And with Yoda saying that, a clean chime cut through Aavruun's awareness, sharp and familiar as a trigger pull.
A line of text slid across that quiet inner space.
System Message
Congratulations, you joined the Jedi.
Not like you got a choice, but this is a feat.
Feat gained: Joined the Jedi Order
Reward: +10% lifeforce
Feat gained: Rank achieved – Youngling
Reward: +5% lifeforce
Current lifeforce: 115%
Aavruun checked the number in that private dark and let a small, satisfied pulse run along the link he shared with Krawruuk.
One hundred fifteen percent. Nice.
Depa and Yoda walked toward the ship with the twins in her arms. Aavruun's eyelids drooped with each step. Through their link he felt Krawruuk's steady, heavy drowsiness, warm and close. Both cubs tucked in tighter against Depa's chest, small jaws stretching in long cub-sized yawns.
Depa glanced down at them. "Big day," she said quietly. "Sleep while you can."
Yoda walked at her side, cane tapping against the ramp. "Tired, our new students already are," he murmured, a faint hint of humor in his voice.
The ramp closed. Engines rose from a hum to a steady vibration through the deck. Aavruun and Krawruuk curled into each other in Depa's grip, their breathing falling into the same slow rhythm as the ship lifted away from Kashyyyk's shoreline.
The twins set off for the Jedi Temple.
⸻
Aavruun's first clear memory of Coruscant came through heavy lashes and the steady thrum of the ship settling on its pad.
The ramp lowered to a clean docking bay: smooth stone flooring, tall support arches, pale walls that caught and reflected the overhead glowpanels. The air felt dry on his nose, with a faint tang of metal and filtered air scrubbers. Blue landing markers blinked along the edge of the pad in an even, measured pattern.
Small service droids rolled across the bay on set paths, wheels whispering over the stone. Their frames stayed compact and rounded, with tools folded away under smooth panels. Simple, practical shapes; no towering machines, no trees, just open floor and structured light.
Depa carried the twins down the ramp. Each step took them away from engine noise and into a quieter corridor where footsteps and soft fabric rustles floated ahead of them.
Two Temple caretakers waited there, both in simple robes. One stepped forward, a middle-aged human with steady eyes and relaxed shoulders. His skin held a warm, deep brown tone, the kind that spoke of long hours under natural light before Temple life. Close-cropped black hair hugged his scalp with a few early gray strands showing at the temples. A faint crease ran across the bridge of his nose, as if he had spent years squinting up at traffic lanes and skylanes on Coruscant's mid-levels. His hands looked strong and practiced, knuckles a little rough, fingers careful in their stillness.
His name was Horan, born in one of Coruscant's crowded mid-level districts, a place where Temple spires cut the sky in the distance but rarely touched daily life. As a child he'd tested with only a trace of Force sensitivity—enough to feel moods around him, enough to sense when tension gathered before a fight. The Order had taken him in anyway, not for knighthood but for steady work in the Temple's support branches. Years in the Service Corps and in the crèche wings had shaped him into what he was now: the quiet kind of supervisor who knew how to hold infants, guide caretakers, and keep the youngest residents of the Temple on a calm path.
"Welcome back, Master Yoda, Knight Billaba," he said. "These are the new arrivals?"
Yoda nodded. "Yes, please. Take care of them, you will," he said.
The caretaker's mouth tipped up at the corners. "We'll see to them."
A compact caretaker droid stood just behind the pair, dome-shaped head, broad base, and padded support arms folded in. A faint status light pulsed at its side in a slow, steady rhythm. Small grilles along the torso vented warm air from internal processors, and its outer casing showed a few shallow scuffs from years of nudging furniture, cribs, and the occasional overexcited youngling. Each joint gave off a soft, even whir, tuned low so it wouldn't wake sleeping children.
Depa shifted Aavruun into the caretaker's arms, then passed Krawruuk across as well. Aavruun felt the change at once: new scent, new heartbeat, a different way of being held. Horan adjusted his grip with practiced ease, one hand bracing Aavruun's back, the other settling under his weight as if he'd done this a thousand times. The droid turned and fell in beside them, servos giving off that quiet, regular whir.
Together, caretakers and droid carried the twins deeper into the Temple.
