suitably_heroic | Dantooine, Saturday

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.

"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.

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.

"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."

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?

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.

"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.

"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.

Pfffft, where was the fun in that, Atton?

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

"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.

"... 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.

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!

Edited 2014-11-29 16:09 (UTC)

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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

"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."

"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."

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?"

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.

"By trying to put one in where it doesn't belong without actually bothering to get the plumbing right," Atton said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Ugh. If we weren't moving out of here, this'd be at least a day with a hydrospanner. Fantastic."

Sparkle was going to just saunter right up to that waterfall for a better look.

"God, I've taken pisses with a better stream than this," he shared. Overshared. Informed the room at large, because Sparkle. "Is he grounded from playing with the plumbing? He should probably be grounded from playing with the plumbing. If the water pressure is this shitty here, what is it taking away from?"

It was kind of starting to look like maybe the enclave's biggest problem with the infrastructure was ineptitude.

Mical was frighteningly ept at the work he was actually interested in - research, spying, that sort of thing. But infrastructure? Bao-Dur had been their tech guy. Atton was reasonably good with a hydrospanner, but...

"Hopefully not the refreshers," Atton muttered, stepping past the giant tree thing in the center so he could head into the nice, safe, sort of warm-ish parts of the Enclave. "It took me two days to get those running."

"Okay, so why is he playing with the plumbing? Like. Doesn't he have shit he's good at to do?" Sparkle stared at the wet fart that was the waterfall for a moment more, and then shook his head and followed along after Atton. "And to set up a waterfall, of all things. Eesh."

"Probably tried to make the place look more Jedi-y," Atton said, shrugging. "Babbling brooks and swaying trees and all that p--"

"The refreshers are fine, just don't try to cook anything that isn't take-out right now."

A redhead was leaning against the wall a couple of feet away.

"Mira!"

"Mira?" Sparkle blinked at the redhead who had spoken, and then tilted his head a little and nodded. "Hey."

He hadn't really known Mira, during her stint on the island. But the face seemed familiar, and Atton seemed to know her, so a nod and a hey was what she was going to get.

"You can actually get take-out out here? That's impressive."

"Don't expect anything more sophisticated than nerf steak, but hey, it's good eats as far as I'm concerned," Mira said. "And stop staring at me, Atton, it's creepy."

Atton rubbed his forehead. "What are you doing here?"

"Just finished my mission," Mira said, shrugging. "Everyone seems to be piling on back all at once. It's almost like Mical planned it that way."

Atton pulled a face. "Yeah, a family reunion was just what I was hoping for."

He'd been hoping for an empty Enclave.

"Like a big ol' party," Sparkle mused, smirking a little sideways. "He's a manipulative shit when he can get away with it, isn't he?"

Seriously, Sparkle was starting to see why Atton didn't care much for the guy.

"Mical? Nah, he's all sweetness and light," Mira said easily, "If you don't mind taking your sweetness with a little 'spying on you for the Republic'."

"And being an idiot," Atton muttered.

"No, that would be your niche," Mira replied. "Anyway, I'm going to put together a couple more stun grenades. I'm sure I'll find you moping around here sometime."

"I'll try to keep his moping to a minimum," Sparkle offered, smirking. "We'll see if we can upgrade it to at least skulking, this weekend."

Sparkle was all heart!

"Oh, thanks for nothing, you bantha-licked nerf herder," Atton muttered, but Mira had already pulled away from the wall and started walking. "Ugh."

"If you didn't like it, I wouldn't be here right now," Sparkle shared brightly, giving Atton a grin and swaying a bit to try to bump shoulders with him. "Anyway, last I checked we weren't here to mope, right? So it's not even going to be an issue."

Atton rolled his eyes, but at least obliged in shoulder-bumping. So Sparkle hadn't been quite disavowed as a friend forever yet.

The weekend was long, though.

"I'm just hoping nobody else decides to swing by and say hi," he said. "Mical's bad enough, but Brianna?"

"Well, we can probably avoid them for the most part, right? Like, what are they going to do? Put us to work?"

The horror.

Atton muttered something under his breath that he wasn't going to share, thanks.

