Crossing Paths With Black Cats

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya felt slightly bad about making up a lame excuse to get out of dinner with Bryna the night before. Studying. Yeah, right. She was pretty sure Bryna didn't buy it, but the older Padawan was pretty kuu'ai about things in general, and respected her enough not to push the issue. So instead of a decent meal to end the night, she'd hoofed it back to her quarters, scarfing down two sticks of dry ration before hitting her bunk a full three hours before lights out was called. This kind of thing was almost unheard of in the Syragori padawan's normal night-owlish schedule, but she had plans for the morning.

Alone in her bunk, Draiya pulled a small trunk of personal effects out from under her bed. Opening the lid, she pulled out the special outfit she'd ordered three months ago that had only just arrived with one of the shipments bound for Ossus in the previous day. Glancing left and right, she grinned furtively as she pulled out the all-black, form-fitting bodysuit, matching tabi boots, gloves, and most-importantly, the hood and balaclava. Carefully, she folded the clothes up and placed them under her bunk's two pillows. She set her alarm for before dawn, climbed into bed, and extinguished the lights.

Now all she had to do was go to sleep, which was easier said than done. Draiya lay in the dark, her eyes closed but her bare toes wiggling in anticipation of getting to put her special outfit to the test in the morning. She knew just who she wanted to put it to the test against - and Akasha Khan got up very early in the morning.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha Khan lay curled around her pillow on the top bunk, tail over nose, lips curled back to show a sliver of ivory fang. What was that? Why, yes, she would have another land shrimp boiled in its shell in a pan of butter and wine, that would be lovely. Hang on, the Gungans were attacking again, no, don't get up, she'd take care of it--

At four-past-midnight the red crystal pendant sitting next to her head issued a high-pitched whine well out of the frequency range of human hearing. Akasha started, then slowly uncurled herself and languorously stretched her limbs in all directions before silencing the alarm. Below her, Kala slumbered on, undisturbed. The Orryxian slipped the pendant over her broad head and rolled nimbly off the bunk, landing silently on the floor.

She went about her preparations with grim efficiency. She pulled on a sleeveless tunic and drab trousers, then bound the cuffs to her calves so they wouldn't drag on any foliage. She cinched up her saber belt, padded so it would be silent as she moved, and clipped her recently-crafted light staff into its recess at the small of her back - not for use on her prey, of course, but one couldn't be too careful. Then she stretched again, methodically, rigorously, from jaw to toes, testing every verterba of her prodigious spine, in homage to the divinity of her own body.

With that sorted out, she stepped to the window of her dormitory room, left open to the cool of the Ossian night, pushed aside the hinged insect screen, and slipped out. The screen swung back against the windowframe and sealed again as she dropped ten meters and landed on all fours in the dusty grass below.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Her feet hit the deck the moment the alarm chimed, and Draiya was quick about her work. She turned off the offending sound before it could wake Narsha Taab, her roommate. Fortunately, the Theelin padawan slept like a bag of rocks. Quiet as falling snow, the Syragorian began to slip on her dark attire, finishing with her soft-soled toed tabi boots, balaclava, and hood. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror before she left her bunk. She was a shadow. A midnight wraith, two dark eyes only barely visible in a thin sliver of tan skin still visible on her face. Her cocky smile was invisible beneath her balaclava, and soon the rest of her was invisible too, as she blotted her visage from sight with illusion. Her reflection vanished from the mirror, replaced by the rising and falling sheets Narsha Taab was cocooned in behind her.

Draiya tapped the door switch, her invisible body tensing as the faint hiss of whooshing servos sounded relatively loud against the dead of night. Again, not a bit of movement from Narsha. Draiya stepped out into the black, and closed the door behind her.

A bit of movement caught her eye, further down the dirt road. A low crouch, a high swaying tail. It was her.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha moved as easily on all fours as on two legs - easier over rough terrain or through trees and undergrowth - but for now she padded down the road at a leisurely pace, past the hydroponics greenhouses, past the exercise yard, past the watchtower that marked the eastern perimeter of the Jedi compound where the path snaked into a field of swaying amber grass as high as her chin. Glowflies winked all around her as they bedded down for the morning, and a pair of gokobs nosing at the edge of the grasses startled and scampered for their burrows. Akasha let them go. She wasn't interested in a face full of stinking mist first thing in the morning.

