Saga - Legends Sai-perimetry at Gleebaloola's, You Bet! (Fanon Quote Challenge, Quinlan Vos cameo)

Author: Findswoman
Title: Sai-perimetry at Gleebaloola’s, You Bet!
Era: Imperial era (somewhere between Episodes 3 and 4)
Characters: OCs, with a couple of EC cameos and mentions in the later chapters
Genre: Humor, slice of life; short multichapter (three chapters)
Summary: Two business neighbors on Coruscant, a Squib antique dealer and a Kiffar insurance agent, get more than they bargained for when the former asks the latter to use psychometry on artifacts to be sold in her shop.
Contents: One (below) | Two | Three
Notes: Written for the Fanon Quote Challenge. My results were Chyntuck ’s fanon on the Kiffar and “Judge me by my size, do you?” The quote will appear in chapter two.
Many thanks, as always, to Ewok Poet for beta reading and for her much-appreciated encouragement.

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Sai-perimetry at Gleebaloola’s, You Bet!

One

The insurance offices of Norrwin Mun were situated in a rather ordinary office complex in the CoCo Town district of Imperial City. Mun, a middle-aged Kiffar with a mop of dark gray hair, light olive skin, and no distinctive characteristics except a thick red qukuuf mark across his chin, could be seen padding into his small office suite every weekday promptly at 0800, caf-mug in hand. There would spend the day hard at work among his policies, claims, and premiums, with no other company besides an old-model HP-12C accountant droid to which he entrusted the more heavy-duty number crunching. At 1700 sharp he shuffled off to the transport station to catch the 1723 home to the Three Triangles apartment complex in sector H-42, where he would enjoy a quiet dinner with his wife Dorylou, a real-estate agent.

Next door to Mun’s office, a large, colorful, and gaily decorated shop known simply as Gleebaloola’s offered a stunning variety of fine antiques from every corner of the galaxy: furniture, housewares, artworks, jewelry, and much more. Its eponymous owner, a female Squib with bright orange-red fur, was a retired scavenger who had collected much of the merchandise herself over a lifetime of treasure hunting, though her friends and relatives from elsewhere in the Squib Polyanarchy still regularly brought her interesting objects to sell in her shop. She loved to regale her customers with stories of how and where she (or her friends and relatives) had found each of the items in her shop—and absolutely everything in her shop had a story, from the largest High Alderaan-style armoire to the tiniest jewel-inlaid caf-spoon. To many who visited Gleebaloola’s, the stories were as much of a draw as the merchandise itself.

Mun and Gleebaloola had been business-neighbors and friends for decades. They kept a close eye on each other’s premises, reporting any break-in attempts or suspicious loitering to the local security forces. Gleebaloola held a merchant’s insurance policy with Mun; the vintage wroshyr-wood roll-top desk in which Mun kept much of his daily flimsiwork had been purchased at Gleebaloola’s. The Squib occasionally helped Mun assess the worth of valuable objects he was asked to insure (usually by rubbing them against her fur and making pronouncements like, “This one’s worth bigtime credits, you bet!”). Mun, in turn, once happened to identify a shiny chunk of metal in Gleebaloola’s transparisteel case as one of his homeworld’s extremely rare and precious anticonductive minerals (upon which she immediately tripled its price). At midday they could often be seen eating lunch together on the front stoop of the commercial complex that housed both their businesses.

During one such lunch on a lazy, torpid Taungsday afternoon, the two neighbors had exhausted usual the topics of the weather (hot and humid), the current political situation (“Do you know anything about this Tarkin person?” “No, do you?”), and family members’ doings (Mun’s daughter had just started her second year at the University of Sanbra). They were sitting quietly together, nibbling the remains of their meals and watching the crowds go by, when Gleebaloola spoke.

“Oh, by the bye and bye, Norrwin, Cousin Mleeanna brought by a little sumpty-something just the other day, she did.”

“Did she?” Mun recognized the name of one of the Squib’s scavenging family members. “What is it?”

“It’s a kind of staff. Like what a shamany Forcey wizardy someone might use. Snake head, lots o’ jewels and pretties, mhm. Come on by after shutting time and give it a little looksee?”

“You want me to look at it?” Mun wasn’t sure about this. Usually he was the one asking Gleebaloola to look at things to determine their value for insurance purposes. It had never been the other way around.

“You bet. An’ hold it.”

“Look at it and hold it?” Mun really wasn’t sure about this.

“Yessirree! Nothing easy-peasier! Just do that koovy thing your kind does and hold it in your two five-fingery hands and tell me where it’s from, how many moons ’n’ suns old it is, and so forth and suchlike. Mhm?”

Mun gulped, almost swallowing his piece of sandwich whole. Gleebaloola was asking him to use the famed Kiffar skill of psychometry to find out the origins of something she was going to sell in her shop. The problem was, he—like, indeed, the vast majority of Kiffar—did not possess that skill, or at least did not possess it strongly enough for it to be of any use. No one in Clan Mun had psychometric abilities—well, no one except maybe crazy old Uncle Ansgar, and there was a good reason he was cooped up in the Coruscant Mental Facility.

In any case, Mun had to think quickly, because there Gleebaloola was, batting her beady black mouse-eyes, twitching her muzzle, and saying, “You gonna answer sometime this week, mhm?”

