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]

"My second," Zack said, shaking his head a little. "It always seems to happen when Fandom is doing weird things, too. The last time, it was when everybody was singing."

... Which had actually been kinda fun.

[sith_happened]

"Did you sing as a dog, too?" Anakin asked, interested.

[puppy_fair]

"Yep!" Actually, it had been more like off-key howling. But it had been cute. "Professors Deadpool and Mars were singing, and there was an opening for some backup vocals. I... kind of can't carry a tune in a bucket. Not when I'm a dog, anyhow."

[sith_happened]

"I can't carry a tune period," Anakin admitted. "As the gremlins make me demonstrate almost quarterly."

[puppy_fair]

"Maybe they really like your singing? I don't think gremlins are really the sort to do much of it themselves, you know?"

Zack wouldn't know. He had never run into a gremlin.

Lucky little shit.

[sith_happened]

"I think they might have tried caroling once?" Anakin replied, frowning. "I know they weren't happy being cast in the Christmas play."

[puppy_fair]

"Gremlins in the Christmas play? Really?" Zack scrunched his nose a little, trying to picture that.

He really, really couldn't.

"Gremlins here are kinda weird," he decided. "Aren't they?"

[sith_happened]

"Very," Anakin said a little vehemently. "They've decided to bother me a lot. It's...irritating."

[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.