fandomhigh | Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Portalocity Port, Saturday Morning

Tony's first airplane ride wasn't as interesting than he'd hoped. It was rather like riding the bus, only with less space and more pretzels. Although "boring" was probably the way to go when it came to air travel.

He'd spent a bad half hour in Customs after his flight had landed. They'd pulled him from line and fingerprinted him and for a bit he was afraid he'd be barred from entering the US. But they apparently realized he was neither a drug dealer nor a terrorist and let him through.

He retrieved his oversized duffle from the baggage claim and followed the instructions on the crumpled printout of an email from the school. He took a quick detour to buy a horribly overpriced breakfast sandwich with his shiny new American money. (Dollar bills? What was wrong with coins?) He made a wrong turn on the way back, but he managed to orient himself and find his way to the Portalocity terminal.

A piece of paper tacked on the wall in one corner of the room said "Fandom High." Looked like he was in the right place. He sat down on a bench under the sign, duffle near his feet, and clutched his laptop case as if it might walk away. (It wouldn't, would it? Arra would've warned him if that was a possibility.) It seemed he was the first to arrive. Not surprising, since he'd taken the red eye out of Vancouver. Late-night flights made it easier to say goodbyes to vampire ex-boyfriends.

[Newbie airport shuttle! Open to all new students and teachers, no matter which world they're from. Posted early for great slowplay. ~~OCD coming.~~ We can has OCD!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His voice didn't sound frayed, either, and her Force sense wasn't picking up any telltale ripples of violence in the general area; Tahiri let herself relax a little bit.

"Where exactly are we?"

"The Portalocity terminal," Tony said.

"That's no help," Tahiri said with a slight huff. "There's terminals everywhere. This is Earth, isn't it?"

"Last time I checked," Tony said. She was kidding, right?

"You're sure?" Tahiri glanced around the terminal again. "I never even heard of Earth before."

Maybe she wasn't kidding. "Where are you from?"

"Tatooine originally," answered Tahiri. "Then when I was nine I went to Yavin 4 but lately I've been all over the galaxy."

"This galaxy?" Tony asked.

"Maybe," she replied. "Never heard of a planet called Earth before but there's so many of them."

"I guess so," Tony said. "I never met anyone from another planet before."

"Never?" she repeated incredulously. "What did you do, spend your whole life as a hermit or something?"

"No," Tony said. "We don't get a lot of visitors from other planets here. On Earth." This was... surreal.

". . . wow," Tahiri concluded. "I guess this really must be another galaxy. Even the Outer Rim gets visitors from other planets sometimes. Or did." Tourism had taken a pretty bad hit the past few years. Galactic war had a tendency to do that.

"I guess so," Tony said. "How did you end up here?"

"I had orders," Tahiri said. "The Jedi Council sent me. Don't know why they want me to go to school again, but they do."

"What's the Jedi Council?" Tony asked. "Some kind of government?"

"They're in charge of the Jedi Order," Tahiri tried to explain. "We're not part of the government, we just work with it sometimes."

"Is that a religious thing?" Tony asked.

"Sort of, I guess," said Tahiri, who'd never had to explain the Jedi to anyone before.

"Sounds like things are really different where you come from," Tony said. Yay for stating the obvious.

"Yeah, no kidding." Tahiri scratched at the side of her neck. "Your world is weird."

"I suppose it is," Tony said. "What's yours like?"

"Overrun by Hutts at the moment," Tahiri said, wrinkling her nose. "But they had to go somewhere after the Yuuzhan Vong took over their planets. The planet I lived on for a while after that's been taken over too."

"Sounds like some things are pretty universal," Tony said. "I don't know who the Hutts are, but there's stuff like that happening on Earth."

Tahiri paled, making the scars on her forehead stand out in contrast. "The Yuuzhan Vong aren't here, are they?"

Re: Waiting for the shuttle!

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 22:19 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 22:24 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 22:25 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 22:32 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 22:35 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 22:40 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 22:49 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 23:00 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 23:01 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 23:25 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 23:28 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 23:31 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 23:38 (UTC) - Expand

weetuskenraider - 2008-08-30 23:43 (UTC) - Expand

wantstodirect - 2008-08-30 23:56 (UTC) - Expand