Welcome to Chapter 18 of my Star Wars story.

In this chapter, Zilku and her family gain a new pet. This is my interpretation of the origins of Grievous' pet Gor from the 2008 Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode, Lair of Grievous.

As always, I only own Zilku and Qymaen's friend, Zaru. Qymaen, Ronderu and Gor belong to George Lucas, Abel G. Peña, Dave Filoni, LucasArts and Disney.

Without further ado, please enjoy Chapter 18 of Zilku: Daughter of Grievous.

Chapter 18 – A roggwart named Gor

One month later, there was another change for the family. It was early dawn, the sun just beginning to appear in the horizon, when a smuggler's ship landed right in front of the village. The occupant, a Mythrol male, ran out of the vessel carrying a small wooden box, looking around in a panicked state as something in the box growled and roared unhappily.

Seeing that there was no being around to relieve him of his aggressive cargo, the smuggler found some bushes nearby and dumped the box in the middle of them before returning to his ship and retreating back into space.

Later that day, Qymaen, Ronderu and Zilku were heading towards the training grounds when Qymaen heard a noise in some nearby bushes and stopped his wife and daughter. "Is there something wrong, Papa?" Zilku asked, a little confused. "Just wait here for a minute. I think I heard something." her father replied, cautiously walking towards where the noise had come from.

Venturing into the bushes, Qymaen spotted a small box, which seemed to be making the noise he had heard earlier. Gingerly looking inside the box, he saw a small, grey skinned creature with a forked tail. It also had claws on it's hands and feet, long legs, short arms and a small head with small jaws that contained small but sharp teeth. A roggwart, Qymaen thought to himself, this far from Guiteica.

While roggwarts were not an uncommon sight on Kalee, with most Kaleesh keeping them as pets following the war with the Bitthaevrians, another reptilian species that lived on the outskirts of Kalee space, they were usually found in the market, when shipments of them came from the planet, so to find one here was a little startling. Qymaen was also startled by how young this roggwart was.

It only looked to be a few weeks old, judging by the fact that it's downward curving horns had not started growing yet, so it probably had only just been taken from it's brood-nest a few days ago. The baby roggwart gave a tiny, vicious roar at the warrior and tried to jump up and bite him but the walls of the box were too high for the tiny creature.

Carefully, Qymaen picked up the box and carried it back to his family. "Look what I just found." he said, walking up to them and kneeling down to show them. Ronderu looked inside and gasped in surprise. "A roggwart? Out here?" she asked.

Zilku looked inside at the tiny creature and asked her parents "Why is it out here all alone?" "Probably an unwanted pet that was abandoned here last night. Somebody told me that they thought they heard someone land here at dawn, throw something into the bushes and take off. This must have been what they were getting rid of." Qymaen explained, a solemn expression on his face.

"Why would they do that and why would they want a roggwart in the first place?" Zilku asked, feeling a little sorry for the tiny beast. "They would have wanted it as a guard-beast and had probably abandoned it because they either changed their minds or could not cope with the beast's aggression even at this age." Ronderu said, silently cursing the being who had left the unfortunate creature in the box without any food or water.

The walls of the box would be too high for it to leap for prey and any of the tiny insects on Kalee would probably fly away too fast for it's projectile tongue to catch.

For a while, the family just looked at the tiny roggwart, trying to decide what to do with it. "We can't just leave it here. It would never survive." Ronderu finally said. "We could keep it. We already catch more than enough mumuu meat to feed the whole village." Qymaen suggested. "Qymaen, we don't even know if it is male or female." Ronderu countered.

"So? I know someone in the village who owned a roggwart when I was a boy. We'll just go to him and ask him how to care for one of these creatures, then raise this one accordingly." Qymaen explained, hoping to convince his wife, "Besides we could always use something to guard the hut while we're in battle."

Zilku looked at her mother with pleading eyes and said "Please can we keep it, Mama?" Ronderu sighed, knowing that she would not win this particular argument and that it was probably the best option for the tiny beast so she said "Alright, but we must find somewhere for the creature to sleep once it becomes too big to sleep in the house." With that, the family headed back to the village with their new pet to find Qymaen's friend.

Once they found Qymaen's friend, Zaru, they handed him the roggwart to assess it's condition. The Kaleesh handled the baby roggwart by the scruff of the neck, looking over the tiny creature from head to tail.

Once he had finished the examination, Zaru turned to the three warriors and said "The first thing I must inform you is that the roggwart is a male. It is not easy to tell at this age but males tend to be more aggressive than the females. The only other thing about it's condition is that, despite being without food or water for many hours, the creature appears to be very healthy. It is not malnourished or weak. Perhaps whoever abandoned it was not completely heartless or without sense but was still either unprepared to care for a roggwart or was unaware of the beast's aggressive nature." The little family looked at Zaru with interest, absorbing the information that they were being told.

Zaru then moved on to the roggwart's care. "He will need to be trained early so he can live within the village. You will be relieved to know that roggwarts are easily house-trained and young roggwarts can grasp the basic training fairly quickly. Feeding the creature is simple. When he is young, he does not require a lot of meat as he will catch insects for himself. However, once he is older and much larger, small insects will not sustain him and he will require larger amounts of meat. Thankfully, roggwarts do not reach maturity until they are at least eight years of age. He will also need plenty of water and a large amount of space to exercise. If you intend to raise him as a guard-beast, be sure to train him to attack the right targets otherwise this could become troublesome. Now is there anything any of you don't understand?" He concluded, looking at the three Kaleesh before him expectantly.

Only Zilku raised her hand and asked innocently "If he did hurt someone, would Mama and Papa get in trouble?" Zaru looked at the child and patiently replied "Yes, child, they will." Zilku gave a nod in understanding and Zaru asked "Any other questions?" When the room remained silent, he continued "Good. Now that you are all aware of how to care for this roggwart, I must ask you what you intend to name this creature."

Ronderu and Qymaen looked at each other, both equally puzzled. They had been so pro-occupied with finding out how to care for the roggwart, they did not even think about naming it. "Any ideas, Ronderu?" Qymaen asked hopefully. "No. Do you? Ronderu responded, not entirely sure either. "No, but we must have a name if we are to train him, otherwise he could gore someone when his horns have grown." Qymaen countered.

Zilku was not paying any attention to her parents' discussion and was just watching the roggwart until she saw the creature raise his head when her father said that last sentence, particularly the word 'gore'. "Wait!" she yelled, catching the attention of all three adults.

She quickly said "Papa, say that last word again." Qymaen looked at his daughter, puzzled, and replied "What? Grown?" The youngling shook her head and said "No, the word you said before you mentioned his horns. You said it just before you said 'someone'." A little less puzzled, Qymaen asked "'Gore'?" Zilku looked at her father happily and said "Yes! That sounds like a great name."

Ronderu thought for a moment and said "It does sound like a good name for a roggwart but I'm not sure." Zilku seemed determined with the name and said "We could always take off the 'e' at the end so it's 'Gor'." Ronderu shrugged and said "Sounds as good a name as any."

Qymaen looked back at the roggwart and said "Gor, it is then. Shall we take Gor home so he can settle in?" "Well, he's not going to settle if we stay here." Ronderu pointed out. "Excellent." Qymaen said, placing Gor back into the box. "Just stay in there, Gor, and we will show you your new home."

Welcome to the family, Gor! Hope your days are filled with love from now on! Plus, isn't Zilku's logic cute?

As stated above, I only own Zilku and Zaru. I do not own Qymaen, Ronderu or Gor.

Sorry for the long wait. I hope to be posting more regularly.

I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and I hope to have the next chapter as soon as possible.