Chapter Text
Tahiri Veila stood on the wide wooden of disk a Wookiee landing pad, flexing her feet impatiently inside her uncomfortable new Jedi boots, and looking up at the shadows of the vast canopy of the forest overhead. The landing pad was surrounded by the tall trunks of immense trees, which looked to be even bigger round the circle of their girth than the disk-shaped hull of a spaceship like the Millennium Falcon, and their long branches, as thick as X-wing fuselages and several times as long, thrust out and intersected in the darkness overhead like the struts of some immense tent, forking into smaller sections as they reached further upwards.
Tahiri frowned. She hadn't flown here on the Falcon. She'd been taken on the boring old Sunrider instead.
And that was the reason for the latest thing that had gone wrong.
Tahiri sighed, and turned her attention back to the scene in front of her, where a burly human man in a fussy blue uniform and a wide-brimmed helmet like the ones Imperial soldiers wore in holoscans was frowning down at her traveling companion - a fluffy, white-furred, four-legged little alien with long floppy ears, who was standing his ground with a stubbornness that seemed more comical than useful.
"--sorry, but I've said this already, Mister, uhh, Ikrit. A J-type Nubian without a valid registration, being piloted by talking hoojib and and a young lady who looks to be about twelve or fourteen, neither of whom has anything resembling ID documents of their own, and who freely admit that fact to me, isn't my idea of a ship that I can just grant landing clearance to. To be honest, you don't look like smugglers, and you sure as tang don't act like any smugglers I've met either, but I'm jigged if I know what you do look like..."
"We are Jedi," Ikrit explained, though that didn't look like it was going to be enough for the guard.
Tahiri rolled her eyes. The Sunrider really belonged to her best friend, Anakin Solo, though a boy two years older than her flying around the Galaxy on his own would have been even less likely to seem normal to most people than a furry, floppy-eared, four-legged Kushiban. Even a girl who'd been brought up by Tusken Raiders on Tatooine knew that.
She sometimes wondered if Anakin hadn't really thought this through, though - Kushibans flying antique starships were still strange enough to most other people. That was why they were being held up by this idiot in uniform.
But that was typical Anakin - he was Darth Vader's grandson, and he'd come up with some technical argument why he had inherited the old Sith Lord's castle with its hangar full of spaceships, and that was that. If he decided Ikrit ought to have a ship, then Ikrit got the ship. Even Master Skywalker hadn't argued with that one.
She thought it was a little ridiculous, herself, but she'd been enjoying herself too much to argue. She'd saved that up to tease him later - after this, he definitely deserved that. But Tahiri knew that Anakin was a pretty deep thinker for a boy his age. She had a sneaking suspicion that the main reason he had let Ikrit have the Sunrider was that he didn't want his elder brother Jacen to realise that he'd arbitrarily disinherited him.
Anakin could be direct like that, confident that his attitude was right no matter how little anyone else understood it - though he never seemed to be like that with her, and she liked listening to when he talked about places like Bespin and Belsavis.
But maybe it was more interesting the way Anakin described it than it was to actually visit.
Tahiri frowned suspiciously, and tapped her foot experimentally.
So far, this so-called vacation, that was supposed to be about her and Anakin, and his brother and his sister, had been a whole heap of annoying grown-up problems.
And maybe Anakin was right when he suggested that the two of them should steal a ship and run away to space, visiting whatever planest they wanted to. She was pretty sure the two of them could do better than the mess the grown-ups had made of organizing this trip.
She'd literally jumped at the idea of meeting her best friend for a holiday before the start of term, on a planet she hadn't visited before, but so far, it had been one disaster after another.
To start with, the Millennium Falcon hadn't swung by Yavin 4 to pick her up. Anakin and his brother and sister were supposed to be flying in from Coruscant, the big-city planet that was the capital of the Galaxy, but apparently, there'd been some kind of delay, so now they were heading straight to Kashyyyk and she had to simply meet them there. She suspected that delay was grown-up code for her best friend's father Captain Solo underestimating how long it would take to overhaull an engine, or for his mom just being difficult.
Whatever, she'd had to fly aboard the Sunrider. The only exciting thing about the old ship was the shudder when it jumped in and out of hyperspace, which always made her wonder if it would break down before getting where it was supposed to be going.
She suspected some of the grown-ups would have been happier if that had happened - or if she'd just been left off the trip completely. She'd had to really play up how excited she was to see Kashyyyk and practice talking to more Wookiees. Somehow, she only seemed to be allowed to visit annoyingly hot planets - the bright desert and dry rock of her homeworld Tatooine, the humid jungles of Yavin 4, the volcanic world with two different names where Darth Vader's abandoned castle stood.
But even there, things hadn't worked out quite right.
She'd been promised that at this time of year the forest-covered Wookiee homeworld would be blanketed with snow, something she'd never seen before on any of the handful of planets that she'd visited - but the glimpse from the cockpit of the ship, dark treetops under a haze of low white cloud, hadn't been much different than flying over the jungle on Yavin 4 in the morning mist. Dipping under the treetops to reach the concealed landing pad had been the most exciting bit.
And of course, arriving on the Sunrider rather than the Falcon had caused all sorts of problems, not only because the only Sunrider's last properly-registered owner had been Darth Vader, and not only because she was so young and Ikrit was so small and fluffy, but because Ikrit was a Jedi Master who had spent centuries in meditation, and Tahiri was a girl who'd been adopted by a Tusken Raider tribe when she was four, and neither of them had travel documents, or any actual computerised records of their identity at all.
