A Light in the Forest

[Cyberguy]

(OOC: This is a mini-series type thread covering the twenty years that occured during Holt Syren's life while on Kashyyyk. It begins the day after the end of the Yavin IV battle, and ends three seconds before Holt reunites with Arili. I'm going to begin it soon, becuase my file I wrote Day 1 in was lost, so I'm gonna copy it from memory! Bookmark, please!!!)

[Cyberguy]

(The first finished episode!!!)

Episode 1: To find one’s voice.

Day 1:

Jedi Padawan Holt Syren sat inside the small transport which had been provided for him somewhere in orbit over the lush green world of Kashyyyk. The young Nelvaan was crying. As the ship piloted itself down to the planet's surface, memories of pain and death flashing incessantly through his mind, regardless of how hard he tried to supress them.

The padawan had spent the last seven days fighting alongside hundreds of other Jedi, defending the temple on the fourth moon of Yavin against the traitorous Regency and their Sith comrades. A day ago, he had felt optimistic about the battle, for the temple was a perfect fortress, and the jedi were pushing back, taking more and more land from their enemies.

Then the temple fell. It was the most painful thing Holt had ever seen. Explosion after explosion occured, tearing apart the very foundations of the temple, the very walls, which had stood for millenia, falling inwards, crushing life after life, both Jedi and Rebel alike. Only Holt made it out, because he was nearest to the exit. He survived by luck. The skilled Jedi had been crushed. Once the temple fell, the sith swarmed them. From there, Holt's memories blurred. They became an amalgam of feelings and images. He had ran. He had ran through the battlefield, too frightened to do anything but keep running. The only reason he didn't die was because any sith who pursued him were attacked by the Jedi brave enough to protect him. These brave souls were all killed, their screams heard by the running padawan.

Holt only stopped running once Master Crane had taken hold of him and led him to where the transports lay. The Master had said something, but all Holt understood was that he was going to Kashyyyk, a safe world, and he was to wait until a Jedi came for him.

Sadly, Holt's memories distracted him, as the older transport had not been properly recalibrated after it's last flight, and it caught the gravitational pull of the planet wrong, causing it into lose control. The ship was moving erradically once it entered the atmosphere. He was nearing the treeline much faster than he should have.

Once he looked up from his tears, the padawan saw only the edge of the treeline through the transport's front window before the ship, with him in it, collided into a tree.

Day 2

Holt had been having a pleasant dream. In it, he was nearing the end of a great hunt, about to kill twin Horax back on Nelvaan. He could feel the warm wood of the spear in his palm. He was above them now, high in a tree. He could almost smell their blood. He lifted the spear up, the winds changed, and he threw it. The spear soared down towards the largest of the two, and just as it was about to pierce the skull plate...

A furry hand struck Holt in the head, slapping it back and forth. The hand belonged to an equally furry arm, which belonged to he shaggily furry body of a young wookiee boy, about a year Holt's senior. As Holt awoke, he looked up at the wookiee, who said something in some sort of drawling growl, and offered Holt a hand to help him up.

Holt took the hand and stood, realizing how much pain he was in. He blinked his eyes a few times and saw that he was standing on a wooden platform high in the trees, near a charred end. He looked over the edge of the platform, as if he already knew what was there. He looked down through a column of smoke and saw the flaming remains of his transport, wedged into one of the massive Worshyr trees.

He turned and looked to the wookiee boy, whose kind Holt had never seen before, and pointed, mouth agape. Had this boy saved him? He looked down at his own charred clothing and shook his head. The wookiee boy simply took the outstreatched hand and led Holt away from the crash site, bringing him towards the village, where other wookiees were already appearing.

Holt was dragged along by the young wookiee, being in no real position to protest. Through the village, the various wookiees gave him certain looks. Holt had seen these looks before. On Ossus, on Rilia, on Yavin... he even got them on Nelvaan once before. It was the simple look of being different. He himself was giving the same look to the wookiees he passed. But, while the wookiees found him to be strange, he found the wookiees to be fascinating.

Holt was particularily intrigued with a certain wookiee in particular. This wookiee stood at almost a foot above the other wookiees, his arms were as wide around as some wookiees' legs, his legs as wide as some's waists. He was a truly massive warrior. Yes, warrior was the correct term. He could be nothing else with that physique. The warrior smiled at the young Holt, or at least that is what Holt had thought the guesture to be. All creatures had different customs, as Holt had learned on Ossus only a few weeks ago.

The wookiee brought Holt into a larger hut, with a column of smoke rising out of it. Inside, the smoke was thick. Though Holt did not cough. The smoke in fact smelled almost, pure. It reminded him of Verses's hut back on Nelvaan. Inside this hut was a wookiee who Holt could have only defined as near the end of his life. He was hunched over the fire, eyes near closed, fur almost completely white. The white wookiee lifted his head and opened his mouth, a growling speech coming from within. Holt tried to make it clear that he did not understand, but he found this impossible.

The two wookiees turned around to one another and spoke, before the younger wookiee took Holt back outside, and led him to a small, empty hut. Empty, save for a cot. Motions from the younger wookiee made it clear that Holt was to rest. The wounded padawan held no complaint...

