Fantastic Beasts and Where to [Copyright]

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Drexl's aren't monsters." Well...that wasn't entirely true. "They're big, but they're not exactly dumb or anything. They don't kill for pleasure."

They weren't Sith. "It...well it depends on how you define size really."

She was mincing words. Aela had spent enough time on Naboo to know how big a Sando Aqua Monster was. Most of them grew to about two hundred meters, they were massive creatures, big enough to take on entire submersibles. Drexl weren't quite that big, if only because that size would have made it near impossible for them to actually fly, but they still got pretty big, especially since...well most of the time they came at you from above rather than below in the seas.

"The biggest Drexl ever recorded had a wingspawn of about one hundred and twenty meters." That had been ages ago though, more of a legend really. "On average it's more around eighty though."

Still pretty big. "I doubt we'll see a Drexl until we get to the mountains though."

She didn't mention that the cavern they were staying in actually was a former Drexl nest, if only because Jamie seemed nervous enough as it was and there was no need to scare her any further. In truth, Aela herself was far more worried about Dxun's smaller predators. Drexl couldn't be tamed by the force, but she'd been around them often enough that she knew how to get them...well not tamed but at least calm enough that they wouldn't attack.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"So when they kill it's because they have a genuine reason. I don't know if that makes it better, or worse."

Jamie wasn't so certain just what level of intelligence these creatures possessed, but if they could separate themselves enough to kill when they felt they had a reason, that meant they had some level of intelligence, even if they weren't exactly sentient. Most dangerous animals would kill simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, regardless of whether or not they were starving and saw you as an easy meal, even if it wasn't typical to be on their dining menu.

"Eighty is still really, really big." More than enough to make short work of Jamie's small size in comparison. "Do they usually make their nests in the mountains? Or anywhere that space accommodates their size?"

She wasn't entirely nervous yet, just the idea of what these things were actually like in the flesh, and their disposition to seeing humans was what made her a bit anxious.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Generally they stick to the mountains." Aela began to explain as she leaned forward slightly and began to play with the footprint, placing her own foot in the middle of it to judge a size comparison. "Their nests are very temporary, only last about a few months. Drexl, along with Skreeve, Migrant to Onderon during their mating season."

That was a sight, and when they were the most dangerous.

"During the right time of year Onderon and Dxun move so close to one another that their atmospheres touch. The Drexl use this as an opportunity to get to Onderon and...well yeah. That's how the Beast Riders used to get from Dxun to Onderon and vice versa. Before starships were even a thing here." Aela loved those stories. It seemed almost impossible to think of a time when Starships didn't exist, yet Onderon still had legends from long ago that more than showed such a thing happened. Drexl and Skreeve had been a part of the society here for so long that they were ingrained in the very culture.

Though that didn't make them any less dangerous.

"Drexl also can't be tamed by the force." Aela pointed out. "Or rather, doing so is nearly impossible."

You had to befriend them, show you weren't a threat.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"A few months?" Her eyes shifted from side to side. "How often do they mate?" If they only made nests for such a short period and then abandoned them, they must be quite active.

That would also mean...There were alot of Drexl up in the mountains!

"How long do they stay on Onderon?" Perhaps she would get lucky this time around and most would be off Dxun for the time being. Small Drexl she was confident she could handle, or at least not be overly fearful of. But something fully grown or otherwise hungry? That spelled bad news in several galactic languages!

"Does Dxun enter Onderon's low orbit for long periods? Or a few days? That must be quite a marvelous sight, if nothing else. I don't think I know of, or have even seen anything like that before."

So far that bit of information was the most exciting thing she'd heard thus far. It was something she genuinely wanted to witness. What Aela said was mildly confusing though. If you couldn't tame them with the Force, how did you actually tame them? She couldn't quite imagine that these beasts were able to be tamed the same manner as a common household pet, or through years of breeding. There wasn't exactly a Drexl pet shop on the corner of every major planet. These were wild beasts. "How do you tame it then? It doesn't sound like the proper word."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

"Not that often. Drexl are quite territorial, and often they move from place to place to avoid fighting another one of their kind, or simply because they don't want to be bothered. They're interesting creatures to say the least." They were apex predators Capable of taking on pretty much every other creature that lived on Dxun. Even Terentateks were weary of Drexl, their larval stage being as large, if not larger, than even most adult Terentateks.

