Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 04_ Agents of Chaos 01_ Hero's Trial - James Luceno [6]
C-3PO understood that he may not have been allowed to attend the funeral, in any case. Everyone attending the memorial was a member of Chewbacca’s extended family, but it was unlikely that the affiliation applied to him—much less to his counterpart, R2-D2. For all their espousal to machines, intelligent and otherwise, flesh and bloods could be extremely proprietary about matters of kinship and family.
Close to Ralrra squatted Chewbacca’s father, Attichitcuk, along with Chewbacca’s auburn-furred sister, Kallabow. Alongside them sat Chewbacca’s widow, Mallatobuck, and their son, Lumpawarrump, who had taken the name Lumpawaroo—Waroo for short—on the successful completion of his rite of passage. Interspersed among the Wookiee contingent stood assorted friends, kin-brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews—Lowbacca among the latter, a Jedi Knight.
The humans numbered only six: Master Luke, Mistress Leia, Master Han, and the three Solo offspring, Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina. Conspicuously absent was Lando Calrissian, who, much to Master Han’s disquiet, had sent word that unexpected—and unspecified—developments would prevent his attending. Master Luke’s wife, Mara, might have attended if a sudden relapse in her mysterious malady hadn’t forced her to remain on Coruscant.
The exquisitely carved table at the center of the circle rested on a carpet of wroshyr tree leaves, its pedestal base entwined with dark-green kshyy vines and its round top strewn with kolvissh blossoms, wasaka berries, Orga root, and the glossy yellow petals of the syren plant. The cool air was redolent with the aroma of smoldering tree-resin incense.
[Here on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s mettle made itself known at an early age,] Ralrra continued. [With his late friend Salporin]—he paused to glance at Salporin’s widow, Gorrlyn—[Chewbacca left the nursery ring to venture down along the Rryatt Trail to the Well of the Dead, in the heart of the Shadow Forest. Armed only with a ryyyk blade, he braved mock shyrr, jaddyyk moss, needlebug, trap-spinnerr, and shadow-keeperr to harvest strands from the heart of the flesh-eating syren, thus earning the right to wearr a baldric, carry a weapon, and confirm the name he chose to be known by. Here, too, Chewbacca ventured into the great Anarrad pit—not once or even twice, but five times, taking down the taloned katarn on three of those hunts and once receiving a wound from the beast in return.] Ralrra indicated a spot on his shaggy torso. [Here, on the left side of his chest.
[In preparation for his marriage, which took place atop this very branch, Chewbacca descended to the fifth level and there with bare hands captured a quillarat and presented it to Malla as an expression of his love. And when it came time for Waroo’s initiation, Chewbacca was steadfast in his support and encouraging of his son’s quest of the scuttle grazerr.]
While some of Chewbacca’s accomplishments on his homeworld were familiar to C-3PO, his memory lacked anything in the way of corroborative data, so he summoned recollections of his own experiences with the Wookiee and was immediately inundated with a rapid-fire sequence of images, some of them dating back twenty-five standard years.
His first sight of Chewbacca, standing like a cinnamon-colored tower outside Docking Bay 94 in the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine … Chewbacca as a sore loser in dejarik holoboard contests … Chewbacca on Bespin’s Cloud City, incorrectly reattaching C-3PO’s head after it had been used by Ugnaughts as a plaything in a game of Wookiee in the Middle … Master Han’s assertion that Chewbacca was always thinking with his stomach … The many, many times Chewbacca was referred to as “flea-bitten furball,” “overgrown mophead,” “walking carpet,” or “noisy brute,” occasionally by C-3PO himself—in imitation of humans, of course