Below one side of a raised hill, a crowd of Yuuzhan Vong, Extolled and non-Extolled alike, gathered in a group as Maal Lah called out to all of them.
"How can we allow Danni Quee to continue acting as our Magister and how can we allow Harrar to continue representing the Yuuzhan Vong, when the mere rumor of debauchery between them, Jacen Solo, and Nom Anor, which was confirmed to be true, by the way, is facilitated throughout La'okio? After all, do we really want those who would sexually conduct themselves under the influence of marijuana one of the most disgusting acts imaginable?"
"No!" the collective reply came. It was, however, mostly from the former elites. Those among the Extolled, though, were merely silent.
"Exactly!" Lah called out. "Therefore, we must-"
"You must what, Maal Lah?" a powerful female voice said from the back of the Yuuzhan Vong crowd.
Lah's attention shifted in that direction, as well as the collective attention of the entire crowd. There, the source of the voice who interrupted one of Tsavong Lah's relatives stood poised and carried herself as the wealth of power that she represented on Zonama.
"Would you dare instigate a rebellion against my domain simply because of the sexual conduct that I have committed, which really has no affects on anyone but myself and those who participated?" Danni Quee asked, projecting her voice with the Force. "No," she continued, cutting Lah off from replying. "You were simply looking for an excuse to bait an uprising, one that the likes of Nas Choka are smart enough to never mastermind. And so you use the antiquated pretense of values in terms of self-conduct when, keep in mind, in your previous society, you practiced self-mutilation, willing dismemberment, and downright murder and enslavement of other beings."
"How dare you-" Lah began.
"How dare I?" Danni responded. "How dare you? The act of debauchery was never one to be considered taboo in your previous culture anyway; only mere fools and traditionalists, which is redundant, given how it's so synonymous with fools, would ever think you had a decent platform to mount war against Zonama Sekot.
"This display of resistance against the Yuuzhan Vong's way of life is unacceptable, and will be met with strict punishment to all who support you, Lah, and you will share that punishment."
"And what can you do, Quee?" Lah called. "I have an army with me!"
"Do you now?" Danni retorted. She then shifted her gaze, generally, to the crowd gathered. "Do any of you have the gall to follow Maal Lah on a fruitless and self-destructive endeavor against the living world that has welcomed you as your home? If so, then it's no wonder why the lot of you aren't regaining the Force."
"As if all of us wanted to, witch!" Lah called. "I and all my relatives under the great domain of Lah would rather die before seceding to you!"
"Then go ahead," Danni said simply. "Kill yourself."
Lah looked back at Danni in askance. "What?"
"I won't stop you," Danni elaborated. "And I highly doubt anyone else here would try to. If you want to die before continuing to live here as you've done for the past decade and a half or so, then you're free to commit ritualistic suicide, if you wish. But that will be the only practice from your previous society that I will allow you to commit." Again, her gaze shifted back to the crowd. "The same goes for all of you. Again, do any of you really want to do this?"
Lah made his snort of derision as loud as he could make it so that everyone could hear him. "Oh, sure, you would allow us to practice our sacred rituals when it is convenient to you, but not when it impedes your fruitless attempts to 'save us,' as you so put it. How hypocritical of you."
"You think the attempts shepherded by Sekot and I are fruitless, Lah?" Danni asked. "If that's the case, why did you lose the war?"
"What does our loss from the Great War have to do with-"
"It has everything to do with your salvation, Lah," Danni interrupted. "Your defeat under Shimrra's reign was testament to the failure of your old order, and the futility of following it any further."
"If it were not for Nas Choka's cowardly surrender-"
"You have no right to call me a coward, Lah!"
All attention then shifted to a particular individual standing the crowd, the Yuuzhan Vong's final warmaster, Nas Choka. The former leader of the species's military glared angrily at the relative of his predecessor.
"There was no point in fighting any further. In fact, there was no point to fighting the denizens of this galaxy at all! As I told you before, the gods were false, an empty promise to begin with; I did our people a favor in surrendering when I thought that the gods simply abandoned us when Shimrra died. You, on the other hand, Maal Lah, do nothing for our kind by continuing to vouch for the ramblings of a madman and his predecessors."
"You still believe the empty promises of Sekot and the platitudes espoused by that treacherous Harrar that Yun'o never were?" Lah asked in shock. "I thought time would be kind to you, Choka; I thought you would have seen the way. I was wrong, it seems." He then shifted his attention out to the rest of the crowd. "Do any of you prove me wrong in this venture?"
Where last time, the crowd's cheers were ecstatic from numbers, this time, it was more muted, as even many of the non-Extolled were silent. Very few still showed support for what Lah was espousing.
In response, Lah looked angrily at Danni, who was openly smirking. "Your support is too few now, Lah," she said. "Even many who truly want the previous order back see the folly of looking back to the past. Why don't you?"
Lah growled. "If that's the case..." He deliberately trailed off before taking out a hand-carved knife from his pouch and promptly slit his throat with it. The crowd was silent as the relative of Tsavong Lah dropped to the ground and died.
Not long after, just as some former warriors were carrying Lah's body to cremate it, Jacen, Nom Anor, and Harrar joined Danni just as the Yuuzhan Vong crowd was disembarking to return to their daily routines.
"Well, that went well," Nom Anor remarked wryly.
"I wonder what it is with Domain Lah," Jacen said. "You really have to think why the entire domain didn't just outright commit suicide after Choka called the end of the war."
Harrar shrugged. "People can be surprising; they can seek hope even where it most displeases them... and just as well disregard it when they see there is no going back to what once was."
"Speaking of what once was," Nom Anor said, "do any of you think we should still be around each other now?"
"There's no letting go of that foursome, huh?" Danni asked.
"We'll discuss it sometime, but now isn't right," Jacen said.
"I agree," Danni said.
"Me, too," Harrar said.
"I concur," Nom Anor concluded.
Then they awkwardly disembarked from each other, Jacen and Nom Anor returning to their grashal, and Danni and Harrar heading their own separate ways.