"The passage only lasts a few hours. At least the connection of the atmospheres." She paused for a moment and looked back at Jamie. "You couldn't even imagine it. There's a swarm of them. Drexl and Skreeve both. Very dangerous time of year, and even in Iziz most people tend to stay inside."

Of course, the Beast Riders didn't do any such things.

Aela had watched the migration only once in her life time. It didn't happen all that often, just once every standard galactic year, and when it did happen most people tended to stay as far away from the entire event as humanly possible, and with good reason. Aela however had joined her grandmother and Sister to watch it all. Maleah had been...well completely and entirely enthralled by it all, something that Aela couldn't blame her for considering.

"You tame them with lots of time, kindness, and love." That might have sounded silly, but it was true.

If you treated a Drexl with respect and showed it that you cared...well then you were liable to make a friend. The creatures weren't sentient, but they weren't stupid either.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Jamie stared at Aela in the middle of the clearing that they'd reached, partway bent down to pickup a few lingering sticks and twigs when she heard Aela explain how to tame a Drexl. The words were absolutely absurd to her, and she couldn't withhold the muscles in her face from contorting into a wide grin before erupting into a fit of laughter. Several times she tried to wrangle her outburst under control, but each time she started to speak again she started laughing even more. It was a good thing their objective wasn't to remain silent, or Jamie would have karked that up big time.

"I'm sorry." She said, trying to catch her breath whilst holding her stomach with her free hand, the pain of laughter finally settling in. "I'm sorry."

She looked up, still hunched slightly over.

"I thought you said you tame these huge, non-sentient creatures with love and kindness. But really, now that you got your laugh out of me, how is it done?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela allowed Jamie to finish her laughter, and then shrugged.

”That’s how.” The only way really. ”You can try to bend them to your will with the force, many Sith would tell you that was the way. But there’s a fatal flaw in that method.”

There weren’t many beast tamers within the galaxy, at least not that she knew of, and the few that were Sith tended to used Sithspawn that they had created themselves. Of course, things did change, but from her own experience the method her grandmother used was the only way of ‘properly’ taming Drexl. ”They’re creatures of tremendous will, and if you force them to...well do anything at all, the moment your concentration lapses…”

She didn’t say the rest.

The only real way to tame a Drexl was by basically letting it tame itself. If you were friendly, kind, then the creature would grow an affinity towards you. It was that simple, the only other way was through violence, and what would that get you with a monster of that size?

Not much.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"I don't quite understand. Most domesticated creatures took generations to tame. Most of those animals exhibited some type of behavioral traits that could be molded into the process, but those are really the minority." She looked quizzically at Aela, "These are huge, wild beasts that rarely have any kind of contact with humans. They hunt, kill, rest, and mate for most of their lives. What basis is there for them to understand human contact, let along kindness and love? There just seems to be a massive disconnect there, where the moment they see you as something of a meal, or they become agitated, it's over."

It wasn't as though these were small animals, or a caged lizard. These were creatures many times the size of even the largest man, and in many cases jaws that were as large as a fully grown adult. There was little in the way of safety when it came to something like that. A single mistake would be life threatening to just about anyone.

The first person to have done this must have believed it a dream.

"Maybe I'll understand better when I see them I guess."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

”The problem is you’re thinking of them as beasts, creatures.” She didn’t really blame Jamie for that assumption, most people would. Drexl were massive and...well honestly they appeared quite terrifying. Their footprints were huge, their maws angry, and their eyes beady black. Seeing a Drexl coming for you was absolutely terrifying.


”They’re more than that though.” She explained. ”They’re smart.”


That was really the crux of it. ”Cannoks, boma’s, even Skreev aren’t really all that intelligent, but Drexl are. They’re not-sentient, not capable of speaking, but they know things, some can even logically think.”


It was hard to believe given their size and appearance, but Drexl were actually quite intelligent.


As larvae they were dumb as rocks, but an Adult Drexl could think quite well. Aela had seen it more than once, not just in wild ones, but those that her grandmother had tamed. Not to mention Malfegor, the Drexl that she herself had tamed was more than enough proof to her, though Jamie wouldn’t meet him until they were nearly done here on Dxun.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Hmmmm." She hummed, considering what Aela had said.

