fandomtownies | The Park, Friday Afternoon

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The Park, Friday Afternoon

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!]

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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."

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."

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

"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.

"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.

"I figure I'll probably at least have a clue about how to fix all the Galaxy's problems by the time I hit twenty," Caleb declared, his tone just lofty enough that it would hopefully be clear that he was joking.

"Oh, well sure. But that doesn't mean you know where you're going to fit in it."

"I kind of figured that once all the problems were solved, the rest would sort of fit into place," Caleb admitted after a pause. "Maybe I'd get to sit on the Council or something."

Yeah, no.

"The Council?" Tip didn't think she'd heard about that one before.

"The Jedi High Council," Caleb clarified. "They're the Masters who basically govern the entire Order. My Master sits on it, too."

He smiled a happy stupid little smile.

"So, I have the best teacher possible if I want to be amazing, at least."

"Really? You think you want to be in charge?"

Caleb tried to hold a straight face for another few seconds, anyway, before he ducked his head, shook it, and laughed.

"Honestly... not really," he admitted. "I'd be happy with just being a Knight, actually getting out into the Galaxy, getting hands-on with things that need to be repaired after the war. We're supposed to be peacekeepers, and I don't really have a head for politics."

Strategy, on the other hand... when he wasn't getting carried away, anyway...

"Now that sounds more like --" Kanana "-- fun to me. Getting to travel without having to fight is the best."

"Knights do still fight," Caleb noted after a pause. "Well. Some Knights still fight. There's no question that I'm stronger with a lightsaber than I am at a lot of other things. I'm probably not consular material, but maybe a guardian, or a sentinel..."

Yes, those words absolutely meant things.

"But I wouldn't go out there looking for a fight, you know?"

"I do, actually," Tip said. "I think it's good that you think about this stuff, too. Too many guys our age are all gung-ho to go fight people."

Caleb fell silent for a few moments, closing his eyes. Yeah. He'd been there, too. Not about fighting people, exactly, but wanting to get his start at life, wanting to get involved in things.

"I doubt most of them have ever seen what real fighting looks like."

The kind that meant something. The kind that cost something.

"Probably not. It's a whole lot easier to think it's fun and honorable when you haven't had to watch people just, like. Disappear under a hail of gun fire."

Or just disappear, period.

"Yeah," Caleb agreed quietly. "Yeah, that's a bit what it's like, isn't it?"

Tip decided not to say that in her world, the disappearing part was really literal.

"It's really not any fun at all."

Caleb swallowed a little, and nodded. He was fine. He was still fine.

He was doing pretty great.

This was absolutely what 'pretty great' looked like.

"Fun isn't really the point," he replied. "If anybody's going to war for fun, then I feel sorry for them."

"Entire race with a language based on punching," Tip said. "Some people are just that screwed up."

"Doesn't it ever make you wonder what got them that way in the first place...?"

Because Caleb was trying for the life of him to figure it out, but at the same time, he didn't have the heart to try to figure out the minds of people who would bomb buildings with children in them, or gloat over the body of a dead clone, mocking the still-warm corpse.

Tip thought for a moment, and a small smile broke through on her face.

"It does seem like kind of a terrible evolutionary adaptation."

Well, there was a turn in the conversation that Caleb hadn't anticipated.

And yet...

He blinked up at Tip, and then he smiled a little himself.

"Can you imagine? Instead of asking somebody to pass the salt, or to comment on the weather...? I'd never want to talk to anybody ever again."

"How do you think they learned it? What's their version of baby talk, light shoves?"

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