Private Keep what you kill (Jorah)

[Takui]

Kashyyyk

He stood in the cool breeze and watched the sun rise over the mountains. For a long time, Taku struggled with his place among the Silvers. He recalled the first time they'd probed the future with the Padawan class. Specifically, the youth recalled how out of place he was among the others.

After the Concord revealed plans to align with the Sith Empire against a common threat, he realized that the rift wasn't simply spiritual. They were divided down the middle between those who morally objected, and those who believed in the necessity of government action.

Taku fell into the group who vehemently refused to join hands with the Sith. He considered his options and thought about how the situation might progress if he remained among them. Even once they started to backpedal when they realized their obvious blunder, the Concord had established a dangerous precedent. Those Jedi they had driven to cleave from Kashyyyk would be hard pressed to trust the government again.

On the other hand, Taku strongly felt that the Jedi were not at fault for their decisions. Forced to make a decision between their home and their conscience, many would choose the place that they lived. There was a time when he would have done the same.

In particular, the Nightbrother Jorah was one of many denizens of Kashyyyk who simply got caught in the middle. Taku met him during a fated lesson on Deneba that ended in disaster, and the younger boy had proven to be much more experienced and skilled in conflict. Taku watched him fire a bow back at their pursuers with steady aim and less fear than purpose.

Taku asked Jorah to join him for a hunt, not too deep in the Shadowlands where the true dangers lurked but the outermost fringes. There, they could practice archery and collect meat from the indigenous creatures. Jorah had been around long enough to know where to go and what to look for.

Taku had some culinary skill, though hardly professional. He wanted to learn to fire a bow like Jorah, something that might make him more useful in a combat situation. Unlike the traditional Jedi, he preferred ranged weaponry, and the bow seemed like it might provide more utility than a blaster.

Jorah zos Darnus

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

A Talay krayt dragon had it's nose down and it's tail up.

Sniffing along the forest floor, the green-skinned familiar weaved a path through the dense foliage, behind which the Dathomirian boy trailed close behind. Keeping low, the boy moved with his bow at the ready in his left hand. The leathers that he wore included a long bracer for the left arm, as well as finger tabs for his right hand. Necessary precautions against the plasma filament of the energy bow scoring the flesh on the forearm or fingertips. He'd provided some to Taku as well, though was still somewhat surprised at the invitation to hunt.

Taku hadn't struck the boy as the outdoors type.

To be honest, none of these Jai did. They all lived modern lives according to technological conveniences. Autochefs supplied their dietary requirements, according to a variety of culinary tastes. They even had droids capable of preparing their food for them, so that cooking had become something of a novelty in some areas of the galaxy.

Witches of Dathomir preferred to live close to land. After all, it was the source of their magic. In an age of space travel, they were fishermen, farmers, and wild game hunters.

The krayt dragon's head came up sharply, it's tail sweeping low.

When that happened, Jorah stopped. Holding up his right arm, he silently motioned for Takui to do the same. Turning his head just slightly to the left, the Nightbrother could spy a herd of walluga on the other side of the trees.

They were not the only predators in these woods..

Gesturing off to the right, the Nightbrother quietly continued onward. As the pair following the krayt dragon came to a fallen tree wrapped in a red vine, Jorah motioned a third time, this time in warning. They would need to give that fallen log a wide berth.

The krayt dragon seemed to alert on something only a few meters beyond. Approaching the familiar, the Dathomiri boy seemed to gently probe at some half-chewed leaves for a moment, gently brushing them aside to reveal the ground beneath.

Making a circular motion with his free hand, the boy tried to indicate where Taku might look to see a set of cloven hooved prints in the dirt. "Sarthog," the boy whispered quietly, turning his attention toward the Jedi, before he looked back at the tracks.

"Three..." the boy mused aloud, more closely examining the trail. Then he seemed to shake his head. This track was no good for them. "A mother and two piglets," the youth noted in a slightly dejected tone.

That was bad hunting.

"The sire must be around here somewhere," the boy opined wistfully, as he ventured onward.