By the time their conversation had reached this point Jamie's hands were relatively full of loose wood, enough so to at the very least start a fire and keep it going while they saw to getting larger logs to maintain properly. "If you say so." Aela knew better than she after all, even if Jamie was skeptical of the idea that something that big could be tamed by a person one tenth its' size.

"But if you ever get eaten, I'm gonna say I told you so to your ghost."

Shuffling the pile of sticks in her hand she turned to one side and looked back the way they had come from. "Should we head back?"

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She wasn’t really worried about getting eaten. Mostly because she was entirely confident that she could run faster than Jamie.

”Yeah.” They had enough firewood to last them the night, and building up a stockpile would take too much time. The sun was already dipping in the sky, Onderon quickly appearing above them as the massive world stood at the center of its moons rotation. She looked through the canopy of the trees for a moment, and then stepped past Jamie.

”Just like before.” She reminded her padawan. ”Follow my path.”

It wouldn’t do to have Jamie get eaten just yet.

”So you’ve never told me. When did you first discover your force powers?” For Aela it hadn’t really been so much as a discovery but an inevitability. Both of her parents had been force users, her father being one of the most powerful she’d ever met.

Everyone had known it would be an eventuality, though the discovery herself had been somewhat amusing. Well, for everyone save Micah.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

The brush underfoot made a bit of rustling noise as the pair began to head back to camp, it was a sound Jamie was quite familiar with, having enjoyed exploring the untouched forests and marshes of Naboo. "The first time I didn't actually know what I had done. I actually didn't even know it was me that did it, really." She gave a shrug, that was a really strange day. "It was the day of the Fencer's Championship Tournament in the Grand Coliseum." Her hands shifted the weight of the wood in her arms slightly. "This guy, much bigger than me for the record, got a bit sour that I scored the first point on him. Didn't take it too well at all." She snickered, thinking about that moment, before it went to hell. "Decided that he wanted to teach me a lesson, or something. Knocked me over and climbed on top of me. Started punching me like a practice bag. Hurt like you wouldn't believe."

One of the sticks in the bundle slid from the top and fell to the ground, forcing the blonde to pause her story and her stride to kneel down and carefully pick it back up without dropping the rest as well. "Anyway, I just wanted him off of me so in my frustration I went to push him and he went much further than I could possibly have had the physical strength for. I was honestly just as confused as he was when he realized what had just happened. He was pretty afraid, as was I."

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She listened and nodded her head.


It was interesting to hear about, if only because...well the Force was different for anyone. For Aela the transition had been expected, for Jamie...well apparently she had no idea. It was a curious thing, and quite recent too. Most students that arrived at the Jedi had no idea of their own potential, generally it took years of training to even move a rock.


It was telling that Jamie had managed to lash out like that, though given the circumstances it wasn’t that surprising really. She frowned for a moment, considering the situation and shifting as they headed back towards camp.


”What about your first interest in beast Master?” She asked quietly. ”You’d talked about it before, but not much.”


An incident with Kurt as she recalled.


The questions were important, they would allow Aela to shape her training. She had already learned that Jamie performed best...well under stress. Something that Dxun would help with quite easily, but the issue was in learning control.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Errrr..." The left of her lips pulled back, "Yeah. We were on Spira, Kurt and I. We went off exploring an island."

Her eyes shot a glance over to the Talith girl, "There was a manka cat, I guess we must have been infringing on its' territory."

The thing was definitely not a happy kitty! Or maybe it was, just in that hungry sort of way. Either way, it was bad news all around really.

"It charged us, I'm guessing it was hoping to make the two of us a meal, or just protecting its' home. I'm not really sure. But Kurt drew his blaster, was going to shoot in dead. In retrospect maybe I should have let him just kill it, but I didn't want to hurt it if we didn't have to. I'm not quite sure what happened really, but I felt some kind of brief connection to the animal, and it stopped its' charge. In fact, it ceased its' aggression entirely, and I didn't know why or how."

She laughed a moment, stepping over a small tree that had fallen in their path.

"I think Kurt was just as confused as I was, but then in the very next second I got really dizzy and lightheaded, and I blacked out."

Waking up had been the most terrifying part of that day.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

She considered what Jamie said for a moment. There were a number of possibilities as to why she could have passed out, any number of them being more than reasonable enough as an explanation. She frowned, and then simply nodded her head. ”Interesting.”