When she reached the outlying shrubs and stunted saplings that marked the edge of the forest, she paused and sent a suspicious look back over her shoulder. She was making no effort to hide herself, and she knew she'd attracted the attention of dozens of lesser creatures that huddled fearfully in the prairie, but she sensed something else as well, something with more intention than a rodent or an insect could muster. Akasha sniffed at the air, but the wind was blowing from the South, and she smelled nothing - she'd planned her approach so it wouldn't carry her scent ahead of her.

She curled her lip and turned back toward the forest, quickly disappearing into the gloom of the close-knit canopy. If her stalker was larger than her, she would lose it in there. If it was smaller, and still foolish enough to follow her, she'd see to it that it would meet a sticky, tasty end.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya pushed on ahead, after a moment with her heart in her throat, wondering if she'd been detected before it had even begun. With Akasha's back to her in the distance, she closed ground, remembering her agility training to keep her footfalls light and careful. While she could certainly keep herself out of sight, she still had to be mindful of any effect her approach might have on the grass or the branches of young saplings around her.

Akasha was a challenge nonetheless, quickly putting herself out of sight. Draiya pushed on until she found a tree with enough girth to hide her from sight. Pressing flush against the trunk, she dropped her illusion, her black-clad figure now visible, albeit still shrouded in the darkness of pre-dawn and the shade of the forest. She reached out with her feelings, searching for the intent focus that should only belong to one other person nearby. Though her training in that respect was meager, she could still sense a presence further ahead. Akasha hadn't doubled back, and she hadn't taken to a sudden change in direction. Give or take, she was a hundred meters ahead, gaining ground.

The illusion once again veiled her, and Draiya disappeared, pushing into the thicket with care to avoid disturbing branches or giving herself away with sound.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha was not in the thicket. She was in the trees.

She sat perfectly balanced on her haunches in the crook of a fat hornbeam branch, her elbows resting on her knees, and listened to the forest stirring all around her. Already she'd counted a dozen odd arboreal rodents and marsupials, five surface-crawling lizards the size of dogs, even a female choku (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Choku) on the prowl. She met eyes with the three-meter predator, fully aware she was intruding on another hunter's territory. The creature stalked away with a growl Akasha felt in her sternum.

Unconcerned, the Orryxian slunk forward along the branch. She'd faced far worse on Onderon, whose ecology was an evolutionary case study in overkill. Silently she leapt from one branch to another and closed her paw around a tree-mouse who'd picked an unfortunate hiding place. It went down her throat with a strangled squeak. Okay for an appetizer, but she still wanted something more substantial for breakfast.

That feeling of being watched returned again, and she wheeled about on her branch, prepared to leap away to safety. At first she thought the choku had returned, but she realized it was not a beast's mind she felt. Whatever it was, it was searching for her through the Force.

Weren't there Force-adept savages on Ossus? Apparently one of them had taken an interest in her. Akasha bared her teeth in a bloody smile. This would be a hunt she could relish.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

She could hear no movement ahead, which betrayed nothing. Carefully, Draiya advanced ahead to a rutted and dried creek bed, stooping low into the cover it provided to drop her shroud once more. She reached out, and sure enough, could feel the presence she was looking for. Now it was in the trees...and was close. But...

...Draiya's heart jumped in her throat. She could feel something change. Quickly, she focused her senses, projecting an eopie loping through the thicket perpendicular to her approach. If Akasha could be flushed out after the target, she might do well to follow closely.

Her eyes shut as she conjured the right sights and sounds to fool her quarry.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha still had no scent of her pursuer and only an inkling of where he was hiding, but at least she knew he wasn't watching her at the moment. The treetops bobbed gently as she stalked from one branch to the next, making no more noise than the breeze. And then something exploded in the undergrowth, a tall, lanky camel-thing that went bounding into the darker parts of the forest.

