fandomhigh | Diplomacy, Monday, August 29, 2022

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diplomacy

Diplomacy, Monday, August 29, 2022

It had taken Anakin a little bit of time to move the two-story tall steamer chest labeled "SITH" from in front of his door this morning, but it had made a satisfying splash when he'd thrown it into the ocean using the Force.

He swept into his class, robe flapping dramatically around his ankles, and turned to face his students. "Welcome to Diplomacy," he said, ignoring bags as they fell to the ground and him and them. "I was going to start with making sure everyone's on the same page regarding definitions but we have a rather more practical exercise to deal with."

He tucked the small, smoking, bag labeled "Mustafar" behind his robe. "Clearly today is full of information that most people are not, in general, comfortable sharing with strangers. So give me your name, your age, and two ways you have made this incredibly awkward day less so in a diplomatic way."

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"I...I'm Liberty," said Libby, in a very small voice, definitely not her usual excited self when it came to going to classes, mostly because she was feeling all sorts of uncomfortable about the luggage she couldn't seem to escape, the most persistent of which seemed to be 'Banished' and 'Sinner', 'Brainwashed' and 'Abused' and a particularly cruel seeming 'Daddy's Little Disappointment.' It was almost enough that she thought about skipping class entirely and just hiding in her room and claiming she was sick (she just about nearly was, anyway, it wouldn't have even been a lie!), and, as she realized that that she was practically on the verge of tears, she really wished she had skipped this week.

"And I'm....mostly just trying to ignore them."

Clearly, she wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Ignoring is my preferred method," Anakin admitted, neatly sidestepping a compact little "Obi-Wan" bag as it hit the ground and spewed sand everywhere.

Anakin made a face.

"It...seems to be working okay so far, anyway," Libby said, shrugging her shoulders, which now sported a backpack that at least she couldn't read from here. If she could, though, it would just read 'Homesick.'

"Well, it's a fine line between ignoring and not getting concussed," Anakin admitted.

His issues were heavy.

There was a slight pause, followed by maybe the hint of a grin in there somewhere.

"Maybe next time," Libby suggested lightly, "you should make sure everyone's got hard hats."

Anakin laughed. "A diplomat should always be prepared," he agreed.

Gray sidled closer to Libby in case she needed a hug or something.

And Libby looked over at Gray, a little surprised, but also a little grateful, as hopefully the small smile on her face trying to push past all the gloom and sadness would show. She wasn't really sure how she'd feel about hugs right now, but she did appreciate that he seemed to notice that she might need one, especially as a new, prescient case of 'Loneliness/Doesn't Belong' on it showed up at her feet.

Gray gave her a little smile back. He didn't know what the deal with most of her baggage was, but he could have spoken with some authority on the 'Sinner' one if given a chance.

He was trying to figure out what to say when a sleeping bag stamped with 'SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF PEOPLE' fell out of nowhere and landed next to him with a thump. Everyone would assume that was figurative, right?

"Fun day we're having, right?"

That was at least how Libby was taking it, trying to not pay attention to anyone else's luggage, but she'd caught that one, and could only shake her head a little, because that couldn't possibly be true, Gray was great, and just look at him now, trying to make her feel better. Hardly what she'd constitute as sucking the life out of anyone.

He'd even managed to wedge a little bit of a smile out of her as she said, with a sardonic roll of her eyes, "Oh, yeah. The most fun."

Well. He hadn't done it in a couple of thousand years, but...he definitely still worried that being able to do it made him automatically a bad person. Fun stuff.

"Just think," he said, "we could be new." The horror.

Oh, sort of like how being a certain way that didn't immediately fit a very specific mold automatically doomed you unless you tried really hard to squeeze yourself in, anyway?

Mmmm. Nope. Couldn't relate to that.

Just ignore all the bags that seemed to suggest otherwise.

But Libby's eyes widened a little at that perspective, breathing out with a bit of an exaggerate relief, because he made a good point there. But that also made her realize that this was the sort of thing she hadn't really gotten around to warning Charlie about on Saturday, and so her eyes immediately lifted to find her in the classroom, and looked relieved all over again, much more genuinely and not just played up for humor, that she seemed to be taking it amazingly in stride.

Much better than Libby herself was, anyway.

"I think I'd still be in my room, crying up a storm so strong you'd think it was a Second Flood coming if I'd have been shoved into this on only my, what, third day here?"

She shook her head, marveling a little at the short straw the newest students had been drawn on that one, scanning the room for other newer faces to see if there was anyone else to be worried about.

So now was a nice time for that Puts Others Ahead of Herself tote to show up.

Well, Gray was, technically speaking, an abomination that was never meant to exist, but that seemed to play a minor role in his issues. Instead the curse and the problems that resulted from the curse took center stage. Go figure!

"Allie's new, but she seems to be taking it pretty well?" For someone with baggage about executing a guy. "I should check in on Beta." If he could. This backpack was soooooo heavy, it was wearing him out.

