[Han Solo] - 03(25)

Chewbacca hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his home and family.

Seeing them all again made him tempted to come home for good—but that was not possible. Chewie owed a life debt, and his place was by Han Solo’s side.

Still, he enjoyed his time on Kashyyyk. He visited with all his cousins, with his sister and her family. Since Chewie had last been home, Kallabow had married a fine male named Mahraccor.

Chewie loved playing with his nephewˇ The little Wookiee was smart and fun to be with, with a lively curiosity about the universe. He spent hours getting his uncle to talk about his adventures out in the spacelanes.

In addition to Chewbacca’s family, he saw old friends … Freyrr, his second cousin, the best tracker in the family, Kriyystak, and Shoran. It was a source of sorrow that Salporin, Chewie’s best Wookiee friend, was not there. He had been captured and enslaved by the Empire, and there was no news of his fate—no one even knew if he was alive or dead.

Chewbacca mourned his friend, wondering if he’d ever see him again.

But he didn’t have time to mourn very much. Life on Kashyyyk was too busy. In addition to all his friends and family, there was …

Mallatobuck.

The Wookiee female was even lovelier than Chewie had remembered, and her shy blue glance was even more intriguing. He saw her their first night at home, and was pleased to discover that she’d journeyed from a neighboring village, where she had been working as a teacher and caregiver in a Nursery Ring. Malla had many friends in Rwookrrorro, and it didn’t take much urging from Chewie to convince her to extend her visit there.

The two spent long hours wandering the bough-trails, looking up at the nighttime sky, hearing the soft sounds of the arboreal dwellers. They did not talk much, but their silence was filled with unspoken things.

ˇ .

.

On his third day on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca decided it was time to go hunting.

Han was busy haggling with Katarra, Kichiir and Motamba about the cargo of explosive quarrels. His friend would be occupied for hours. The Corellian had taken a sudden, unaccustomed interest in the resistance here on Kashyyyk, something that Chewie would have found puzzling, and a bit disturbing, if he’d noticed it. Usually Han was nothing but scornful toward sentients who risked their necks (or whatever equivalent body part) for causes other than their own well being.

But Chewie was too distracted to notice Han’s odd behavior. He was concentrating on bagging himself a quillarat. Quillarats are smallish creatures, standing only half a meter high. They are reclusive little animals, hard to find, because they were a mottled brownish-green in color, and tended to simply melt into the surrounding brush.

The most distinctive feature of the quillarat was the long, needlesharp quills that studded most of its body. Capturing and killing a quillarat was something of a challenge, because the beasts could actually hurl their quills at a hunter. Wookiee males (and only males hunted quillarats) had to approach the creature with some kind of shield to collect the barrage of quills until the quillarat’s supply of “throwable” quills was exhausted.

To complicate matters, tradition declared that the quillarat must be hunted bare-handed, and killed by blows delivered by a Wookiee’s own strength, as opposed to quarrels or any other kind of projectile.

Chewbacca did not tell anyone about his quest. He simply waited until late in the day, when darkness would be deepening in the lower levels, then left Rwookrrorro and began his long climb downward.

Even Wookiees never went down all the way to Kashyyyk’s surface. There were rumored to be night-crawlers down there that feasted on the blood and spirits of their victims. It was said that the spirits of those who had not honored their debts sank down to the surface, and prowled there, ready and waiting to trap and kill anyone foolish enough to come near them.

There were reputedly seven levels of distinct ecology on Kashyyyk, with the seventh level being the topmost tree branches. Normally, not even the bravest Wookiees ever descended below the fourth level, and even Wookiee legend did not speculate on what lay below that. No one that Chewbacca had ever known had walked on the actual surface of his world.

The bottom-most levels of Kashyyyk were a mystery … and would likely remain so.

To bag his quillarat, Chewie had to travel down below the fifth level.

Life was different here, for the forest in the late afternoon was almost completely dark. Animals down at this level had large eyes to facilitate their living at such dim light levels. There were dangerous predators …

the kkekkrrg fro, or Shadow Keepers, that had ventured up a level to hunt, and the katarn. Chewbacca kept a sharp eye out, his every sense alert.

Old habits came back to him as he traveled the forest trails, seeing bridal-veil suckers, broad-leafed mock shyr, and kshyy vines in profusion.