revivalproject | Warm Fuzzies

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Warm Fuzzies

WHO: Omega and you?
WHERE: Temba and Sh'Ka
WHAT: Making sure the locals are warm
WHEN: Through the month
WARNINGS: N/A

This time around Omega was much better prepared for what to expect once the season shifted. She had more than enough free time and had started spending some of it in going through the available department stores for materials, clothes she could use. The nice Hunter had given her a knife so she could cut things up properly, and she'd managed to do so without slicing off any fingers and only giving Echo a mild heart attack.

Her sewing skills were rudimentary at best, but she remembered what she'd been taught during the rain fair that had seemed so long ago now. All she really needed to do was make sure one piece of material attached and stayed attached to another.

Depending on when one came across her, she could be found leaving little makeshift scarves and bundles of blankets by spots she'd seen Funfronds and Barrys frequent, in Temba or Sh'Ka proper. There's also the library where she might get sidetracked in her warmth dispersing and end up buried in mothcats. Or she could be found either carrying a very large bundle of cloth in her arms or in the process of winding what turned out to be a very lengthy, patched together scarf out around a snow-dusted outcropping of rocks that had settled near the spiraling depression of the Temba memorial site. Weird girl.

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It only seemed polite to ask his name if he could give one. The girl was simply being practical. She let the light range along the last few steps she had to walk down.

"Special powers?" Her expression wasn't so much one of wonder than dubious confusion. Her tone just suggested the notion ridiculous. "Well, I won't tell anyone that you can talk if that's what you really want."

Once she was at the last step, she sat down on it. As much as she wanted to move the light in the direction she'd heard him, she decided to let him reveal himself on his own if he wanted. "I'm Omega. It's nice to meet you, Salem. I'm sorry if the mothcats scared you. We can leave if you want. I can take you somewhere else."

As much as Salem didn't want to be in this menagerie anymore, he didn't really know where else to go that wasn't just back outside in the cold. Not great options. He lingered in the dark, lamenting this cruel life and how much he didn't deserve it, leaning his suffering weight against the side of the desk. "Were you leaving those things outside for them, too?" he ventured. Maybe if the choice was mothcats, or mothcats AND cold, it got a little easier to decide.

"Those things..? Oh! No, those were for the Funfronds. They seem very shy so I just hope they find them. I did bring some for the mothcats, but I'll leave them in the library. They live here, more or less," Omega explained.

"I was going to head to the diner next. Maybe they have something warm to eat. Do you want to come?"

'Funfrond' did not mean much to Salem beyond that they were more animals, and that Omega seemed to be working on a collection. "And you'll bring them here, too? Where I'm from, a library has books. You're thinking of a zoo," he helpfully explained. Letting the animals roam around inside did also make for a pretty weird zoo.

What they did seem to agree on was what should be in a diner, and that seemed to be enough to draw him out of the dark, pacing anxiously at the edge of Omega's light with his tail up curiously. "Warm food! Music to my ears. You could have led with that."

"No, I think they have their own homes. I'm not sure they'd enjoy being around the mothcats though." She frowned a little. "What's a zoo?"

At least Salem had finally emerged from hiding. She could just make him out, a spot darker than the rest of the room, the faint gleam of the light off his eyes. Laughing a little, Omega set her bag down in front of her. "Well, come on then. I'll make sure you won't be bothered when we go back up."

The bag had definitely been okay, and Salem was willing to be brave for food, so Omega didn't have to wait long for him to hop back into it and get himself settled among her fabrics. "Haven't your parents taken you to a zoo? You seem like the kind of kid who would have their birthday there. It's the place where you keep a bunch of wild animals to look at. Lions and monkeys. And then you have some ice cream," he explained.

Omega smiled as she watched the cat make himself comfortable. She tilted her head at the question before shaking her head as she reached over to lift the bag by the strap.

"I don't have any parents," she replied, although she didn't sound particularly regretful about it. It was simply fact. "Birthdays... Ah, Peter told me about those! Where you celebrate and have cake?" She started up the stairs again.

