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The Park, Friday Afternoon

The island was quiet. Kanan's usual Friday student was in some snowy place somewhere, and the weather was, while not ideal, at least not raining on his head.

Hera was a nexu. Stance continued to be a dog. A dog who wanted to play with the nexu.

So, Kanan could come to the park to run through lightsaber forms, but instead he was going to come to the park to let Stance chase the ducks and let Hera... probably eat the ducks. He was not going to be the stupid person who tried to tell a four-eyed, two-tailed, giant quilled cat with a mouth like a bear trap what to do at the park. Just so long as she wasn't eating his dog, he was going to consider it a win.

He was going to have to do so much explaining to Chopper at some point about why Hera wasn't at the scrapyard for her shift today, but he was going to do that... later. For now he had found himself a place on the grass to meditate while the two critters wreaked havoc behind him.

He was keeping an eye on them, honest. In a manner of speaking.

[OOC: Open if there's anyone left on the island!]

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Seivarden considered for a moment how to respond. She wasn't feeling well, she knew that, and this conversation was most likely just turning into a way for her to channel her restlessness and frustration.

"Good tea, obviously. Fresh fish, fruit, vegetables, and why not pastries and good arrack?"

In her experience most people appreciated these things, civilized or not, unless you came from a place no one had heard about.

"Why not?" Kanan smiled faintly. "So, that much we have in common, then. How do you eat it all? Pastries are something that most people tend to eat bare-handed around here."

The thought of people putting pastries into their mouths with bare hands made Seivarden wrinkle her nose slightly.

"It's quite possible to eat them wearing gloves," she pointed out. At least if they were made with this in mind. "Or you eat with forks, spoons, knives or whatever is suitable. But yes, I've noted eating with bare hands is popular here. It's, well... not quite what I'm used to."

It was disgusting.

"I figured as much," Kanan replied, "considering your question from before. Do you do everything with gloves on, then?"

Well. Not everything, but Kanan figured she would get what he meant.

"Do you do everything without them?" Seivarden asked. She knew that wasn't the case, of course. "So that I can understand your point."

It should probably come as no surprise that she just wanted to be the one asking questions rather than being sincerely interested.

Kanan gave a bit of a snort as he held up his own hands-- they were, in fact, gloved, though his gloves had no fingers.

"Clearly not everything," he replied. "Though for me it's a matter of practicality. You seem to have an aversion to people doing things with bare hands."

Seivarden wasn't going to point out that fingerless gloves weren't really gloves.

"Practicality? Radchaai just find not wearing gloves indecent."

Like walking around in your underwear. And since Radchaai more or less meant civilized people, it followed that those who didn't wear gloves were uncivilized. Seivarden might not say so explicitly but she did think it.

Thinking these things around a Jedi, Seivarden? Rude. Though it did mean that Kanan was looking even more vaguely amused when he asked, "Indecent? Why is that?"

Really, that was probably about as loaded a question as it would have been if he'd asked why people wore clothes. Why was nudity indecent, right? People would be hard-pressed to come up with any practical answer.

He didn't figure Seivarden cared much about practicality in some cases, either.

"Why not?"

Seivarden looked at Kanan, raising an eyebrow. There wasn't really any other way to respond to that. There were explanations based on ritual purity, but Seivarden wasn't the right person to explain religious matters.

Ah, so the civilized were just space prudes, then. Better than everyone else with nothing to back up their claims besides xenophobia.

Kanan could think of a whole Empire like that back home.

"It's a rule that seems a bit like a trap," Kanan settled on, finally. "Every species that has hands uses them, needs them in order to get by in their day-to-day. Not everybody can wear a pair of gloves, though. Some people can't or don't wear clothing at all. Where they're from, that's perfectly civil. To some, being so ashamed to show one's body that we have to cover it all makes us the uncivilized ones."

Besides, did you really want to be the one to try to get a pair of pants onto a Wookiee?

To be fair, there were fewer alien species in Seivarden's universe and she hadn't met any of them. So the idea of a Wookie in pants wouldn't occur to her.

"But would you say that those perspectives are beneficial for your universe?"

"I wouldn't say they hurt," Kanan replied. "So long as nobody is running around calling people uncivilized because they dress differently."

No, seriously. If you called a Wookiee uncvilized, you totally had it coming to you when one turned around to rip off your arm.

Edited 2017-10-15 19:14 (UTC)

The Radchaai had very efficient ways of dealing with people who didn't appreciate civilization.

