Crash Landing on Dathomir

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"You stay by my side at all times. You are not under anyone's command except for mine and the chieftain's." Mistrielle continued to keep her back turned with her arms crossed. "They will question you on if you are happy with me. This will be determined by their observations of us together and our actions." She hoped that she'd be able to make sure that they believed that he was happy with her. "If you are not, you can break your bond with me and either be claimed by another or be relegated to labor. And as I am one of the contenders for the chieftain's position in time, you will have power over all of the other males. They will treat you differently. They will defer to you."
 
"Well, I don't think you'll have to worry about that, considering just who'd be likely to appropriate me in that case" he said, thinking things over. This seemed like an awfully risky, not to mention personal, thing to use to save him. "Not that I mind you saving me from probable mutilation and death, but... why? Most cultures i've seen or heard of take things such as mates very seriously, and are unlikely to just pick one on a whim" he asked.
 
"...maybe as a way to prove to myself that I am capable of protecting a Mir'Toch." Mistrielle's voice cracked slightly and she moved back over to her hammock, climbing into it and pulling the flaps up so she could not be seen. "Maybe because I'm curious about that thing you have down there. Maybe because you're different from any male I've met and it's weird and interesting. I don't know."
 
The cave lapsed into silence as the sun set, and was only interrupted by the rancor returning with the carcass of some medium sized creature. "There's definitely something there that's pushing at her, but if it implies what I think it implies... " he thought to himself, "Then I'm going to leave it alone for now. Its not relevant to this situation, I hope, and would needlessly antagonize her further." As the rancor moved back to his nest, and settled down again, he himself tried to get some sleep. Even with the muggy heat of the jungle, it was still likely that the cave would get a little chilly in the night, and as Ewan curled up to conserve body heat, he wished he had been wearing his Jedi robes when he was captured.
 
Sighing, Mistrielle got out of her hammock. With a bit of Force strength, she handily launched the creature named Ewan into the hammock. She moved to the carcass of a six-legged deer with a large set of antlers. The antlers would make good spear heads and arrow heads for hunting. The fur was what she wanted right now. Sitting down, she began to skin the creature. Tanning the hides would take a day, with how quickly she worked, so there would be a second hammock the next night. For now, she planned to work through the night to make sure of that. The idea of sharing a bed with the Ewan creature at this point was a bit disturbing.
 
This time, the force application caught him off guard, and instead of landing neatly into the hammock, his surprise motions changed that into flipping the hammock over and landing face first into the ground. 'Fuck it,' he thought to himself, 'I'm tired, i'm sleeping here.'
 
Mistrielle ignored the fact that he had hit the floor. She had attempted to be nice; that was more than most creatures of the male species could say about her. After skinning the creature and hanging the skin up to dry, she quietly tiptoed over the miscreant's head to the hammock. Since he wasn't using it, she was going to sleep in it. After some shifting around, she finally dozed off into a deep, sawing logs type of sleep.
---
Morning broke to the sound of a snore that echoed throughout the cave occasionally. Zet would open an eye then roll over and sleep again. He understood the drill. The sun was just barely starting to rise and she would probably stay asleep as long as possible before doing her rounds. The air inside the cave was actually getting pretty hot, due to the amount of hot air expelled by the two humanoids and the large amount of air expelled by the rancor. In about half an hour, Mistrielle would wake up, complain about the heat, then prepare for rounds. That routine might change a bit due to the fact that they had another creature around; however, Zet doubted that even the unruly male would get in the way of Mistrielle's order.
 
As Ewan slowly regained awareness, he became aware of rythmic sounds rumbling in the chamber around him. They were not the sounds of a hyperdrive, nor any of the other various systems constantly running on his ship. Why was he not more concerned about the lack of noise coming from vital life support systems? As his awareness expands, he realizes he's not laying in between a couple of supply crates in the back of his ship, but on a rough stone floor. As the memories of the previous days rush back, he groaned in misery. Days of travel after leaving the temple, and the first planet he landed on left him enslaved on a primitive world. After contemplating it for a bit, and deciding that he could wait on working through that ball of confusion, he sat up. Or, he tried to, at least. As he had fallen beneath the hammock, as he sat up, his head collided with the hammocks new occupant.
 
