Beyond - Legends Saga - Legends Intermezzi II | Bits and pieces from the Ἀνάγκη-verse, ECs & OCs | Kessel Run Challenge 2023

*dives right in*

I can picture him, ever nonchalant, entering this particular way.

A dedicated mother and agent, all hats off to her.

Nothing, nothing pierces like baby!squeal.

Now I'll never eat pie again.

The very picture of despair, well written.

Oh those mags, ever hopeful of marriage. Do you think they invest in the destination wedding industry?

I'm picturing Vong here ... Looking forward to long vignette!

 

I haven't posted in my own thread for a whole week, which feels definitely bizarre after all this writing frenzy, so I thought I'd come around here and do replies

Thank you all for reading and reviewing!

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you! My favourite ficlet to write among these was definitely Nazmat Koch & Co. She's such a pleasure to write, and I always enjoy giving her more screentime.

@earlybird-obi-wan Thanks! Yeah, the muse was in a good mood last week. Here's hoping she'll be back soon!

@Vek Talis Thank you! You sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole with your reference to Mister Ed. I'd never heard of that show, but having watched bits of it I want to know everything about it, and so does Chyntuquita. So we're on the hunt for the complete collection now

Meanwhile, I can see how Major Banna would get confused with bananas, but I assure you, he's an entirely un-vegetal man

@pronker Thank you so much! To answer a few specific points:

Agreed! And the worst part, in my opinion, is that you never get used to it. As a matter of fact, I think you perceive it as even more piercing as time goes by (and your endurance wears thin)!

You know, this is a question I have in real life. It does come across as the only sensible explanation for their obsession. Although in the case of Soontir and Syal, for once they got it right!

I was wondering if someone would pick up on that (admittedly lousy) pun! Since I created the Viezothans, I've tried hard to make them see everything the way a horse would see it, and this tiny bit of fun was just something I couldn't resist!

It was definitely a reference to the Vong, although they won't appear in the vignette (the battles with them have already taken place in the main fic before the vignette). I hope however that I'll manage not to disappoint!

Thanks again to all the readers, reviewers and lurkers who stuck around for my silly little stories throughout this challenge! My muse has kinda gone MIA these past few days, but I'm counting on her to be back before the deadline for the long vignette. I have it outlined in great detail and it would be a shame for all that hard work to go to waste!

 

His wife might have other ideas about that... but waddu I know?

 

Wow - you are on a tear! These were so creative and so very different that it was hard to pick a favorite; however, I have to say I think I liked the first one with Ayesha and Quinn best. Such a sweet moment between them, looking to comfort each other.

I also really liked the one with Ashi-Dilza. Such an imaginative meeting between two gracious and kind beings.

Rounding out my favorites would be the one with Mahk in the detention center. It has such a tone of regret to it.

Thank you for this buffet of scenes!

 

@divapilot Thank you for the review! I really enjoyed writing these little stories, and the three you listed are among my favourite too. There's more about Ashi-Dilza and Hxitik in the final fic I'll be posting now, and I wrote quite a bit more about Makh both here and in the other Intermezzi thread. You may remember from Ἀνάγκη that he's a total jackass (and you would be right), but what can I say, he's a character who has grown on me, and now I feel that he has more potential story-wise than just being the domineering boyfriend. Thanks again for reading!

And now, ladies and gentlebeings, it's time for the final entry of this challenge. Coming up in 5, 4, 3...

 

Kessel Run week 12: Long vignette (2,000+ words) – Write a story using a reverse narrative, or a backwards story. This could be a story where the final events occur first and the first events occur last, or it could be a story where time literally flows backward rather than forward.
Characters: Soontir Fel, Syal Antilles Fel, Davin Fel, Chak Fel, Ashi-Dilza (OC), Matthia-Ruudi (OC), Reis Azada (OC), Captain Hxitik (OC), Stent (Kres’ten’tarthi)
Timeframe: late 8 ABY - early 9 ABY (to be precise, at some point between the end of chapter 40: The Chimaera and the end of chapter 44: A Second Chance of part III of Ἀνάγκη, but this story is entirely unrelated to the main plot), shortly after Timothy Zahn’s short story Crisis of Faith
Word count: 4577 words
Notes: Credit for ‘Togorian measles’ goes to the amazing @pronker; it’s a form of the disease where the patient gets dots of fur instead of spots.

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The Colonel’s Datapad

Soontir Fel had been alone with Davin and Chak on New Alzoc for less than a standard week, but he’d already reached a whole new level of appreciation for his wife. How she could keep up with the little hellions, he had no idea. In just four days he’d tripped over their toy clawcraft twice; he’d slipped in the mud and slush they brought in from outside five times; he’d lost count of the number of items that had been broken and liquids that had been spilled; and he’d had to send virtually every uniform in his possession for sanisteaming. His heavy fur coat was stained too, but he couldn’t part with it lest he froze to death on this iceball of a planet, so he let his scarf hang over the smudge and made do. And for good measure, he had no idea when Syal would be back – as soon as Jagged had exhibited symptoms of Togorian measles, she’d taken him to the medics aboard the Admonitor and she chose to stay put on the Star Destroyer when the main body of the fleet left to return to Nirauan. All Soontir could do every morning was brace himself and hope that the disasters that were bound to plague his day remained minor.

