Removed from out of the highly structured and sheltered environment in which the two youngling boys had lived their whole lives as either remembered them, and struggling with feelings of guilt, grief, and loss that adults would have difficulty coping with, the children had gone from [i]friends[/i] to [b]fighting[/b] in less than twenty-four hours. For what reason? Neither boy could have said. Simply, at some point, Zak had either declared Sor-Jan to be a [i]butthole[/i], or perhaps it had been SJ who had first called the Nautolan [i]Squidboy[/i], or perhaps the name-calling had started later and something else entirely had started the fight. 

Whatever the case may have been, in the somewhat bi-polar nature of younglings, the fighting had been brief and the two were again friends as suddenly as they had stopped being so. Albeit, the black-haired Anzati now sported a black eye and the moss green Nautolan had a split lip whose red scar stood out against the gray-green flesh.

To be sure, both boys were thoroughly confused. Without a night or a day, neither youngling had any notion of time. Without their clan master, neither knew to whom they were beholden. Were they supposed to meditate? Were they supposed to study? Was there going to be a test later? 

And so the two younglings did largely as they pleased. They went to sleep when they were tired, they ate when they were hungry, and they played as they saw fit. The pair always kept somewhat near where the knights and padawans were meditating or talking, just in case one of them had something for the boys to do, but it seemed that they were passing their time on the journey between themselves.

For their first task, which had been the one they’d been undertaking when their friendship had abruptly soured, the boys had constructed a fortification by using the Force to manipulate and move a series of crates and boxes from around the lower hold of the ship. This structure was known as [i]Kilo Base[/i] and it was surrounded by an imaginary moat of lava. One had to know the right deckplates to step on and the proper order for stepping on them in order not to get burned by the lava. From out of their self-made sanctuary of Kilo Base, the two younglings played at being Sector Rangers – a game which seemed to involve harassing padawans ([i]space pirates[/i]) and zipping around knights ([i]asteroid fields[/i]) while making starfighter noises. Whatever those were.

One of the real Sector Rangers had provided the younglings with a sleeping bag, which was large enough for the both of them, and old shirts, which fit the boys like a tent, so that their Jedi clothing could be patched and refreshed. On at least one occasion, someone had even managed to get the boys themselves into the fresher.

[i]“Beskad Maximus?”[/i]

Large, dark, opaque eyes blinked open. Dark gray swirls moving like storm clouds in the black orbs of the Nautolan’s eyes as the youngling woke from out of a nap that he didn’t recall lying down for. Zak and SJ had returned to Kilo Base to review top secret plans detailing a space pirate invasion – which also happened to be a holocomic saved on SJ’s datapad. Zak could remember everything up to about page twelve, at which point he must have dozed off.

True to form, as the young Nautolan pushed himself up off the deck with his arms, he felt a dead weight shift against his side and realized that Sor-Jan had dozed off as well. The datapad slipped from out of the sleeping Anzati’s fingers, clattering to the floor with a sound that made the near-human Anzat jump awake, the sight of which immediately sent Zak into a fit of giggles. And the sight of the Nautolan laughing at him sent the embarrassed Anzati pouncing on top of the other youngling as the pair descended into play-wrestling.

[i]“He is a potential ally Kraytan.”[/i]

The two younglings stopped their play at the sound, or rather the tone, of the voices echoing over to their crate-and-box fort. Were the adults arguing?

Disentangling themselves from one another, the two boys pulled themselves up on crates that they had stacked inside of the walls of the fort, allowing each to stand on a box and so peer over the sides of the fortification’s wall. The moss green head of the Nautolan appeared first, followed shortly after by SJ’s piercing blue eyes, as the two boys peered from over the walls of their imagination castle and watched the discussion taking place among the knights.