**Unknown Planet**
*Planet surface outside of village Topamoki*

"Ughh..." Alara attempted to pick herself up from the cold, hard ground she somehow wound up on. Her eyes flickered open to see a dark, forest setting around her. It must be something like 22:00 by now. She wiped blood and dirt off of her face by lifting her right arm to do the dirty work, and sat up with crossed legs. Her Sephi ears flicked in multiple directions and angles as the Battlemaster tried to find out where she ended up.

*This planet does not look familiar. At all. Am I in the Unknown Region somewhere?*

She looked around to find her ARC 170 Starfighter smashed into smithereens behind where she sat. It didn't look like any of the machinery survived. Even the window, which she must have smashed through upon impact of the planet, was shattered into smithereens. The Quaestor immediately tapped her forehead. Sure enough, a lovely sized slice was left behind by the blast. She felt sore all over the place, especially on her elbows, chest, and knees which were scraped up in all sorts of wonderful cuts.

*Fwec. If this scars I'm going to look like some sort of abstract art pictograph.* Alara snarled to herself.

She spat out some more blood from her swollen tongue and instinctively reached for her datapad on her left wrist. Unfortunately, only half of the screen remained attached to the strap. A gasp shook Alara to her core. She immediately ran to her starfighter in attempts to find her droid she named Baxter. He was no where to be found. Then her memory slapped her hard with twinges of guilt and stupidity as she realized she had left him behind to protect her tusked cat, Artemis. The half-Sephi kicked the ground in frustration as her ears fluttered with anger that boiled underneath her skin. She crossed her arms roughly and tapped each arm with her index fingers as she bit onto her lower lip to think of a plan. No ship. No droid. No datapad. She was officially alone.

Well, not quite...

The snap of a twig tickled her Sephi ears. Alara quickly spun around, clicked her sabers off of their belt clips, and ignited their plasma to light the scene. In front of her stood two small, furry creatures. They must have been no more than 4 feet high, and appeared to be a feline-like humanoid. Not quite like Zygerrians, as they were vibrantly colored in hues of green and blue, and were more kitten-like than anything. The creatures began to meow to eachother in gasps and tones of worry as they pointed to the figure before them. Alara immediately turned off her sabers.

"Sorry about that, can't be too careful in such a time as this. I mean you no harm." Alara lifted each finger slowly off of its assigned lightsaber hilt and allowed them to slip to the ground. She kept her hands up and stepped forward. The creatures cooed in fearful tones and stepped backwards. Instinctively, the Quaestor knelt down to meet safer eye contact and tried her best to hush them.

"There there, I mean you no harm. Safe. Okay."

One teal-colored feline blinked its large childlike eyes and tried to mouth the words Alara had just spoken: "Saaaayyffff. Okkaaaiiiee."

"Yes, very good." She held a thumbs up at the creature and flashed a smile. Suddenly the creatures looked at her in a different light and began jumping up and down with joy.

"Aeeeeta! Aayyeeetta!" Each kitten jumped with glee as they shook eachother in amazement.

"A...ayeeta? What?" Alara tried to figure out what was going on. She looked at her thumb. *Did I just send them a signal of sorts in their language? Or are they just happy to know I mean them no harm?*

"Ayeeta! Ayeeta!" One violet creature stepped forward with a thumbs up signal and suddenly bowed down before the half-Sephi. The five other creatures also in attendance immediately bowed as well and raised their hands from the sky to her feet chanting those words over and over again.

"Well... I guess I can get used to this." Alara giggled slightly. She sat on the ground in front of them and suddenly gave into the urge to kiss each of their foreheads.

*Looks like I'm an Empress of sorts, now.*