Beyond - Legends Yun-Yammka in Escrow (Yuuzhan Vong OC, postwar) updated 11-8, Fruits, Kaleesh

Title: Yun-Yammka In Escrow

Author: Kecen

Timeframe: 15 years after NJO

Characters: (OC's) Grizhabel'd the former funeral worker, Horace Blumly the Devlikk & his family, members of the band Voidgazers, Vua Senneq the warrior fledgling & her video club, Limni Vector the shaper initiate, etc etc

Genre: drabble (earlier installments), humorous (yeah right) one-shots

Keywords: Yuuzhan Vong, Coruscant, Zonama Sekot

Summary: In a technologically lacking (but still machine-prone) part of post-invasion Coruscant, a former funeral worker of the Yuuzhan Vong makes a living for herself, mainly as a projectionist in a sideshow museum, and as a musician in a band full of warrior caste impersonators. Her story is told in a disjointed manner, and in between are anecdotes from other eras and other locations, namely Zonama Sekot's disenchanted youth.


Notes:It's my first post here, and I'm not sure how to introduce myself. I was given a plot bunny by blue_but_beautiful about a Yuuzhan Vong metal singer being popular among rebellious city youth. I also have a character I drew earlier on, jokingly referred to as "Grizabella" by karabbackilla.

Anyways, the series (in progress) is called Yun-Yammka in Escrow, and will probably be made up of connected drabbles instead of being a proper plot.
I hope I got the 100 words part right. Forgive me if I get some canon wrong.

---

[i]In a nitemarish black gown, Grizhabel'd was far more beloved by the subcultures of the galaxy than many of her kind. How ironic it was, how they exalted someone so low-born as atrocities were lain upon the elite.

Plucked from the lower echelons by recent citywide reconstruction, Grizhabel'd was a prime example of self escalation, entertwining markings of rank as false as her daytime visage.

Although they were applied by laser in a dusty tattoo parlor she was proud of the aura they cast upon the skyline dwelling nightlife, and of their unfamiliar design.

Five years ago, she wouldn't of dared.[/i]

[hr]

[i]The nightclub illuminated the faces of the attentive audience as Grizhabel'd entered the stage. Behind her the other performers harked to the fearsome image of her kind, donning voduun crab armor in intention but not in substance.

They would find no repulsion, tucked away in the underbelly of the city. The spectators got what they wanted. Grizhabel'd sold faith to them and skirted the patience of disbelieving authorities.

They chanted the names of gods sold out like decrepit dwellings, poetry rolling from their glorified prophet.

She was no servant of Yun-Yammka, but the black dress tailored for her fit snugly.[/i]

 

interesting start and it's good to see you writing some Yuuzhie fics

 

A Yuuzhan Vong metal band???

Do they use biological instruments?

 

Very intriguing, very cool. I like the descriptions and the implications; the last line was especially fitting.

 

Great to see you posted this Beautifully written I think, you captured the ambience of the scene well. I'm also interested in what they use for musical instruments, besides the ones written about in the books that is.

They chanted the names of gods sold out like decrepit dwellings, poetry rolling from their glorified prophet.

She was no servant of Yun-Yammka, but the black dress tailored for her fit snugly.

This almost sounds like it could be part of one of her songs in a sense. I like this drabble a lot, very original and different Good work!

Coincidentally, if you can come up with a good SW/YV related name for a metal band? The band i'm in needs a new name

 

Wow, this didn't get deleted or anything like that XD

SilSolo: I finally got off to a writing start yep. I plan on doing a bunny where Grievous' granddaughter has a court jester who is really Ronderu after I post enough Grizhabel'd drabbles.

spike2002: They probably do use organic instruments, but Grizhabel'd is the only Yuuzhan Vong in the group and they're probably cut off from the main source.

jedi_of_ennth: Ah, I didn't expect my non Jedi OC to get much positive attention in the first place XD

blue_but_beautiful: There's a few lines by My Chemical Romance that inspired this story. "...So throw on the black dress mix in with the lot" and "jet black hotel mirror" The band is called Voidgazers, I think. Er as for your band: Roasted Killiks, Yun-Yammka in Escrow, Hungry Riina, Scaling Centerpoint, Sunulok....

 

An update. These are set before the first two.

Weary Pen

Five years ago, she wasn?t hiding amongst the bustling daytime traffic in borrowed skin, dwelling the dens of coworkers, taking in the mechanical sights with a condescending stride.