The one thing that worried him, though, was that he had misplaced his datapad. Admittedly, it wasn’t the only thing he had misplaced in the chaos that had overrun the guesthouse within hours of Syal’s departure, but losing his datapad gave him genuine cause for concern – not that he stored any classified information in it, but he did like to jot down notes and ideas for strategies, training programmes and starfighter upgrades, and this was the sort of thing that potential enemies might be able to use against him. With Nuso Esva’s final defeat on Quethold a while back, the leadership of the Empire of the Hand had somewhat let their guard down, but Soontir felt that he should remain as vigilant as ever, just in case one of the warlord’s lieutenants chose to pick up his master’s fight.

It was therefore a relief when, in the middle of an afternoon like any other, he found his datapad on the common room table.

It felt a little greasy and a little sticky when he picked it up. A closer examination revealed traces of nut paste and snow gum – the very ingredients of the sandwich he had made for Davin an hour or so earlier.

He experienced a surge of fatherly anger and went straight to his firstborn’s room. “Davin, what did I tell you about taking my datapad?”

The seven-year-old barely looked up from his model Star Destroyer. “Oh, that,” he said indifferently. “I found it in the street.”

Now this was troubling. “What do you mean, in the street?”

The child shrugged. “It was in the snow near the ice sculpture this morning. You know, the one that represents a vulpid, on the way back from the big playfield. I saw it there, so I brought it back.”

Soontir paused for a minute. It wasn’t like Davin to make up a far-fetched lie just to evade a scolding about taking the datapad, even if the oily fingerprints were evidence enough that he had been using it when he shouldn’t. If he’d found it lying around in town, there was a real risk that it had been tampered with. He summoned one of the Talz housekeepers, asked her to look after his boys while he was out, and wrapped himself in his coat to go to the vulpid-shaped ice sculpture.

It was the middle of the warm season on New Alzoc but it was still bitterly cold. Soontir steeled himself before he deactivated the weather shield that protected the guesthouse and stepped outside. It made sense, of course, for the Talz refugees to have settled here. Their thick fur protected them from the elements, and the idea that the Galactic Empire might come and hunt them down this far into the Unknown Regions was simply laughable. Thrawn had encountered them in the early days of his campaign against Nuso Esva; they joined his federation enthusiastically in exchange for protection against the alien warlord and now they hosted his shipyards in orbit around the planet. Soontir had brought along his family for the duration of his stay – he had come to discuss how to optimise the production of starfighters with the fleet’s engineers – and he could see how much Davin and Chak enjoyed being able to go and play outside instead of being cooped up in the Nirauan fortress. Still, as he trudged through the icy streets, he longed to be back there, looking after the flowers he’d planted on the rooftop gardens, or even just in space. He’d never liked frigid climates and this Talz colony wasn’t likely to change his mind, no matter how fond he’d grown of the hairy beasts. He made his way as fast as he could to the sculpture Davin had indicated and examined the ground carefully.

The snow around the ice vulpid was trampled, as if there had been a congregation there. Soontir made out two sets of child-sized footprints that could only belong to Davin and Chak as well as small pawprints that had been left by their Talz playmates. That wasn’t much of a lead and he chided himself for not asking Davin for more details, but then he noticed something else: there was a trail of hoofprints on the road leading from the sculpture to a dwelling in a side street, and, at the foot of the sculpture itself, half-buried in the snow, there was a single black tail-hair that could only have been left behind by one Matthia-Ruudi.

He knew that a group of Viezothans had been in town that morning. The equine aliens of the White Herd lived further south in the steppes of New Alzoc, but they regularly came to barter with the Talz and ask if they could somehow be of assistance. Being a primitive civilisation, there wasn’t much they had to offer, but they always made sure to bring along the foal whose pure black fur had caused him to be named after Senior Captain Matthias Ruud. If nothing else, they wanted to remind the Empire of the Hand that little Matthia-Ruudi carried a little of the soul of the hero who had given his life to save Thrawn’s fleet – and the galaxy – from the Far Outsiders.

Soontir checked his chrono. It was well past mid-afternoon. However, the White Herd had probably left town at most three hours earlier, around the time when the day’s market wrapped up. Even if they were going at full gallop, he should be able to catch up with them and make it back before the sun went down. Imperial engineers had made all the necessary adjustments for speeder bikes to operate in the frigid climate of New Alzoc, but he wasn’t looking forward to the glacial wind when the temperature dropped even further after nightfall.

He made his way to the guesthouse to fetch goggles and coveralls. He stepped without stumbling over the haphazard pile of toys that had materialised on the hallway’s floor in his absence – which might or might not qualify as progress in his parenting skills, he wasn’t quite sure which; he told the boys that he needed to go out for a few hours and warned them to be nice to the Talz housekeeper; and he went straight to the landing field, where ships and speeders were parked under another domed weather shield.

