The twins understood within moments that Jedi envoys approached to judge them for Temple training as their mother and father talked more. The exchange they had just shared with their mother and the Force left their parents certain: three days until arrival.
Aavruun and Krawruuk carried a new awareness under their fur. Somewhere above the clouds, Jedi rode hyperspace toward Kashyyyk. Robes, Temple halls, training, distance from home. Their future now felt like a clear line of branches laid out ahead of them.
In their shared quiet, each formed a simple image of who might step off that shuttle. Aavruun pictured Mace Windu, direct and imposing, a Jedi whose presence hit like a strike. Krawruuk imagined Qui-Gon Jinn, taller and more relaxed in movement, a wandering knight from old holos with a steady voice and patient streak. Both remembered the same late-night marathons in a cramped human apartment, yet those memories now flowed through separate minds. Olana's process and the System had taken one life and created two brothers: same start point, same history, different ways of thinking.
The wild surge through the Force during Asharra's breakdown had eased into a calm state. When they reached inward, they felt familiar currents: the slow life in the wroshyr trunk, the steady rhythm of their mother's mood, the grounded weight of Carruck nearby. That earlier spike lived as memory while the Force settled around them like an even field.
Aavruun examined the moment the way Caleb once dissected a firefight. One factor sat at the center each time: their mother's pain. Her fear and love had driven through them, twin channels linked to her from the womb. Stories in Temple texts described awakenings like that—younglings pushed into awareness by intense emotion, often a parent's crisis. This event fit those accounts cleanly.
For the twins themselves, the moment had felt instinctive. Breathing, warmth, sound, light. Each attempt afterward to force the same result curved back into that soft hum. The message sat plain in both their minds: the path to power ran through effort, patience, and training; every step pointed that direction, and quick gains stayed out of reach.
Their parents dedicated their time to their children. They gave these last days entirely to them, filling every stretch of time with clan and memory.
Asharra woke early, strapping them into the harness with practiced motions. White cub tucked to one side, black cub to the other, both resting against her back where they felt each heartbeat. She carried them from platform to platform, where elders waited beside low fires and carved story-poles.
Elder Varraak sat cross-legged upon polished wood, silver fur catching each ember spark. His voice rolled through the clearing, deep and rough, carrying tales older than any Republic chart. He spoke of lean seasons and rich ones, of hunts along the shadowed lower branches, of young warriors who proved themselves with bowcaster and blade. His words laid out Trandoshan raiders moving through the dark, clan patrols answering with traps and ambushes, victory songs echoing between trunks thick as towers.
Each phrase settled inside the twins with solid weight. Aavruun tracked terrain and patterns with the same habits Caleb once used for operations. Heights of platforms, angles of approach, timing of raids during wet seasons. Krawruuk focused on the sound of chants, the rhythm of names and places, building a map of people and stories in his head.
Other elders added their pieces. One with a scarred cheek and a missing ear told how the clan refused to hand each other to offworlders, even when trade ships offered glittering technology. Another described bonding hunts, when older Wookiees carried younger ones across branches, teaching balance and courage with shared laughter and sharp warnings.
The elders, unaware of the precise moment between parents and cubs, believed they simply offered comfort to a mother about to send her children away. In their minds, these stories would travel with the twins into the Temple and carry the clan's voice into distant corridors.
Between gatherings, Carruck claimed his time.
He settled near the edge of a wide platform, legs folded, both cubs resting on his broad forearms. One paw drifted over old scars out of habit, yet his focus stayed on their small faces.
"A Wookiee male stands here," he said, tapping his chest, "between danger and clan. Between fear and those who trust him."
He let that hang for a few breaths.
"You will leave these trees. You will walk in places I never see. Remember this: courage walks beside fear. When fear rises and you step forward anyway, that is courage. When strength serves pride instead of family, that strength turns hollow. When it protects those who stand behind you, it carries weight."
He spoke about honor in the same direct way. A promise from their people carried its own gravity. A warrior's word held through comfort and through hardship. He shaped each idea in short sentences, clear points, the same tone he used when explaining how to brace for a climb or anchor a line.
He touched one scar on his ribs and shrugged. "Fear came first here. I moved anyway. That is the part I want you to carry."
The twins had always seen him as the action parent—the one who went out armed and returned with fresh marks and meat. Hearing him lay out clean lines for courage and honor, simple enough for cub ears yet solid enough for any battlefield or council chamber, caught them off guard. Beneath the heavy frame and the readiness for violence toward threats, their father carried a framework he clearly intended to send with them into the wider galaxy.
Even elders and storytellers gathered around those moments. Voices and memories wrapped the family in a ring of sound: old songs, short jokes, half-finished tales that would wait for the twins to return and hear the rest.
Through all of it, Asharra stayed near. She listened to elders, carried the twins, watched Carruck's lessons with tired eyes that still shone. Grief sat inside her chest, yet pride and fierce love wrapped around it, firm and rooted, while the days in the canopy rolled toward the arrival of the Jedi.
The last night came with thick sunset light soaking through the branches and platforms.