Five years ago the authorities would have caught Grizhabel?d by the nose bridge, dragging her back where countless millions said she ought to be.

Five years later Grizhabel?d had convinced her coworkers of her human identity, when the war was distant decades past and the public turned a blind corner in the name of progress.

She started writing, blood on pen on parchment. The envelope sealed, Grizhabel?d patiently waited for a visitor.
------------------------------------
Benefactor
The letter was answered on a sheet of flimsiplast she held at a distance. She could see the letters were meticulously handwritten despite their artificial canvas, a rarity among rarities.
Grizhabel?d flashed an acquired smile. Her benefactor had mentioned a point of meeting, and she was preparing for the night ahead.
Humans were a fickle race, and Grizhabel?d sure this one was an exception. He had not been told of her true nature, but had responded out of interest.

Grizhabel?d slipped into character.
The letter was a song, one rendered in painstaking Basic, but the cryptic lyrics alien in nature.

 

ineteresting update

Please keep up the good work. If this is your first, then I can't wait to see your subsequent stuff

 

So she is still hiding her real appearance for the most part? Or have I read wrong. A very nice update and I looked up the songs mentioned in your first drabble, nice details
Thanks for the band name suggestions, I like some of those, roasted Killiks had me in stitches, could be turned into a song XD.

 

Nice update. The first drabble is my favorite; again, the imagery is lovely and I really like her musings on the social progress taking place on Coruscant. Very realistic.

 

SilSolo: I have other fic scraps on the pages of my DA gallery (in the descriptions), especially my latest drawings of Grievous.

Blue_But_Beautiful: For the most part, Grizhabel?d keeps up the disguise.

jedi_of_ennth: I wasn?t planning on the fic being on Coruscant (of all places!), but my mind bends that way.

Noble Occupation
Grizhabeld's apartment was a venerable hothouse of greenery, composed of whatever she could salvage from sites of varying disrepair. The walls of the structure were grown over with living tissue, a feat Grizhabel?d was proud to have accomplished.

It was from there she composed her letters.

She was no master playwright, but sprouted fanciful obscenities by an intuitive touch, addressing the gods in manners blasphemous to any but herself and her human acquaintances.

Her doting neighbors would know none of this, unfamiliar with the tongue of the Yuuzhan Vong.

They simply knew her as the peculiar projectionalist who lived next door.
---------------------------------------------
A Case of (in)Fidelity
The envelopes unsealed, their contents sorted and put to song, Grizhabel?d waited patiently.

She would be the statue in the back corner, unnoticed in the vibrant backdrop of a concert.

She would appear when the smoke cleared, breaking the disguise for another wild night.

She would stay for a cup of pirated honey, tolerating the unliving recording devices

that seemed

To turn the other way, when she slid back into the masquer before midnight or some odd hour.

Coruscant was corroding her mental barrier, slowly parting the seams

until

one night

she stayed

Long enough for the holographic ending credits.

 

another beautiful update, as usual

 

I love the last drabble, how she seemed so awed by things that she stayed when everyone else was leaving. Very nice and imaginative work

 

Blue_But_Beautiful: I didn't quite see a Yuuzhan Vong liking the atmosphere of a place like Coruscant, but maybe there's something in the air

Just one drabble for now.

Pink Overcoat
The shop window was cracked, the lights exploded into each other. She took from the top shelf a fanciful article of local fashion.
It figured that no one would notice its absence in the aftermath of the occupation; this locale was buried under some meters of vegetation or so.
She slid it on over her second skin, still uncomfortable in synthetic fabric. It was a loose fit, garishly pink, but its unnatural hue harkened to the tastes of mechanized Coruscant. There was all the more reason to take it.
This underfed worker would be ready when the reconstruction teams came.

 

Again, I'm loving the descriptions.

She was no master playwright, but sprouted fanciful obscenities by an intuitive touch, addressing the gods in manners blasphemous to any but herself and her human acquaintances.

You have a very poetic voice here.

Coruscant was corroding her mental barrier, slowly parting the seams
until
one night
she stayed
Long enough for the holographic ending credits.

I love the use of line breaks in this drabble. I can almost see her lingering, hesitating on the threshold, "betraying" her natural distaste for the infidel technology and customs. Love the title of this drabble, too, the way it illustrates the changes taking place in her mindset.

She slid it on over her second skin, still uncomfortable in synthetic fabric. It was a loose fit, garishly pink, but its unnatural hue harkened to the tastes of mechanized Coruscant.

I like the comparison between the gaudy clothing and the equally gaudy technological landscape of Coruscant.