The campsite came into view up ahead.

”It’s possible that you used too much of the force.” Aela commented about Jamie’s experience, though in truth she felt that was the more unlikely option. She had seen what Jamie was capable of, when panicked at least, and going into the mind of an animal, especially a Manka Cat didn’t take all that much efforts.

Or so Aela found anyway.

”More likely though.” At least in her opinion. ”You just weren’t ready for it’s mind.”

Aela stepped into the perimeter of their camp, dropping the sticks she had been holding in a neat little pile near the shield generator. ”Most creatures...their minds are different. They don’t have linear thoughts, but instead are more of a palate of emotions. Coming across that without being prepared can be unpleasant.”

There was really no way of telling for sure what had happened, but that was Aela’s guess.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

"Maybe." She said, "I don't remember it, what it felt like, the connection or anything. I wasn't even really sure what was happening."

She shrugged, dropping her own pile of wood next to Aela's. "I really only remember the feeling of being really dizzy, before waking back up."

Sitting down atop a stump next to where the two had setup the generator the blonde pulled her knees up to her chin and rested her head, looking over towards Aela. "The only other bit I can recall was pleading with it in my head, for whatever reason, to stop. I was surprised when it coincidentally did. But right after is when I got dizzy. Everything after that and waking up is gone."

Of course what had happened after she passed out had been rather obvious when she awoke, the cat had continued its attack, and Kurt had received the brunt of it, earning him some pretty nasty scars as a souvenir of their trip to Spira. She still felt quite awful about that.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

Aela frowned. ”You influenced it.”

That much was clear.

”But.” The additional details helped shape what happened in Aela’s mind. ”You did it wrong.”

She smiled at Jamie, trying to comfort her while at the same time...well putting her down in a way. ”The Manka Cat didn’t know what you were doing, didn’t understand. Instead of a subtle suggestion, your pleading came more as...well forceful. It was likely confused, and when most animals are confused…”

Aela didn’t think she had to complete that sentence.

Taming beasts with the force, at least when done properly, was all about subtlety. It was like using a mind trick on a person. The best thing was to make small suggestions, tiny little pushes that would nudge someone in the right direction rather than a singular great shove. It had to happen as though the idea came from the creature itself, rather than an outside force.

Otherwise you were simply bending the poor thing to your will.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

Again the girl shrugged. "I didn't know what to do, I just didn't want Kurt to kill it for no reason. We didn't exactly belong there, so it didn't seem right."

Of course, it would have definitely been the safer alternative, and Kurt's back would have appreciated not having been torn up quite so badly. But that was neither here nor there. They had both managed to escape, if not a bit worse for wear. It was in the past now, and perhaps if there were ever to be a next time she would be prepared to properly handle the situation.

Hopefully.

"But I suppose that's why we're here now. So that doesn't happen again, right?"

Slipping off the stump she began to collect a number of stones in the vicinity of their camp to make a small fire pit.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Jamie Pyne"]

”Correct.” She told her padawan. The control of beasts was a difficult task even for most Jedi Masters. It wasn’t like influencing the mind of a person, that was familiar, sometimes even ordinary, but beasts...they were different. They didn’t think the same and sometimes they had more raw willpower than any man or woman could.

”We’ll start slow.” Aela said as she opened one of the crates behind her. ”With me helping you.”

Her own touch on whatever creature they tried to tame. ”Then we’ll move on to more difficult things.”

From there...well, they would see.

Dxun was not friendly, and Aela hoped that the pressure of this place, the harshness that loomed on every corner would help shape Jamie into the proper frame of mind for the training that she was about to endure.

 

[Jamie Pyne]

A circular wall of rock that stood about a foot from the ground would serve as their small fire pit, at least until Jamie was able to scavenge some additional suitable stones to widen the berth and raise the height up a bit more. It would serve well enough for the time being however, as they had only a modest supply of wood to supply the fire.

Jamie set a number of the short sticks and a bit of the brush into the pit, the brush beneath the sticks to help feed the fire once it got started.

"Lighter?" She'd ask Aela.

With the sky darkening Jamie was a bit eager to get additional light and heat going, for the dual purpose of safety and deterring other animals from getting a bit too close to their camp.

[member="Aela Talith"]