 

[Takui]

He stayed low to the ground and moved slow. Takui had some training with aim, so he knew where to look and whatnot; but when it came to the hunt, this was Jorah's expertise. If nothing else, time and experience had shaped the Padawan into an excellent listener. He watched for the signals that the Nightbrother gave and followed them precisely.

When he saw the Walluga, he was silently glad that the beasts were not their intended prey. The likelihood of becoming prey themselves looked much higher with those beasts. He sensed no beastial aura off of them, but their malice could easily be invoked by the mere sight of the two boys.

He glanced again to Jorah, who signed for him to stop. The log beyond looked harmless enough at first glance, but he delved deeper. Taku's eyes closed and he took a sharp breath. He felt his mind expand, probing past Jorah- the boy was calm, confident, perhaps a bit surprised by something?

Then, it made sense.

The vine seemed harmless, but that was the lie. He felt its ravenous, single minded hunger. There was deadliness in simplicity, and this species existed predicated solely on that truth. When he opened his eyes once more, Taku committed the species to memory. They would undoubtedly see it again.

They stopped when Jorah's companion did. Taku saw the prints after a moment of looking where the younger man had indicated. Sarthog.

Jorah insinuated that the creatures they stalked were a mother and her young, but his voice seemed to suggest that was not ideal. Takui tilted his head. Then, the Nightbrother mentioned a male.

Ah, I see.

The Padawan nodded. "Can't be too far," he said optimistically. "Males of a species are usually pretty territorial and protect their mates, and their young, right?"

While he knew virtually nothing of Sarthog, he had a pretty strong grasp on general biology.

Jorah zos Darnus

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

The young Nightbrother gave a nod.

Sarthog boars were territorial, that much was accurate. Assuming that the pair had wandered into the territory, then the boar might well start hunting them. Which, could play to their favor. "We could try to bait it," the boy ventured aloud.

Reaching to his belt, the youth rummaged through his pouches for a makeshift bait. From his apothecary satchel, a few greybush leaves. From a survival pack, part of a ration bar. Wrapping the leaves around the ration bar, the Dathomirian youth worked the bait into a small packet, after which he glanced around for a spot to place it.

To start, they'd need a vantage point. Motioning back to a tree behind Taku, the boy asked, "Think you can get up into the branches there?" It was a low enough hang that Jorah thought it might be reachable. It would get Taku clear of the Sarthog's tusks in any case, in the event that the elder of the pair missed the shot.

"I'll place the bait here," Jorah explained, gesturing to the spot he had in mind for the bait. It wasn't exactly a clearing, but it was an area of less foliage. The best bet for a clean shot. Particularly from a downward shooting angle. "...then fly up there," the youth added, indicating a tree on the other side.

It would be off-set from Taku's line of fire, setting up a triangular killzone that Jorah hoped would give him the benefit of a second shot at the boar before it could run off -- in the event that Taku didn't land his shot.

Setting the bait down, the boy reached up his free hand to tap the pendant that he wore. Activating the talisman, the youth transformed into the form of a bat. Beating his wings, he fluttered up to the tree that he'd indicated, settling on a branch before changing back to human form.

And now, they would wait.

Takui​

 

[Takui]

He nodded. "Yeah, easy enough," he said as he grabbed hold of a branch and swung himself up. With a few steps along the side of it, he had his feet secure and pulled his body weight onto the branch. After adjusting for balance, he reclined against the bark and rested the bow against his chest.

It always surprised him when Jorah said something like that. Fly. Anything was possible with the Force, he learned. More and more, he found that to be true. What baffled him was the Nightbrother transforming into a small, winged mammal. He watched with his mouth agape as the no-longer-Zabrak made his way to the opposite tree and took up a position.

Then, he shifted back. It was almost like he'd imagined the whole ordeal. Taku knew better. "I gotta get me one of those," he muttered ironically.

Now, with the bait placed and both of them in position, Taku readied his own bow. Soon enough, their quarry would be along, and he had to make sure he didn't miss his one chance.

