“Let evil fear me. Innocent know they're safe"
Kashyyyk
Outside Shadow Temple ruins
The air was thick with ash and silence.
Not the silence of peace, but the silence of aftermath. The kind that settles when all the screaming has stopped, when the fires have long since burned out but the scars remain etched into the bark of a world too proud to forget.
Kashyyyk groaned beneath him. Even after all this time, it hadn't truly healed.
Perched on a moss-draped beam high above the forest floor, Connel Vanagor sat with one leg draped over the edge, the other bent with his forearm resting across it. Below him, the skeletal remains of the Shadow Temple jutted out from the surrounding foliage like the bones of a forgotten colossus. Thick vines had overtaken the shattered walls. What hadn’t been incinerated had been torn apart. Trees that once served as guardians now leaned as if mourning.
He adjusted the straps of his mask, the familiar weight grounding him. The hum of his short lightsaber — deactivated but ever-present across the small of his back — was a silent reminder:
This place remembers pain. So do I.
Caltin had asked him to come. Not as an order, but as a favor — something older than duty.
Tell me if it can live again," the elder Vanagor had said. "Tell me if the Wookiees have something to come back to. If the Shadow Temple can be reborn. If you think… the Force still breathes here.
That last part lingered.
He had felt it the moment he landed. Faint, fragmented impressions in the Force — old echoes clinging to the roots like ghosts. Screams. Roars. The battle cries of Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders, the defiant bellows of Wookiee defenders. Jedi Shadows overwhelmed in their own sanctum. The crash of towers falling. The crackle of flame devouring wood and wisdom alike.
Connel stood, boots settling silently on the mossy beam. He reached out, palm brushing the air as if parting unseen curtains.
There was something here.
Not just pain — not just death — but defiance. Resilience. The kind that lived in the Wroshyr trees and the bones of Jedi who gave everything. The kind that refused to forget.
He leapt from the beam. The drop was far, but he didn’t fall — he descended, slowing himself just enough with the Force to land amid the broken tiles of what had once been a meditation hall. His boots crunched against glassy remnants of a shattered kyber matrix. He bent down, brushing away soot, revealing faint carvings beneath: the circular emblem of the Shadow Temple, half-burned but intact.
I don’t think you ever really left, he murmured.
The wind howled softly, as if answering. From the canopy above, a trio of katarns scattered, their yellow eyes watching from a distance. The jungle was reclaiming what war had stolen, in its own time.
Connel keyed his comm.
Master Vanagor, he said quietly, there’s… potential here. It’s buried deep, but it’s not gone. The forest has grown newly, but still listens. The stone remembers the names. And the Wookiees… if they knew someone was willing to stand watch with them again… they might come home.
A long pause. He lowered the comm.
He walked deeper into the ruins. Beneath the wreckage, beneath the moss and time, was a foundation worth rebuilding. The kind of place that taught not just how to strike from the shadows, but how to protect them.
And maybe, just maybe, it was time the shadows struck back.
The floor creaked beneath his steps, old durasteel supports groaning in protest beneath layers of growth. Each corridor he passed was a memory — meditation alcoves swallowed by roots, training chambers littered with fragments of remote droids long gone cold. Yet the silence here felt... different now.
Not haunted.
Expectant.
Then he felt it — not through the Force, but the way a hunter senses being watched.
Connel stopped beneath a twisted archway, one hand resting casually near the hilt on the back of his belt. He didn’t draw it. He didn’t need to.
A low, curious rumble echoed from the trees. Not aggressive. Not startled.
Familiar.
From a shadowed ledge, halfway up a gnarled Wroshyr trunk, a massive figure emerged — tall even by Wookiee standards, with fur streaked gray and brown, woven with strips of ash-colored cloth and beads carved from reclaimed wood. A well-maintained bowcaster hung at his back, but it remained untouched.
The Wookiee dropped down with practiced ease, landing a few meters away. His breath was steady. His eyes wide. And then…
A deep, resonant bark of recognition.
Connel blinked — then allowed the smallest grin to tug at the corner of his mouth. “Rurraak?”
The Wookiee stepped forward, letting out a softer string of growls and a surprised bark that ended in a chuffing laugh. He thumped a massive fist over his heart, then gently clasped Connel’s arm.
Yeah, Connel said, clasping back with respect. It’s been a while.
Rurraak had been one of the young warriors assigned to patrol near the temple’s outer perimeter in the years before the siege. Too young to fight when the Neo-Crusaders came, too stubborn to leave after they did. Most thought he had fallen in the fires or fled with the last of the resistance.
Clearly, they were wrong.
The Wookiee stepped back and looked around them, issuing a low, mournful rumble.
It still stands, Connel said, gesturing to the wreckage. Sort of.
Rurraak responded with a series of short barks and a wave of his hand. 'The forest will help. The trees remember who bled here. The roots know the names.'
Connel tilted his head, letting the Wookiee’s meaning soak in. He reached down, brushing his fingers against the bark curling over the edge of a ruined pillar.
There’s still power here, he murmured. Still something to build on.
Rurraak gave a strong nod, then tapped his chest. 'I stayed. Others scattered. But not all are gone. If they know Jedi walk here again...'
They’ll return, Connel finished quietly. They just need a reason.
The two stood in the center of the ruins, one a Jedi Shadow, the other a guardian of memory. And for the first time in years, the Shadow Temple didn't feel abandoned.
It felt watched over.
Rurraak crouched beside an overgrown comm panel embedded in the base of a tree-wrapped support column. His massive claws pried back a thick knot of vine, revealing the panel’s rusted but mostly intact interface beneath.
