1It was a dark and stormy night in the Shadowlands of Kashyyyk.

But that was nothing new.

What was new was the sound of two ornery old men catching up on thirty years worth of missed arguments. They did so in a modest seven-room hut that was carved into the trunk and root of a titanic worshyr tree, surrounded by a small pool of light that spilled from the hut; outside the entrance to this hermitage, a woman in her late teens leaned against the wall with the practiced air of a long-time rebel. She was tall, skinny, and dressed in the robes customary of a Jedi Knight; strangely enough this seemed to compliment her devil-may-care attitude rather than clash with it. The door swung open, and another girl, this one younger, shorter, and darker, stepped out, chased by a few fragments of the tremendous argument within.

"- you're a reckless feckless hopeless mess, and if you weren't so stubborn maybe you could see-"

"See what? I am not one of your Padawans, and so help me if you start giving me crap about the darkside I'll-"

"Hey Revan," the tall greeted her companion.

"Hey Eshe," she responded dully.

There was the sound of someone retching nearby. Revan looked concerned, but Revan waved her off. "It's Malak. He made the mistake of eating that tach kebob Jolee served us for dinner, and now he has food poisoning. He's not happy about it, and there's nothing we can really do; best just to let him be."

Revan nodded, distracted.

"Speaking of the boys... how's Kavar doing?" Eshe asked nonchalantly. Rather than having the desired effect of masking her concern, her tone enhanced it.

"Fantastic. Fracking fantiastic. He's so fantastic that whenever he wakes up he gibbers about line-dancing rontos."

"Oh, so he's back to normal already then," Eshe commented with forced cheer. Revan sent her a look that could send Mandalorians running- and in a year's time, would. Eshe however, didn't even flinch; years under Master Vrook's unofficial tutelage had rendered her immune to any glower that did not come equipt with yellowed eyes and Force Lightning.

"This isn't funny, Eshe," she hissed.

"I know. But Revan, Vrook and Jolee said they had him stabilized. And you healed him even more after that. He's fine. He'll be fine. You worrying like this is only going to make everyone angsty."

There was a particularly loud shout from inside of "The run on the Utakis System was entirely your idea!" and Eshe saw fit to add, "Which might possibly cause the galaxy to explode."

Revan sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and mumbled the opening lines of the Jedi Code under her breath. In the outhouse, Malak retched again.

"Look Rev," Eshe said in a much gentler tone. "I know you and Kavar are close. I know you're getting perhaps a little bit closer than the Code really allows for."

Revan started "We're not-"

"I know you're not," Eshe soothed. "But there is something between you two... something that makes you a bit lighter and him a little more flexible." She paused, and then, smirking slightly, continued with, "And if you want my honest opinion, if you ignore the fact that you're sixteen and he's twenty-eight, you'd actually make a really cute couple."

Revan smoulder, as she always did when her physical immaturity became the topic of discussion. There was another yelp from within: "Well, I'm not the one who married the prison guard!"

"Eshe," Revan began slowly. "Even if we were both thirty-three and normal people, it wouldn't happen. Kavar isn't really the type to get attached to anyone or anything. I don't think he knows how to be."

"I think that's what the call 'playing hard to get', Rev," Eshe informed her.

"And you would know this because..?" Revan demanded.

"I'm a full two years older than you; I have more worldly experience."

Revan snorted delicately. Eshe had been raised by the Jedi practically since birth, grown up in a very sheltered environment she had only recently realized was not the norm. Revan had arrived relatively late, and had almost a decade's worth of tough living, first on Deralia, then Corescant. In the younger girl's eyes, she had more worldly experience then she hoped Eshe ever would.

"Yeah, yeah. But most of it seems to result from you and Malak having jumped each other more or less the minute you were both of age."

Eshe started. "You aren't supposed to know about that!"

Revan raised an eyebrow. "And you're not supposed to forget to lock the door when you and Malak are making like particularly randy gizka."

"Revan!" Eshe exclaimed.

"Don't you 'Revan' me!" Revan exclaimed. "You know it's true."

There was the sound of breaking china from within.

"Hold that thought," Eshe grumbled, and stalked over to the door. She poked her head in; Jolee and Vrook were just visible from that angle, standing over a broken bowl and gesticulating wildly.

"Hey you two!" she yelled. "Leave off the wild sex while Kavar's recuperating, will you?"

There was a brief silence in which Vrook's face turned the shade of an overripe eggplant, Jolee's eyes went impossibly wide, Revan began to hit her head against the hilt of her short lightsaber, and Eshe sauntered quickly out of the line of fire. The resulting explosion was quick and deafening; she barely managed to close the door in time to avoid the later being literal rather than figurative.

"What did you do that for?" Revan whined, wincing at the volume of verbal explosion. "They're going to be like that for the rest of the night now!"

"Well, you're the one who wanted to talk about our forbidden love lives," she protested.

"No, that was you," Revan reminded her.

Eshe glowered. "Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Was too."

"You really are!" Jolee insisted from inside the hut.

"I very well am not!" Vrook asserted, sounding outraged.

Revan and Eshe looked at each other, then at the hut, then back at each other.

"That's just depressing," Revan commented.

"Yeah," Eshe agreed. "Do me a favor? When we get that old, let's not turn into them, okay?"

"No problem here," Revan assured her. "I'd hate to stick you with being the hermit who lives with the Wookiees for a decade."

"What makes you so sure I wouldn't end up as Vrook?" Eshe demanded.

"Because I know I'll end up as Vrook. I'm doomed to end up as the loud, stubborn Master on the Council. I'd just rather still be your friend too."

"So you're sticking me with self-imposed exile to the Shadowlands?" Eshe cried, outraged tone mimicking Vrook's perfectly.

