To You I Bestow (a YV-centric fic)

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To You I Bestow (a YV-centric fic); A story about stars, garlands, & lovers
Topic Started: Apr 23 2008, 11:02 PM (150 Views)
Hypoallergenic_Wetsuit	Apr 23 2008, 11:02 PM Post #1
hail the Scapes Contortium! Posts: 355 Group: Members Member #370 Joined: June 26, 2007	A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a hopeful intergalactic hitchhiker named Elmíra. The couple in question ---------------- To You I Bestow Night fermented in the mineral pools, but the worldship never slept; rather, it winked into darkness, not unlike a city with innards of durasteel that hummed in empty storage chambers. Distant white lights streamed in ribbons across the surface of the black water, and in the reeds and vineyard-sweet mangroves a multitude of many-coloured insects chirped, an orchestra. Dew glistened in the upper boughs, jungle vines jutted from walls that curved in. A solitary body rested in the steam rising from the vents, a body with the makings of a face; bony, sunken-eyed, two holes for nostrils, a bare peak of a head. It was clad solely in a black oozhith, little droplets sliding off the slick surface. The sound of breathing hissed in and out of a pair of mammalian lungs, through teeth like tiny daggers. A Yuuzhan Vong warrior, at rest in the little grove of marsh trees. The orchestra did not waver in its concerto, oblivious to the hungry mind that flickered in the twilight of the recession chamber. They knew no masters, owed no fear to what the Galaxy scorned. Elmíra closed her eyes and listened with an insectivore’s sharp ears, drifting into a light summer sleep. But there was no time to sleep, and a most humbling sight awaited her as her eyes reopened. Stars. Tonight, the vaulted ceiling above the microbial pools glistened with luminous pinpoints, moving, breathing, feeding. One skittered meekly across the dark stone, lost its foothold, and floated down like a windborne seedpod to land next to Elmíra, half a metre away in the steam pool. It happened too often, thought she. In her cupped hands twitched a many-legged creature, twinkling like the lambent arms of the galaxy on her elongated face. It was only an optical illusion, she knew. From the viewports of ships she piloted, stars were deathly unwavering points. Air and stars…Murkhrana had no sky, but the shapers had besequined its bruised ceiling with tiny glowbugs. Centuries and centuries had passed since a night sky shone over Domain Val’s territories. Elmíra had seen one, on a colony world. Nothing else in her life could ever compare to the immense shroud of stars over her head that first night. Nothing else in her life was breath and the deep sea of space as one, so vast and enveloping, but alive and welcoming to a tiny, fragile body in its midst. The Void would have surely crushed her like an insect between the jaws of a wading bird had she ever dared escape the confines of her little life-raft made of stone, the yorik-et with its hood of flesh and the comforting touch of the war coordinator. The evening ceiling was a cruel mockery. An abomination. And yet there was hardly a warrior elite alive who agreed! All of them were content to rot in their ships as they watched worlds with such skies burn, thinking nothing of lush jungles or torrential rivers. Content to wait on an afterlife that would never come and fly over landscapes they would never touch, or perhaps never fully appreciate. How arrogant, how mired in their ways to take young hopefuls such as she as endlessly expendable in waves numbering thousands in ramparts made of their own dead. Perhaps she was considered good under a thorny membrane in some commander’s bedchamber, helpless like a specimen under a killing jar. Left to her fate, bound and gagged and unable to speak as when all the warmasters in history had their way with every hopeful who unwittingly pried into their secret compartments in curiosity. A swift crunch and the star was extinguished in her hand, leaving only a smear of a viscous residue behind. Spread out on the membrane between her fingers was a still-glittering mass of tissue. She wiped it away on the fabric of her bodysuit and waded back to the water’s edge. Her long ear implants perked. There was a visitor. It was at this time the night bathers flocked to the recession pool. It could be another member of her domain. Wet footsteps sloshed in the sediment. Elmíra swiftly tilted her head to look into the swamp foliage, anticipating a visitor. It remained unseen, preferring to hide in the peripheral mangroves that crowned the pool. Tiny rustles seemed to come from every direction, making pairs of tiny hairs prickle in the corners of her mouth. Heart rapidly beating, she picked up the knife set down next to a jacket of maroon clothrobe. Very slowly, a dark shape moved into sight, its long black hair