A surprised screech echoed through the chamber, bringing the rancor to its feet. A head with extremely long, dark, wavy hair peered down at him. She had taken down him massive braided menagerie before sleeping and resembled something of a wild beast at the moment. The look in her eyes was not too friendly either.
"...you did not just hit my ass."
The angry, aggressive tone used by his master made Zet jump over with a crash, his fangs bared in an angry growl and one of his feet resting squarely on top of the offending male. Something had ticked off his master. He was not sure what; but, he was going to make sure the offender suffered.
 
Struggling to breath under the pressure exerted by the rancors paw/hand-things, he said, "I apologize, but I can guarantee that it wasn't on purpose. At the moment, if I had tried to hit the ground, i'd give myself even odds to miss entirely." Wheezing a slightly painful breath, he finished, "Now if you'll excuse me, I apparently have a rancor mauling scheduled for this morning. Please dont hold against me if I bleed all over your floor." There was sarcasm, just a little, in his last statement, but with the labored breaths he was forced to take, it was not readily apparent.
 
"Zet, up." Mistrielle shook her head and got out of the hammock. Back behind a couple of large rocks was a pool of water. Beside of it, hung several changes of clothes. She quickly stripped all of her clothing off and began to wash them so she could hang them up to dry. It was easier to wash one pair of clothes each morning instead of washing a bunch at once. And she didn't trust her Mir'Toch at this current moment to actually wash the clothing correctly and not gawk at her the whole time. Thus, laundry was her job.
"You know, once we do rounds, you're going to burn up in that ridiculous outfit." Zet lifted his gigantic foot up and sat back on his haunches, staring down at the male. His mistress had been quick to dismiss the issue and that was odd to him.
 
Laying on the cave floor, recovering from his close encounter with a rancor's foot, he said, "Have you seen my skin? It's almost pale enough to be used as a beacon in the sun. I'm gonna burn up either way, so as long as I've got access to plenty of water, I should be fine." Sitting up, he stretched a bit as he asked, "So, what will you have me doing today?"
 
"You are going to learn how to gather food instead of poisonous plants. Also, the river doesn't stretch into the jungle too far and we can't carry too much water. Learn to tough it out, Outlander, or you'll be enjoying heat stroke. And I won't keep saving you from heat stroke if you don't learn how to survive on this planet. You aren't in your galaxy anymore. I suggest you listen to the people who actually live here." Mistrielle hung up the next set of clothes and quickly put on the next set. They were all basically the same thing. They were what fit comfortably underneath her armor. Her scouting wasn't going to happen today with an outsider in tow; so, she could move freely through the jungle floor. The red sun was getting higher. That meant it was prime time to get the roots of many aquatic plants before the animals mauled them too badly. She reached for a staff, much like the chieftain's except that it only had one color of crystal. It was the same black tourmaline as the stone in her Mir'Toch collar. Normally, she would not need this staff. But with Zvasha's novices hunting them and wild beasts in the jungle, it was perhaps a good time to bring it along. She should probably also alter the saddle so that two could fit more comfortably on Zet. She grabbed her simple bag from the day before, putting dried meat and filling water skins before slinging it onto Zet's saddle. She then took her other bag and made sure that all her poisoned daggers and other small weapons were still all inside. After attaching that onto the saddle, she looked over to the outiser.
"We'll get some more skins and make you some more breathable clothing. Now, hop on." She hopped up with ease onto Zet's saddle.
 
Ewan briefly considered telling her where she could shove her heat stroke, as he got up and moved over towards the rancor. Brushing off any excess dirt and detritus that may have accumulated over the last 24 hours, he examined his clothes with a glance. A tunic, made of a light colored fabric, was light in weight and breathable. A pair of simple cloth pants, which while of a darker color than his tunic, were far from the heavy, durable fabrics worn by the average laborer. Walking over to were the rancor and dathomirian native waited, he said, "Itll keep the sun from burning the skin right off me, and its light enough that I shouldn't be baked alive in the heat." While he was no longer affiliated with the jedi, it was surprisingly hard to let go of the garb he wore as a part of them. Clambering up into the saddle behind Mistrielle, "Regardless, it seems I've got a lot to learn today."
 
