Inevitable {Tech}

Chapter Sixteen: Shaeeah & Jek

"And what's that green one?" Shaeeah spoke softly. The older Twi'lek sibling had her head touching Cass' shoulder, and the younger of the two had his head laid on Cass' stomach.

"That's Felucia, it's a jungle planet," Cass answered. "It's really warm and humid and there's these big blue worms called gelagrub." Cass tapped on her data pad and brought up an image of the creature.

"Ewww," Jek scrunched his nose and imagined the giant squishy worm swimming through the leaves and vines of the jungle.

"Yeah they're pretty weird looking, but they're very ticklish," Cass revealed and placed her data pad aside.

"A worm? Ticklish?" Shaeeah rolled onto her stomach. She propped up on her elbows and raised a brow.

"Oh very," Cass nodded. "I had a friend named Hardcase and he was absolutely out of his mind ninety-nine percent of the time. He thought it would be a good idea to try to bridle it like a bantha."

The kids laughed when they imagined a clone trying to wrestle with something so huge in comparison. Cass remembered it vividly. The blue glow that emanated from within the insect, the way Hardcase idiotically chuckled as it kept throwing him off with its massive body, Echo and Fives making bets on how long he could stay on without it bucking him off, Jesse and Kix trying to ignore them.

"Anyways, let's just say he never tried to tame another animal again," Cass laughed then raised a finger. "That is until Kix dared him to ride a gurreck." Cass shivered when she recalled the whole ordeal. Hardcase couldn't walk straight for three days.

"You have some crazy friends," Shaeeah flopped onto her back once again.

Cass swallowed hard and nodded. She blew out a sigh and fought the urge to recall more memories—memories that would only cause her to spiral again. She wasn't ready to look back at everything yet, the wounds were still too fresh. But there was no harm in acknowledging that she agreed with Shaeeah.

"Crazy is an understatement," Cass conceded.

"Will you tell us more?" Shaeeah and Jek looked to her earnestly.

"Okay okay, just one more and then we need to go to bed, alright?" Cass hushed them and raised her hand to the darkness of space. "You see that cluster right there? And there?" she outlined the figure with her index.

The kids hummed a few "uh huh"s and nodded.

"That's drall's hat, it's a constellation. It's the brightest when you're on Corellia, but you can faintly see it from here." She drew her finger from the top of the constellation, to the bottom, listing all the stars by name. "I've always wanted to go to Drall, or maybe even meet a Drall. They're very intelligent and have enormous libraries on their planet, and they have these art pieces made out of beautiful gems."

Shaeeah propped at her elbows again, but this time her demeanor was much more inquisitive in nature. "How do you know so much?"

"I've always loved learning things. There's a great big galaxy out there waiting for me and you," she spanned her arms out dramatically, spreading her fingers over the celestial bodies that hung in the heavens above their heads. "You can never have too much knowledge. And with a universe like this, you'll never run out of things to learn," she sighed happily.

Shaeeah softly rocked her feet as she laid on her stomach, completely fixated on every word that came out of the Jedi's mouth. Jek was calmed by the rise and fall of Cass's chest, and when Cass began to gently pet his head his eyes slowly began to drift closed.

"You remind me of Uncle Tech," Shaeeah confessed and lazily drew circles on Cass's shoulder.

"Oh really?" Cass mumbled. She also was growing weary in the night and couldn't fight the content smile on her lips as she thought of him.