Zel made the most of every opportunity he got to learn about the trade, and even better, how to fly a ship.
Zel ran with the same crew for about nine years, at which point he convinced one of their Hutt employers to help front him the money to buy his own ship. Finally, he knew how to survive, how to make money, and he finally had a taste of the freedom he had chased for years.
Of course, about two years after getting his own ship, Zel finds himself imprisoned on an Imperial Star Destroyer, awaiting his fate. So much for freedom.
