An Arm and a Legion [PM for Invite]

[Reverance]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJbqplkBBv8​

The hortium swelled and pulsated, a living thing encompassing a small vestibule of the grashal devoted to the shapers of the Legion Yun'Do. The Nuhlrokka landed in a whip of air, kicking the debris of the fields free from their wind rows. Upon it's back, the Warmaster stepped free from the insect and landed upon the ground in a thump. Coiling the Tall-Yor back into it's wrap, he placed it upon the back of the beast and patted a singular time with his left hand. The stump of his right arm, still freshly burned from the cauterization of the Chom-Huun, he felt the phantom tingling of fingers. The pain had subsided, despite his desire to prolong it, as he approached the grashal and entered quietly. He had contacted them ahead of time, through miniature villip, and time had been spent prior to the act in preparation for it's inevitable date. Either way, his footsteps clapped against the mirrored floor of the organic building, as he was greeted by Master Shapers of the Legion.

At one time had thought that the Legion was merely an off shoot of the Hrosha-Gul, a sub set defined by their participation while remaining isolated. But now, staring into the tattooed silence that stared back at his lone crimson eye - these Vong were the next step in evolution, he could feel it. No longer tethered to the notion of pure war and violence, they were a methodical and compromising and capable of seeing the bigger picture. Not like the show he had seen in the grashal far removed from this place, mislead and simple individuals seeking independence for the sake of it without knowing the cost. They were naive, he thought, petulant and incapable of forward facing thought. Hydrastaffs and amphistaffs and couffee were all they knew, yet denied the wash of blood and it's fragrance to their people so vehemently. Mentally shrugging for the willful stubbornness, he nodded to the shapers and they turned from him, silent, as they led him into the hortium. Larger than most, leaders of the warrior caste watched in anticipation as he approached the organic table and laid upon the slab.

Meat already cut and maimed, they would repair the damage done, or complete the ticket. It all depended on how they felt towards him, his life being entirely in their shaper hands now. To elevate or to cast down, it was their choice now. The arm had been developed for this purpose, a mixture of his own DNA and that of the Voxyn. It shook in it's carapace, held for storage for the time and purpose it would now serve. Without looking towards it, he exhaled and looked towards the ceiling, thinking back to this particularly gruesome time in his life, strapped to a leather chair and peeled like an apple, in slow methodical strips. A father then, a father now, always a man respected by the Warmaster for the sacrifices he pulled from a boy so long ago. To get at what was inside, a soul intertwined with another was bent and twisted until it unraveled, fraying at the seams and piled back together in something not remotely resembling what it started as. Countless experiments, countless allotments of pain, to get at the gooey inside. He ticked, a mental shudder, as the cauterized flesh was yanked free, another shaper holding his body still to act as leverage against the tearing free of wounded flesh. The sounds, like the cleaning of fish before cooking, made him unnaturally hungry

More pain! He wouldn't dare presume to order them into any position, they were a caste of their own. He would as soon command an intendants tongue, though he would likely do that even sooner, as his life would rarely hang in the balance over politics so directly. He recalled a moment, the flash of pain as the pressure was relieved and the arm was placed against the slab next to him. Being nearly swallowed by a bull rancor, he traced the stimuli back to fingers cutting through soft palate and swimming deep within a dying cranium. His phantom fingers ticked in recollection, drawing a sharp pain across his shoulder as the shapers pushed the arm against stump and worked to connect the biot to the host. Not an ounce of pain would flash against the face that so favored it, not for the euphoria of the moment and the singular sensation. As he smelled the flesh burned back, acid reverted to consecrate the union, his crimson eye pinned and he felt the coarse abrasion of animality of the Voxyn al'Do as the instincts of the biot and host were tied together. The sudden immersion into stereoscopic viewing, albeit displaced, was almost jarring. The room was black and white for the exception of his own force aura, the hue of darkness causing a faded interpretation of himself. The ring, around the scaled deltoid, was activated with a touch from the shaper, as the surge of pain overcame the Sith Lord, almost to the point of screaming. His lips might as well have been stitched closed, his teeth clenched and locked, as he looked towards the ceiling and towards the wall, three different eyes working together, as the pain of the masquer flushed his nervous system with serpentine cascading of agony: as it worked it's way down his arm.