"C'mon," he said instead. "Dormitories are this way. They have running water and central heating. Luxurious living."

"No unnecessary waterfalls? I'll take 'em," Sparkle announced, smirking faintly. Hey, if Atton wasn't going to share with the class, Sparkle was going to just assume that whatever he had muttered was just very uncharitable. It seemed like a fair assessment. "Is there anything we should be doing while we're here?"

Sparkle was no good at plumbing, but he could probably fake a decent meal if he was let loose in a kitchen. Mystery meats were just a challenge waiting to be beaten into submission.

"I figured we can order in some of that nerf steak Mira was talking about," Atton said, as he guided Sparkle through the halls of the Enclave - some in ruins, some in remarkable good shape.

The dormitories area was one of the latter.

"The rest, eh, we'll avoid the others until Mical tracks me down, which'll be fun."

Atton wasn't above hiding behind a belligerent 18-year-old, all right?

And hey, Sparkle could be good and belligerent when he wanted to be!

"Fair enough," Sparkle decided. "I want to see what the big deal is about this nerf steak that everyone keeps talking about, anyway."

"Ugh."

That... wasn't Atton; it was a female voice, belonging to an incredibly white female person who passed by at the end of the hallway. Funnily enough, she didn't actually stop to chat.

"Schutta," Atton called after her, because ugh to you too, lady.

He shook his head. "This is you," he said, tapping one door.

Well, at least she wasn't a terribly social sort? Sparkle eyed her as she walked away, and then shrugged it off and looked at the door.

"Here? Cool. So I can, like, just toss my bag here and call it good for a bit?"

It wasn't exactly likely to wander away on them, at least. Unless somebody around here really wanted Pop Tarts.

Pop Tarts? Who'd want those?

... Okay, Atton might've crammed a whole stash of Pop Tarts in his closet in the room next door.

"Pretty much," he said. "Closet over there, bed over there, refresher's down the hall... I think that's about it. Jedi lived sparse."

"So did I," Sparkle pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders. "Shitty indoor plumbing is still indoor plumbing. I can handle it."

He wandered into the room, took a look around, gave a satisfied little nod, and then deposited his bag on the bed. It would be fine there, sure. And if for whatever reason it wasn't, it wasn't like anyone would find anything terribly exciting in there anyhow.

Maybe a baggie of weed. Oh no. Not that.

Hey, he was putting it down in the middle of an Enclave everyone knew was full of Jedi. Barring a Sith attack, nobody would even dare to get near the place.

"Hey, I lived out of a container on Nar Shaddaa for a while," Atton said, "But I'm not exactly complaining about living in my cushy apartment instead of around here."

"Your apartment kicks ass," Sparkle replied, nodding and heading back over to where Atton was standing. "I mean, it's got your stuff, you don't have to worry about Mical pestering you all the time. The biggest pain in your ass is me, and you still keep me around, so it can't be that bad. Plus there's a bar within walking distance, and you get more variety with your take-out orders."

Really, it was hard to lose with a setup like that, right?

"Exactly," Atton said mildly. "Don't know how any of these people plan to survive living in that Temple, but I think I'm sticking with the apartment."

And Fandom. Because where the hell else was he going to go?

There was a whole multiverse out there, but considering Atton's willingness to actually keep in touch with the Jedi these days, Fandom was probably the most convenient option anyway.

"The easiest bet would probably be to, I don't know, like, just ignore that most of it is there," Sparkle mused. "If it's that frigging huge, why spread everything out over something that's almost the size of the island? But use as many rooms as you need, and whatever, no big deal. The rest is just kind of there and gathering dust either way."

Unless there was some kind of weird Jedi rule that said that you had to use all of that extra space if it was there.

See, moving into the multiverse had seemed like a great idea before a certain someone had annihilated all of Atton's old coping techniques and left him scrambling for something more familiar. Sadly.

"I guess," he said. He took a step back inside Sparkle's room and waved his hand at the vid screen until it activated. A couple of clicks, and... "But, I mean. Look at this thing."

... Yep, Sparkle was looking. Staring, really, wide-eyed.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered. "They call that thing a temple? That's an entire freaking city."

So, the Jedi were crazy. That was good to know.