Taku signaled across the distance between them to Jorah that he was ready. No more noise than necessary, or the boars would never come. Common sense stuff.

Jorah zos Darnus

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

The boy had his back to the tree trunk, his legs dangling over the branch, and the bow across his lap.

On the one hand, they might be waiting for nothing. Or for the wrong thing. A pug jumper could hop along and decide the bait looked tasty, which would not provide for much of a meal. Or even an appetizer, except maybe two frog legs for one person.

The tongues could be useful for bartering with Wookiees, though. For some strange reason.

On the other hand, a static position in the trees made it less likely they'd inadvertently step on a wyrm-weaver or have a herd of walluga come stampeding over the top of them.

Certainly, the more prudent of their options, even if the less exciting. Perhaps an hour passed. Perhaps more. The Dathomirian spent the time listening. Trying to hear the whispers of the spirits. Finding the voice of the woods. It was good to get away from the Silver Rest and the cities of the Wookiees and be able to push those distractions aside. Return to nature. Commune in the place where life was forged in both beauty and conflict.

A slight rustling in the foliage caught the boy's ears. Moving his right hand over to the drawstring, he quietly energized the bow as a short, squat animal poked out from the bushes. The sarthog had a black coat, with a thick hide that made it an imposing figure of a boar. It was not overly large. Perhaps a hundred kilos, give or take.

The animal's snout brushed over the ground, then seemed to test the air. Then it moved over toward the bait, stepping more fully into the kill zone.

The plasma arrow darkly lit the Dathomirian's features, as Jorah put more tension on the string. Was Takui seeing this?

And where was the boar likely to run if the shot scared it?

Tensing in his shooting position, the young Nightbrother waited to see how this would unfold.

In the best scenario, they were having ribs for dinner tonight.

 

[Takui]

He exhaled sharply. Kashyyyk was more alive than any place he'd ever been, and the Force was constantly abuzz there. Disjointed sensations washed over him frequently, but when he concentrated on pushing everything else away, the Padawan could distinguish specifics. In this case, animalistic instinct. Hunger. That predatory urge.

It was everywhere, and intense. Almost every creature in the ecosystem was some part of the Food Chain, and a hunter by nature. He tried to categorize, compartmentalize, disassociate... but he didn't know where to begin.

Taku rubbed his temple as he watched the ground carefully. If those senses failed him, his others would not. Instead of attempting to delve deeper into folly, he focused on pushing those sensations out of his head. He focused on what he could see, and what he could hear.

The Walluga took prominence, their thunderous steps enough to shake the forest itself. The smell that wafted from their dung also caused him to gag, but it quickly fell to the wayside as he caught the distinct, metallic odor that left a foul taste on his tongue. No doubt some territorial dispute that ended poorly for the other side, when he saw the bloodied tusks his sharpened vision fixed on the boar.

He turned the bow deftly in hand and raised it into position. The quiet hum didn't seem to draw its attention away from the bait. When he drew the string, Taku could feel the resistance. It wasn't like a blaster. His movements were integral. His strength mattered. If he wanted to learn this weapon, he needed to practice.

If that thing was going down, it would take both of them and a great deal of effort. He picked a spot just behind the shoulder, where the ribcage should would not protect the heart. Hopefully the plasma would tear through its thick hide, and if they were lucky, it might do more than just piss it off.

He let the arrow fly.

The resulting recoil caused him to wobble, and he braced against the tree. Would it hit the target...? If it didn't, that boar might charge the kriffing tree and drop him to the ground, then maul him to death.

Jorah zos Darnus

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

A squeal pierced the forest.

The sarthog staggered off to the right, then collapsed on its side.

"Eh!?" Leaning forward, the boy nearly slipped off his branch as he peered, somewhat in disbelief, as Taku took down the wild boar. "Dou... meni..." the boy uttered, at a loss for words. He honestly hadn't expected that to work.

He'd thought it could work. He just also thought that Taku's shot was going to hit anything other than the sarthog. Including, potentially, Taku himself.

These Jedi were seriously challenging his stereotypes about them.

