The Park, Friday Morning

[chirpchirpchirp]

Ce'na had woken up and had been pleasantly surprised to note that there weren't any Hutts to be seen. There weren't any Rodians, either; she'd checked. She'd checked twice. There did seem to be a lot of humans around, which seemed strange enough to her that she actually warred with herself for a few minutes before deciding, probably against her better judgement, to go outside and see if maybe she could figure out what to do from here. If they were going to put her to work, they were sure being slow about it.

Outside, she had been met with two things she'd never figured she'd experience in her lifetime, the first being a wide-open space ahead of her and nobody yelling at her to come back or she'd be fed to the animals in the pens. Second, snow. She'd actually stuttered to a halt a few steps outside of the dorms at the first sight of her own breath, stared bewildered at it and then just exhaled a few times to be sure.

And then she'd broken into a run. Nobody had yelled after her, nobody had given chase, she was just... running, for the sake of running. And stopping for the sake of stopping. And then sitting in a wide-open space full of trees and water, more things she hadn't seen much of and hadn't figured she ever would again, staring at the weird little avians waddling around the pond.

At some point she would realize she was hungry. At some point she would come to the conclusion that her clothing was far too thin for weather like this. And at some point the idea of sitting out in the open would get into her head and terrify the wonder right out of her. But for the time being, she had a park and she had ducks, and she was utterly captivated by this turn of events.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[futurespacemom]

"Hey!" Pardon the joyful shout, Ce'na; Hera had just found another twi'lek!

She ran up, chatting in Ryl. "Hi! How are you? Who are you? There are so many humans around here, isn't it weird? And snow!"

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Snow!" Ce'na perked up upon hearing Ryl and seeing the other Twi'lek girl. Her own reply was spoken in Ryl in turn, curious excitement in her eyes. "I'm Ce'na. Who are you? Why are there so many humans? Do you belong to one of them?" A pause. "Do I?"

The Hutt was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she'd been sold and moved in her sleep. Not much would surprise her anymore.

[futurespacemom]

"I'm Hera," she answered. "I don't know why there are so many humans, but," she scowled, "we do not belong to any of them! If any of them tries to say so, I'll kick them!"

She demonstrated. She knew where to kick.

[chirpchirpchirp]

Ce'na watched Hera's kick demonstration quietly for a moment, and then shook her head a little.

"Kicking doesn't help," she said, quietly. "It only makes them shock you longer."

Speaking from experience. And from somebody who at six had already seen far, far too much.

[futurespacemom]

"Shock you?" Hera was aghast. "Nobody's shocking you!" She knew what happened to plenty of twi'leks, but it was not going to happen to her friend! "If they try anything, I'll stop them. My daddy makes sure everybody's free, and he shows me how to do things. I'll find a blaster if I have to."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Your daddy does?" Ce'na tilted her head a little, and then looked around thoughtfully. "Did he put us here?"

[futurespacemom]

Hera frowned at that. "I don't know how I got here. It seems like a nice place, though. Except it's a lot colder than Ryloth. But it's got snow!"

Snow was still pretty neat.

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Everywhere is colder than Ryloth gets," Ce'na pointed out, reasonably. "The snow is just lots colder. It's pretty, though."

She wasn't sure she liked it. But it sure did look nice.

[futurespacemom]

Hera nodded in agreement. "It is. The buildings are nice and warm, though. Even if they're a little weird."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"Everything's weird that isn't on Ryloth," Ce'na replied. "None of it ever makes sense."

[futurespacemom]

Hera nodded. "I haven't been other places much. This one is weird, though. I woke up in a room with a human boy and a little rainbow wolf puppy!"

[chirpchirpchirp]

Ce'na blinked.

"Rainbow wolf puppy?"

That was one heck of a combination of words, right there.

[futurespacemom]

"It's tiny and wiggly and white, and it has spots on it all colors!" Hera said.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Sidon had not only finally managed to get himself out of the room with the REALLY HIGH DOORKNOB, but he'd also then been emboldened by fighting a Guardian and surviving, which meant that he was incredibly eager to explore things even more, and, plus, everything was really dry here and he wanted to find water that wasn't the big tank in the room with the REALLY HIGH DOORKNOB. He'd be stuck in there forever unless the nice Hylian lady with the round ears came back.

So he went outside. And it was cold, but it wasn't so bad if he just ran faster, which...wasn't really that fast, but he was trying, he really was, his little legs barely managing not to trip up on his headtail as it dragged on the ground, and each little step was accompanied with a little gasp of sound from the effort, and that brought him around to the park and there was a pond here! A pond, perfect! Maybe it wouldn't be too deep, either, because he still wasn't that great of a swimmer, but he was working on it and as soon as Mipha taught him how to swim up waterfalls, he'd be the best swimmer in all of Zora's Domain! He figured maybe he could be the best swimmer in this place, wherever it was, and he wanted to go prove it, so, with a bright, excited gasp, he changed course and went tearing (not nearly as quickly as he thought he did) toward the water, ready to jump right in!

And, with a surprised little shriek, he jumped right back out, arms flailing, legs dancing, his whole headtail shaking furiously, because cold! It was so cold! Why was it so cold? He didn't like this pond, no, not one bit!

And now he was a cold, shivering, disappointed little Zora Prince and the big tank in the room with the REALLY HIGH DOORKNOB didn't seem so bad after all.

[chirpchirpchirp]

He was a cold, shivering, disappointed little Zora Prince, and over here, Ce'na was a startled, also kind of cold little Twi'lek slave girl. She watched him run and leap in, and she'd watched him shriek and dash back out again, her eyes wide in shock and maybe a little bit of distress.