“Oh—gee—um—I’m afraid I can’t come by tonight, Gleebaloola. Our, um, baby grandniece is, um, having her qukuuf ceremony this evening over in Coruscant Heights.”

“Aww, y’mean the little charmer with the reddish-orangish topfur? She only just got borned last month, didn’t she, yes?”

“Well, yes, but—well, you know, since we’re away from Kiffu and all, they wanted to do it early, you know, to get her under the protection of the clan as soon as possible and all that sort of thing. Oh, and it’s supposed to storm over Coruscant Heights tonight, and that’s, um, good luck. But maybe I’ll come by another time. Yes, maybe another time.”

“Well, tell that brother and nephew of yours that I send my heartfeltest and most delighted best wishes to the family unit and all associated therewith.”

“Will do, thanks.” Mun breathed an inward sigh of relief. That had been close!

The next day at lunch, Gleebaloola brought up the issue of the staff again.

“Think you could come by and take a look at the pretty shamany staff after shutting time, mhm?” Gleebaloola asked, daintily nibbling a chunk of strong-smelling cheese.

Mun almost slopped his caf down his shirt front. “Um—well—’fraid not. We have to take the tooka to the vet.”

“Oh, why, what’s wrong with that widdle fuzzy-wuzzy-woo?”

“Um . . . er . . . hairballs. Yes. Lots of hairballs. We’re hoping the vet can prescribe some . . . um . . . anti-hairball cream.”

Gleebaloola’s pointy, tufted ears drooped in a gesture of sympathy. “Here’s hoping above all hope that she’s back to 100% bright-eyedness and bushy-tailedness soon.”

“Thanks.” Crisis averted yet again, at least for the day.

But it wasn’t the last Mun heard of that pretty jeweled shamany staff. Each day at lunch Gleebaloola asked him if he could come by after hours and “take a look” at it using his nonexistent psychometric powers. And each day Mun racked his brains to come up with some kind of excuse as to why he couldn’t. The mental strain was nontrivial, for his mental faculties were generally more suited to financial figures than colorful excuses. It got to the point where Mun, much to Gleebaloola’s dismay, took to excusing himself from lunch on the pretense of running errands.

One day, as he claimed to have to head to Klipps to pick up some Four-Mern Wite-A-Way refills before the sale prices went back up, Gleebaloola grabbed his arm with a spindly clawed hand.

“So now you tell me, you Norrwin Mun you.” Her fur and whiskers bristled as she spoke. “You’re trying to get yourself out of looking at this pretty old staff thing for me, aren’t you, yes, mhm?”

“Well . . .”

“Aren’t you? Yes? Mhm?!”

Mun sighed. It was no use hiding things anymore; Gleebaloola might be pushy and a chatterbox, but she was perceptive too. “Well . . . you want me to hold it and tell you where it’s from, right?”

“You bet!”

“See, Gleebaloola, the fact is . . . I can’t do that.”

“Can’t? But you Kiffarish, mhm?”

“Yes, I am, but I . . . I don’t have psychometry.”

“Sai . . . what, now?”

“Psychometry. That’s what it’s called when someone can pick up things and tell where they’re from and so forth. I’ve never had it. No one in my clan has it. Well, except maybe my Uncle Ansgar. But certainly not me, that’s for sure.”

“But doesn’t all Kiffarish have sai-perimetry or whatsoever you said it was? That’s what it said in the Smuggler’s Alliance holobulletin Fun Facts column!”

Mun rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the first time he had come across this widespread misconception. “That’s what some say, but the truth is, most of us don’t really have all that much of it. For me it’s more like, if I picked up my datapad now, I could feel that it had been in my briefcase this morning. But that’s pretty much it.”

Gleebaloola’s ears perked up eagerly. “So you got a little teeny tiny bit of sai-perimetry after all, yes?”

“Sort of, but not enough to really—”

“Then you come over pronto-pronto at 1700 and pick up this jewely staff and feel where it was! No more lameoid excuses! Gotcha?!”

“All right, all right, fine,” Mun grumbled. There really and truly was no getting out of it now. But he had an idea . . . and perhaps it would even work.

To be continued . . .

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Spoiler: Notes

The following elements are from Chyntuck ’s Kiffar fanon post and her discussion with Gamiel following:

• Clan Mun and their red qukuuf mark on the chin (Clan Mun is the creation of Gamiel);
• the rare anticonductive minerals mined on Kiffu and Kiffex;
• the ceremony bestowing qukuuf marks upon infants, sometimes even before they can walk, with the purpose of offering the clan’s protection as early as possible in the case of Kiffar living offworld (which Gamiel suggests is best performed during a storm; see this post).

There will be more to come in future chapters.

Pretty much everything Squib-related that you read here (including the rubbing of items on the fur to smell them and determine value, the idiosyncratic speech patterns, and the frequent use of “koovy” and “you bet”) is gleaned from the Wookieepedia article on the Squib (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Squib).

Klipps, Four-Mern Corporation, and Wite-A-Way refills are my own creations, and yes, I know I need to write up a fanon post about them.

The Three Triangles apartment complex is fanon and is inspired by drawings made by a grade-school friend of mine; he had Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles living in an apartment building called “Three Triangle Apartments.”

