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[Open] This Was Your Choice

CHARACTERS: Leia Organa and Various
LOCATION: Lockers, the Gardens, Comms and other places on the ship
WARNINGS: Princesses swearing
SUMMARY: Leia gets some surprises, some good, some bad.
NOTES: Luke's gone, and this is set after the jump.

Lockers - after the jump
Instead of going to hand out the flower crowns as Leia normally did every jump with her dear friend Lúthien, she spent time with her father near his locker, talking. Somehow, talking about home had become harder and easier the more she did it. But the discussion left her feeling more melancholy than interested in trying to be genial and welcoming. Her attitude wasn't helped much by the loss of her twin, a loss that was much more palpable than that of Han Solo so many jumps before.

So, she headed to her own locker, intent on getting the crowns to hand to Lúthien before going for a swim. However, there was something wrong. Behind the dull, ugly jumpsuit that she kept in the back of her locker there was a flash of something metallic. Shoving the icy queasiness down, Leia pushed the jumpsuit to reveal a familiar outfit, replete with the damnable jewelry and the boots on the bottom of her locker. However, before she can shut (slam really) the door, the light reflects from a large glass jar on the shelf where the flowers should be.

And inside the jar is sand. And a tiny, eyeless, gaping-mouthed flesh eating worm. A sarlacc. Just for her.

"WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS FUNNY?"

Gardens
After the lovely surprise in her locker, Leia's footsteps couldn't take her fast enough to the only place on the whole kriffing ship that made her feel steady, the Oxygen Gardens. But instead of heading to the stream near Lúthien and Galadriel's flets, she went to the second floor and sat in a relatively unused corner.

Her mind was a jumble of thoughts about Tatooine, Han, Luke, and him, Jabba the Hutt. The fact that she had killed the disgusting crime lord before she and Luke allowed his pleasure barge to fall into the sarlacc pit wasn't really a comfort at that point. She missed her brother. She missed Han. She missed everyone back home and having that humiliation shoved in her face after two relatively decent jumps (aside from the killer hounds before the jump) was too much.

But before she could fall too far into the pit of self-pity, a strangely familiar string of chirps and whistles caught her attention. She followed the sounds until she spotted a little droid with a blue dome, rocking back and forth as it tried to free itself from the vines of nearby plants. With no effort, Leia smiled and ran over, pulling the vines off before hugging the astromech droid. "Artoo! I'm so glad to see you."

Comms
A few days after finding R2D2 and cleaning him from the debris and making sure he wasn't damaged, Leia decided to bring him down to Comms. First, she wanted to show him off to the people she worked with. Maybe Skye or Darcy would find him interesting (and not take him apart!). And secondly, she was pretty sure that her father could tell her what the parts of Artoo's memory banks she couldn't access were for. Since he'd had possession of the droid as part of the Tantive IV.

Anywhere else
Feel free to spot Leia and R2D2 anywhere on the ship, since the little droid is now attached to the hip with her when she's not sleeping.

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It takes him a moment to filter through that information, accessing some of the lesser reached areas of his brain. He's never really been all that into movies, but he's known Dean long enough that the majority of the pop culture references aren't totally outside of his ability to grasp.

"Ah, right," he says, somehow agreeing with all of what she's saying without committing too heavily to understanding exactly what she's talking about.

"Is it—? It's dangerous, right? The sarlacc?" Maybe she shouldn't keep it in her locker.

"Hold up your hand. And stick out your pinkie finger."

Just play along, John. Seriously.

He looks dubious, but for whatever reason, John follows her directions. Uncertain of what to expect, he extends his pinky and actually closes his eyes as he holds his breath.

She can't help but smile just a little at his reluctance. But she's not cruel either.

"Open your eyes. That is the dangerous creature in my locker."

Blake opens his eyes one at a time and squints uncertainly.

"What? What is?" he asks, pinky still out, a dubiousness sort of pouring off of him. This is some kind of joke, right? ~~Not that he'd ever suggest as much considering how Leia had sounded just moments ago.~~

She waves her hand at his extended finger, a half-smile on her face but temper still boiling slowly under the surface. An insult like this one isn't likely to be forgotten any time soon, pleasant acquaintance or no.

"The sarlacc in the jar is the same size as your pinkie finger." She opens the locker where the jar is in plain view. "You're more than welcome to take a look if you wish."

Well, you know, to be fair, John doesn't usually find surprises to be so... merciful.

"Oh, good," he breathes out, laughing a bit awkwardly. "Thought you were gonna have the thing bite me or somethin'." Hence the clenched butthole maneuver. It's what a vast majority of people in his inner circle would choose to do, he figures. But Leia is clearly much, much more benevolent than that.

