Syndulla Scrap, Saturday

[futurespacemom]

Hera had missed opening the place yesterday, so she was here today instead. There was always plenty of paperwork to do, though she had no idea where most of it even came from. Or went, come to that.

There was also a new shipment that seemed to consist of nothing but wheels of various types, from big wooden one with spokes to little plastic ones that looked like they belonged on toys. Chopper was having a fun time sorting through them all, seeing if he could make use of any of them, and Hera was mostly just standing back and checking off an inventory list as he tossed them aside into piles by size.

Syndulla scrap was open!

Comments

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette was... still a bit out of sorts, today. Her meal with Sidon last night had been good. And her impromptu flight with Nina. And everything else was still rankling around in her head, some of it uglier than others.

"So, I guess here's where I go to turn myself in, right?"

She could go to the trooper station, but... eh. Anything Hera could say to her would be so much worse than the joke that was a small town jail cell, anyway.

She paused, and then added, "Hey, Chop," to the little droid with a nod and a fond smile.

[futurespacemom]

Hera turned to give her a confused look. "Turn yourself in?"

[chirpchirpchirp]

"You know, for the whole..." Vette rolled her eyes and gestured up toward the roof of the MCA across the street. "Escape, I guess it's called. And being sloppy."

Because theft, that was fine. But getting caught by squirrels was beyond the pale.

[futurespacemom]

"You didn't leave a mess in it, did you?" Hera asked. "That ship is his baby."

[chirpchirpchirp]

"We might have raided his rations," Vette offered. And then leaned in a little and confided, "he had terrible rations. Half of them were almost expired."

[futurespacemom]

Hera rolled her eyes. "I hope that's the ones you ate. I'll make a note to ask him what we need to replace. So he wanted you to come work it off, I take it?"

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette shrugged.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I haven't... actually talked to him or anything. I think he got to my roommate first."

And then... hadn't come looking for her, for reasons she couldn't put a finger on.

"But it was on the radio anyway, so I figure it was going to come back around to me sooner or later."

[futurespacemom]

"Well, you're always welcome here, and if you want to do something, I can put you to work."

Hera thought about it, then stepped into the office to get a pad of actual paper and a clipboard and pen for Vette. "Here. You can start by writing down what rations you ate and what you remember needs to be tossed, so I can make a shopping list."

[chirpchirpchirp]

Vette blinked as she reached out to take the clipboard and the pen. Looked down at them.

Looked back up again.

"Wait, you'd actually trust me to not pull a stunt like that again?"

[bookbeltof_love]

And here came the other half of the... criminal... duo?

Psh. Whatever.

Like, sure, she was here to make up for the things she'd done wrong, but what she'd done hadn't been criminal: she'd returned the ship.

"I," Nina announced dramatically, "am here to be punished!!!!!!!!!"

She had a bit of a headache from her hard lemonades last night, and was still grumpy as hell about being claimed, which was why she was ditching work even though she'd said she'd come in.

Besides, what Kanan had said bothered her. She wanted to start fixing it.

[futurespacemom]

Okay, now Hera was really wondering what the heck was going on. "Is there some sort of Earth thing about going to a scrapyard to be punished?"

[bookbeltof_love]

"Is it???????????"

Nina had no idea! She wasn't from this world either!

"Um, like, Kanan didn't tell you?????????"

[futurespacemom]

Hera frowned, then sighed. "Oh, is this about stealing his ship?" She shook her head. "I think he muttered something about volunteers and dried fruit. So you're here to help out and maybe learn more about ships?"

[bookbeltof_love]

"A lot more," Nina said, looking a bit... uncomfortable. "Um, like, he mentioned fuel and I... I didn't even know ships had fuel????????"

So, uh... yeah.

"And, like, how not having it could mean a lot of people would die and that wasn't anything we ever intended so... I just, I want to help make up for it????? If I can???????"

[futurespacemom]

Oof. Hera blew out a breath. "Yeah, that would be a problem. Okay, so are you used to water ships? Or cars? What sorts of things does your world have?"

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina shifted.

"We have, like, horses??? And carriages drawn by them???? And there's boats! With sails and stuff, though mostly merchants and pirates use them, not many others do. And, like, Wingers have wings, but I'm not a Winger, so.... and I guess there's the Dragon Knights, they have dragons, and there's bug riders out in Harmonia, but I've never seen them???????????"

[futurespacemom]

"So, mostly organic things, then?" This was going to be a challenge. "I'm assuming you get the concept of fuel, just not the specifics. Do you know how a carriage or a boat works? Or how to steer a horse or a bug?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine hadn't done anything wrong, she was just bored and restless.

"This looks interesting," she said, coming over and tilting her head at all the wheels.

[futurespacemom]

What a novelty!

Hera smiled over at her. "I suppose so. I don't even know what half of them are for, and you wouldn't think there would be so much variety in 'round things meant to hold weight', but there we go. How have you been?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine didn't know how to answer that, exactly, so she just sort of shrugged. "Not much going on. I was kind of hoping you had something around here to do."

[futurespacemom]

"There's always something," Hera said. "What sort of thing were you looking for?" She waved a hand at the pile. "Sorting this? Building a run for those...not-as-bitey-as-they-were metal things? Painting up some of the bigger pieces?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine perked up. "I can paint the bigger pieces?"

[futurespacemom]

Hera grinned. "Sure! You should see some of the pieces..." She started leading the way to a back corner. "I'm not sure if they came this way or they were someone's attempt at art or something else. They're certainly not functional machines. But you can start on them, or make your own. It's not like most of this stuff ever gets used."


[drinks_coffeezilla's junkyard sculptures modded by permission for your painting needs!]

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Well, next time I'm bringing more paints. I just have what's in my sprayer now, but I can do things with this," she said, following.

Apparently it helped to have a distinct project for a bit.

[futurespacemom]

"We'll be the best-decorated scrapyard on the planet," Hera said, grinning. "Do whatever you like with them. There are some bigger sheets of metal and plasteel, too, if you just want a blank canvas."

She shrugged. "If it's in here and you don't mind it might get walked off with, it's fair game. Except the ships!" she added hastily. "And only Chopper if he agrees to it."

Chopper blatted skeptically.