OPEN; loth-cat time

[merging]

» WHO? Ezra Bridger & you!
» WHEN? May, after Ezra receives his white Loth-cat
» WHERE? Around the station
» WHAT? Loth-cat shenanigans!
» WARNINGS? N/A


[So Ezra's made a friend. The creature is cat-like if not exactly a cat, and those from his galaxy might recognize it as a breed of tooka. Whatever it is, it mostly sticks close to him and can be seen with him throughout the station.]

I. HALLWAYS

[Were you enjoying a nice walk around the station, maybe going to meet a friend or get a drink? Too bad because now there's a Loth-cat running straight at you. Tailing behind it is Ezra yelling,]

Hey, wait! Stop!

[The Loth-cat starts running faster and looks as if it's about to pounce- when Ezra stops in his place.]

Oh, right! [His voice is calmer when he speaks again.] Stop.

[And the Loth-cat stops! It looks much more peaceful now.]

Sorry 'bout that.

II. MESS HALL

[Today the Loth-cat's sitting on top of the table Ezra's seated at. He's set out a small saucer of milk for it as he eats his food. Except... it keeps reaching for his food.]

I already fed you! And you've got your milk! Look, I know it's not blue, but it's almost the same! [He sighs.] Okay... just a little.

III. OBSERVATION DECK

[Ezra's kneeling at the edge of the observation deck, observing the deck with the Loth-cat. Or rather, they're observing beyond the deck and... space and stuff.]

So that's- actually, I don't what that planet's called. Or any of this. But you know... you're from Lothal. Or I think you are? Are you?

Comments

[merging]

[Once he catches up with the little guy, Ezra kneels down and pets the Loth-cat. All happy, and all under control. Thanks Force connection.]

You don't have tooka on Earth? I mean, this is a Loth-cat, but still. Weird.

[hopefragment]

Loth-cat... no.

[He repeats it, shaking his head and taking a tentative few steps closer, crouching within arm's length of the animal. He's still eying it a little warily, but Ezra seems fine with it, so it's... probably fine?]

I've never heard of tooka, either. Did you find it here?

[merging]

Yeah, right outside my room. Which is... actually really weird now that I think about it.

[Is this the first time he's thinking about it? Look, it's a very cute cat.]

If you open yourself up, you should be fine. Either way, I won't let it hurt you.

[hopefragment]

Yeah, I don't really think about there being animals on a space station...

[He holds out a hand. Ezra is calling it a cat, but it definitely seems dog-sized to him. So maybe he's supposed to let it sniff him? He... doesn't actually know how to say hello to a cat and prove that he's friendly.]

It seems trained... it doesn't have a collar or anything, right? Like, it might have belonged to somebody on this station?

[merging]

[The Loth-cat nuzzles up against Hajime's hand. Despite all that, Ezra seems surprised at the conclusion he's drawn.]

Huh? Some tookas are kept as pets, but Loth-cats... not so much. That, and I'm pretty sure this one is wild.

[hopefragment]

[Oh no... it's cute. Weird, really weird, but cute. He's going to try to tentatively pat its head.]

Really? [Hajime seems equally surprised, glancing up from that cat toward him.] It answered your commands pretty quick. Even dogs have to be trained to do that.

[merging]

It's not trained.

[His response is very matter-of-fact, as if it's obvious. But as Hinata pats it, the Loth-cat purrs contentedly.]

I just have a sort of... gift? A magic touch? You get it. When it comes to animals.

[hopefragment]

[He says "you get it," and Hajime really doesn't, but he nods along anyway. Sounds like a talent to him, and, well, there are a lot of talented people where he's from.]

Oh... that's good.

[He never really knows how to respond to other people's talents, so he just focuses on petting the. Cat. It's purring. It really is a cat.]

Lucky he was outside your door, huh? Maybe he could sense that you're good with animals.

[merging]

You're probably not too far off.

[This might not be the same white Loth-cat he's seen(or maybe it is, he can't be sure), but they still have a connection. Ezra smiles down at the Loth-cat.]

We're from the same planet too.

[hopefragment]

What, really?

[He pauses his cat-petting to blink up at Ezra. That's... really lucky, then, that this weird cat found the one human (that Hajime knows of) who'd be from its planet.]

So that'd be... Loth, then? What kind of place is it?

[Sounds like Earth, he guesses.]

[merging]

Lothal.

[He corrects him, knowing there's no way someone from Earth could know that. At least Loth's a decent guess?]

Lots of grasslands and plains. There's some mountains too. Two moons, one sun. It's in the Outer Rim which doesn't mean much to you, but from space it's mostly green and blue. I hear that's similar to Earth, at least.

[hopefragment]

Lothal, right.

[Yeah, he'd never have guessed, but he appreciates the correction. Looking back to the cat, he tries stroking a hand down its back, gradually getting more used to the weird-looking animal.]

It... sounds a lot like Earth, when you describe it like that. Well, we only have one moon, and I guess it's better to say it's mostly water? And there's mountains and plains and... tundras and stuff. It's the only planet with life on it that we know of.

[He pauses, scritching the cat behind its ears. It's really weird to try to describe his entire planet, when most of his life has been spent in just a tiny piece of it.]

...Do you miss it? Lothal.

[merging]

Well... yeah. It's my home world. I didn't go off world until I was like, 15. And even then I kept on getting drawn back. But I wasn't there before I was brought here so it's a little different.