obscuring its face in the half-light. Elmíra stood her ground in the wet silt as it came closer, and closer still, and finally reached her side. Closing the gap, it extended a hand with five perfect nails, stroking the velvet of her chin. Now, the intruder resembled a warrior in a slip of off-white hide. Disgusted, she batted him away. Such filth that was allowed in the ranks of noble warriors! Elmíra grunted in displeasure, backing away. The warrior had unsheathed a single bone makhern from its flesh anchor, and shrugged off his robe. “Stay,” spoke the creature, more an animal of the bush than a Yuuzhan Vong, voice straining as he fingered a neathlat-bound bruise on his side. “You!” staring back was the familiar face of her field commander, Voh’nn Seinheild. His long tangle of black hair was more disheveled than usual, and the blue sacs under his eyes discoloured, but his exposed upper teeth were twisted in their usual smirk. Snapping to attention, Elmíra stood in obedience as Seinheild drew them into an embrace. The younger warrior dared not disobey for fear, but her skin felt as if covered in tiny parasites. Except for the Gods, they were alone. Who knew what opportunity this posed to Seinheild, with spice-laden breath resembling that of a bissop in rut, running the blade of the makhern on the inked lines of her elongated skull. “I expected you to be here.” He sounded tired now but far from giving in, clasping both arms around her waist, feeling the slippery skin of her oozhith. A twitch of the tendons, and the makhern was gone, and the two slid into the warm water. “There is much unfinished.” She nodded, but not in anticipation of what was to come. The commander’s want of females was not unknown to the landing crew of the Arc-Forge. She was not the first, or the last one he would ever fancy. Disgusting azh-nyot, she thought. Not all subordinates followed their orders without question. “Ufanwe need not know.” He brought his scarred mouth to the bridge of her nose, a kiss. The smell of aromatic caf beans lingered in his breath. In return, Elmíra gave the equivalent of a Yuuzhan Vong eyeroll, letting the full pigmentation of her eyesacs drain from her face. He only laughed, admiring the gist of the moment, and brought their flat noses tip to tip. For a moment, their lips brushed against each other. “I remember you were willing to do it for longer, back then.” he said, looking at the hint of dark pigmentation blooming upon the face of the other warrior. It had been in the hospice bay, on a forest colony called Endor that she had found the audacity to pry under the sheets as he recovered from a foiled attempt on his life. His still-healing wound was dressed under bandages, and his strength not yet recovered. “Mira’al’s influence extends here. You are not welcome,” she replied. A brute like Seinheild was considered an ill match by domain Val’s genetic counselor. Elmíra had been meaning to avoid the commander at all costs, for it was in the presence of Mira’al Dresh he had no right to his advances, and pity if they were ever alone. Then, no one would know, no intervening matron who dwelled in the safety of the precinct, only herself at the mercy of the commander and his ruthless reign over the battlefield. Perhaps the Gods would know, but pity if they should exist! Her torment would be drawn out, far away from domain or daylight, and they would watch the heretic suffer, monumental in their silence. “But, there is honor in accepting my offer. So far, you have been denied the rank of subaltern. What fools they are…” “My domain considers you a disgraced commander. The blame for the raid on the Endor settlement settles on you. Mine is already a dwindling one, and Gods know if you steal their breeding stock for your own purposes. Have you not heard of the fate of Ekh’m Val and how this has tarnished our legacy? Have you no concept of overindulgence? I have seen the rampant excess in your quarters! It is quite disgusting, how much you take and how little you give back. And that intendant…” “I am still your superior,” asserted Seinheild, the shade of his eyes darkening and his voice agitated. He had let her live one several occasions when her words strayed too close to truth, to heresy, or petty defiance when a more consummate mind and body would follow without question. What if he was to take her overdue life now? He grabbed her wrist that was still holding the knife. “My convictions stand true, but why have you hesitated?” she mocked. “There is something I intended to give to you,” Seinheild confessed, although it was no brave stature he possessed. He had been planning this for days, poring over each detail… At once, Elmíra’s form perked in anticipation, her hand loosening its grip on the coufee. So he did? “This,” said the commander, producing an object from the hide girdle around his waist. It was a crown of stars, or a chain of little