Imperial windcheater coveralls were top-of-the-line – they were made of the same material as snowtrooper gear, after all – but Soontir was grateful for small mercies when he saw the White Herd in the distance after less than half an hour on his speeder bike. The equine aliens formed into a defensive circle around the foals as soon as they heard the whine of his engine. Viezothans were exceedingly protective of their young, and understandably so, since the White Herd was all that remained of what had been a thriving population before the Far Outsiders came along to enslave them and transform their homeworld into a breeding ground for their bizarre biotechnology. Thrawn had had no choice but to destroy the planet; not, however, before conducting a ground campaign to rescue any survivors and bring them to New Alzoc.

He stopped his speeder a short distance away, climbed down and removed his goggles and hat to reveal his face before he trudged any closer. The aliens relaxed as they recognised him, and Head Mare Ashi-Dilza trotted towards him.

“Colonel Fel,” she neighed musically in Minnisiat, her ears twitching eagerly like every time she expected to be of service. “Is there something you require from us?”

Soontir gave her a deep bow. “Greetings, Head Mare,” he answered respectfully in the same language. “I would like to see my friend Matthia-Ruudi. I understand that he was playing with my children this morning when you were in town.”

The head mare turned around and whinnied something in her mother tongue, and the ranks of the defenders parted to reveal the foal, who was doing his best to hide behind larger members of the herd – and failing miserably, as the black of his coat was enough to make him stand out against the bright white of his surroundings. One of the adults nudged him towards Ashi-Dilza, and he ambled forward reluctantly.

Soontir lowered himself to one knee so as not to tower over him. “Hey there, little guy,” he began. “I was wondering if you could tell me –”

Before he could even complete his sentence, Matthia-Ruudi burst into sobs.

Ashi-Dilza’s ears stiffened. “Has our foal somehow offended yours, Colonel Fel?” she asked. “Is he to be reprimanded for his fault?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Soontir protested. “Matthia-Ruudi hasn’t done anything wrong. I just wanted to ask him a question.”

He patted the foal’s neck reassuringly and waited until he had recovered his ability to speak. “I’m sorry, Daya ‘Tir,” the youngling finally hiccuped. “I lost your writing slate.”

Writing slate? Yes, of course, writing slate. “It’s okay, kiddo. Davin found it and brought it to me.” Soontir pulled the datapad from his pocket and held it out. “See? No harm done. What I need to know is how you came to have it.”

The foal scraped the snow with his hoof. “My neeya gave it to me and said to bring it to you.”

Neeya? Wasn’t that Talzzi for grandfather? Soontir gave Ashi-Dilza a puzzled look. “Shaman Reis Azada of the Talz looks after our young when we come to town,” she explained. “They are very fond of him and liken him to an elder of the White Herd.”

Right. “So Reis Azada had my datapad and gave it to you?”

The foal bobbed his head up and down. “We were in his kashana and we played, and when we left he said to take it to you. And then we went outside and we saw Davin and Chak near the ice vulpid, and we played in the snow, and…” He flattened his ears in shame. “And I forgot it there.”

Ashi-Dilza was extremely displeased that the foal had failed to accomplish the task assigned to him, and she expressed as much by batting her long eyelashes sternly. “Why did you not speak once you were aware of your lapse, Matthia-Ruudi?”

The little Viezothan’s ears flattened further. “I was hoping no one would notice,” he whinnied in an inaudible mumble. He looked up timidly at the Human. “I’m sorry, Daya ‘Tir, I really am.”

It was lucky, Soontir thought, that Davin and Chak hadn’t mastered the tooka-eyes that the black foal was giving him, because they’d be hauling him around by the nose – but then, given the annoyance that radiated from the head mare, he knew that Matthia-Ruudi would receive a much sharper rebuke than the situation warranted. “As I said, no harm done,” he said cheerfully. “I know that you’ll do better next time.”

He gave the youngling a hearty scratch along the length of his mane and exchanged bows with the head mare before climbing on the speeder bike to return to town. He’d come a long way for a tiny snippet of information, but an explanation was forming in his mind. Since the Talz had no concept of private property, chances were that one of the workers assigned to the guesthouse had casually taken his datapad, and that Reis Azada, who had lived among Humans for decades, had confiscated it to return it to him. Still, he thought, he ought to ascertain that there was nothing more to it all.

He was tempted to leave the speeder bike outside the shaman’s dwelling, since he expected this to be a short conversation, but he wasn’t willing to risk having to launch a search for a missing vehicle when he had only just recovered his datapad. The sun was low on the horizon by the time he closed the weather shield over the landing field and the temperature was already dropping, but he was still wearing his coveralls and he was confident that he would be back in the warmth of the guesthouse before the unbearable chill of the dark. He plodded through the snowy streets as fast as he could and reached the small compound near the ice vulpid where Reis Azada lived.