No parents and a mystifying lack of birthdays had Salem blurting, "Were you born here or something?," which couldn't be the explanation because being born meant she should have parents. She came from somewhere, so it was an absolute tragedy that she had yet to experience one of the greatest joys life had to offer: a whole day of everyone giving you all of the attention just for being there. "Birthdays are the best. Parents are more complicated, but you're missing out on the birthday thing. Sure, cake is great, but so is the money that everyone hands you, and the belly rubs. They even sing a song, just for you!"

She could hardly blame Salem for that sort of reaction. It wasn't like she was normal or anything. "No, I arrived here just like you. I'm not sure where this is in relation to the galaxy I'm more familiar with," she said as she switched off the torch once they approached the top of the stairs.

"Money? ...and belly rubs?" The girl cast him an amused look, certain this must be an exclusive Salem-birthday thing that the cat's describing. "What sort of song?"

"All for you!," Salem assured her, assuming this look was in disbelief for all of these luxuries that she was rightfully owed. The song, though, had him clamming up, slinking down into the bag a little more as he answered, "Oh, uh...," and tried to come up with a reasonable diversion so no one expected him to start singing in public. "I'd need to warm up, to do it justice, very sensitive vocal chords, you know, all of the purring makes them taut. Tell anyone it's your birthday, though, they know the song, it's practically a spell."

"But it's not my birthday. I'm not even sure when that would be," Omega said even as she thought about it. She had no idea how timing translated between here and there, and with longer days... It was definitely more of a Tech question. Too bad Tech wasn't here.

At least she was keeping her promise about the mothcats. "No, you've played enough. I've got to go. I'll come by later, all right?" she said, giving Tony a good double-scritching on the top of her head and the bottom of her chin before she continued on down the aisle towards the entrance.

They were apparently all being cordial, so Salem did his best to do the same, only staring over the edge of the bag with his ears flat while someone else got attention, and not even insulting the other cat once to their face. Once he could risk speaking again, he wondered, "What galaxy are you from? Even people from Earth can remember their own birthdays."

"I've never heard it given a name. I don't think anyone's gone beyond it... But the system I'm from is the Kamino system." She finally came to the doors, hesitating to push them open as she could already feel a bit of the chill standing this close. "A lot of people here seem to be from Earth. That must be a completely different galaxy. It doesn't seem like traveling through hyperspace is common for them though."

Rubbing her hands, Omega looked down at Salem as though in silent inquiry as to whether he was prepared to go back out or not. The doors took some effort, the initial breath outside both refreshing and a shock. Once she had the doors closed behind them, the girl wasted no time in making way for the diner.

It wasn't such a bad experience from inside the bag, well warmed between Salem's fur and the fabric. He could get used to travelling this way. "Omega from el camino," he summarized, clearly enthusiastic about his Spanish accent. "The last girl on the side of the highway. That's kind of poetic. Never heard of it." His travel ability had been stunted for a few years, though. There were lots of places and planets that he had been cruelly denied visiting in favour of pooping in a box. "People from Earth don't get out much. They've only been to their own moon half a dozen times in thirty years. Can you imagine? It's not like anything on Earth is even that interesting."

Omega cast a faint smile towards the bag bearing her passenger, not that she had any idea about what he might be talking about. "It's not really a place that gets a lot of outside visitors. For the most part it's been home to the Republic's army. Kamino's where they were created after all."

She brought the flap of the bag up and over just to make sure it'd keep out most of the cold. "I've only left there recently. I've otherwise been on Kamino my whole life, but I didn't really have much of a choice until now. Since then I've seen a lot of other places. I don't ever want to go back."

"You know how to create an army?" Salem said. That was the part he heard, anyway. "Vive la republique!" Maybe this was his chance, his own army. That was almost as good as milk and cookies.

