Grievous My Love

        Lia-Luru was the last hatch out of 4 pups in the year 31 BBY. It was a year fraught with tension, as Taay’n had passed away the year prior & had the wives nervous about egg laying. Most harried was her mother. Blys’aan’s first child, Y’tyrim, had also died early in the year, days away from her 3rd birthday. Also, the Phantom Menace was happening on the other side of the galaxy.

        Blys’aan’s joy returned to her when they hatched a perfectly healthy little girl. She was named Lia-Luru, which means “found lost-sister”. Everyone was so overjoyed at her hatching that it took a while for Bryaru to squint down the beak of her hunt mask & say, “Hang on. Is she blue?” Surely not, her wives reasoned, it was just the evening lighting. It is sometimes hard to tell the color of a pup’s scales fresh out the egg. Despite the folk tales, none of them had ever seen a real kaleesh with a primary coat of blue. They took the newborn into the sunlight the next morning &, sure enough, she was a dusty blue all over with a light belly.

        “I’ll be damned. Little thing is blue,” was all Grievous had to say on the matter.

        Lia-Luru was as enthusiastic & excitable as any kaleesh pup. She proved to have an insatiable curiosity & was delighted when she got old enough to get outside lessons with Salaen. You mean you can go outside & there are just little guys everywhere? Lia-Luru’s need to pick up the local wildlife overrode her intention to follow the rules. Chiefly, the “Do not imitate Sally’ma” rule. In order to prevent her siblings from getting any ideas, her parents assigned her to be Salaen’s little assistant.

        Out of all her siblings of various degrees of tomfoolery, Lia was the number one offender when it came to bringing outside residents into the house. It took a while to convince her that little guys lived outside, so “it was rude to take them to the inside” as her father put it. Bugs were little guys & small scampering things, those were little guys, of course. Her denotation of “little guys” eventually came to include all animals & some plants. Grievous once rescued Lia-Luru’s critter keeper from a curious baby sibling, an action he nearly rendered moot by almost opening the box before Lia stopped him. The fondest memory she has of her father is her showing him all the fancy fuzzhops she collected that day.

        In addition to her Sally’ma duties at 6 years old she & Tayuja were assigned baby charge of their 3-year-old sister Yndlarra. It was common for children in large families to be put in charge of minding one of their smaller siblings, keeping them out of trouble & helping them figure out how to do things. Yndlarra was Bryaru’s second child & was such a mover & shaker that moms assigned her 2 baby minders. Or perhaps it was more to help Tayuja with her charge, as she tended to get easily frustrated with baby happenings.

        Lia-Luru took it upon herself to be the household’s critter catcher when Salaen was killed the following year. Then father exploded just shy of a year after. Given the circumstances, the older children did wonders keeping the household running & picking up slack when others would waver under the weight of their losses.

Trying to TLDR the AU;

The Jedi find Grievous & his schematics before he's released/activated/whatever, take him prisoner, Obi-Wan is in charge of speaking w him, Grievous is a jerk, eventually softens up as Obi-Wan keeps treating him kindly, emotions for each other, much later down the line Grievous finds orphaned Kaleesh and immediately adopts them... etc

There's a lot more nuance and romantic shit but maybe I'll elaborate some day.

Maybe not.

Enjoy this too maybe