The park, Friday afternoon

[intotheout]

At fifteen, Tip wasn't much of a drinker yet, and she didn't make a habit of either walking around town after dark or listening to the radio every day, so she had no idea there was anything odd going on on the island today. Her class had been normal, and now she was on her way to her usual weekly sword training in the park. It was a nice day out, and she was really looking forward to stretching and letting loose today. She was even starting to enjoy sparring, despite how much the idea had initially terrified her.

There was one problem: her sword teacher wasn't here. Tip got to the usual spot, and turned in a slow circle. There was the bench where they left their extra stuff. There was the duck pond where Stance liked to try to make friends. There was the spot where Kanan usually waited for her.

"Kanan?" Tip called. "Am I really late?" She didn't think she was. "Am I early?" She pulled out her phone and checked the time. She was here when she usually showed up. And there were no messages, either.

It wasn't like Kanan to be late, but hey, everyone had flaws, right? She shot him a text to let him know she was waiting and picked up her sword, figuring she could impress him by already being warmed up and practicing forms when he got there. Plus, activity was usually a good way to make the little voice in the back of her head saying he wasn't coming and she couldn't rely on anyone no matter what shut up.

Was it worse when the little voice decided he was a jerk who'd decided she wasn't worth training, or when it decided he was dead? Either way, it was stupid, and she felt stupid, and this feeling was exactly what happened when you decided to let people in even after they'd already disappointed you once. And god, she'd been in such a good mood a minute ago!

Anyway, there was an angry teenager running through some very angry jedi sword forms in the park today. So that was a thing.

[open!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

It had become habit over the past few months to show up here, but Rey was sort of curious how things would be after last week’s... whatever that was. So just like normal, she was there, and this wasn’t the usual setup.

“No Kanan?” she asked after a moment, feeling bad about interrupting.

[intotheout]

"Nnnope," Tip said, managing to sound only slightly bitter. "Not yet anyway."

[thatwaslucky]

Oh. Is it weird if I wait?” Rey asked slowly.

There didn’t seem to be much sense in coming back later, but she did want to see him, but she also felt like she was intruding on someone else’s time?

[intotheout]

"Do what you want. It's a free country."

Oh great, now she was resorting to cliches.

"I mean, go ahead. I'm not doing anything extra fancy or anything."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey found a spot to sit, feeling like she should be getting love-attacked by a dog right about now. “Is he training you?”

[intotheout]

"Yup," Tip said, moving more carefully through the forms now that she had an audience. "Since last fall. You?"

She definitely probably shouldn't feel hurt at the idea that Kanan might have other students. That was a profoundly silly thing to feel.

Stupid freaking brain.

[thatwaslucky]

Rey actually had to think about that for a second, given that she wasn’t entirely sure what Kanan thought about it. “Not really. I follow along with him sometimes, but mostly I watch and interrupt his work.”

[intotheout]

Tip laughed a little at that. "He needs interrupting sometimes. You do a public service."

[thatwaslucky]

“Why does he need interrupting?” Rey wondered.

[intotheout]

Tip shrugged. "He gets sort of stuck up in his own head sometimes. All full of, like, nobility and tragic personal history and stuff."

Tip knew what that sort thing looked like, since she tended to do it a bit, too.

[thatwaslucky]

“Huh. I don’t get that with him,” Rey said, and thought about it. “Well, mostly. The occasional comment here and there.”

[intotheout]

"Oh." Tip thought about that for a moment, pausing mid-form. "Maybe it's because he's trying to teach me this stuff. It's kind of . . . attached to the history and all."

He'd tell her if he needed to stop doing it, though, right?

[thatwaslucky]

“Probably. We’re from the same galaxy, I don’t really need the same history lessons.”

That was cute, Rey.

“Why’re you learning this?”

[died8yearsago]

Even though she thought this was something more in line for Animal Control than police, Rosa was actually kind of...glad to have something to do for a change, for having something to look for on her patrols other than suspicious squirrel activity (and, let's face it, almost all squirrel activity was suspicious). It sure beat desk duty and possibly having to take a ton of calls about injured or missing people or weird skinless animals.

...although there wasn't really any of the latter at all. Nocturnal, she supposed. But there could still be signs. Hints. Clues. To...she didn't even know what she was looking for, but sometimes, you just didn't know until you found it.

"Training even without your teacher here?" she asked when she swung by the park and saw the sword girl hard at work by herself. A very small part of her admired her dedication, but it was easily overshadowed by the part of her who thought any extra effort was just dumb.

[intotheout]

"I'd use it to hit things but I don't want to break my sword," Tip said. "And, you know, practice is important."

Mostly she wanted to hit things. And, in case Kanan really had decided to ditch her, show him that she didn't need him.

It was all super healthy.

[died8yearsago]

"You seem a little miffed," Captain Obvious Rosa observed.

[intotheout]

"Girls get grumpy when they're stood up."

[died8yearsago]

"Stood up?" Rosa's brow knitted for a second. "You don't...you mean your teacher? Yeah, kid, I don't think he's coming."

She had a hunch that maybe no one'd told her yet.

[intotheout]

"Why not?" Tip asked. "Wait, how do you know?"

Someone told the quiet badass lady but not Tip?

[died8yearsago]

"Saw him come into the clinic last night," Rosa explained, half wondering if that was some violation of privacy or whatever, but who cared? The kid would probably want to know instead of just being all mad about it unexplained. "Brought in by a redhead and his dog."

And if she was honest, she recognized the dog first, and then realized who the unconscious dude was.

"Guess the memo hasn't gotten around yet. I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon."

[intotheout]

"Oh my god." Tip's eyes went wide. "What happened?"

Now she felt bad about being mad at him. But also worried about if he was okay. Honestly, angry was a little easier to deal with than scared, but hey, at least he hadn't ditched her?

[died8yearsago]

See? Rosa was helping!

She shrugged. "Probably got attacked by those monsters, same as everyone else brought in last night."

TOTALLY HELPING!

"So, uh, yeah, be careful if you're walking around and stuff. But I haven't seen any today, they're probably nocturnal. I wouldn't go out tonight if you can help it."

[intotheout]

Tip couldn't help the mighty eye roll that news prompted. "Of course there are monsters. God forbid we make it through a whole semester without monsters."

[died8yearsago]

This was Rosa's first time dealing with monsters that weren't, you know, other people, so the reaction got a little bit of a confused look out of her. Oh, sure, she'd read plenty of the reports involving monsters at the station, but she'd also spent a good deal of her tenure here so far very willfully ignoring them.

"So, you've dealt with monsters before."

[intotheout]

"Last semester we had giant evil slugs."

And other things, but for Tip the slugs really stood out.