[River is wearing a radiant smile, looking at the video pickup. Yes, she's managed to get clothes, even if not up to her usual standard; she'll take care of that later
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Aidee? [Luke shrugs] That's a dating system? [And canonical complaint time, said with a hint of whine:] Every time the galactic government changes they go and change the date system. It's after-Empire when I'm from. I have no idea what year pre-Empire it is. Before Reformation, anyway.
...I like your name. Which ones are river again? The medium-sized ones? [There is no water outside on Tatooine except dew, and then only in the mornings.]
Hello, sweetie! And yes, that is helpful, thank you.
Rivers are the ones that run from their spring to the sea. Always moving. Never the same. I'm guessing you're from a place that doesn't have much in bodies of water, then?
Are they different from stream? Where do brook fit in? Is there some difference between seas and oceans? You get 'sea' used in more metaphors, I think. And it gets attached to more things that aren't water - I mean, my folks live near the Dune Sea.
[-ah yes he's babbling. Luke clears his throat.]
None. My homeworld Tatooine's desert. I never even saw rain until Revan put me on Coruscant [And he has to smile] it's nothing like I expected.
Rivers are bigger than streams, and brooks, although you can usually classify booth streams and brooks as small rivers, in a way. And seas are smaller than oceans, relatively. When you take into account differences in planet sizes, water bodies called seas on one planet might turn out to be bigger than oceans on others, so, relatively. Mmm. Let's see...
[narrows her eyes and starts fiddling with her datapad. And then the datapad screen of the video feed splits in two and she uses an image of a planet to show some] See, this, this, and this are seas. This is an ocean, and so is this. These are rivers. Streams and brooks are too tiny to see at this scale, although if you approach more, the beginning of each 'branch' of a river is the size of a stream or brook.
Mmm, rain. [grins at the boy] Tatooine. Surprisingly to its inhabitants, that's the name of a planet that will be known a long time later.
Why even have different names? I bet they're from different languages, like how there's so many words for 'small'. Basic's a mess like that.
Not unless Jabba ends up a vigo, I think. They say a Jedi hero was from around this sector... that sector, whatever... and he had a name pretty common to it, but he never acknowledged his homeworld. It's just not an interesting planet.
Because people like words, sweetie. Sometimes they need the different words for precision; other times they just like the sound and the rhythm of different words. And they don't like repeating the same word over and over again. And sometimes, just sometimes, they like the sound of their own voice, even when they won't admit it. [winks] That, and languages are slow and complicated things to develop. Sometimes different languages combine to form a new one, and different, even redundant, things all stay in the new languages.
Ah, but time and history have an odd way of retaining knowledge. Why, when I was growing up, there were more people who knew about Tatooine than who knew about Coruscant. History is like... a set of curtains. Some open, others close, and few people can see even a good chunk of the whole story.
[Beat. Blink. And then wider smile.] Hello, Luke. And don't worry, I call sweetie a lot of people. Some of them over nine hundred years old, even. [shrug, and a smirk] It's a personal quirk.
[And, well, she was truthful, but she can't make him believe her...]
Sometimes there are reasons to not be perfectly straight. Sometimes the reasons are even good. And sometimes people do it because they don't know how to be otherwise.
If I have to be, I guess. Lady, I'm from Tatooine - my uncle says that if the suns don't kill you, something else will. It's safer inside, but I don't stay inside. He started teaching me to use a rifle when I was seven, a year before they get to it in survival school. I'm not bad with it.
They have civilization and this whole blaster control laws thing. I guess it makes sense in a city - all these people, it's a lot easier to accidentally ruin someone's day.
Yes, but I'm not most people. I was good with guns at way younger age than you are, so. It's judging when to use them that's tricky, but I think you'll be fine. If something's trying to kill you.
Mmm, blasters. I think I'll be happy to see if the settings of the ones available can be twiddles with to do more fun things. Like creating openings in walls, rather than blasting them. That's very nice when you're trying to run from things.
...I like your name. Which ones are river again? The medium-sized ones? [There is no water outside on Tatooine except dew, and then only in the mornings.]
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Rivers are the ones that run from their spring to the sea. Always moving. Never the same. I'm guessing you're from a place that doesn't have much in bodies of water, then?
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[-ah yes he's babbling. Luke clears his throat.]
None. My homeworld Tatooine's desert. I never even saw rain until Revan put me on Coruscant [And he has to smile] it's nothing like I expected.
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[narrows her eyes and starts fiddling with her datapad. And then the datapad screen of the video feed splits in two and she uses an image of a planet to show some] See, this, this, and this are seas. This is an ocean, and so is this. These are rivers. Streams and brooks are too tiny to see at this scale, although if you approach more, the beginning of each 'branch' of a river is the size of a stream or brook.
Mmm, rain. [grins at the boy] Tatooine. Surprisingly to its inhabitants, that's the name of a planet that will be known a long time later.
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Not unless Jabba ends up a vigo, I think. They say a Jedi hero was from around this sector... that sector, whatever... and he had a name pretty common to it, but he never acknowledged his homeworld. It's just not an interesting planet.
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Ah, but time and history have an odd way of retaining knowledge. Why, when I was growing up, there were more people who knew about Tatooine than who knew about Coruscant. History is like... a set of curtains. Some open, others close, and few people can see even a good chunk of the whole story.
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[Luke has to eyeball her in a way that suggests he doesn't think she's being truthful, but he shrugs.]
And my name's Luke, not 'sweetie'. I'm not a little kid. [He is small, though. Not quite one and a half meters/five feet.]
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[And, well, she was truthful, but she can't make him believe her...]
Sometimes there are reasons to not be perfectly straight. Sometimes the reasons are even good. And sometimes people do it because they don't know how to be otherwise.
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It's how they are. [He shrugs again.] As long as it works out okay, it works out.
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[Laughs.] Oh, Luke. [No wonder that you grow up to be such a wise young Jedi...] You have a good thing going, there.
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...what, really?
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[steady confident smile.] Yes, you do.
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Right...
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And if you want to practice - shooting anything that we can get our hands on, really - I'd love to help out.
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Yeah? Most people here say I'm too young.
They have civilization and this whole blaster control laws thing. I guess it makes sense in a city - all these people, it's a lot easier to accidentally ruin someone's day.
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Mmm, blasters. I think I'll be happy to see if the settings of the ones available can be twiddles with to do more fun things. Like creating openings in walls, rather than blasting them. That's very nice when you're trying to run from things.
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