The HP-12C accountant droid is my own creation and is very obviously and uncreatively named for Hewlett Packard’s by now somewhat iconic financial calculator, the 12C.

Wookieepedia links:
psychometry: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Psychometry
Smugglers’ Alliance: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Smugglers'_Alliance
Taungsday: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar#Days_of_the_week
tooka: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tooka
University of Sanbra: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Sanbra
wroshyr wood: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wroshyr-wood

 

Thanks so much for the comments, you two.

No worries in the least! The deadline for this was in what, October? It's all good.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy her; she as a lot of fun to write, and it was immensely cool to finally get the opportunity to write a Squib—I have been intrigued by them for a while now, ever since encountering the inimitable King Ebareebaveebeedee (who has the sea-blue fur!) in one of those HoloNet News segments drawn by Joe Corroney. And as you know from my other stories, I find something very compelling about the whole "mismatched friendship" dynamic, perhaps because it's characterized many of my own RL friendships in one way or another. And the Ayrun-like situation is just one of those things that happens in every friendship sometime—I know I've had my share of those at various points, and I'm not as good as Mun at coming up with wacky excuses! (More on that below...)

Yep, Gleebaloola's orange-red fur is emblematic of her flamboyant temperament, for sure. But remember, as straight-laced as he is, Norrwin Mun has his own touch of red—that qukuuf on his chin. And perhaps that somehow hints at something more than just what clan he belongs to!

The combined fact that he's both so precise and a Kiffar—but of course that means he has the quintessential Kiffar ability, you bet! Especially since the Fun Facts column of the Smugglers' Holobulletin says so!

He has kind of an unexpected talent for those ridiculous excuses, doesn't he? Something to take note of. As for her, yep, as the story notes, she may be pushy and a chatterbox, but she's very perceptive and she's no dummy. If she were, she would never have achieved the success she has!

You will, very soon!

Thanks so much! Yep, that is something I've always believed about the GFFA—there simply have to be these mundane people doing these mundane things in the midst of all the galactic drama, because otherwise wouldn't everything basically just fall apart? And yep, given what we have seen of the Kiffar in official sources—all these formidable warriors and Guardians with psychometric powers—I just wanted to have a juxtaposition with that somehow. I waffled a bit at first about what ridiculously mundane occupation to give Mun (I almost made him a real estate agent), but it looks like I ended up with the right choice—very cool this struck a particular chord with your own experiences!

You know, that isn't actually too far off from how I envisioned her looking! I kind of saw her as wearing the typical Squib bandoliers with pouches full of random stuff on her upper half (I get the feeling that secondary sex characteristics aren't hugely conspicuous in this species), but with a big, long, colorful, and yes, swishy skirt below, in which she flounces about a lot. All in complete contrast to Mun's perfectly businesslike attire in muted tones.

Thank you so much for that compliment. This was my first time trying to write Squibs' rather wacky speech patterns; it was one of the things I found the most fun about that King Ebareebaveebeedee item in HoloNet News, but it was definitely not the easiest to duplicate. I mainly just did my best to go on what I remembered of that along with some of the quotes cited in the Wook article. But it was rather fun once I got into the groove.

Oh gee, I think I'm the wrong woman for that particular job. But I have found it a lot of fun to try to explore, in some small way, the more mundane side of the GFFA, and the parts of it that are ordinary and everyday and kinda sorta not too different from our own world. Because, again, pretty much 100% of sentient beings have had that very same experience with at least one friend at some point or another. I can't but think it has to be one of those galactic universals.

Thanks so much! You will, very soon, in the next chapter.

 

And here 'tis. This is where the quote will appear, and a bit of an EC cameo begins here as well. Thanks again to Ewok Poet for beta reading.

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Two

That evening at 1700, having finished logging the day’s claims and transactions, Norrwin Mun closed his wroshyr-wood rolltop desk, switched the HP-12C unit to dormant mode, activated the security system, and headed next door to Gleebaloola’s. He had to wend his way carefully through the veritable forest of antique furniture and artifacts so as to avoid breaking anything. At last he reached an enormous transparisteel-topped counter at the back of the shop where the Squib shopkeeper was waiting for him. She beckoned to Mun accompany her into the back office.

“Here you go, mhm.”

On a table covered in black velvoid lay an immense staff of bronze-colored wood, taller than Mun himself and probably taller than many humanoids. It did indeed have the head of a snake, and the scales adorning that head were tiny jewels of countless colors. The eyes were fire rubies the size of Mun’s fist, and the impeccably carved open mouth, with all its tiny fangs and its delicately forked tongue, was inlaid with gold.

“All right, now, let’s see here.” Mun lifted the staff with both his hands and hefted it to get a sense of its weight; it was quite heavy. “Now just warning you, Gleebaloola. This is a big, dangerous object, and there could be . . . Dark Side energy or something in it. Could be dangerous for a wee thing like you. You might want to stand back.”

The Squib’s hackles bristled at this. “Judge me by my size, do you?” she rejoined, her hands akimbo. “I’ve seen more danger ’n’ derring-do in my meagerful years in this Galaxy than the likes of you would think, young fellow, you! Now you do what you said you were gonna do and cut the blibber-blabber, mmkay?”

