revivalproject | Temba's Where The Heart Is

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Temba's Where The Heart Is

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, OTA (Some closed or limited starters)
WHERE: Temba: Greenhouse, Diner, The Twin Roses
WHAT: Tommy got hurt in Not Temba so now he's staying home for traditional work
WHEN: Early August
WARNINGS: Tommy's attitude is going to be testy due to leg soreness/pain

1. New Plants Need Time | Greenhouse | OTA

Green. Tommy had never thought he'd feel so attached to the color. Yes, it was part of his uniform but this green space, this peace... It was magical in its own way. Somehow he hadn't noticed it in himself back home, the way that when he was stressed he ran to not only natural wonders, but ones that were in some way green. But here, on Agra 10, he had found some measure of peace in the greenhouse right at the start, and in a strange way, the place felt like home.

"I'm back babes," he called out to the plants, dragging along the bubble-olive tree that Obi-Wan had helped him dig up back in the other city. He needed to get it to the place where it would have its final resting and a chance to adjust. "I've brought new friends. Once I've got them in, we're going to do a prone. And it's almost harvest time, so everyone do your best."

There was peace, calmness, happiness to be had in finding the greenhouse still standing after all the stress in life.

"Now if only I had more hands," he mused as he kept going, limping along slowly. Stupid hurt leg. But he'd power through it. He always had.

2. Food Makes Family | The Diner | OTA

Okay, so maybe he hasn't done this in a while, but that doesn't mean Tommy doesn't know what he's doing. Okay, maybe he doesn't know what he's doing very WELL but dammit he's trying. And, with people everywhere and some of the diner help staff working their asses off exploring and Tommy no longer easily able to do that, he had come to do it instead. This afternoon he was falling back on a classic. Anyone who had an issue with soup as a side today was going to get serious glares from him. For now Tommy was working on making fresh noodles from one of the Coruscant grains he had just ground into flour for the purpose.

With the back door to the kitchen open he could hear someone enter the building and he called out from the back as loud as he could to let them know he was working.

"Hold on and there will be a fresh salad or fruit if you want. I'm working on a noodle-soup. Come on back!"

3. Welcome to the Roses | Twin Roses | Closed to Twin Roses Crew

Home. Tommy was one of the lucky ones and he didn't even know it. He had brought some new plant samples to try in the Twin Roses hydroponics system and had no clue that the ships had been juggled. Then again, save for the first assignments, this had really been his ship. It was, in a weird way (especially when considering his claustrophobia) home. He moved easily and confidently through the ship, not expecting that the people on it could be so different. And once in the hold he moved right to his hydroponics unites.

"Hey kiddos," he greated them. he'd heard once that talking to plants helped, and given they had to live in the more artificial environment of the ship, he didn't intend to not do it. "Got you some new friends seeing as the sorta pea-pod vine things weren't working out. Say hi."

And now it was time to get them started.

Later on, after he was done with that task, Tommy busied himself in the laundry area, sitting on top of the washer with a bowl of chocolate protein paste with slices of fruit cut up into it, eating as the machine worked on cleaning his clothes. His injured leg hung to the side, keeping all weight off of it.

We anyone to enter he would look them dead in the eye.

"What, never seen a dude washing laundry before?"

Well, they might have, but given Tommy was literally wearing only a pair of what looked like booty shorts, there might be another reason to be staring. Be glad he wasn't standing, because that shining silver script 'juicy' on the ass might just make some people react less happily. But hey, free shirtless dude. Comment on the faint scars on his skin and there might be trouble though.

4. A Mind Is A Beautiful Thing To Use | Young Avengers home | Closed to Quentin Beck

Learning for himself had never been something Tommy was good at. It was just something that was universally true. He'd been bad at school because even before his powers had come in he'd had some attention issues. After school had been brutal. And then, well, there hadn't been school at all. The Kaplans had stressed the importance of him getting his GED and it had been pure stubborn desire to get a job and his own place that had Tommy getting his degree.

But complex issues? Tommy had always thought himself too stupid to learn really useful and valuable things. He hadn't thought about how one putting together thousands upon thousands of electronics, even according to instructions, was teaching him things. Between that and watching Tony, helping Tony, having Tony put up with him, Tommy had started to think he could learn it. Except he'd run into a road block. How was he supposed to learn the basics?

Less mobile as he was after getting hurt in Not-Temba, his mind turned back to the thing he wanted to learn. So he did the only thing he could do. He borrowed some supplies from Tony's forge ~~he would apologize when Tony got back~~ and sat down in his home, trying to puzzle out different resistors Tony had put together into the systems.

"This is so fucking stupidly complicated," he hissed in anger. How could he have been so fucking smart in that damn fake-city!?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There could be a lot of development in a week by Kaminoan standards. Since this was neither Tipoca City nor covered by Ezra's vague overview of magic, that the circumstances were anything but normal were not a thing the girl considered.

