Before - Legends Story Swap Challenge

Knight_Dilettante


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Who declares this man worthy of Knighthood?"

"I do."

"Who supports the claim?"

"We do."

"Let any who oppose, state now their reasons."

In the ensuing waiting silence Qui-Gon could hear the breathing of everyone in the room. His own had stopped at the last ritual statement. His Master's was even and calm, as it had been throughout, even when giving his response. Master Baise, the eldest of the Council but one, was leading the ritual since Yoda had been mentor to Master Dooku and therefore was considered not necessarily unbiased. The entire Council had responded in support of his Knighting however, and while that was common enough not to be noteworthy, it was still very heartening.

"Let it be done." Master Baise said after the silence filled pause.

Master Dooku's lightsaber flashed near Qui-Gon's ear and the vibrato hum sounded louder than it ever had in any sparring session. A faint whiff of singed hair filled his nose, and then Master Baise was speaking again.

"Welcome, Knight Jinn."

"My Masters." The ritual response came from his throat almost without conscious effort. Just as his upper body dipped in the accompanying bow without waiting to be instructed to do so. Rising from his position on one knee, Qui-Gon bowed again, fully from the waist this time, before standing upright at last.

Master Dooku smiled at him and clasped his shoulder for a moment before returning to a businesslike demeanor.

"Assignment, already we have for you." Master Yoda spoke at last. "Regret, that ask you to leave tonight, we must. Celebration we will have, when return you do."

"As the Council wills." Qui-Gon said with another bow. He was eager for his first assignment as a Knight and though he had looked forward to the traditional celebration with his friends and mentors, he was willing to wait.

"There is a full briefing in this datapad." Master Baise said handing it over. "The Fillari have asked for a Jedi to officiate in the marriages between heirs of the two warring clans on the northern continent. They believe that this will finally enable peace on their world. As their continent is one of a limited number of places where certain medicinal plants can be successfully grown, an end to warfare there is highly desireable. A ship is ready for you in the main hanger."

Qui-Gon bowed again and walked out of the Council chambers. His Master walked with him as far as the lifts.

"Well, Qui-Gon, I am proud to see this day." Master Dooku said with a smile.

"Thank you, Master." Qui-Gon replied, distracted by his desire to read the mission briefing as quickly as possible.

His Master laughed at him and pushed him on his way. "Go on, I am not so old that I have forgotten the excitement of my first mission as a Knight."

"Thank you, Master" Qui-Gon said again before he started down the hall.

