Beyond - Legends Once a Warrior [TUF ?Missing Moment? ? Tahiri/Kunra?!]

Well, that description of Anakin's corpse was...chilling to say the least.

 

The Yuuzhan Vong believe in pain, and if nothing else, they have the courage of their convictions. Conversion doesn?t just mean persuading you to change your beliefs. It means taking an unwilling infidel, and reducing every fibre of their being to pain, distilling a human life into pure and perfect agony. From their point of view, it makes a certain sort of sense. And it?s surprisingly effective.

Not sure what to say here, other than "I like it"

How do it describe this to her, though?

I think she's fluent in it these days as well

You ready for this?



Nice post, giving us a little more explanation as to how Anakin became Kunra and what Tahiri knew. But it looks like the next post will give more of the details

 

Okay, So Tahiri's ready to hear his story, but are we reviewers????

You deserved that award. No doubt about it!!!!

Just like I deserved Best AU, but we can't all have what we want, now can we?



Yay! A teaser. Now I can't wait. Drop me a PM when you update, willya?

 

Striker: Well, that description of Anakin's corpse was...chilling to say the least.

Yeah...

And no, there's no real trick in the description there. That's very definately Anakin's corpse. Dead as a parrot.

YK: Not sure what to say here, other than "I like it"

Thanks!

I think she's fluent in it these days as well

Pay attention to her accent, though?

Nice post, giving us a little more explanation as to how Anakin became Kunra and what Tahiri knew. But it looks like the next post will give more of the details

Well, yeah... you start with Anakin's corpse, obviously...

Vc: Okay, So Tahiri's ready to hear his story, but are we reviewers????

I'm assuming you folks have strong stomachs. You and YK are YV already, anyway... so this should appeal to you, I guess...

You deserved that award. No doubt about it!!!!

Thanks!

Am I allowed to disagree?

Just like I deserved Best AU, but we can't all have what we want, now can we?

Hey, I'm giving you a canon-compliant not-dead Anakin. What more could you ask for?

Yay! A teaser. Now I can't wait. Drop me a PM when you update, willya?

I don't normally, ah... do PMs, I'm afraid. I'll see what I can do, though... if you have Word files of your own 'fic, which I've fallen a bit behind with...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Hmmmmm... Not sure. Decent waves to surf on?

 

Congrats on your award!

The Yuuzhan Vong believe in pain, and if nothing else, they have the courage of their convictions. Conversion doesn?t just mean persuading you to change your beliefs. It means taking an unwilling infidel, and reducing every fibre of their being to pain, distilling a human life into pure and perfect agony. From their point of view, it makes a certain sort of sense. And it?s surprisingly effective.

A total immersion course in the language of pain.

Wow. I mean . . . wow.

I should know. I?m fluent now.

Obviously, I speak it with a slight Corellian accent, though.

I really like that.

Nice teaser! (Well, the subject matter isn't exactly pleasant, but you know what I mean.)

Looking forward to more!

 

Vc: Hmmmmm... Not sure. Decent waves to surf on?

On a worldship?

Try the Hebrides?

Scoundrel: Congrats on your award!

Gah! I was hoping everyone would have forgotten that!

But, thanks!

Wow. I mean . . . wow.



I really like that.

The second line's a last-minute ad-lib!

Nice teaser! (Well, the subject matter isn't exactly pleasant, but you know what I mean.)

Looking forward to more!

Well - here it is!!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

[Okay - as those of you who remember the teaser will see, I've changed things around a bit in this scene. I don't know if it works better this way, though - so feel free to let me know what you think! ]

Anakin Solo is dead.

This is not a metaphor. It is not an euphemism. It is not a clever turn of phrase. It is flat biological truth.

Anakin Solo is dead.

He died about twenty-seven miniketts ago, in the cloning node of the Yuuzhan Vong damutek aboard the worldship Baanu Mir, in an L5 orbit around the planet Myrkr. He was seventeen years and two months old.

Injured and exhausted, he had just thrown his last thermal detonator at a cargo pannier full of clone tissue. He believed ? perhaps through some Force insight, perhaps simply because of the fog and fantasy of trauma-induced delirium ? that this would mark an end to the voxyn project, and the successful completion of the mission he had come to Myrkr to carry out.

He missed.

At the time of his death, he was being dragged screaming out of the tissue-transfer chamber by the surviving warriors of the élite cadre known as Three Scourge, with the muscled sphincter of the portal folding solemnly shut between him and his target.

