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The beasts of Coruscant were not considered many or varied. In the highest reaches, mouse-apes are a constant pest, infesting any skyscraper that has cleanliness protocols. Elsewhere, those are outcompeted by the larger Corurat, which are consumed by the elusive Lesser Feral Drake-Coon.
But those are the ones that the average Coruscanti would know of. Even those several levels down, who may never see the sun, would only know of a handful of native Coruscanti species.
Deeper down, in the depths where the wilds had taken over abandoned levels, the beasts were really diverse. Even a generation after fleeing to the depths, the Jedi were regularly discovering new species. Some, they saw only once or twice. Others became endemic.
The beast before them now was entirely new to them, and had proven itself a problem by going after several hunting parties. It looked somewhat like the Lesser Feral Drake-Coon except, instead of being a knee-height and skittish, it was aggressive and twice as tall as Reva and around a dozen times that lengths from snout to tail, and covered in horns.
Perhaps they would call it a Greater Feral Drake-Coon. Or Maybe a Greater Drake-Horn. It hadn’t been named yet. The creature screamed angrily, and tried to bite Reva. She laughed, and dodged.
“It’s too big for our sabers,” Liam yelled. He was clinging to one of the horns on the beast’s head.
“Try to aim for the brain!” Reva told him.
“I’m trying!”
As if to prove his point, Liam let go of the horn and ignited his lightsaber, plunging the green blade into the beast’s head.
The beast yelped and flicked its head, sending Liam flying. Revan sucked in a breath as Liam spun through the air and through a wall that was hopefully more fragile than it looked.
“Liam!” Reva shouted.
There was no answer.
The beast took the chance to lunge at Reva again. This time, though, Reva took the risky option. She jumped forward, landing on its wide tongue, and plunged her saber up, as the Force pointed.
The beast’s light winked out. With a thunderous clattering of horn on metal, the beast fell. Its jaw ended up shut, Reva pinned between its tongue and the roof of its mouth.
Reva snarled, a thread of panic worming its way into her heart. She shoved her body back towards the opening of the snout, cutting her hand on a sharp tooth. After much pushing and squeezing, she was out.
She was dripping noxious saliva. Her hand burned, the saliva mixing with her blood. Her lightsaber was now unlit in her hand, and the darkness of the depths was complete and utter.
Reva relit her saber and let its blue light lead her to where Liam had fallen. To her relief, she could still sense his life-force, and Bertola’s next to him.
She found them through two walls, torn metal making gaping holes in them. Burtola was kneeling beside Liam, deep in the Force, trying to keep his friend steady. Reva picked her way to Liam’s other side and knelt down. His eyes shone in the light.
“It’s dead?” Liam asked weakly. Reva could feel his pain, and was shocked he was talking.
“Yes. Now rest,” she ordered. “Don’t make Burtola’s job harder.”
“I guess you didn’t need me,” Liam sighed.
“You helped!” Reva protested.
Liam’s eyes fluttered closed but then he forced them open again.
“I don’t feel great,” Liam said. From what Reva sensed, he was massively understating how he felt.
“Healing trance,” Reva ordered firmly.
“Fine,” Liam grumbled. “See you later.”
“Just don’t die,” Reva groaned.
Liam’s eyes closed again, and Reva reached out in the Force. Bertola was moving shards of bone through Liam’s flesh, bringing them back to where they were meant to be. He was also helping Liam’s blood flow properly, holding together half-formed bones, and helping Liam breathe. As Liam fell into the healing trance he really should have been in before Reva got there, Liam took over using the Force to help him breathe past the bone-shards in his lungs.
Reva spread her awareness outward, watching for threats. Everything seemed quiet, scavengers scared off by the roars and screams of the beast.
Carefully, Reva took over holding the reconstructed bones in place. Liam’s pain trickled over her like a sparkling brook that once sang in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, so far above them.
Once, Liam’s creche clan and Reva’s had met there. Liam’s clan were fleeing an annoying lesson. Reva’s clan had slipped their supervision in the vastness of the Room of a Thousand Fountains. They all descended on that brook, splashing as they ran through it, falling painlessly in its shallow depths. Reva had started a splash fight. Burtola had figured out how to use the Force to create more splashes. By the time an adult Jedi found them, both clans were soaked to the bone and laughing.
The memory was somewhat faded, like most of Reva’s memories of her childhood in the Temple. Their age group was the last to remember the Temple. After them were those who had been toddlers and infants when the Temple fell. All they remembered was that they had lived in a safe place, once, before everyone left it.
Liam’s heart beat steadily, like the pumping of the nutrient system of the All-Mother, whose cloned children would never know the Temple at all. The Padawans who Reva’s generation would teach, or their Padawan’s Padawans. They would hear of the Temple. Perhaps Reva would tell her Padawan, whoever they would be, of that brook in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Perhaps she would tell that Padawan of that carefree day.
Or perhaps not.
Liam’s heart beat steadily. Steadily like the Jedi, changed but still existing.
Perhaps Reva would allow her Padawan to be free of the ache of missing the Temple that she felt. They had a new home, now, all of them. Reva had served her Padawanship, venturing not into the wider galaxy, away from the Temple, but venturing into the rest of Coruscant, away from the Conclave.
Though it was never safe, the darkness of Coruscant was Reva’s home, now, as it had been for most of her life.
Let it be the home of the rest of her lineage.
They, too, would crawl past jagged teeth and heal their fellow Jedi when it came to it.