Instincts told her to give chase - a few well-placed leaps and she could drop right on top of the clumsy thing. But something else beat her to it, the choku she had seen a minute ago. The apex predator cut a swath of its own in pursuit of the eopie, and Akasha flattened like a snake against the kingwood bough until it passed.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya could hear the sudden break in motion as she sent her eopie. She was taking the bait!

Keeping the pretense of the illusion up, Draiya herself traveled in pursuit, deftly running through the undergrowth without cover of illusion. This way she could keep Akasha's attention fixated on her ruse, and close the distance much quicker.

This was going to be great!

[Akasha Khan]

Who... was that?

Akasha watched, stupefied, as a compact humanoid figure went striding after the commotion in a form-fitting black jumpsuit that did nothing to change its silhouette. Black was terrible camouflage in a forest at night - it ate up the light in a way that leaves and bracken didn't, which was why Akasha was up in the trees, where there were more layers of cover to hide her naked fur. Whoever this interloper was, he was sadly out of his element, and what was more, he was hard on the trail of two-hundred-kilo carnivore.

The Orryxian considered simply leaving him to his fate. But morbid curiosity drove her on through the canopy after the humanoid who was after the choku who was after the eopie.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

With Akasha in her thrall, Draiya considered her options. She could run the eopie into the creek bed, giving her the higher ground. She could flush it back toward the camp, bringing Akasha into open ground. She could also run her into the box canyon that should be further ahead. Akasha was wily enough to be able to climb out if cornered, but she'd have less options than she did here.

With a confident grin, she sent the eopie into the box canyon, and let her distance slacken as she could hear Akasha making a horrendous racket in her chase. Huh. That was a lot of noise, even if the Orryxian was dropping the charade of stealth.

[Akasha Khan]

In order to be successful as a predator, it paid to know your limitations, and those of your competition. The choku was a big brute with jaws that could crush durasteel and a nose that could track a mudskipper in a monsoon, and what it lacked in stealth it made up for in its ability to run. It could pace its prey for miles if it wanted to, wait for it to tire, then end its suffering in a vice-like embrace of bone-crunching teeth. Humans, for that matter, were also on the endurance end of the scale - silly plant-mashing teeth, laughably soft skin, no natural weapons to speak of, but a human athlete could wear out even a choku given an adequate head start.

Orryxians weren't built that way. They were ambush predators who used cover to shorten their approach, and short-burst speed to overwhelm their prey in a flurry of claws and blood and terror. And while the black-clad human was loping easily along the forest floor, Akasha was still leaping through the trees, and she was feeling the complaints building in her muscles. Maiur's mane, this just wasn't worth the effort, and she considered giving up the chase when the human mercifully decided to ease off her pace.

Presently there was an almighty crash as the choku up ahead blasted through a row of shrubs and found the ground dropping unexpectedly beneath its claws. The beast scrabbled for traction against the loose soil, but its momentum was enough to send it sliding down into the box canyon and landing with a splash in the stagnant water that had collected there. The predator climbed to its feet, dripping filthy water from its matted fur, and looked up at the slick canyon walls surrounding it. Then it threw back its head and bellowed in rage, sending flocks of slumbering birds flying from their trees.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Kosa!

Draiya froze in her tracks at the sound. While she wasn't sure what sort of sounds an Orryxian might make when riled, it certainly couldn't be that. Which meant that she'd rabbited something else entirely. Again, she searched out with her feelings...looking for that familiar focus. It was behind her!

Draiya whirled around, wide-eyed.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha stood there with the scant moonlight shining in her acid-green eyes. Her lightstaff sat ready but unignited in her paw.

"Who are you, and what in hell's teeth are you doing here?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

The eternal mantra of children being that it's always better not to get caught, Draiya vanished into thin air, giving Akasha a swift kick in her shin as she bolted.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha snarled in surprise and stumbled, but her ears didn't miss the pounding of feet retreating through through the brush. She wheeled to give chase, paused, took a deep breath over the ground in front of her to get her attacker's scent in her nostrils, and then leaped away into the forest after her invisible adversary.

Human, her olfactories told her as she plunged through twigs and creepers. Female. Soap and synthetic fabrics. Not a savage, then. A dirty, bloody, spy!

The Orryxian thumbed the power switch on her lightstaff to its first position, and vegetation fell sparking under her crimson blade as she tore her way through the forest.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

This used to be such a good plan!

