#krujobi

[accursedkaleeshi]

Accursed!Izvoshra: Captain Krujobi Brinka’miir, Straight Line, Deep Soul

Meeting Krujobi About Krujobi

[accursedkaleeshi]

Krujobi existential crisis at Ship Bones, Grendaju before being rescued.

It took me literally months to figure this piece out 💀

[accursedkaleeshi]

About Krujobi :)

              Krujobi stood straight at 8”2 at all times, determined to keep gravity from bowing him before his time. He was only 30 cycles when he’d met Grievous, after all. His arms were absurdly long, even for a kaleesh. A trait that came from descendants of rig lizards (kaleesh that manned the sails & ropes). With his hands hanging near his knees, his perfectly parallel tusks, & the sailor’s reference to the horizon, Straight Line was his primary title. He represented the Hiil branch Der, which encompassed darkness & water. His jovial, courageous personality seems antithetical to the perception of those traits.

His crew had been known as the Straight-Arm clan. Before their abduction by the yam’rii they were seen as one of the topmost up & coming flotillas by the merpiinji community. The crew had been large. He’d lost 2 wives, 3 children, 2 sisters & their families, the rig lizards, the artisans, fisherfolk & even the cook. As most merpiinj families are considered to have common ancestors, Krujobi was most likely related to Ronderu’s family (not that anyone knew this).

Khan Krujobi Brinka’miir earned the Izvoshra the respect & spears of Kalee’s ocean-faring peoples. Attacking yam’rii installations from the water was always the most effective where it was applicable. The bugs didn’t bother with manning the waterways: they had space cruisers & weren’t very capable on the water. Many water kaleesh, being disciples of the abyss, were the most eager when the time came to take their crusade into space.

Grievous did a lot of thinking on chasing the bugs back to their home. He wasn’t sure how the prospect of going into space would be received by his fellow kaleesh, the bulk of whom were staunchly traditionalists. Hell, half the population didn’t even know that was a place you could go. He would have done it alone if he had to. But the Izvoshra were very enthusiastic about it & their loyalty to Grievous’ ideas proved infectious.

Krujobi’s cartographic contributions tripled the effectiveness of Kedjat & Daakalidae’s supply lines. Routes they created would continue to be used well after the war. When Grievous introduced Krujobi to holomaps he was incredibly excited. Grievous figured if anyone would take to flying it would be someone who is already used to driving ships. He was correct. He & Krujobi readily took to branching routes to nearby systems. They didn’t have quite so many stolen ships to make a navy, but they weren’t looking to get into large space battles. They were focused on moving kaleesh around to ground targets & making the yam’rii regret being born.

Over the course of the war, calling for any merpiinj in each pen of slaves they freed did lead to uniting Krujobi with one of his wives & daughters. The rest of the Straight-Arm clan had been killed or sold to Zygerria. After the war Krujobi would split his time between sailing & hiding away on a secret sacred island known only to merpiinj, where he was still mapping out all of Kalee. His daughter married into the Surf-Soothed, one of Mertenzi’s brothers.

Krujobi boarded the Martyr with the hope of establishing more routes near the kaleesh colony on Oben after thoroughly discouraging the yam’rii. The shuttle crash at least returned him to the ocean. He had left his magnum opus behind. The most complete holomap of Kalee remains lost on a secret island.

[accursedkaleeshi]

Meet Krujobi

TL:DR The worst day of Grievous' life is mirrored by a jubilant sailor named Krujobi. They take turns selflessly helping a brother out in the fallout. He fucking loves cartography. 1.5k words below the cut

Last time on Dragon Ball Z: During an ambush in the easternmost coastal marsh Ronderu was lost to the Jenuwaa sea. Qymaen followed but washed up in the warm bay. After being taken in by the Surf-Soothed, he defended their position from encroaching bug activity. In return, he asked to be ferried to Abesmi.

At the same time Qymaen’s life was being ruined, Captain Krujobi’s flotilla was docked at a port just across the sea. This port was also raided by the Yam’rii. To encourage submission of his crew & family, the Yam’rii straight threw Krujobi into the ocean where the tidal current swept him all the way down to the opposite continent.

              Not a big deal, he thought once he had dragged himself to shore. He was a merpiinji captain, after all! He could build a craft & get back in the water, no problem. He trekked up the shore aways, into the same coastal marsh, to try & be sure he didn’t get sucked down the “Straight”. The Straight was where the Jenuwaa was funneled between the straight parallel east & west continents & carried on its way to the frigid southern Grendaju. The Straight had a habit of shooting unsuspecting ships down to the arctic during particularly bad storms & extreme tides like a rail gun.

              Krujobi was halfway back across the sea in his little paddle skiff. No sooner did he think gg ez than a wicked storm rolled in from the north. This was a weird direction for a storm to come from.

              Meanwhile, the Surf-Soothed had waited to see if the crazy guy they found on the beach was going to come back from the depths of Abesmi. When Grievous returned to the ship looking even worse, he remarked, “You should have left.” The Surf-Soothed agreed with the assessment. Now they had no choice but to set sail in the eye of this storm that had rapidly gathered, lest their ship be smashed upon the ancient rock of Abesmi island.

