revivalproject | Temba Beach Party!

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Temba Beach Party!

WHO: EVERYONE!!
WHERE: Temba Beach
WHAT: BEACH PARTY TIME!!
WHEN: noooooooow
Notes: Mix & Match the prompts as desired. Any format goes!
WARNINGS: Pride Birbs. It's Pride month. So. PRIDE BIRBS! Oh. And you may add your own warning labels to the respective threads, I suppose.

Isn't it amazing what people can achieve when several come together and pool their ideas and resources for a shared goal?

It certainly is in Jon's eyes, whose innate lack of creativity originally has gone as far as bringing some blankets to the beach and hoping for a good mood. What has ended up being set up on the bluish, almost purple sand of the beach is far beyond anything he would have imagined and he won't deny being glad he has reached out over the network with his little suggestion.

Of Barbecues, Grills and other Beverages

Do you remember Cobb asking for a grill to be made for him? Right. That grill can be found at the party. Kyle has offered to prepare burgers to be grilled along with whatever meat selection the diner has to offer and Clarice is the person to thank for the home made ice pops, created from native fruits such as glueberries and mangourd. Of course these are kept fresh under a parasol and in an insulated box mostly buried into the sun. That's how the majority of the drinks offered at this party are being kept cool as well.

If you want to catch one of those fat green lobsters roaming the beach as well and toss it onto the grill, you sure can try.

INTO THE OCEAN!!

You better bring your swimwear, because jumping into the water is an option. No actually dangerous creatures are this close to the shore, making swimming or potential swimming lessons very much possible.

Tony also ensured there is a little kiddie pool for the babies. And Cobb.

Someone brought an inflatable Eyeball?

Before anyone asks, it wasn't Jon. But it's there. An inflatable eye beach ball.

Any questions? Yes? Good.

Lounging in the Shade & Music

Parasols, blankets and a guitar borrowed from Cayde's bar. Sit down, relax, chat. And if you know how to play this instrument, you're very welcome to do so.

Let there be BIRBS

Have you wondered yet why those birds are in the banner for this party? It's because they are here.

At first they linger in the trees near the beach, watching and squawking and being colorful parrots. As a little time passes, they leave the safety of their trees and start coming over, sitting on parasols, hopping curiously between this oddly large amount of people gathering at their beach and in all likelihood attempting to steal a snack or two.

But if you pay close attention, you can also observe them swooping down at the nearby lobsters, easily picking them up and carry them back into the nearby forest. Apparently these birds aren't just colorful and curious they also hunt lobsters. Who could have known...

Don't forget the Caves

Actually not far from our little party waits the entrance to the caves. Take a wrong turn in them and you will find yourself in a large chamber filled with those energy crystals that make all your technology glow and go insane or result in your powers to fluctuate greatly. Take the right turn, and you find yourself at those mysterious hot springs only few know about.

To be fair, the actual party is at the beach, but who knows when the need for some privacy arises.

When it gets Dark we gather around the Rainbow Colored Fire Pit

While set up at the edge of the gathering, the fire pit Tony and Cayde have set up to have a bonfire in easily is one of the center pieces of the party. Benches and seats either brought over from Temba or crafted from different material are set up around it and once the sun begins to set and the bonfire gets lit along with the many torches set up around the party, the invitation to remain a little longer couldn't be clearer.

There's more to it than just a cozy fire, a pleasant atmosphere and the company of friends. Next to the fire pit sits a small box. In that box, wrapped in plain tissue paper, are what at first glance are little more than lumps of wax. But mixed into this wax are different chemicals and tossing these into the pit will result in the fire burning with different colors or even sparkle. Way to set the mood and linger as the party winds down.

Due to health concerns Jon does not recommend cooking any food over the chemically altered flames, thank you.

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Ophiuchus floats down to be at BD-1's level and does a quick little scan of the droid. After that he understands the droid's language, having essentially downloaded it directly from BD-1. "I am a Ghost. Not a droid," he explained patiently. "Hello, BD-1. I am Ophiuchus."

Ikora is glad her ghost is making friends. Yes, Sundance is here but it's not the same as a whole community of ghosts like there is back home.