He looked to Connel with a hopeful grunt.
Power’s dead, Connel muttered, already kneeling to inspect it. But the crystal relay node… it’s intact. And if this was part of the temple's ancient signaling array, it might still reach the old forest beacons.
Rurraak grumbled affirmatively, tapping a sigil etched beside the interface — a circular emblem half-covered in soot. Beneath the grime, Connel recognized it. Not Jedi. Wookiee.
A stylized heart with branching roots, cradled in the curve of a mighty bowcaster.
Shyyyo’s Heart, Connel said aloud, his voice almost reverent.
They were the forest’s sentinels. Not just warriors, but caretakers. When the Shadow Temple had first been founded, it was this clan that had watched its perimeter, guided its allies through the labyrinthine undergrowth, and offered Wookiee traditions in harmony with Jedi teachings. Fiercely loyal, but devastated in the Crusader siege along with much of the planet. Some believed their line broken.
Apparently, not all.
Connel reached for a small power cell clipped to his belt — a standard-issue Alliance auxiliary. He wedged it into the socket beneath the panel and sparked the connection with a pulse from the Force.
The interface hummed, dim and flickering, but alive.
Rurraak stepped back, letting Connel work.
The Jedi keyed in a transmission signal, aligning it with coordinates he hoped the Shyyyo’s Heart had once used. It was old tech. It would take time.
But he knew the Wookiees understood patience.
Instead of a voice message, he triggered a visual beacon: the crest of the Jedi Order merging with the sigil of the Shadow Temple… then entwining with the heart-root symbol of Shyyyo’s Heart.
Simple.
Clear.
A call home.
They’ll see it, Connel said quietly, stepping back. If they’re out there, they’ll know someone’s come to stand with them again.
Rurraak gave a low, rumbling howl — not mournful, but proud. A war cry, tempered with hope. Then he reached into a pouch at his belt and produced something unexpected: a folded piece of dark fabric. He handed it to Connel.
Unfolded, it was a tattered banner. Midnight blue, trimmed in silver. The old crest of the Shadow Temple, overlaid with the Shyyyo’s sigil in crude but loving embroidery.
Rurraak barked gently. "Hang it high."
Connel looked up — then Force-leapt to a jutting spire of stone near the temple’s central courtyard. There, he tied the banner to a broken mast once used to hang training flags. The cloth unfurled slowly in the jungle breeze, rippling above the ruin like a promise.
I’ll stay here a few more days, Connel said as he dropped back beside Rurraak. If they come, they’ll need to know we’re not ghosts.
The Wookiee nodded deeply, placing a hand to his chest.
“We are the roots. You are the flame,” he growled in Shyriiwook. “We remember.”
And the forest, for the first time in years, began to stir.
The jungle canopy swayed with the rhythm of Kashyyyk’s breath — heavy with mist, yet strangely alive. Crickets and chirps had returned to the edge of the ruins. Not fully, not as before… but enough to know change was on the wind.
Rurraak sat by the relit fire pit of the old courtyard, stringing a fresh bowstring with reverent care. Connel stood watch nearby, arms folded, senses attuned.
Then — like ghosts from the trees — they came.
No fanfare. No stomping. Just presence.
The first Wookiees appeared at the treeline, their pelts streaked with forest grime and war paint. Quiet, proud, and watchful. More stepped out after — a dozen strong. Warriors bearing bone-carved blades, ceremonial armor woven from Wroshyr bark and songsteel, some carrying cubs in wraps, some missing limbs but walking tall.
Connel stepped forward, but did not speak.
He let them see him. Let the banner above flutter in their line of sight. Let the silence offer respect.
And then… a deep, resonant growl.
One of the elders stepped forward, taller than the rest, her fur pale with age but braided in intricate rows, bone beads clacking softly with each step. Her amber eyes locked onto Connel, wide with disbelief. She approached slowly, almost cautiously — as if afraid her memory was playing tricks on her.
Then she spoke, voice low and warm, thick with emotion.
“Vanagor.”
Connel tilted his head. You know my name?
A long breath. A nod.
She stepped closer, slowly lifting a hand to his face, hovering near the edge of his mask — then stopping herself, respectful.
“I held you,” she said in heavily accented Basic. “When you were no bigger than a branch-kit. I marked over your father’s eyes before battle. Your mother sang with me beneath the Great Shell when peace still lived here.”
Connel’s breath caught. His voice came quiet, unsure.
What’s your name?
The elder placed her hand over her heart and roared softly — the kind of growl that carried years in its weight.
“Grawwarri Daughter of Llabruf of the Shyyyo’s Heart. Healer. Warden. Witness.” She paused, then touched his chest with two fingers. “And I am proud to see you return here, alive. Whole. And with his eyes.”
A stillness passed through the campfire circle.
Connel removed his mask slowly — not as a gesture of vulnerability, but of honor.
You remember him?
“Caltin Vanagor did not pass through this world unnoticed,” she replied with a deep rumble. “He did not need to speak Wookiee to be kin.”
The younger Wookiees stirred — some in awe, some in recognition of the old tales. One leaned toward Grawwarri and whispered. She nodded and turned to Connel once more.
“They will come,” she said. “More than you know. The jungle spoke of our return long before your signal. The roots whispered your arrival.”
Then we rebuild, Connel said.
“No,” she corrected gently. “We revive. That which is planted in pain… can still bloom in purpose.”
He looked around at the gathering warriors, at Rurraak standing tall, at the banner still waving above the broken stones.
And for the first time since arriving, Connel felt it clearly.
Not just echoes of the past.
But the heartbeat of something new.
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