“Mmkay,” Mun repeated back to her, then closed his eyes. For several moments all was silent in Gleebaloola’s back office. At last the Kiffar opened his eyes again and spoke.

“Oh, this is incredible. Just incredible. Do you know who this belonged to?”

“Who? Who?” Gleebaloola clasped her hands and bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet.

“Reeblak the Redoubtable. One of the greatest of the Sorcerers of Tund. He lived almost four thousand years ago, during the Great Sith War. People said he could, um, cause his enemies to, uh, wet themselves just by . . . by squinting at them, I think it was. Yes, squinting.” He squinted by way of illustration. “Then he would have their skulls, um, cast in crystal and placed on display in his personal sitting room. Oh, and, um, see these fire rubies?”

“Yes? Yes?”

“Once Reeblak used his powers of transfiguration to take on the form of a servant droid and stole them right out of Exar Kun’s own treasury!”

“Reallies?!”

“Yes! Right while Kun was in there . . . uh . . . counting his money!”

The Squib’s eyes and mouth were now wide open with astonishment. “Wowsies, is that koovy or is that koovy!” she exclaimed. “And you got all that just from holding on to the silly thing for a couplathree seconds or two?”

“Yep.” Mun had never told such a brazen lie in his life.

“OH ME OH MYZERS! I really and truly honest to goodness had no idea that my humble establishment would ever be home to anything so fabuliciously illustrious. This’ll go for fifty thousand shiny ones at least, nothing more or less. You bet!”

Gleebaloola straightaway displayed the snake-headed, ruby-eyed staff prominently in her shop window, where it soon drew quite the crowd. It gave Mun a certain measure of pride to hear the Squib shopkeeper regaling her awestruck visitors with the story—his story—of the totally fictitious Reeblak the Redoubtable, the crystal skulls that adorned his personal sitting room, and the fire rubies he had pilfered from none other than the great Exar Kun. After a few days it was purchased by some Hutt majordomo for almost half again as much as its asking price.

From then on, whenever any of Gleebaloola’s fellow Squib scavengers brought her some intriguing artifact with unknown origins, she called Mun at once. He would come over after closing time, hold whatever it was for a few seconds with his eyes closed, and spin some wild, crazy, and completely contrived yarn about its provenance. So far she had presented him with an intricately filigreed platinum key set with emeralds (“that’s the key to the lost Rakata temple on Roon—oh yes, there was a Rakata temple on Roon”), a statue of a kneeling woman holding a moon-shaped blue crystal (“that came from the tomb of an ancient Naboo queen who brought it back from Yavin IV and worshiped it as the moon goddess and that’s why they worship the moon goddess there”), and a lacquered music box with a design of a Gand Findsman on the lid (“the great Gand warrior Smudgekiss the Devastator used this to sap the life energy from his enemies—I wouldn’t wind it up if I were you”). Not a single whit of actual psychometry was involved—except that Mun had been able to tell that the statue with the crystal had been in a TaggeCo Cargohopper 102 earlier in the day, but that didn’t count. And each time Gleebaloola believed him and enthusiastically repeated his stories to her increasingly astonished customers.

One day, Gleebaloola showed him something considerably more ordinary-looking than most of the other objects he had examined. It was an ancient, faded flimsiplast book filled with handwriting in some foreign language, much of which seemed to consist of accounts or financial figures of some kind. The cover, which was plain flimsiboard and rather fragile, was embossed in the upper left-hand corner with an emblem of a gold five-pointed star inside a circle. Gleebaloola didn’t seem too impressed with it.

“Stang-nibbed if I know why silly li’l Mleeanna brings me some of the somethings she brings me,” the Squib remonstrated. “Says she upturned this in one of those antiquariated book shoppies on Ord Mantell or somewhere or other. I’ll be karked why she thinks some flimsy old flimsibook belongs in a high-drawer, up-ended antique boutique like mine. Kinda pretty gold star, though, mhm.”

Mun took it in his hands, examined the cover. The golden star-in-a-circle emblem was familiar: he knew it as the symbol of one of his people’s most renowned clans, Clan Vos, which was also the symbol of the Kiffar Guardians. He leafed through it and found to his surprise that he could read the writing: it was Old Kiffar, the ancient language of Kiffu and Kiffex, which he had learned to read long ago in school back on his homeworld but never had learned how to speak beyond a few words. From what he could see, it was a centuries-old account book recording the Kiffu Guardians’ expenditures on weaponry and equipment. There were partial dates here and there, but nothing to indicate exact years or eras. However . . .

A sudden thought came to his mind, and he flipped to the end of the book as quickly as he could without damaging the fragile, yellowed pages.

“And just what you think you doing, you Norrwin Mun, you?” snapped Gleebaloola. “Trying to memorize that whole Force-’saken rag by heart, are you, mhm? Stop piddling around and do your sai-perimetry thing already!”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Mun closed the book—though not before catching a glimpse of the name signed on the back flyleaf. Then, as usual, he held the book in front of him, closed his eyes, and remained silent for a few moments.

“Well, what do you know,” he said once he opened his eyes. “This is one of my own people’s artifacts. It’s an account book kept by the Kiffu Guardians around the time of the Jedi Civil War, when the great Lonnergan Vos was the sheyf. This is where his secretary wrote down all the money they spent on munitions and supplies and so forth.”