mites with their feelers interlocked. Elmíra blinked in bewilderment as he slipped it around her long, ovoid head. A pale blue light illuminated her furrowed face gently as Seinheild closed the gap between their lips. “How did you?” she asked, not quite believing he was capable of courtship as subtle as gift-giving, even if he was too clumsy to wait for her reaction first. “Plucked from the ceiling with a whip as thin as one of my hairs,” he explained, savouring the memory of the kiss. “This ceiling is the property of the domains who share it! The illumination is already dying by the day, and you decide to take a few more stars? What gave you the right?” “There’s always other ceilings. You’ve seen the caves on Endor? Very pretty insect traps, how they glisten in the dark. The glow attracts flitterflies. Prey.” Voh’nn Seinheild was now running his teeth along the fine velvet of Elmíra’s ears, too impatient to bother with petty words. During her brief excursion to the now-defunct forest settlement, the caves were of little significance, and were left untouched. She had leafed through files in the archives pertaining to the species of cave-larvae afterwards out of curiosity. Far too much of the galaxy’s native life remained unseen to her, possibly never to be seen by her people before being inevitably reshaped as shipyards. He was changing the subject, this one! “If the Jeedai had not discovered us, I would have. But this crown is not yours to give, nor all of Endor.” “It is, for the conqueror who claims it, and all the galaxy he plunders. All else is childish sentimentality, the weakness of the conquered,” he pronounced, clasping both Elmíra’s hands in his own, feeling the rough scars on her fingers and soft silk below her wrists. “I cannot take the altar with you.” “But there is still tonight. And am I not your superior?” “As you wish,” she replied bitterly, and lowered her head in submission. Oh, you wretched animal, she thought, endearingly in the way only her species could. They sunk into the comforting concealment of water together, and Elmíra breathed a soft sigh of release. “It was said that on our homeworld, the Yuuzhan Vong once believed the sky to be a domed ceiling, with the sun as a tiny ball of flames in its breadth. Heretics were made of those who believed otherwise; what a time it was!" "Then, Yun-Ne’shel revealed herself and pronounced there to be worlds beyond Yuuzhan’tar, each encased in a dome of air of its own, revolving around their own suns. Enlightenment was thus granted to Yun-Yuuzhan’s chosen people." ”As with all objects beautiful, children were named after such stars their parents had seen in missions far away. Voh’nn—it is, or was, one of such luminaries located in Anx Space. Age claimed it, and now it’s a cloud of dust.” "Very fickle this was; for you see we live inside a worldship where the stars are in the ceiling and a trivial ball of gas illuminates the dining hall by day. What petty ornaments we should be named after! Her revelation was overturned in a matter of generations and the Yuuzhan Vong plunged into another dark age.” Elmíra Val pointed to an invisible pinpoint in the tapestry of Odana’s false sky. It was well past the time when the dormitories went to bed, and her nightly swim across the shore had ended. The lithe warrior’s body was curled against that of her former commanding officer, Voh’nn Seinheild, and the two observed the sky pensively, lying on the banks. A tint of scarlet stained the mineral waiting pool, a scattering of crimson tea leaves here and there. “The patron of shapers was a fool, a dreamer, nothing more. Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla were far wiser in their pursuit of warfare,” replied the burly male at her side, curling his lower lip in disdain. His inky hair floated, glistened in the water. “My domain would hardly agree. Yun-Ne’shel is the patron of strategists as well, is she not? Both male and female aspects.” “You demote yourself.” “If there is a distinction between what is appropriate for each gender, I perform both sets of tasks. All, if you count the disciples of the Undying Flame as the third one.” “I know their art,” Seinheild leered, running one hand along his partner’s exposed skin, feeling the ribs underneath. “You demonstrate it quite well,” she reciprocated, fingering the suture where the commander had been wounded weeks ago. “You are welcome to stay in my quarters until the kanabar awaken. I am always open if you wish to visit me.” Unless you have other company, she thought, but nodded meekly. A less lenient warrior would have required her to accompany him. He had already risen from his place to retrieve the cream robeskin. In the morning, domain Grahois would be waiting on his imminent demotion, and fall from grace. She placed the crown of stars on her sloped forehead, and watched one slip into the darkness below, gleaming faintly.