The first thing he noticed when the shaman came to open the door was how frail he looked. His fur was wispy-white and he moved gingerly, as if every step required extreme effort and caution. Once he was allowed inside, Soontir saw that a set of brushes, brooms and dustpans stood in a corner, but the living area still bore unmistakable traces of the foals’ passage earlier in the day. There were muddy hoofprints near the hearth and the felt mats were covered in hairs – fluffy white ones that Reis Azada had shed himself, but also shorter, coarser ones left by the little Viezothans. The elderly Talz caught his gaze and let out a chirp.

“I apologise for the state of my kashana, Colonel. It was hosting some younglings this morning, and I am slower than I used to be in cleaning up after their stay.” He extracted a clean blanket from a carved chest and draped it over a cushion. “Please, have a seat. How can I help you?”

Soontir lowered himself onto the cushion and threw another glance around the room. He really had the sense that the shaman wasn’t coping all that well on his own, but he wasn’t sure how to bring it up without being offensive. He decided to plough ahead with the matter that had brought him here, in the hope that the conversation would give him an opening. “I recovered my datapad from Matthia-Ruudi today. He said that you tasked him with giving it to me. I was wondering how you came to have it.”

The Talz blinked his four eyes at once in an obvious expression of surprise. “I received it from Captain Hxitik, of course.”

Captain Hxitik? Ah, yes. Rotund fellow, pointed snout, lots of spines. His kind were called the Grorandhim, if Soontir was not mistaken. But how in the galaxy had he come to have the datapad?

“Could you please tell me more?” he asked. “I wasn’t aware that Hxitik had my datapad at all.”

Reis Azada trilled softly through his proboscis. “There is not much I can say. Captain Hxitik was planetside yesterday; he came for a meeting with the Council of Elders when the Admonitor left and he reassured us that the Grorandi fleet was remaining in orbit to defend our world. He was kind enough to accompany me home, and he asked me to return your datapad to you, as you were unavailable at that time.” He let out the despondent warble that Soontir knew to be the Talz equivalent of a sigh. “Unfortunately, I have to be prudent due to old age, and I am wary of leaving my kashana without an adult Talz to escort me, in case I should slip and fall on the ice. This is why I entrusted your datapad to Matthia-Ruudi. I am glad to see that he acquitted himself of this task.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly how things had gone, but Reis Azada had just given Soontir the opportunity he had been looking for, and he jumped at it. “Would you like me to have a droid assigned to you? There are excellent models to provide assistance with daily chores.”

The Talz whistled. “It is unnecessary, Colonel. I have no wish to be a burden to the Empire of the Hand.”

Soontir smiled. “Droids are not burdened, Reis Azada. They are only ever programmed, and we have droids to spare – especially for the Empire’s dearest friends. I’ll have one report to you in the morning.”

He waved away the elderly Talz’s profuse thanks and took his leave. It was nearly dark outside and it was freezing cold, but he was growing impatient to get to the bottom of this datapad business. He found a sheltered alcove under a larger building and switched on his wrist comm. If the Grorandi fleet was still in orbit, Hxitik would be fairly easy to get a hold of.

It took a few redirections, but after a few minutes he was looking at a holo of a nearly-spherical alien who was ruffling his spines. “Colonel Fel, sir,” Hxitik peeped in what passed for a sharp military tone in his species. “The Grorandhim stand ready to execute your orders.”

“At ease, Captain,” Fel replied. “I have no orders to give. I was merely wondering how my datapad came to be in your possession.”

The Grorandhi bounced on his back paws. “It was given to me by Commander Kres’ten’tarthi before the Admonitor’s departure, with a request to return it to you. I could not meet you in person when I visited the planet yesterday, and I had to delegate this task to Reis Azada. I trust that you have received it?”

Soontir nodded. “I have. Many thanks, Captain. That will be all.”

“Always at your service, Colonel Fel,” the alien squealed. “May the Twelve Moons of the Night Sky guide you in all your endeavours.”

Soontir thumbed off his wrist comm and let out a sigh. He wasn’t any closer to figuring out why his datapad had passed through so many hands before returning to him, and with the Admonitor being back on Nirauan, he would have to walk all the way to the landing field he had just come from in order to use a Lambda-class shuttle’s long-range comm to contact Stent. He was sorely tempted to return to the guesthouse and resume his search in the morning, even more so now that he could confidently assume that Stent would have run the device through the grinder if there was the slightest sign that it had been tampered with; but in the end, the datapad belonged to him, he was responsible for losing it and he needed to clear up the situation with all due haste. He wrapped his scarf a little tighter around his neck, pulled his hat down to cover a little more of his face, and set out in the biting cold of the night.

His extremities felt numb by the time he reached the shuttle. He allowed himself a few minutes in his fur coat and windcheaters until the cabin came up to temperature and he could discard a few layers of clothing, and he sat down at the communications station.

After the turn this day had taken, it was a relief to be in an Imperial ship and to be using Imperial tech – and to be able to speak Basic, because languages had never been his strongest suit, even though Minnisiat was fairly easy. It only took seconds to establish a connection to Nirauan, and a quarter-sized holo of a young blue-skinned pilot materialised in front of him. “Hey Stent,” he said. “I hope I’m not disturbing.”

