Office hours [all day]

[sith_happened]

Anakin, as usual, was in his office.

Today he was sitting on his floor practicing his meditation skills.

It only looked like napping. Really.

The door was open and soft Alderaanian music was coming from his ridiculously tricked out stereo.

Comments

[puppy_fair]

Zack was going to bring a sympathetic smile to the table, now. See? Totally sympathetic. For a kid who had never been bitten by one.

"I bet it is. Where I'm from, they just make a person sad." They were kind of like diet-gremlins, that way. "Maybe there's some way to get them to leave you alone?"

[sith_happened]

"I think 'Skywalker' is gremlin for 'candy,'" Anakin groused. "You've run into gremlins before? I didn't know where they originated."

[puppy_fair]

Zack was suddenly very grateful that 'Fair' seemed to be gremlin for 'unpalatable.' Possibly because Zack would do pretty much anything ever, so long as he was properly enabled. Not half as fun!

"I haven't, personally. But I know they exist. The company I work for has records on all of the monster types that we might someday encounter. I'm supposed to know what's what, so that I don't get turned into a frog and then stepped on, or something."

[sith_happened]

"There are monsters that can turn you into a frog?" Anakin replied, looking confused.

[puppy_fair]

"There are frogs that can turn you into frogs," Zack confirmed, nodding a little. "They run up and they punch you, and then, bam! You're a frog."

A pause.

"It's kind of annoying, really."

[sith_happened]

"There's a frog here that can talk," Anakin offered. "Is it a similar variety?"

[puppy_fair]

"Nah," Zack replied. "Robin's more fuzzy. The ones back home don't talk, either. I thought he was a human that had been changed, but I guess not."

[sith_happened]

"He's been like that as long as he's been here," Anakin confirmed. "I taught him to fly."

The tone of his voice said, yes, he realized that was strange.

[puppy_fair]

"Flying frogs," Zack laughed, giving his head an amused shake. "That's actually pretty awesome."

The tone of his voice suggested that he thought there wasn't anything really weird about that at all.

"You're a pilot, then?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin's face lit up. "Very much so, yes."

[puppy_fair]

"I've only ever been a passenger," Zack noted, grinning when he saw Anakin's own mood improve. This was clearly a much better topic than the gremlins had been! "But it looks like fun. I won't get a chance to do it at home, though. SOLDIER are ShinRa's ground forces. If we can't do it on foot, we probably can't do it."

Flying! Sky!

It looked so... liberating.

[sith_happened]

"Well, I don't teach flight during the school year," Anakin said, "but there's generally a flight club if you really want to give it a try."

[puppy_fair]

"I so, so, so want to give it a try!" Zack practically chirped that out, yes. "What kind of stuff do you fly? Planes? Helicopters? Airships?"

So cool!

[sith_happened]

"Yes," Anakin said smugly.

Beat.

"Airship?"

[puppy_fair]

"Not airships, then," Zack noted, grinning a little. "They're pretty much exactly what they sound like. Except not really shaped like a boat. They're big! They have propellers."

Zack was not an aviator, by far.

"I could probably draw a picture of one or something?"

He wasn't an artist, either.

[sith_happened]

Big and propellers wasn't exactly painting Anakin a picture, no.

"A picture would help," Anakin decided, rummaging for a piece of paper.

Hopefully help.

[puppy_fair]

Kind of help, sort of? Maybe a little?

Zack was patting down his pockets for a pencil, now, squinting a little as he tried to remember what that picture on the wall inside the ShinRa building looked like. He reached for the paper, and then stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth a little as he doodled a rough picture of an airship.

"See? Propellers!"

It was actually somewhat recognizable as a thing that was probably made to fly. Somehow. Zack was, therefore, pretty darn proud of himself.

[sith_happened]

Anakin tilted his head at the picture. "How many people does it hold?"

Maybe getting a sense of proportion would help?

[puppy_fair]

Zack blinked at the picture, and then shrugged a little.

"Hundreds, probably. I think they're mostly used for cargo, and things like that." He wasn't sure, but that seemed to make sense. "They're still pretty new, so you don't really see them just zipping around, you know?"

[sith_happened]

Anakin nodded. "So you're unusual for having left the planet," he guessed.

[puppy_fair]

"Very," Zack agreed. "I was telling Ben just yesterday how we don't even really have a space program. They're still building their first rocket, back on Gaia."

There was a moment there of just silence, and then Zack started laughing. "Which makes me the first guy from Gaia to leave The Planet. To go to high school, of all things. That's weird."

[sith_happened]

Anakin grinned. "Maybe you'll have your own holiday for that?"

[puppy_fair]

"Zack Day!"

... Zack Day?

"More commonly known as the first newbie day of the summer. I'll be greeting the new kids and being all proud of my journeys through space and time. Or something like that."

[sith_happened]

"If it's like most crops of new students, half of them will think you're insane," Anakin replied.

[puppy_fair]

"Most of them already do," Zack pointed out, clearly totally okay with that. So, he was chipper! So what?