"Not me. But the Kaminoans are experts in cloning. They made my brothers and I," Omega said quietly as she rubbed her hands together to warm them. She glanced down at her talking bag in faint amusement. "What would you do with an army?"

These Caminos must have been very good at their craft because Salem observed, "You're really smart for a clone. Usually they can't say more than three things." He could see how that would make for a more effective army.

"Most governments won't take a demand very seriously without the support of an army. They get to have all of the fun," he explained. "With an army, we could probably make this place a whole lot warmer."

The girl tilted her head at that. "You have experience with clones? That sounds like a strange limitation."

She stepped up to the doors of the diner, grabbing a hold of the door to haul it open. "I don't know what government you'd be appealing to here even with an army," she noted as she stepped inside, letting the door close behind them. "Ah, that's so much better."

"Only when I really needed a break," Salem insisted. "My clone was very polite. I usually let him say 'You're welcome' and 'If you insist'. The third thing depended on if it was lunch with my mother or laundry day."

He was quick to be out of the bag once back in the familiar warmth of the diner, dropping down and trotting away under the furniture to sniff curiously for anything that might have changed since the last time he managed to get inside. The book and weird computer were still where he had left them under the table in the corner. It was a good thing nobody liked to do the sweeping around here. "The guys in charge, you know, the goons that brought us here. Tip the scales of power in our favour and we could be feasting on tuna every night."

"So... a stand-in for you, basically," Omega concluded. "The troops made by the Kaminoans are different. The regs may all look the same, but they have different personalities and preferences, just like anyone else. Most of them didn't much like my brothers and I."

She walked over to set her bag on a chair before looking around to see where Salem had gone off to. She followed the sound of his voice, peering under the table.

"I don't know, I've never actually seen them in person. Threatening them doesn't seem like a good idea when they're the ones that brought us here in the first place."

There was a book about half the size of Omega there, and a communicator on top of it that Salem was doing a satisfied spin in front of before his ears were twisting toward Omega and he brightly answered, "You don't smell that bad to me." What else she could do to turn a whole clone army against her must have been pretty spectacular. He jumped up onto the nearest chair to make it to the table, where he was closer to eye level to continue, "If you're having trouble getting people to like you, that book might have something to help."

Books weren't exactly a common thing back home and the library here was quite lacking, so the girl had to be forgiven for not being quite sure what she was looking at right then. "Smell? What does that have to do with anything?" The cat certainly said some curious things!

She got back up to look at him now that he was on the table, brow lifting. "I don't think I have any trouble... I've made a lot of friends here," she said, even as she looked back down towards where the book was. She didn't feel she had to mention that quite a few of said friends weren't in the city anymore as she stooped back down to try dragging the enormous tome out.

"This is a book then? Are they always so huge?"

"Anyone with that many animal friends does not have as many human friends," Salem said, looking skeptical that anyone else would use 'a lot' to describe Omega's social circle. "Don't worry, I've known plenty of weirdos in my life, and most of them didn't even have a family curse to blame." Unfortunately, the book wasn't so good at lifting family curses, so Omega and her brothers might still have a tough time back home, but Salem was still proud to introduce, "This one's a family heirloom. Most of the modern ones are a lot smaller, more convenient." Her phrasing was just weird enough that after a beat, he realized, "Parents, birthdays and books? Did they keep you in the attic? Is your curse contagious?"

The book seemed hefty enough that Omega decided to sit on the floor with it rather than haul it up on the table. She tilted her head at the cover before flipping it open.

"I guess you're in good company then. My brothers and I aren't really considered normal out of the clones, after all." She doesn't sound upset about it, stating what she's accepted as fact. It's what's bound her strange little family closer together and there's nothing wrong with that.

"I don't have a curse. I was created by the Kaminoans and lived in their city all my life until recently. Information is all computerized. I've never seen anything like this," she said, marveling at the feel of the pages as she carefully turned them. It was fascinating to her.

"So this came with you? It must be difficult to move. What's an heirloom?"

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