"I'm Ikora Rey," she says with a little nod towards the young man and his droid. "I don't believe we've had a chance to formally meet."

What. Whaaaaat. BD-1 almost seems taken aback to finding himself being scanned. Usually it's the other way around! He beeps in surprise, head tilting, but he carries through with the conversation, informing the Ghost that it's very nice to meet him. And because one good scan deserves another, the droid decides it's his turn to do the same to Ophiuchus, light flickering from one of his lenses as he tries to scan the Ghost.

Cal laughs again, clearly amused at the interaction between the two. He gives a bow of his head in Ikora's direction. "No, I don't think we have. You arrived back when we were on Coruscant, right? I'm Cal Kestis."

"Yes, towards the end of that trip. And then we were almost immediately brought into the other life." Ikora really hadn't gotten much time to meet other people before they were placed somewhere else.

Ghosts were odd to scan. They weren't exactly robots but they weren't organic either. They were Light and machine.

"I'm glad for a chance to meet people." She was somewhat antisocial but in a place like this with such a small group she should make a few friends. Opiuchus had clearly made one with BD-1.

Between downtime in soaking in the things that had happened in Coruscant and getting back into the swing of things here, not to mention finding someone both new and familiar, Cal had been busy enough. At least they've all found some space to breathe now, the gathering here at the beach seeming to be just what people needed.

"Yeah, me too. Given how things are here, it's good to get to know everyone." Although he notes some faces are missing, but everyone has their way of dealing with the aftermath of the previous month, and he just hopes it doesn't weigh too much on them.

BD-1's already added Ophiuchus into his growing database, although there are a lot of question marks to it. Clearly not belonging in either a droid or creature category, he's decided to assign him to his list of people he's met, along with Ikora.

"You're one of the Jedi, aren't you?" She had seen him around the Temple where she also tended to spend some time. Ikora kept herself distant from their training though as she wasn't part of their Order and the Darkness she carried with her was unsettling to others.

Ophiuchus had an extensive database from their universe if BD-1 was interested in learning more about where they came from. He would happily share with the droid. He would also like the information BD-1 had. Which he communicated in the droid's usual language of beeps and whistles.

Ikora smiled with amusement at her Ghost. She didn't speak the droid language but she didn't think he was trying to hide anything from her.

"Yeah, that's right," Cal replied, nodding. That sense of Darkness might have been more concerning to him earlier on, but he'd since learned that even those who made use of such power weren't completely colored by it. He'd met a Jedi-like Sith Lord, he'd befriended a Nightsister. He wasn't sure what exactly Ikora was, but she bore the calm and patience of a Jedi master.

"...what is it you do?" he asked, unsure of a better way to phrase it without outright asking what she was, which to him sounded just rude.

BD-1 seemed pleasantly surprised at the sudden shift of communication from Ophiuchus. Droids didn't expect others to mimic binary, it just wasn't practical for people in general, and he wasn't quite sure where this Ghost-drone fit in. Well, he wasn't about to complain either. Nor was he going to object to some data-sharing. As an exploration droid, he loved learning about other worlds and saw no harm in sharing the things he'd found with Cal on their adventures in Bogano, Zeffo, Kashyyyk and Dathomir.

"I'm part of the Vanguard," she explained. "A group that oversees Guardians in my universe. We have powers through a force called the Light. In particular I am a Warlock."

She had that sense of power about her and that whisper of Darkness. Mostly, she was calm and steady. "Cayde is a Hunter and also part of the Vanguard. If you're familiar with him."

Oh boy, knowledge exchange!

Ophiuchus was excited for this. BD-1's universe was so unknown to him. He had so many questions about the places BD-1 shared but he also made sure to give him information about the Sol system and enemies like the Fallen, Vex, Hive, and Cabal.

A force, not the Force, Cal couldn't help but note as she made that distinction. But then there were other people with powers that weren't specifically anything of known Force abilities, so it was always interesting to hear about how that worked. "Sounds like a busy job," he said. Some kind of military, by the sound of it. Or maybe even closer to what the Order had been like.

"Yeah, he's been around," Cal nodded, acknowledging his familiarity with the Hunter. Hunters and Warlocks. "You're warriors. Protectors?" Guardians implied that someone or something was being protected, in any case.