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"When you start dying of heat stroke, I told you so." Mistrielle sighed. "I'll take you down to the base of the waterfalls and you will be gathering plants to bring back to me. I'll review the plants you bring back to me and see how screwed you would be if you were trying to live on your own." Zet moved on his own, carefully clamoring down the waterfall. "So." She looked at him in amusement. "Go find plants. Hint. Don't forget the roots of aquatic plants. And be careful about eating anything you pick up." She flipped up onto a tree limb and leaned back lazily.
 
Carefully clambering down off the rancor's back, he stared at the jungle around him for a moment. Although survival courses were taught at the academy, most took only the required courses, and then never needed or maintained those skills. Fortunately for him, he had taken a refresher course before he made his getaway, so while they couldn't cover every piece of edible flora and fauna on every world, they had covered a number of identifying features of plants that would likely be edible. Of course, this would normally have been backed up by a number of small and relatively simple sensor devices to confirm its usefulness as a food stuff. Hopefully, due to the presence of humans and rancor, and sightings of other relatively common animals found across the galaxy, there would be a number of plants that would be direct analogs to those he knew of.

About an hour later, he trekked on back to where he had left the dathomir native and her rancor, a bundle made of large, wide leaves in tow. A handful of nuts, a few roots, and a fruit; hardly a feast, but all the things he had brought back were close enough to what he was familiar with to be confident in their edibility. Granted, he'd be a lot happier given a couple tools from his ship, but it'd have to do in this situation.
 
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Mistrielle rustled through the bundle quickly. The fruit was a large melon that grew from vines. It wasn't the tastiest thing in the world; it was very sour tasting. However, it was high in nutritional value, making it quite valuable. A single melon could last the two of them a week since eating large portions of it would be difficult. The roots were mostly the aquatic ones that she had pointed out earlier. As a rule of thumb, the aquatic plants were less likely to be poisonous around here. The nuts, however, made her chuckle. She wondered if he had tried to eat any of these nuts. They were almost impossible to chew and forget digesting them normally. The trees that these nuts fell from were also normally home to an annoying creature. He must have gotten lucky and not gotten attacked by one.
"The fruit is called the chintelloc. High in nutritional value, low on the ability to eat large quantities because of how sour it is. Rule of thumb, aquatic plants are less likely to be poisonous in these parts. You just have to watch out for burra fish. Nasty little buggers." Mistrielle then looked at him with a sigh. "Nuts are something to avoid. Most trees that bare nuts are inhabited by growing whuffa worms. They aren't too bad when they're a foot long. They can grow to weight probably a ton. They're also super intelligent for worms. They latch onto you, you may be losing a limb."
 
"That... Is good to know, I suppose," he said, slightly unnerved,"these are also only the plants I was positive could be eaten raw. I saw a few others that could be processed into edible food stuff fairly easily with the right tools." Staring at the woman, he asked, "What would you have me do next?"
 
"I did not tell you to bring me plants that could be eaten raw." Mistrielle raised an eyebrow. "I told you to find edible plants. All. Not within some category in your mind. Do you think I am incapable of 'processing' said food?" With a chuckle, she jumped down from the rancor and put down the bundle. "Men. Too many assumptions. There's a reason why the women rule on this world." She stopped for a moment, as if listening. "Zet. Track." Zet immediately disappeared into the foliage with barely a sound. "Something is moving out there. Decently big too. Don't want you to get eaten on your first day out. Oh, by the way...." There was a hint of amusement in her eyes as she began this line of thought. "Did you come across any large pits that were covered by several large leaves?"
 
"Yeah, I did," he said, "I stayed well clear of it too." He recalled a feeling of dread every time he encountered one, so he wasn't anxious to get any closer than he absolutely had to. "And I believe you said something about seeing how screwed I would be on my own. I have no idea what you do or do not know how to process, so I didn't assume anything. Now," he anxiously searched around for whatever was spooking his... companion? As he waited for whatever was stalking towards them, hidden in the thick foliage of the jungle, he really wished he had some sort of weapon. While he was glad that he had not had his lightsaber on him when he was captured, as he'd likely never see it again, he dearly wished that he had brought a knife or other means of self-defense.
 
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