revivalproject | Adjusting

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Adjusting - Open Post

WHO: Krista & anyone who wants to join her!
WHERE: The edge of the forest, the school (??), and the hotel.
WHAT: Magic, exploration, and laying on the floor because uuuugh.
WHEN: Time is relative but after she's been here for a week.
WARNINGS: None, currently!

Forest.

Krista thought she was being sneaky, heading to the edge of the relatively less-traveled forest area to do her weird fairy magic. She was careful to be quiet about it, at first, making sure no one was around to see or hear her... But once she gets going, she gets absorbed in the task, and may not notice someone quietly walking up behind her, or hanging around to overhear her conversation.

Because she is having a serious conversation... with a frog. It has four eyes and weird, silver blotches on its back, but it's definitely a frog, and she's definitely whispering at if as if she's hearing the second half of a conversation.

"...He looks like me, but, um... No colors, very pale." She gestures over herself, explaining this concept to her amphibious audience. "Short hair... I think. Big black eyes."

A pause.

"Oh, his feet? Really dirty. No shoes. I think they were wrapped in something."

A pause. A ribbit from the frog. Krista perks up.

"You have seen him? Which way did he go?"

------

School.

She's pretty sure this is a school, anyway, between the gym stuff down below and the lecture-hall style of the rooms above. She was initially poking around like she was looking for someone, but that eventually turned into looking for something amidst the rubble.

She gasps with excitement when she finally finds it--buried underneath other debris and probably preserved only through dumb luck, she finds the rotting remains of something that looks like a book. It's clear when she pulls it out that it's useless, just a cover and the mushy shreds of some leftover paper, but Krista hugs it to her chest as if it was her very own long-lost diary.

And then, miraculously, the pages start to fill back in with a quiet fluttering, the cover straightening and un-crumbling as if time was reversed. Soon, she has what is only a slightly-battered book full of blank pages, restored from almost nothing.

She laughs quietly. She opens the pages to check that they're blank, wobbling a little with sudden exhaustion. She laughs again. This will help her. This was worth the energy.

------

Hotel.

Her earlier victories were very encouraging. She feels proud of herself. She believes that the results justified the risks. That said, she is exhausted when she gets back to the hotel... And, results or not, maybe starts to regret spending her energy so liberally without a plan for getting it back.

She stares dully at the stairwell, trying to work up the will to climb those stupid, double-tall steps... And gives up. Instead, she picks an open spot on the floor, lies down with her limbs stretching defiantly outward, and then just sort of... stays there, staring despondently at the ceiling.

She is very, very tired.

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"Oh, hey."

That's her initial response to the question, lifting her head just enough to see who it is that's talking to her. She doesn't recognize him. She puts her head back down.

"I mean, I had a day, but thinking about having to climb the stairs is basically what set off the spiral of despair I'm apparently working through, so yeah."

She has a very quiet speaking voice, and her flat tone makes it hard to tell if she's being serious, or if she's playing up the dramatics for some kind of dry humor.

Well, it's not like he doesn't get it. There's many a time he's considered not bothering with climbing the stairs, too. His desire for being somewhere he'll be left alone always wins out in the end though.

Apparently it's not so for everyone. Still, she's managed to catch his attention, both with just laying there, and for blaming the stairs for setting off a spiral of despair.

"Would you like some help in climbing them?"

He might as well offer while he's already there. Even mostly solitary as he's been since arriving, it's not like he dislikes other people, after all.

Her first, gut instinct is to reject the offer, maybe make some comment about preferring to wallow in her feelings for a while. But she gets stuck on the fact that he's even offering to help with the stairs at all, because it's a silly, trivial problem, and she hadn't expected to be taken even remotely seriously while complaining about it.

She lifts her head again, considers her options for a moment... And then, finally, sits up.

"You know what? Sure." She'll get to her feet. Dust off her pants. "That sounds all right."

"The place I come from isn't exactly suited to my size either, but here you get the sense that the short did not exist," He says, head turned toward the stairs. There were a few places like that in the universe, of course. Voss hadn't been kind on his legs, for one. But it's an entirely different story when you're stuck on a planet not suited for you.

After all, when he was done on Voss, he left. And most other places, mercifully, had elevators.

He heads toward the stairs, hopping up onto the first step, then turns toward her- waiting for her to come along so he can help her up.

Either with the Force or by extending his hand- he hasn't decided which yet.

"You are really small," she agrees, though maybe not with the point he was making. It just strikes her now that she's standing, as someone who's used to being one of the taller girls in class. It reminds her of one of her friends back home--though that guy was actually a pig, so his shortness was more magical than anything.

"But I have totally been wondering if these Agrii are like, eight-feet-tall. And all leg."

Her moodiness is already clearing a little, having something else to think about. She heads to the first step, starts climbing it on her own--she didn't actually think that he'd literally try to help her.

"It wouldn't surprise me if they were. Some species are naturally on the taller side. Haven't seen a species that's all leg before though," He says, and after a moment he adds; "Perhaps three-quarters."