"So much for that living sparse thing."

"Right?" Atton said. "If I had to live there, I'd spend the entire time worrying maybe an entirely new species of mynock was growing and breeding on the other side of the damned Temple without anyone being able to make it down there to check."

"Seriously, you could, like, be renting out space there," Sparkle pointed out, not quite able to look away from the screen. "Five people don't need all that. Shit, five people don't need all this. And can you imagine the mess if Mical decided to install a waterfall in there?"

Mical was never living down the little dribble that was that failed attempt at landscaping, no. And the poor bastard didn't even know it yet.

"Big one, running right down from the top," Atton mused. "Probably Coruscanti would be surprised that it was raining..."

"There really needs to be some sort of passcode so that he can't do any plumbing without alerting all four of the rest of you to impending disaster," Sparkle declared. "You think this is bad, just wait until you have to fix the pipes in that beast there."

"Oh, if he's actually moving us into that beast, I'm making him make sure the Republic sends us a plumber to go along with it," Atton announced in turn

He raised his voice a little. "And I mean that. Stop skulking."

Behind him, someone heaved an exasperated sigh.

"Oh, god," Sparkle muttered, glancing at Atton. "He's here, isn't he? Like, right here? Anyone ever tell the dude it's rude to spy?"

It was rude to talk about people who were obviously right there as though they weren't, but that wasn't stopping Sparkle.

"Atton has, multiple times," Mical said mildly, "In spite of the circumstances of my original spying. As it is, I was simply meaning to speak to him - I did not know he had guests."

Atton rolled his eyes. "Considering you just deliberately jam-packed everyone into the Enclave, you should be prepared for anything." Beat. "You remember Sparkle."

Mical gave Sparkle a polite nod. "In passing."

Sparkle seemed to take a moment to consider before he nodded back. Yeah, okay, Sneakypants McPlumbingfail could have a return nod, since so far, he wasn't being too obnoxious.

"I've got first dibs on Atton," he decreed. "He was going to show me some stuff. There's this sad little waterfall that's crying for its mother, and we were going to try to maybe set the poor little guy free, later. After food. We haven't eaten since leaving Fandom."

Like, an hour ago. Portals were pretty instantaneous like that.

"Ah," said Mical. "Well. I had asked everyone here so we could discuss certain issues about our housing... but I do not believe we are in any rush."

He had these vague hopes that Atton might be slightly less disagreeable if he let the man have this one. Vague, vague hopes.

"Oh, now that's good to know," Atton said dryly. "In that case, maybe get out of our hair? And the kid's right, that waterfall is the saddest thing I've seen in years."

Mical let out a sigh. "I am merely trying to restore the Enclave to some semblance of--"

"You're failing," Atton told him helpfully.

"Hence the meeting."

"You know, there's this really cool business practice we have back on Earth, where, if someone calls a meeting, they actually let people know there's going to be a meeting, right up-front," Sparkle suggested with a bright smile that screamed 'I'm being helpful because I think you are a moron.' "That way, they know not to make other plans. I hear it works really well."

And it offered people who didn't want to go to a meeting an opportunity to find a convenient out.

Which was why Mical hadn't told Atton. Cough.

"I'll remember that for next time," Mical said, with a practiced ease. "I will leave you to your activities, then."

He bowed his head again as he ever-so-gracefully made his exit.

"Asshole," Atton muttered.

See, Mical, that train of thought was just going to leave to Atton always having other plans.

"Bit of a slimy fuckhead, isn't he?" Sparkle looked back at Atton from where he had, yes, been making a point to stare at Mical's ass as he left.

There had come a point where Sparkle had stopped doing it for his own benefit, and had started doing so entirely because there was a chance that it might make the man more inclined to steer clear of him whenever Atton had him around.

"And he's not even good at the underhanded manipulation thing. Like. You'd think if he's going to try it, he'd at least have some kind of backup plan going or something."

"See, Mira thinks his problem is he watches too many holovids," Atton shared. "Tries to copy everything from the movies, including that stupid fake-chivalrous 'I'm the good guy' routine he's got."

He shrugged.

"Anyway, we've got him out of our hair," he said. "Let's just get some nerf."