As he died, he was still reaching desperately for the grenade with one hand, as if he could somehow touch it with his outstretched fingertips, somehow brush it towards the pannier.

But the last he had seen, the detonator had been rocking idly back and forth in the middle of the deck, well away from its intended target ? and the Yuuzhan Vong élite named Nom Anor, who had lured him to his death there, was starting back towards it, to kick it even further away.

He didn?t see what happened next.

He died in agony, not knowing whether he has succeeded or failed, knowing only that he had tried to make a difference ? and that a thousand generations of Jedi teaching insisted that that was not enough.

Now, none of that matters to him any more.

He is simply dead.

Twenty miniketts ago ? seven minutes after his death ? Nom Anor and the alien agent known as Vergere brought his body to Master Shaper Yal Phaath in the main antrum of the damutek, and ordered the Master Shaper to try to revive him.

But seven miniketts ago ? twenty minutes after his death ? Nom Anor and Vergere left again, content that he was beyond hope of revival, leaving the Master Shaper and his team to prepare his corpse for disposal according to Yuuzhan Vong custom.

The Great Doctrine insists that an infidel hero who embraces the pain and dies in agony will be reborn as a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. Honouring him with a warrior?s funeral is a way of affirming that he embodied their own virtues even as an enemy, and of speeding his soul?s path onto the True Way.

Since Nom Anor and Vergere are both of a cynical disposition, they are also hoping to use the ceremony as a lure, to draw the survivors of his strike team into another trap.

Anakin, of course, knows none of this.

Anakin is dead.

His naked corpse lies on a cold slab, insensible to the unsentimental ministrations of the Yuuzhan Vong adepts who have been tasked with preparing him for his transformation and rebirth. They work with brisk efficiency, knowing that they are expected to work miracles on his mutilated cadaver, and to present a ritually-prepared body for disposal within the kett.

In the time since Vergere left, the last of her bioengineered tears? healing energy has faded from his system. The adepts have made further interventions in his cold, dead flesh, garbing his naked body in a regalia of neat incisions and brutal gashes. They have implanted symbiotes, introduced parasites and bacteria, and infected him with fast-acting viruses and RNA strands. They have physically bound his corpse into the biotech hive of the damutek with interface grafts.

Anakin Solo cannot protest.

Anakin Solo is dead.

His flesh is pale and cold, cut to the bone by savage wounds, discoloured by the livid mottling of massive cell-trauma. Any

 

Caught up again.

Previous post:

The Yuuzhan Vong believe in pain, and if nothing else, they have the courage of their convictions. Conversion doesn?t just mean persuading you to change your beliefs. It means taking an unwilling infidel, and reducing every fibre of their being to pain, distilling a human life into pure and perfect agony. From their point of view, it makes a certain sort of sense. And it?s surprisingly effective.

A total immersion course in the language of pain.

I should know. I?m fluent now.
Yummy - loved that bit.

I also loved Anakin's observations of Tahiri and his relief she couldn't sense his thoughts in the Force, although it was sad.

Most recent post:
Chilling - absolutely chilling. I was both repulsed and yet fascinated. I think it was the narrative tone that carried it off, as the actual details were pretty gruesome. It was a kind of Truman Capote tone. I'm not a big Capote fan, but the voice worked in this context.

You have a frigtening ability to get into the Vong mind-set. Should this bother me?

 

Anakin Solo is dead.
This is not a metaphor. It is not an euphemism. It is not a clever turn of phrase. It is flat biological truth.
Anakin Solo is dead.

This is the worst start to a post in fan fiction history



The Great Doctrine insists that an infidel hero who embraces the pain and dies in agony will be reborn as a Yuuzhan Vong warrior. Honouring him with a warrior?s funeral is a way of affirming that he embodied their own virtues even as an enemy, and of speeding his soul?s path onto the True Way.
Since Nom Anor and Vergere are both of a cynical disposition, they are also hoping to use the ceremony as a lure, to draw the survivors of his strike team into another trap.

This, however, was great

Just incredible writing, Thrawn. I loved the details of Anakin's shaping, especially the language used to describe such gruesome stuff. It's so gritty. The depiction of the shaping was better than what we see Keye's do to Tahiri.

