I'll get to the fic in a moment, firstly I just wanted to UP some of the art in my gallery and do a general sort of updatey thingy...yeh. So! I have been working on some art for a while now, but it's rated over PG, therefore I have decided to post the PG part of it lol. Anyone wishing to view the full version can check out my DA site, but it IS filtered, so no lying about your age, or i'll send a pack of wild spinerays round to your place...got it? Good :p

Behold the splendor of the crop tool!


Above: One of my RP characters, Kaalyanii (The shamed one) and Kar'Enai Kwaad (The Shaper, owned by the WoSW user of the same name). After a short time on Sekot, Kar'enai Kwaad discovers a possible way to reverse shamed one's defects and deformities, restoring them to how they once were.

The picture was inspired by a plot scene, where Kaalyanii is reshaped.

This now means that I can start working on that request from Sector C-1138, I'll probably try and get started on that after the weekend, I am off to a con and i'm working either side of that day *le sigh* see...if people were to commission me more, I wouldn't need to work elsewhere too *hinthinthinthint* Was that obvious? ;)

Ok...now onto the fic. If you are wondering "What in the name of Yun-Yuuzhan is MK talking about?" then you will probably need to go back a post or two to play catch-up ;) The other two chapters can be found under the same title, and are all back dated. Thanks again for reading, and if you do...please review (That really wasn't meant to rhyme, ai D: )

Chapter 3.

There was no time to contemplate weather or not the Supreme Overlord's chambers would have been protected by some form of biological weapons, much like his own plaeryin bol implant, Nom Anor would have to hastily take his chances. The air was so thin now, he found every breath a dragging effort, and the creeping cold that assaulted his joints had spread to numb the pain from his cauterised stump of a left wrist. Vision blurring, he blinked furiously, laboriously trying to focus on the nutrient tank ahead of him - and more importantly, it's contents.

Inside, floating in the deteriorating soup of minerals, plant nutrients and life-giving water, lay a fully healthy Ooglith cloaker and gnullith. Both, Nom Anor knew, had been modified for the pressures of vacuum, used more commonly by the warrior and shaper castes - those who needed to closely examine or repair breaches in the walls of Yuuzhan Vong vessels. This breed of ooglith and gnullith were hardier, and would withstand much before they died, Nom Anor was counting on that.

As fast as he could manage it, the former prefect made his way toward the niche, near crawling now, hands scrabbling to gain purchase upon any natural crevice in the surface of the ornately jagged floor.

He reached it, lungs burning with sheer effort of exertion, and plunged his one, remaining hand into the shallow tank. Hauling out his prize, he slapped the gnullith hard to his face, covering both nose and mouth as he did so. The creature responded instantly, extending it?s cilla-covered breathing tube between Nom Anor's parted teeth and plunging down into his throat.

Fighting his own gagging reflex, the former prefect had already begun to coax the ooglith cloaker to life, giving the biot a nudge with one foot to encourage it to begin to envelop his body like a second skin. Never in his entire life, had he welcomed this sensation as much as he did now. It made the pain bearable knowing it would possibly save his pitiful life.

As the fleshy gnullith filled his lungs, he suddenly felt the burning sensation leave him with a few steady breaths. His senses became acute once more and the whistling, cold shards-of-ice wind lost it's razor-sharp edge.

This was half the battle won, he could survive ket's like this now, but would need a more prudent means of escape, it was no good being alive if you had no means of leaving a doomed vessel. With the ship's yorik-trema in the possession of the solo clan, his most viable means of escape was lost to him, but loss was also an entirely relative thing, and if it was one thing Nom Anor was not, it was lost - far from it.

Knowing that the bridge of the vessel would be all but gone, decimated by now, he continued to rummage hurriedly through the contents of the alcove, hauling out handfuls of rapidly decaying protective tissue. His one, true eye shone with a momentary panic, and the former prefect was now on the verge of allowing the dread to settle a twisting knot in his stomach. Then his remaining hand hit the solid distinctly recognizable and roughly ovoid surface of a large senelak pod.

Pulling the pod free of the stringy tissue that continued, even now, to nourish and preserve it, Nom Anor's masquered arm became momentarily tangled and bogged down in soaking wet, thick strands of ichor, before they fell to the ground with a wet 'slap' that no one, not even he, would ever hear.

Cradling the new found object under one arm, the former prefect's heart sang with gratitude for the malformed, twisted shamed one that had secreted it here. What he held in his arms, contained within the protective pod, was the crowning glory of his salvation, but only if he could pry the senelak pod open.

This was going to be problematic with only one hand.

Holding the pod carefully in that one hand of his, Nom Anor let the object fall hard against the now-flaking deck. The temperature was dropping continuously and had weakened all around him, he would have jumped for joy at what happened next, had he not been required to conserve as much energy as he could for what was to come. The pod shattered like brittle mica, shards of the shell falling away in slow motion, to reveal a delicate, leathery orb-shaped biot. White film still clung to the skin of the anamorphous blob with a certain fragility, indicating the biot's relative youth - it would, not unlike all around it, withstand the cold, harsh and unforgiving vacuum seeping in through the holed-vessel's walls.

It was a signal villip, often used when one intended to track a vessel of infidel origin, but more recently used in the early days of the war, before she shapers had managed to successfully breed unjammable yammosks and dovin basals that could withstand the cold, without nourishment from, or attachment to, a Yuuzhan Vong vessel.
Blaze bugs were bio engineered to pick up on such signals, and if there were any warships within the near vicinity - and Nom Anor knew there were - the tacticians aboard would be witnessing the destruction of Shimrra's personal vessel in bitter confusion.

Nom Anor felt a smile tug at the corners of his gnullith-covered mouth, the biot stretching to accommodate his smirk. Amid all the chaos, those seconds in which all aboard would be considering taking their own lives, rather than contemplating their defeat, a signal - more aptly his signal - would flare to life. The idea was all too delicious, the former prefect had always been wary of fanatics, like the late Tsavong Lah, having spurned the true way as early as his creche-days in favour of his own. But now, just as then, he realized once more, where these religious zealots had their uses. Their blind devotion would be all he needed to tap into, in order to climb back onto the proverbial ladder....and climb he would.

Hope glittering in the frost-lined pit of his soul, the Yuuzhan Vong now made his way, with haste, towards the grotto from which he had launched the Solo's yorik-trema. This time, with everything to live for.

TBC