"No, of course you wouldn't say so," Seivarden replied, not surprised that Kanan was missing the point, which of course he was. That was to be expected.

"You know, I've served in the military for most of my life, and I've been part of several annexations. There are always some opposition from a few groups at first, but when that is dealt with people are quite happy with what civilization brings."

She wasn't expecting her? him? (she decided not to bother) to understand that either.

Smiling, she added: "And I'm not just talking about clothes."

Well, at that, Kanan tensed, and sensing that, Hera looked up from her comfortable spot on his foot, staring up at the tasty-looking human with four hungry eyes.

"No," he said evenly. "You're talking about assimilation. Doing away with what was there before, turning it all into something the same as you. What for? Resources? Most people don't do that sort of thing for the good of the people they... annex."

There is no emotion, there is peace...

Seivarden took a few steps away from those hungry-looking eyes before replying.

"What for? I suppose it makes no sense if you don't believe that civilization matters."

It was more complicated than that, of course.

Kanan's hand twitched, Hera pulled herself to her feet and shook herself off, and Stance moved to stand on Kanan's other side.

"I believe that people matter," he said, slowly. "I've seen war myself, you know. I've also seen a single-minded Empire sweep across the Galaxy like a cancer, infecting, destroying, or enslaving everything it touches. So why don't you try me?"

He reached down to put his hand on Hera's head.

It was possibly the one reason Seivarden still had a face.

Seivarden took a few more steps back, sensing the threat.

"I don't know about that Empire," she said, more cautious now. "But it sounds to me that it offers nothing that benefits those people. No opportunities or nothing new to be a part of. If that is your idea of civilization, then we aren't talking about the same thing."

Seivarden had yet to mention turning prisoners of war into parts of ship AIs, and then being used as soldiers.

Kanan wouldn't even hold Hera back, if she mentioned that.

His Master would have been so disappointed in him. Even dead.

"Anybody who goes around destroying entire cultures against their will and claiming that it's for their own good is anything but civilized," Kanan said, his voice lower, more dangerous now. His hand still on Hera's head. "But it's always easier to sell to the lackeys. People will do a lot of horrible things if they can pretend that they're not the ones in the wrong. Well-meaning murderers, using soldiers to make peace with people who never asked for them to be there."

The situation had quickly turned more threatening than Seivarden felt was worth dealing with. It wasn't fear as much as a sense of self-preservation, which, perhaps surprisingly, she had some of, especially when facing long-toothed animals that looked like they wanted to eat you.

She probably shouldn't have sold her armour. She knew that had been a bad idea, but she had been rather desperate at the time.

"Is this one of those different perspectives? Will it be helpful to you trying to understand mine? Don't worry, I won't expect you to."

A few more steps back.

"I am sorry to have upset you." That was about as honest as it sounded. "I will leave you to..." she waved a hand in the direction where Hera and Stance had been playing.

With a tiny, quick bow she spun around and strode away, quickly.

Seivarden's perspective was that no uncivilized person could possibly understand her perspective, a point that she had made abundantly clear. There was no middle ground to be found with people who would destroy you. History had proven that time and again.

Kanan let her move until he was certain that there would be no catching up to her. Then he muttered, "You have until the edge of the park to make a point."

And he lifted his hand from the snarling Hera.

How were you at running, Seivarden?

When Seivarden noticed the nexu rushing towards her, she ran. There wasn't anything else to do. She had no armour, that thing looked like it would rather chew her leg off than play.

She really hated this place. Just a walk in the park and some insane person ends up letting her friend turned monster pet attack her.

She didn't stop until the nexu did.

Well, that nexu was usually a woman from a race of people who had spent the better part of history fighting for their freedom from people like you, Seivarden.

Still, Kanan let Hera give chase until it looked like she was about to overtake her, and then he held out his hand and shut his eyes, giving her a gentle nudge through the Force to tell her that it was time to come back.

You don't know where that's been, Hera, he chided. And it'll be more satisfying when you can tell him off while you do it, anyway.

The nexu, grudgingly, stopped running somewhere around the edge of the park, pacing back and forth and staring Seivarden down, snarling a warning that she better not come back.

Seivarden had no intention of coming back as long as the three of them were still in the park. For a moment she almost panicked, the world around her feeling even more unpredictable and strange than usual.

She really wanted to go home, only there was no home. But at least there were places a little more familiar than here.

Not looking in Hera's direction, she took the shortest way back to the apartment. Leaving it had been a bad idea.

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The Park, Friday Afternoon

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