"That is extreme. I don't think my brother would do something like that, but he's pretty stubborn about injuries too, otherwise. Your leg's on the mend. You just need to mind it so it won't get worse."

In the end she couldn't tell anyone what to do, of course. She could only hope that they got better and not worse.

"Are we almost there?"

Man how he'd appreciate things going that well that fast.

"I mend better and faster than most humans," Tommy countered. Don't tell him to sit down. His sanity is based on his movement. It wasn't extreme. A blown off leg could be replaced by stark and then he'd be moving again.

"Nah, still about another fifty yards to go," Tommy admitted with a sad look. "Sorry about that. Then there's the stairs."

Omega tilted her head at him. "Are you enhanced, somehow?" she asked, curious, and yet the question sounded like a natural thing to ask, coming from her. The Kaminoans had enhanced the growth of their clones. Healing at faster rates didn't seem to be out of the reach of possibility in that light.

She wasn't sure why Tommy was apologizing though. A smile accompanied her response after she shook her head. "It's okay. That just means there's more time to look at things until we get there."

Enhanced? Huh, that's definitely a way to describe it.

"I'm a mutant. In my world that means I was born with powers that started to manifest when I was young," he answered as he twisted her past a few reaching vines over sticks and strings. "If you like spicy things, you might want to try one of those. They're hot like peppers.

That was certainly new to her. She'd never heard of people being born with powers, except maybe these Jedi, but her knowledge about them wasn't all that deep. "I've never heard of mutants. Is it uncommon, being born with powers like that?"

She followed right along, being careful to avoid any potential obstacles, pausing to look at what Tommy had pointed out. "What's a pepper?" she asked.

“Mutants are…”

Tommy didn’t know how to explain it without it being a bit of a stressful thing for the kid.

“They’re less common now than they were. But they’re getting better.”

Wait, what? He has to pause. How do you explain a pepper? Might as well describe green to a blind man.

“Well, it’s a thing that is hot when you eat it.”

That didn't really make too much sense to her. Getting better, what did that mean in that context? She made a bit of a face as she tried to work that out. "Is it like being genetically altered?"

Debating on whether or not she liked hot things, Omega decided to take one to experiment later, tucking it into a pouch on her belt. "I haven't had much experience with hot things. I like sweet things though. Do you have anything that's like..." She paused as she recalled what her favorite snack was made of. "I think it's...a type of grain? Puffed, somehow. And I think it's coated in something sweet. It's called Mantell Mix. My brother and I would always go and get some after we completed a mission."

"No," Tommy says, his voice quick. No, he's not made like that. He didn't know how to make it more clear. But he supposed he had to try. "I was born as a mutant, my powers just sorta... came out when I was older."

"Puffed, sweet, grain... Sounds like this one cereal back home. But no, I don't have any of that. I guess I could try and figure out how to make something like that."

"Oh..." It was a little difficult to really identify the feeling behind her tone then. Disappointment? Uncertainty? But then her brothers didn't really have any special powers. They just had heightened senses. "Kind of like with...Jedi, then?" Ezra had said something similar, anyway.

"It looks like there's a lot of things here. Do you have a favorite?"

"The space monks?" Tommy asked, frowning. "I don't know how they work, and I really don't care either. I'm not like them. I'm... I'm something else entirely and I don't use space magic."

So he's not going to touch what they can and can't do, but it's clearly all magic and telepathy and telekinesis and he's all physical.

"Uh... I like the Cyananas."

That wasn't something she'd heard them referred to as, so the girl merely shrugged. "Ezra said he started realizing his abilities maybe around my age, except he wasn't sure what it exactly was until a lot later when he found someone to teach him." He'd even showed her some of the things he could do. Floating things around without touching them was impressive!

"Cyananas..." Omega smiled a little at the name. It was kind of fun to say. "What do they look like?"

"They do other things than we do," Tommy shrugged. "Some mutants control the weather, or time, or elements. It's all weird. I'm a simpler one."

If you could consider the man all that simple. Which probably wasn't fair.

"They look like cyan bananas."

The girl made something of a face at that. Simpler didn't seem at all simple when in comparison to things she hadn't even thought possible. "Healing faster doesn't sound very simple," she noted.

"I'm...not sure what a banana is," she admitted, but she was pulling out her tablet to try and find out.

"It's just my body runs faster than most people's. So yeah, it is simpler."

It's like what her body would normally do, just, you know, faster.

"Uh, I can't really explain it I guess. Cyananas look the same, but dont' taste alike."

"Do you age faster as well?" she asked. It seemed like a natural conclusion if his body processes were faster. She was pretty familiar with the concept of hastened age development.

