fandomtownies | The Perk, Wednesday Lunchtime

Kanan was in a pretty good mood as he made his way into the Perk, shooting the barista - who immediately wrinkled her nose at him - a shameless smirk before looking around for Didi. He was pretty sure he was on time, so he wasn't too worried to see that she'd already settled in with some tea without him.

"Hey," he said, giving her a smile and a nod a couple of minutes later as he made his way over with his cup of-- huh. Pumpkin spice latte. Normally the barista just shoved a black coffee at him and told him to stop asking for caf, already. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long?"

Didi shook her head and smiled. "Nah. I just like getting places early. I don't like to rush."

She glanced over to the barista, who was wrinkling her nose again, and wrinkled hers right back before glancing back to Kanan.

"How are you?" she asked without missing a beat.

"You know, I have no complaints? They still won't serve me caf here, but I'm not too proud to admit that I enjoy the pumpkin spice anyway."

Kanan liked what he liked. If it tasted good to him, he'd eat it. Unless there was some sort of ethical quandary involved, but he was pretty sure the only ethics involved in pumpkin spice were whether or not it was cruel and unusual to flood the market with the stuff this time of year.

"And how are you?"

"Pumpkin spice is good, even if it wasn't your first choice," Didi agreed sympathetically. "And yeah, sometimes they're picky about what they serve people. I don't know why they give me what I order, but it's not like I'm going to tempt fate asking about it."

She leaned back, brushing her hair out of her face. "I'm good. Happy that it's finally feeling more like fall outside."

"I understand if they don't have caf in stock," Kanan mused, "since it isn't exactly from around here. I think at this point I mostly just keep asking about it because the barista gets suspicious if I don't."

He clearly had to be up to something if he was asking for things that they actually had in stock.

"The colder weather, huh? What are the seasons like here? I haven't gotten much in the way of a thorough answer about that yet, and if it's going to get too much colder than this, I'm going to need to brace myself for it."

"Now I feel like the bearer of bad news, because it's definitely going to get colder than this," Didi said. "This is just the start of it. It'll drop another 30 or 40 degrees, maybe more. And when it's winter, it'll snow. Do they have snow where you're from?"

"I'm from a lot of places," Kanan replied, shrugging his shoulders easily. "But a few of those places do happen to have snow from time to time, so I know how to deal with it, at the very least."

He'd rather not if he had any say in the matter, but since there were worse places he could be than the island, he'd cope.

"Guess I'm going to have to get a coat."

"Guess so," Didi said, sipping her tea again. "But it's not brutal or anything. You've probably been colder places."

She had, anyhow. But she'd been a lot of places.

"So, are you missing a coat because you didn't come here on purpose, or did you just not think to pack one?"

"That first one," Kanan sighed, shrugging and taking a sip of his drink. Mm, nutmeggy. "I was shipping cargo when a portal grabbed me, ship and all. Which would have been less inconvenient if it wasn't a company freighter, and if I had more with me in there at the time than the clothes on my back and a few mementos. Packing for winter weather was the last thing on my mind that morning."

"Too bad you don't go around carrying your entire wardrobe," Didi joked. "No, that's disorienting. Happened to me once, back when I was a student. The portal was in a fountain, so I came up in an airport soaking wet."

"Well, at least I didn't end up soaking wet," Kanan allowed. "I was attacked by bears, though. That was one hell of a week."

No, really. He kind of felt bad about the bears. Nobody had warned them they were out there when he'd asked around Stormwind for somewhere he could go that was far away from people who could get hurt if, say, something exploded.

"You know you can't just mention being attacked by bears and not tell the rest of the story," Didi chided. "What happened?"

Kanan gave Didi a smile that was almost as sheepish as it was amused.

"As it turns out, parking a shipment of highly volatile explosives on the roof of the building you're living in as actually a really, really bad idea," he explained. "That's what I do back home- I'm a cargo pilot, hauling explosives to miners. When the portal grabbed me, it grabbed the cargo too, so I had to get rid of it. The island was parked more or less out in the middle of nowhere, so after making sure it was actually unoccupied with the locals, I used the last of my fuel to take the cargo into the mountains to detonate it safely."

He shrugged.

"The local wildlife didn't appreciate that, so much. I can't really blame them."

No, really, he actually did feel bad about the bears.