“Hmm. Jedi Civil War, eh? Well, that’s a pretty hot-’n’-trot time period for antiques right now, mhm. And I don’t think as I have anything from your home-sweet-homeworld in the shop at this present moment of going to press. So all righty doo, onto the shelf it goes, you bet!”

And indeed the flimsiplast account book went onto one of Gleebaloola’s many shelves. Occasionally a visitor would flip through it a bit (prompting the Squib to begin the garrulous story of Sheyf Lonnergan Vos’s weapons accounts during the Jedi Civil War), but it never attracted quite as much attention as the other three more picturesque objects Mun had seen.

One day, however, Gleebaloola’s shop received a different visitor than usual: a tall, dark-skinned man, perhaps ten years younger than Mun, dressed all in black and dark brown leather. He too was a Kiffar, judging by the yellow qukuuf mark that crossed his face, but his swaggering gait, aloof expression, and long, unruly dreadlocked hair gave him a very different mien from the unassuming insurance agent next door. After a few minutes of idle browsing, his eyes fell on the flimsiplast account book with the gold star stamped on the cover. He immediately grabbed it and took it to the counter.

“Where did you get this?” he demanded of Gleebaloola.

“An antiquariated book-shoppie on Ord Mantell, mhm,” she replied, and launched again into the tale of Sheyf Lonnergan Vos and his weaponry accounts.

“Lonnergan Vos, you say?” The visitor sounded incredulous. “I’ll be checking that for myself, thanks.”

With those words, he placed both his hands on the book and stood still for several moments, occasionally squinting his eyes.

“Great thunder and lightning, you’re right, it is from the time of Lonnergan Vos . . . I could see someone sitting in an office on Kiffex writing in it in quill pen by neuro-lamp, probably his secretary or somethin’ . . . but oh wait, what’s this . . . now that’s interesting . . .” He looked back at the Squib shopkeeper. “How did you find this out?”

“Oh, from the kind gentlebeing next door. Insurance man. Kiffarish, like you. Did sai-perimetry on it just like you did, he did.”

“It’s called psychometry, thank you very much.”

“Sai-chorometry,” Gleebaloola tried again, totally oblivious to the exasperated sigh she got in response. “Anyway, what you say, mhm? You take it?”

“Sure.” He tossed a few credit slips toward a jubilant Gleebaloola, picked up his merchandise, and headed straightaway next door to the office of Norrwin Mun.

To be continued . . .

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Spoiler: Notes

Yes, that’s none other than the one, the only Quinlan Vos! As to what he’s doing beating around Coruscant at this period, well, your guess is as good as mine.

The Old Kiffar language, and its use by the Kiffu Guardians, are borrowed from Chyntuck ’s Kiffar fanon post.

The bronze-colored, snake-headed wooden staff, and its supposed origins, are from Gamiel ’s list of MacGuffins, Artefacts, Thingimagigs and Whatsits. Gamiel has a silver key on his list as well, though it differs in a few particulars from this one. You may recognize the statue with the crystal and the Gand music box (or artifacts like them) from some of my other stories, but please bear in mind that what Mun says about their origins is complete and utter hooey.

There is a Naboo moon goddess in established lore: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shiraya/Legends

Sheyf Lonnergan Vos, head of the Kiffu Guardians during the Jedi Civil War (i.e., the KOTOR era), is my own creation. He is named after Lonergan’s, a seafront bar and grill in Salthill, Galway, Ireland, that the Findshusband and I visited during our honeymoon.

The neuro-lamp is the creation of Viridian-Maiden and is described in this fanon post.

“It’s called psychometry, thank you very much”: Quinlan Vos apparently says this somewhere in the canon literature as well, as it is part of the epigraph to Wookieepedia’s “psychometry” article.

Wookieepedia links:
emeralds (yes, plain old regular emeralds): http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Emerald
Exar Kun: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Exar_Kun
fire ruby: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_ruby
Great Sith War: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Sith_War
Quinlan Vos: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Quinlan_Vos/Legends
Rakata: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rakata
Roon: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Roon
TaggeCo Cargohopper 102: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cargohopper_102_cargo_lifter

 

Thank you so much for the comments!

Of course, no worries at all. I've done the same thing more times than I care to remember!

Yep, he's got accountability now in a big way that he never imagined! But, as Logray says in that episode, he's relying on himself and his own wits, and that is the main thing, right? "Yourself first and magic second."

I'm embarrassed to say I don't know much about those characters, but I do believe you, and the mismatched "odd couple' (figuratively speaking, that is—they're just friends and neighbors) dynamic is (as you and probably others know) an old favorite of mine too. And of course when two people are around each other long enough, of course they're going to pick up some of each other's speech patterns and suchlike, mmkay? You bet!

Ah, you shall see what happens next... much here.

Thanks! You won't have to wait long, if all goes well. And thanks again for commenting.

He didn't realize how much fun it would be! One has to take a break from premiums and policies and claims sometime, and I almost suspect Mun enjoys telling these crazy stories precisely because they're the polar opposite of those premiums and policies and claims.

He does, and they do! But this is only his first attempt—practice makes perfect, of course, and he gets more of it very soon.