As the lift opened and Master Dooku got in, he called after Qui-Gon's retreating form, "You're a Knight yourself now, Qui-Gon. It's time for you to start calling me by name, rather than title." The chuckle that the closing doors cut off showed that he had seen Qui-Gon's instinctive hesitation at that piece of information about his new status.

~~~~~

As he traveled through hyperspace the relatively short distance to the planet of Fillar on which his assignment began, Qui-Gon re-read the datapad.

The mission briefing was very straightforward. There were two main groups, or Clans, on the Northern continent on Fillar. The L'kine and the L'kavi. The close resemblance of their names showed that in reality they had much more in common than they had differences. But they had been fighting for centuries.

At last, cooler heads had prevailed, and marriages had been arranged between two heirs from each side. The eldest unmarried heir on each side would marry the second eldest from the other and live with the Clan of the second eldest. In this way, the eldest heir would form ties with the opposing Clan both through the marriage, and

 

BRAVO! I'm impressed!

 

Ack, my other message just got eaten up.

Anyways, just wanted to say nice job, guys! I really like how you made it like an epic about Jinn's first mission. It's great to see Jinn already getting in trouble everywhere, just like he was in the movies, as an old master. Great characterization!

 

Very nice!

 

Indra that was an amazing finish! You took a fairly silly beginning of a story and made it a wonderful tale. Brava!

KD

 

That was yours? Wow, now I can boast about doing a collab with KD. It's not the kind of story I normally read or write, but I love you for giving me a story that could be continued without too much effort. There were plenty of characters to play with and you left it off at the right place.

Really nice idea, btw. Wouldn't have thought of something quite that complicated.

 

Ooo, good job KD and Indra! Loved how you two wrote Qui.

Now I'm gonna feel bad when my first story half comes out.

 

Agent_Jaid


To Save Myself


I'm losing myself in you. I didn't know I could care this much. And now I'm lost. Things that mattered, 'don't matter no more' as the song goes. I'm sorry. You deserve more then a fallen angel who sold her soul for a few more days with you. You deserve someone who can love you and have love to give to others. I can't. Force...

I hate doing this. Do you even know what you're doing to me? Do you know I'm feeling lost? Like my reason for living has been obliterated? Like the only things that I cherished were nothing but smoke and mirrors? Like you let me into your life and the only way I could cope was by letting myself go? Did you? Damnit all!

In two days it would've been three years. I'm laughing at the irony of this, and the sound scares me. I sound strangled.

Tell me, love. Did you ever have doubts? Did you ever wonder if our house of cards would come tumbling down around our ears? Heaven. Eden. That's what we built together.

You were my savior. I was your angel. But then I fell. My wings broke. My halo was taken. I'm tarnished, no longer shining in the light of your love, your smile, your touch.

Will I always be this empty? Will there be someone new for you? Will you hurt like I am? Force, I hope not. I almost want you to forget about me, so you won't be hurt. But if you forgot me, would you still want me? Still love me? Would I ever see you again?

Answer me. Why did I want you? Why did you have to lure me in? Why couldn't I have kept my creed and refused you?

Force, what'll you do?

Will you hate me? I don't think I could survive your anger. I've seen your anger, and it's a frightening thing. You protected me from everything. When people hurt me because of who my brother was. When people taunted me because of the choices my father made. When your adversaries came at me to hurt you, you saved me. Your anger was a sight to behold and then you held me in your arms and didn't let me go.

You took my heart, and you've kept it safe. I gave you my soul, and you assimilated it into your being. And now I'm dieing.

If you skew the logic, I'm doing this for you. Breaking your heart so I'll be worthy of the love you give me.

All my life has been a pattern of me giving everything to someone, and then that someone growing or changing with everything I give them, and then we drift apart. You mean too much to me. I can't risk doing that to you. To us. So this time, I have to stop it.

So I'll break your heart to save my soul, and pray to all the gods that you'll still be there in the end...

---

Two men were standing in a large, underground conference room. There was a long table that ran down the middle of the room, lined with backless, repulsor-chairs, and on the table was a holounit that was playing the recording that had been given to the younger man only hours before. The differences between the two men were rather striking.

They were both slender, but the taller one had jet-black hair and the shorter one had completely white hair. They both had blue eyes, but the older one's eyes were dark enough to be black, and the younger's eyes were a clear, brilliant blue that matched icy water. But after that they were almost identical.

Or that?s what they liked people to think.

Xanatos DeCrion and Bruck Chun were friends of necessity. The only things that they had in common was their devotion to the Darkside, their hatred of the Jedi, and almost unwavering devotion to Zey, Xanatos's sister.

The last reason was the one that brought the two of them to this place, standing before the holounit, staring blankly at the frozen blue image of Zey DeCrion.

"Why the hell is she doing this?" Bruck whispered in shock, his face completely devoid of any emotion.

"Like I know." Xanatos growled, his face filled with alarm and rage that would've sent Bruck cowering away if he hadn't understood the feelings perfectly.

"Did she really do it? Run away with a Lover?"

"She couldn't."

"But if she did..."

