Beyond Beginnings (Dear Diary Challenge 2010) -- OC/Kyp -- Completed 09/12/12

Title: Beginnings
Author: Ceillean
Characters: OC (Eliziya), Kyp, Jag, Jaina and various others
Genre: General, Romance, Suspense, Drama
Summary: The story of Liz starts off at Jag and Jaina's wedding. While it's a joyous and beautiful occasion, there's darkness lurking in the corners and out to strike at Liz. And she doesn't know why.


PM List

Jade_Eyes
Kailene








There are times in life when you sit back and close your eyes and ask yourself: what the kriff am I doing?

Would it not have been perfect if the answer had come flying through the nearest window to hit you upside the head? I began contemplating my life ? past as well as present ? while I should have indeed been enjoying myself.

Because that?s what you do at weddings, right? You feel happy for the bride and groom, you gush over how beautiful the bride looks, how scrumptious her husband-to-be looks in his new black suit and you gasp in awe at all the delicious food set up on a buffet table near the dance floor. And let?s not forget all the pretty decorations and the guests in their fancy clothes with big bright smiles on their faces, and the enormous ? if not completely ridiculous ? amounts of colorful flowers from halfway across the galaxy.

And since this wedding is the wedding of the century, we mustn?t forget the media with their cameras and little spy droids and big-mouthed journalists hounding the Crystal Palace.

It?s the perfect day for the bride and groom. It?s their time to officially and openly declare their undying and endless love for one another.

I find all this pompous nonsense horrifyingly exhausting. Not because weddings tend to be stressful and loud and at times even a bit obnoxious and over the top but because I have to pretend that I am indeed enjoying myself.

I?m good at pretending.

*

?Do you think she?ll be able to breathe if you tie her up any tighter?? I asked with raised brows, watching as Tenel Ka laced the back of Jaina?s white gown with a little grunt. The corset even squeaked a bit. ?You do understand that she still has to walk down the aisle.?

?Of course. And she will be perfectly fine.?

?Easy for you to say.? Jaina leaned forward a little, bracing her hands against the wall as Tenel manhandled her gown. ?You?re not the one who?s suddenly missing a lung.?

Tenel smiled slightly and I noted a twinkle in her green eyes. ?I dress like this on a daily basis. I never complain.?

?Stuff like this is in your job description.? Jaina said between clenched teeth.

?You will live.?

Tenel stepped back and gestured for Jaina to turn around. Granted, the Empress-to-be looked astonishing. For a moment there, all I could do was stare at her utter beauty.

This wasn?t the Jaina I knew ? this was a girly Jaina with twinkling, crystal jewelry and dark hair elaborately styled with matching hair pins and she wore discreet make-up that brought out her hazel eyes. For the first time I could actually see the Empress and not the grease monkey I had met all those years ago.

?You?re beautiful.? I whispered with a little smile on my face.

?Indeed.? Tenel agreed softly. ?Truly beautiful.?

?Will you two stop it?? Jaina said quietly but I could tell that she was on the brink of tears. Common at weddings, I was told beforehand.

?Wait until your mother sees you fully dressed like this.?

?Don?t remind ?? Jaina stopped in mid sentence and shifted to turn towards the door on the other side of the dressing room. It was as big as my apartment, befitting her royal status. Yet even though the dressing room was so amazingly large, it was also amazingly empty. A sitting circle underneath an enormous window, a large dressing table with an oval mirror with bright white lights attached to the frame; a clothes rack and a few boxes with shoes and not to forget a small dresser packed with glittering, twinkling and/>

Cei! How superb that you've started this -- first diaryout of the gate and all that LOL This looks sweet and funny. Liz has a warm witty style.

And having J&J here too makes it per-fect.

Beautiful! I love all the detail, the description of the room, how her jewels twinkled. You've really put me right there with the characters.

Thank you. Liz is my favorite OC by far. Love that gal. And I wanted both J/J and K/OC so I thought why not? Although it's a lot to write, I have to admit. I hope I'm not going in over my head with this one.

Thanks, Nat. I shall PM you when I update.

Thanks! The details had me wracking my brain for decent words to use, I have to admit. But it worked. Thanks for reading.

I love it! Jag is too cute, and I could just see the look on his face as Liz kept him away from Jaina. Great start! Please add me to the PM list!

Awesome start
Liz is cool
and typically Jag to send Kyp when he has no chance with the girls
Liz got a bit swooony huh?
and I am certain she envies Jaina about the wedding and Kyp being all lazy backside in that regards

Glad you like it. And Liz sure has her ways. I'll gladly send out PM's. Thanks for reading.

Thanks, Mags!

Of course Liz got swoony. Who wouldn't?
Who wouldn't envy a happily ever after like Jaina has? Well, minus the Empress bit. But Liz will haver her personal HEA too. I'll make sure of that.

Thanks for reading, sweetie.