Draiya pumped into a full sprint, the tell-tale sound of a lightsaber igniting certainly helped to get the lead out of her step. She looked for any useable cover to duck behind which she could possibly use to regroup and get the edge on her angry quarry. A stand of older trees to her left provided her opportunity, and she threaded the gap between two that grew close together, immediately ducking behind a trunk as she kept invisible, and as still as possible.

[Akasha Khan]

The still-rational portion of Akasha's brain told her that she was scaring away the game for a week. At the moment she didn't care. She plunged onward through the undergrowth on one throbbing shin until she realized she no longer heard branches breaking in front of her.

The Orryxian pattered to a stop, chest heaving, hackles high, her saber casting a blood-red glow on the forest around her. With a concentrated effort, she calmed herself, slowing her heartrate and opening up her feelings to the Force. She closed her eyes, tilted back her head, and breathed, steady and deep, her nostrils flaring hungrily at the kaleidoscope of scents that surrounded her.

She was a beacon in the night, but right now she didn't care. She wanted to be seen, and feared. Fear would lead her to her prey.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Control...control

Eyes screwed shut, Draiya tried to still her mind and heart. She could hear how close Akasha was. The thrum of her saber was nearly on top of her. Furtively, she looked left and right, nearly hugging the tree trunk she hid behind. No tell-tale saber light. Tentatively, she threw back her veil, and became visible once more.

Taking in her surroundings, she took note of the trees in her vicinity. Akasha was already on alert, and wouldn't be spooked by a cheap ruse. It had to be thought out. Seeing a tree a short distance away, the Syragori human projected herself. A shrouded silhouette peered behind the tree only a few inches, and a few branches sighed as she parted them.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha sensed a dozen or so bright points of terror dotting the darkness in every direction, all of them from tiny minds huddling under bushes or in holes in tree trunks. Her spy, whoever she was, had quelled her emotions to the point that Akasha couldn't sense them outright, and she wasn't on a direct line of sight, or the Orryxian would be able to feel her eyes. But scent? Scent said she was nearby. Sweat and body oils didn't lie.

"Nice trick," Akasha said to the woods. "But I've seen better. Did you know there are some predators who can use the Force to hunt their prey?"

She took a few instinctual steps, turned, and saw a pair of bright eyes peeking out of a sliver of tan skin between two saplings.

"I happen to be one of them. Are you sure you want to keep playing this game?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya scowled under her hood, frustrated at being baited like a proverbial mouse. Still, Akasha was certainly in charge of the moment, and the illusionist didn't have much choice.

Her doppelganger bolted, sprinting off through the brush. Hopefully the Orryxian would give chase, and Draiya could slink away, salvaging her skin if not her dignity.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha stood where she was and watched the girl retreat. Then she calmly strolled up to the tree where the spy had been hiding and sniffed the air. It should have been redolent with the pungency of human, but there wasn't so much as a skin cell to be found.

The Orryxian grinned, showing a healthy amount of fang. "Pull the other one. It's got bells."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya's heart sank. She didn't take the bait. Not even close. Now what?

She didn't have very long to ponder the thought, however, as the choku she'd recently forgotten about from the box canyon had scrabbled out from below, and pounced through the apparition of herself. The big cat smashed through bushes and crashed against a tree, dazed from the violence of the impact. It would get up soon, though, and it would be angry.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha leapt backwards, tail puffing like a bottlebrush as the choku careened into the clearing and faceplanted against a sturdy hornbeam trunk. Maiur's fangs, that was close! She'd nearly - oh. Well, of course.

"Maybe I didn't give you enough credit," the Orryxian said. "This one almost looks real."

The choku picked itself up out of the dead leaves and compost piled up against the foot of the tree, chuffed noisily from its muzzle, and turned its small, baleful eyes toward Akasha. The growl it issued made her take another step back.

"If you think you're going to scare me, it's not going to work." The choku shook itself and prowled toward her on long, sinewy limbs. Doubt crept into Akasha's voice as she tucked her tail between her legs: "So, um, you can stop now. Any time."

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"It's not me!!!"

