video; optional action

[nulliverse]

Who: Celeste Blackwell and the fleet
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Can be found sulking around the SS Golden kitchen
When: Feb 6, evening

[The last time this girl appeared on the network, she was in quite a hot rage, so it might be odd to see her looking quiet and pensive now. Sad, despite a slight smile, to those who really look closely.]

I've been away for awhile - don't ask, I don't quite understand it myself - but apparently I've come back just in time for Valentine's Day to be around the corner. And normally I'd be the last person to bring up something like this, but...

[But what? She doesn't say, just asks her question.]

... have you ever been in love? What were they like? What really made you think "My god, this is the one" when there are so many other people out there who might've been just as good? And I mean, if you're in love right now and you still want to answer, it needn't be past tense. I suppose - I just don't quite understand this either, I never have, but that doesn't stop it from happening.

[She appears to be at a loss for a moment, before shaking her head and chuckling to herself.]

My mates would laugh themselves sick if they could hear me now.

[And that's all.]

Comments

[video]

[imahologram]

Is Valentine's Day some kind of romantic holiday where you're from?

["Valentine's Day" means about as much to Leia as "Life Day" might to Celeste. But the questions she asks are tantalizing ones, and Leia's willing to indulge today.]

It happened over a while. Years, when you come right down to it. I wasn't looking for anything like that, and he was...a cad, really. A prickly, sarcastic cad. [A wry little smile.] He still is sometimes--but he has a good heart in there.

There are plenty of other people out there, but they haven't seen the things we have. They don't know me like he does. And...well, that matters.

What about you?

[video]

[nulliverse]

Well - all holidays are so commercial where I'm from that they can be rather hard to put much stock in at the best of times. But yes, romance is the idea.

[Somehow, this is her favourite story yet. A prickly, sarcastic cad. She loves it, the honesty and the acknowledgement of flaws and the fact that time and shared experience made it real. Not just a magical feeling. This is what she'd want to see in romantic movies, what would finally get her watching them.]

That's brilliant. It honestly is. I don't even like most love stories, which is why it's so silly for me to be asking this, but that's the sort I can get behind. As for me, I've been in love twice - the first was called "some Greek tragedy shit" by a mate of mine when I explained it all to him, so that gives you an idea of how it went, and the second...

[It's the sticky one. The one that prompted her to ask about others.]

... we knew we were on a time limit. It just seemed too good to throw away because of that, or to let pass without trying. I will see him again, someday, but all I can do in the meantime is wait and remember.

[video]

[imahologram]

It's... [And she smiles, shrugging.] Yeah, it is pretty brilliant, when you stop and think about it. Any story where two people find each other probably is, if you look closely enough, but this one's my favourite.

[Not that she's biased or anything, no.]

A time limit--that's rough. I'm sorry. [She can't help thinking of those six months Han was in carbonite, despite the fact that it's not the same. All I can do in the meantime is wait and remember.] I'm guessing you made the best of your time together, though.

[video]

[nulliverse]

Oh lord, yes, we did. We actually moved in together, a couple of eighteen year olds with absolutely no past relationship experience between us. It was mostly because he collected dogs - honestly, you wouldn't believe how he collected dogs, and all massive ones like malamutes and samoyeds - and his flat was turning into a nightmare with all of them crammed in there and no garden to run in.

[She's probably telling far more than anyone other than Caleb and herself could find interesting, and she's aware of it, but she can't stop the silly details and quirks from pouring out. At least she looks happy as she babbles on and on, eyes half-lidded with contentment.]

So we rented an actual house and lived like an actual grown-up couple for awhile. As domestic as you please. If you'd told me six months before that I'd be doing any of that, I'd have laughed in your face.

[imahologram]

But after you met him, and you knew you didn't have forever, you wanted what you could have. Dogs and all.

[There's something admirable in the way it sounds like Celeste faced the inevitable. It takes the sort of clear-eyed courage and determination Leia likes to see in people.]

In your shoes, I think that's the best choice you could have made.