In the old days, Ikrit said the Jedi had had droids on Coruscant who handled that sort of thing, but these days, with the Jedi using the old Rebel base on distant Yavin 4, they had trouble just keeping the power generator working, and the only droid around was Artoo-Deetoo.
As far as she knew, the only documentation she had herself was the leather scroll Vexa had handed over when Master Skywalker had bought her, and she was pretty sure the New Republic would frown at that.
She frowned herself, and watched the face-off between the little Jedi Master and the burly human guard, shifting in her boots again.
Not only was she being made to wear annoying new boots, and an itchy new set of heavy beige robes, and a heavy brown cloak with a hood, she'd been given a silly little training lightsaber for her belt that she'd been sternly told not to use, and which she strongly suspected was really just a badge so she could be identified if she got lost.
She was starting to suspect that the Jedi didn't really know what to do with children, so they made them stand around in awkward costumes feeling bored, just as much as Tusken Raiders did.
A call of greeting snapped her from her mood, and switched her attention towards the zig-zag wooden jetty that led away from the landing pad, where she saw a Wookiee ambling towards them, waving both arms around to get their attention.
Tahiri jumped up, and waved back enthusiastically.
"And here is Mistress Mallatobuck," Ikrit said, smiling and waving a forepaw. "Officer, perhaps my young friend here can go with my Wookiee friend, while we sort out the problems relating to my ship?"
Anakin's ship, Tahiri thought. She was pretty sure that Ikrit and Malla had never even talked on the comm before, but she wasn't going to argue with that part.
The guard looked from Ikrit to Tahiri, and back to Ikrit, perhaps recognising the stubbornness underneath the Jedi Master's tolerant expression. Tahiri folded her arms, and did her best to look stubborn too, then decided maybe she was overplaying it, and tried a questioning look instead.
"Sure, on you go." The guard gave her an indulgent smile as she dashed past, and a wry shake of his head. "I may regret this."
"I'm sure she will give no trouble," Ikrit promised, but maybe that was just more grown-up nonsense. "Behave yourself, Tahiri!"
"I will," she called back -- then came skidding to a halt in front of the Wookiee, and looking up in something like awe.
The Wookiee seemed to be as tall as one of the planet's huge trees, and she realised for the first time how the aliens' lean height and their shaggy brown pelt acted as a natural camouflage against the gnarled bark of Kashyyyk's massive trees. Mallatobuck's fur seemed a little longer and finer than that of her husband Chewbacca, and less shaggy and untidy than their nephew Lowbacca, and her muzzle was flatter and broader, with bright eyes deep-set beneath her arching brows.
"You're Malla, right?" She cleared her throat, honked, and made a gesture with her arms. "That's Tusken Raider for hello. I'm Tahiri. I understand a little Shyriiwook, mostly from talking to your nephew Lowie while I help out with maintenance on ships, but I'm not sure I should try and speak it."
The Wookiee gave a Wookiee smile, and ruffled her blonde hair. She said something in Wookiee, and Tahiri thought she was asking if Tahiri enjoyed maintenance on ships.
"Oh, I mostly pass Anakin the hydrospanners," she assured. "Ships aren't really my sort of thing. But I like watching Anakin, and Jaina and Lowbacca." She thought for a moment. "You work as a hyperdrive mechanic too, don't you?"
Malla rumbled her agreement, explaining that she helped assemble hyperdrive motivators for New Republic ships, but she didn't like the new factory in Thikkiiana where Lowbacca's parents worked, so she did her work from her own home, in the traditional Wookiee way, producing specialised units that couldn't just be assembled by a droid.
Tahiri smiled at the complex layers of the reply. Wookiee was a tricky language to learn, but she suspected that speaking Tusken gave her some advantages. For once, she didn't feel the need to reply.
They were heading through the trees, the zig-zag decking giving way to winding rope-bridges, some of them with matted walkways, lightly dusted with snow, some just with a rope beneath your feet, so that they had to walk in single file, like a row of banthas. Tahiri looked down to watch her steps, and was amazed at how the view plunged into darkness underneath.
Apparently, Kashyyyk could be impressive after all.
She gradually got used to the strange three-dimensional route through the gloom, their route carrying them along wide bridges that led through starlight under the gaps between the branches, carefully avoiding the deeper darkness under the canopy on either side - every so often, they would reach a sort of lantern-lit roundabout wrapped around the trunk of a tree, and she saw how some narrower bridges swung off to one side or the other, which she suspected were private routes that led to individual trees, which she supposed contained individual Wookiee houses - maybe they were built into giant boles in the wood, or knots where massive branches had once thrust out. But when they took a turning down a long, narrow rope-bridge with a planked walkway underfoot, and headed towards a specific tree, she realised that they were much more interesting than that.
The Wookiee house was a circular building with white snow on its tall pointed roof, and smoke rising from a lazy chimney perched on the left - a chalet, she thought was the right word - and it had been built right around the waist of a huge tree. There was a balcony around the front, and diagonal wooden beams underneath that thrust out from the massive trunk to the outer edge of the curving floor, echoing the shape of the roof on top.
Malla asked if Tahiri would like to go in and wait for the Solo children to arrive, explaining - without really apologising - that she had some sort of last-minute shopping to do.
Tahiri thought that over, looking up at the Wookiee, and back at the snow-roofed chalet. "Oh, definitely!" she said.
Malla chuckled, and threw her a set of keys. Tahiri grabbed them, and raced down the rope-and-plank bridge to the front door of the Wookiee treehouse.
***