Chapter 8: Companions

We had stayed In Entan for the rest of the year. But, more than learning new things, Rolg and I just trained a lot. But we did learn a few things though. For example, one night a couple of the gigantic wolves that I had faced on my first survival mission had found our little clearing.

“Wake up! We have some guests.” I warned Rogl and Master Yodal

By this time, I had gone into the forest and practically lived in it for weeks at a time. I had found out that the wolf-like animals were called Quexors and dealt with them regularly. I was about to attack the leader of the pack when Master Yodal shouted,

“STOP!”

I was lifted into the air and placed next to Rolg.

“Man, I hate being man-handled like that.” I complained

“It is time I teach you Beast Control. Beast Control, power of force it is. Calms and tames animals, it does.”

He walked up to the biggest one and put his hand on its head.

I had always seen them being aggressive, so when I saw the Quexor start to beg to be pet, I was speechless.

Master Yodal told us to calm ourselves first, so we did. When we were ready, he walked the Quexor over to us. Rolg was the first one to touch it.

“If I knew this during the start, I wouldn’t have had to fight for my life so often…” Rolg said

When it was my turn I focused on being calm and open, which was hard to do when I saw its teeth so close to my head. I placed my hand onto it’s head and felt what the beast was feeling. The thought I got was that it was hungry. As I looked deeper, I realized that it had smelled the meat that Rolg didn’t finish. Not wanting to surprise it, I slowly grabbed the cooked meat and threw it to the quexor.

“My meat…”Rolg looked distressed

“Whatever, I’ll buy you some later.” I said

After we had learned how to calm the animals, going into the forest got unexpectedly harder. The quexor that I had met that one night had been following me everywhere. Although it was nice to have a companion, he whined every time he was hungry.

“You lazy dog!” I said one time

The quexor, as if it knew what I said, acted like it was crying. I found and gave it some food to make it shut up.I could never win.

There was one time when I had messed up though. During one of my survival missions, I had met a really enormous and ugly looking snake. This snake was literally the size of a couple of the trees combined. Apparently I had intruded in its territory without knowing and aggravated it. Knowing this could be trouble, I quickly tried to calm it down using beast control, but it just seemed to get even more annoyed. Changing tactics, I threw some mud at its eyes. But as I was about to launch the mixture, the snake hit me with it’s tail. I flew and crashed into a nearby tree, dazed. When I came to my senses, the snake was right in front of me readying itself for the killing blow. I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable. It didn’t come though. As I opened my eyes, I saw Yodal standing in front of me with his hand on the snake’s side.

“Sometimes, cannot be reasoned with, nature is. What will you do then?”Yodal said.

There was an awkward silence. Sigh* “Much to learn, you still have” He said

I just nodded in still in shock. As expected of a Grand Master, he was able to control the oversized snake. But his words... Why did it seem like he was trying to tell me something? After thinking about it a little, I gave up and assumed it was my imagination to continue my training.

It was the end of the year though, and Master Yodal had mentioned that we would be going back to the academy soon. Rolg, was excited because he would be able to take classes again. I had mixed feelings though. I was going to miss the forest and Quex, I decided give the wolf look-a-like a name. But, I wanted to see Master Annon too and who could forget about those wonderful oreo balls. I had run out after a month of our stay at Entan and after half a year at Enten, I was going through withdrawal.

“Tomorrow we go.” Yoda said one morning

“Yes!” Rolg shouted and cheered

“Oreo balls here I come!” I joined in

“Prepare you will. No training today.” He concluded and went into his hut

We bowed our heads as Master Yodal left and started to talk again.

“I can’t wait to go back! Classes here I come!”, Rolg said

“Who cares about classes when there are oreo balls to eat!” I replied

“Do you think we’ll see Master Annon?”

“I hope so. We haven’t seen him since the beginning of the academic year.”

“Same. I hope he’ll take the gravity bands off too.”

“Yea me too. Master Yodal increased the gravity to 50% per each band!”

“Knowing Master Annon, he’ll just increase them even more…”

“What are you going to do for the rest of the day?” I asked

“I don’t know. I actually might go back into the forest one last time. It kind of grows on you.”

“I know what you mean.” After some thought, I decided to revisit one last time too. “Yea I’m going to go one last time too.”

“Ok, let’s meet up tomorrow then?”

“Yep, see you later”

We went our separate ways and went into the forest. I wanted to say bye to Quex one last time.

I moved through the forest with Force enhanced speed. I knew all of this part of the forest’s secrets. Every tree, cave, and crevice, I explored them all. I continued on my the path that I had crossed so many times before until I reached my destination. The place I was at was a really dense part of the forest. Plants were everywhere and as tall as 2 human adults. This part of the forest was also the most dangerous. The only reason I was able to navigate the maze of plants was because I had been here multiple times.

When I got there, I found Quex there waiting for me. I went up and hugged her.

“I’m gonna miss you girl” I said, “Come on let’s go get some fish”

Fish was Quex’s favorite food ever since I first introduced it to her. We would often eat the fish we caught under the stars and moons. I think it would be one of the things I would miss most.

“Come on girl let’s go out” I said again.

But as I waved her to come with me she shook her head. and started to whine. She came behind me and nudged me towards her den.

“Alright, alright. What is it?” I said

When we got to her den I saw several little baby quexors bunched up together.

“Are these yours?! I didn’t even know you were pregnant!”

She started to wag her tail. Then she picked one up and placed it in my hands. The one she picked was the smallest of the litter.