“Not at all, sir,” the Chiss replied with the maddening formality that never left him – they had been friends for years already, but Soontir hadn’t been able to convince them to drop the ‘sir’ when addressing him. “I am in the middle of routine duties; it is only nine hundred hours here. But isn’t it a little late for you to be working where you are?”

Soontir waved a hand. “Oh well. You know how it is. This isn’t strictly about work, though. I’ve spent the whole afternoon and evening trying to figure out what the blazes is going on with my datapad, and the last thing I heard was that you had it at some point.”

“I did, sir, three days ago, shortly before we brought the main body of the fleet back to Nirauan. Mrs. Syal gave it to me.”

Soontir arched an eyebrow. “Syal gave it to you?”

“Yes, sir. She came to me when she heard that we would be leaving and asked if there was a way to have it returned to you. I was due for a meeting with the Grorandi leadership the next morning, so I took it upon myself to hand it over to them.” Soontir shook his head in dismay. “Did you not receive it, sir?”

Soontir let out an exasperated chuckle. “Oh, I received it all right, thanks. But I have this very unpleasant feeling that I just wasted a whole afternoon looking for it because of that firstborn brat of mine. I swear he and his brother could give Nuso Esva a run for his credits when it comes to driving me nuts.”

There was the faintest twitch at the corner of Stent’s mouth. “A well-known Chiss proverb claims that child-rearing is a form of warfare, sir.”

“You bet it is,” Soontir grumbled. “I swear, Stent, if you ever decide to have kids, make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

The young pilot was definitely smirking now. “I will take that under advisement, sir.”

“You’d better. Thanks, mate. We’ll talk again later, I need to call my wife.”

The Chiss gave him a crisp salute. “You’re welcome, sir. May warrior’s fortune smile upon your efforts.”

Soontir thought to point out that Stent had just made a joke, but it was getting late and, since he was going to comm Syal, he might as well allow extra time for it. He logged out and immediately punched the code for his wife’s private line, and within moments her likeness materialised in front of him. She was standing in their quarters in the Fortress of the Hand, and she was carrying Jag on her hip. The toddler let out a squeal of delight at the sight of his father and waved his little fists happily.

“‘Tir!” Syal exclaimed. “I wasn’t expecting you to comm until tomorrow. Is everything all right?”

He smiled. “Everything’s fine, sweetheart. How’s my baby boy?”

His wife glanced at the child and ran a finger over his cheek, where darker spots could be seen. “We’re good. Doctor Cottle worked his magic, so we don’t have a fever anymore and the fur dots are fading already.” Jag warbled something that sounded like a protest. “You know, ‘Tir, Jag wants to keep the fur. He was hoping the dots would spread and cover him entirely.”

“See, I told you it was a bad idea to bring him here. He saw the Talz and the Viezothans, and now he wants to have fur too.”

The little boy nodded enthusiastically. “I guess it’s lucky he hasn’t met any Grorandhim,” Syal said wryly. She looked back at her husband. “What about you? Are you keeping up with the Masters of Chaos?”

He suppressed a sigh. “Let’s just say that I’m more impressed with you with every day that passes. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She grinned. “Neither do I. Was there something in particular that you wanted to talk about?”

For a fraction of a second Soontir hesitated to ask. If Syal told him that she’d gotten the datapad from someone else and sent him on yet another wild bantha chase in the middle of the night, he feared that he might just explode – but he was fairly confident that he knew her answer already. “I just wanted to check where you got my datapad before you gave it to Stent.”

She rolled her eyes. “I confiscated it from Davin, of course. He’d taken it to play one of those cursed tap-click games four days ago.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” he muttered.

“Nobody is,” she replied, probably a little more sharply than she intended. “You know how he is, he took advantage of the fact that I was getting ready to leave… Anyway, I just threw the datapad in the bag I was packing for Jag, and I didn’t notice until the next day.” She noticed his frown and hastened to add, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Jag was running such a high fever! I was really worried about him and I forgot.”

Soontir waved a hand. “It’s all good, sweetheart. So you can confirm that you had it all along?”

“Oh yes, definitely. It was just at the bottom of the bag.”

Soontir pinched the bridge of his nose. It served him right, he thought, to spend hours and hours running around an iceball because of this barvy habit he had of expecting to find a humbaba where there was nothing more than a worrmp. But at least, he’d managed to bring the day’s misadventure to a close, and Syal was there and smiling at him. He allowed himself a little longer to chat with her, then pulled on his coat and coveralls to go home.

The sense of guilt he’d experienced for leaving Davin and Chak alone for so long had vanished after the half-hour he spent trudging through the snow in the glacial temperature of the Alzocian night. There was a howling wind now too, and he was in an absolutely foul mood by the time he reached the guesthouse. He had barely reactivated the weather shield after closing the door when a harried Talz housekeeper came to him. “Colonel Fel, thank the stars you are back! Your sons –”

Unruly kids were the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. “Aren’t they in bed yet?” he barked.