That may have been an attempt at a joke.

The comment about him being really small is ignored entirely. There are reasons for that, after all.

He arches a brow as she starts climbing the stairs, though with how the veil he wears covers most of his face, his expression appears to stay neutral.

"I suppose sometimes only a bit of motivation is necessary?"

He can't help but be amused. He gets it, of course.

It isn't a very funny joke... But the mental image of something that's three-quarters leg is funny enough on its own that it gets a quiet, breathy little laugh out of Krista.

And, at the top of the first step, she looks over at where his face would be if he wasn't wearing said veil.

"Yeah, I was really more of a mental thing than a physical thing." And then she glances back up at the rest of the stairs for a moment before adding, "But I'll let you know if I feel like I'm about to pass out, or anything."

She'll try to clamber up the next step, this time with the intention of reaching back to help him up the next step. "--I should probably ask what your name is, huh."

"I think I know that feeling. Sometimes when I was obligated to sit in on budget meetings back home, I felt like laying down on the floor and giving up on life. Usually something or other managed to bring me back from the brink."

That doesn't seem to be a joke, delivered in an utterly dry tone.

But it's hard to know for certain, considering the former not quite so funny joke was delivered in a similar tone.

When she moves up the next step, he uses the Force and leaps up a few steps with ease, then turns, to wait and be ready to assist. If she wants him to.

"... Kallig."

It's how he's been introducing himself, for the most part. He's only given his first name out to one other person.

She... Isn't sure if it's a joke or not. In this case, she decides not to laugh, just in case. Besides, budget meetings are no laughing matter when they could actually, probably, literally kill you. Banality is rough on her kind.

She's also left momentarily speechless as he suddenly jumps several steps without issue. Or respect for gravity. She stares from her lower step for a second... Before begrudgingly going to climb the next few steps the normal way.

"Okay, Kallig... So you've either got cool powers, or you secretly weigh like, five pounds. Guessing it's the first one."

"I don't know about cool, but I do have powers."

Admittedly using them here takes a little more energy out of him- though even weakened, he's quite the powerful Sith. Using the Force again, he hops backwards up a few more steps, landing with the same ease.

Normally he doesn't use the Force for something as simple as climbing the stairs, but then, usually he also comes back much later, after long days of testing his limits. Today is much the same, but he supposes he might be in a good mood.

For all his instincts to be solitary, he really does feel the best when he has at least one other person to talk to. Especially when he can focus on someone else's problems- and even come to find that someone else is willing to laugh at one of his lame jokes.

Strange how that happens.

Krista is pretty sure that he's just showing off, after that last one.

"Okay, so... Spill the beans, I wanna hear about all the stuff you can do."

She says this as she continues to walk up the stairs one by one, which for her is kind of like jumping across rocks over a moving stream, uphill. Her intelligence came at the cost of her physical strength (her worst grades were always in gym class), and while she could probably think of something cool to get her up the stairs in style... It's not worth it, with all the energy she's used already.

"Oh, and I'm Krista, by the way."

She'll just keep climbing up the stairs like a normal person. It's cool.

"I think we'd be here for a while if I was to explain all that I can do."

A Sith was nothing if not crafty, and he's got tricks up his sleeve that even most Sith do not. After all, Altair is nothing if not a hoarder of knowledge. Kind of came with the territory of his Sphere of Influence.

Kind of came with the territory of being a Sith who liked staying alive.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Krista."

He extents a hand down to her. World's most awkward handshake? Offer to help her up? Who knows!

Well, Krista gets that. She didn't actually expect him to just give out his list of superpowers without some kind of bargaining involved. He says enough to get her to think he's probably pretty powerful, and that's plenty for her to get the hint for now.

Especially with that weird presence he has. She's still trying to put her finger on exactly why it's familiar...

"Okay, that's fair. And likewise."

One awkward person to another--she'll reach up to try and make this a weird handshake.

"Considering our situation, you'll likely see my other powers in use soon enough."

Altair doesn't expect their stay to be the peaceful sort, after all. There will be many challenges ahead, here as there was back home. If there's anything that's a constant in his life, it's trouble. He's not a pessimist- he's just a realist.

The way she grips his hand definitely makes him think handshake rather than help me up, so he'll leave it at that, letting go of her hand. He then turns his head to the rest of the staircase. It's hard to tell if he's looking though, considering the veil he wears.

"Never thought elevators were something I'd want to soliloquize about, and yet here we are..."

Hand? Shook. She goes back to climbing, taking on the couple of stairs ahead of him.

She means to ask more about what he thinks of this place, or about where he’s from, or why he wears a veil-thing over his face, or even about whether or not he has any hobbies or anything like that, but what he says next is phrased so delightfully that she stops all other trains of thought to chase a silly whim.

“Oh, please,” with a smile, “Give me your best elevator poetry. I’m here for it.”

"I'm not that brave," He says, with a touch of humor to his voice, continuing to climb stairs, the normal way rather than hopping along with the aid of the Force. It wouldn't take anything out of him normally, but he has had a long day of testing his limits.