Day Three:

Holt was abrpuptly awoken by the same means he had been awoken the previous morning. The young wookiee, who Holt had yet to have come up with a name for, smacked him in the head and took hold of his arm once he had opened his eyes, leading him outside of the hut.

Today wasn't much different than the day before. Holt was still a hunted Jedi padawan on a completely foreign world surrounded by giant furry sentients. But today he felt more than up to speaking. And so he did, trying his hardest to remember his basic.

[glow=white,2,300]"Who... who are y-?"[/glow]


Holt was stopped by the crude means of the wookiee's furry palm smothering against his face. The young wookiee faced him, placing a hand over his mouth as well, as if to signal that they should be quiet. Holt nodded, and the wookiee took hold of nearby tree, climbed up a few feet, and motioned for Holt to come along.

Holt did as he was asked, and soon found himself unable to keep up with the nimble wookiee. For a creature so large, the youth moved with great agility up the trees. It took a full seven minutes after the young wookiee had reached the top of the trees that Holt managed to breach the canopy. He looked out over the tops of the trees. An ocean of green.

The nelvaan looked quizzically at the wookiee, wondering why he had been brought up here. The wookiee then pointed further outwards at a small white line in the blue sky. Holt recognized it. It was the trail leading from a starship. Holt gasped. He had been followed. The Nelvaan dropped out of the tree line as the faintest glimpse of the approaching ship could be seen. He quickly descended the trees as fast as he could, a single thought occupying his mind.

Hide

But there was no use. Holt couldn’t go fast enough down the tree trunks without risking falling. And the ship was coming straight for him, he had seen it coming.

In fact, by the time Holt had reached the village, he saw already the ship, which had landed nearby while he descended. Seeing it, Holt ducked behind a hut in the village. He turned out and watched as Wookiee after wookiee neared the ship. Holt wanted to shout out at them, to warn them, but he couldn’t without risking his own life.

But, when the cockpit to the ship opened, it was not a Dark Jedi who exited, nor was it a Regency official. It was just a human. An old one, too. The old man crawled out, followed by a very rusty old protocol droid. He began to greet the wookiees, both in Basic and in the Wookiees’ growling tongue. Holt was impressed. The man, once on the ground, dusted off is old mechanic’s garb and waved to where Holt was.

Again, Holt ducked back. He still didn’t want to be seen, even by so friendly-looking a man as this. But, as Holt soon noted, the man was not waving at him, but rather at the young Wookiee who had brought Holt to the top of the trees. This wookiee had descended the branches and was on top of the hut when the older man landed. The wookiee waved back, hopped off of the hut, and took hold of Holt, dragging the tired young Nelvaan towards the older man.

As Holt was dragged along, he noticed the stares coming from all the wookiees around him. Apparently, they knew as much about his type as he knew about theirs. Once Holt reached the older man, the human spoke.

“Well, hello there. Funny-lookin’ Wookiee, ain’t ya?”

Holt raised an eyebrow.

[glow=white,2,300]“No. I am a J- Nelvaan. I am a Nelvaan. My name is Holt Syren. I crashed here.”[/glow]

The old man laughed.

“Well, no wonder you’re so nervous, eh? Where were you all headed that you crashed way out here?”

Holt looked around. All eyes were on him.

[glow=white,2,300]“It was… just me. And I was trying to get here… I just had a rough landing, is all…”[/glow]

The old man wrinkled his face up, thinking.

“Well, you can stay in my house here if you’d like. It’s a bit small, but… oh, wait a minute, where are my manners? I’m Argen Dent, pleasure to meet you. I trade with these wookiees here.”

Holt smiled.

[glow=white,2,300]“Good to meet you.”[/glow]

And, with that settled, Holt fell out of the spotlight as Argen turned away, and began handing out various different items to the wookiees, a part of his trade, no doubt. Holt found himself now with a home, a hiding place, and somebody he could at last speak to. And yet, standing in the corner, he didn’t feel at all better. And so he watched as the old trader made good time in handing out his goods, until all were gone. Then the young wookiee remained. He said something in a growling tone as Argen bit his lip, as if trying to remember something. He then smiled and presented the inactive protocol droid to the young wookiee. He smacked it on the back of the head, causing the droids eyes to light up and his vocabulator to begin speaking.

“Greetings, I am D5-1, Model R porotcol-translator relations. How may I be of service?”

The young wookie growled something at it, curiously. The droid then repeted itself, only this time, in Shryiwook. The young wookiee’s eyes it up and he picked up the droid, whose body didn’t seem to work, and carried it over to Holt. The wookiee growled something at the droid.

“Translating now… Greetings, Nelvaan, my new Master wishes to inquire as to your name?”

Holt replied.

[glow=white,2,300]“Holt Syren.”[/glow]

The droid quickly translated for the young wookiee, who, in turn, gave another message to translate.

“Translating Now… Holt Syren, my Master would like you to know that his name is Raccawr.”

And, as the sun again set over the village, Holt extended a hand awkwardly towards Raccawr. The wookiee did the same, and Holt grasped it, shaking hands with the first friend he would make on this world, al the while completely unaware of just how far the sun would eventually come to set upon these woods.