Ruwe slowly crawled through the darkness. It had been quite some time since he felt earth, bark, leaves and all other manners of life between his claws. The VE had taken his time away from such things. In the VE it was nothing but long hallways of metal and steel. If it wasn’t that it was in a small cockpit made of metal and space in the viewport. A far cry from his home world and all of it’s beauty. But with beauty, also comes dangers of many kinds.

The dangers in particular was the overwhelming and increasing population of the Katarn. Large and fierce reptilian beasts that inhabited the Shadowlands. It had only been a week since Ruwe had set foot on his planet, and yet he had already seen for himself what was to come. The day after his arrival, a Wookiee pup was snatched up and carried off below to the Shadowlands by a Katarn. No hunting party was sent after the young pup for fear of the hunting party itself be snatched up by scores more of the Katarn.

As was explained to Ruwe, the Katarn had begun to spontaneously grow in rapid numbers, size, and increasingly bolder with each passing day. The fact that a pup was snatched up was a saddening thought for the village, but was also not uncommon. Ruwe was told that if something didn’t happen soon, that the Katarn were likely to overrun the Wookiee population of his village , as well as neighboring villages, and quite possibly their whole planet. As a preventive measure, Ruwe took it upon himself to travel deep into the Shadowlands to find nesting grounds and eradicate as many as possible.

The events of the last week now had him crawling in the dark. The feel of the ground, the smell of the forest, the sounds of nature, all beautiful. Beautifully dangerous. For down in the Shadowlands, not only did Katarn dwell, but other more deadly creatures and plants festered. Plants as tall as two Wookiees standing atop another’s shoulders, that could easily eat a full grown Wookiee. Slugs that would literally eat you alive by exuding digestive juices on you, as it held you in it’s slimy clutches. Even the whispers of beasts known as Terentatek, the source of nightmares and bedtime ghost stories on Kashyyyk, were to reside in the Shadowlands.

With all these in mind Ruwe crept along. Silently. Slowly. Ruwe had spotted the nest some twenty feet ahead in the murky perpetual darkness. Ruwe circled the nest. Always slowly and silently. Never making a sound, even on the dry crumbling leaves, broken branches and twigs. Moving closer to the nest, he listened for the tell tale signs of the mother Katarn nearby. With no noises heard, and none made, he hopped into the nest. The nest was average size, approximately seven feet all around, with a two foot mound in the middle for the incubating eggs. 

Ruwe carefully sifted through the mound in the middle, scooping out eggs when he felt them, making sure not to make a sound. After clearing the whole mound he counted the total of eggs. Eight in total, and all of them the size of a Wookiees head. Shouldn’t be this many. There should only be four, five at the maximum, and here in front of me is double the amount. Females don’t share nests, so something isn’t right. Ruwe scooped the eggs up and put them all into a pack he brought. Instead of crushing the eggs here and attracting all sorts of predators to himself, he was going to transport them to higher place and then drop them.

Carefully making his way through the gloom to his insertion point, he listened as he crawled. Something in the gloom to his right caught his attention. Freezing on the spot he strained his eyes and ears to see and hear what had caught his attention. In the gloom he made out a tail moving slowly across the ground and disappearing into a bush. A green lizard tail. Karking sith spit. The damn thing waited for me so it could follow me. I’ll have to kill it before it gets the jump on me. Ruwe grabbed one of his Kerarthorr blades and held it firmly in his left hand with the blade arcing back to follow his forearm.

Ruwe made for the bush, careful as ever. For Katarn moved quick and he could likely be ambushed and killed as quickly as anything else down in the Shadowlands. A twig cracking to his right was the only warning he had as a Katarn leapt from the bushes to his right. A tooth ripped through the skin on his right forearm, narrowly missing muscle tissue and almost rendering his arm useless. Biting down the growl, he punched the Katarn in the right side of it's head. Spinning around to the right he used momentum to easily slip onto the Katarn's back and grabbed just under the jaw line in a soft spot. Unsheathing his Ryyk blade with his free hand he jabbed downwards into the small soft spot of the skull.

The Katarn let out a dying cry. Words could not describe what it sounded like. And it probably just let every predator in the area know that dinner’s served. Means I’ve more than overstayed my welcome, and need to get outta here. Fast.

OOC:

So for those that may have been reading the flashbacks i've been making in my story posts, this is the fill in the blanks. if you look really closely the first flashback is in there, word for word..so if you stay tuned you'll see the other flashbacks and all the rich goodiness in between and a side note - 906 words without this dialogue and the setting lol