snowblindrpg | [log] Nothing better than a good old fashioned reunion [closed]

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[log] Nothing better than a good old fashioned reunion [closed]

Characters: Zach, Kesara, Terezi, Vriska
Location Building 51
Date: Day 112 - Evening
Summary: a heartwarming reunion...maybe?
Warnings: none, afaik. May be updated later.

[Zach had arrived early to the house, putting his bags down quickly and flopping down on the couch, not even taking in his surroundings much. There's something akin to nervousness thrumming through him - he's not quite sure what's going to happen once he meets back up with Kesara and Lil' T, and he definitely doesn't feel in the mood to take Marquise's bullshit. It's probably going to be...well. Tense. Kesara's probably still sort of mad at him.

Oh, well. It's all too late now, and he's here, so might as well relax while he can. Soon he's not going to be alone any more and he's going to have to keep thinking about people's well-being and he can't keep going and putting himself in danger for no reason. That's probably going to be the hardest part of it all...

He pulls out one of the books he's pilfered from one of the random houses he's visited on his way, settling himself to wait and trying not to stress out too much about the upcoming reunion. Who knows, maybe they wo't show.

Zach is out like a light, and snoring soundly, the book on his chest, in minutes.]

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[Zach startles awake as soon as he feels a head on his shoulder, hair tickling his nose. He manages not to jump, but he definitely lets out a squawk, coming back to the world and finding himself with Kesara's hair in his face.]

Unn-wha- oh!

[Without really thinking about it, Zach shifts towards Kesara, wrapping his arms around her. She's here and she's alive. He expects her to pull away from him quick, but if he can get a little hug, he'll take it.]

I'm glad you're okay, tiny.

[The squawk gets him a satisfied giggle, the kind of sound that Kesara does not often make - the kind that slip from her to show her age. The hug does feel rather awkward - she's very unused to hugs and especially from men of any age - but she lets him have it. It also gives her the opportunity to stick her finger in his chest just like she wanted, a sharp poke.

Definitely solid.]

I'm glad you're okay! [She tells him, raising her eyes to his.] I've decided to forgive you, since you promised to do better, but it is conditional and you really must do well. And don't fight with Vriska, please. And don't call me tiny, or I may be forced to call you things.

[You don't want that, Zach. Nobody wants that.]

[He pulls away from the hug quite quickly, because well, it's awkward and all. He's not a great hugger generally - he doesn't have much experience in it, and he's pretty sure Kesara doesn't, either.

When she pokes at him, Zach can tell it's with some sort of determination, but he doesn't really know what's going on in her head. It's just like she wants to make sure he's real, or something.

After all they've gone through, he wouldn't really blame her for it. Death has not always been real, with the two of them.]

Okay, tell me: what does 'must do well' mean to you, exactly? Just so I have a reference, ya know.

[He leans back on the couch, shifting around enough that there's space for someone else to sit, now. He'll claim it back later.]

And it's not my fault you are tiny. WHo knows, maybe it's not forever.

[That's a little better. Appropriate distance - hugs are a bit much. But Kesara stays close. Part of it is warmth, and another is this strange feeling that Zach is safety, Zach is - somehow he just is. She'd been so nervous since that terrible night about the tablets, about strangers - sometimes just about people at large. But something about Zach is safe.]

It means you must always think before you act, and not do dangerous things for glory's sake - unless it's really a lot of glory, [she adds after thinking about it for a moment.] And you must never get angry. Whoever gets angry has already lost.

[Behold her wisdom, the best combined lessons from Dame Ariel and Lao Dian. This is something to take seriously. She crosses her arms and looks him over in stark judgement.]

Oh, I'll grow. But your hair will always look like a sheep's behind.

[As Kesara lists all that Zach must not do, he feels a smile tug at the corners of his mouth, even if he really, honestly can't promise anything about the anger part. He - there are some things he really can't quite control, as hard as he tries, and he knows himself too well to be able to give her that kind of reassurance.]