I like that it's not really a happy ending, giving us Anakin back as less than he was, and completely different. Anyway, great post, can't wait to see how he and Tahiri get along

 

Great update!!!

Hmmm... He really was eligible for non-human....

And I DO have word files. Semi-complete for Towards Darkness, starting at chapter three for Vessel of the Force, and complete for Among the Stars.

Complete meaning through as far as I have posted on the boards, of course.

 

Tahi: Caught up again.

Yippee!

Yummy - loved that bit.

*smacks lips*

I also loved Anakin's observations of Tahiri and his relief she couldn't sense his thoughts in the Force, although it was sad.

Aye... thanks!

Most recent post:
Chilling - absolutely chilling. I was both repulsed and yet fascinated. I think it was the narrative tone that carried it off, as the actual details were pretty gruesome. It was a kind of Truman Capote tone. I'm not a big Capote fan, but the voice worked in this context.

Close, kinda - one conscious influence on the dry, narrative voice was Garrison Keillor's voiceover on the Honda car adverts we have on TV over here...

You have a frigtening ability to get into the Vong mind-set. Should this bother me?

Perhaps the Vong were really genetically engineered Ewoks?

YK: This is the worst start to a post in fan fiction history

Hah!

This, however, was great

Thanks!

Just incredible writing, Thrawn. I loved the details of Anakin's shaping, especially the language used to describe such gruesome stuff. It's so gritty. The depiction of the shaping was better than what we see Keye's do to Tahiri.

Thanks. And shush. It's more in-your-face, perhaps... but Keyes wrote brilliant novels. The obvious parallel here is Traitor, of course...

I like that it's not really a happy ending, giving us Anakin back as less than he was, and completely different. Anyway, great post, can't wait to see how he and Tahiri get along

Thanks - will be a while, though - there's more grittiness and ickiness to come...

Vc: Great update!!!

Hmmm... He really was eligible for non-human....

From a certain point of view...

And I DO have word files. Semi-complete for Towards Darkness, starting at chapter three for Vessel of the Force, and complete for Among the Stars.

Complete meaning through as far as I have posted on the boards, of course.

That's fine!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

[Okay - another update! I think it's probably a little long for what it's supposed to do, and maybe a little detailed - and my debts in writing this to Matt Stover and YodaKenobi, i migliori fabbri, will be obvious to anyone who's read their work...

But, as usual, feedback is appreciated, and I hope you all get something positive out of this, even if it's only the cerebral crunch of working out a little more of what's going on... ]

....

This is how it feels to be Anakin Solo right now.

He hurts. They?ve done something to him. Done things to him.

He can feel distinctly physical gaps in himself, as cool and numb and sore and keen as blades ? voids and absensces where the frayed fibre of his being has simply? parted.

But these wounds also have a weight and purchase of their own, tugging at the torn, nebulous edges of his slashed and butchered body, threatening ? and promising ? a further unravelling of his human skein.

He floats on a cocktail of steroids, garnished by pain-skewered thoughts.

He lies on a cold, smooth slab, like a cut of meat, no longer knowing what is happening. He feels, suddenly, very alone.

He blinks, and his eyes try to focus.

Pain flashes along his optic nerves, like molten metal bursting into the crucible of his brain.

Light, bright enough that it hurts.

Ticking. A golden light.

He writhes, speared by the light, and a reedy wail rises in his ragged throat.

Even that effort exhausts him, and he sags slack on the slab, as his mind starts to make sense of what has happened, and where he is.

?Hiri? Jaya? He blinks. Huh?!

The ticking is a small beam, shining from a slim lightquill, being shone into his dilated pupils. His eyes follow the light instinctively, as though hypnotized. The lightquill is held in a clawed hand ? not a human hand ? gloved in rough, segmented armour. The golden light comes from the gleaming eyes of the man whose hand it is.

The face could be human ? so aged that species is almost meainingless, so deeply lined that several centuries? worth of scars and tatoos have become merely details in the map of wrinkles. Even the shifting, knotting snake-dreadlocks which frame his visage have grown old beyond recognition, more like the folded gossamer wings of a star dragon than the tendril coils of a Shaper?s headdress ? so old, so frail, they have a diaphanous quality, an ethereal, weightless dignity to the way they move.

But there is a familiar, oily pattern in the skin of the cloak clasped round his shoulders, matching the gloss of the feather quills which form a loose mantle around the collar.

Anakin manages a gurgle of surprise.