As Yoda and Depa walked away, she remembered what she had said to the mother. When time and her duties permitted, she would check in on the cubs.
For a Jedi, that kind of follow-up sat well inside the Order's ways. Knights who discovered Force-sensitive children often kept a loose eye on their progress—one visit between missions, a request for a brief report from the crèche, a word with the instructors watching over them. It wasn't about clinging to a bond with the family they had left. It fit into duty: a quiet sense of responsibility for the young lives they had brought into the Temple, and a practical interest in how those futures unfolded.
Depa carried that in mind as she turned down the corridor beside Yoda, already shifting her focus toward her next assignment, trusting the Temple to handle the daily care while she watched from a distance when the Order allowed.
There first home was something temporary, a holding space the Temple used for all very young intakes.
Like the other younglings, the cubs received rich milk and carefully balanced meals matched to their species. The Order poured resources into food and care without hesitation. Healthy children meant stronger Jedi later, and the kitchen wings always ran full.
Eventually Aavruun and Krawruuk moved into a basic room of their own. The space stayed plain—smooth walls, low beds, simple storage—but the caretakers made sure it held the right toys for Wookiee cubs: low climbing frames, sturdy beams to grip, thick ropes to swing from, all sized for small claws and growing weight.
The caretaker droids used their own clipped machine language constantly, trading short status strings and task updates back and forth as they worked. To the twins it sounded like another kind of background hum, regular and predictable.
Most of their early days revolved around simple "games." Caretakers and droids mixed guessing tasks, pattern choices, and small reaction drills into play blocks. Each one sat at the right level for their age, but usually carried a second layer—subtle pushes that either conditioned habits or gave the twins chances to lean on the Force without thinking about it. From Aavruun and Krawruuk's view, it stayed easy enough. Playtime was playtime. If the adults wanted more from it, that stayed their concern.
Outside those sessions, the environment stayed quiet and ordered. Aside from the droids, Aavruun noticed how little electronic noise surrounded them: no constant screens, no loud devices, just soft lighting, footsteps in the halls, and a regular schedule. Wake, eat, play, rest, repeat.
Wookiee growth followed a long, steady curve. Season by season they added height and weight instead of hitting the sharp adolescent surge common in humans. A six-year-old Wookiee pup usually stood a little taller than a six-year-old human child and carried more mass across the shoulders and chest, even though both still read clearly as young.
Around twelve, the picture shifted. Human children often shot upward in their first big growth spurt, sometimes edging past Wookiee peers in height for a few years while Wookiee bodies kept climbing in smaller yearly steps. By fifteen, an early-blooming human teenager could stand eye-to-eye with—or even slightly above—a Wookiee of the same age, though the Wookiee's frame already showed thicker bone and heavier hands.
By eighteen, the lines crossed back. Most eighteen-year-old Wookiees had reached the bulk of their final height and already stood well above the average adult human, even if their build still counted as lean by their own standards. True mass came later. Through their twenties and into their thirties, Wookiees typically filled out: shoulders broadening, muscle layering over dense bone, movement settling into the controlled power their species was known for across the Republic.
Play blocks doubled as exercise. Climbing frames, tug games, balance drills—caretakers framed it as fun, but Aavruun treated it as training and dragged Krawruuk along with him. Story time followed after: quiet hours where robed adults read or recited tales that circled the same themes—calm, control, service, the Code woven through fables and Temple histories. It worked like a very gentle kind of conditioning, a soft-pressure version of what some warlords in his old life had done with child soldiers. The method changed. The principle felt familiar.
Around three standard years, once the twins handled their own Wookiee tongue cleanly, caretakers introduced other languages. Galactic Basic came first, followed by a set of common trade tongues. Lessons started as games and call-and-response drills, ran through song and simple commands, then shifted into more serious practice as the twins kept pace.
They adjusted fast. Words stuck, structures made sense. Aavruun and Krawruuk both felt how easily new sounds settled into place. It lined up with what Aavruun already knew of the Force: it bound living things together, and language sat inside that web. Force-sensitive people often carried more tongues than their peers. This fit. The twins simply reached for it and found it waiting.
That rhythm—structured days, quiet conditioning, constant low-level Force use wrapped in games and lessons—shaped their first three years in the Temple.