Lots of glory, check. Something like the end of A New Hope, I guess. I can go for the glory if Princess Leia is around to give me a kiss, right? She reaaaaaal pretty.

[He tries his best to not say anything about the anger part. Maybe Kesara will let it go, if he pretends he's agreeing without actually like, spitting in his palm or something.

And then, then she attacks his hair. What a little punk she is.]

Excuse you, have you seen your head?

[Zach tilts his head, his fingers twitching.]

Are you ticklish?

[He's making fun, isn't he. The cheeky brat. But he'll try. She feels it in her gut - he'll try, because his dying has made this serious. And how can she ask for more when, actually, she really is quite tiny, and he's a grown man? Mostly grown, but more than her. And a man. Which always counts.

She settles for wrinkling her nose at him.] You can have all the hope you want, but you're not getting any kisses from me. That would be completely inappropriate. [Thankfully, she is in time thinking better of suggesting that he try Terezi or Vriska instead.]

And I have a hat! [Her hands dart up to tug it down. He's actually hit quite a sore spot there. Terrible man. Even worse than this leaves her torso vulnerable to a tickling assault. Clearly it is time to lie for her life.] And I am not. I know techniques to suppress it. Are you?

[Zach's mouth open in shock.]

You don't know about Star Wars? That is the saddest thing. Ever. Seriously. Honestly, I agree, it'd totally be inappropriate, kiddo, none of that, but Princess Leia, though. Ooooh, boy.

[He raises an eyebrow when she says she's not ticklish, because really? Only one way to know for sure, and he goes for it, fingers going for her sides and tickling her as best he can, hoping he's not going to get kicked in the face for his efforts.

Look. He just wants to hear the kid laugh, okay. She doesn't do it nearly enough.]

I don't know about any war in the stars... [It's true enough, but her tone is more than a little affected here. Kesara gets right off the bat just what he really means - there's a story here. She has a nose for them. And where there is a story, Kesara gets it told.

Also she may be trying to distract him from tickling her. What a terrible failure. She doesn't really know any techniques at all. Her technique is mainly to shriek with outraged laughter and start kicking in every possible direction. If his face happens to be in one of those directions, well, that's too bad.]

Stop it! STOP IT! I'LL TELL VRISKA TO BITE YOU!!

[As soon as she stops giggling. Maybe.]

[Zach only stops tickling Kesara for two reasons: one, he doesn't want to get rabies by being bitten by the Marquise and he knows she'll definitely do it if Kesara asked, and two, Kesara doesn't know about Star Wars, and that's something he has to change. She can't grow up not knowing Star Wars!

He lets her go after a little while, still grinning widely, his cheeks flushed. It's nice to hear laughter like this.]

Okay, young Padawan, you have much to learn, I see.

[Once the assault lets off Kesara gathers herself and her dignity, catlike, herself flushed and breathing hard, mouth twitching between smiles and scowls. This was very childlike, and she is normally shy of such things. But Zach brings it out of her. Bless his dear heart, she thinks with great patronizing delight.]

Learn? [And now he has said her magic word. She rolls a little to the side, just to put some space between them in case the brat forgets himself and further tickling ensues - she will scream for Vriska see if she doesn't - and arranges her hat on her head as she prepares to get comfortable.] It's a story, isn't it? Tell me!

Ohhh, it is a story, and what a story! [He's definitely not going to go and try to explain movies to Kesara. Simpler to just tell her the tale.

He sits, cross-legged, on the couch, and swings his snapback on top of his head, hiding as much of his own hair as he can.]

It goes like this: a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a young farmer boy finds himself an unlikely hero in the midst of an intergalactic war.

[Man, he's no storyteller.]

Luke Skywalker, a farmer boy on the desert planet of Tatooine, goes to the market to buy a droid for his uncle's moisture farm, and, surprisingly enough, finds one. It's not in pristine condition and requires an amount of work, but Luke's good with droids, you see, he's a bit of a tinkerer himself. The droid, named R2-D2, is a loud, round little droid that looks a bit like a blue and chrome tin can with a round dome on top of his head. [Zach adds gestures to his story, trying to help Kesara imagine exactly what it'd look like.]

