Beyond - Legends Life of Dreams and Nightmares (Legacy Kol/Nei Rin/OCs)

Well, so, new idea. Not sure exactly what it'll end up being. The intent is for a novella about the last days of the Ossus Project, partly as a venue to test out new things.

Life of Dreams and Nightmares

Chapter 1 ? Ill News Faces Hope

Wayland
Ojoster Sector
Outer Rim Territories
126 ABY


Fo-Rue went through his exercises slowly, moving one limb at a time, carefully, with deliberate focus on each muscle and bone, understanding, focusing there on the patterns of motion, the flow of the energy through his limbs, making certain everything was perfect, precise, so when the time would come to use the moves at full speed, they would retain the perfection of training, and strike at full strength every time.

It was a challenging practice, holding his mind and body together, and then balancing the Cloudfall above and beyond it all, making certain everything matched. It served to consume all his mental energy, subsuming attention into the form. He found the intense practice relaxing, especially in the morning, when his brain was still sorting through all the clutter the night?s sleep had loosed. He commonly practiced when his nights and dreams were troubled.

These days that was almost every morning.

Fo-Rue was not alone, standing on the grass in the early light of the sun, and yet he was. The Myneyrshi who wandered about the encampment did not approach him, they had never been close, and knew this charcoal-skinned stranger among them did not wish to be disturbed. Many of the other inhabitants of the camp were still asleep, and those who woken had their own duties. They might pass by the near-human as he exercised, but they did not approach closely.

Only the children did not hold Fo-Rue apart, in their innocence that did not sense the bonds and splits among the many people here. One ran past him as he was passing through a snap-kick.

?You?re going to fall over, practicing like that!? the boy, a scrappy human with nappy hair, catcalled as he ran off.

?Oh?? Fo-Rue?s trance was broken, and he raised an eyebrow as the boy passed. ?Am I?? He called out to the retreating child, still holding his right leg in empty air.

?You are!? the boy spun around and extended both hands in a shoving motion.

The energy struck Fo-Rue, slamming his robed jacket down to his flesh, and throwing him back, a powerful blast indeed, but unfocused.

Letting the power of the Cloudfall pass through him Fo-Rue took the blast and left the ground, spinning into the air, and then brushing the sharp grass with his left hand and flipping back.

He let the wind grab him and pull him high as the boy?s mouth dropped open. He streaked forward, diving down as if he was an angry hawk-bat.

The human youth scrambled backwards, dropping into a fighting stance with fire in his eyes.

Fo-Rue let the wind halt him well short of the youth, giving him no cause to strike. He wanted to offer no threat. Frankly, he thought. The boy could use with greater discipline, but it is not my place. He considered a moment more, watching the youth relax. Perhaps such behavior is normal among human boys; it is never easy to tell.

The human boy shook his head of curly hair. He seemed disappointed, and radiated irritation through the Cloudfall energies that sparkled about him with power. ?A Jedi would have hit me!? he stuck his tongue out.

Fo-Rue crossed his hands at his waist, offering a tiny smile. ?Be grateful I am not a Jedi then,? he spoke loudly, knowing humans found his natural voice to be soft and withdrawn. ?But if you truly wish to be struck, I am certain I could ask your father or perhaps one of the Yuuzhan Vong?? He deliberately trailed off.

?I?m not afraid of them!? the boy burst. ?Not the Vong, and not you! Not my father either!? the latter statement was considerably less sure than the others.

?Wise of you,? Fo-Rue grinned when the confusion spread on the boy?s face. ?It is foolish to fear those who have not provided any threat, but interrupt my exercises again and I will give you cause to fear.? His voice lowered, and he infused it with a

 

Here I go doing something I thought I'd never do: using a Yuuzhan Vong as a viewpoint character.

Chapter 2 ? Wind Swirls and Fouls

Wayland
Ojoster Sector
Outer Rim Territories
126 ABY


Elaa Yim seriously considered, for about the hundredth time of the day, shoving a barb of yorik coral through the miserable blinking device she had been given. She deeply desired to do so; it would be right and proper, but restrained, even though it was heresy to keep carrying the miserable thing the Ki-Me had called a datapad. It was polluting, impure, she knew, she absolutely knew it, and yet she did not throw it away.

Nei Rin commanded me to work with him, Elaa held fast to the words, using them to anchor her mind. The Master Shaper herself commanded it, her own sanction. Nei Rin was a holy personage, the most blessed shaper in the eyes of the gods since Elaa?s own ancestor Nen Yim. Her words were worthy, and if it was her command that Elaa handle this alien heretical technology in her service then she would do so, and beg forgiveness of the goddess later.

These things the initiate claimed in her mind, but her heart held another reason. She had destroyed several devices already, the first four machines Fo-Rue had given her, and it was not respect for her mission that stayed her hand now, it was fear.

The Yuuzhan Vong looked over at the charcoal skinned man again, using some alien tool to take his precise measurements of the coral seeds, every last one, measuring all these strange things she did not understand. He seemed so harmless, but she couldn?t help shivering when he turned those empty white eyes upon her for a moment, gesturing that she should watch his actions.

He had given her a datapad, and shown her how to use it the first thing. She had smashed it with a stone mere minutes after he was done with his lecture. ?Aid your work I will, but I will not use the tools of heretics!? she had shouted. She had thought to make him mad, angry and wrathful as the Jeedai sometimes were with them, and hopefully he would send her away.

Yet he had not grown angry at all, simply admonishing her in calm but serious words, and then he had given her another datapad and told her. ?Please be more careful, the supply of such tools is not limitless.?

Elaa had contrived to use that one for a time, until the frightful nature of commanding a tool to obey the press of buttons and words of voice as opposed to the proper linkage in the sight of the gods had become too much. Fo-Rue had pulled her up from the ground as she battered and clawed at the thing with her hands, burning them from the sparks of the datapad?s death.

He had been wroth then. ?This act is a sign of disrespect,? the words tumbled with slow care from the soft-voiced near-human?s mouth, filled with stern resolve. ?You may believe what you will, but to destroy the tools of others means you place your beliefs above their own. That is an action both cruel and pathetic. I had thought your people had moved past such primitive failings.?

It had not been possible for Elaa to face those words. They had hurt her in a way no counseling session by Jeedai or Galactic Alliance staff had ever struck before. How does he know me so? She had struggled to find the answer, but could not ask those blank eyes, and it had eluded her.

Frustrated with him she had smashed the third machine, a measuring device of some kind, after it refused to obey her and kept beeping ?Error, error, error,? Over and over again.

Fo-Rue had taken the two pieces remaining from her hand and fixed her with the unblinking force of his white gaze. ?I had hoped to avoid such crude choices, but if you will not act with the maturity I know you are capable of, I am forced to treat you as I would a recalcitrant beast.?

With one hand he had grabbed her shoulder, and then, as if she weighed nothing, thrown her into Wayland?s sunny sky.

The power behind the toss had hurled Elaa tumbling through the air half a hundred times her own height, and she had screamed in true terror as the ground rushed up to flatte