Omega didn't press for further descriptions. There were so many things that were probably commonplace to people, world-specific fruits aside, that she had never encountered before, and she didn't want to wear people out with her questions. "You'll just have to show me then. It'll probably be easier that way," she suggested.

WEll... now that was sure a question. And one he really had to pause and think about. Like, seriously think about. Good thing they had reached the stairs and he was moving down them carefully and wincing as his foot took extra strain from each stair.

Fuck he needed pain killers.

"I don't think so. If I dyed my hair and cut it to Billy's style, we still look exactly the same. Well, in the face. Except for the eyes. Okay, so there are some differences. But I age at the same rate as him."

Still, he reached into the bag at his side and pulled out a cyanana. What, dont' look at him like that. He liked them

That wince didn't go unnoticed. The stairs were already slightly higher than normal ones, just like the ones in the hotel, so they couldn't have been all that more comfortable to mount with an injury, even one on the mend. Omega waited patiently for Tommy to go down a few before starting along herself, close to sitting at the edge of each one just to get down to the next.

It was interesting to hear that Tommy's accelerated processes didn't involve his growth. Omega nodded thoughtfully. But then his was all natural as well, not genetically altered like how the Kaminoans created her clone brothers. "Billy...you mentioned him earlier. You're related?" She hadn't yet met him, but he was hardly the only one on the list in that department.

Her face lit up as he brought out a cyanana. She hadn't expected him to have one right then, a fact that amused her. "Oh!" It almost looked like a tooth. The color was fun too.

"He's my twin," Tommy answered. "So yeah, a bit related. But also not. Don't ask, it's a literal headache and a half. He's a nice guy, a witch. He can heal a bit."

And had helped with Tommy's leg. Well, the bone. They hadn't known there were other things wrong.

"Hope you like the taste of dill pickles, because those have that."

The girl tilted her head a little at that. She felt she had a better grasp at the related but not part than she did the witch part. What was a witch? She decided to hold off on that question, feeling she'd been asking too many. Maybe she'd just ask Billy if she ever ran into him.

"Brothers, then? So you have someone you know, here... I kind of wish mine were." Hopefully they didn't think she'd gotten stolen off by another bounty hunter.

Looking at the cyanana, Omega shrugged as she tried to figure out how to go about sampling the thing. "Guess I'll find out," she said.

"Billy and I were among the original people to arrive here," Tommy answered. He hadn't had to be alone. Which was lucky. They weren't as close back home.

"I'm sorry, how many brothers do you have?"

He continues slowly, carefully down the stairs. It's the best he can do.

"You can eat the peel too. It's good for you."

It wouldn't feel so strange being here if the others were here. "Five," she said. She supposed technically she had well over a million but none of them were close, and had only gotten more distant with the Empire's establishment. Even five was stretching it but she still included him because of like circumstances. "It's strange not being with them."

Omega was in no rush, and she wasn't about to go down the stairs very quickly herself. At Tommy's explanation she hummed thoughtfully, taking a bite. Her shoulders hunched slightly at the taste. "Ooh! Wasn't expecting that. It's different." She smiled a little as she helped herself to another bite. "I think I like it."

There, finally at the next floor, and Tommy pushes through a door into a less brightly lit area. He started around some raised planting beds. Time to find her plants.

"See, this is why I like you, kid. You have good taste," he smiles. He likes when people like his weird dill-pickle banana. Just wonderful.

The flavors weren't a familiar combination to her, but she rather liked the sour tanginess offset by the salty flavor. She smiled back at Tommy. "Mind if I take a few later?" She wondered if Echo had tried one yet.

Hopping down the last few steps, Omega was still munching on the cyanana as she followed after him. "How do plants grow in here? I thought they needed light?" she asked, unable to help for questions for long, but she was fascinated at the obvious difference of spaces.

"You can be my guest. They're apparently useful for other things, so I don't snack on them as much as I used to."

Made him sad, but the lady with the howling beast needed to keep giant spiders away and Tommy was down for that.

Tommy carefully made his way through the grow boxes and patted one of the ones bathed in a soft red light.

"There are lights, they come on, but not for as long. A lot of these levels is about mushrooms, though, which don't really need light. Still, these ones here, they're what you want."

Omega smiled. "I won't take too many," she promised.

It was curious seeing the light here a different color. She followed after Tommy, head tilting as she glanced from the red glow to the box there. He'd said something about a root vegetable earlier, and while she wasn't extremely familiar with either, she at least figured a bit of digging was involved. Which was fine as it seemed she didn't have too many qualms about getting her hands dirty. Dirt was amazing, but then she'd been created on a planet that was covered in water, so a lot of natural things were amazing to her.

"Oh- I think I found one," she said as her fingers brushed something under the cool soil. She worked at uncovering it a little more, trying to ease it free. "Is this it?"

Temba's Where The Heart Is

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