              So, of course, they were sent down the Straight. The entire trip Grievous, who had never been fond of the water to begin with, was having a very bad time. That was on top of coming down off the most intense trip of his life. In his head, the anguished clamoring of his people wasn’t dying down. The closer they got to Grendaju, the more unsettled he felt.

              Krujobi had been washed out ahead of them &  landed himself on the empty white shores of Grendaju. He knew exactly where he was for all the good it did him. The Straight would send ships right into the ice shelves in the cold months & destroy hulls year-round in a pocket of current called Ships Bones. That would be on account of what must be a hundred wrecked ships coated in solid icy rime. Over the centuries, those stranded here gravitated towards the same spot on shore with the most shelter from the wind. This came to be known as Last Spot. It was indeed littered with the bones of those that came before.

              Krujobi sat in the midst of his predecessors, burning his raft for warmth. He wondered if this was really the end of him. It certainly looked that way for- holy shit, is that a ship??

              The Surf-Soothed were congratulating themselves on regaining control over their small vessel as the storm diffused into the atmosphere as mysteriously as it had appeared. Grievous’ gaze was affixed on the shoreline. Even if it was making him ill, he could not pull his eyes away from a large animal. A karabbac, in its dark summer coat, stood on its hind legs & gazed directly back. He had never seen a real karabbac before. Only the skull of a juvenile that Ronderu had worn. If it was trying to tell him something now, he didn’t want to hear it. If it wasn’t from Her, he didn't want to hear it.

              Through the phantom cacophony in his head he heard Zen’val, Surf-Soothed leader, say, “Is that a guy?” Grievous glanced briefly at the other to follow their pointing arm. Where there had been the karabbac there was now a kaleesh waving frantically.

              “I’ll be damned, that is a guy,” was all he could think to say. “We have to help them,” he followed up without hesitation.

              The Surf-Soothed’s small longboat was meant for travel around the bays & not open ocean, but it was small & nimble enough with the paddles for them to navigate around the ghosts of larger ships looming up from the depths.

              “OYO! Thank Eight! I knew big Der-miir wouldn’t let me die here-“ (he did not) “You are good people! Eh?” Krujobi began to immediately ingratiate himself to his saviors as he climbed aboard. “Der-miir looking out for you as well? You are all the way out here in this little thing?” he said, realizing he just maxed out the capacity of this boat, barely more than a robust canoe.

              “We are miirmanji, coming from Abesmi when…” Zen’val began to explain before Krujobi had clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder.

              “Aiya, you were in the middle of that storm, too? Not to worry, coast-cousins! I am miirpinji! I will help you get home, yes?” Krujobi exclaimed.

              The Surf-Soothed, who had all nearly died several times during the storm, were immediately less nervous. While the miirmanj peoples occupied the coasts & shared resources of the tides with the rest of Kalee, the miirpinj people would traverse the open oceans in their flotilla communities to deliver messages & goods. The coastal kaleesh had healthy respect for the miirpinj, whereas to the rest of kalee they were mysterious & weird.

              As a miirpinji captain, it was Krujobi’s duty to know his way around Kalee. But even among captains he had a keen aptitude for cartography. Krujobi safely led them around the horn of the eastern continent, to the opposite side of the Straight. From there they hiked back along the coast through the fens &, yet again, through the same coastal marshes. As they got to know each other the clamoring in Grievous’ head quieted. It didn’t stop completely but it was manageable.

              When Krujobi had inquired about “the deal with that guy” the Surf-Soothed told him all they knew. That being: he washed up on their beach half dead, didn’t talk for 3 months, & then, with a calculated fury the likes of which they’d never seen, decimated encroaching yam’rii. Then he had politely asked to visit Abesmi.

              “Landlubbers like you don’t just go washing up places,” Krujobi had remarked, eyeing the horrendous wound that went through Grievous’ left shoulder.

              “The bugs. Took everything from me in these marshes,” Grievous had replied in a measured tone. This would be the only time he ever spoke out loud about losing the ambush & Ronderu. Krujobi later enthusiastically regaled them with the tale of how he had ended up at Last Spot.

“All I know about the bugs is that they aren’t good in the water. What do you think are the chances that they are still in that port? I know I am the one that owes you, but…if my people are still there. Do you think you could help me find them?”

              Long story short, Grievous, Krujobi, & a handful of coastal volunteers made their way to the port & cleared out the Yam’rii there. It was not many. They had struck, loaded up their spoils, & left behind a lookout post to keep their big eyes out for more populations to snatch. The only kaleesh present were a handful of port denizens the bugs had kept on hand to keep up the place.

              Krujobi’s flotilla, now empty, was still docked where it had been when he had left it. The bugs had gone through it only to make sure they got all the kaleesh. Krujobi was simultaneously devastated but elated that they had left his extensive maps untouched. He offered them to Grievous for his crusade, asking only that he keep a look out for any miirpinj. Grievous immediately made this a primary objective.

              In the following months Grievous dismantled several yam’rii installations from the inside. It was easy. The yam’rii considered kaleesh little more than animals, hardly capable of resisting in any way that mattered. Posing as a slave & being just as stupid as they expected allowed him to walk into their command with some bug’s keycard & steal literally all of their logistical information. Not only the yam’rii’s deployment plans on Kalee, but also their colonies on neighboring planets to their system. Good thing Grievous knew a guy who could do anything with maps.

[Izvosha Duties to come !]