The beach, Tuesday morning

[betterthanaplan]

Duke was getting extra-mobbed by porgs this morning as he set up on the beach. Polly had followed him all the way from the Rouge, and by the time they made it to the usual spot for yoga, he had a whole parade of fellow porgs tripping along trying to see what all the fuss was about.

Duke watched them spill onto the sand with a shake of his head. "Like my own second line. Guess you all really didn't just miss the boat."

He'd never been popular with birds before. It was very, very weird.

[open!]

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

It was nice to get back to the routine after being so off all of last week, so Rey was there bright and early- or at least on time.

And maybe she was wordlessly headtilting at the flock of porgs while also looking really amused by it.

[betterthanaplan]

“I guess they missed me,” Duke said by way of greeting. “Or Polly did at least, and he is Avery charismatic leader.”

Oh lord. He was the symbolic center of a porg cult, wasn’t he.

[thatwaslucky]

Maybe he was Threepio to the porgs' Ewoks.

"Oh, do I finally get to meet Polly?" Rey asked.

[betterthanaplan]

"You hadn't yet?" Duke asked, surprised. "Well, we can fix that." He pointed to one of the porgs. Which did not appear at all distinctive from the other porgs. "Polly, meet Rey. Rey, this is Polly Lobster."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey crouched down to get more on the porgs' level, and said, very seriously, "Iys very good to meet you, Polly."

She meant it, too, because Rey was basically an angry Disney princess in a lot of ways.

[betterthanaplan]

So many ways.

Polly looked back at her. And spat up a rock.

"He says it's nice to meet you, too," said Duke, who was mostly not a Disney princess, but did have distinctly sappish tendencies.

[thatwaslucky]

"Oh, is that what that means?" Rey grinned, standing. "How was the trip?"

[betterthanaplan]

"Good. Eventful. Had a battle and a jail-break and everything. You? You went home, right?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Yeah. Now I'm a little disappointed I couldn't open with a fight leading to me going on trial." There were also some bruises visible around the wrappings on one arm, if he was so inclined to notice those things.

[betterthanaplan]

"Well, I mean, when you go home, we expect there to be a battle or something," Duke said. "Wait, on trial?"

He had noticed those bruises, yes. He was trying not to be overly concerned by them.

[thatwaslucky]

"We got attacked while on a diplomatic mission, so, trial. To get out of it, I was extremely smart, and agreed to a fight to the death."

She had not been smart.

"It was a bad trip."

[betterthanaplan]

". . . Yeah, I think maybe you were better off with the trial," Duke said. "That, uh, where the bruises came from? Fighting to the death?"

[thatwaslucky]

"Something like that." They'd actually come from the explosion she'd stopped, but that felt like the kind of thing that would freak people out to hear about. "My side won."

And the bruises from the arena fight were all covered up.

This girl was not willingly going back to Mon Cala ever.

[betterthanaplan]

Because fights to the death weren't something people freaked out hearing about.

"I . . . kind of assumed. Since, you know, you're here and not dead."

[thatwaslucky]

And that sentence was why she was telling him the part that sounded less scary to her.

"It really only had to be a fight to submission." It was t her fault there was a murder droid involved. "Anyway, what kind of battle are you having?"

[betterthanaplan]

Duke held up his hand. If you looked closely, you could still see the faint outline of tiny, tiny bite marks on his palm. "Ran into a kid with an animation trouble. Octavia and I had to fight off an army of angry action figures."

[thatwaslucky]

"We have absolutely hit a limit on killer toys," Rey said firmly, peering at his hand. "I guess you're both okay?"

Since those were tiny marks and all.

[betterthanaplan]

"Totally fine," Duke assured her. "That part was actually kind of reassuringly normal."

Fandom and Haven both tended to skew one's perception of "normal" pretty quickly.

[thatwaslucky]

"Which is a little scary, but I'm glad you got that much," Rey said.

[betterthanaplan]

"Beat the hell out of getting glared at just for being named 'Crocker'," Duke said. "Of course, then Nathan showed up and decided that the mess was my fault and got all arrest-happy."

[thatwaslucky]

"That's actually expected at this point," Rey admitted.

[betterthanaplan]

"Yeah," Duke said on a sigh. "It'd be nice if I could manage at least one trip home without running afoul of him, though."

[thatwaslucky]

"It'll happen," Rey said, and she sounded completely certain of it.

[betterthanaplan]

"Some day, my dreams will come true," Duke agreed.

Of course, then he'd end up worrying about what had happened to Nathan and trying to find out if he was alright.

[thatwaslucky]

"What'd you get arrested for this time, anyway?" Rey asked.

Maybe looking him over for bruises herself.