The admission gave away her position, but, Draiya was by then already midway up the tree she was hiding behind. Draiya froze mid-climb, reaching out to sense Akasha's intent, her position, and her environment around her. She'd never tried this before, but...

...the Orryxian vanished from sight.

[Akasha Khan]

The stink of blood and rotting meat on the beast's breath struck Akasha at the same time as Draiya's warning. She knew the branches overhead were too high to jump to, and even if she caught them, she'd only be making herself a meat pinata for the choku's enjoyment, and fleeing in any direction would only end in massive jaws closing around her midsection. The Orryxian lowered her head and peeled back her ears, preparing herself for what was sure to be a very bloody and very painful fight--

The choku had stopped in its tracks and was winding the air, almost as if it had lost sight of her. Akasha crouched in preparation to spring - well, anywhere but where she was, and only then did she realize she could no longer see her own paw in front of her face. Maiur's eyes! She'd become a ghost!

...or she'd become invisible, which she'd learned in the past five minutes was a thing that happened. Now wasn't the time to press for the particulars, because in a moment the choku was going to disregard its eyes and trust its nose. The beast already had its muzzle on the ground and was swinging it directly toward her.

Instinct kicked in. Akasha pounced directly toward the choku, landing squarely on the back of its neck. It howled and reared up, and she found her balance in time to leap again into the canopy as the creature's jaws snapped inches short of her tail.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

And then the illusion was thrown, and the pair of misfits were up a tree, gaining ground.

"Now what???"

Draiya shimmied as she climbed the ever-thinning trunk, going as high as she could. Below, the choku paced, growling deep enough to rumble her bones as it hiked up on its hind legs to test the tree trunk with its forepaws. Even the motion of the huge cat leaning against the tree caused it to sway slightly, and Draiya "eeeeked" to her shame.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha slipped her lightstaff safely back into its cradle on her back, and just in time - she needed both paws free to grab a hold of the shuddering branches.

"Well, we either need to wait her out or--"

She trailed off, looked her treemate squarely in the eye, and then, with the speed of a striking vine snake, she swiped her paw across the girl's face, hooked her balaclava with her claws, and whipped it off her head, leaving behind a rat's nest of frizzy black hair.

"Draiya!" Akasha hissed. "Maiur's fangs, I should have known!"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

It wasn't her most graceful moment. Draiya frowned darkly, her matted, sweat-moist hair clinging to her face in a clump now that her mask was off.

"Well grreat job, detective! But you almost cut me in half rrememberr?!?!"

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha peeled her back lips in scorn. "Oh, don't be ridiculous. If I wanted to kill you, I would have."

It was a gross exaggeration, of course - Draiya had never even been in striking range, but Akasha didn't want her to know that. She shifted for better purchase in the tree as the choku circled in search of an easier approach.

"Anyway, what are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be in bed?"

The choku leaped at the tree trunk, sank its claws into the bark, and began slowly worming its bulk up toward the canopy, setting the branches rocking.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"What, arre you my bedtime monitorr now?"

Sulking defensively, Draiya carefully considered negotiating her climb further. Up this high, there was more than a little sway, accentuated by tentative batting at the base of the tree by the choku, which was fortunately attempting to be lazy about his murderous intent, hoping that the two morsels would simply drop from the branches like ripe fruit.

"I can't prractice sneaking about? Admit it, I almost had you!"

[Akasha Khan]

"When, exactly, did you have me? Was it before or after you went gormlessly chasing after a giant wolf-bear thing?"

The shaking redoubled, and Akasha's claws scored the loose hornbeam bark. The choku was bouncing in rhythm with the swaying of the tree now - no doubt biologists would be swooning over its apparent understanding of the characteristic frequencies of tree-shaking.

"The eopie running through the woods - that was you, too, wasn't it?" Akasha said. "Could you do that again?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya pouted as she hung on for dear life. She hadn't any inkling what gormless even meant, but she was pretty sure the smart-aleck cat was making fun of her.

"You trry finding someone's life forrce in the darrk and keep an illusion going at the same time. Oh wait, you can't do that eitherr!"

The shaking doubled again, and the Syragori's eyes went wide. Okay, maybe trading insults right now wasn't the most productive way to stay alive. Akasha had the right idea.

