We're on another planet, Charlie! [OPEN]

[spncrazyfan]

Characters:  Becky Rosen and YOU!
Location: All over!  The streets, stores, apartment complex (and room B-3!)... anywhere a nosy person may end up.
Planet: Coruscant
When: Sunday 11/6 to Thursday 11/10
What: Exploring and meeting new people
Rating: PG-13
Notes: I default as prose, but action is totally fine!  Also make sure you hit up the permissions

Comments

[sand_wormie]

Rather to his displeasure, Luke was finding himself... was homesick the right word? He wished he could go back and visit, have a meal with his aunt and uncle, see his friends again, but he did like being off Tatooine.

Maybe it was just Coruscant. That time on Dac had reminded him what it felt like to be surrounded by great open spaces with few people. Space was a luxury here, and people were always packed together. He could feel it - maybe it was the Force, maybe it was just the knowledge and he was imagining it - but so many things just seemed more compressed and rushed here.

It was a little better in the parks and gardens, the upper-level ones which got some tending anyway. They were very artificial, but so had the hydroponics sections back home, where they grew their food off the water harvest.

But these weren't like the plants from back there, all utilitarian. So many of these were grown for no reason beyond beauty. His hands in his pockets, Luke looked up at a stiff branching entity that boasted shocks of translucent flat appendages which were probably leaves. He had no idea if this was a tree or a bush or what but it was interesting to study.

[spncrazyfan]

Becky was walking along looking at the flora and ended up standing next to the blond haired man. She stood there a moment, studying the leaf with him, then smiled. "It's really pretty, isn't it?"

[sand_wormie]

He felt someone coming up - had it been the sound, or the Force, or what? Luke had to stop himself from second-guessing things these days - but didn't turn to look until she spoke. She was older than he'd assumed.

"It's supposed to be from Vjun, which is kind of weird. Not the kind of plant you'd expect to find there." He shrugged. "But I guess most planets are more complicated than they seem."

[spncrazyfan]

"Well, it's probably like an observatory. They bring things from other places that people who never get to travel can come and see." She wanted to reach out and touch it, but there was a sign saying not to. "Not everyone can travel, after all. But they should be able to see the pretty things they are missing, right?"

[sand_wormie]

"Yeah," Luke admitted dubiously. "It's definitely better than nothing, or just holos. But when you've been to another world, you know how different it is."

"You can tell just from the gravity." He bounced twice on the balls of his feet. "It's almost always a little different, and you get used to it fast but it's kind of at the edge. I've only been to two other planets, but there's this kind of texture to the air that's different, too."

Leaning back, he closed his eyes. "One day I'll have been everywhere."

[spncrazyfan]

"This is the only other world I've been to. But I'm totally going to see everything I can."

She smiled and looked at the young man. "I'm Becky. So where have you been? I know a lot of places, but never been there at all. And what's traveling in space really like?"

[sand_wormie]

"Good idea. I'm Luke," he said, stopping himself before he could give his last name. He had no idea if she'd recognize it or not, but he'd rather avoid that whole thing as long as possible. "Just home, here, and Dac, or Mon Calamari. They're all so different!"

"Unless you're on a really big ship or everyone's keeping to a particular schedule, you see everyone you're flying with every day, several times a day. It's hard to avoid someone unless you keep to one place the whole time." Which had been why he'd so wanted to ride with someone else on the way back here.

Warming to the topic, he informed her, "A ship's got to be self-contained. You're your own tiny world, and even with big food and water stores and air recyclers, you kind of feel it. If you're not at the controls, it's like being packaged for shipping. If you are at the controls, even for a moment, it's completely different."

[spncrazyfan]

She would ask him if he was named after Luke Skywalker, but it probably was a very popular name around this place. "Wow, four different planets! I'm from Earth, which is... I think the best comparison to planets around here is Corellia. Which I totally have to go to."

She hopped up on the railing to sit and not have to move away from Luke. "You sound like you really like flying. I would try to learn, but I'm way better with computers than I am with vehicles. I can drive, but there are a lot of crazy drivers out there. You probably don't have to worry about that with spaceships though. Well, unless you're in a dogfight."