“No, Colonel, they’re still in the common room. They –”

He ignored the rest of the sentence and marched purposefully to the living area without even taking off his boots. He had been planning to give Davin a stern telling-off about the datapad in the morning, but if the boys had been giving the housekeeper a hard time, he was going to get it right here, right now. He strode into the common room to find them on the couch and began, “Didn’t I tell you two to be nice to –”

And he stopped dead in his tracks.

The two children were huddled together under a blanket, shivering with feverish chills. Their eyes were red, their cheeks were flushed, and as he came closer he saw that they had sprouted small dots of fur all over their face and hands.

They had Togorian measles.

The End

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Fanon elements and Wookieepedia links

Spoiler

This story takes place on New Alzoc, which is a planet of my creation. It is located in the Unknown Regions. I have a post about it in the Fanon Thread for anyone who would like to know more or to borrow it for a fic, and a long story arc about it, beginning in part II, chapter 29 of Ἀνάγκη: Destiny.

New Alzoc is inhabited by a colony of Talz who escaped from Imperial slavery and joined Thrawn’s Empire of the Hand, whose capital is in Nirauan. In the fanon I developed for the Unknown Regions at large, the EotH is fighting on three fronts at this point in time: against the Vagaari, against the Far Outsiders, a.k.a. The Yuuzhan Vong, and against Nuso Esva, whose final defeat on Quethold took place shortly before this fic. Meanwhile, the EotH has already engaged the Vong several times in the story arc that I developed in parts II and III of Ἀνάγκη, most notably in the Battle of Viezoth and the Battle of the Edge.

Some other fanon elements about the Talz is that they have no concept of private property, except for their kashanas, i.e. dwellings. The word ‘kashana’, like the words ‘daya’ and ‘neeya’, are butchered Persian for home, uncle and grandfather respectively. Two features of the settlement on New Alzoc are the ice sculptures that the Talz create on the roadside whenever they feel like doing it, and the domed weather shields that are put in place to protect dwellings and other structures from the blizzard.

The two other species that appear in this story, namely the Viezothans and the Grorandhim, are fanon. One item on my very long to-do list is to write a post about them in the Fanon thread, but anyone is welcome to use them.

The Viezothans are four-legged, two-armed equine beings from the planet Viezoth. They appear in part III, chapter 32 of Ἀνάγκη: The Ambush and the following chapters. The White Herd are the sole survivors of the species after the battle between the EotH and the Vong over their homeworld, and they have come to New Alzoc as refugees. The White Herd believe that the birth of a black foal is an omen of death for a leader; thus, Matthia-Ruudi was named after Senior Captain Matthias Ruud after his death during the Battle of the Edge.

The Grorandhim are basically giant space!hedgehogs. Captain Hxitik first appears in very briefly in part III, chapter 36 of Ἀνάγκη: The Black Foal. I came up with his name just two weeks ago, when writing the penultimate story of this challenge, and it’s one of my inside jokes for people who speak Greek (HXITIKO, pronounced ‘eecheetiko’, means ‘sonic’ in Greek).

The humbaba and the worrmp are a large and a small creature native to Soontir Fel’s homeworld of Corellia. Their phonetics sounded suitable to create the Corellian equivalent of “making a mountain out of a molehill.”

 

Wow, what a lot of comings and goings just to track down the path of the datapad And the relief that Jag is better only to have the other younglings come down with the measles!

I loved reading about the Talz and the Viezothans. The community of both species seem to be in a very cooperative relationship with the EoTH.

 

Loved reading about the sentient equine species and the search for where the datapad went. Congrats on finishing the run

 

Answered every wife. Ever.

So he should have just gone and grabbed his son by the lapels in the first place, cause he was the culprit all along. Oh, brother.

What a finish to the challenge, @Chyntuck Fantastic as always!

 

Congratulations on 1. completing the Run and 2. finding a way around the dread 'reverse narrative' prompt! Constructing an investigation proves there is a way out of the darkness!

Flawless logic; he wants to become a plushie.

Kids' reasons, who can follow them? Not being a gamer, I'm sternly disapproving of his motives. He deserves a talking-to, only ... poor little one at the end. *pets him* **comes down with Togorian measles five minutes later** ***excellent use of my disease in a fic, way to go!***

 

I'm back for a few replies and thank yous I know I should've done this already and I apologise for being so tardy, but I'll say in my defence that I had a lot going on in terms of fanfic since the end of the KR.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read these stories, I hope you enjoyed them!

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you! Soontir's quest in this story was something of a slice of life for me. We are regularly confronted with situations in Chyntuckopolis where we have to go through every. single. kid. in the extended family to figure out where the blue vase went. It's endearing and exasperating at the same time

If I can make time for the Kessel Run next year, I definitely intend to write more about them! (Yes, I already know my theme for next year. I guess that puts me in the category of Irredeemable Fanfic Addicts.)

@earlybird-obi-wan Thanks! You and I need to swap aliens at some point. You have so many great species in your fanon, I really want to experiment with them.

@Vek Talis Thank you!