Many of the worlds BD-1 and Cal had visited were sparsely inhabited, and if it wasn't simply dangerous wildlife to be cautious of, there was an Imperial presence. Fallen, Vex, Hive and Cabal got no familiar pings on the droid's internal databanks, but he was happy to file away what info he was given.

BD-1's database of enemies were almost entirely different classes of Stormtroopers, Purge Troopers, and the two Inquisitors. His creature database boasted an interesting array of mostly aggressive animals and even plants, in the case of Kashyyyk, including several Very Large specimens, two of which they'd had direct encounters.

"It is." This little trip was probably the first vacation Ikora had taken in... centuries? It was hard to say when so much time had passed and there was so much work to be done all the time.

She nodded then invited herself to sit down instead of standing over him. "We are. Our universe had a great cataclysm. It ended our Golden Age and for a time it was a wasteland. Guardians came together to protect people and rebuild our world. Unlike everyone else, we cannot die while we have the Light."

It made them the perfect protectors. If they died protecting people, they could come back and continue the work.

Ophiuchus went through the data quickly. It wasn't a huge database but the droid had taken very good notes on the encounters. He felt prepared to face them if they ever went back to BD-1's universe.

He didn't expect any of their enemies to be known outside their universe. While the Hive and Fallen had spread far and wide outside the Milky Way it didn't seem like anyone here had ever encountered them.

When one used such words as cataclysms and golden age, it wasn't difficult to figure what had happened. It was unfortunate, but at least the survivors banded together to help each other, to recover and survive.

'We cannot die,' she said, and Cal arched a brow at her then. "You mean this Light...it keeps you from dying?" The Jedi weren't immortal, but in death they would become one with the Force. Death was still a part of the flow of things, after all.

BD-1 and Cal had not been traveling long together, the information the droid passed to Ophiuchus was quite recent.

"It's better to say we do not stay dead," she corrected herself. "When I die, my ghost will resurrect me with the Light. Some Warlocks even study death, dying on purpose."

It was a strange field of study Ikora had only dabbled in when she was a young Guardian.

"But if our ghost is killed we can't be brought back." Ophiuchus couldn't resurrect Cayde. That wasn't how the Light worked. The bond between Guardian and Ghost was another thing Warlocks could study.

Cal blinked at that. This was obviously a completely different sort of resurrection than what Merrin could employ with her magick to raise her dead sisters. "So you've experienced death..?"

He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. It was difficult to explain the little knot of emotion that had twisted there, a faint thing that could probably be unraveled with some patient easing. He'd lost people and there was no coming back for them. His master's death would always be painful to remember, but he'd finally come to accept it and his own failed responsibilities that had played part in it.

But to die and come back meant a repeated experience. Dying on purpose for its study just seemed...wrong to him, and perhaps that opinion surfaced just a touch in the faint furrowing of his brow then. As Ikora continued, Cal looked towards Ophiuchus. So it all fell upon this ghost in the end. "...and Ghosts can't be brought back?"

"More than once." Ikora knew the way Guardians viewed death unsettled people even back home where normal humans lived hundreds of years. She was not as casual about it anymore but it was still an aspect of her existence.

She looked towards Ophiuchus who turned his attention away from BD-1 to answer Cal. "No, we can't. When we die our Light returns to the Traveler. No one but the Traveler could bring us back but in its current state it can't do that."

And that was it. Without her Ghost Ikora would die her true death. She was glad he had come with her here. She could do a great deal more to help without the fear of death.

In a way he could understand. When those close to you died, you learned from it, if you could. Experiencing it so intimately could either teach you to be more careful or to be reckless, though, and the Jedi valued life.

Glancing at Ophiuchus, Cal found himself frowning, but he nodded. "Kind of like returning to the Force. What's this Traveler, exactly?"

Ophiuchus projected an image of the Traveler which, unfortunately, looked something like a damaged Death Star just white instead.

"The Traveler is a paracausal being that chose to uplift humanity with the Light. From it, we gained our Golden Age." Ikora had the history memorized. Somewhere in that Golden Age she was born and died, then awoke as a Guardian with no memory of that past life.