Master, you've done it again Oooh, I love it! You just keep pulling out the goods

Brilliant start, and give me a shout when you update

Interesting start
I love mush, so go as far overboard as you want lol
Put me on the pm list please?

Thanks, padawan dearest! And guess what? Anakin is around, too! With Tahiri. Everyone gets a happy ending here.

Thanks, Glinda. And if you like mush, you'll like the rest of the story, too.

Thanks for reading.

Big hug goes out to Jade_Eyes for her input and her patience when I bombarded her with PM's.

And NYCitygurl gets a hug, too because she introduced me to Anja Gallandro in her story "Oh, Force!". I love the character so much, that she has a rather large role in this story. I have no clue if she's in character or not but she's a whole lot of fun.



I stood at the window, gazing down towards the quiet sea that surrounded the Crystal Palace. It was a marvelous view, nothing that I have ever seen before in all my travels around the galaxy. Sea creatures bobbed along the quiet surface, their songs drifting out to those willing to hear it. The Palace stood alone within the sea, the lower levels completely engulfed by turquoise water. You could watch as small and large sea dwelling creatures swam through the thickness of the currents and when the sun?s beams shot down towards the lower levels, their colorful scales glowed with such splendor that it took your breath away.

Among other things, it was times like these that made life so worthwhile.

Distantly I heard the door to the dressing room hiss open and I turned around to witness a beaming Jysella Horn enter with a holocam in her hand. Behind her, Tahiri Veila and Anja Gallandro were laughing with one another ? I picked up a few bits and pieces of conversation and smiled when I heard the name Anakin a few times. Tahiri and the young Solo boy were quite the couple. You could see from afar the way they felt for one another, you just had to look in their eyes and everything you needed to know was right there.

?We need a picture, Jaina.? Jysella said, holding up the holocam for the bride to see. ?The last picture with you and your bridesmaids before you?re married off to Jag.?

?You are one lucky woman.? Anja said with a grin on her pretty face. She was one of those mischievous types, a woman who knew not when to be quiet, which usually got her into a boat load of trouble. And she didn?t care. ?Have you seen his butt in that suit? I?m telling you?wow.?

?Anja!? Tahiri squealed, barely containing her laughter.

Jaina shrugged it off. ?Wow is an understatement, dearest Anja. I would know.? She sighed dramatically, batting her eyelashes. ?I get to squeeze his backside on a daily basis.? She winked at Anja with a devastating grin, which earned her a chorus of laughs from all of us.

We gathered together in the center of the dressing room, making sure Jaina stood in the middle. Jysella, standing on Jaina?s left, held the holocamera up and used the Force to levitate it, pushing it forward. ?Okay.? She said, smiling from one ear to the other. ?To Jaina. And to happy memories.?

I felt a light tap in the Force and a moment later there was a short flash of bright white light. We stood transfixed as our pictures were taken, sudden silence enveloping us as each of us dealt with private thoughts.

It was the sound of sniffing that brought me back to the present.

All of us glanced to the door where Leia Organa Solo suddenly stood, her smile so bright it practically lit up the entire room. ?You look beautiful. All of you look so beautiful.? She whispered, opening her arms for her only daughter. Jaina shuffled towards her mother, one hand holding on to the skirts of her lovely gown before she threw her arms around her mothers? neck.

I turned away then. It was their personal private moment and it felt wrong to watch them. They were family and although I had become a close friend over the years, I felt it wasn?t my place to invade their special moment.

While Jysella placed the holocamera on the dressing table, Tahiri and Anja went back to their conversations about a few of the good looking young men they had already spotted walking the halls of the Palace. Anja was like that ? always on the lookout for fresh meat.

?Are you coming along??

I turned towards the kind voice and smiled as Tenel Ka approached me. She was a tall woman, built like the warrior she was, so unlike the Queen she needed to be for her people. ?A drink on the bride be/>

Loved the description of the setting there at the beginning. Quite gorgeous view. Enjoyed the glimpse into some of Liz's past at the end. Her stint as a social worker matches her warmth and has made her more empathetic -- but it sounds like she was undergoing a bit of burn-out in this post.

Liz is shaping up to be one of those OCs you never forget and feel like you've known forever.

But the gals ribbing Jaina -- She gets to squeeze his backside daily? That needs to go into a siggy as one of the many reasons Jaina's lucky Oh this is fun!!!!! Why couldn't the NJO have snuck in more fun couple-centered banter like that?

?You?re watching me.? I said quietly as I pulled out a chair and sat at the table opposite the stranger. I could barely recognize his face. This corner of the bar was too dark to recognize much at all. But it was his voice that triggered the memories.

And my heart nearly stopped.

?You?re worth watching.?

Ooooohh, what's happening?

(and the rest of the post was great too )

Very nice update, Master. I can't wait for the next post, maybe a little Anakin/Tahiri mush?

Just putting it out there


Great job

I love it! Your OC is so well-written, she has a lot of depth to her. Fantabulous!

I really like the descriptions you place here. The Crystal Palace is so creative!