He frowned at Libby's new tote, debating whether or not it would be rude to say something about it. Yes? The answer was yes, right?

A lot of things, it seemed, that were, technically speaking, abominations really made Libby wonder if anyone really actually knew what a word like that should mean...

Libby's eyes drifted to who she assumed way Allie by process of elimination and nodded a little. "It probably wouldn't hurt," she said, agreeing about Beta, when she looked back at Gray again. "This one feels almost...mean," a little medical bag popped up on her desk with Too Sensitive and Bleeding Heart on it, and she shook her head a little, "doesn't it?"

Gray jumped to one side as a giant foot locker labeled 'LIABILITY' dropped out of nowhere and landed more or less where he'd been standing. "Let's talk about something else!" he declared. Deflection sounded like a great idea, and not just because it was how he usually dealt with this stuff. "I told you my brother's in town, right? So maybe some day when...not this is happening, we can go flying! Ray won't let you land in the ocean if I get sleepy."

Edited 2022-08-29 19:42 (UTC)

Re: Discuss!

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Re: Discuss!

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Re: Discuss!

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Vi nudged the duffel with the neon pink handprint and terrible sister on it to one side as she shifted closer to Libby, and attempted a not-so-casual kind of shoulder bump.

If it hadn't been for the much more muted colors and the pattern of crosses instead, that terrible sister one could be an interesting companion for Libby's own ungrateful daughter one!

But it was kind of amazing, what a near-hug and an oh-so-subtle shoulder bump could do to make a person feel a little bit better. For a moment, anyway, until the guilt of feeling like she didn't really deserve it started rushing back in.

Still, she leaned in, bumped Vi's shoulder right back, and gave her as strong as a smile as she could muster. It wasn't much, but, hey. It was something.

Vi smiled back. "On the way into class, I saw someone had started a fire on the beach." Isabela and Aphra had enough fuel to keep it going all night, really. "Might be handy."

Charlie smiled at Libby and tossed her a paper airplane that said, "I think you're awesome". The charm she sketched on it made sure it went straight to her.

And, despite all the little guilt-laden and self-doubt inducing little bags and cases, it was hard not to laugh, at least a little, at something like that.

"Yeah, well," Libby countered a little wryly, but her smile was grateful, as she picked up the airplane and gave it a little toss back, her aim probably less accurate given the circumstances. "You've also just met me."

She sat with that a little uncomfortably before her attention shifted entirely over to Charlie with a tilt of her head and asked, "You doing okay with all this? I sort of failed to mention some of their weirder, less fun things that can happen here on Saturday, I'm sorry."

Charlie laughed. "I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character, and even if I sucked at it, today I totally think you're awesome."

She smiled at Libby, "This is not at all how I expected to spend my Monday, but it's not nearly as bad as the time I tried to make lemon meringue pie."

Charlie might just possibly not find her emotional baggage as hard to deal with as most. Give her a few years.

"Do I even want to know?" asked Libby, in a tone that suggested that, yes, actually, she did want to know, very badly actually, please distract her from something other than the incredibly heavy pressure of having failed everyone, most importantly God Himself, while at the same time having to come to terms with the fact that her whole entire life, she'd been a victim of wildly elaborate lies and had been completely, utterly clueless about it the whole time.

Well....

She nudged at a Wavering Faith satchel at her foot.

Not entirely...

"The grass will probably never grow back." Charlie looked amused more than anything else. "I'm sort of the object lesson back home about Gale Girls gone bad - at least in cooking."

She shrugged and the tiny wallet-sized Can't cook that landed on her desk disappeared in a burnt toast puff of smoke. "Gets me out of all the busy baking and cooking around ritual times."

Well. At least there was that. At least, with all her failings, Libby could at least cook, even if....

But no. No, she was good at much more than cooking. She was good at all of it, really. The cooking, the cleaning, taking care of the Littles, being supportive of the menfolk and being a consistent help to the women. She was very good at it, actually, but the only problem was was that it just wasn't enough. She wanted more for herself.

So she gave the look backpack with Selfish on it a bit of a withering look, before her attention was diverted to just a small box, cheekily shaped like some sort of ringbox, which she opened up to find just a single slip of paper that said only Helpmeet.

She softly closed the box, looked back over to Charlie.

"I never really minded helping with the cooking," she said. "Sometimes, it was actually kind of fun. I miss it sometimes; I don't cook as much around here because so many others like to do it, too. But I can see why it'd be nice to get out of it if you don't enjoy it, especially for....rituals?"

Her head tilted, not really sure what Charlie might have meant by that, a small part of her a little concerned about the possibilities there, while all her religious baggage seemed to get just a tiny bit bigger around her.

"You can cook for me anytime," Charlie offered, "I'm all over good home-cooked food."

She smiled at her, already figuring that this girl probably really didn't need to know about rituals for the Gale family. "Long story, but bottom line is a ridiculous amount of people all running into each other in the kitchen while the Aunties order everyone around. I do not mind missing that at all."

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