"We the collapse happened, the Traveler sacrificed most of its power to keep the Darkness back. It also made the ghosts and tasked them with finding Guardians." Ikora wouldn't get into the gritty details of the history. It was a lot for anyone not familiar with her universe.

The Death Star wasn't something that Cal was aware of, still in its early stages of development as it was. While he wasn't sure what to make of the sphere, there was something about it that conveyed a sense of mystery somehow.

Vague as the details provided were, it was enough to follow for the gist of what had happened in Ikora's world. "But it's still there? The Traveler?"

"It's still there above the Last City." Ikora actually missed its presence in the sky. It seemed so empty to look up and not see it. She hadn't dreamed much either while here. "It isn't as powerful as it once was but its still looking after us. It hasn't abandoned us."

As many feared it would. Some argued that it couldn't. Ikora had faith in the Traveler. That it would stay and help them push back the darkness.

"The Force doesn't have a physical embodiment, correct? It's just an energy in your universe?"

Having some kind of symbol to look up to, literally, he could understand that need. The Jedi had been that, at least until everything just went so horribly wrong.

"You could say the Force is embodied in us, and in everything around us. We don't own it, but we're all a part of it, and we just tap into it if we have that extra sensitivity to it." Cal gestured vaguely with his hands. "And when we die, we fully become one with the Force."

The presence of the Traveler was a reassuring sight but even without it, the Light was always there. She could feel it flowing there here, probably just like he felt the Force.

"When a Guardian dies their true death that's it. We're dead. We don't join the Traveler or the Light." It was death as it was meant to be. Ikora used to fear it but now she could talk about it without flinching away from it.

"I've spent some time in the Temple watching all of you train. The respect you show your power is noticeable."

That finality sounded... Cal wasn't really sure. Sad, in a way. "And that's that, then..?" Yet she'd said death was studied because they were able to come back. He'd think that one would still be more cautious about it, being gifted with such an ability, but he could see how being able to come back from death would affect one's mindset.

"I think that goes for any power. The more unknown, the more respect should be given as you come to understand it, or have to deal with or make use of it. Even with the Light you've described, I respect it for what it gives and allows you to do."

"I haven't seen anything in that bridge between life and death that makes me think there's another side," she said with a simple shrug. If true death was the end that would be fine with her. She could rest. "But there is a Warlock famous for his studies of death who seems to exist between life and death even after he truly died."

Toland was a strange figure among the Warlock order. Admired by some. Feared by others. Misunderstood mostly.

"A healthy way to approach things. Not everyone is so thoughtful." There were Guardians who never wondered about their powers and simply used them.

"I've heard that some Jedi still manage to hold on to something of themselves even after becoming one with the Force. I saw my master in something that wasn't quite a vision, but most definitely a test." It hadn't been a pleasant experience, but he knew now that it had been a necessary one.

"There's a lot of things we still don't know about how the Force works, so I'm not sure how to really explain it. But then there are natural places in the galaxy that seem to be particularly steeped in the energy of the Force, where it just seems to flow stronger."

Ikora wasn't sure she could explain Toland without having to go into a detailed history of the Hive and their structure and Deathsingers. It would be a lot to take in. "Masters can be difficult even when you don't see them for decades."

Or centuries in her case with Osiris.

"There are places where shards of the Traveler fell and they've left behind pools of energy. But mostly it's centered in us Guardians and our ghosts. I think your Force is more far reaching."

Had it been entirely his master or had it been somehow twisted by the darkness that seemed to permeate Dathomir? Cal wasn't sure. Maybe something of both, and the inner turmoil of his own guilt mixed in.

"I think it would be more difficult finding a place where the Force wasn't," Cal said with a nod. "The Traveler definitely sounds more localized. Was it always there?" It must be called the Traveler for a reason.

"The Traveler has always been in the universe as far as we can tell but not always in our galaxy. It helped enlighten many races before coming to the Sol system."

And it abandoned many of them as well. The Fallen were the first to come to mind, but they weren't the only ones. The Travel hadn't abandoned humanity when things were dark but some didn't trust it.

"It's localized but even here in this place to can feel the presence of the Light and I know that's the Traveler." It was a soft whisper but the power, the warmth was still there.

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out_of_order - 2021-06-26 17:01 (UTC) - Expand

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