She sat there, torn for a moment. And then, reminding herself that he was a little kid like her, she made her way over, calling out a tentative, "Are you okay? Why did you do that?" in Ryl.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

At first, it seemed like all Sidon could do was stand there shivering, rubbing his arms with his hands as his teeth chattered away like crazy, but he bounced a little, and that kind of helped, and he was absorbing the water now, and that kind of helped, too, although it was still really, really cold, and he looked up with a surprised little sound when someone came up and talked him.

Hey, she was like the girl with the tiny Guardian! But blue! Like some Zora were blue! Only he couldn't understand her like he had the girl with the Guardian. So he let out a soft, curious little "Uhh," his eyes a little wide and fascinated, before he shivered again, more exaggerated this time, because he was just explaining that he was cold now, managing a little "Brrrrrr!" sound to go with it.

It was probably pretty dumb of him, really, the whole thing, but he couldn't say he regretted it, because he'd still learned something from it!

[chirpchirpchirp]

"There's snow! Snow is cold," Ce'na continued, coming to a stop beside him, and then blowing out another puff of steam breath to demonstrate. She stared at the cold, wet boy, and then shook her head a little. "Come here."

She didn't know him in the least, but she wasn't letting a little kid freeze just because he'd wanted to swim. So she was reaching to pull him into a hug, like how her mother used to keep her and her sister warm on cold nights in the mines.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

"Uwh?" Sidon blinked, though his eyes were still holding on with fascination as the little puff of air escaped the girl's mouth and then he, too, took a moment to suck in a big breath, one that filled up his chest, and let it out in a puff of his own steam, too. Then he had to laugh...more of another huff, really, with excitement in it...grinning broadly at her in some sort of pride and appreciation for showing him that.

Which was right around the time she surprised him again by pulling him in, letting out a faint, surprised "Oh!" as she did, followed by a pleased, thoughtful hum, because hey! Look at that! This was much better than shivering in the cold air.

[chirpchirpchirp]

There, see? That was much better than freezing his lek off, wasn't it? Only now Ce'na was getting kind of wet, herself, really starting to actually feel the chill, which meant she kind of didn't want to let go, either.

"Why did you jump in? Were you trying to escape?"

She probably wouldn't blame you if you were, strange boy. It was far too cold, otherwise. She looked around nervously, trying to see if there were any humans giving chase, but there didn't seem to be anybody but them.

Huh.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Sidon had no idea what this girl was trying to say to him; he hoped it wasn't anything important, because he couldn't understand her at all. It didn't sound too important, at least, and he mostly just wanted to cling to her a little bit now, because he really had been foolish, hadn't he? Maybe she was scolding him about it; that's what Mipha would have done, but then she'd hug him and tell him it was okay, so maybe that's what she was doing, too?

He just didn't know, so he was just going to take in a deep breath and let it out just as big of a sigh, and tried to think of where they could go that was warm. Why did the water have to be so cold? He didn't like that, so he was also going to take a moment to glare over at the water so that it knew he was upset with it right now. Stupid cold water!

[chirpchirpchirp]

Ce'na frowned a little at his big sigh, and then looked at the water. And then back at him, before leaning back a little bit.

He didn't seem very talkative, did he? Maybe he didn't understand Ryl, or his species was one that just didn't have vocal cords capable of speaking those sounds. She... could attempt Basic, as strange a language as that was. All mouth-sounds with no lekku gestures, strange sudden words with no flow to them that she mostly only heard when the Hutt was doing business with some human or near-human gangster from elsewhere.

She frowned a little, and then attempted a tentative, "Hello."

This was going to be touch and go. She couldn't even remember the whole 'esteemed member of the Cartel' spiel that the last groveling lackey had come in with.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

Oh! Sidon knew that word! Well, he understood it, anyway, he didn't really know how to say it back, it would probably be another five years or so before he could really figure out his vocal chords. But anyone could probably hear how big his grin was as he looked up at her in delighted recognition, and gave his best attempt at similar response.

Which sort of just came out as a very excited, "Hya!" and he looked terribly proud of himself for it, too.

[chirpchirpchirp]

Oh! Ce'na would take that, though! There was actual communication there between them, and now she could be reasonably certain that, while the strange boy understood speech, he just didn't understand her speech.

She gestured to herself.

"Ce'na. My name."

She was quickly running out of words in Basic that she knew, this conversation would probably be short.

[in_sidon_we_trust]

After blinking a few times at her as she told him her name, Sidon nodded, giving a short, abrupt hum of a response, then a small thoughtful growl, because he definitely didn't think he could say that. He tried, though, especially since it had similar sounds to his own name, which is also didn't know quite how to say yet, and that was a little distressing, because it didn't seem fair that she'd told him her name and he couldn't give her his back.

So he hissed a little through his teeth, which could have lead into it, but it didn't work and ended with a faint grunt instead. Another sigh, his head hanging in disappointment before he looked back up at her with a sad, apologetic frown.

But he didn't want to be sad, and he definitely didn't want her to be sad. So the frown didn't stick around for long, brightening into a small smile. He couldn't give her his name, but he did have something he did when he met new people, so he could give her that! So the grin grew even bigger again, and he pumped his fist in the air and the grin managed to sparkle in the light just right, because it was okay! They could be friends now, anyway!

[chirpchirpchirp]

Oh! Ce'na couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a smile like that.

Literally, she couldn't remember. There hadn't been much cause for grinning in the mines, or under the Rodian, and especially not now under the Hutt, though this boy's smile was really kind of comforting; the sharp, toothy smile that was typical of many male Twi'leks, and between that smile and that head-tail, she felt like she could trust him just as well as any other Twi'lek she knew.

She gave a little smile in turn, and then mimicked his fist-pump. She didn't have nearly so much sparkle, perhaps, but at least she was comfortable with using gestures to communicate?