The beach, Tuesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

It was actually kind of gorgeous out this morning, if a little damp from early morning showers. Duke was on the beach and had been doing a nice easy butterfly pose to begin his warm up, but had gotten distracted regaling the local porgs with the story of his adventure to their home universe this weekend.

The porgs didn't understand a word he was saying, of course, but he had gotten several of them to imitate him imitating using the Falcon's turret guns, which was almost painfully adorable.

[open!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Oh, Rey was not going to interrupt this. She was however going to silently take a seat in the same pose and look really amused.

[betterthanaplan]

"And then two of the TIEs -- do they even have bowties in your universe? -- The two TIEs crashed into each other and set off this big fireball!" He made an exploding noise, setting off a small chorus of porgs trying to do the same. "And Rey just flew right through it! And I had a minor heart attack, thinking we were all going to die."

[thatwaslucky]

"We had-" Rapidly dwindling. "-shields," Rey said, still smiling, "We were fine."

[betterthanaplan]

"And I barely understand what spaceship shields are and do," Duke pointed out. "All I knew was, I was sitting in a glassed in box with fire all around. I had to just hang on and remind myself that you knew what you were doing. And would maybe be screaming into the headset if you hadn't flown through it on purpose."

Hence happily drinking the mystery space!booze.

[thatwaslucky]

"Maybe I should see if I can borrow the keys to the flight shed," Rey mused. "We could fly through some fireballs that aren't real but are completely safe."

[betterthanaplan]

"So you can desensitize me to fireballs?" Duke asked. ". . . I think I'm okay with being afraid of being surrounded by fire, actually."

[thatwaslucky]

"I'm mostly teasing about the fireballs." Mostly. "It's just a nice way to fly without being shot at. I should actually see if I can get in there regardless."

[betterthanaplan]

"Totally. Is it like a simulator or something? Because my small-plane flying skills could use some refining, too."

[thatwaslucky]

"Mm hm," she nodded. "You fly?"

She probably should have expected that.

[betterthanaplan]

"On occasion. I try to make sure I'm familiar with all forms of high speed transport." He shrugged. "On Earth, at least."

[thatwaslucky]

"That actually makes total sense for you," Rey decided.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shrugged. "I've been told I'm quite predictable."

[thatwaslucky]

"That's not a bad thing," Rey said. "The porgs seem to like the story."

[betterthanaplan]

"Nah, it's mostly just kind of funny," Duke said. "Pretty sure no one back in Haven would have said that."

Actually, people thought he was entirely predictable there, too. They just predicted he'd be a hooligan and would end up just like his good-for-nothing father.

"I figured they might want to hear about how their cousins were getting along on the Falcon. Then the story just kind of . . . kept going from there."

[thatwaslucky]

"Hopefully you left out the part about the galley porg," she said. "You don't want them picking up bad habits."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke covered the nearest porg's . . . sides of its head. Did it have ears?

"What, you mean the one that very politely agreed to stop living in the shower?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Yes, that one. I was being vague so he wouldn't know," Rey assured him.

[betterthanaplan]

"Uh huh." The porg turned its head and started trying to gnaw on Duke's thumb. Duke let it go and wiped his hand on his pants. "So how's it going?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Fine," she said. "Back to the routine."

Which usually was training and reading, alternating throughout the day.

"What about you?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Same," Duke said. "Wondering what kinds of birds I'll get to deal with for class tomorrow. Not sure the island can top the terror birds from last week."

[thatwaslucky]

"Which terror birds are those?" she asked.

[betterthanaplan]

"The handful of eight-foot tall prehistoric things the school landed me with. They're actually called 'terror birds', near as I can tell."

[thatwaslucky]

"What did you do to make the school that mad?" Rey had to ask.

[betterthanaplan]

"No idea. I'm honestly wondering at this point if the moose just thinks this is funny."

[thatwaslucky]

"Well," Rey said, because she at least found it a little funny.