Nice work. There are always so many nuances packed into your drabbles; they really make me think.

 

more beautiful discriptions in this one
I also like the parallels in this, how she seems to be trying to integrate both aspects of her own culture and the remnants she comes across.

 

I've finally broken my drabble format (didn't take long, did it?), and I have to note that this story is written out of chronological order. The last update happened back when Grizahbel'd was first trying to take on a "normal" Corascanti identity.
I came up with this at the top of my head. She probably had more than one black gown....

Wardrobe Check

Sifting through the wardrobe, she found the masquer where she had placed it, far off in the back. It had been salvaged, like many of the wardrobe?s other contents, and was feeding off a fungal growth she had placed up above. In front of the flaccid creature were a series of increasingly atrocious human style shirts and leggings. However, this sacrilegious array was interrupted by the one piece of clothing Grizhabel?d could admit to have good taste in stealing.

It was the black gown she had worn on that first public romp, snatched from the quarters of an unnamed bureaucrat?s daughter. Its former owner had left it behind in a hurry; after all, one gown would only be so much in a room full of decadence. Perhaps she had hated it, and it was a seldom worn present of congratulations from a doting crèche mother for making it past the first sixteen years.

And I've used it better than she ever will

Grizhabel?d savored this airy, unsubstantial wisp of a thought.
It brought about a twinge of sentimental awe,
to have a little piece of someone else?s life,
to lay claim upon someone else?s birthright,
to be something more than a lowly kanabar:

It was an ideal she had put into written word, into tangible action,

into numbers:

A dozen times or so had she stood above the cheers of partygoers, donning the black gown that had been freshly restored on urban mold, and thrown up arms in open defiance. Tonight would be another mark in the regular tally she kept underneath the robeskin and the idealistic face of the masquer.

She was accumulating a musician?s repertoire of markings,
a set of lyre strings on the right shoulder,
a cut where she had fallen from running out the back door,
and a mental map of the narrow side streets of the nightclub?s district.

As a uniform the black gown outdid the trappings of its former owner, Grizhabel?d concluded. The daughter of a bureaucrat remained so, but Grizabel?d was part of a far more exclusive class. All manner of birthright wouldn?t have done the same.

Opening the door of her apartment, stepping out the lobby,
she happily trod off into the line of duty, and was met by the ranks of the elite in the fading light.

 

nice update

 

another great update I would have posted earlier but saw the link far too late lastnight
The details in this are superb as always, it has a very sensual feel to the text.

 

It's a not so subtle reference to the Dresden Dolls. It's not based on the real thing though, just a name XP
Notice my insertion of a species I like, and the decision to use a different narrative style.


Grizabel'd and the Doredden Huk

It was evening, and the blurry streetline was showing from the window of the Meat Grinder. By invitation she was attending. The Yuuzhan Vong felt it appropriate to attempt civilian dress, although this contradicted the very theme of the place, which was quite accurately named Darth Coral by the youthful, spike-clad conventions of the day.

"Hullu Hullu, is it a tame little Vong I spy?" the jester said, beaked snout curled upwards, face painted white. It disturbed Grizahbel'd, how it did not move its face once, although the avian's tattooed eyebrows flinched just a little, for the purpose of demonstrating their function.
"Stop it." Grizhabel'd automatically snapped. What an insolent creature, to mock the Yuuzhan Vong with its blasphemous appearance. There was no mistaking the resemblance; it was very tall after all, and somehow gave the message that the female members of its species were easily mistaken for obscenely large human males.

"What is there to stop? I don't see anything I could halt the locomotive movements of." it continued, absurdly proud of the play on words.

"Although I do assume you're not an agnostic."

The audience was gathering around them, clearly amused. Grizhabel'd tried to gulp down her embarrassment.

"Who are you and why are you dressed so offensively? You don't make a very convincing imitation." she said, now infuriated. The bald creature wore a skinsuit cut unmistakingly like the infamous armor it alluded to.

"Oh, who am I? I am me. But if it's any convenience, I identify with Kalee's biotic theater troupes." added the other jester. Although Grizhabel'd couldn't tell, it looked vaguely male, but its voice warbled more like a gnullithine pipe. She thought of throwing a rock at it, like the plump birds it reminded me of, when it interrupted her thoughts.

"Usually, sentients like to be offended by the likes of us." the other spoke.

"Sentients who aren't the subject of your mockery."