[nulliverse]

[If Leia seemed like a more silly sort of person, Celeste would laugh that off, but she's told the most grounded and mature love story yet. It makes her take pause instead, consider things from that perspective: they weren't swept away by a senseless, impossible dream that dropped them quite cruelly back on the ground when it had to end; they simply made the most of the time they had.]

I suppose you're right. There's not much use in holding yourself back because things end. Everything ends. I did some really mad things in Eudio - I've always had this feeling that I had eons of lost time to make up for and barely enough left to fit it all in - but that wasn't one of them.

[imahologram]

It does--and sometimes it comes before you realize it.

[Talking to Celeste really does hammer that much home.]

So what else did you do in...Eudio? Was that another place like this?

[nulliverse]

In some ways, it was - mostly in the way that people came from all sorts of cross-universes and alternate realities and timelines and all that lunacy. But Eudio recruited people, they didn't just snatch them up, and they offered something in return for the stay. An incentive, some way of changing your life or your world... like the wish you'd make if there were real genies in bottles. And you could leave whenever you liked, even if you hadn't finished your contract but the whole thing didn't seem as worth it as it had before.

[She could go on about the intricacies forever - how you could even change your incentive, which she did many times over as she matured and developed a broader view of the world than her own - but that's not what Leia asked. She asked what people got up to.]

As for what we did... well. It sounds absurd, and people have already told me just how much so since I got here, but Eudio was recruiting people because the city runs on energy fuelled by physical contact and they'd started to run low with only their own people. Intimate contact.

[She's hardly leering or anything, but there's a cheeky edge to her smile.]

[imahologram]

It sounds a little better than here--if you were able to volunteer.

[Though her brows do rise when Celeste explains just what they were doing. When she'd said she'd done some really mad things, Leia was assuming quasi-criminal work, not...that.]

I get the idea. That's...quite a city. [What else do you even say to that? Nice place to visit, but--] It must have been nice to have somebody there, even if you weren't trapped.

[voice]

[falconing]

[ and suddenly, the most indignant of tones, because han solo is definitely not watching this post out of morbid curiosity to see whether or not leia would response, nah: ]

I am not a cad.

[ SORRY WERE YOU LADIES HAVING A MEANINGFUL CONVERSATION ]

NOT HERE 1/??

[sandhate]

[ wait what ]

2/??

[sandhate]

[ oh. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. ]

3/4

[sandhate]

[ NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. ]

4/4

[sandhate]

[ THERE IS A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE. ]

[imahologram]

[C'mon, Han, she can't say "scoundrel" every time.]

But you're fine with "prickly" and "sarcastic"?

[falconing]

Well, I'm not gonna argue with facts.

[ even han solo can admit he is not like

the most social of people tbh ]

I'll contest the rest of it, though.

[imahologram]

Fine. [This is silly, Han.] Then what would you prefer I call you? And don't say "scoundrel"--I've used that one already.

[falconing]

I'm sure you have something less caustic in your vocabulary.

[ :|||||||||| ]

[imahologram]

You were a cad when we first met. Maybe not now.

[There's a smile in her voice.]

"Rascal," I guess, but that makes you sound like a misbehaving pittin.

[falconing]

I -- [ and wait for this because the way han says it, it's truly something to be proud of ] -- have been introducing you as the better half.

[nulliverse]

You sound like a perfect darling, really, from what she's said.

[Call it a hunch that he'll find that a lot more irritating than "cad" and maybe change his tone a little.]

[falconing]

[ that is 100% worse ]

-- no.

[ THAT'S IT

THAT'S ALL YOU GET CELESTE ]

[nulliverse]

[SUCCESS.]

Well, if you're so finicky about semantics, how would you describe yourself?

[falconing]

[ . . . ]

Well, it's not up to me.

[ jeez ]

She's the one who can't make up her mind on something positive.

[ IT'S LEIA'S FAULT CELESTE ]

[nulliverse]

Nonsense. Take the matter in hand and make the impression you want to make, don't leave it to others. You've no idea what sort of mess they could make of you.

[And then Celeste just chuckles warmly.]

If it's any comfort, I tend to speak far more harshly of people I care about, and even more so when I love them. Of course there's a line that can be crossed, but it's usually very clear.