Chilly Boulder [all day]

[momslilassassin]

No trip back to Fandom was ever complete without a stop at the ice cream shop, and Ben was greeted with excited shouts by the staff (and one blank stare by the new girl, but she was quickly brought up to speed). He gave them a truncated version of what he'd been up to the last few years and they insisted on getting him to try some of their new experimental flavors.

After a few gasping wheezes, he advised them to keep working on the wasabi flavored one. Eww.

He sat down with the giant sundae named after him and several spoons and started texting people to let them know where to find him.

Not that it should be a surprise for any of them.

[OOC: So very open. I've missed him on the island! Come bug him!]

Comments

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin had been on his way to Chilly Boulder anyway.

"Sithspawn," he said, smiling slightly, as he came over to the table with a fairly large sundae of his own, "now you're even older than me than you were before. Stop that."

[momslilassassin]

"I promise that if I get older than Jaina, I'll stop," Ben said, grinning back. "How are you doing, Anakin? It's very good to see you."

He hadn't been sure he would again.

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

"You'd better not," Anakin exclaimed, looking genuinely indignant about that prospect. "Then you'd have both of us weirded out, I bet."

Oh, right, question.

"I'm all right. Pretty busy, between classes and training, but," and he visibly perked up, "I get to use the flight sim when I want." He'd never be better than Jaina, but he could keep dreaming.

"How's life outside our galaxy? Really different?"

[momslilassassin]

"Some of it is," Ben admitted. "They aren't exactly familiar with the idea of being Force-sensitive and I'm the only Skywalker they've ever heard of." He smiled slightly. "That part is a nice weight off of my shoulders."

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

A tiny flash of envy manifested in Anakin's Force-sense before he damped it down. "Sounds like it," he remarked. "Even here, we have a family reputation. Does it scare anyone when you use the Force?"

[momslilassassin]

"I don't really use it if I can help it," Ben admitted. "I want to break them in slowly. Ender says he doesn't care one way or the other, but I've read enough history of this planet not to want to be labeled a witch or something else."

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin poked at his ice cream with a spoon, frowning slightly. "Yeah, we get that in certain places at home, but here, or there I guess, it's got to be even worse. That's got to be rough, though. I don't think I could do that, go without using the Force for long."

Not just because of his ongoing feud with Jacen, even if that was part of it; using the Force was as much a normal function as breathing to him.

[momslilassassin]

"It was a matter of necessity on our trip to Shakespeare," Ben said. "The admiral was paranoid already and finding out I had superpowers would have tipped him over the edge."

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

Anakin nodded. "Oh, I get it. I really do. It makes me really cranky, though." He said, as if he weren't prone to that under normal circumstances. "Does it make you want to climb the walls, too?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla didn't have to read the full text to know where to find Ben. If he was on the island, there was one place he could be found.

"Beeeeeeen!" she said, darting into Chilly Boulder with a complete unconcern for things like volume control or propriety. "Kiss kiss!"

[momslilassassin]

"Inside voice!" Ben said, laughing as he stood up and waited for the hug.

[glacial_queen]

"Inside voice your face!" Karla retorted, slamming into him and wrapping him up in a tight hug. "Which is nicely clean-shaven, I note."

[momslilassassin]

"Ender said something about not traumatizing the population here," Ben said, hugging back.

[glacial_queen]

"Because Ender is a gentleman," Karla chided, brushing a brief kiss across said properly shaven cheek. "And keeps you in line, as is only right and proper."

[momslilassassin]

Ben laughed. "If that's how you want to imagine it, sure."

[glacial_queen]

"Well, any other way I imagine it, I get in trouble," Karla teased, since Ender wasn't here to give her looks for it. She sat down, snagging a spoon and helping herself to a spoonful of his sundae and waggled her eyebrows at him to make certain he knew what she was implying.

Karla: subtle like a brick to the face.

[momslilassassin]

Ben still hadn't outgrown blushing. "Shush," he mumbled, poking at the sundae. "We're happy."

[solo_sword]

Of course Jaina came by, and to be completely honest, sensing him on island meant that she would have automatically come here to find him at some point anyway. Because look, if Ben somehow avoided Chilly Boulder, then he'd been replaced by a pod person or a clone or an HRD in the last however many months.

"Look at you," she smiled, coming over to the table.

[momslilassassin]

"I got taller," he said proudly as he stood up to hug her, "or you shrunk..."

[solo_sword]

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say either one of those things," Jaina smiled, hugging him back. "I didn't expect you to be in town!"

[momslilassassin]

"It was a last-minute decision," Ben said. "We looked at the calendar and realized this was our last free weekend for a while."

[solo_sword]

"What do you have going on?" she wondered.

[momslilassassin]

"Meetings with colonists, mostly," Ben said. "Game nights, dances--I'm pretty much in charge of making sure the only entertainment isn't drinking cheap booze and punching people."

[solo_sword]

"You're planning dances," she repeated, unable to not look amused.

[momslilassassin]

Ben's cheeks went pink. "I'm not leading them and I swear I have no deeply held opinions on glitter," he protested, "but they need to meet and mingle and learn they aren't that different. Dances seemed to accomplish that here."