"Someone's tric

 

Ooooh, excellent, if creepy story there you two! Well done and nearly seamless. Bravo!

KD

 

That was very well done. I liked how you both portrayed the characters as being evil without making them only villains in the reader's eyes. It was hard to take sides in this one, because both parties seemed so human. Very nice idea.

 

I'm mostly Beyond, so I probaby don't understand these fics as well as most of you. These fics kinda remind me of the CRPA challenge fics that I review. Great fics!

So they're all JA? And I thought I'd see Qel-Droma in one of these.

 

good story!

 

Missed when the first one was posted, but heve to say that I loved it! Full of really great plot twists, and the two parts flowed together perfectly! Awesome job, you two!

High five, Mel! I got your story! So, guess who watched West Side Story before writing her part?

 

Oh, these are awesome, my friends! Makes me wish I'd had time to play, too! Do we get more? [insert hopeful smiley here]

 

DarthIshtar


Happy Returns

She'd been in captivity once and had nearly gone mad as a result, but not knowing her enemy or his objectives was even more frustrating.

If she had the strength, she would have been angry. Unfortunately, the combination of the stun shot that had felled her and the sedative they'd injected to keep her from inconveniently interfering rendered her completely and embarrassingly exhausted.

She was so debilitated that she couldn't even swipe at her mouth or move her head from the pool of spittle that it was currently resting in.

Her hands were pinned beneath her, but the pressure on her swollen wrists made it obvious that they were being restrained by standard binders. At least her feet were free, so that she could make a run for it if she absolutely had to.

No, that wasn't an option. The thrumming of atmospheric thrusters beneath her feet was a clear sign that she wasn't going anywhere until they decided to go to ground.

Helpful, as always.

Once she was feeling up to it, she was going to kill them all.

The memory of how she got here was hazy at best and invisible at worst, but she got the impression that her captors had not been hindered by her company at the time. In fact, she had the distinct impression that her so-called friend had been in on the action.

Worst of all, they'd decided to turn traitor at the tail-end of a fairly crucial mediating mission. That alone was grounds for severe punishment. Even worse, she had to consider that her Master was not only a participant, but a perpetrator in this plot.

She remembered the name of the man who had stood by for her betrayal as starting with a Q and filed a note to self to kill him as well, once she figured out who he was.

This isn't important. Focus on getting your brain and your extremities into a friendly alliance, then plot the untimely demise of everyone in the sector.

Before she could do so, however, the lights flickered on and she squeezed her eyelids together until the stabbing pain subsided, leaving her with a dull, throbbing headache.

She hadn't been raised to utter profanities, but one of the civilians on her last mission had taught her how to use them in eight different languages and she practiced that skill rather extensively at that moment. Most likely, he didn't understand anything beyond the nine Mon Calamari water curses, but he could understand and appreciate the gist of the tirade.

In the wake of her outburst, there was a smattering of applause as her tormentor took in her pitiful state.

"Lovely as ever," Qui-gon said and she could swear that sheheard the smirk that was playing across his face and altering the tone of his voice. "I'll have to take plenty of holos for circulation at the next Temple General Assembly."

"Keep talking, Jinn," Tahl gritted. "That way, I'll find you and kill you before my eyesight returns."

He snorted without attempting to cover it, then dimmed the lights so she could at least begin to see again. She blinked several times as his footsteps approached, but he stopped just out of arm's reach.

Blast him for showing common sense just this once.

"I'll have you up on charges of high treason," she promised with all the civility of a krayt dragon. "I'll have you kicked out of the Order."

"That assumes that, first, you'll survive and, second, that the Masters won't be on my side," Qui-gon retorted. "After all, your Master put this plan together just as much as I did."

"I'll force-feed you refectory food," she continued the threats. "I'll make you sit on your saber blade for a full three hours. I'll make fifty copies..."

"You know, dearest," he teased, "vengeance is of the Dark Side."

She raised her head and immediately regretted the action as pain exploded behind her eyes once more. She let her head sink once more with a groan, then curled inward.

"Good," he said approvingly. "It will help matters that you're not resisting. Things would be very difficult if you decided to put up a fight."

Since when

 

Cute! You really got the amiable chemistry I was aiming for in the first part.

 

Cute. I liked the constant teasing of Mace by the other two. Can anyone blame him for being so serious?

 

I liked teasing Mace as well.

 

Aww, that was really cute, you guys! I absolutly loved it! Mace made me laugh, and the very last bit, with Qui-Gon being bitten, too, made me smile. That was awesome!

 

Now I feel slow

Loved To Save Myself. It's really creative to see the point of view of the evil guys for once, and I thought you guys really captured that well... I definently found myself sympathizing for Zey and Bruck instead of the usual Kenobi and Siri team.

Hey, I suspected that you wrote the first half, Ishtar, but I wasn't sure . It was definently lots of fun trying to imitate your light and cute style.

Ok, now I feel caught up.

 

LOL. I can't wait to see who wrote the first half of mine (allegedly going up tomorrow). I kinda took it and ran in a twisting direction.

 

Hermand Snerd, when are you posting the next one? I want to see what Targeter did to my plot bunny.