“The runt, huh.” I said. But as I took a closer look I found he was different from the rest. While quexors are usually black with dark purple stripes, the one I held in my hands was pitch black with single white stripe on the base of the tail, wrists, and ankles. I could tell this one was special. I put it down and said, “That one is going to be special”

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But, Quex picked it up with her mouth and put it into my arms again.

“Wait you want me to have it?” Quex wagged her tail again and did a nodding action.

“I don’t even know if I can bring him...or her” I quickly flipped it over to check

“Him! Him into the academy.”She started to whine again.

“I said I ca--. Ok ok! You win. I’ll ask but no guarantees.”

“For the time being lets give you a name” I lifted him up lion king style.

“How bout’ Black!” Quex made a face and whacked my face with her tail.

“Ow! so you don’t like that one. How about rings, because it looks like he has 5 rings on his feet and tail?” I got hit even harder…

“Fine, then you come up with one.” I obviously wasn’t a good namer.

Quex then looked to the sky. I was dark out now and I could see the stars and moons in the night sky. Night… it didn’t sound too bad.

“Night it is then! You happy?” Quex licked me.

“I guess that’s a yes.”

The rest of the day was spent with me enjoying the last moments of my time at the forest. That evening I slept on top of Quex with Night in my arms.

The next morning, I gave Quex one last hug and met up with Master Yodal and Rolg at the transport site.

I didn’t know how I was going to tell Master Yodal that I brought a wild animal from the forest. As I walked up though, I saw that Rolg had a pet of his own. It was a bird of some kind. The bird was red with a faint trace of yellow at the tips of the wings. It looked like a falcon off some kind.

“So I guess pets are ok then.” I said

“Yea, I see you brought your own. A quextor right? It’s got a different color so I’m not sure.”

“Yea, it is. What is yours?”

“It has some complicated 4 letter name but most people call them Sunbirds.”

“Mmm, I see”

We went into the transport and put our companions away.

We heard the captain say, “Buckle up, we will be leaving in 3...2...1”

---a bit later---

My stomach was a bit queasy but I had held in my puke this time. Rolg wasn’t as lucky though.

“Academy, you go. Business I have”, Master Yodal said. He quickly called over an air taxi and left.

“Come on, Rolg. Let’s go.” I said

“Just give me a sec. I’m still a bit-” He started to throw up again. “Ok, I’m good”

We waited for an air-bus and went to school.

Now that we were back, I had some research to do. Usually I’m not the studious type, but even with all the time I had spent with Quex, I had almost no knowledge of quextors as a species. But, being a Jedi had its perks. According to the Jedi way, “There is no ignorance, only knowledge”, Jedi were believers in knowledge and the power that it possesses. Because of this many the Jedi order hand actively searched for books around the universe. And, because the Jedi Academy was a place for learning, many of the books found had been copied and sent to the Academies data bases.  I hadn’t been there much, but I had been there once or twice looking for Rolg. The library was one of his more frequented stops during the day.

The Library was a bit daunting at first. Even though many documents were digitized, as far as the eyes of a little 10 year-old could see, there were rows and rows of shelves filled with real paper books. At first I wondered how Rolg had ever managed to find the books he had wanted in this maze of bookshelves. But, he had told me that he didn’t need to.

There were multiple library droids that found books for people. Once you logged in a search, you would get a book sent to you within seconds or have the data sent to you. Unfortunately, the academy was really strict on book use so you couldn’t take it outside of the building, but either way the library was pretty impressive.

“Rolg, I think I’m going to go to the library. Are you going to come?” I said

“The library? You? Why?” Rolg replied

“I going to try to find a ‘How to train your Quextor’ book. You coming?”

“I can’t. I have to bring my sunbird to the school’s animal caretaker. Need to make sure he’s healthy.”

“Good idea. Can you take Night then too? I don’t think I can bring him in there.”

“Yea, sure”

I handed Night over to Rolg. And made my way to the library.  

I sat down and a droid came to me.

“How can I help you today?” Said the droid

“Get me a book on Quextors”

“Search found several books on topic ‘quextor’. 24,598 results available.”

I looked through the results and found a couple that looked good.

I picked 3 books and waited for the droid to bring them to me.

“When you are done, please bring them back to the drop of station.” the droid said

“Ok” I simply replied

The droid went away and I started to look through the books. I had found out a couple of things about Quexors and wrote a bunch of notes down for future reference.

-All you need to know about Quexors Offical Note guide-

Spoiler :

*Carnivores, can eat and stay satisfied for weeks at a time

*Highly intelligent species found exclusively on the planet Entan

*Often found in groups ranging from 5-20

*Are black with dark-purple stripes.

*Typically have a lifespan of 200 years

*Reach mature ages at 10 years.

*Some report of appearing and disappearing out of thin air.

*A very secretive species, most live in dark areas.

*One witness said he saw a creature that looked like a Quextor passing a speeder.

*Fully grown adult a bit smaller than an adult elephant.

I tried to find information on white-striped Quextors, but none of the books had contained any information about them. There also weren’t records of someone taming a Quextor.

I guess I’ll be the first Quextor tamer, I thought, I’ll have to come back to look for more information on the White-striped variant.

I hurried back to my dorm to find it in ruins. I found Night sleeping in the middle of all the chaos.

*sigh.

I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Wait, No I won’t, because Academy starts tomorrow. Dang it! Life too hard!

I picked Night up and placed him on the bed with me.

“Good-night” I said

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Author’s notes

*I notice I end a lot of my chapters with sleeping.

*This chapter a lot about Night and Quextors in general

*Rate, comment

*Thanks for reading!