[Happy cat noises.]

I mean, you were on Earth, right? Do you miss it?

[hopefragment]

[The cat likes him, he has at least one (1) friend on this station now. Perfect.]

I guess? I mean... it's hard to think about the whole planet when there's only a handful of people who've even been to the moon. No one's ever gone to another planet before. Not from Earth, anyway. I'd never even left Japan before this.

[Gosh, this conversation is a lot easier to have when petting a cat.]

Honestly, I just miss my everyday life. Even something as mundane as going to the convenience store on the corner seems impossibly far away right now.

[merging]

I get what you mean.

[He sighs and pets the Loth-cat's back because apparently this is their emotional support animal now.]

It's been a long time since I've had a normal life, but still. More than anything, I miss my friends. My family.

[hopefragment]

[Good cat, best friend.

He laughs a little self-deprecatingly.]

I used to wish my life was less normal. Not like this, but... it's really weird to think about how different things are right now. Way crazier than anything I could have expected.

[His lips curve into a sad smile as he keeps petting the cat. He still doesn't know if he can call Chiaki a friend, so it makes what he says next sound a little strange.]

Someone I... spent a lot of time with would probably be really jealous right now. She'd probably think it was just like a video game.

[merging]

Do you wanna go back? Sorry, that's... that's a little weird to just ask someone, isn't it?

[He smiles too and the Loth-cat looks confused by them both.]

But I'm curious. This certainly isn't normal, at least for you.

[hopefragment]

[He shakes his head.]

It's not weird at all. I'd... go back in a heartbeat. There's... something I have to do. The longer I'm here, the more likely it is that I'll lose my resolve, or they'll move on and I'll lose my chance.

[...Hang on, that was a weird fucking thing to say, and he regrets it immediately. Hmmm let's shift the topic back to Ezra.]

What about you? You want to go back too, right?

[merging]

Yeah.

[Don't worry, Hajime. He got the cue. It was a pretty intrusive question he was asking in the first place.]

Believe it or not, I was in a... similar situation before all this. Floating out in the middle of nowhere, with no idea how to get home. Although the different universe thing is new. When I get back, I'll still need to find a way actually back. But... I know my family's looking for me.

[hopefragment]

Family, huh...?

[What a patient cat, putting up with this impromptu heart-to-heart while being pet.]

Do you think you'd feel better or worse, if you knew your family wasn't going to look for you?

[merging]

Well, it's kinda hard for me to imagine that honestly? Because I know they'll find me. I trust them to.

[Obviously it just likes to listen. This stuff is better than holodramas.]

At the same time... I've also been there. When I was a kid, it was easier to just tell myself my parents were dead, that they were never coming back. Just having hope felt like a waste of time to me. But you know... I don't feel that way anymore.

[hopefragment]

[He hums softly, looking back down at the cat and not answering immediately. That doesn't apply to him at all, and he knows it. His parents are very much alive, just... they won't come looking for him.]

I think... [he says finally, speaking more to the cat than looking Ezra in the eye,] that hope's a good thing to hang onto. I'm glad you have that.

For me, it's a little different. Some things happened, and... well, as far as my parents know, they'll never see me again. I mean, they have no way of knowing that I'm here, but they wouldn't think to look for me.

[He glances up, gives Ezra a crooked smile. He's Trying, okay.]

I guess that means they won't worry now that I'm gone. So that's good to remember.

[merging]

Why wouldn't they worry? Even if they think they'll never see you again, even if you have separate lives or something like that, why wouldn't they worry about you?

I mean... that's what they should do, what parents should do. What family should do.

[If his younger self could hear him now, he'd probably laugh. Still as cheesy as it all is, Ezra's completely sincere.]

I feel like I'm sorta lecturing you, but... if you do have the chance to see your parents again, I'd take it. I never got that chance, or... not really.

[Not counting the Force and definitely not counting Palpatine's alternate reality thing.]

[hopefragment]

Would you worry about someone you knew had a great opportunity in front of them?

[He sounds a little frustrated, because there are certain things that he still doesn't know if he can say. Even if he had the resolve to actually put his feelings into words, he can't be positive that somehow, talking about the Project will keep him from being able to participate.

As if going missing for weeks hasn't ripped it from him entirely.]

It's... I can't really go into detail right now. I'm sorry. But as far as my parents know, they won't see me again because I have the chance to do something really important. To actually feel like a member of society.

[And then he blows out a breath, because Ezra... probably doesn't care about any of this? And he's kind of being an insensitive jerk.]

...Sorry. Now I'm the one trying to lecture, huh? We... come from really different places.

I hope you get to see your parents again.

[That, at least, is sincere...ly wrong. Well, he tried.]

[merging]

My parents died about two years ago.

[A voice in the back of his head still whispers that it was because of him. But rather than ignore it, he reminds himself they died fighting for what they believed in. They may have rose up against the Empire one last time because they heard his message, but that's what they spent their whole life doing, and what he's tried to do as well.]

But I don't think it's as different as you think. The reason I'm in the situation I'm in is because I realized there was something only I could do. I guess you could say... I sacrificed myself, but I don't think of it that way. I did what I could to help my planet, to help the people of Lothal. At the same time, I trusted a friend of mine to come and find me, wherever I am.

Basically, I don't regret what I did, but it'd still be nice to see everyone again, you know? And I think your parents will still worry about you, even knowing that. I'm sure my friends, my family, are worried about me.