Jolee Bindo thought his heart might finally give out after a loud shriek startled him out of a late afternoon nap. He had fallen asleep in the chair in the tiny med room of the Ebon Hawk. The datapad he'd been reading when he dozed off clattered to the floor as the old man instinctively reached for the lightsaber hanging from his belt.
He reached out through the Force. His presence brushed against every nook of the ship. Anger, frustration, fear and grim determination touched his mind, but not danger. He took a deep breath and focused on the anger he sensed. When he found the mostly benign source, he grumbled, "I'm getting too old for this," and relaxed back into his chair.
The shriek echoed down the corridor again. The tones of a more masculine voice chased after it. The words were swallowed by the walls of the Hawk, but the speaker obviously wasn't happy.
Jolee couldn't prevent the smirk that crossed his features. Kiryn Maar and Carth Onasi were locked in a near constant state of argument. Either they were going to kill each other or finally figure out that all that passion they had for fighting could be used in more pleasant ways.
In many ways they reminded him of a much younger version of himself wooing the patrol pilot who'd managed to shoot him down. Nayama wanted nothing more to do with him than see him rot in a jail cell. Of course, he was a smuggler then and she was the law. Needless to say, it wasn't an easy courtship. But it had moments of bliss and their marriage, in the beginning, was a good one.
A sigh escaped his lips. It had been a long time since he'd been able to look back on those early memories without the tarnish of later ones. Darker images of the end of his marriage began to overpower the happier ones. He was almost grateful to be interrupted.
"This is ridiculous," Kiryn's voice protested from down the hall. Apparently receiving no reply, she added, "If you don't put me down right now, I'm going to ram this lightsaber hilt somewhere you really don't want me to."
"Maar," Carth's irritated voice replied, "you had the option of walking in here on your own."
"If I thought it was necessary, I would have," she growled. "You're insane, you know that right?"
When the pair rounded the corner into the med room, Jolee tried unsuccessfully to contain his amusement. His dry chuckled earned him a glare from Kiryn. Although, the sight of her craning her neck around to do it, only made him laugh more.
Carth had her slung ungracefully over his shoulder. He held both her legs against his chest as she struggled to be released. They were both covered in the yellow sand of the Dune Sea. Sweat and dirt and a little blood stained their clothes rusty brown.
Jolee patted the med slab and Carth set her ungently down on it. She immediately tried to stand up, but Carth pulled her back down with a heavy hand on her shoulder before her feet could hit the floor. Her eyes shot dagger at him. "I don't need to be here," she said through clenched teeth.
"Too late, you've already bothered me," Jolee cut into the argument. "So, what's so important that you have to deprive an old man of his afternoon nap?"
When Kiryn's chin shot up in silent defiance, Carth answered, "She's got a bite on her leg that needs to be checked over."
Jolee looked down to the ripped fabric over Kiryn's shin and at the hastily applied kolto patches covering nearly half of her lower leg. "What was it?" he asked as he began peeling away the bandages. Soon after joining the mission, he'd slipped into the role of healer. And the crew of the Ebon Hawk certainly kept him busy.
"Not sure, it scuttled back into the rocks after biting," Carth answered. "But it took three doses of antidote from the med kit to neutralize whatever poison it had."
"And now I 'm fine," Kiryn pulled her leg away from Jolee.
Jolee took her leg back and inspected the wound, "I don't think so, my dear."
"Just slap some more kolto on it and I'll let Bastila lead me through some inane Jedi healing meditation on how the galaxy is more beautiful and balanced if my leg is healthy," her annoyance made the sarcasm sharper than she intended.
"Well, if you're so sure, what are you here wasting my time for?"
Kiryn stood up and did her best to hide to wince of pain. "Ask him," she hooked her thumb toward Carth.
"Kiryn, sit down," Carth's voice was soft, but twenty years of Fleet service was behind the command and she obeyed. "For once, just let someone help you."
She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "All right," she agreed. "Jolee?"
He chose not to tease her over her submission. "This looks like the bite of a rock wart. Nasty things. Their fangs secrete a very strong neurotoxin. The fact is, if you weren't a trained Jedi and he hadn't been carrying a med kit, you'd be in bad shape. The generic antidotes in those kits aren't perfect and some of the poison is probably still lingering in the area around the bite. It'll work against the kolto and take twice as long to heal. I can make something that will work better."
"Alright," Kiryn nodded.
Jolee shifted through the various containers he'd stocked the medicine cabinet with. He found the leaves he was looking for and deftly ground them into a paste that looked that bantha fodder and smelled slightly like nerf milk gone sour.
"You know," Jolee began as he worked, "this all reminds me of a gizka I once rescues back on Kashyyyk."
Kiryn crinkled her nose either form the smell of the mixture Jolee was creating or his impending story. Perhaps a little of both.
Carth was foolish enough to ask what happened.
"Well, you have to understand that this particular gizka was under the firm impression that it wasn't actually a gizka. It thought it was a tach monkey. I had seen it a few times before hopping from branch to branch with them. Once I even spotted it doing the little summersaults the tachs enjoy so much.
"It seemed quite happy where it was and the tachs treated it as one of their own. Seems to me, that it mush have been orphaned and by some strange twist taken in by the tachs."
"So, how did you rescue it?" Carth asked.
"Don't you know better than to interrupt your elders when they're speaking, young man?" Jolee took the liberty of calling anyone not old enough to have fought in Kun's War young.