Slinging the bow over his shoulder, the boy jumped down from the branch -- shifting back into his bat form -- and gliding down to where the boar lay on the ground. The green mist of the spirit ichor surrounded the boy as he reappeared in his human form again, kneeling to check the body. Taku's arrow had struck where the neck and shoulder met. "It should be good," the boy commented, looking up and over at the older male.

"Carrying something this big would make us very popular," he warned, pulling the Nightsister dagger that he carried free. Pointing it out toward the foliage, he made clear that he wasn't talking about when they returned to the village. "We'll dress it and take the cuts of meat back. The smell of the carcass ought to attract predators to it and away from us."

And if that didn't work, they'd be a lot more nimble with only a few pounds of pork between them than they would be balancing a sarthog carcass.

But first, they had to honor the kill.

Moving the Nightsister over the carcass, the boy slipped back into Dathomirian as he uttered, "Lora..." Reaching up a hand, he gestured skyward a moment as he said next,"...ama..."

Bringing the hand down, he held it over the dagger as he moved it back over the carcass a second time. As he did, the spirit ichor re-appeared, swirling around the boy and the kill. "Yitol yol minta." As he finished the ritual, the spirit ichor seemed to pulse, then dissipate as it traveled upward, fading back into the trees.

With the spirits and ancestors, not the least of which was the spirit of the sarthog itself, honored, the boy held the dagger up as he looked back at Taku.

"Have you ever dressed an animal before?"

Takui​

 

[Takui]

He stared in disbelief.

The dangerous creature went down without any fight whatsoever. Taku expected himself to be on the ground, thrashing as the creature's tusks ripped his flesh. Instead, he had taken its life. It was the first creature he had ever killed. It was the first time he had ended a life, sentient or not.

His hand cupped over his lips as the sudden rush of emotion bled into the forefront of his mind. The grim reminder of death in the Force dredged up a trauma he had moved past; yet the sensation that came with it was not so easily shaken off.

Taku inhaled sharply. He had to take control of his intense feelings before they consumed him. He'd learned that much.

It should be good.

He was still staring when Jorah said that. Death and good, together? The same? Could a life taken equate to good? Maybe life wasn't as black and white as he used to believe.

Takui tilted his head. "What was that?" he asked. It felt different somehow, almost like the spirit was free. In the Force, it felt like he'd unshackled a prisoner and let them leave. This wasn't the same, horrible sensation from Deneba.

Death... could take many shapes?

"No," he shook his head. "Where I come from, my mother and sisters bought all of our food at market, and prepared all of the meals for us. I only learned to cook because..."

Taku glanced aside. "Nevermind that," he managed a smile. "Please, show me?"

Jorah zos Darnus

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

"What was that?"

"Dou?" the young Nightbrother asked, glancing up for a moment to look around the forest. What was what? Jorah didn't see anything there.

Wait, had he meant the spirit ichor?

So strange. As powerful as the Jedi were as sorcerers, they seemed to know very little of how magic worked. "The spirit has made the crossing," the youth noted, returning to work preparing to clean the sarthog. Reaching into his utility belt, the Dathomiri hunter began to take out a grapple hook and line. Weighing the line with an anchoring pin, the Dathomiri hunter stood. "It now watches over our hunt in the company of the spirits of the forest," he explained, even as he tossed the weighted line over an overhanging branch.

Picking up the anchoring pin from the ground, the boy pushed that into the ground, then returned to the other end of the grapple line and began to set up a block for hoisting the back legs. Finally, he reached into a pouch and unfolded a kind of tarp onto the ground by the body.

"First, we must remove the organs," Jorah said, pausing the hoist work and again drawing his Nightsister dagger. "But, we must be cautious. The entrails contain toxins that will spoil the meat if we are not careful," he explained, as he set to work. In about ten minutes time, the boy had the beast disemboweled and hanging by its back legs to be skinned.

The organs and hide were tossed into a pile while the boy worked. Speed was something of the essence. In addition to the more aggressive predators, now the scavengers were likely to take note of them as well.