"Uh..."

Hugging the tree tight, Draiya squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate, pushing the mortal danger out of her mind as she brought forth another eopie. Not too close, but close enough to certainly get the big predator's attention. The illusion snorted, waggling its diminuitive trunk as it took off into a gallop away from them.

[Akasha Khan]

The choku swung its head toward the illusory eopie and winded the air, which only brought it straight back to the pair of padawans in the tree. It gave the trunk one more hard shake, then, tentatively, began ascending.

"It's got our scent in its nose," Akasha said, recoiling. "We're not going to set it off that easily. Can't you do smells?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

A look of complete unsureness fell across Draiya's face. Smells?

"I...I don't know! I've never done it beforre! I don't even know what an eopie smells like! In case you didn't figurre it out, I'm human."

She pointed at her face, making a durr expression.

"We don't exactly go sniffing butts to say hello!"

[Akasha Khan]

"Well, maybe you'd learn something if you did!" Sniffing butts, indeed! Of all the human-centric, speciesist--

The tree shuddered as the choku inched its way upward, setting its claws in the bark like crampons to support its considerable bulk. Akasha retreated to a higher, more precarious branch, mindful of the old wisdom that if you were being chased by a nexu, you didn't have to outrun the nexu - you just had to outrun your buddy.

"It hunts by smell, not sight! An illusion isn't going to fool it for long unless it's something you can't smell. Like... like... a baby."

Maiur's eyes, that was it. "Baby animals hide their scents, for protection... Draiya, it's a female. It's probably hunting to feed its cubs. Can you make a smaller one of it?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

An anxious face glimpsed approaching doom coming up from below, and Draiya was fast running out of options. Okay...a tiny monster then. She took a good look at the choku, trying to imagine what it might look like if it was smaller, fuzzier, and less lethal.

A pair of scampering "choku" cubs started rough-housing in a nearby thicket, causing a ruckus as they pounced each other and rolled into a well-intentioned tussle, gnawing each other's tails. What did baby choku sound like? Uh...

...spirited growls came out, cuter and lighter than either of the fake animals likely intended them to sound as they played.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha watched the situation carefully from her lofty perch - Draiya deep in concentration on the branch below her, the choku pawing at thick tree limbs about four meters below that, the illusory cubs wrestling on the ground. Then she decided it would be better to watch from just one branch higher. For tactical purposes.

The choku's narrow ears twitched at the sounds of cubs at play below. Reluctantly it craned its head to look at them, and it groaned in dismay and slid back down to the ground. Akasha couldn't tell if the choku thought the cubs were her own, but they'd struck some sort of instinctual chord.

Very carefully, the Orryxian crawled down to more substantial branches where they meshed with another tree. "Come on," she hissed, "while it's still distracted!"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya didn't need to be asked twice. Keeping her attention tuned to the fake cubs, she followed Akasha down the tree as best she could, trying to mimic the Orryxian's grace to the best of her ability. The branch swayed a little more when she crossed it, and the human grit her teeth as she bridged the perilous gap between tree branches. She was nearly undone in a moment of terror as Akasha's counterbalancing tail bopped her in her nose.

"Hey!" she hissed, keeping her voice down, inchworming ungracefully along the end of the branch to prevent herself from falling in the wake of such abuse.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha skittered nimbly to another branch, then looked over her shoulder to monitor Draiya's struggles. "Aren't you a primate? This should be second nature to you!"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

At a distance, Akasha had always seemed a little prickly. Up close, she was nearly insufferable. If she wanted to put up with snobby, speciesist feline bitches, she could've just stayed home.

"Keep it up and we'll see if you can rreally land on yourr feet afterr all...when I kick you out of this trree!"

Taking Akasha's words as a challenge, Draiya redoubled herself, taking the branches with as much agility as she could muster while keeping her greater senses focused on the distracting illusion below.

[Akasha Khan]

Now that Draiya had picked up her pace, they were putting some serious distance between themselves and the predator. Still, Akasha made it a point to stay out of kicking range.

Some distance behind them, the choku cubs scampered into the thicket, pursued by an increasingly frustrated mother. The Orryxian took it as a good sign that she could no longer hear them, and after a few more trees, she settled into a nook between two branches to rest.