"Now, where…ah, yes…One day I found this particular tach gizka on the forest floor making the oddest little howling sound I've ever heard. Thing had a broken leg. I'm guessing it ventured too high and fell.
"I took it back to my house even thought the damned little pest bit me twice along the way. It was apparently too stupid to realize I was helping it."
Kiryn rolled her eyes, but wisely said nothing and Jolee continued, "I cleaned up all the scrapes and set the broken leg. The gizka fought me through everything. It even managed to make some gurgling noise that almost passed for a growl."
Jolee chuckled to himself as he began applying his homemade salve to Kiryn's leg. She hissed sharply at its sting. For a moment, Jolee thought she was going to kick him, but her leg only tensed and she slammed the heel of her hand onto the med slab. Jolee heard her mumble something about bedside manor.
"You'll have to speak up," he said a little too loudly. "Hearing's one of the first things to go. Right after hair."
He continued smoothing the salve over her leg as he resumed his narrative. "Memory goes next, so you'd better pay attention.
"I kept the little tach gizka inside. Only way to keep it safe from the predators until its leg healed. Its friends weren't too happy about that and neither was it. For that matter, after a few days I wasn't too pleased myself. You see, tach monkeys have the very annoying habit of throwing their feces when upset."
Jolee put the extra slave into a small container and turned his attention to covering the wound with a loose layer of bandages. "I couldn't leave my house without being pelted with tach poodoo. And those little runts have good aim. It was years before I got the smell out of my robes.
"I thought I'd be safe in my own house, but the gizka had picked up the habit as well. Lacking dexterous enough hands, it figured out how to nudges its feces onto its nose and fling it from there. After a week, I was on the verge of throwing it out to the katarns. But, it decided I was all right and stopped making a pest of itself. By the end of another week, the tachs outside either became bored or forgot why they were bombarding my hut with feces and left.
"It wasn't long before the gizka was hopping around again. Its leg had healed very well and I released him outside my house. Hmph. If I'd know it would have sparked another poodoo war, I would have released it farther away from my house."
Jolee finished treating Kiryn's leg, but she and Carth stayed quietly in their seats. Their attention was fixed on the older man's strange story.
"When the tachs backed away, things returned to normal around my hut. That meant a lot more gizkas in the area. Since most of the predators kept their distance, the smaller animals spent a lot of time in my front yard.
"Now, tachs aren't always very nice to gizkas. I suppose everything needs something else to pick on. The little tach gizka turned out to be quite the bully. It drove most of his own kind away within hours. All but one actually. This one refused to leave the tach gizka behind.
"The tach gizka, of course, only wanted to go back to life with the tach monkeys. Well, these tachs didn't recognize it as one of them. So, they flung feces. It flung back and for the next two days, my house was once again pelted by poodoo.
"The other gizka hadn't learned the knack of throwing its own feces and wasn't much help, but it still stayed. The tach gizka pushed it away, nipped at its legs, and shot some of its foul ammunition at the loyal little creature. But it still wouldn't leave."
Jolee put his medicine cabinet back in order, keeping the new salve toward the front. "The confrontation finally ended and my house has been pretty safe since. Although, there was that one time about a year ago when I stepped outside and found a large brown splat on my front door," he mused.
"Well, keep that covered tonight. I'll take another look at it in the morning," Jolee checked to make sure the bandages were secure and patted her knee.
Kiryn blinked for a moment before asking, "What happened to the tach gizka?"
"How do I know?" Jolee answered. "All those little beasts look the same to me," he lied. He remembered exactly what had happened to it. For nearly a month, the tach gizka and its one friend stayed mostly in the safety of his yard. After disappearing for a week, the tach gizka returned alone. Jolee assumed the friend had become prey to a katarns or forest kinrath. The Shadowlands was a dangerous place. From that point on, the tach gizka terrorized any other gizka or tach monkey that crossed its path.
She snorted. "I thought I was supposed to be a snake."
Jolee replied by tugging at his ear, "What was that? Hearing's gone bad."
"Which is it, old man, am I a snake or a poodoo-flinging gizka?"
"I was under the impression that you're a young woman," Jolee answered seriously. "Really, my dear, you shouldn't get so worked up over an old man's rambling memories."
Kiryn threw her hands in the air and left with Carth close behind her.
Jolee heard their conversation perfectly.
"What was that all about?" Carth asked.
"He's bloody losing it," her voice was agitated. "Last week he said I reminded him of a snake that killed a boy out in the desert. The week before that I was indigestible reactor core fodder…Don't ask. You really don't want to hear that story."
"Maybe it wasn't about you."
"Right. And maybe he's not a crazy old man either." Jolee could imagine Kiryn crossing her arms over her chest as she spoke. "It's just," he heard her sigh, "I'm not sure what to make of it. One day he tells me I remind him of Nomi Sunrider and the next he's insinuating that I'll be the next Dark Lord of the Sith."
There was an unnaturally long moment of silence before Carth spoke, "Kiryn, I don't think you'd make a very good Sith Lord. You've spent too much time on this mission helping people you didn't have to help."
"Thanks," her voice was much softer. "It's nice to know somebody on this ship has a little faith in me."
Jolee settled back into his chair as their voices faded away down the corridor. "You're the snake and the gizka," he whispered a belated answer to Kiryn's question. "And I can only hope that when the time comes, you'll have found enough love to become a true Jedi."