Both of these elements I have to admit that I borrowed from Gamiel 's fabulous list of MacGuffins, Artefacts, Thingimagigs and Whatsits, though he might have had exactly those iconic elements in mind when preparing that list. I'd forgotten about Jafar's hypnotic staff, so thanks for reminding me—there might indeed be "Dark Side energy or something" in there after all!

Thanks so much! Glad you're continuing to enjoy her. I'm such a nitpicker with my word choices sometimes that it was kind of fun to go all "anything goes" with her dialogue. The moment I received that quote in the roulette I knew I had to include someone short and kneecap-biting size—it was perfect excuse to bring in a Squib, a race about which I'd long had that "wouldn't it be fun to work one of them into a story" feeling.

Ah, you shall find out soon! , , and !

Thanks, and thank you for reading and following! More on the way soon.

 

Gamiel, I was wondering the same thing!

As to the snake staff, Ewok Poet mentioned earlier the Ayrun from The Neverending Story; was that one you were thinking of too?

 

Great to see you here, Gamiel!

Thanks, I'm thrilled to have you as a follower, especially since some fanon elements of yours ended up in here too! It's an established thing that the Squib have weird, unidiomatic speech patterns, though there don't seem to be any kind of set guidelines in quite the way there are for the Gand or the Thakwaash or similar; I guess the idea is that the Squib speech pattern, like everything about them, is pretty much chaotic, which means almost anything goes on the fanfic writer's end. Norrwin, as noted above, has a hidden gift for crazy "spacer's tales," and he likely enjoys telling them as much as he does precisely because it's so different from his everyday work!

My dear fellow, are you asking for a fanon post? Perhaps someday, but only after I update all my pathetically out-of-date Gand material. I know Coruscant probably has some kind of weather modification system, but if there's any part of it that for whatever reason is more prone to electric storms than usual (per the established lore about Kiffu and per Chyntuck 's fanon), I wonder if that would be a good spot for a Kiffar neighborhood/enclave/etc.

As a handwritten book of fiscal accounts by a relative unknown, it probably isn't going to fetch as much as some actual prose work in either an autograph manuscript or a first edition print, and its dog-eared condition doesn't help. It's also not going to have a very wide appeal beyond, say, scholars of Kiffar history (though see the next chapter...). But it still could certainly fetch at least some real credits: Gleebaloola's cousin Mleeanna did find it in an "antiquariated" (i.e., antiquarian) book store, after all, and Gleebaloola notes that the Jedi Civil War era is a profitable era for antiques. So one just has to see.

Well, Norrwin's last name came from fanon posts by you and Chyntuck. The notes to chapter two explain how I came up with Lonnergan; for that one, given that he's also a Vos, I chose something Irish to harmonize with Quinlan. Ansgar isn't Irish, but like those other two names it too is a real-life name, albeit one that's uncommon enough these days to sound kinda potentially SW-ish. (I got it from this 9th-century archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, after whom just about every Catholic organization in Hamburg—though granted there aren't that many—is named.)

In the case of Norrwin, I was taking a similar but sort of converse approach: I was going for something that sounded vaguely Earthish but wasn't totally. And I wanted it to sound really super everyday and bland and businesslike. Hopefully I did all right!

I imagine he dresses like pretty much like most other Human or near-Human businessmen on Coruscant: dress pants plus some kind of starched shirt, perhaps a sport coat if the weather calls for it. Sorry that isn't very interesting, but he's meant to be uninteresting. At least on the surface.

Again, great to have you here—thanks so much for reading and reviewing!

 

Oh, of course it counts for something—Gleebaloola says so herself, and I'm sure the price she's asking for it is not small! Given the high-end nature of her shop, it's certainly not the only thing she has (and certainly not the only thing she has out of the sales floor) that is that old or close to it, and a shop like that is going to have some kind of security system, too. She knows what she's doing.

Which is undoubtedly the same ninth-century saint I linked to above! He was known as "the apostle to the north."

What is your idée on how business people dress on Coruscant? I daresay you found my description of his attire too mundane and Earthish, but I really am kind ofall right with some sectors of the GFFA population dressing not too differently from people on Earth. Heck, if I'm borrowing Earthish names, why not Earthish other things, too? Like clothes?

Thanks again for commenting.

EDIT: How did I manage to skip over replying to this one? Really sorry about that!

Thank you so much! I had a lot of fun writing the Squib-speak—that was one reason that species had been on my mental "must write about them sometime" list for so long. And I'm glad you enjoyed Quinlan's appearance! This is my first time writing him; when I was first creating Norrwin Mun, I had Quin in mind as the character I wanted him to be the complete opposite of. In a good way, though! Thanks so much for reading and commenting.

 

Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Kahara! Your comments always make my day.

Oh, absolutely! What's the use otherwise? And even with the umming and uhhing, he's still obviously having a fantastic time at it.

You shall soon find out!

Yep, the overlap is there for sure, and I would say it's kind of a necessary thing in a friendship where both sides are so very different from each other. The "mismatched friendship" dynamic is one that, for better or for worse, has tended to come up a lot in my stories (partly intentionally and partly no), but I would say that all of my various "mismatched friends" do have important commonalities at the end of the day. It's friendships like that where people really have to work hard to meet in the middle and find those commonalities, and perhaps that's why they always seem like the most rewarding friendships out there.

As to Gleebaloola's wishful thinking, presumably about whatever psychometric abilities Norrwin Mun may have—well, that's a too.

