Private Where the Crystals Wait {Kuhbee}

[Razh Sho]

The hangar was cold. High above, durasteel rafters groaned in the wind, and the open mouth of the bay let in a draft that tugged at the edges of his cloak. He didn't move. He rarely did, not unless purpose demanded it. The wind, the cold, the idle thrum of the T-6 shuttle behind him—these things were distractions. Noise. Like the static before clarity. His thoughts were not on the journey to Ilum. They were on the Wookiee.

Kuhbee.

A Padawan not his own. Passed from one hand to the next like a training saber. Razh didn't resent the burden. But he recognized it as such. Kuhbee was not a blank slate—he was half-shaped, already molded by the hands of Master Horn. And now, whatever remained of that work was his responsibility.

Ilum was no easy first step. Razh watched the hangar entrance. Time passed in slow measure. The wind shifted. Still, no sign of the student. He closed his eyes. In the Force, Kuhbee was not distant. The boy's presence moved like a storm through a forest—loud, full of emotion and instinct. There was pain there. Eagerness, too. A kind of honest fear. Not undisciplined. Just... untamed.

Razh opened his eyes again.

He would not greet Kuhbee with warmth. That was not his way. But he would not greet him with coldness either. The boy would know he was seen. That he was now bound to something larger. Something ancient. Something worth mastering himself for.

Razh glanced once toward the ramp, the icy wind still brushing past the hem of his robe. He would wait as long as he needed to.

The path of the Jedi did not begin in temples. It began in silence. In stillness.

And Razh Sho was very good at waiting.

Kuhbee

 

[A Wookie Cub]

TAG: Razh Sho


The harsh cold was no bother to the young Wookie. His fur insulated him well against such temperatures. No, what bothered the young cub was that this was the third Master he was now working with. First Master Thii was called away on a dangerous assignment and now Mastwr Horn was also absent. Realistically he knew that being a Jedi was a dangerous and complicated endeavor but deep down the young pup couldn’t help but worry he was doing something wrong. That worry was almost enough to cloud the excitement most young padawans would feel upon the eve of a lightsaber construction… almost. The excitement was there, simmering under the surface, just weighed down with worry and guilt.

He approached the master he would be working with and bowed respectfully.

[Hello Master Sho. Thank you for guiding me today.]

He of course spoke the Wookie language but did have a droid translator available should one be needed.

 

[Razh Sho]

Razh Sho inclined his head slowly, lekku still as the cold nipped at the edges of his robes. The snow crunched lightly beneath his boots as he took a step forward, and the wind whistled quietly through the jagged ice spires of Ilum.

The Wookiee bowed.

The young one's voice—deep and resonant in Shyriiwook—carried not just gratitude but something beneath it: doubt, insecurity, a weight far too heavy for such a young spirit.

Razh did not smile—he seldom did—but his voice was even and warm in its own way, the low, gravelly rasp carrying across the wind.

"You are here. That is enough."He lowered himself slowly to one knee, meeting the cub's eyes without condescension, only quiet respect. "The crystal does not choose the loudest heart. It chooses the one that listens." He paused, then, "I understand your tongue. You need not explain your pain in Basic."

He gestured toward the shimmering canyon mouth beyond them—the path to the Kyber caves, half-buried beneath frost and memory.

"Come. The mountain waits. And it does not judge."

Then he rose, cloak stirring behind him like a whisper of the past — and turned to walk at the Wookiee's side, not ahead of him.

Not as a test.

But as a guide.
Kuhbee