	"If all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes and oceans represented by a thin film of nematodes." — N. A. Cobb Click the smexy banner to see art!


Hypoallergenic_Wetsuit	Jun 20 2008, 12:57 AM Post #2
hail the Scapes Contortium! Posts: 355 Group: Members Member #370 Joined: June 26, 2007	Part Two! Oh and this fic got an award nomination over at TF.net for Best Non-Human ! seeeeeee Dawnlight, Baanu Odana Voh’nn Seinheild lay in his private quarters, contemplating the feeling of morning opening before his eyes. It crept into every corner, dimming the feeble illumination in the cavernous room. His thoughts lucid, he contemplated the delicate webbing between his spindly fingers, the way his black hair tangled in the wall beams, the deadness of sleep. He did not sleep tonight, yet the sun would rise on a heavenly sphere far away, in another sector of Time, to announce that Night was past and the world awake. Perhaps somewhere, somehow, she was still alive, watching from the viewport of a familiar battle station when the world was bathing in firstlight. Clouds forming thunderheads, forming bursts of vibrant colour surrounded her view, casting the entire observation deck in brilliant tangerine. It seemed so that they were close enough to inhale, to savour their sweet perfume. From her nostrils flowed a white stream; her lifeforce, in the coldness of morning. Close, but never close enough to touch the sky beyond the dome of the frigate. How he missed the true morning! Lying in the medical bay bound for Baanu Odana, there was stale air and stale food and light not from without the stony walls. Endor was a far memory, another failed mission, a stain on his honour. But how she had lingered at his bunk! For a split-s’měla before his eyes fixed on her threadbare face, he had imagined Elměra Val to be someone else entirely. It mattered little; as he rose to let her change the neathlats bound about his chest, there was no less a pleasure as those work-worn hands tugged the creatures’ bonds, exposed sore spots where the assassin had stabbed him, where he had fallen on his stand of blades. “Come closer.” Seinheild eyed her greedily, expecting more. Hesitantly, she obeyed, caught by the neck of her medical scrub. “I wish to ask a favour of you,” he rasped, rising to slide the dull blue fabric off his attendant’s shoulder, smiling through his tattered lips an animal smile. A hand moved to her notched shoulder blades, continuing to a smooth domed head. Horrified, Elměra pulled away and took several broad paces back. Seinheild collapsed into his cot, exhausted. In his chamber, in the present, he stroked the spiked protrusions on his thigh. In the air of the worldship halls, his skin had the consistency of leather. A quick submersion in an algal bath restored their sheen and sharpened the black lines inked into his skin. It was the water, his mother had once said. Standing on the slippery shore, Anx space, the seaweed stench came to her on the wind. It was not a true shore as much a platform, and the clouds of low-hanging vapour not truly a sea. The air sung in Skande Ahll’s hair, the crevices of her ears whistled, the gnullith pulsed in mineral fervour. Somewhere off, the scout ship was obscured by a pink mist. If only to breathe a puff more than it allowed… She slid the fleshy red star from her nostrils and breathed in, savouring the sharp spice flowing inside herself. It was then the nauseous tumble at the pit of her belly came, and Skande Ahll was again returned to reality, mortality. Bodies made of carbohydrates and proteins and water were vulnerable to attack, something she knew all too well. He recalled the rest of his exchange with Elměra. “Do not think that I am a villip mistress, Commander.” Hardly surprising, how she proclaimed her undying hatred for him as she left the room. Surely, she had been watching as he slept? Touching? If only there were eyes recording the two of them while he rested, then he would know. What good fortune that he had caught her sneaking a kiss when he appeared to be asleep… The Commander had finally known when they had last met. Water, insects, stars, and the steeping of wakeful drink from the mineral pools had culminated in a most exquisite confession on her behalf. Not a word had been spoken, but he knew. Such a pretty figure bereft of armour, milky white skin that glistened under the starlight… “When shall you delight me with a visit?” he spoke out loud, both hands clasped over his heart. For the past solar-slivers, he anticipated Elměra at the mouth of the grotto. “I have mastered the art of inflicting pain most exquisite. Must you continue to hide yourself?” Fool, he thought. Ufanwe’s daughter knew better than to visit on a whim. Lovesick as a juvenile was he. An overgrown juvenile. It was almost a new