Gamiel, thanks for sharing your ideas. Q. Vos's TCW look seems a bit too close to regular Jedi attire, as do the first two or so pictures under the spoiler (in this post-Purge period and it might not necessarily be prudent to look too much like members of the Order the Empire tried to eradicate), though some of the those others certainly look workable. For example, the outfit worn by the elf-like fellow sitting on the curb getting his hair pulled (!) is not far off from what I might imagine on some of my non-Findsman Gands (like the watchmaker in the one story).

Thank you all once again. Next chapter on its way soon!

 

Three

Norrwin Mun could hardly stifle a gasp of surprise when a hulking, leather-clad, dreadlocked figure with a yellow qukuuf crossing his face burst into his office carrying a very familiar looking flimsiboard book and began talking to him in what sounded like Old Kiffar. Mun strained to follow his guest’s rapid-fire delivery, but all he could make out was the name “Quinlan Vos.”

“Please do sit down, Master Vos,” Mun responded in the most businesslike tone his nerves would allow. “I’m afraid my spoken Old Kiffar has gotten a bit rusty with age. Now, how may I be of assistance to you?”

“Your neighbor in the antique shop tells me you are quite the psychometrician.”

“Oh, does she?” Mun gave a slight chuckle.

“Yes. But you’re a Mun.” Vos gestured to the name on the window of the office. “I’ve never heard of a Mun with psychometry.”

“Nor have I,” replied Mun, deciding he would refrain from mentioning his Uncle Ansgar. “That’s something that the lightning never gifted us with. Well, except if I picked up my datapad now, I could feel that it had been in my—”

“And yet that furball neighbor of yours tells me you were able to read memories from this.” Vos held up the ancient account book. “Apparently you could tell that it was from the time of my ancestor, Lonnergan Vos, even though there are no dates besides months and days. Is that true?”

“Yes, indeed it is, Master Vos, but I assure you psychometry had nothing to do with it. If I may . . .” He took the book, flipped to the end, and gestured to the flowery handwriting adorning the back flyleaf:

Respectfully submitted by
BALTO MUN
Secretary
to His Redoubtable Excellency the Sheyf​

“My ancestor,” Mun smiled, closing the book and handing it back to Vos. “Who was your ancestor’s secretary.”

“Huh. Can’t say I’ve heard of him.”

“I only know about him because my father always talked about him when I was growing up. Felt us humble Muns should have something in our past to be proud of.”

“Fair enough, fair enough.” Vos’s face softened a bit. “But then what was the point of feeling all over the silly thing? I know you did. I could read the trace of your hands as clear as day.”

“Oh, heh heh.” Mun smiled. “A little . . . ongoing joke we have.” And he told Vos of the arrangement he had made with Gleebaloola with regards to “looking at” artifacts for her shop.

“Hmm. You’re a pretty clever one, Mun. But doesn’t it get kind of tiresome having to come up with all those crazy stories each time she brings you a new thingamajig or whatsits?”

Mun shrugged. “Oh, it’s not really so bad. I’ve really been kind of enjoying it. Nice to have an occasional break from damage reports and estate inventories. Though . . .” He paused and sighed. “Tonight she’s having me look at a . . . a sort of big carved stone sarcophagus, and I’m still not sure what I’m going to say about it.”

“Hey!” Vos perked up suddenly. “You don’t mean the one you can kind of see leaning against her office doorway, do you?”

“I’ve never seen any other stone sarcophaguses in the shop.”

“Well, I can tell you about that. It’s an ancient Korribanian Sith sarcophagus. There was one in the entryway of the Separatist compound on Saleucami when I was there during the Clone Wars.” Vos paused and gave a long sigh. “Don’t ask.”

“Now, just one moment, please . . .” Mun grabbed his datapad from the desk and began to tap on it. “Ancient . . . Korribanian . . . Sith sarcophagus. Got it. Yes, I think I can work with that. Many thanks, Master Vos, you’ve been immensely helpful. Now if you will excuse me, I really need to return to this claim.” He gently rustled the pile of flimsiwork on his desk. “The insured is due to comm me in about fifteen minutes.”

“Not at all, not at all. It’s been a pleasure, Mun.”

“Likewise, Master Vos.”

Vos rose to leave, but first pushed the account book over to Mun.

“Say, you know . . . this really is yours.”

“Thank you, sir,” smiled Mun, taking it and propping it up proudly on a nearby bookshelf before returning to his work.

* * *

“Oh my stars and greeblies, you’ll never guess who came by my little shoppie the other day, no you won’t,” Gleebaloola said one day at lunch. She and Mun were sitting together outside the shops, as usual, though this time the massive, stony form of the ancient Korribanian Sith sarcophagus loomed behind them through the shop window.

“Who?”

“The heighty and mighty Lord Vader himself! His Imperialist Majesty’s own right-hand Man Primeday! The grand high mucketymuck of the combined Imperial forces and suchlike!”

“Yes, I know who you mean,” said Mun, chewing his bread roll.

“And you know what?”

“No, what?”

“He bought the Korribanny Sithy stone sarcoffiny thing!” The Squib’s ear tufts fluttered with sheer excitement. “Said he’d have somebody or something pick it up later this week. Offered eighty-nine thousand shiny ones. Eighty-nine thousand! Can you imagine, just can you?”

