Atton's Coruscant, Saturday

[suitably_heroic]

Okay, if Atton could've chosen a way to spend the night before Sparkle Training Day, it wasn't exactly 'locked in a seemingly endless meeting about closing the net on pirates'. But he couldn't exactly skip out, either-- the Republic had sent a fair share of bigwigs to discuss the problem, and he had to play nice and be the model Jedi.

But eventually, the meeting wound down. People started to leave. And that meant this was now his opportunity to do the other thing he'd attended the meeting for. Or, well, talk to the guy he'd partly attended the meeting for, at any rate.

Admiral Carth Onasi. A hero of the Republic. Fought in the Mandalorian Wars, but didn't go with Revan-- instead, his mentor Saul Karath had betrayed him and bombed his home planet. Onasi had stuck with the Republic, and then joined Revan on his quest to put an end to Darth Malak and his Sith Empire.

If Bastila wouldn't answer his questions, maybe Onasi would.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Atton asked, intercepting Onasi right on his way out.

Onasi blinked. "Uh, sure," he said, "Anything for the Jedi. What's up?"

"I did a run last week, out in the Mid Rim," Atton said conversationally. "Minor pirates, waste of my time, except they had a Mandalorian on board."

There was visible confusion on Onasi's face. "I don't think Mandalore is involved--"

"No, I know he isn't," Atton said, rolling his eyes. "The guy was bitching up a storm. Talking about how a Jedi called 'Avner' was really responsible for Canderous Ordo's meteoric rise up the Mandalorian food chain. You know anything about that?"

Onasi rubbed the back of his neck. "I know Revan went to Canderous right before he disappeared," he said. "But Bastila could've told you the same."

"Bastila doesn't really want to talk to me anymore," Atton said. "Something about old ghosts, yadda yadda."

"Old ghosts?" And oh, look. Something akin to understanding dawned on Onasi's face. "You're still looking for Revan. I thought your people said he was dead?"

"No, we know Meetra is dead," Atton said, ignoring the pang of pain in his chest. "Revan, we don't know anything about. I thought maybe if I retrace his steps, we'll find something. Somewhere. Maybe something that explains all of this." Nathema. The system that had swallowed two Jedi, and yet didn't turn up on any star maps.

Onasi looked about to protest, the same as Bastila had. But then his features relaxed. "That's all I know," he said, "Revan went to Rekkiad to see Canderous. Next thing I know, Canderous is Mandalore and Revan was gone. Didn't tell anyone anything, but I understand that's just a Jedi thing."

Atton let out a snort. "Yeah, let me tell you something ab--"

Suddenly his instincts flared and all the alarms in his head went off. He tackled Onasi to the floor, hitting it hard, but not as hard as the blaster bolts that buried themselves in the wall behind them. "Space!"

Whatever had just fired off those bolts was already running-- he could sense that. He crawled onto his feet and dashed for the window, putting his feet to the sill. Then he launched himself into incoming traffic. You're not getting away from me!

Onasi was left on the floor, blinking.

"...Jedi really don't change, do they."

---

There was a white girl sitting in the waiting room of the Portalocity station, waiting quietly and with just a hint of disapproval. 'White', in this case, didn't refer to the color of her skin, but the color of her everything: she had a white hood pulled up over her white hair, a white robe over her white tunic which led into her white boots.

You could say much for Brianna, but at least she was easy to pick out in a crowd.

She was also distinctly unamused about having to do this, but unfortunately Mira was out on a mission, and Rand was an idiot.

[[ for sparkle, la. ]]

Comments

[myownface]

"Yeah, that's pretty much my life now," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "You missed my speech at grad, didn't you? I'm, like, official motivation guy or something. If you're not feeling motivated, I'm gonna damn well motivate you."

He was even mostly not crappy at it!

[suitably_heroic]

"Sorry I missed your big shining moment of glory," said Atton, who had kind of hoped Sparkle had missed-slash-forgotten that part. "But I bet it would've elected like, a fistpump, at least."

[myownface]

Pfff, as if Sparkle hadn't been looking over the audience for like the three people who might show up for him.

"Or at least some good, solid snark afterwards," he replied. "That's fine. That just means you can pretend it was kickass."

[suitably_heroic]

"I will always remember it as the speech of our collective times," Atton promised him, "Which I was stupid enough to miss, thus dooming me to a life of ignorance."

And pop tarts, apparently.