Haha! Very true. When I was an exchange student in France waaaaay back in the 90s, there was a series of interviews of wives of prominent French scientists on TV, and I remember distinctly the wife of Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (who had just been awarded the Nobel for physics) saying, completely deadpan, "My husband? He wouldn't be anything without me." I guess it stuck with me

Thanks so much! I'm glad I could keep you entertained for the duration of the challenge.

@pronker Thanks

To be 100% honest, the investigation option was the laziest way out I've experimented with "proper" reverse narratives for the detective stories I write in Greek and I was never happy with the result; it always felt gimmicky to me – which is why I am so in awe at the fact that so many people here managed to write such stories successfully in such a short amount of time! When I saw that The Three Apples was the first example on the link that Viari gave, I immediately decided that an investigation was what I would do.

Thanks so much for letting me borrow it! It's such a brilliant starwarsy concept, I hope I did it justice!

@Mira_Jade Thank you so much for the extensive review! Taking this bit by bit:

The Grand Admiral's Wife

YES! I have to say here that you and Vi are partly to blame for this. I've seen you experimenting with AUs of your stories, and then AUs of your AUs, and, well, since I'm embarking on a first, happy-end AU myself because of thanks to you, I thought I should try a darker one too (because yeah, Ἀνάγκη isn't dark enough in and of itself!)

Thank you! "Mary Sue" is a term that I decided to ban from my vocabulary, especially after all the Rey backlash which I thought was sexist as heck. What I find interesting though is that we tend to slip into stereotypes about female characters, and this is something I find myself doing even with my own characters – and I think that I should be reminding myself and readers more regularly about some elements about Ayesha, for instance the fact that she's not particularly beautiful, that she's a bit chubby, etc. These are bits and pieces that I established in the opening chapters of Ἀνάγκη, but I don't repeat them often enough, so people often interpret scenes such as this one as "she's a stunningly beautiful woman" instead of "she has a special place in the Force".

To me, the fact that Ayesha's art isn't what it could be is a logical consequence of the choices she made in this AU. What made her special in the prime!verse was the drive to be her own person, but in this one, she's been willing to make a lot of dishonest compromises to avoid trouble of any sort, and that would reflect on every aspect of her life. In the prequel to this fic that I wrote for last year's KR, Thrawn sees right through her from day 1, and this was another important difference to the prime!verse where he found her unreadable and intriguing. Here he can see very precisely what she's trying to hide even in her art, and yeah, she wouldn't have a happy life, not as an artist, not as a person, if she made such choices.

The dance scene is actually borrowed almost word-for-word from the equivalent chapter of Ἀνάγκη and from 'She', because this was the third time (!) that I wrote this scene from different POVs and, even though I'm enjoying revisiting my work, there's a limit to how many different versions of the same thing I can come up with However, it was an interesting experience to write a mishmash of the two previous versions in this new context – because of course it had to go wrong.

Oh, The Mask of Zorro was definitely on my mind here. It's such a great example of pasodoble in cinema and Catherine Zeta-Jones in particular is amazing in it. And yes, they did get "carried away" a little, didn't they? "They just can't help themselves" is very spot-on to describe this situation.

I learned a new word thanks to Ny and you, but yes, "scuzzbucket" sounds about right. It was another interesting experience to write Zaarin in this AU because he got what he wanted – so my idea was that he wouldn't need to be quite as aggressive as in the prime!verse, since here Ayesha is willingly subjecting herself to his domination.

The Tables Turned

And guess who is to blame? TBH I'm still not entirely sold on the very concept of the 2nd-person POV, but I have to admit that you and Elli did find a way to make it work, even for me.

My thought behind this (and the "lost within your own schemes" element) was that, when the extent of your power depends on manipulating others to serve you even against their best interests, keeping everything streamlined is a full time-job (and must be exhausting). In the end, Palpatine doesn't do anything – he has Tarkin to manage the Death Star, he has Thrawn to pacify the Unknown Regions, he has Vader to run the hunt for the Rebellion, etc. The only role he has kept for himself is to keep all his servants in line, and this is what he actually enjoys doing.

Haha, yes! Of course, Zaarin won't know that he's being manipulated too until it's too late

'Discarded'

I have to admit that the drunken monologue was my favourite story to write during the challenge. I mean, come on, how could I resist?

So did I writing it! I'll even admit that this is one of the first bits I thought of when I decided that my response to the prompt would be drunk Makh. Again, how could I resist?

Hahaha! Actually, I thought that Makh couldn't be an entirely bad guy, since Ayesha was dating him for, well, quite a while. And going back to the Mary Sue discussion that we mentioned above, there was a side plot that I ended up not including in Ἀνάγκη because it would have taken me on a tangent, but my idea was that, for all his faults, Makh was truly and genuinely in love with Ayesha, whereas she only ever saw him as a placeholder boyfriend, and, well, yes, she 'discarded' him once he had outlived his usefulness, which isn't a very nice thing to do.