“That’s wonderful, Gleebaloola.”

“Oh, and er . . . could I beg and impose on you to come by later? That Mleeanna of mine, I don’t know where in the unknown of hyperspace she finds some of this stuff, but . . . well, it’s a sort of mummified crittery thing with oodles o’ skinny li’l leggies, and . . .”

“Say no more,” Mun interposed, raising one hand. “I’ll be there, you bet.”

The End

---

Spoiler: Notes

“each time she brings you a new thingamajig or whatsits”: An homage to guess which Gamiel fanon post.

Balto Mun is a character of my own creation, though, again, Clan Mun was developed by Gamiel and Chyntuck.

“Man Primeday” (see http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_Standard_Calendar#Days_of_the_week) us functioning here as the GFFA equivalent of the expression “Man Friday.”

Wookieepedia links:
Korriban: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Korriban
Sith sarcophagus: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sith_sarcophagus (Whether there really was one adorning the Separatist compound on Saleucami I have no way of knowing, but it seemed like the sort of thing a Sith Lord might have as a conversation piece, and it would certainly imbue the place with a certain amount of . . . dark side energy or something. )

 

Aww, thanks!

Yep—on one hand I wrote Mun and Vos to be polar opposites, but on the other I tried to give them some important underlying commonalities, and that mischievous streak is one of them. If Vos had been a born non-psychometrician like Mun, it's entirely possible that his trickster side would have engaged in similar ruses to what Mun is doing with Gleebaloola. Hmm, perhaps these two can be counted as another one of my "mismatched friendships," too!

And how could the heighty and mighty Vader not have impeccable taste? How, indeed, could someone like him pass up a chance to add that extra little bit of "dark side or energy or something" to his living and working quarters? Sure, he's he Galaxy's most powerful Force user even without it, but every little bit helps.

I mentioned the "mismatched friendships" leitmotif above, and this "regular people and situations brushing past Galaxy-transforming people and situations like ships passing in the night" leitmotif is another one I like to explore now and then. That's one area I've always felt our medium of fanfic can perhaps make an especially big impact.

And as I said about Vader's impeccable taste above, he's not going to outfit his lairs of evil just anywere! Only the best of the "high-drawer, up-ended antique boutiques" will do.

Thanks again for reading and commenting—always glad to have you in a thread.

 

Thanks so much for that glowing review and for reading and enjoying this little bagatelle of a story.

Yep, Quinlan Vos always struck me as one of those characters who, though somewhat interesting, was never really sympathetic enough for me to really connect with (though I think psychometry is a really neat concept and skill). But here's the thing about me: it's very, very hard for me to make any character I write about, or at least any main character I write about, completely unsympathetic (things like the Imperial goons in "Opus 66" or "Between the Porch and the Altar" are a different case because they're, well, not the main characters). So if Quinlan actually comes off well here, it's mainly down to my being a sap. But seriously, I like the idea that even people's less sympathetic qualities can be positive and helpful at the right time and place, and that's what I was after here (though I admit I made him a little harsh toward Gleebaloola, and he's harsh toward Mun at first too).

And yes, I fully admit that plot and character growth wasn't my main point going into this. It was meant mainly as the briefsketch of an unlikely friendship and its humorous implications, sort of a bit like something in P. G. Wodehouse (and for better or for worse a lot of my more humorous writing here ends up being inspired by him).

Thing is, though, who's to say those aren't both instances of the real Norrwin? There are of course practical reasons why he has to present himself as the calm, unflappable businessbeing in his line of work; when Quinlan walks into his office, who knows but he might be a potential insurance customer. And that's not necessarily a matter of Norrwin hiding who he "really" is: I have to imagine he got into this line of work precisely because it was suited to his natural temperament, because otherwise doing it every day would drive one insane. But it's not inconsistent or contradictory for someone with that unflappable temperament to also have recourse to a whimsical, casual side as a sort of respite, and the "sai-perimetry" performed on Gleebaloola's turned out to be Norrwin's way of exercising that side of himself. (Of course, it comes through before that too with his crazy excuses, and even in his chat with Quin it comes through when he mentions that he likes coming up with the stories.)

And of course, every time Norrwin is uttering one of those crazy excuses and stories, it's done in a completely calm, unflappable, and businesslike tone—which may make them all the more humorous in the end!

Quin does have a lot to learn in that department, it's true, and of course at this point he's an old dog who is going to find it harder to learn new tricks. He probably honest to goodness never did hear of his ancestor's secretary before (which shows what his family does and doesn't value, perhaps). But perhaps the fact that he gives Norrwin the book after all is, at the very least, his way of acknowledging that about himself. (And it's not as though any actual Voses are named by name in the book anyway, and let's face it, wouldn't Quin ultimately rather have an artifact of Lonnergan's time that actually mentions Lonnergan's name? )

See above on the Dark Lord's impeccable taste. And it's definitely a very lucky thing for Gleebaloola and Norrwin that Quin showed up—because can you imagine what havoc might have ensued if Vader had been provided with false information about this Sithy artifact? So yes, I never quite thought about it that way, but Quin really kind of saved the bacon of both Norrwin and Gleebaloola here.

Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I'm glad to have had you on board as beta.