Retreat

[out_of_order]

WHO: Cal Kestis and Tony Stark
WHERE: Woods outside of Temba
WHAT: Family bonding Nature hike..?!
WHEN: Now...ish
WARNINGS: N/A


It had been a while since Cal had gone out into the woods. There were plenty of things since their return from the Agrii ship to keep them busy within the city. But even with a mostly empty city, sometimes a change of scenery and a chance to take a breath apart from everything wasn't so bad. But even so, he didn't mind having company apart from BD-1.

What started out as a check-in turned into an invitation for the man to join him for a bit of a walk, maybe some light exploration, and perhaps even a chance to test out what they'd put together for that 'transmat' project. They'd met outside of Tony's forge, the padawan with a backpack slung over a shoulder, BD-1 dangling from a strap. His lightsaber hung at his hip, slightly different than the one Tony had fashioned, if only because Cal had incorporated it with other parts from their recent trip.

With no real clue as to if anything lay beyond the woods in any given direction, but no real intent to go too far anyway, they'd settled on a direction starting beyond the forge and directly into wilderness.

Comments

[in_extremis]

That surprised Tony somehow, like he wasn't expecting Cal not to be good at everything and through a laugh he teased, "What, they didn't teach you how to feed yourself at Jedi school? Absolutely ridiculous, what are we paying for?" and quickly draped an arm around Cal's shoulders so he didn't sound too much like his own dad rolling his eyes at Tony fumbling through their awkward reunion after a semester at boarding school. He used the hold to draw Cal up short again, where Tony began to tamp down the grass around them at the edge of the clearing, which could have been an effective enough space to try out their new toy.

"Oh, thank god, I thought you were going to tell me it was some kind of sacred communion with the planet or whatever, and, don't get me wrong, clearly it's working for you, but I've met enough gods to not really be interested in that conversation anymore. Anyway, your master sounds like a riot," he said, perhaps not understanding the Temple at all yet but sure there were much more gentle ways to teach a kid their magic mind powers without dangling them anywhere.

[out_of_order]

Cal stumbled only slightly with Tony's throwing an arm around him, laughing again. Ration tablets and bars obviously didn't count towards meal prep, and Greez's scazz steaks were by far the tastiest thing he'd ever eaten in his life.

Looking down at the grass, he nodded and let the bag he'd been carrying slide from his shoulder so he could start pulling out the pieces.

"Well, there's meditation involved," Cal admitted as he pulled out the two halves of a large, ring-like construction, containing multiple slots where power rods would be inserted, almost resembling a clock-face for the shape and the lines. The power source he'd worked on for whatever this transmat project was. "The emphasis in teaching us early about the Force and how to connect with it is so we don't misuse that connection and that power."

[in_extremis]

Tony crouched in the grass, mostly there for balance while Cal put his ring together, letting him curiously consider the ground of the field they had been wandering around in more closely as Cal worked. It wasn't rocky at all, he realized there, which might have served to tip them off ahead of time about the rock-creature, and the soil was surprisingly moist like it was more of a marsh than a field, the solid ground only the closely woven root system of the tall grasses that was so thick Tony could see where many of the tendrils had been pushed up into the air, like every blade of grass was a heavy tree trunk. Ideal for nesting in, he thought, if one was a big rock. What had seemed like stones and pebbles as they walked over them turned out to be the tiny, grey caps of clusters of mushrooms that found purchase in this root system, and Tony toed at curiously.

"By lifting rocks," he concluded, looking back up at Cal through his lashes and narrowing his eyes, because so far that had been the only thing that was impractical, and Cal was supposed to treat the power like a limb. Maybe all rocks were mushrooms where Cal came from and moving them around was more destructive than Tony would think.

[out_of_order]

BD-1 had hopped down to look at things again, peering around Tony to study the mushrooms the man had found. He glanced up at Tony and then came closer to tentatively poke at one with the tip of a metal foot.

Cal finished connecting the ring and its wiring, setting the base down so he could remove the bundle of wrapped power rods, slotting each one into place. He gestured towards the bag for Tony to go ahead and start with the rest.

"Or people. Or people built like rocks?" Cal countered, brow arching as he tried not to smirk. "It's not all lifting, that's only part of it."