"No, bears usually aren't too into giant explosions," Didi said dryly. "But it sounds like it's about the happiest ending you could have hoped for."

She sipped her tea again, winced, and added more honey from the squeeze bottle on the table.

"So, not much call for cargo pilots on the island," she observed. "What are you doing here?"

"If you can believe it, teaching," Kanan replied. "Something or other about dealing with culture shock as it relates to the island at the moment. And on Sundays, I work over at Luke's."

Don't ask him what he did at Luke's, Didi. Thus far, the best thing he'd worked out was that it probably amounted to babysitting the rest of the staff.

"And yourself?"

"I used to teach," Didi said with a little shrug. "Some society stuff, and then sex ed. And I'm a bar wench at Caritas on Fridays."

She gave Kanan an appraising glance, considering how much of her story she wanted to tell. How much he wanted to hear. (Not everybody was up for pumpkin spice lattes with Death, after all.) "Before that,it's a long story. Kind of heavy."

"Well, I'm not in any hurry, and I'm surprisingly good with heavy," Kanan replied, taking note of that appraising glance. That was... well, it was interesting, really, and he gave her a bit of one in turn. "So... I suppose it depends on how much you feel up to sharing."

It wasn't like he hadn't glossed over 99% of what he was all about too, after all.

"Awesome. I don't mind sharing, but I didn't want to wreck pumpkin spice lattes for you forever," Didi told him lightly. "So, you know how everybody here is weird? My weird thing is that I'm Death."

She said it unapoogetically, and with little hint she was kidding.

Kanan blinked, once.

"That... is a much shorter story than I was expecting," he said, carefully. He seemed to be sort of tilting his head this way and that at her now, trying to figure out what to make of that. "I... suppose I should take it to mean that you aren't speaking in metaphor?"

This was Fandom, he was telling himself. Of course he'd find himself having coffee with Death here. And the hell of it was, it wasn't the 'Death' part that was throwing him, so much as the 'living manifestation of an intangible concept' bit.

"Only about as metaphorically as you were taking about being a cargo pilot," Didi said, tilting her head right back at him. (He was calm. That was good.) "It's a job. Like anybody's. Or that's the easiest way to explain it, anyhow."

"I can make it longer, if you want," she added, thoughtfully. "But usually it's easier to start with the big idea."

Kanan had a lot of experience with death, the concept. That it appeared to now be having coffee with him in the form of Death, the pretty girl, was almost more novel than it was distressing. It did help, somewhat, that the island's residents didn't seem to be dropping like flies.

It helped, too, that she didn't seem to be malicious. She was just... her. Though now he had to wonder what he would see if he let himself look at her through the Force. It was almost tempting, really.

"Doesn't get to be a much bigger idea than that," he admitted, after a pause. "I guess it would be a bit redundant to ask what exactly you do, as Death?"

Mostly, he was still processing.

"This, pretty much," Didi said, gesturing to their table. "Well, not this exactly, because you're going home after we're done. But I watch people. I talk to them and make them comfortable. And when it's time for them to move on, I take their hand and help them do it."

She sipped at her tea again.

"In my world, it's always been that way," she added. "When the last living creature draws its last breath, I'll be there to turn out the lights and lock the door."

And now the idea that he was sitting in front of somebody who would be around until the end of eternity was what was making Kanan blink, and he needed to take a moment to sip at his pumpkin spice to keep from looking too gobsmacked. When he was finished, he exhaled, and then lowered his drink, and then looked Didi over thoughtfully.

"Where I'm from, there isn't really a 'Death,' that I'm aware of," he offered. "There's the Force. It connects all living things, and when we die, we return to it. Frankly, I'd be surprised if there was somebody there to take my hand when I went."

Ah, here was where the 'heavy' came in.

"That's the weird part," Didi acknowledged. "For me, anyhow. Some places, there isn't a me. It took me longer than it should have to believe that was really true."

Biting her lip, she added, "I like the idea of the Force. It sounds peaceful."

"It... can be." Kanan settled back into his seat and sipped thoughtfully at his latte again. This time, the whole gesture was a little more relaxed. "It can be very much the opposite, too. The Force is, ideally, a balance, light and dark."

He gave a little laugh and set his cup down, shaking his head. Look at him, sounding like a Jedi. Master Kenobi was getting to him, here.

"But... overall, peaceful. It depends on how you approach it, I suppose."

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