?You are a very lucky young man,? the Master Shaper remarks, and amid the lines, Anakin Solo can see a kindly smile. ?You were clinically dead for twenty miniketts. You?re very lucky we were able to bring you back.?

He answers this news with another gurgle in his throat, feeling the pain seep back into him ? then flinches sharply in several directions at once as the pain becomes real again.

His arms and legs are raw and burning, more like fire than flesh. Every breath is agony, each heartbeat a lead weight. But the cold pain of the deep wound in his guts is the worst, the black, unblinking eye of a savage storm of pain that rages from ribs to groin. Above that, the slash across his chest yawns like the sabre-toothed maw of a hungry voxyn, rich with heat and venom, while all across his body, the surgical incisions stab and sting and sing, in harmony with the sharp, acid-edged amphistaff bites on his arms and shoulders. Lower and more subtle are the needlepoint prickles, the cuts and bruises, the playground scuffs and grazes, the old-fashioned exhaustion.

Compared to all this, the symbiotes and implants are merely knots of cold discomfort slipped between layers of torn tissue, almost like refuges, in which his thoughts can curl up safe, away from all the pain.

For a moment, being alive feels almo

 

and my debts in writing this to Matt Stover and YodaKenobi,

It's good to see Stover and I collaborating again. I haven't heard from him since I helped with that whole "Revenge of the Sith" novel he was working on


For a moment ? an awful, infinite eternity of despair ? Anakin Solo believes that he is the only infidel left alive in the universe, that the Yuuzhan Vong have wiped out everyone else. All of them. Even the Force itself.



He smiles back, and then his eyes bulge in horror as he sees the blades crouched in the sheathes of her fingers.

*Shivers*

This is one of the most terrifying things I'ver ever read And I have to go to bed soon! Lovely details. The descriptions of the pain and all the procedures that were going on that we don't understand. And the end was chilling.

Anyway, truly great, Ewok

 

Um... wow?

Possibly the best bits of Thrawn'fic I've read, those two posts...

*shivers, involuntarily*

Right now, there's not much more I can say...

 

YK: It's good to see Stover and I collaborating again. I haven't heard from him since I helped with that whole "Revenge of the Sith" novel he was working on

Yeah, what did happen to that one, anyway?

*Shivers*

This is one of the most terrifying things I'ver ever read And I have to go to bed soon!

Any interesting dreams!?

[i[Lovely details. The descriptions of the pain and all the procedures that were going on that we don't understand. And the end was chilling.

Anyway, truly great, Ewok [/i]

Thanks! But like I said, a lot of what's good in it is down to you - and I can definately see things in the middle and at the end that would need to be fixed in a flnal version...

Blended: Um... wow?

Possibly the best bits of Thrawn'fic I've read, those two posts...

*shivers, involuntarily*

Right now, there's not much more I can say...

Thanks!

And there's not much more that I can say to that!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

[Well, I think the previous post needs some fixing in the middle, but I guess I'm not getting any more replies to it; so here's the second-last module of Master Yal Phaath's popular course for trainee Shapers 'Interesting Things to do with a Dead Solobrat'; this one is grizzly again - I'm worried it's a bit OTT - but it's the one that finally provides an important explanation which I'm sure you've all already guessed... ]

It doesn?t take long to skin a man alive.

It feels like years. Years in which you spend most of the time immersed in boiling oil, bathing in the fire of a Star Destroyer?s main heat exhaust, locked in the heart of a star ? wrapped in a pain so complete that you become a part of it, your thoughts themselves mere expressions of agony, flares from the surface of the flame.

Occasionally, almost by accident, your consciousness is borne back to the real world, to take a few lucid breaths of clear awareness. Your eyes are wide, and your prone body stretches away beneath the vantage-point of your perceptions to a distant horizon like a sea of fire. Every nerve burns with the white heat of an oxy-torch, while sparks of superheated awareness try to flee the pain in panic. From the wildfire of your body, thousand silent, screaming voices rage at you.

For a moment, perhaps, you touch the Force, and you remember the jungle on Yavin 4, burning.

Burning

You look down at the slope of your leg, seeing the red-blooded ham of your thigh pulsing and bloody, horribly alive; seeing the thick, fleshy rope of peeled skin hanging loose below it, loosely spun and slung between hip and knee. You see the shaper?s thump flick back your kneecap, and you see the knife slice sharply through the joint underneath, amputating your leg.