"And my kind are all about being noble, dignified."

His species? His profession? Who knows.

He's off by a long-shot either way.

"And once you get going on soliloquizing about the lack of working elevators, then the dam breaks and suddenly you're a ranting madman, I suppose."

He isn't serious about that- there's definitely humor to his voice. But he has a tendency for snark. It's just how he is, around people he doesn't fear.

This is very stupid, Krista thinks. It's already pretty silly that their stair-climbing adventure is basically just an exercise in emotional support, but now they're continuing to joke about the pitfalls of poetically rambling about elevators. She should hate this, but she doesn't. Maybe she really just needed something to think about other than her own exponentially deepening anxiety. It actually reminds her of home, which she hasn't been reminded of in a very long time.

"Oh," she nods gravely, through she's having trouble keeping a straight face. "Yeah, I can see it. All that dignity and poise is just hiding a maelstrom of strong opinions. Elevators, parking spaces. Whoever stole your lunch out of the fridge last week. Nothing is safe."

And then, because a part of her brain had still been chewing on the bit about elevator poetry, the laughs to herself before she recites:

"My kingdom for an elevator,
To avoid these awful stairs,
Or else we'll lie down on the floor,
And have to climb in pairs."

Had any of his fellow Councillors been around, he likely would not so openly joke or help or be himself as he is when he doesn't have a point he needs to prove, about being capable, about being every bit the Sith as Marr and Vowrawn and everyone else. But so far as he can tell, he's the only Sith around, and though he's certainly angry about being here when his Empire needs him, it's nice to have a distraction too.

So he gives a little huff of laughter, pressing his knuckles to his mouth to keep himself from laughing more, even if it is tempting.

"You're braver than I am, Krista."

He climbs up another step, and stops to take a breather, "... If someone had stolen my lunch last week I'd have done more than rant though."

Of course being here has left him with a total of zero ration bars. Luckily food had been easy enough to find. Still, he wishes there was some inter-dimensional rule to not mess with a resource-hoarder's resources.

"That wasn't half-bad, right?"

She looks a little proud of herself, as she continues the climb as well.

"Oh, yeah. The lunch bit was less of a joke and more of a grim reflection of reality."

Sure, Krista isn't above stealing other people's things if she needs them, but taking her things is one of the few crimes a person could commit that she would find unforgivable.

She stops a few steps ahead, deeply regretting her choice of room on one of the higher floors. Maybe she'll move, after this. Glancing back at her new friend, she asks, "So, what do you do, by the way? Or--what did you do, where you're from?"

"Not half bad indeed," He agrees, continuing to climb stairs once he's caught his breath. He won't complain about it, but his legs feel sort of like jelly, like they'll give out at any moment now. At least the more times he climbs the stairs, the more used to it he'll get. And it is a good workout for his leg muscles.

"I was a leader," He answers, in response to her question, "Well, one out of twelve leaders, anyway."

The Emperor had been above them, once.

Not after Ziost. Vitiate was a monster, nothing more. Of course, here he was just himself. And thinking about Vitiate made his blood boil.

Better to think of something else.

"There were twelve of us, but each of us had our own branch to oversee. Mine was the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. Full of archaeologists, and scholars, and the like."

He'd had his own branch in the military too, and had many a Sith working under him. But warfare had not been his Sphere's focus.

Despite their amicable discussion, she listens very carefully to what he's saying and tries to imagine what he isn't saying. It's nothing personal, she just has more experience with "leaders" than one would expect.

Still, something called the "Sphere of Ancient Knowledge" sounds like exactly what she would do if she was in that position, so any real suspicion gets a pass for now.

"Man, that sounds cool! I love stuff like that." And then she laughs, quietly, "I mean, if it wasn't obvious from my uh, whole scene."

She just kind of... Gestures to all of herself, her slight form and her generally unimposing demeanor. Unless they're scared of mall goths, she wouldn't be much help in a fight. She's always been about tactics and hours of research in the school library instead.

"I didn't think I'd like it... But it grew on me, I suppose."

As an acolyte on Korriban, he'd done as he was told- to avoid getting killed. Under his Master, he'd grown fond of the comings and goings of Sith. Seeking the secrets hidden away by mad Lords. Then the ghosts had come, then Thanaton. Then his seat on the Council at the end of it all. By that time, he'd come to love the Empire, seen it as worth protecting, and he had come to see the state of being Sith as freedom itself.

Knowledge was power. For his Sphere, that was more true than for most.

"Wasn't all tombs full of deadly traps, twisted beasts, and angry ghosts though. There was bureaucracy too. Me and the Lord of the Sphere of Mysteries had our little spats over whose jurisdiction a new dig site fell under."

There was a lot of overlap and there were times where he and Rictus had to be physically separated from each other as they argued over whose right it was to examine a new temple or ruins or tomb. Nothing he really needed to get into, though he wouldn't mind discussing it if he was asked about it.

"As for whatever may be obvious or not looking at you, I'll have to take your word for it."

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Adjusting - Open Post

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