Turns out, R2-D2's got something jammed in one of his ports, and Luke, after some poking and prodding, manages to unstick it, and discovers that it's a video recording, of a beautiful lady with dark brown hair and a panicked voice. She talks of her ship being under attack; she talks of the Rebellion, and Alderaan, and she finishes with 'help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope'.

[At the iconic phrase, Zach tries to imitates Leia's voice as best he can, sure that at least, it will amuse Kesara.]

[Kesara listens with great attention, a hint of adoration even. Zach is no storyteller - though after seeing Lao Dian's skill, she doubts anyone could match him before she does it herself - but a story is a story, and a young farmer boy in the midst of war is a good start. She organizes herself cross-legged, hands on her ankles, rocking slightly back and forth as she listens. She does like that he gestures, and approves of the voice - well, mostly approves. It's the thought that counts. So she tries not to grin too much, though it's an effort.

The story of a lad finding a call from help from a princess, addressed to another but fallen into brave young hands, is one she's comfortably familiar with. There is one problem, though, that she finds hard to surmount.] What's a droid?

A droid's a robot. Like, he's a little machine created to help humans in their tasks. This one's an astromech, he's used on fighting ships, helps navigate the stars, and stuff.

[Man, if Zach's brother could hear him now. Zach would probably get a beating for being such a nerd, but watching how into it Kesara is - that's worth it.]

So what does Luke do, after watching this message maybe a number of times too many? He thinks, you know, the name sound familiar, but it's weird, surely this beautiful lady can't mean old man Kenobi, he's a little crazy and definitely cranky. But Luke, because he's brave, goes to old man Kenobi anyway, and there he is told the truth. [He makes jazz fingers at that, grinning to himself.]

Old man Kenobi tells Luke that he was destined to find this droid, and this message, that he is special in that he has the Force. The Force is like, this thing that permeates every living thing in the Galaxy, balancing good and evil, and there are some people that can use it, also good and evil people. The Galactic Empire has such a Force user - Darth Vader, a black cloak, black helmet man who can choke people with a flick of his hand and speaks like that. [He makes the heavy breathing noises at the end, cupping his hands around his mouth.]

[Kesara is about to ask what a robot is, but the rest of the explanation is satisfactory. She can fill in the details in her mind; she knows tin cans if nothing else, though it's hard to imagine something that small doing any good on a fighting ship.

Wait, ship?]

They sail in the stars? [Unfortunately, now the floodgates have properly opened. She'd listened attentively for as long as she could resist the questions. But really, the first thing she'll have to do once she begins to teach Zach how to be a proper storytelling will be to make sure he explains things.] With ships? Navigated by tin cans? Is the Force like an alchemical element - like ether? Why does the Empire employ such a terrible person? And why does he speak like that - did someone choke him once? [That would be very appropriate. She hopes that is the case. She also cups her own hands around her mouth and takes a really very good crack at imitating the breathing style.] Darth Vader sounds Hungarian.

Edited 2016-05-10 14:58 (UTC)

[Zach can't help himself, he starts laughing, loudly. That is the best thing ever, she is such an excellent kid.]

Okay so - yes, they sail in the stars! They are startships, and there are tons of different ones. Some even have lightspeed, which means it can travel at the speed of light and go from end of the galaxy to the other super quick! These ships are how they travel between planets, like we do on boats, between continents. And droids are like, super elaborated tin cans, they have tons of electronics inside, like our tablets, and they can be super clever.

As for the Force...[Zach leans back a little, looking at the ceiling for a moment.] It's not like anything we know. It's like...energy, like a life force. It flows through everyone, but just some people are able to manipulate it. You can't - like, you can't keep it in a bottle, or anything. It doesn't work like that.

[That's kind of a hard concept to explain, isn't it, Zach, especially when you, yourself, as a kid, just took it for granted and accepted it as such. Why does Kesara need to understand how it works? Nobody knows how it works!]