Black scales, lizard like in appearance, transitioned into the appearance of tattoos and scars and wind swept skin, mimicking the appearance of his natural left arm, as the secondary biot shifted across the flesh. The fingers moved in resistance to the pain, not of his own control at first, as the Warmaster felt the flow of energy and strength not entirely his own. And the hunger nearly crippled him as the shapers backed away, their work complete for the purposes of this escalation. No misstep, no misplacement of nerves or tendons or muscles. A perfect grafting, as they had done time and time before, an act he had witnessed in numerous incantations. It was quicker than he had imagined, the desire for it's elongation apparent to him and the Voxyn al'Do that now resisted the control of it's master. The shapers gave their blessing and a nod, completing their ceremony and ritual to Yun-Ne'Shel and Yun-Yuuzhan. With that, they departed, as this was the only escalation for this day.

The Warmaster lifted himself to a sitting position, the room silent for breathing of his warrior brothers. Or whom he considered brothers. The questioning of his claim, the claims of heresy, had shaken his foundation but left it unbroken except for the uncertainty in how his caste and Legion viewed him. If the success of the operation weren't enough, he would test the water with a lifted arm, just as those who had done so before him. They weren't here to grovel, to whine about the pain in a dark corner and snivel for the forced surgery. This was the Legion Yun'Do, of the Shai Domain, forever glorified in the pain and the sacrifice it represented. And as he raised the sharpened nails of his new hand into the air, the fist forcing the face of the biot into the recesses of his palm, the gesture was met with an uproar of filed teeth and grashal shaking roars. For Yun-Yammka, he remained non-verbose, except for the exhale and roar to echo the sentiments of his caste - for the completion of his escalation.

 

[Reverance]

Sleep wouldn't come easy, following the celebration and escalation. The hunger of the beast drew him from the waking glances that would have typically preceded slumber. The glistening of sweat trickled from his pores, the soaking of the sheets beneath his bed reminded me of the delicate features of the land and how quickly they were swept aside. It had been a long day prior to this event, the night dragged on, and the day to come promised of spoils and efforts that had been started so long ago but failed to take full root. Tossing on a pair of pants and boots, he strode into the moon lit land and the nutrient bogs that surrounded the ecumonopolis. It was serene, the chirp of insects, the splash of sleepy vonduun, the hum of the lambent fields, and the occasional flap of a slivilith wing in the background. Just west of here, he recalled the Nuhlrokka caves upon the mountainscape, littering the dusty reaches with pot holes like a road unkempt.

With a steady glance into the night, he approached a developing grove of Craetagus, a special hawthorne that had grown recently in response to the vongforming and creation of isolated nutrient bog depressions. He wagered it was mixture of reasons: decreasing in nutrients, reduction in available oxygen, and saturation, all leading to favorable conditions for the Sharps Hawthorne and other odd carnivorous plants. The recoil of his arm in response the shift in a nesting crab jolted the Warmaster from his lackadaisical gaze, the Voxyn al'Do responding in predatory fashion as he glanced down upon a wounded skerric. With but moments and the stab of a metal auger into the flesh of the beast, between plates of nearly impenetrable armor, the Warmaster rested against the emergent shores as he fed raw crab meat into the mouth of his palm, protruding in the form of a face. The rumbles of his stomach ceased though it was a hunger removed, he blinked steadily and took in the sight of the food hungrily devoured by the biot, the colors of the night becoming apparent with depth perception.

"Is this what I am now?" He spoke quietly to the stir of echoes skittering across the open water, the splash of another crab in response to the whispers. Sparkbees and roaming thudbugs jumped about, moving from stalk to standing dead and back again, shifting between the emergent vegetation and the scrub shrub. The worlds weren't nearly so collided, as he was led to believe by the member of the extolled, seeing now the clear transition from vonduun to amphistaff territory. The fights that occurred were obviously natural, beasts looking for trouble. A notion that he had known recently and with disturbing accuracy. "A beast that feeds and looks to be fed more?" Just then, he stared down upon an uplifted palm, hearing whispers that weren't there. A biot with a mind of his own, he clenched his fist and felt the pain of rejection course through his right arm.

"I am more than the sum of my parts..."