Oh, you're one to talk, you managed to make us all care about Darth Maul, of all people. I have to admit though that I wrote more about Makh in these few weeks of the KR, both for this year's challenge and for a few leftover prompts from last year, than all the screentime he ever got in Ἀνάγκη. He got 4 ficlets total (two in this thread and two in the Intermezzi I thread) and this all went in an unexpected direction. By this I mean that he's still the chauvinistic, domineering Makh that I wrote in Ἀνάγκη but I gave myself the space to develop him as a multi-dimentional character and to highlight some of his qualities too, and most importantly to show that, unlike Zaarin, he didn't pursue Ayesha solely for the sake of dominating her.

35:07:01 GrS

Heh. A blunter way of putting it would be, "I couldn't pick which story to write, so I wrote them all."

Ha. Ayesha would be one of the happy few who know what is beneath that gruff exterior, right? Joke aside, I think it would be interesting to write Quin in a proper parent-child relationship. For all his zaniness, I expect that he'd make a good dad.

In case you haven't guessed, Thirr Pr'ollerg is one of the nasties who will bite the dust in The Secret Project™. Unlike Makh, he has no redeeming qualities, so it'll be my pleasure to kill him off in a brutal way.

I'm not going to lie, this one was probably the first idea I had – both for Onion trying to intoxicate someone and for Nazmat Koch commenting on shades of red. It's a bit as if the prompts were telling me, "put these two in an improbable situation".

To Judi Dench or not to Judi Dench!

Thanks! Looking back, if I were to write only one, this would probably be it – not that it's my best writing, but it was just so entertaining to do

Mission accomplished I did write a sequel to this already, but I wouldn't say that it actually gets better.

Thanks! Again, looking back, this one was probably my second-favourite to write, because grumpy Cottle is grumpy And it was one of my first ideas too; however, no matter how I looked at it, I could never come up with a natural turn of sentence that didn't entail conjugating "intoxicate".

Ashi-Dilza, Hxitik and Stent are back in the final viggie, so their inclusion in this collection will probably make more sense when you get around to reading it. Thank you again for taking the time to leave such detailed feedback! You rock

And thanks once more to everyone who read and enjoyed my little creations! I won't be adding new stories to this particular thread, but the characters' adventures continue in my other Ἀνάγκη!verse threads.

 

Thank you so much for the detailed review @Findswoman and sorry it took me so long to get back to you! I was swallowed whole by the Fanfic Olympics, but I'm finally here for your replies.

Thanks again! I realised looking back that this was the moment of the Kessel Run when I'd finally gotten by writing mojo back after such a long break, which is probably why I enjoyed writing this story so much. As you may remember, Dr. Cottle is a recurring character in Ἀνάγκη, but I'd never written anything from his POV and he didn't get much character development in the main story, so this was a golden opportunity to write a little bit about his curmudgeonly traits that I so love. I'm glad it worked for you too!

Nazmat Koch is an interesting character for me to write because, while I normally start by defining my OCs' backstory and build their endpoint from there, she turned up all dressed up and ready to go in my head one day, endpoint and all, but no backstory whatsoever – so I'm building her in reverse here. One trait of hers that I really try to emphasise in any story she appears is that she isn't going to let old age slow her down, or at least let others see that it slows her down, and this would be particularly true in the case of her great-grandson who is two-and-a-half years old at the end of this story and who can simply not understand what is going on. I really did enjoy writing their relationship though – I only got to write tiny snippets of it in Ἀνάγκη and it was nice to have such a good opportunity to elaborate.

Trust me, I'm also very glad that this is an AU! I don't think I could stomach writing a lot more Ayesha/Zaarin before I smashed my laptop or something but it's been an interesting experience writing a story where Ayesha surrenders in order to better survive. It's just an experience that I'd rather not repeat

As I mentioned in the main challenge thread and in my intro notes, writing this piece was something new for me because of the 2nd-person POV, but looking back again, I don't really hate it (?) I really need to credit Mira and Elli for their own Palpatine-2nd-person fics, because it's true that it works quite well for this character, especially in a situation like this one where he convinces himself of the need for more ruthlessness, as you said, but his scheming ends up working against him.

Well, to call a spade a spade, Makh is totally and absolutely a jackass. BUT – and this is yet again something I didn't have the "space" to develop in Ἀνάγκη, he does have some qualities, however well-hidden, because Ayesha must have seen something in him! So I grabbed the chance I had here to elaborate a bit on him in this thread and the Intermezzi I thread, and I was planning to write about him for the "An Old Flame" challenge, but I didn't have time.

Thank you! This was a wonderful writing exercise for me. As you saw the Grorandhi reappeared in the long vignette, and I have plans to bring back all my species from the Unknown Regions for a future challenge – maybe next year's Kessel Run, who knows?

For some reason I have a feeling that the "parenthood as warfare" saying is something I picked up from a real-life culture, but I can't remember which one Or maybe it's just personal experience of kids making a big mess, but then you can't even tell them off because they got sick or somehow hurt themselves. As I said in my reply to pronker further up-thread, I really chose the lazy way out with the prompt because I was never able to write a "proper" reverse narrative that I was satisfied with, so I thought I'd compensate with a bit of fun and world-building.

Thank you so much! I think that I'm inching towards the end of the road with his 'verse, but never say never – maybe the 2024 KR will be Intermezzi III after all!