Well, what else was Mical going to do between being all fake-pious and messing with the plumbing? Holovids were excellent time-wasters!

"Yeah, let's do that," Sparkle agreed with a nod. "I'm looking forward to seeing what all of the fuss is about, already."

Atton produced his comlink and made a quick call. Couple of nerf burgers with a side of the local booze and (sigh) whatever vegetables they decided to throw in with that.

"There," he said. "Now hopefully we've scared off all the locals so they stop deciding to drop in every five minutes."

See? Sparkle was looking all proud of you, Atton! Vegetables! Atta boy!

"If it comes down to it, I'm not opposed to camping out in here and just constantly ordering delivery all weekend," Sparkle decided. "There are worse ways to spend a weekend."

Atton reserved the right not to actually eat any of the vegetables. Just FYI.

"Eh, it's a big place," he said. "We could camp out in the basement if we wanted to. Of course, I'm not sure that place is like, entirely laigrek-free at this point..."

If he didn't eat them, he was going to get so pouted at. It was the only weapon Sparkle had at his disposal. He was going to abuse it.

"Which ones are those, again?"

Sparkle, don't ask. You don't want to know. You really, really don't.

"You know those, uh, praying mantises you guys have?" Atton said. "Think those. But bigger. And they have horns."

Charming, really.

Oh, they sounded it.

"... I'm going to freak the fuck out if I ask how much bigger and I actually get an answer, aren't I?"

Because mantids were actually kind of cute. Mostly because they were tiny and thus easily squishable.

"They're at least a little smaller than you," Atton said.

That was meant to be reassuring, yes.

"I think we got most of 'em when we cleared this place out."

"Ooooooooohkay. Never going down to the basement," Sparkle declared. "Good to know, thanks for the heads-up, I keep forgetting that everything in the galaxy probably wants to kill you. Like fucking interplanetary Australia or something."

Atton let out a snort. "Oh, it's not that bad, kid," he said. "Well, unless you go looking for it, then you'll usually find something. But that goes for your Toronto as much as it does for my... entire galaxy."

"Okay, okay, I follow that," Sparkle replied. "That said? Still not a fan of bugs that are almost my size. I mean. For the record, and all."

Toronto didn't have those, even if the cockroaches did get pretty big.

"If it's any consolation, the laigreks are the only ones I know of on this planet," Atton said brightly.

He shrugged.

"Do you want the tour of these oh-so-interesting old ruins, or not? I can point you to all the really fascinating rubble."

"Sure," Sparkle replied, shrugging off the whole laigrek thing and smirking a little. "Just so long as we don't miss our nerf delivery. Maybe we can find more waterfalls."

Never. Letting. It. Go.

Atton let out a snort as he stepped outside the room back into the hallway. "Little waterfalls everywhere," he said, "Waterfalls on the roof, waterfalls on the floor, waterfalls in his bedroom..."

"Little precious has a natural obsession with the plumbing but he just can't see," Sparkle singsonged as he followed, dredging up a song that was actually older than he was, because sometimes you just had to riff on Waterfalls. "He gives it tweaking that the pipes just can't handle, then he shrugs and says, 'hey, it looks good to me!'"

And it wasn't even one of those weekends. Sparkle was just making up for lost time.

"Oh, Force, how did I ever survive karaoke nights with you?" Atton said.

By being drunk and not minding all that much.

"If you want, I can hold off on the singing until the booze gets here," Sparkle offered, smirking.

"Nah, nah," Atton said, waving his hand vaguely in the air as they approached the courtyard. "Just make it louder so Mical can hear it."

Small pleasures.

SCORE.

"Don't go making waterfalls! Please stick to the flooded-toilet puddles you're uuused to!"

Yeah. Sparkle had permission. He was belting this, now.

"I know that you want to have it your way or nothing at all, but you really look like an ass!"

They couldn't see Mical from here, but really, who needed to see Mical's face when you could look at the shit-eating grin on Atton's face? There were advantages to being psychically connected to the universe, like knowing when someone you disliked was really, really aggravated all of a sudden.

They came to a stop in a field of grass. "I'm just going to let you finish."

Dantooine, Saturday

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