"We all are...but it's not what matters. It's what we sacrifice." That same member of the Shamed Ones approached and sat next to the Warmaster, staring absently upon his hand. His red eyes glowed vibrantly in the night, far more than that of the Wrath. "It's late...to be tending the bog and fields." The Yuuzhan Vong laughed as he pointed to the fields. "You see that? A lambent fruit shows itself. Tenderness knows no time of day." It was no secret the politics associated with the grafting process. The shapers of the Legion Yun'Do were second to none yet it seemed this one's had failed. Gabriel was beyond mincing words, not after a night like this.

"What did you do? To anger the Shapers?"
"You mean this..." He pressed his fingers across his face, dragging nails down from the eye socket as he stared out to the open water. "I wanted to be something more than what I was."
"Did you get what you wanted?" The silence lasted but moments, the stillness something enjoyed, as he starred down at his arm.
"Did you?"

He picked at the masquer, covering the arm in something resembling normalcy. But word had spread of his escalation, it was no secret. "I imagine we both got what we wanted."
"Yes, I think we did. Congratulations, Warmaster." He stood with a glance towards the grashals in the distance. "You should sleep, the sun rises soon enough."

"What about you?" Gabriel lifted himself, pinching a handful of dirt between his fingers, manipulating the porosity to reveal a sheen of wetness amidst black. "Me? As I said. Tenderness knows no time of day." The warmaster followed behind, catching up behind the scurrying of the extolled. "Show me."

"Of course." The darkness continued down the horizon, the slow glow of lambent fruits in the distance, amidst wind rows, marked their destination.

 

[Reverance]

"Tell me about your family."
"What is there to say? Dust and soot carries no memory."

The warmaster knelt against a foothill, setting up comfortably to rest against the nights air. Rubbing his eye, the voxyn arm growled in hunger as he fed the mouth hole once more - it had a liking for vonduun crab. It was fortunate that such expansive bogs existed on Selvaris, constantly growing and becoming a prominent fixture in the landscape. As the mouth gnawed against the chitin, devouring it, the arm swelled and raked in the energy for what it was. Pulsating and gulping, the vong shaped arkanian looked back to the Shamed One. Crimson eye matched the glow of biots, a smile was somewhat less apropos.

"That's very true. But you are more than the sum of your parts."
"Mmm, we are becoming repetitive now...aren't we."

The Shamed one, a prideful member of the extolled, took a seat by the warmaster and watched the arm and all of it's splendor. Until, just two wind rows down, a Kanabur Hul took to the field from the mountain region. A drone, hell bent on lambent fruit, began it's movement through it's pre-ordained section of the field. Like a robot picking up litter, it fed upon rotten fruit and protected it's crop from any who would dare to broach it. Gabriel watched quietly, chewing on air, as he looked upon the extolled with a suspicious gaze.

"What is it?"
"That?" The Yuuzhan Vong pointed to the monster. "A gift from Selvaris. A Kanabar Hul, though some have called it Harvester. It tends to the crop, quite the aggressive beast." Gabriel smirked as he gazed upon the glowing beast. He watched as it went back and forth and back and forth, cutting deep ruts in the soft earth, recently plowed. The click and clack of it's joints, insect in nature, gave an eerie chirp to the night as it's brethren joined in subjugated divisions. Rituals through the night, the lambent trees and bushes showed no pause in growth, lighting up the field with a warmth and glow.

"What of the Hrosha-Gul?"
"What do you mean?" The Shamed One laughed in response and tossed a pebble, skating across the earth. "I mean...what is to happen to them?"

"Them...do you not consider yourself a member of the group?" The question was facetious in nature, but wholeheartedly born in curiousness.
"No. Such a division has been long absent a leader. The Legion Yun'Do, that is what encapsulates Selvaris now." Gabriel picked up a stone and moved it about in his new arm, staring out into the brisk nights sky. "I imagine they will flourish or they will die. It's no long the concern of the One Sith...nor is it the concern of the Legion Yun'Do."

"Is that to say you don't care about their well being."
"No. The well being of the Legion Yun'Do is all that matters now. We will thrive and continue to push forward as is the righ of the Yuzhan Vong. But you already knew that...didn't you?"
"I did..." The shamed one spoke, teeth filed and sharp. Gabriel smailed and continued to watch the harvester pace.
"How long do you think it will keep that up?"
"All night. I don't sleep much, they keep a decent metronome."