"That was... actually quite good," Akasha said. "Where'd you learn to do that?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

The human shrugged.

"I don't know. Overractive imagination? I can see something...like this."

She closed her eyes in tight exagerration.

"Nothing therre but airr, but I can see it so well, I can make otherr people see it too. Kinda like a mind trrick, but people trrust theirr eyes morre than what they hearr, so it comes easy."

Now that they were out of mortal danger, Akasha seemed less like a jerk. Draiya dropped her guard a little as they returned home.

"Learrning the otherr stuff is the harrd parrt. Actually moving things? Like..."

She waved her hand seriously for effect, and sighed.

"I moved a pebble the otherr day. I worre out my brrain."

[Akasha Khan]

It actually didn't make much sense at all to Akasha. But then, it sounded like an inborn talent, and she'd never even heard of anyone else with such gift. She may as well have tried to explain to Draiya how herself balance with a tail.

"Telekinesis was instinctive for me, the first time I did it," she replied. "Doing it on command took some practice. I'm sure you'll get it eventually."

Akasha scratched at an insect that had lighted on her arm to bite her.

"Or maybe you won't. But who cares if you can make it look like the pebble moved?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

"Unless they can smell a pebble." she pouted.

She paused, suddenly curious. There was no real way to be subtle about this, was there? Draiya leaned in, clearly breaching Akasha's personal space as she gave her forehead a big sniff...

...then turned her head and sneezed in a full body shudder.

[Akasha Khan]

Well, what did you do when you got an unsolicited face-full of human? Akasha stumbled backward, tail twitching and eyes like green saucers as Draiya cleared her nasal passages of Orryxian dander.

"Was that instructive?" she asked.

[Draiya Naaianeya]

Draiya tried to think about the experience. Akasha smelled like...like...

Her face screwed up in concentration, the human's shoulders finally slumped.

"Not rreally."

She sniffed her suddenly slightly-runny nose.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha shrugged. "Well, you tried. Just... please don't try that again."

They had come to something resembling a path, which she knew would take them back to the Jedi camp. The sky overhead was bruising gray, and the night-sounds of the forest were slowly giving way to the chirps of diurnal birds.

"For that matter, if you'd like to try hunting, could you let me know beforehand? Just so I don't have to waste a morning and come back to mashed breakfast rations."

No sooner had she spoken than a meter-long mantid dropped its upper body from a low-hanging branch above them, its long, sharp claws stretched out in a prickly embrace. Akasha spun her lightstaff out of its sheath and bisected the creature with a steaming hiss, and it fell in gooey fragments of exoskeleton to the ground.

The Orryxian prodded one of the still-smoking claws with her toe, then stooped to gather it up. "It's better than nothing. Want one?"

[Draiya Naaianeya]

She hadn't even considered the notion that her little exercise in stalking would be disruptive. It was probably selfish of her to only think about trying to get the jump on the other sneaky Jedi padawan. Before she could say sorry, however, their way home was blocked by a rather angry-looking insect. No sooner had it happened than it had unhappened - Akasha cleaving the ugly thing in half.

Well, problem solved!

"Surre, uh, I think."

Awkwardly taking her portion of carapace, Draiya gave it all a morbid expression. The cut edge had a singed and crispy look to it, and she prodded it carefully with a finger before pilfering out a pinch of steaming white flesh, which was most assuredly raw a half centimeter beneath the cut. Chewing awkwardly, Draiya swallowed after a few seconds.

"Tastes like clawhopperr, kinda."

Draiya turned her head, brusquely spitting out a bit of quill or sinew or cartilage or something else that survived her attempt to beat it into submission with her molars.

[Akasha Khan]

Akasha watched with interest as Draiya sampled the creature she'd killed. Then the Orryxian speared a length of flesh on her claws and sucked it down.

"Clawhopper, hm? You've got good taste. For a human. Maybe we can see about adding it to the menu."

As the sun crawled toward the horizon, the two padawans made their way back to the Jedi compound, while, elsewhere in the forest, small things died screaming in the waning hours of the night. All was as it should be in the world.