The Varactyl Squadron Commander (A Star Wars: The Clone Wars Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Fifty-Five

The village was a place of joy and laughter, of love, life, and light as children ran down the stone streets and past the finely carved buildings that made up their homes. Streamers of all different colors had been tossed from one establishment to the next, back and forth from one side of the main street to the next, creating a temporary canopy over the festive people in the market below. It was a time of celebration in the community and everyone loved to participate.

Music filled the air as if the notes were a language of their own and while merchants spoke with customers, families talked with friends and ate and drank and sang.

"Yenti!" A distraught mother called out through the festivities, carefully weaving between bodies in the crowd and trying not to step on any trunks or toes by mistake.

This group of people, this species as a whole, was one that preferred to remain close to their home and believed relationships between families were more important than anything else in their culture. Children liked to play within eyesight of their houses and parents collectively made sure their offspring were looked after, but there was always one black sheep in a herd. And Yenti was exactly that.

Being one of the youngest individuals in the village, barely reaching an excited two-hundred and twelve years, Yenti was the polar opposite to the rest of her family and friends. While the others always sought the safety and warmth of people like theirselves, not daring to ever travel out of shouting-distance from the village, Yenti loved exploring and going on adventures through the jungle a little over twenty yards from the edge of their shanty town.

Her curiosity gave her mother heart attacks on a daily basis; the little girl didn't mean to worry her so. Yenti couldn't fight the pull of her attention towards the unknown territory that bordered the village. As if the towering trees and unexplored mysteries were calling to her by name. And this time was no exception.

With the music and laughter fading off into the distance, the little girl continued her trek forward through the flora and onward to a new adventure. She hummed a merry tune with each passing step, almost dancing herself while she slid past tree trunks and knelt beneath the lower-hanging branches, completely unaware of what she was headed towards. Or who.

Only a couple of minutes passed from when she first entered the jungle before the well-known trumpet sound of an Eletai infant filled the air. It was faint, probably half a kilometer away, but persistent and full of desperate urgency. It wasn't the right season for the herd of Eletai to have migrated so close to the village, let alone be in such distress, which only spurred Yenti's curiosity even more. What was going on?

She pushed past the leaves and branches, leaped over fallen logs and clusters of bushes, swerved around tree trunks and ancient boulders older than any of the elders back home, til the sound of the infant grew louder and louder as she made her way in the right direction. Was the poor creature hurt? Why was it alone? If it was with its herd, its parents or other members of their group would've taken care of it. The unfortunate baby had to have been separated.

The frantic blasting came to a sudden halt when the girl ran face-first into its source, nearly tackling the Eletai baby and knocking over the people who had been running just as fast behind it. Yenti let out a cry of pain when her forehead rammed into Eletai's and landed with a dissatisfying flop onto the jungle floor.

Words of anything language were shouted in shock, words that sounded too foreign for her to understand, and the little elephantine girl rubbed her sore forehead with a groan. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten a head injury, but she was sure a bruise was going to appear where the blunt-force trauma made contact.

"Oog..." Yenti muttered beneath her breath before the Eletai jumped up and triumphantly blew its trunk at the three strange-looking individuals behind him. Four, actually; she hadn't seen the sleeping one being carried.

The people were like nothing the child had seen before in her life; they were tall, pale, and each one only had two holes coming from a stumpy snout instead of a trunk like herself. Their eyes were dull in comparison to the Eletai and little a floof of hair rested on the skulls of three out of the four. Two of them appeared to be twins, despite all of them appearing to be similar in appearance. And although they all wore leather armor, Yenti was having a hard time telling if they were male or female.

This was a species she'd never interacted with before, never even knew they existed. How the hell was she supposed to know?

Despite being outnumbered, the girl knew that she wasn't in danger; the Eletai would've warned her, considering how close the species was to her own and the preexisting relationships her village had with the only local herd. So, caught off guard by this sudden change of events, the little girl stared up wide-eyed at the new arrivals before turning to the infant and locking trunks with it in greeting.

"Tora ti!" She exclaimed happily and the infant trumpeted back with a welcoming blast, then began to pull her towards the strange new creatures she'd just discovered, the closest one being the tallest and prettiest out of the bunch with neck-length brown fur, blue eyes, and wore mismatching gloves along with a strange metal object hanging from his hip. Yenti smiled politely and greeted them as well. This must have been their alpha.

It wasn't hard to tell that they could understand her just as much as she could understand them. From the expressions on their smooth-skinned faces, the confusion was mutual. At least until the sleeping one began to stir and opened their eyes. Had they just come out of hibernation? Did this species even hibernate? The Eletai squeaked merrily and urged Yenti forward til she was face to face with the sleepy individual.

Their voice was weak, but Yenti still caught their sentence before it could fade into silence completely.

"Tora ti."

The other three seemed just as shocked as Yenti to hear one of their own speak her language, but it didn't phase her for long and the excited child locked her stubby fingers with the creature in an act of friendship.

"Abnarra zemmy tafito?" Yenti asked whether or not the creature had slept well. The abnormal being began to laugh before spluttering into a coughing fit, one that left blood on its lips and a breath of pain to escape its mouth. Yenti gasped, now finally realizing how dire this situation had become, and released her had from the creature's grasp. "Tamna! Tamna, sedira mina!" The elephantine child stated and quickly began to walk away while gesturing for the others to follow. This unknown species of sentient life had been injured; no wonder the Eletai was so desperate for help.

The only person Yenti knew could help was at the Chitauri village, so that's exactly where she'd take them.

***

Neither Rex, Anakin, or Axel bothered asking Molindi how she new the language of the locals; this story was practically her childhood, so learning a make-believe dialect didn't seem all that outlandish to the men when they knew just how passionate the woman was about the things she genuinely cared about. All they cared about was the fact that she managed to come to right when they needed her the most.

Their pace increased when the spies realized where they were headed and followed their new guide as fast as they could. It wasn't long before they emerged from the thick jungle and came to a clearing much larger than that of the pond before. From a first glance, they could see at least five kilometers of open land with only grass and a small village in the very center to fill the space. Music and jolly laughter could be heard from where they stood at the edge of the clearing and it was apparent that some sort of holiday celebration was taking place.

"Tamna! Tamna!" The small girl called out to the four once more and gestured for them to keep following. Though the Eletai and the Chitauri seemed to have had descended from a similar ancestor, this Chitauri walked on her two back legs and had four stubby fingers on both hands. She also wore a festive tunic, but her stump-like feet were bare and she had no antler-like tusks protruding from beneath her small trunk. "Te pandri ad hudina!"

"What's she saying?" Axel asked as the three of them began to make their way towards the party ahead.

"She's taking us to her mother," Molindi explained. "She should be able to fix me up." The woman barely managed to get the sentence out before another fit of coughing took over and more rivers of blood started to flow down her lips to her chin. They tried not to panic when her breathing became uneven and she wheezed with each gasp of air.

For Molindi's sake and their own, they hoped she was right.