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Discovering Earth | Friday, period 2

"So," Hannibal said, clapping his hands together. "We are heading back into the cold today. But not outside, so we'll have no worries about frostbite."

"Which is good," Kanan interrupted, "because after Earth-Hoth South, I wasn't looking forward to freezing up in Earth-Hoth North."

He was helpful!

"If I understand my friend right," Hannibal interrupted back, "this place we're going is more like a world in your galaxy called Alderaan. Cold in winter, warm in summer, and mountainous."

"Huh. Fancy," Kanan mused. "They have thrantas there, too?"

Sorry, Kanan.

"I have no idea what a thranta is; you'll have to let me know if you see one."

The answer, unfortunately, was no.

"Will do," Kanan replied, throwing off a lazy salute. "In the meantime, we're going to be sitting by a window and a fireplace in a ski lodge near somewhere called 'Whitehorse.'"

"It's in the Yukon territory of Canada," Hannibal explained. "More to the point, it's well after sundown, and in a perfect location to view the northern lights."

"I'm led to believe that the northern lights - and the southern lights, if you're on the other side of the planet - are quite the sight," Kanan offered. "They're basically what happens when charged particles from this system's sun collide with gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere. The most common color for the lights - also called the aurora - is green, but other color variations can happen depending on what gas particles are doing the colliding."

"The northern and southern auroras coincide and are roughly symmetrical," Hannibal said. "We likely would have had a good view of the southern aurora last week, were it not for the perpetual light. So, this week, enjoy the aurora borealis and the ski lodge, and the very different sorts of cold terrain there are on this planet."

Yes, he was getting a little smug at Earth's diversity. It was a hobby.

"Earth-Hoth North," Kanan said again. Not at all petulantly. Mostly just for good measure.

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Which is remarkably short and to the point, even if the teachers do seem to be trying to out-smug one another

~~Is the name of my prog-rock band~~

Visit Earth-Alderaan! Watch the aurora borealis! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlXch2EaPCY) Drink hot chocolate and sit by the ski lodge's fireplace! Go outside for a better view if you're feeling extra ambitious and you don't mind the cold!

Once they tag in

I want pretty lights. *pout*

The coffee at the lodge wasn't bad, and Hannibal was enjoying that as he watched the show.

I get pretty sunrise over the harbour, does that count?

Kanan had had it to about here with Earth coffee being so close yet so far away from caf, so he was settling in with a hot chocolate instead, sitting by one of the large windows and looking out at the sky wistfully.

The landscape might've resembled Alderaan, but the sky? The sky was all Ilum.

It made his heart hurt in new and exciting ways.

Mara Jade

Ada Miller

The one sensible thing Ada had done while at work yesterday was try on all the boots in the store, trying to find something besides her cowboy boots that fit comfortably. Something that was warm, waterproof, and she could walk in without feeling like every moment she was stepping on glass.

She'd found a pair of cute purple ones that were soft and had been on deep discount for being, well, purple. And the last ones left. She thought they were pretty.

So she was alternating between drinking tons of hot coco by the fire, and darting outside to look at the lights until she couldn't stand it anymore and had to come back in to warm up and repeat the cycle.

Once or twice she was brave enough to pull her mittens off to try and get her phone to take decent video to send to her friends and family. Maybe next she was gonna have to save up for some of those fancy gloves you could use with your phone.

It's better than drizzle in Detroit!

It was hard for Hannibal to miss that. But since Kanan seemed to be the type who spoke best with minimal prompting, he just sat nearby and looked at him expectantly.

"I'm glad to see you can enjoy this week more," Hannibal said, handing her a new hot chocolate on one of her trips in.

Yes, Kanan knew that Hannibal was watching him. That didn't mean Kanan was going to jump up to volunteer anything. Not right away, at least. He quietly sat and drank his hot chocolate for a few minutes before finally speaking, quietly.

"I've seen a lot of skies in my life," he shared. "There's no sprawling nebula to this one, no asteroid belt visible to the naked eye from where we're sitting. But this still reminds me of somewhere I went to, once."

Ada shrugged one shoulder, pulling off her hat to shake her hair out before grabbing the hot chocolate. "Never had t' wear shoes b'fore I came here," she said simply, blowing on the drink. "Had t' find fluffy boots so they didn't hurt so much t' wear more'n an hour. Why do shoes weigh so much? S'like wearing rocks."

"The easiest way to make them durable is to make them heavier," Hannibal said. "You can find lighter shoes, but many might be more expensive. And in winter, your feet would still be cold, I'm afraid."

He was not going to suggest Crocs, no.

"And those of us who wear them practically from birth seldom think others might not have. I apologize." He gave her a little bow. "Perhaps we can find some places to go that won't require them."

"Good memories?" Hannibal asked.

Kanan paused for a moment before venturing, "Bittersweet. There isn't much left of the place that I'm thinking of, anymore."

