Dantooine, Saturday

[suitably_heroic]

The problem with portaling to Dantooine was that the portal dumped you out at the spaceport and then you had to fly a speeder through the grasslands just to get to the Enclave. It was a pain in the ass, and one of a few reasons why Atton couldn't actually argue with Mical's 'move off of Dantooine' plans too much.

He was still going to argue, though. Just because. (Added to that: Coruscant was like the pretentious guy's Nar Shaddaa, and what kind of person lives in a Temple, anyway?)

He was used to it now, though, which is why the moment he stepped out of the portal he was making a beeline for the guy who rented out the speeders, passing by a bunch of droids and a Rodian on the way there. "Just get me something fast, all right? A two-seater."

[[ for the kid with the funny hair. ]]

Comments

[myownface]

Sparkle was getting used to seeing droids and aliens around whenever they visited Atton's corner of reality, so, while he still spared the bug-faced green lizardy guy a glance, he at least had better sense than to openly stare.

... The droids still got a bit of staring at, though. He wasn't so concerned about offending them.

"Oh, shit," he said, his attention pulled away from the droids as he stepped up behind Atton. "We're taking these? Really?"

Speeder! Speeder speeder speeder!

So, yeah, curiosity was now taking a back seat to something just a half-step shy of glee.

[suitably_heroic]

"Unless you want to walk through grasslands for about an hour," Atton said, passing the guy some credits. "The green two-seater's ours, hop in the passenger seat."

He was a little amused, honestly, but he wasn't going to show it. Primitive Earthlings, man.

[myownface]

For what it was worth, Sparkle would be just as excited if the speeders were motorbikes, or if he was riding a sled down a particularly steep hill. The kid just liked to go recklessly fast.

Even so, he was making his way over to the speeder, taking a walk around it to kind of take it all in, and then hopping up into the passenger seat, giving a little wiggle of his butt to get comfortable.

They floated. Did Atton know that? Look at this thing, it floated!

"I'll pass on the walking," he declared. "This will totally do the trick."

... It could fall apart and explode halfway there and Sparkle would still be thrilled, here.

[suitably_heroic]

"Honestly, I'd have brought the Hawk if it wasn't about three times as expensive portaling a space ship in," Atton said.

Sure, it'd probably be more convenient to leave it here instead of keeping it parked in Fandom, but after the last time it disappeared... Atton didn't like the idea of leaving it sitting around where he couldn't get to it.

He hopped into the pilot's seat.

"So from what I hear, they're finally giving up on the Enclave," he added. "Which'll be a waste of all the time I put into the plumbing, but hey, now they might find a headquarters that's not falling apart in the butt-end of nowhere."

[myownface]

Yeah, no letting the pretty ship out of sight. Sparkle could respect that decision, here.

Especially if it got him speeder rides.

"Yeah? Do they have something else in mind? I mean, if they're trying to, like... re-build or whatever, finding a place that isn't falling in on itself that people can actually get to is probably a good idea, yeah."

Who the hell wanted to join an order of Jedi who couldn't even keep the pipes from leaking all over the place, right?

[suitably_heroic]

Atton got the engine running. "They want to go back to the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant," he said. "Swinging a little too much in the opposite direction, if you ask me."

Eugh. He was never moving back here if it meant moving into a damn Temple dormitory, that was for sure.

[myownface]

"Yeah?" Sparkle blinked and tilted his head a little. "Well, what's that place like? All big and fancy and stuffy or something?"

Sparkle was kind of lacking in the 'copious amounts of experience with Jedi temples' department, alas.

[suitably_heroic]

"The Jedi Temple? It's huge," Atton said. "Bigger than the school combined with the dorms combined with... oh... most of the island."

He guided the speeder through the spaceport at a respectable speed.

Largely because he didn't want to hit anything and die.

[myownface]

Pfffft, where was the fun in that, Atton?

"Eeesh," Sparkle muttered, wrinkling his nose. "And, uh, how many Jedi are there?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Visas, Mical, Brianna, Mira and Deesra," Atton said. "So... five people in a Temple meant to house at least a thousand. On the upside, it means you won't have to talk to each other if you don't want to..."

Don't worry. They were going to hit the grasslands in about five... four... three...

And that would've been Atton hitting the throttle.

[myownface]

"... Talk about overkill. I mean, who the hell's going to dust all th--aah!"

That was not an aah of protest! That was an aah that cut itself off only because otherwise it would have turned into a shameless squee.

