fandomtownies | Co[n]ven[ien]t Garden Flower Shop[pe], Thursday, 7 May

Who is a little sleep-deprived and ouchy from yesterday's adventures.

Sam wasn't very good at the whole flower-picking thing, so when one of the people he'd been thinking about buying some flowers for just happened to be in the shop? Well, that made things much easier.

"Dinah, hi," he said, smiling. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"New job!" Dinah held her arms out in a happy shrug, and offered, "Want some bananas? They just showed up this morning. I figure if I give them away, it counts as free advertising if you tell people you got them here. Oh hey, how's Grace doing?"

"I don't need any bananas, but thank you," he said. "And Grace is great. She's why I'm here - I wanted to thank you for helping yesterday."

"Oh, good. And you're welcome, I was glad to help. I can't believe those creepy creepy guys took babies," Dinah said. Well, she could believe, but it still left her appalled. "Do you know what was up with that 'he loves you' thing? That kind of freaked me out."

"I think it was kind of like a religious conversion," Sam said. "They thought they were gonna show us the one true way or something, if we didn't kill them for long enough. 'Cause, you know, taking someone's kid won't make them homicidal at all."

"Crazy, crazy people." Dinah shook her head slowly, then frowned a little. "Kill them for long enough?"

"You know, if we let them talk us into believing in their guy instead of just taking them out right away," Sam said. "Zoe said it seemed like they thought she and the others wouldn't hurt them if they had people we cared about."

Dinah nodded, her face going solemn. "I wish we could've talked them into believing it was pointless." She was quiet a minute. "But we gave them a chance. And we didn't go looking for the fight."

"Exactly. As far as I'm concerned, they started it," Sam said. It might not have been the most mature opinion, but it helped him sleep. "I'm just glad no one on our side got hurt."

"Uh-hunh!" Dinah smiled a little at him. "And I'm glad it got dealt with quickly, before the new kids got here. Can you imagine having that for a welcoming committee? Yeeeee."

"I almost forgot about the new kids coming, with everything else," Sam admitted. "That'll make the weekend a lot better."

Dinah nodded vigorously. "I signed up for the Big Sib program. Have to help the new kids like Jamie and Chad helped me, you know?" She grinned mischievously. "Just don't tell your stepmom I might be continuing a few traditions."

"Like scaling down the sides of buildings?" Sam said, laughing. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."

"Hey, Dinah," Tahiri said as she came in; she'd been planning on coming down to check up on her after yesterday anyway. "What's with the fruit?"

"Fandom random, as far as I can tell. The banana blossoms are pretty though, aren't they?" Dinah grinned and leaned carefully over the counter, offering her one. "Want one?"

"Sure," Tahiri agreed. "You look like you're doing better than yesterday."

Segues. Who needs 'em?

Certainly not certain blonde usually-bubbly people.

"I am. I didn't sleep a lot, but I didn't have any nightmares." Dinah grimaced. "Just the ribs bothering me a bit. How about you?"

"Did you get them healed up?" asked the girl who didn't like going to the clinic. "I'm doing better, yeah. I ended up going over to Ben's room . . . no nightmares, that's good. I was worried."

Dinah smiled at her for that. "Yay for Ben. And no, I wanted to give it a day, but I think I'll track down Ronan this evening-- I'm supposed to have another practice with Arthur tomorrow." She leaned against the counter with only a passing wince. "Just really, really thinky."

Tahiri paused for a moment and closed her eyes, sending out a mild Force suggestion to any squirrels in the area that they shouldn't be here.

"About killing some of the Skrulls?" she asked.

Dinah's face got more blank, and she nodded. "I.. that's not the first time you did that, right?" she checked. "I didn't-- I don't know what I'm supposed to be feeling right now. Just maybe not so much."

Tahiri really wasn't great at the sensitive chats. ~~That'll be Gabrielle's job.~~

"Did you enjoy it?" she asked bluntly, the look on her face suggesting the answer had better be no.

And for a second Dinah wanted to cry, mostly from sheer frustration of not knowing how to explain.

"I was so relieved they weren't trying to kill me any more," she said, her voice strained and quiet. "The first one, it was so fast I didn't even feel anything, I shot him, and he was dead and I," she swallowed hard. "Didn't have time to think, because the other one was coming at me." Dinah looked down at the counter, shaking her head. "And I think, I think I didn't believe the other one would die, even though I knew what I was doing, and he wasn't stopping, and when I hit him he didn't fall down or..."

God, maybe she was a terrible person? Because for a second she'd been glad she won?

"That's . . ." Tahiri bit her lip and sent a wave of reassurance and comfort through the Force toward Dinah. "Normal isn't the word. But the relief, there's nothing wrong with that. Dinah, the first time I killed someone, I cut her head off and I laughed. I wanted to kill her -- I did, not Riina. She'd tortured me, she was hurting Anakin, and I wanted her dead. Maybe she deserved it, but I shouldn't have enjoyed it. But I did."

Dinah was quiet a minute, taking deep breaths, then looked at Tahiri. "Pretty normal for you too, though," she offered. Because she knew how it felt to be that angry. There hadn't been time yesterday; it had just been about getting out alive. After a minute, she said, "I lifted him twenty or thirty feet and dropped him on his head." She closed her eyes, feeling her cheeks turn red with shame and suppressed upset. "I don't ever want to have to do that again. I kept wishing he'd get up."