Word about the twins had travelled far. By evening, visitors filled the walkways and open rings: cousins from nearby villages, hunters from lower-canopy outposts, traders who usually spent their evenings haggling over cargo weights in the city spires. Rope bridges stayed busy with fur and braids and weapons, a steady flow toward Asharra and Carruck's home platforms.
Two Wookiee cubs accepted by the Jedi carried weight in their culture. Force-sensitive children already counted as rare blessings. When the Jedi brought them to the Temple, the clan gained more than personal prestige. Each child forged a direct tie between Kashyyyk and the Order—another warrior who spoke Shyriiwook inside the Republic's strongest circle of guardians, another set of sharp eyes that understood Wookiee custom beside Jedi law. Two from a single pairing, born in such unusual fashion and touched by the Force together, felt like a sign the clan would talk about for decades.
Honestly, Aavruun and Krawruuk both figured that explained only half of what they watched.
The other half looked exactly like an excuse for a very large celebration.
From a Marine officer's perspective, Wookiees checked every box for a serious people: structured patrols, tradition-heavy councils, clear chains of respect, tight rules around hunts and defense. Caleb had admired that from the moment he filtered those habits through Aavruun's cub eyes.
Then Wookiees decided to throw a send-off.
Lanterns hung from grown-wood hooks, thick glass globes filled with steady fire or soft blue bioluminescent gel. Light washed the platforms in warm circles, catching in metal cuffs, in beadwork, in small clan charms braided into fur. Big cook-fires burned along the central ring, flames controlled and steady, smoke drifting upward in rich layers of spice, meat fat, and sweet root.
Drums started early—deep hides stretched over carved frames, set directly into the wood. Three elders struck a simple pattern that matched a resting heartbeat, and younger Wookiees added lighter rhythms around it with hand-drums and palm-strikes against railings. Their voices came in after that, a rising hum inside the chest that rolled outward into chants. Some carried old words about home and hunts; some rode on pure sound, long roars that blended into harmony.
Food moved in constant motion. Platters of charred meat, sliced thick, passed from group to group. Bowls of stewed grains and tubers made their way through clusters of relatives. Sweet, fermented drink sloshed gently in carved mugs as hands traded cups without much concern for ownership. The twins caught hints of smoked river fish from one visiting group, spicy city-seasoned strips from another.
Asharra carried Aavruun in her harness, his white fur bright against her dark coat. Krawruuk rode in Carruck's arms, tucked against his chest. Wookiees greeted the family in waves. Some stepped forward to place carved tokens in Asharra's hands—a tiny wooden bowcaster, a stylised wroshyr leaf, a round disk etched with a family mark. Others pressed their brows briefly to Carruck's shoulder, a silent recognition of the weight he shared.
Around them, celebration and discipline mixed in a way Caleb recognised.
Several warriors stayed at the outer railings, eyes on dark gaps between trees, ears tuned for the wrong kind of sound. They still swayed slightly with the drums, claws tapping in time against wood. Inside that ring of quiet vigilance, the rest of the clan allowed themselves a full release.
Dancing started as simple footwork: slow, heavy steps in a circle, shoulders rolling, voices locked on a chant. Then the pattern shifted. Younger adults broke into faster spins, feet thudding on planks in practiced sequences that took advantage of strength and balance. Pairs traded places, gripped forearms, pulled each other through quick turns that pushed air across the twins' fur even from a distance.
Children turned the evening into their own field exercise. Small Wookiees clambered across lower railings, raced along short spans between platforms, and copied fragments of the dances with clumsy enthusiasm. Older siblings caught them before any tumble, lifting them high during louder drum bursts, letting them roar along with the songs in miniature.
A group of crafters set up a sort of informal display at one side. Heavy bracelets with fresh engraving, polished tools, new bowcaster stocks grown from living wood—pieces that represented the clan's skills. They passed them through waiting hands so the twins would one day remember the textures even if their memories of this night blurred: smooth wroshyr grain, rough inlay, cool metal studs.
Through all of it, the Force pulsed in a way Aavruun and Krawruuk could hardly ignore. Hundreds of presences filled their awareness: family, visiting Wookiees, old rivals behaving like cousins for this night. Pride ran strong. An ache moved under it, tucked into pauses between songs and extra-tight embraces around Asharra's shoulders.
Groups formed and dissolved around their parents. One circle of elders sat and told short, contained stories about past contact with the Jedi: a Knight who helped drive off Trandoshan slavers along a river route, a robed visitor who mediated a dispute between rival clans and left every side satisfied, a Padawan who trained on the world long ago and returned as a full Knight to honour a life debt. Each account framed the Order as an ally worth trusting with their children.
Another knot of younger Wookiees focused more on the future. They spoke directly to the twins, even through baby fur and sleepy eyes, sharing brief declarations:
"Learn their ways. Keep ours."
"Stand tall beside them."
"Remember your clan marks when you wear their robes."
Inside, Caleb and his double treated the whole thing exactly how it looked: a send-off, sure—and also the best excuse for a massive party anyone could justify. Wookiees worked hard. Wookiees remembered their dead and tracked their debts.
But when Wookiees chose to party, they threw a hell of a party—one that shook the branches, rattled the drums, and carved itself into memory like firelight on fur.