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]

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

The horror.

[suitably_heroic]

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."

[myownface]

"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.

[suitably_heroic]

"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?

[myownface]

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."

[suitably_heroic]

"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.

[myownface]

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.

[suitably_heroic]

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."

[myownface]

"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.

[suitably_heroic]

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."

[myownface]

"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?

[suitably_heroic]

"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?

[myownface]

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.

[suitably_heroic]

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."

[myownface]

... 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."

[suitably_heroic]

"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."

[myownface]

"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.

[suitably_heroic]

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

[myownface]

"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."

[suitably_heroic]

"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.

[myownface]

"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.

[suitably_heroic]

"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."

[myownface]

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.

[suitably_heroic]

"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."

[myownface]

"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.