"Now we can harvest the meat," the boy announced, as he finished field dressing the sarthog. Running the flat of the knife along the carcass, Jorah pointed to the different cuts. "Ribs here," he noted, pushing the knife through the side as he separated the shoulder and then worked back along the spine. Handing the left rib rack over to Taku, Jorah said, "Start setting these on the blanket."

Once the ribs were gone from his hands, the boy returned to working on carving the cuts they would want from the carcass. "Belly," he said, handing a cut that was marbled with fat. "This is what we'll make bacon out of."

As he rotated the hanging carcass around to begin on the right side, he ran the knife up along the spine. "Back fat, which can be useful in cooking, but we'll leave it to make room for what we'll carry back," the boy explained. If there were several Nightbrothers for this outing, they'd have taken two sarthogs and carried them back. Four to a hog and at least two hunters guarding them.

Being that there were just the two of them, they were grabbing the bacon and making a run for it, more or less.

Kneeling down, the boy tapped the blade against the side of the sarthog's head. "The petfa is my favorite," he remarked. He did not know the word in Basic for the petfa, so to reinforce what he meant, he reached a hand to tap the side of his cheek. "We cure it. It is most delicious."

As he returned to the work of carving up the meat, the boy asked, "When we get back, what would you like for me to prepare for you? Some of this, we will need time to cure. But the ribs or the part of the leg here..." he said, pausing to indicate the part of the foreleg and shoulder commonly known as picnic ham. "...either of those I could smoke when we get back."

Takui​

 

[Takui]

"I can help with the prep," Taku volunteered,, "I used to do a lot of the cooking and cleaning back home, domestic chores are probably my main area of expertise."

His sisters were the real champions of the household, assuring that everyday necessities were taken care of and monitoring the flow of spending. When their parents separated, his younger sisters took on much of the burden of responsibility, because their father had always deemed Takui wildly inept and unable to handle even the smallest things. He hated it.

The Padawan was eager now to make himself useful. Where before he never had much opportunity, now he had all the time in the world to make up for things. "The jowl, is it?" he asked about the cheek of the boar. "I've heard pork jowls are a delicacy in some systems. We'll have to make sure we do it just the way you like it."

He moved over and helped to load up on the portions of meat that Jorah indicated. When they discarded parts, they did so in a manner that would attract the dangers of the forest toward the desiccated piles rather than to the rich wealth of meat that they collected. It would give them time to get back to Silver Rest.

"I'm a big fan of ribs. If you can get the meat to fall off the bone, you've got me sold."

Jorah zos Darnus

 

[Jorah zos Darnus]

The Silver Rest

The trip back to the Silver Rest was, thankfully, less eventful than had been the voyage into the forests.

No doubt the carcass they had left behind had been part of that reason, attracting scavangers toward it rather than toward them. And, those scavengers had likely attracted some predators of their own.

Kashyyyk had a rather vicious food chain.

But, they were back from a successful hunt. Crushing and grinding a variety of spices, the young Dathomiri had applied a generous dry rub to the two racks of ribs that the pair had successfully returned with. Which, were now enveloped in the smoke of hearty wood chips, sending a smell through the village that was apt to attract predators of a more social variety.

While the ribs were cooking, the boy had set to work starting to cure the rest of the meats. "These will need to cure for awhile," the boy noted aloud, as he finished stringing up one of the haunches. It would make a good prosciutto. At least, in a couple of months.

The bacon and the jowl would cure faster. A matter of a week. But, it was unlikely that Takui would want to just linger on Kashyyyk for that long. "I can have your share delivered to you," the boy offered.

Then seemed to hesitate. Takui was his elder. To presume about his wishes was impertinent. Realizing the possible slight, the Dathomiri tried to reign back his eagerness. "If... if you want, that is."

Glancing over at where Takui had been helping to prepare the meat for curing, the Dathomiri remarked, "I'm surprised you like this kind of work. We're told that men don't like this kind of work."

He paused there.

"There's a lot about how gender works in these space societies that doesn't make sense to me."

Takui​