day and she hadn’t come to his quarters. It was unlikely she would ever, if he were banished to some far-off system in the morning. Before her eyes a radiant burst of light, reaching every corner of the cloud clearing. No words were needed to describe it, no explanation of the obvious as others would have asked her if she had seen. Of course, of course. A star had died. How poetic, how tragic, how indescribable that she was bathing in its old light under the observation dome. “What is the name of the star?” she had asked the ancient navigator with his long flesh-tresses and long fingers. Glancing up at the younger Yuuzhan Vong, he (or was it she?) replied “Va-hun, on the infidel maps.” “Voh’nn,” she mouthed the syllables, weighing their meaning. The navigator did not ask Skande Ahl and she did not ask the navigator, but they both agreed, silently. Such a beautiful sky! From here, stars were as lucid as those in the Great Hall, far away from cities and artificial lights that would obscure them. Not many knew of this place; the landing party was utterly alone. The last time...the last time he had been separated from the one he held most dear, she had died before his graduation from the Academy. Hull breach, they had told him. A wave of giddiness overcame Seinheild, causing muscles to contract and pinpricks to stab his chest. Wetness accumulated in the corners of his eyes, partly from deprival of sleep, partly from the strain of recalling emotions he could not adequately describe. Reaching over to his storage compartment, Voh’nn reached for a projection-engraving of a thin, bony warrior with dark hair threaded into a headdress. Reminiscient of a Yammosk was her fleshy pink gown, adorned with myriad frills at its hem. Folded into her chest was a child, hair neatly combed to one side, wearing a combat trainee’s reserved uniform. He had been twelve, having left the care of the Slayer’s priests. She had been fifty-four spitta. The gown was now lost to the void, as with many of domain Seinheild’s relics. Walking around the market square, she put a hand to her still-churning stomach. The parasite would not rest, and neither would she. A change of dress was in order. At one stall a tailor was training robeskin fabric into fantastic shapes. Garments built on adirsa-bone frames shone in hues of emerald and coral-tint. On one hanger hung a lavender gown adorned like a boneless sea creature. “How many rations is this?” she asked. “That is negotiable.” Another failure. The child was never carried to term. Another half-formed creature for the shapers to experiment on. With a great sigh, Voh’nn Seinheild prepared to close his eyes. An alarm vibration was set, and the lights dimmed. Into his bunk he sank, preparing for a short slumber, when the hatch sphincter opened with a wet pop. In the entryway stood a cloaked figure, carrying a lambent in its hand. Seinheild strained to see who it was as the mouth of the grotto sealed shut. “Shh….” She spoke, lifting the hood to reveal a long, angular face and accompanying auditory implants. Al’miraq’, domain Val--- Elměra! His heart lept, and he rose to meet her as she ascended the ladder of the bunk. “I must not be seen here,” she whispered in the ear that was still intact. Voh’nn now realized the lambent was a ceiling-star from the garland he had made for her. “I imagine the decision to come here was difficult,” he smirked. “…I also needed time to change. Into this.” A full loinguard! The oozhlith was nowhere in sight. She vaguely resembled a colleague of his, when he had been escalated to the rank of full warrior. What had Vasi gone on to become? “The bottom bunk can be filled with water.” “I know.” Seinheild flushed blue, and hoped she did not notice. “There is very little time for that. Do you grant me permission to sleep on the top bunk?” “You must share, if it is to happen.” “Yes, Commander Seinheild. But wait! Who is the female wearing a gown resembling the cloak I brought?” she examined the engraving and Skande Ahll and her son. “You are not authourized to ask!” he flushed in embarrassment until the rings under his eyes were as dark as a flagship’s exterior. Elměra said not another word, only curled her ear implants coyly. She had a very good idea who the two in the portrait were. The morning came without much in the way of sleep. It was only a schedule on a worldship like this. Perhaps it was high noon on Endor, and the Ewoks awake. The dawn had risen again, but the image of the dying star lingered in her mind. On her qasah the glyphs were written, as not to forget. But she would not forget.
	"If all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes and oceans represented by a thin film of nematodes." — N. A. Cobb Click the smexy banner to see art!


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