The Empire's evil. That's why they have Darth Vader. And he wasn't choked himself per se, but when he was younger, he had a very bad accident that left him unable to breathe without his helnmet, and the raspy breathing is because of the breathing apparatus. It's all pretty tragic, but it's another story entirely!

[This is a lot to learn, and if she had the slightest suspicion that the story was meant to be a real one, Kesara wouldn't have been willing to swallow half these big fish. But for now all she needs is for the story to fit together.]

You mean the Force is like, like Prana. And this Hungarian fellow puts it to terrible and wicked use that will cost him merit and probably cause him be born as pariah dog in the next life.

[See, it all makes sense if you just put it in simple terms.]

So Kenobi, the holy man, he was going to teach Skywalker the technique to use the Force? So he can fight the evil sorcerer? But what does the princess have to go with it? If Skywalker was meant to be a yogi, he can't expend his energy on women!

[Well, Zach doesn't know what Prana is, but sure, why not? He shrugs.]

He's definitely a pariah dog in the next life. For sure.

Obi Wan, indeed, teaches Luke as much as he can about the Force in the limited time frame they have, so that Luke can go and save the world. At first, it's not even about the Princess! Although, hey, she is super important. You see, what we learn is that the Princess is also the leader of the Rebel Alliance, a group of goodhearted misfits who want to stop the Galactic Empire from ruling the galaxy and destroying planets full of innocent people. I mean, c'mon. It's the typical hero journey, Kesara. There's always someone in distress to save. He's becoming a Jedi to save people, it's the whole point!

[C'mon.]

Basically, R2-D2 has some blueprints for a mega killing weapon that the Empire has built that can destroy entire planets in one go, which is pretty shitty if you ask my opinion. And he has to deliver them to the Rebel Alliance so that they can destroy it!

So, Luke and Obi Wan hire a charming fellow called Han Solo, who is one of the best pilots in the galaxy and also a smuggler and a man that deals in illegal things, to fly them off of Tatooine and out to Alderaan where they can deliver the blueprints. But! Dun dun dun!

When they get to the Alderaan system, they discover that the planet has been destroyed by the weapon! [Lots of gestures and dramatic pauses for effect, here. This is all super important!]

[The hero's journey is another thing Kesara does not know. But she knows rebellions and alliances - mostly as something that needs to be put down for the Queen's peace, but this is an evil empire - and she is quite keen on important princesses. And on smugglers. She is very keen on smugglers. She sits up sharply when Zach mentions this Solo fellow.]

What kind of things does he deal with? Is he secretly in league with the rebels?

[When he tells about the planet being destroyed, her eyes widen, and not in an affected gesture. His gestures are nice, but it's mostly the concept of the whole planet being - well - destroyed. It's difficult for her to imagine, and she doesn't lack imagination. What would that be like, if you happened to live on that planet?]

Do you mean it was - was it made cold and dead, like this town? It can't have just been gone. A planet's a big thing, Zach!

Han Solo? No, he deals in like, smuggled goods and illegal stuff. Drugs, possibly? They don't say much about his past, you see, because he has to be mysterious and aloof.

[A planet is definitely a big thing, it's a massive thing, and it's the whole point, isn't it? The small people with good intentions saving the galaxy.]

No, it exploded. Properly exploded, poof, gone. Leia watches it happen, and it's very sad, because it's her homeworld, and her father's there, and then he's dead and she's all alone.

The Death Star is about the size of a big moon, and its power is big enough that it can destroy entire planets just like that, at the flick of a switch. Which is why Princess Leia and the Rebels have to destroy it!

Ohh. Drugs. [She says it with a nod of great authority. She knows all about drug smugglers. Well, about opium smugglers. Well, about the stories that young officers tell about capturing opium smugglers.] What a vile fellow.

[This may not be the response Zach was hoping to elicit.]

But if they destroyed the whole planet, [this is a sticking point] that would've been more than just the princess's father. It would have been - her whole family, her whole nation, everyone she's ever known! Zach, that's horrible! How do you destroy something like that?