Nice flashback. I'm wondering who the watcher is.

It's a long update. Sorry about that. I squished in two updates into one. I didn't know where to cut appropriately and the update is nicer this way. At least I think so.




The quiet little bar was located in the lower levels of the Crystal Palace and it was one of those places that you would never forget. We sat underneath sea level ? I felt like I was sitting in a live aquarium, watching as fish swam by forth and fro while I stared at them, completely engulfed by their quiet swimming motions.

It was such a beautiful place to be, unlike the murky smelly tapcafé where I had stumbled upon Kyp almost ten years earlier. Of all the places in the galaxy, I had never expected to meet the infamous Jedi Master in a place like this. Particularly not in a devastating state of complete and utter disarray.

I?d thought a lot about him, especially when the war first started. Thankfully, I?d never had to deal with the Vong up close and personal but watching news feeds had been enough to know that whoever fought them was most definitely putting their lives on the line.

I held the utmost respect for the people who battled these creatures, knowing the risks.

When Kyp leaned forward into the yellowy light from above, I was taken aback by his appearance. I remembered a young, handsome man with bright green mischievous eyes ? here sat a broken man. That was the only word I could think of.

Unkempt and unshaved, his clothes were wrinkly and tattered, his eyes seemed dim in contrast to what I remembered ? all in all it looked like he had aged exponentially in only a matter of months, maybe even only weeks.

?What are you doing here?? He asked in a gravelly, husky voice. Unused, as if he hadn?t spoken in days.

I stared at him, dumbfounded. ?I needed some air.? I said slowly, watching as he grabbed a half empty glass of whiskey and tipped back the last few drops with a quiet sigh. He closed his eyes as if reveling in the taste of the sharp liquid finding its way down his throat.

?You shouldn?t be out here on your own. There?s a lot of crazy folk around these days.?

?I can take care of myself.? I said in a low tone, nursing my drink carefully.

He smiled ever so slightly. ?I know you can.?

?What are you doing here?? I asked in return, noting how his expression was placid, how he sat as if he hadn?t a care in the world. He couldn?t fool me, though. It wasn?t like him to sit around in a rundown bar on his own, drinking who knew how much to forget his worries and problems. He had never been that kind of person, a person who didn?t fight back, a person who gave up and tried to find the answers to all his questions at the bottom of a bottle.

?Enjoying a drink.? He raised his hand and gestured towards the Zeltron bartender. I glanced over my shoulder, noting how she nodded with a beaming smile.

?How much have you had already??

?Not enough.?

I really didn?t like where this was going. I frowned as the Zeltron woman approached us and placed a small glass, filled half way with more whiskey, on the table top. ?Here you go, handsome.? She said in a cooing voice and I noted with a bit of chagrin how she touched his fingers. I shot her a dark look that all but said to leave us the hell alone but either she didn?t notice or didn?t care. ?If there?s anything else you might require?anything?, just let me know.?

The double entendre was not lost on me.

?We?re fine.? I snapped, smiling the smile of a woman about to break the Zeltron?s beautifully shaped nose.

She winked at me before turning on her heel and heading back to her work place. Kyp nursed his drink quietly; the sudden silence between us was unnerving.

?What?s happened to you?? I asked carefully, not knowing if I was treading on delicate ground or not. In hindsight I know it was an obviously stupid question to ask but I wanted to him to talk to me and if I had to ask more stupid questions?so be it.

His answer was a derisive snort, which I found extraordinarily irritating. ?I don?t know, Liz.? He shrugged and leaned back into his sea/>

First, I love long updates Second, it's better this way--shows the contrast sharper between then and now with Liz and Kyp -- he's the stubbornest dude alive don't you know? He's hurting for her but the sky would have to fall on him first before he'd actually admit it. Good thing Liz is tenacious. Happy wriggle! He's worth it LOL

Oh Master how you tease! Leaving the ceremony till the next post, building the anticipation and then leading us on.. and we have to wait!

Apparently that's what all great writers do, so and at the same time to you!

Anyways, I must be a little hyper this morning! On with the post:

Kyp doing the "I am sad, but I'm too much of a guy to cry so I will drink it away in a bar alone" thing was good I think every male in the Galaxy Far Far Away needs to play that character at least once

And Jaina & Han moment =

Looking forward to the ceremony and the raging after party ey?

I love how you don't over-write a moment. You give it just enough to be powerful, but never enough to be overwhelming/corny. Your characters have that kind of quiet strength that shines, but it's also very subtle. I don't know if that made any sense, lol. Fantastic update and thanks for the PM!

How did I manage to miss this????? Another great story Ceillean!!!

This is wonderful and so sweet, full of emotion and lots of mush. You've included all the favorites and created a very memorable OC character. I love the fact that the story is told from a POV other than family.

Her and Kyp make such a great couple. Jaina and Han, ahhhhhhh, I had tears in my eyes.

Can't wait for the ceremony and Jag's reaction to Jaina in her dress.

Add me to the PM list, please.