"Oh, you're not. You're a civilian bystander, aren't you?
Funny how the warriors in most societies represent the population better than the politicians. Most sentients say 'soulless bug' this or 'scarhead' that based on the drooling men. And a few undersung women. I myself am considered a woman by general galactic consensus, but I say nonsense. I prefer 'em' or 'zir' over 'him' and 'her', for wouldn't you agree that it makes no sense for there to be only two biological castes in the scale of a galaxy with all this talk of castes? Isn't that right, Blartagh?" the creature's pitch of voice went up a few pitches, as if it was about to share a string of very funny murmurings with an equally giddy friend. Of course, it was.

Grizabel'd was felt very awkward, for her kind had long used the art of dramatic speech to placate their masses.

"Oh, you'll noticed I'm not really trying to offend, unless you like that sort of thing. Throwing around words is a habit of jesters. Body language is much more important, isn't that right?" the black-clad civilian bystander pitched again, giving Grizhabel'd a very predictable pat on the head with a four-fingered bird hand. The casual observer would have said it was a gre, for there was little humanly analogical anatomy to go by.

"Yes, Vuolasi. We didn't introduced ourselves yet! For social obedience purposes, we're the Doredden Huk. I'm Blartagh. That's Vuolasi." he tipped an imaginary hat, for on this suspicious locale a top hat simply wasn't part of the appropriate costume.

"It means soulless bug with an adjective tacked on top."

Grizhabel'd was mildly irritated.

"...but remember, you're an oppressed civilian bystander. Your friends told me all about you."
Blartagh quickly reminded.

She glared vibroblade analogs at the human sitting in the very spiky couch. This to

 

Because Bariss_Coffee likes Devlikks .__.
In my version of the Star Wars universe, Skittles grow on trees.

Believe in the Rainbow
She popped a red capsule in her mouth. It tasted tart. She wondered what motivated their widespread popularity across the sprawling ecumenopolis of Coruscant; they didn't taste remotely like a rainbow bridge.

Pondering to the willing of their invention, Grizhabel?d took a green one between the first two fingers of her right hand. She eventually realized the bright blue plastic package she had found lying on a counter was now empty of the sour pills. The knowledge didn't smack Grizhabel'd in the face. Instead, it preferred to slink in mundanely; tasting artificially flavored rainbows was a valid, socially acceptable pastime, as well as her decision to wear a cubicle worker's outfit.

The Devlikk in the corner wielded this revelation like a heady drink, and bought another bag. He didn't quite realize the Yuuzhan Vong civilian bystander was mooching off him like a human alchohol sponge. Grizhabel'd didn't bother to call him an infidel by mental note; she was busy thinking of more colorful terms of unfamiliarity. Although it was woeful to say, she was steadily displaying the very human trait of finding alternatives to coarse invective.

The frilly green enactor of infidelity to temperance from artificial colors and flavors wasn't making any attempt to transcend his Devlikkness, for he was binging on the highly marketable rainbow. He leaned his long, hairless neck on the counter and pushed another pill into his wide beak. This time, it was Shaak flavored, with a hint of acid soaked cabbage in a pleasant shade of blue. It certainly didn't help his sagging belly, but he was celebrating his fifth birthday anyway.

Grizhabel'd got up to get a glass of water that had been filtered at least five times. The taste of the rainbow had left a strong impression in her oral cavity. Sipping from the glass, washing away the unpleasant muddling of conflicting flavors, she wondered if Devlikks had any masochistic death rituals. Anthropocentric theology demanded it.

A commercial played on the Holonet. She thought she saw a reference to Qelah Kwaad?s latest endeavor, but carried on to the exit anyhow.

?Believe in the rainbow! Now with all natural growing methods!?

 

Loved the last couple of updates. The pacing, description, tone and structure of the narrative are wonderful, and now I'm hungry for Skittles.

 

I have a passage dedicated to me? You shouldn't have...

I'm liking this story.... very off-beat. It has a poetic rhythm to it. I'm definitely looking forward to the next update.

 

This had a nice rhythem and flow to it, great discription of what it must have been like to 'taste the rainbow' (so to speak) for the first time.
And skittles growing on trees? Would be nice to keep one of those in your grashal, like a bonsai tree.

 

OI! I shouldn't be so lazy in updates, but I've typed up one half of the latest chapter. My inspiration is leading elsewhere, but I appreciate the feedback (even if other fanfiction gets one page of replies per update). I'm writing the story as I go along, but the Devlikks are turning out to be a more important plot point.

Eh, should I be posting PM updates too?