[Zach chuckles.] Han's pretty awesome, actually, but at the beginning he's not someone that they trust very much, no. They are a job for him!

[Nodding sagely, Zach brings his legs together to sit cross-legged on the couch, taking his cap off to run a hand through his gross hair, before putting the hat back on.] Yeah, it is horrible. Everyone died! It was a planet that was known to host the Rebel Alliance, so the Empire just took it all out, because they're mega evil and gross. Like suuuuuuuper gross.

I wouldn't trust an opium runner either. Books are a much more respectable contraband.

[By now Kesara is also sitting cross-legged across from him, hands in her lap, rocking back and forth slightly with the energy of excitement. This is a good story. A very good story. And Zach is doing so well, letting her ask all her questions!]

Were the rebels wiped out? No - the princess will surely rebuild them, with Skywalker's help. Because the cause is most righteous!

Indeed, the cause is most righteous, you're right! [Finger in the air, Zach gives it a pause before going back into the fray of the story.]

The rebels were not all wiped out - there were secret bases all over the Galaxy, but that is for later. First! Luke and Han and Obi-Wan need to come aboard an Empire ship to rescue Princess Leia!

[Leaning forward with his hands on his knees, Zach grins.] And how do they do that? By disguising themselves as Stormtroopers, of course! Stormtroopers are the Empire's foot soldiers. They're really terrible shots. They hack into the ship's internal systems to find out where she is, and then pretend that Chewbacca's a prisoner they're transferring there to go and save Leia.

But of course they didn't even think about they'd escape! So Leia tkes charge, because she's badass, and she blasts them out....right into a massive garbage compactor!

[Kesara is not always terribly concerned with the justness of causes, but she does like Zach's emphasis. It makes the story better. She also grins brightly in approval and nods at the tale of disguise and infiltration, and decides to let go the issue of how the soldiers of the great and powerful Empire can be terrible shots. Perhaps they're very good with swords instead. What matters is that the cause is just and the heroes are clever.]

Wait - who is this Chew Baccy fellow? That's a filthy habit. [Well, if he is a smuggler... still, she shakes her head, some approval retracted. Filthy habits are meant to be eschewed in the transition to the side of light.

She quite likes the hear about Leia takes charge - all the signs point to Leia being quite her favourite. There is just the one problem, though.]

Zach... what is a garbage compactor?

[Damn you, the science fiction genre!]

[Zach grins, rubbing his hands together. This is so great. Kesara has so many questions, and they're the right questions. Sure, it'll take them five years to get through the whole story - Zach's not going to bother telling her much about the prequels - but it's worth it. Her brain is so engaged in the story.]

Chewbacca! Chewbacca is Han's second in command slash copilot. He's a Wookie - they're aliens from this planet far far away. He's like, super furry, he looks like a giant cross between a bear and a dog, and he's super sassy even though he only speaks in grunts. Han understands him, though. He's like, 7 feet tall, and he wields a bowcaster, which is a cross between a crossbow and a blaster, it's real cool. He's badass.

[Cracking his knuckles, Zach goes on to tackle her second question.]

As for a garbage compactor - or trash compactor - it's basically a massive room in which all the ship's garbage gets thrown into, and then it compacts it all into little cubes that gets thrown into space. It's better than throwing everything as is and polluting the Galaxy too much, I guess?

And it's got like, these walls that compress everything, so they close in tiny tiny, so when the lot of them are thrown in there they're sure they're going to get compacted to death! But R2-D2 was hacking into the ship's systems, and he manages to turn it off before our three intrepid heroes get turned into tiny cubes.

And then they escape the garbage compactor! And they form a plan to escape the ship because Obi Wan managed to turn off the tractor beam that was forcing the Millenium Falcon to stay aboard, so they run over it.

That's when they see that Darth Vader is coming to them, and Obi Wan throws himself into a fight with him to give the rest of them time to fly away!

[log] Nothing better than a good old fashioned reunion [closed]

UwU

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