[myownface]

The Pop Tarts were the consolation prize.

"Damn right," Sparkle decided, satisfied with that answer. "And that's the real tragedy, here."

Yeah, on the scale that went from 'homeless kids' to 'missing Sparkle's speech...'

[suitably_heroic]

Well, 'missing Sparkle's speech' - the in retrospect deeply embarrassing events that caused it notwithstanding - was a whole lot less discomfort-inducing than the topic of screwed-up childhoods. Especially in present company.

"Sad. So very sad," Atton sighed. "I take it you regale the children with a, what's his name-- Churchill-esque rant every morning. 'You will eat your breakfast, for it breaks... fast...' Ah, whatever."

[myownface]

Sparkle was willing to award Atton points for trying, at least.

"... Something like that, sure," he agreed. "And on really excited days, I'll even get up on the table and teach them battle cries."

Lies.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton wasn't so good at being verbose and speechy on anything that didn't make him mind-numbingly angry. (The mind-numbingly angry speeches, on the other hand, were beautiful. If full of rage. And the occasional logical contradiction.)

"Since when do you know any battle cries?"

You know what, he was content to fall back into the flow of meaningless banter. He was like the opposite of Brianna; small-talk small-snark was where he lived.

[myownface]

"I can bullshit my way through all sorts of cries," Sparkle replied, sniffing. "Battle cries are only part of my repertoire, you know."

Yep, there he went, sticking his nose into the air.

He made them up as he went along. Most of them had 'fuck' in them.

[suitably_heroic]

"What, you scream 'Fuck' and then you come at... something... wielding a broomstick?" Atton said.

Well, he'd knocked Sparkle around enough times here and in class, he'd hope Sparks knew better than that.

[myownface]

"... If I'm coming at it with a broomstick, it's probably a mouse or something," Sparkle replied, shrugging. "In which case, I'm not screaming 'fuck,' so much as I'm probably bitching it out for shitting on the floor."

Which it totally cared about, sure.

[suitably_heroic]

Atton took another bite of his pop tart. "And wouldn't that be a stellar example?" he said. "Bet your kids would be really impressed. Sparkle, talks to mice."

[myownface]

"Hey, if it works for princesses in the movies, I don't see why I won't have better luck. Most of them are completely inept, I mean."

And they were fictional. But still.

[suitably_heroic]

"And you are practically a princess," Atton mused.

[myownface]

"I'm the prettiest princess," Sparkle countered, nodding solemnly. "Damn right."

Hell, he looked better in heels than some of those princesses did, anyway.

[suitably_heroic]

"You wear your Prom King tiara around the house?" Atton asked. "Because you seem like you do."

Hey, Sparkle could be the prettiest princess if he wanted to be.

[myownface]

"I do and I make it look good," Sparkle replied. Yes, he needed to take this moment to preen. "Like, it'd practically be a crime not to, you know."

[suitably_heroic]

"I wouldn't go as far as a crime, here," Atton said, finishing up that pop tart. "But it does fit with your whole vibe, so it's legal, at least."

[myownface]

"Oh, good," Sparkle laughed, shaking his head. "So, me showing up to our training sessions wearing the thing, then? Going too far?"

[suitably_heroic]

"It'd fall off and then you just gave somebody another weapon to use against you," Atton said idly, picking at the packet. There was another one in there, right? "So nice idea, but better keep it to the pretty princess-appropriate arenas."

[myownface]

Sparkle tilted his head, taking just a moment to picture somebody going for the eyes using his prom crown.

... Nope nope nope.

"Okay, fair point," he conceded, starting to break off corners to his second Pop tart, mostly just for something to do with his hands. "Don't bring a prom crown to a blaster fight or whatever."

[suitably_heroic]

"And look, we've learned a lesson today already," Atton said, finding that second pop tart and taking a bite. "I'm a fantastic teacher."

[myownface]

"And lifelong learning proves to totally be a thing," Sparkle agreed, smirking. "And here I figured it stopped at high school."

... Which didn't explain college at all, but hey, up until he went to Fandom, Sparkle had never really figured he'd make it to college anyway.

[suitably_heroic]

Hey, Atton had quit high school to run off to join the army, so he got it.

"Though the older you get, the more blows to the head it usually takes," he mused. "Figure you're due a few."

[myownface]

"Is that your way of telling me to finish my damn Pop Tart so you can start kicking my ass for the day?"