"I can't believe my eyes." Said a male voice. Yaru Korsin slowly opened his eyes to see...a goose and a golden duck. Yaru grabbed the hilt of his lightsaber. Can every animal in this damn forest talk? Yaru looked to see everyone else awake at the goose's voice.
"Marcel! Paddy!" Said Kate, getting up to hug the goose and duck. Seeing them as no threat, Yaru let go of his lightsaber.
"Guys," Said Humphrey."Are we glad to see you."
The goose named Marcel nodded."And I you." They looked at the golden duck, Yaru assumed that was Paddy, to which he rolled his eyes yet came over and hugged Kate."See, Paddy? That wasn't so bad." Marcel said in an accent Yaru was not familiar with at all.
"It was a-appropriate." Paddy admitted.
"You guys old friends with these two?" Church asked.
Kate nodded."They helped us get back home...along with Garoche and Saro and Shale..." Yaru could just barely hear those last words. He wondered who Garoche was...
"How did you find us?" Humphrey asked.
Marcel was just about to speak but Paddy beat him to it."Let's just say someone's bad shot flew up and over the cliff." Yaru noticed they were holding wooden clubs. Did they use them for sport? This planet gets weirder by the minute...
"Never mind the wrong club," Marcel argued.
"Well, this is really serious. The rogue wolves have captured Runt." Humphrey quickly informed the two.
"What?" Paddy said in shock.
"This is terrible!" Marcel said, equally surprised."I have seen these rogue wolves. Mean things."
Then you clearly have never seen the Sith before.
"They never share their kill with the birds." Marcel continued.
"We think they're in Banff." Kate said.
"Well, count us in." Paddy smiled, eager to join them.
"Why, of course. Yes, yes." Marcel agreed. Yaru looked at them. They could be useful...but what happened when their usefulness was up?.
The Sith were about the glorification of self and the subjugation of others. That much-made sense, as the young Seelah saw life in Ludo Kressh's palace.
What did not make sense was why so many of her people-in her own family!-embraced the Sith teachings when they had no hope of advancement. Why would a Sith live as a slave?.
It wasn't that way for everyone. In the grand scheme, the Sith Empire had been at rest for many years, but an Empire of Sith is an Empire of small schemes. From Kressh's command, newly adult Seelah had watched her master rage at the ventures of Naga Sadow. She had seen Sadow at several meetings in Kressh's company, almost all of them ending in fury. The two leaders differed on everything, long before the discovery of a space lane into the heart of the Republic set them at odds over the future direction of the Sith Empire.
Sadow was a visionary. He knew permanent isolation was a practical impossibility in an Empire comprising so many systems and so many potential hyperspace routes; the Stygian Caldera was a veil, not a wall, and he could see opportunity through it. And in Sadow's entourage, Seelah had seen many human and members of other species with apparent status. She even met Korsin's Captain father once."
For Sadow, contact with the new was a thing to be desired-and outsiders could be as Sith as any born in the Empire. For Kressh, who spent his days in battle and his nights toiling on a magical device to protect his young son from all harm, there could not be a worse fate than escape from the Sith's cosmic cradle.
"Do you know why I do this?" Kressh had asked one night. His drunken rage had touched the entire house-hold, Seelah included."I have seen the holocrons-I know what waits beyond. My son looks like me-and so does the future of the Sith.
"But only as long as we're here. Out there," He'd spat, between bloody punches,"Out there, the future looks like you."
Seelah remembered what the Sith Lord had said to her. She had hoped that Sadow had killed him.
"Mom!" Came a loud voice."Dad!" They all looked up and gasped, Kate the loudest.
"Aren't those your other pups?" Paddy asked and he was correct. The two other of Kate's pups, Stinky and Claudette, were on the other side of the mud stream. Paddy and Marcel had been leading them to Banff when the pups interrupted them with their presence.
"Stinky, Claudette, what are you two doing here?" Humphrey asked firmly.
The two looked at each other before looking back at their parents."We came to help find Runt."
"By yourselves?" Asked their mother, Kate.
"Um, yeah. Kind of." Said Stinky.
"How in the Ajunta's name did you even find us?" Yaru asked.
The pup sniffed."I sniffed you out...well, just Mr. Devore. He kinda smells." Seelah was impressed that Devore wasn't lashing out at Yaru once they noticed a smile on his face.
Kate sighed."Great. All we needed."
"I think it's so charming...when the little one's personalities match their parents." Marcel smiled.
"Yes. They are what you would call 'Drama wolves'." Paddy agreed.
Kate seemed to ignore them."You two are grounded. You hear me? Grounded!" She yelled loud enough for them to hear her.
"How does one ground someone in the outdoors?" Marcel asked Paddy.
"Yeah, and in order for you to be grounded, wouldn't the pups have to be down here so they can be grounded?" Caboose asked.
"Caboose, that's not...you what? Screw it." Church said, annoyed.
"Well, we lost Runt, so we're gonna find him, like it or not," Stinky said firmly."Together. That is what we'll do."
"You're not going to talk us out of this." Claudette said firmly as well.
"You two, stay right there," Kate said, angry at her children.
"Eh, I'll get 'em," Tom said. He then used the Force to lift the two pups. The pups, shocked, yelled until Tom brought them to their parents safely.
"What?! Why did you do that?!" Kate said to Tom. Seelah felt something from Tom. The Force was different from him.
"Because they were gonna do something stupid so I just saved them the time. We gotta get to Banff." Tom explained.
Devore nodded."He's right. Come on. Let's go get those damn rogues."