"A Jedi is never supposed to kill out of anger or hatred," Tahiri answered quietly, memories of Anakin's vision and the way Ben had flinched away from her for so long stirring. "Much less enjoy it, or want to. Sometimes it's what you have to do, but it should always be a last resort."

Last resorts came too thick and fast in her world, though, especially these days.

"Doing what I did . . . that way leads to the dark side." She envied Dinah, a little, for not being constrained by the same philosophy, but quickly dismissed the thought. "You didn't want him dead; that's a good sign."

She took a deep breath and continued, "It feels like . . . like a little part of you died too, doesn't it?"

Dinah put her hand over her mouth and just nodded, because that was the thing she didn't have the words for, something gone that shouldn't be, confused and tangled with the two dead men and not being sorry to be alive.

Tahiri leaned forward and put a touch of Force emphasis behind her next words.

"It's not. Everything that makes you you, that's still there. The best of you is still in there, or you wouldn't be feeling so bad right now."

A slight smile crossed her lips; she still remembered lying on her bunk aboard the Errant Venture as Anakin had said something very similar to her after she'd killed Mezhaan Kwaad.

"I just..." Dinah swallowed, not able to look up. "I just kept thinking, if I'd been smarter, or better, I wouldn't have had to kill them, I could've stopped them before it got to that, I just stopped thinking and reacted, and ..." She leaned her head on her hands. "I don't even know who they were. It didn't mean anything."

Maybe a person had to be from Gotham to get that, with all its long-standing vendettas and history, and how pointless Dinah found it.

"They were warriors; it's what they do," Tahiri answered with the certainty that came from getting familiar with the way Riina of Domain Kwaad, member of the warrior caste, saw the world. It might be argued that the words and the resigned expression shouldn't have belonged on a sixteen year old girl's face, but that was just how things worked where Tahiri came from.

"And don't say it didn't mean anything," she added, thinking of the pure headache that had been Master Skywalker's rage, or the frustrated anger she'd sensed boiling off of Sam. "They were trying to take people away from their loved ones, and they didn't see anything wrong with it."

Dinah was watching Tahiri's face now, trying to make sense of it all. She wondered when Tahiri had come to terms with this. If she had. How someone learned this without becoming completely bitter. "See, and I'm not sorry we stopped that part. Not at all. No one should do that." She shook her head, biting her lip. She was quiet a minute, then laughed weakly, mostly at herself. "How dumb is it, that I'm sorry I couldn't talk them out of attacking me, when I didn't even speak their language, and the only thing they said I understood was 'he loves you'?"

"Not dumb at all," Tahiri assured her. It wasn't so much coming to terms as just being resigned to it, and yes, there had been bitterness, though it had long ago faded. "That was creepy, wasn't it?"

"Uh-hunh," Dinah said emphatically. She sighed. "At least they're gone, and Grace is back with her family, and the other kids, and..." She was quiet a minute, then said, "I'm worried I'll hesitate, next time. Because I didn't want to do it this time. And I'm worried I won't. And I don't know which is better, or worse." She looked at Tahiri, really wanting an answer to this one. "How can you be calm, and not angry, and know it's right, when you're fighting someone to the death? Someone who talks and thinks and says things about love?"

"Honestly? Not very easily." Tahiri turned a banana blossom over in her fingers, absently stroking the petals. "I'm not the best Jedi to ask about things like that; living up to the code isn't easy. I'm not the best fighter, either. I don't even know how to explain it."

"You're doing okay, really." Dinah gave her a sideways smile. "Telling me I'm not crazy or stupid, remember?" She sighed. "I guess if it were easy, they wouldn't have support groups for it, hunh. And I know I don't want to be Triela. Fine with death. So."

"I think I know crazy," Tahiri agreed with an odd smile. "And you're not it. I hope you never end up the way I do."

Dinah reached out a hand to the one playing with the flower. "For sorta-crazy, you're doing okay. At least okay by me." She studied Tahiri a moment, then asked more gently, "How're you doing from where you're standing?"

Tahiri thought of her talk with Ben last night, and offered Dinah a more genuine smile this time. "Pretty well, actually, all things considered." Compared to other versions of her, certainly. "I could have killed the Skrull queen while she was defenseless . . . Riina definitely wanted to . . . but I didn't. I'm counting that as a victory."

"Progress, right?" Dinah smiled back, and took the blossom, handing it over to Tahiri. "I'm glad. On both counts." She rubbed her eyes, then blinked tiredly at the other girl. "Think I'm hoping the Island goes easy on the new kids for a while, though, and I don't have to learn any more new and painful things for a while."

"We deserve a break. It's been nonstop insanity for weeks now," Tahiri remarked, idly floating two blossoms into the air and making them do a dance around each other. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

"I... think so?" Dinah considers that, watching the flowers dance, realizing she hadn't wanted to use her telekinesis all day. Like a bruise, thinking about it. Very gently, she lifted another flower to dance with Tahiri's. "Eventually." She raised her eyebrows. "Okay to talk to you about it again later, maybe?"

"I'm not used to being the one people go to for advice," Tahiri said, grinning at the flower dance. "But I can adapt."

Yes, you want some bananas. You want some bananas today!

No ending the world on Dinah's first day! There might be a kitten lurking near the register.

<3 <3

*goes to give credit where it's due now that I'm awake!*

Banana blossoms.

NOW I'M HUNGRY AGAIN.

So'm I, darnit. *goes to make breakfast quesadilla in the microwave, although banana blossoms sound much more yummy*

Co[n]ven[ien]t Garden Flower Shop[pe], Thursday, 7 May

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