The beach, Tuesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

It was the last morning of the year. Duke was spending it doing what had quickly become his favorite thing to do on the island: Tuesday morning yoga. It was a perfectly mild day -- for New Year's Eve -- so he didn't even feel bad about still not determining an appropriate winter location for Tuesday morning yoga. And anyway, even when he eventually did, it wouldn't be quite the same without the troop of porgs turning each pose into a jungle gym.

"That's it," Duke said, as one of them hopped up onto his knee during warrior pose and stretched its wings. "That's my New Year's resolution. I'm going to teach you guys yoga."

The porg settled in on his thigh and closed its eyes for a nap.

[open!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Rey was here with her bag across her shoulder, stopping to smile at the scene she arrived to. "I love Tuesdays."

[betterthanaplan]

"Yeah, yeah." Duke had a smile of his own, for all that he tried to sound grumpy.

He really loved these damn porgs.

"How's it going? Ready to try floating today?"

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina's morning had started with shrieking glee because yes they'd let her teach!

But then, like, she had all sorts of energy and she was undecided if she wanted to throw a party for the new year because then I'd have to radio three parties, like, sure the bars had them but even the so-called 'all ages' one was prooooobably going to be lame and full of adults, but at the same time, like, last minute and all.

SO. YOGA.

That seemed like a nice, relaxing thing that might get her, like, somewhere near focused.

"Goooooooooooooood moooooooooooooooooooorniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[thatwaslucky]

"Sure, why not," she said. She never had any hesitation when it came to powers stuff. "I've got something for you first, though."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke maybe wobbled slightly in his warrior pose at that . . . we'll call it "boisterous" greeting.

"Good morning," he said back, as the porgs squawked and scattered. Nina could be startling, alright? "Happy New Year."

[bookbeltof_love]

She could get louder, Duke. She could get louder.

"Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said happily, beaming at the porgs and him, unbothered by the fleeing going on. "Like, I bet it's going to be an awesome year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[betterthanaplan]

"You do?" Right, she'd said last week that her present would have to arrive later, hadn't she. "New Years gift. Seasonal, and yet entirely secular. I dig it."

[betterthanaplan]

He didn't doubt that in the least. "Here's hoping. I only did maybe a third of 2019 and even I think it could be improved upon."

[bookbeltof_love]

"The summer was the worst," she shared, since it had been and while, like, she was anxious about Vette not being around that wasn't the same as--yeah. "Were you here for that??????????????? If not, you should be super glad you missed that part of 2019!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[betterthanaplan]

"Didn't get here until August," Duke said. "But I've heard the stories, and yes. I'm very glad I missed out on the radioactive vampire toys, or whatever it all was."

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina thought about elaborating on the whole... thing...

But no. No, she was okay with not talking about it.

"Last year's summer just had a giant murderous fish plaque toy that was mad everyone had won something and it hadn't," she shared. "Like, I wasn't around for it, but it sounds way better than what this summer was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Less full of trauma anyway.

[thatwaslucky]

"That, or I don't like giving gifts in front of people and didn't honk I'd see you before today," she said, reaching into her bag to pull out a little oddly-shaped object to hand over.

It was decently wrapped- this had been her first attempt ever. Inside was a little ship that would fit in the palm of his hand, cobbled together from spare parts that, even while Rey wasn't an artist, was definitely readable as the Rouge. It'd felt fitting.

[betterthanaplan]

". . . It kind of sounds like this place has a toy problem."

The events of this coming weekend were not going to disabuse him of this notion.

[betterthanaplan]

"Public displays of gift giving are overrated," Duke agreed. And that was even a canonical opinion.

He unwrapped the gift, folding the paper up and tucking it into his pocket to keep the porgs from trying to eat it. Then just held the little ship for a long moment, staring down at it.

". . . Holy shit." It came out as a barely audible breath. He looked up at her. "Did you make this?"

[bookbeltof_love]

Yeaaah, definitely not.

"I mean, like, everywhere has some kind of problem," Nina conceded. "Though admittedly the toy problem here is more extreme than I'd imagine a toy problem would be................ basically anywhere else????????????"

[betterthanaplan]

"That's a good point," Duke said, bounding his finger at her. "My world's got enough of them that we gave 'em a fancy name and everything. And hey, sounds like no one died gruesomely, so maybe Fandom's Toy Trouble isn't so bad after all."

He was going to regret so much about this conversation later.

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina shuddered.

"Bad Toy Prison was bad enough," she said, a touch sharply, because seriously, so much. "What's your world's name for them???????????????????"

[thatwaslucky]

"It's just spare parts, from when I put together my workbench."

She'd graduated to tables in her place, kinda.

[betterthanaplan]

"'Bad Toy Prison'?" Yeah, Duke wasn't letting that one just float right by him. "What, was it a giant overturned laundry basket or something?"

He shook his head. "We call 'em 'troubles'. As in 'don't play with the Holloway kid, he's got a merman trouble.'"

Actually, the mermen trouble was the Glendowers. The Holloways haunted houses.

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina resisted the urge to wrap her arms around herself protectively by setting her chin and planting her hands on her hips instead.

"Bad Toy Prison was where people who'd shaken off the brainwashing were sent to be reprogrammed," she said, proud of herself for keeping her voice mostly level. Nina... Nina really did not talk about her time in reprogramming at all.

Especially not since her brother had been the one to bring her there while she'd literally kicked and screamed her protests.

[betterthanaplan]

"There was brainwashing." Duke really had not heard anything like the whole story of this thing, no. "Man, and I thought the clowns were bad."

The clowns had been nothing. Duke just hadn't had his first full BDE experience, yet.

[bookbeltof_love]

"The clowns were nothing," Nina said crossly, increasingly uncomfortable with this whole conversation.

But. Like. It was obvious he didn't know enough.

"The summer was weird but most of it was, like, sightseeing, sometimes weird and uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous, but it was over and nothing was really out against us in particular."

Matter of fact, Nina had enjoyed most of the summer. Not that it showed, right now, as her punctuation had flattened.

"Then we woke up in Toyland. As toys. And everything was good and perfect and great because we were all good toys and good toys did get reprogrammed or sent to be destroyed. So we were all very, very good toys. And very, very good toys kept very, very good watch on all of their friends and neighbours because that's what good toys did. They all helped each other be very, very good, and very, very happy because no one wanted to be Bad. Only bad toys got sent to reprogramming and if reprogramming failed, well............... then you were a very bad toy indeed and deserved to be destroyed."

Nina had given up on not wrapping her arms around herself somewhere in the middle of all of that.

"Only, then, we started waking out of being brainwashed into being very, very good," Nina continued. "Which meant we were bad toys. And our friends and family and neighbours did what they were supposed to do as good toys and reported us or brought us to be reprogrammed so we'd be good again, no matter how much we protested."

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Fuck."

Why did anyone live here?

"Seriously, jesus, that sounds like something out of some . . . heavy handed anti-Soviet critique or something."

[bookbeltof_love]

Nina hitched one shoulder up in an abortive gesture that was her attempt at a shrug.

"Like, I don't know what that means," she said, "but........... yeah. It sucked."

[betterthanaplan]

That was Duke's way of avoiding calling it a "nightmare". By relating it to Russian literature.

"Sounds like it. Also sounds like the term 'problem' is maybe . . . kind of an understatement there."

But then, so was 'troubles' when it came to Haven. So.