The Park, Friday Afternoon

[uncertain_dume]

So, the guy with the lightsaber in the park today was a little shorter than the usual guy. He also seemed far more confident in his swordwork, though, running through Form III patterns as though he'd only just done them yesterday. Which... well... he had.

He also appeared to have a little bit more pink in his braid than he had yesteray morning. And a blue streak in the rest of his hair. And it was possible that he was keeping his eyes closed as he worked through his forms at least in part because his braid kept swinging into view and it was just so pink. Like... bright pink. Like Caleb had a Zeltron sparring partner back at the Temple who would have been jealous of that hair.

Was it possible to have buyer's remorse on stubbornness? Caleb might have had buyer's remorse on stubbornness, because he never would have let Rosa Emily put so much color into his hair otherwise. And his Master was either going to lecture him or laugh at him or both in equal measures once she was out of the bacta and she saw this, and the hair wasn't even the strangest part of his yesterday.

He spun on his heel, bringing his lightsaber down and forward, his dog (he still wasn't convinced Stance wasn't just a super weird wolf) watching intently from where he was sitting by a bench, as he waited for Tip to arrive for her Friday sword practice, like she had said she would.

[OOC: Open Park for all your tiny lightsaber friend needs!]

Comments

[intotheout]

"Hey Caleb," Tip greeted, walking up with a pair of carefully broken broomsticks sticking out of her backpack. (She didn't have a lightsaber, and she was pretty sure he wouldn't bring Kanan's metal or bamboo swords.) "I dig the hair."

[uncertain_dume]

"Tip, hi," Caleb replied, lowering his lightsaber and waving hello. "Thanks! I, uh, I think I might have gotten suckered into doing it, but I don't hate it, either..."

It had been one of the strangest experiences of his life, added to the list of strange experiences that mostly consisted of things from the past couple of days.

[intotheout]

"You got suckered into dying your hair? Isn't that, like, a whole long process?"

[uncertain_dume]

Caleb ducked his head a little and ran a hand through his hair sheepishly.

"Well, yeah..."

Look, if you had Rosa Emily insinuating that you were a chicken and you were half as stubborn as Caleb, you would've done it, too.

"But if I don't like it, I can probably just try to cover it up later, right? I mean, it looks like I've got some downtime for a while, so I won't be going into battle like this right away."

He paused again.

"... How long do you think it'll stay like this?"

He had no idea how hair dye worked.

[intotheout]

"Well, I don't know. Was it a permanent dye? Did you use bleach?"

He probably used bleach. It was much too bright a color not to have involved bleach.

[uncertain_dume]

"That's what smelled and burned a little, right?"

Yeah. They'd definitely used bleach.

[intotheout]

"Yeeeeah. How fast does your hair grow?"

[uncertain_dume]

"... Oh."

Well, that answered that, then.

"So I'm stuck with this for a while, then."

Oh no, his braid was going to be two-tone once it grew out a little. How embarrassing.

[intotheout]

"I mean, you could try redying it back to your natural color. I've heard that works sometimes."

[uncertain_dume]

"That's a thing?"

Caleb had never in his life done anything fancy with his hair. Did that show? He was pretty sure that showed.

"I might have to look into that before we go out on our next assignment. Either that, or I'll have to keep my hood up all the time."

So mysterious. Truly.

[intotheout]

"That could be a look, too," Tip said, tilting her head. "Can you fight with your hood up?"

[uncertain_dume]

"Sure," Caleb replied with a little shrug of his shoulders. "I mean... We train against remotes while wearing helmets that blind us. A hood is nothing, really."

[intotheout]

"You train blind?" Tip shook her head. "Man, you Jedi are a bunch of show offs."

[uncertain_dume]

"Is it really showing off if the only people who can see you are the Masters who are training you?"

That didn't seem like showing off to Caleb, but he was still kind of new at conversations like this.

[intotheout]

"I guess not. If you want to be technical about it."

[uncertain_dume]

"Trust me," Caleb confided, his voice dropping a little lower, "it is really hard to impress the Masters. I usually end up annoying them more often than impressing them about anything."

For the record, future Kanan was going to be mortified by all of this.

[intotheout]

"I don't know, sounds to me like that's on them as teachers." Tip shrugged. "But I'm not a teacher, so what do I know?"

[uncertain_dume]

Caleb smiled faintly.

"That's actually kind of nice to hear," he admitted. "It's one of the reasons I decided I really wanted to be Master Billaba's Padawan, even before she asked me. Even if she wasn't always impressed the way I wanted the Masters to be, at least she was never annoyed."

Yeah, he was totally trash-talking Master Windu and Master Nu. Ssh, don't tell.

[intotheout]

"Oh yeah, when you find a good teacher you've got to hang onto to 'em." Hopefully he'd remember this part when he was a grown up again, too.

[uncertain_dume]

Oh he would. And he would probably sit there totally bemused for a while about it, too.

"Well, now that I'm her Padawan, Master Billaba won't be able to get rid of me for a long time."

He paused.

"I mean, unless I really mess up somehow. But I'm not going to let that happen."

[intotheout]

Tip didn't know exactly how Kanan ended up -- well, Kanan. But she was pretty sure it wasn't his fault, at least?

"Of course not. You're going to be amazing."

[uncertain_dume]

Dammit, Tip. Now you were taking that future bemusement and replacing it with a whole lot of feelings.

"Amazing, huh?" Caleb perked up a little, and gave a pleased little laugh. "Now there's a goal to strive for, right there. I'll be happy if the worst people can say is good."

[intotheout]

"Yeah, but if you just try for good, then you might just end up mediocre. Aiming for amazing sounds like a better plan."

[uncertain_dume]

"A person can probably do a lot more good being amazing," he considered that, and then shrugged and nodded. "I'm still feeling out my place in the Galaxy, but whatever it is, I don't intend to do any of it by halves."

Oh buddy. The next few years were gonna suck for you.

[intotheout]

"Oh god, we're not supposed to have our places in the entire galaxy worked out by now, are we?"

Tip wasn't sure she'd figure out her place just on Earth by the time she was, like, 30.