[sand_wormie]

"Rory said it was like Naboo," Luke said curiously. "But Corellia! There are so many habitable worlds in that system... You know the big one, actual Corellia, something like half its land predators are felinoids? With venomous claws, it's this weird planetary quirk. They say it was great to visit before the Diktat took over... yeah, this would be before that." He jumped from topic to topic with erratic enthusiasm; Luke hadn't studied the system, precisely, but he'd picked up bits and pieces. "I wonder if Treasure Ship Row's around? Probably not, but they might have something like it."

"Are you a slicer, or just... Uh, not that there's anything wrong with that."

[spncrazyfan]

"Maybe a long time ago, but there are a lot more cities than I think Naboo has. And no real underwater worlds. And thankfully no Gungans."

Hated that movie soooooo much. And she didn't mind him jumping around because she followed him just fine. She tended to topic jump herself, so totally cool.

"I don't think I've ever heard of Treasure Ship row. Is it what it sounds like it is?" A row of ships full of treasure sounds pretty damn awesome. "Maybe someone can take us there to find out. We could totally pretend to be pirates!"

She looked down at her datapad and shrugged. "I don't really hack... slice. I just know how to do stuff. It's easy when you know how a computer works."

[sand_wormie]

"Yeah, there's supposed to be hardly any worlds with abyssal labyrinths like that. Can you imagine getting lost in one?" Luke shivered theatrically, but seemed thrilled.

He laughed. "That's not it! It's this giant marketplace thing. Maybe not that giant, but before the Empire it always got counted with Bazarre and the Great Fair of Tirahnn. Probably 'cause Corellia's got so much trade and all the smugglers."

"And that's okay!" Slicers were more interesting, flashy, so he was a little concerned that he was denigrating non-slicers. "So you've figured out the datapads? They're pretty different from the computers back home, but they're made to be pretty easy to figure out."

[spncrazyfan]

"Just keep going around and around in circles forever. I'd totally go crazy like, after a day."

She smiled at him. He was being nice to her, and didn't think she talked too much or what she was interested in was stupid or boring.

"Oh! That sounds totally cool. I bet you could like, buy things from all over the galaxy there. I could totally make things from Earth and try and sell them there!" She got excited. "People could learn about OUR world too!"

She thought on that a moment, then pulled up the datapad. "Yeah, I mean, it's in a different language. But I've been teaching myself how to read it and it's totally like an Ipad back home."

[sand_wormie]

"Forever until your air went bad or a water monster ate you." If Luke had been any younger - or if he'd been a few years older and trying to get a laugh from a pretty girl - he probably would've said chomp; as it was, he just grinned. It wasn't a malicious smile, despite what he'd just said.

"What's 'cool?' And yeah! People just aren't interested enough in other worlds. They're so used to being able to charter ships or get on public transport or whatever that they stop noticing." Luke shrugged. "Or they like home too much to want to leave. Great for them, but I can't be like that."

Luke's chin lifted like he wanted to look, though he knew it was pretty much the same as his. "Is there anything you're having trouble with? I could help."

[spncrazyfan]

"Yeah, either of those options would totally suck."

She smiled, shifting a bit because the railing was uncomfortable to sit on in one spot for too long. "'Cool' is used when things are like, good. Or okay. It's just another way of saying it so you don't always say the same word over and over again."

"I don't think I could be like that either. I mean, I don't know how much time I've got here. I want to totally explore. Even if I don't get to remember it when I go home, why should I just mope around here."

Becky shifted closer and showed the screen she was working on. "I've got most of the characters, but there are still these five I can't get."

[sand_wormie]

"Oh. Huh. I think I've heard it before, over the datapads. Must be slang. 'Cool'." He tried the word out as if tasting it.

"Coruscant's more than it looks like... But yeah. The galaxy's big, and fascinating, and it would be a shame not to at least know about what's up and out there." Luke had tilted his head back and looked up, as if he could see through the roof and the sky to the starscape beyond.

"Okay. See, this one's Thesh, that's basically Trill and Herf together, so they make a 'th' sound..."

[spncrazyfan]

"How do you travel around? Cause I've been exploring here, but I would love to go to another planet! Do you have a ship that we could go on?"

"Thesh." She opened up the other program she was taking notes in and added it in. "Got it."