You don?t feel a thing, though.

But then you realise how much everything else hurts. You realise that your body has become a molten crucible, that this physical working is merely the alchemy that smelts flawed humanity, burning off the useless slag, purifying and forging what remains into a blade of strong and perfect pain.

And then the red-gold currents drag you back down again.

Your last thought is that the thought-destroying pain itself has saved you from the horror of becoming truly pure.

And then, even that is lost.

When they?re finished, they rub salt into the wounds. Literally.

I roll my eyes back in their sockets, feeling tears welling up from under them. Stupid tears. Why do I have to cry. Why can?t I be strong?

Why can?t I be like? like?.

My breath stalls, catching in my throat as the symbiotes bound to my lungs reach the end of the latest beat in their mechanical rhythm.

As I breathe out, I realise that I am Darth Vader.

I cry ? letting the tears fall, letting a long wail of despair whistle out around the thick, pulsing, choking vine that snakes and worms its way down in my throat and into me.

The ysalamir looks down at me from its branch, apparently quite indifferent to what is being done to me.

The only good thing I can think of is that I am inside the bubble. The ysalmair projects a Force-nul bubble, hiding me, and my pain, from everyone else.

Here, my pain ? my shame ? belongs to me, and me alone. I remember Ben being born, how that nearly knocked me out. And that was just life, just perfect.

Mom, Dad, Uncle Luke, Aunt Mara, Jaya, Jace. Tahiri. They can?t feel this.

They probably think I?m dead.

Assuming any of them are still alive.

Waaauuuughhh!!!

I roll my eyes to slough off the blurring tears ? I can?t blink any more ? and I see Niia Phaath carrying a pink bundle across the damutek, depositing it into a clear tub full of some sort of liquid. I flinch, and focus, and watch the bundle unfold like a rose, staining the liquid red.

As I watch it, my mind finally catches up with the fact that it?s trapped in a physical cage of muscle and bone, wrapped only in pain.

As I sink beneath the surface of the molten fire, I remember green eyes, solemn and sympathetic, with a calm, self-aware k

 

*blown away*


*speechless*



That was, probably, the darkest, most intense and yet amazing thing I've ever read.


And I guess now we know how the Jedi had a body for 'Anakin's' Funeral...

 

I'm worried it's a bit OTT

OTT?

When they?re finished, they rub salt into the wounds. Literally.

Jerks

As I breathe out, I realise that I am Darth Vader.

Does this have anything to do with our interview?

Or at least, someone that looks like me. They?re wrapping him in my skin.



Okay, that was by far the creepiest part. Yikes! I'm afraid to go to bed now But yeah, fantastic descriptions of some horrifying stuff. I was cringing when they were skinning him, and then when they removed his eyes *shivers* that would be about the worst.

Excellent as always, Ewok

 

*bows*

McEwok, I am going to worship you, strive to write Yuuzhan Vong as well as you, and ask you which files in particular you want.


*stares at chapters*

Is this TOS-compliant?!?

He can?t.

Forearms? Nope.

Oh, great?.

Lower legs? Maybe.

But he can roll his eyes, lift his head, try, however hopelessly, to lift his body from the slab.

His buttocks clench, almost painlessly.

To his surprise, he farts.

He laughs.


Feeling a little crude, now aren't we?

 

pp: *blown away*


*speechless*



That was, probably, the darkest, most intense and yet amazing thing I've ever read.

Thanks!

And I guess now we know how the Jedi had a body for 'Anakin's' Funeral...

You mean you hadn't worked it out already?

I really wasn't sure how well that had worked... hope it was okay!

YK: OTT?

You want me to explain the acronym, or just answering with quiet irony?

Jerks

It's to prevent infection - the painful way!

Does this have anything to do with our interview?

FACPOV. I think that that line went in after we spoke, but the basic idea was already there. Note, though, that it's "Darth Vader", not 'Anakin Skywalker'...

Okay, that was by far the creepiest part. Yikes! I'm afraid to go to bed now

Sorry!

But yeah, fantastic descriptions of some horrifying stuff. I was cringing when they were skinning him, and then when they removed his eyes *shivers* that would be about the worst.

Excellent as always, Ewok

Glad you're enjoying it!

Vc: *bows*

McEwok, I am going to worship you, strive to write Yuuzhan Vong as well as you, and ask you which files in particular you want.