The Empire would have certainly seen to that.

Hannibal nodded; he could relate to aspects of that, at least. "What was it like when you were there?"

"Cold," Kanan offered with a soft huff of a laugh. "Beautiful and deadly. I complain about the cold in places like this, but this is nothing like Ilum was. Outside, the spires of ice put those ones in Antarctica to shame."

And inside, in the caves, were the crystals.

Edited 2017-02-01 00:29 (UTC)

"It sounds lovely," Hannibal said. "And skies like this?"

Kanan raised a hand to make a little so-so gesture.

"These ones are close," he shared, "but Ilum skies were something you'd have trouble finding a parallel to. Even out beyond the lights, you could see the huge arm of a nebula, and the meteorites..."

Force, Ilum had been beautiful.

Kaylin Neya

Kaylin was enthralled by the aurora borealis and even happier that she could watch from inside while drinking hot chocolate.

"Apart from this island's travels, I've never been from my own solar system," Hannibal said. "I would love to visit someplace like that. It sounds remarkable."

"It was remarkable, before the Empire tore it apart," Kanan agreed, shrugging his shoulders with a sigh. "Twenty-five thousand years of history, and they strip-mined it. You can see scars on the planet's surface from space. Bit less remarkable, now."

Jedi history in particular, of course.

"Did they intend to scar it, or did they simply not care?" Hannibal asked.

"They didn't care," Kanan sighed. "Like almost everything they touch, if it's useful, they'll take all they can and then move on, consequences be damned. There's a whole galaxy out there to keep taking from, after all.//

And Ilum had the kyber.

"Then again, they could have been making a statement, too."

So they were Republicans?

"This is ours, and we leave our mark?" Hannibal guessed.

Dictators were dictators, no matter where you went.

"Some of that." Kanan frowned a bit. "And, I imagine, some more of that purge they'd been so bent on completing. Scrape every last trace of the Jedi from the Galaxy. Starting with their most sacred places."

Nothing in the Galaxy had been quite so sacred as the crystal caves of Ilum, after all.

"Mm." Hannibal thinned his lips in distaste. "That is unfortunate. The loss of such history is always regrettable."

"I paid attention for as long as I was able without attracting attention," Kanan sighed, looking up at the sky tiredly. "But after a while, hearing about murdered Masters and fallen temples got to be too much. There's only so much peace a person can hold on to while the entire Galaxy is closing in for the kill."

"Best to concentrate on yourself, lest you become completely overwhelmed," Hannibal said.

"Yeah. Overwhelmed wasn't a state of affairs that I could afford to fall into," Kanan sighed. "Not then, not now."

A beat.

"Maybe now, I suppose. More than before, anyway."

"The island can be good for that," Hannibal said.

When it wasn't trying to kill you in exciting new ways.

"It can be," Kanan agreed. "When it isn't hell-bent on completely destroying a person's worldview. Though I suppose that ties into being able to feel overwhelmed without having to watch your back all the time, too."

At least somewhat.

"True," Hannibal said. "And the only scars it tends to leave are psychological."

Not that those couldn't be deadly themselves.

"You say that like that isn't a big deal," Kanan noted, smiling wryly at Hannibal before turning his attention back to his hot chocolate. "That's a dangerous proposition all on its own."

"If it weren't a big deal, I would have to find another occupation," Hannibal said. "But those sorts of scars are less likely to be immediately fatal."

Not unlikely, but less.

"I suppose they are," Kanan agreed, sighing. "For the most part, anyway."

Somewhere in a galaxy nowhere near here, the ghost of Padmé Amidala, who had apparently died from complications of a broken kriffing heart after childbirth, was very disgruntled and she didn't know why.

"And when they become problematic, that's what I'm here for," Hannibal said, smiling just a little.

"Job security," Kanan replied, smiling faintly. "Just sit back and let the island do all the hard work of creating a client base for you."

"It's a minor miracle there isn't a booming industry of psychiatrists in Fandom," Hannibal said, chuckling.

"Well, considering how stubborn most of the population is, I'm halfway surprised you get any business at all, in spite of the traumas," Kanan confessed.

"There are a good number fewer than there probably should be," Hannibal acknowledged. "Modern Earth culture still has somewhat of a stigma against needing psychological help."

"Well, there's that idea that just because something is going on in your own head, you should be able to be the master of it," Kanan replied, wrinkling his nose. "Which isn't really how anything works, but there are entire cultures that build themselves up around the idea. Mind over... mind, I guess."

Passion, yet...

"The mind is a pretty slippery place, though."

"It is, yes," Hannibal agreed. "And the brain is an organ susceptible to illness, as any other in the body. But so long as such illness is seen as a weakness..." He shrugged.

Well, he'd have both a job and a more interesting life, for starters.

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Discovering Earth | Friday, period 2

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