He leans in to look at the jar but the glass between him and the sarlacc keeps him from being too wary.

"What're you gonna do with it? You want me to get it outta there?"

Does she look like the type to do something so cruel?

"I don't do things like that." And that's all that needs to be said on that subject. "As for what I'm going to do with it, I'm not exactly sure. It appears to be either dormant or not real. Because...if it were awake, those little tentacles would be waving all over the place and just the scent of anything alive would drive it into a feeding frenzy."

Not to mention that the jar would shatter in it's excitement to eat.

Blake doesn't particularly like the sounds of a feeding frenzy, especially not after their most recent issues with monster attacks. His eyebrows knit and he eyes the jar a little more pointedly. Really, though, whose idea was this?

"Where does this stuff even come from? Is it—? Is it real? Or just some kinda copy of what's been harvested from our brains? Doesn't make a whole lotta sense to transport that stuff from our universes." He's actually a bit incensed right along with her.

"If I knew, I'd be taking it up with the people in charge. This is hardly something I'd call a welcome surprise." Especially considering exactly what it meant.

"I'm not sure why they'd even give me a sarlacc, other than to torture me with the knowledge of what happened when I ran into one back in my own galaxy."

"Seems like there's usually that kinda tilt to it," he agrees, though he hasn't had anything too cruel in this locker. A bottle of booze and a cigar were both reminders of a time long past, but not in a way that had Blake wanting to twist someone's head off.

"No one has a spare camera? We could set it up to record the inside of the lockers while we're out." He suspects if it's possible, then someone's already tried it, but it never hurts to bring that sort of thing up.

"Last time it was alcohol and a video of my destroyed planet, for Life Day." That went over so well. Drunken singing in the Gardens with elves and politicians. It was a hell of a time to miss.

"I'm sure they've tried but I seriously doubt they got anywhere."

He hates the idea that they're so seriously cockblocked, but the same had happened pretty regularly in Wonderland and after a time it's much easier to just chalk it up to being a side effect of where they are, not who they're captive to.

"That sounds like some real—" He stops himself from tossing out profanities and merely maintains an unhappy expression at the whole scenario. "As if we don't got enough goin' on 'round here." Leaves a bit of a bad taste in his mouth, honestly.

John reaches a hand out to grasp her elbow in what's meant to be a comforting gesture. "Sorry this place is so messed up to you."

She smiles tightly at the familiar gesture, accepting it for what it is. "It has it's benefits. And those generally outweigh the crap like this."

Dad > unpleasant reminders of back home.

"But, I'm not stupid enough to think that this is a place I want to stay forever."

Yeah, well, when you put it that way, Blake's less apt to chime in about how he wouldn't mind sticking around. To be fair, though, he's got a lot less going on in Gotham than Leia's got going on in a galaxy far, far away.

"There's no substitute, no," he agrees, although he does think there are some places that might come close for him. "Do like that I get to meet people like you, though. Not often I run across like-minded individuals. 'Specially the kinda person that's got a, uh. —a moral compass." That much is important to Blake.

"I suppose having a moral compass is the kind of thing one gains by growing up with morals." She had two parents that loved her enough to teach her about responsibility and right from wrong. Others back home just seemed to have them, but from the oddest sources.

"However, I'll agree that I've met some fairly interesting people since I woke up here nearly seven months ago. It's been...enlightening."

"Enlightening." He smirks. "That's one way to put it." He can definitely see why she's such a triple (quadruple?) threat, though. Leia cuts to the point without slicing right through anyone, and that kind of surgical precision is appreciated.

He nods toward the locker, circling back around to their earlier topic. "So, if you need me to help get rid of stuff, just lemme know. Just for future reference." Because who knows what might appear after the next jump.

"I'm not sure there's any other way to put it and stay diplomatic. I'd rather stay that way for as long as I can."

She follows his line of sight back to the locker and bites back a bitter sigh. "I appreciate the offer, but this is definitely something that I will take pleasure in getting rid of myself."

Again.

"Yeah, for good reason. I gotcha," he says, because he can't exactly argue with her thinking here. He's apt to feel the same way when he gets solid reminders of unpleasant circumstances.

"Lemme know if you need anythin' in the meantime, Leia. Anythin' at all." He pulls her into a quick hug — he's been doing that a lot lately — and then backs away to give her some space. "You got my number."

She stands still for a minute, a little surprised at the sudden hug. It's so rare for other people to touch her, aside from her family. But there's something comforting in it as well. Before he can pull away completely, she kisses his cheek quickly.

"I will keep you in mind if I need anything. Thank you, John."

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[Open] This Was Your Choice

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