Anything and everything!

*stares at chapters*

Is this TOS-compliant?!?

It's within the strict letter of the TOS, yes; I see no bar on detailed descriptions of advanced alien surgical procedures...

However, I'm aware that it's also quite... raw. I think that is important for the narrative - it's deliberately extreme, pushing towards absurd; but at the same time, if any of my readers, or any passing Mods, object - PM me, and I'll see what I can do to tone it down...

Feeling a little crude, now aren't we?

Who? Me or him?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

OK. How do you suggest I get them to you? (PM me!)

 

Interesting T/K. I like the couple, and I like how Kunra's portrayed. So touching. BTW, I'm inviting you to index this fic here.

 

[Just a quick UP to let everyone know that it's Hug A Lurker Sunday, the start of Lurker Appreciation Week...

So, I have no idea who you are - but thanks for reading the 'fic!

**runs round hugging all the lurkers' shins** !! ]

[image=http://img95.echo.cx/img95/5038/tribe3yf.jpg]

Yub yub!!

- The Imperial Ewok

 

[Yep! An update!!

First, though - I'd like to thank everyone who nominated this 'fic in the Best Short Story category in the Fan Fic Awards - you can view the category, and all the entries, here. I can personally recommend the 'fics by Elena and YodaKenobi...

But I'm deeply honoured that some of you saw fit to nominate this one as well!

Thanks!

Now, on with the 'fic! First, I should note that I decided that the next two scenes I wrote after the previous one on this page might be a bit grotesque and raw in their descriptions of what happens to Anakin (the one physically, the second psychologically); and, me being me, I like the idea of alternate versions with slightly different effects. So the next two scenes are going to be an exclusive at WOOKIEEHut - they're not up yet, but PM me for the links if you want to know when they do appear!

So what you're getting here is actually the third scene after the previous one, glossing over some important stuff...

That said, I think that this scene makes some sort of sense in sequence without the ones that would have otherwise come before it - but, more importantly, I hope that you enjoy it!! ]



Yuuzhan Vong bio-science is fast and efficient. The Yuuzhan Vong build their warriors tough and strong. They build them to heal fast.

It took them five days to build me, if you?re interested ? almost to the kenket, from the time Yal Phaath excised the viable organs, muscle-groups and bones from my corpse, to the time Niia sewed Kunra Jamaane?s skin tight shut around the finished package.

To now.

Stop and think about it, and you might notice a paradox or two in there. But in my defence, I don?t actually exist any more, so I hope you can excuse my somewhat eccentric point of view at times.

If you want specifics, they?ve replaced almost half the cellular mass of my brain, and thoroughly rewired and reprogrammed most of what was left. It?s Kunra?s brain now ? it just happens to have been built around my modified cognitive centres. I can lapse back into Basic, into my own voice, and fragments of my memory are lodged in there alongside his Yuuzhan Vong childhood ? but there?s nothing left that should bind what?s left of me into a person any more.

I?m supposed to be Kunra now.

I still feel like me, though.

I?m not sure if that was part of the plan.

But Uncle Luke always did tell me to trust my feelings.

It?s a strange feeling, in a lot of ways. I?m slipping from one mindset to another ? not simply transiting from ?Anakin? to?Kunra?, but travelling through a whole series of different perspectives and personas, rediscovering familiar memories and finding things about myself I never knew before.

But whoever I am, I always feel like me.

I?m pretty sure that people?s minds wander like that even without quite such dramatic surgery on their identity, though ? or at least, that my mind always has. It?s just the perspective of being two people now ? except that I?m not! ? that has enabled me to finally express it clearly.

Or maybe it?s just a Yuuzhan Vong thing. I may be Anakin, still ? sorta, somehow, kinda, maybe ? but I don?t think I?m really human any more.

I?m getting used to seeing the world through Yuuzhan Vong eyes, starting to savour to the alien flavour of the thoughts being served up inside my skull. There?s something almost erotic about the exotic ways they move and interact, like silk-spun nests of sidestepping spiders ? or like the ripples of tides over the shallow sand of the Small Sea on Jamaane?tar, drawn by the complex gravities of the alien moons riding low and luminous in the starry sky.

I smile at that memory.

Then the smile twists ? pure Anakin, appropriately asymmetrical for Kunra ? as my attention shifts to the pain and pleasure of my new-built bo