"I have a headache," Revan groaned.

"Maybe you should stop beating yourself with your lightsaber then," Eshe suggested.

"You're right," Revan agreed, before whacking her friend on the upside of the head with her short.

"Hey!" Eshe cried, procuring her own double-bladed weapon from inside her robes and waving it menacingly at her fellow Knight. "Don't go playing that game with me, Rev, my lightsaber's a whole lot bigger-"

As she spoke, her hand accidentally slipped down the hilt of her lightsaber and pressed the activation button. Two viridian blades shot out of either end; the foremost one would have missed Revan's ear by several millimeters if she, feeling the need for a wider margin of error, hadn't activated her own violet shorto and used it to shunt Eshe's blade on the ground. The two women stared at each other for a moment, weapons drawn; one looked embarrassed, the other thoroughly chagrined.

"Sorry," Eshe muttered, deactivating her lightsaber. Revan followed suit. "Nervous twitch."

"I know," Revan replied with forced patience. "But for the love of all things choco-covered, could you please develop a twitch that doesn't involve nearly decapitating me?"

"Speaking of near-decapitation," Eshe drawled. "What was you and Kavar found in the woods that you wanted to tell me about before all those terentateks attacked?"

"What does that have to do with near-decapitation?"

Eshe seemed to think about that one for a moment. "Absolutely nothing," she decided. "But 'near-decapitation' does sound pretty neat, doesn't it?"

"Has anyone ever told you that talking with you is like acting in a Munti Krinath skit?"

"Yes. You have, several times."

"Well, I'm saying it again."

"You never actually answered my question."

"No, 'near-decapitation' does not sound pretty neat."

"Oo, you're avoiding the question! This must be good!"

Revan rolled her eyes. Inside the hut, Jolee paused for breath, giving Vrook enough time to bellow "I'm not the one who's hiding from the galaxy!"

"Aren't you?" Jolee demanded, equally loudly. The two men began to shout over one another, making their speech incomprehensible once more.

"So, you found..." Eshe prodded.

Revan sighed. "I don't know what it is, exactly. It looks like a galaxy map, but it's incomplete. A few planets seem to be highlighted- Tatooine, Manaan, Korriban and... Datooine. It seems to be built in the same style as those ruins out on the plains back home. And something I found in it's databanks suggests it pre-dates the Republic."

Eshe let out a long, low whistle. "Okay, now that sounds pretty neat." She stood abruptly, and began to walk away.

"Hey! Where're you going?" Revan called after her.

"To go find this Star Map of yours, of course," she replied. "You're coming too."

"Uh, Eshe?" Revan said, gesturing to the hut.

"Oh, come off it. They won't notice we're gone- like you said, they'lll be t it for the rest of the night."

"And Kavar."

"He'll be fine. He has the two old men to look after him."

"Right," Revan drawled. "And if they're going to be too busy fighting to notice us leaving, what makes you think they'll notice if his condition changes?"

"It's not going to changed," Eshe dismissed with a wave of her hand. "Because he's stable."

"Did you just try to use a mind trick on me?"

"I take that to mean it didn't work?"

Revan threw her hands into the air. "Remind me again: why am I friends with a jerk like you?"

"Because everyone else just wants to be your adoring follower. Or Master. Or lover. Or some combination of the above."

"At least they listen to me."

"I think that might be part of the reason too," Eshe mused.

Revan sighed. "I'm not going. And since you don't know where it is, neither are you."

"So there?" Eshe mocked. Revan glowered again.

"Look, Rev," Eshe began. "There are a lot of very good reason why we should go take a look at this Star Map: we both know that if given half a chance, you'll worry this thing with Kavar half to death, we both know that anything that's that old and still function must hold something pretty important, and I'm having one of my hunches about this. And I know I don't need to plot the coordinates for you."

"No,"Revan admitted. "No, you don't." She turned around to face the outhouse. "And I suppose you want to come along too, Malak?"

"He's sick," Eshe reminded her.

"He stop puking ten minutes ago," Revan pointed out. "And has been listening intently to every word we just said."

They was a small scuffling noise, mostly drowned out by a cry of "You aren't the only one who lost family during the Wars!" from within. Malak emerged from the bathroom, pink blush staining his tattoos lavender.

"Whoops," he said sheepishly.

"You know, if you wanted to participate in our conversation, you could have just walked out of there when you were finished," Revan commented.

"Yeah, I could have used your help convincing little Miss Future Vrook here," Eshe added.

"You seemed to do just fine on your own," Malak complimented her. "Although, I might've added that part of your problem, Revan, if that you're too logical. You're so busy analyzing everything you never just act."

"You can't let the Force work through you like that," Eshe put in.

"Hey!" Revan protested. "I've already decided to indulge you, there's no need to double-team me."

"But it's so much fun!" Malak exclaimed, moving to stand next to Eshe and put his arm around her waist. They were both tall, but he was built like a dewback, and she like a krinath, a contrast that made them a striking couple. This fact would not go unnoticed by the media during the Mandalorian Wars, but for that moment, their's was a secret bond, and they reveled in it.

"Come on," Revan sighed. "If we're going to do this, we should get going now."

"Onwards!" Eshe cried jokingly. "To destiny."

Revan shook her head. "Don't be so melodramatic, Sheesh," she ordered uneasily. "It's not like this is going to be the defining moment of our lives or anything."

"You don't know that," Malak chided her. "Maybe this Star Map we'll lead us into something bigger."

"And don't call me 'Sheesh'," Eshe commanded.

"Yes, General," Revan quipped with a mock salute.

"Don't call me 'General' either."

And with that, the three teenagers stepped out of the light and were enveloped by the shadows.