Speeders were pretty much Sparkle's most favourite thing in the galaxy right now. Just for the record. This was awesome.

[suitably_heroic]

This was the right planet for it, too. Not a lot of trees standing around, nothing to fear but the cliff walls well away from them, and endless grasslands.

Atton'd enjoy it if this wasn't so stupidly routine by now. Ah, well.

"Shout if you spot a laigrek or a Kath hound or something," Atton said. "I don't want to junk this thing."

See it like a safari!

[myownface]

A safari with less drunkenly stumbling over zebra corpses? He'd take it.

Sparkle had no idea what those things were, but he kind of figured shouting if he saw anything they might drive into would probably be the better option anyway.

"This is fucking awesome!"

Yeah, okay. Primitive Earth kids were kind of cute.

[suitably_heroic]

Downright adorable, if you were the kind of person who could use that word non-sarcastically, which Atton wasn't. But hey.

"Yeah, it's all right," Atton agreed. "Hands inside the vehicle."

He took a sharp turn around the side of a large rock face. Not far now.

[myownface]

But Sparkle really really wanted to wave his arms around! Not that he was in the market for, like, a robohand or anything like that, so of course he was keeping his hands in, but man, want.

"God, Earth needs to get on top of making these things already. Like, any time. Really."

He'd want one. He'd probably never get off of it.

[suitably_heroic]

"Now that's something we can agree on," Atton said. "Cars are bad enough, but those rickshaws on the island? Talk about embarrassing."

Another turn, and there it was: the Jedi Enclave.

It'd seen better days.

[myownface]

"On an island full of stairs, the rickshaws are mostly just funny," Sparkle decided, grinning a bit. Anyway, it's small enough it's not like we can't walk everywhere any-whoa. Is that it?"

One of these days he was going to be able to finish a thought without diverting his attention mid-sentence like a dog noticing a squirrel.

"... Bit of a fixer-upper."

[suitably_heroic]

"Funny what a couple of wars, a pissed-off ancient Force user and some aerial bombardments can do to a place," Atton said. He was letting the gas go now - the speeder was slowing down all on its own. "But yeah, it's a pile of poodoo right now."

[myownface]

"So, you guys are kind of just squatting in there right now, right?"

Like, until they could actually find a place that was less likely to fall down on top of them? Sparkle had camped out in condemned buildings that had been in better shape than what he was looking at, before.

Apparently the city of Toronto had slightly higher standards than the current Jedi Order.

"No wonder people want to move."

[suitably_heroic]

"When they got started, Mical and Brianna had all these bright, shiny ideas about rebuilding the Enclave and setting up shop here," Atton said.

He stopped the speeder just outside the main path.

"The Republic's not in the best shape, so nobody wanted to go bang on their doors and go 'hey, can we move back into that giant-ass building in the center of town'. But apparently a couple of months with barely any running water or power was enough to change some minds."

[myownface]

"It's a pretty ambitious project for just a handful of people," Sparkle agreed, pursing his lips a little and peering up at the building. "Like, it might be worth coming back to and fixing once the numbers are up, but it'll be hard to entice people in if the room for rent is barely standing."

He could kind of see why some people were leaning toward 'excessively huge and fancy' in the place of this, yes. Still wouldn't be the choice he'd make, but if they were actively trying to expand and rebuild, he kind of figured the smart choice was probably the one he personally wouldn't make.

Because... Sparkle and smart choices. Ha.

[suitably_heroic]

"It was convenient, at first," Atton said, shrugging. He turned off the engine. "We saved the people here from some trouble back during the summer, so they were willing to put up with a lot from us. And parts of the inside aren't bad."

[myownface]

"Now that you've fixed the plumbing?" Sparkle cracked a little grin as he climbed down from the speeder. "Well, that's good, at least. If it works better inside than it looks outside, at least the worst of it can be worked with and the rest is, like, cosmetic."

[suitably_heroic]

Atton hopped off onto the path and approached the entrance. It slid open with a quick swoosh as soon as he'd cleared security.

Behind it laid a large round square with an open roof. In the center of the room was a large round patch of grass on a platform. The remains of what had once been a large tree were visible above the soil.

There were plants everywhere - and something that looked suspiciously like the remains of a small waterfall, now spitting a pitiful amount of water at random intervals.

Atton pulled a face at that last one. "Now what's he done?"

[myownface]

Sparkle took a moment to look back and forth between Atton and the scene set out before them.

"... How the hell do you break a waterfall?"

That one took a special sort of talent, Mical.