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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.]

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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.

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.

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.

[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.

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?

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.]

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.

[The reaction gets a cheerful laugh out of her, because truth be told, she was angling for it just a little. It's so sedate and understated, though, that she finds herself taking to Leia even more.]

It isn't as bad as you're imagining, I promise. People could reach their quota by holding hands, hugging, cuddling - quite a lot of people called it Cuddle Town or Cuddle City, so it was hardly Sodom and Gomorrah. But it was a very open-minded environment for those who wanted to explore more intimacy than that.

[Let it be known that Celeste can be positively crude without batting an eyelash; she's keeping her language delicate out of respect for Leia's sedate response, since it only seems fair.]

And it was incredibly normal in more ways than not. I got my first job, my first flat, my first pets... my first boyfriend. I tried out some college courses. It was the most normal my life had ever been, really.

[Sodom and Gomorrah are planets she hasn't heard of, but she can follow along the reference without knowing them personally. Every galaxy must have its equivalents to Jabba's Palace, and so much the worse for it.]

Then I'm glad you had the opportunity to try it out. [She suspects she'd be bored in a situation like that--but she had the luxury of a relatively normal youth.] Especially if your life was so unusual beforehand.

[Not a question so much as an invitation. If Celeste wants to talk about it, she can.]

[In her case, it's mostly growing up with a Catholic mother that gave her such references - not any real belief in them, but the idea of what they are through osmosis. Since Leia seems to understand, at any rate, she nods.]

"Unusual" may be overstating things again. It was mostly a lot of isolation while I was growing up, and virtually no chance to develop social skills with peers. And a good deal of attention on me, nearly the whole world's, while I was hidden away other than a handful of carefully planned events to show me off.

[Once it's out in the air, she wrinkles her nose with a small, inscrutable smile.]

Well, yes, very unusual when you try to describe it. But it's all you know when you're living it, isn't it?

It sounds unusual to me. Of course, I didn't have the most typical childhood myself, so I might not be a fair judge.

[A little smile.]

Just about anything seems normal if you're young enough.

Yes, that's the thing. You don't realize how unprepared you are for the sort of life other people have until you're in it and making a mess of it all. I've really met some absolute saints, though, people who have been more patient with me and given me more chances than I would've done with myself.

[To stave off the sadness she feels at that statement, thinking of how many she'll never see again, Celeste tilts her head curiously and focuses on Leia.]

What was yours like, then? Of course you've every right to be as general as I was, or even more so. Or tell me to sod off if it's a personal sort of story.

The only way to learn how to make a life of your own is to do it--messes and all. It doesn't take a saint to understand that.

[Leia shrugs a little and shakes her head.]

I don't think 'sodding off' will be necessary. [Another term that isn't familiar but whose context makes it immediately understandable.] I was the crown princess of the Royal House of Alderaan. What seemed normal to me was unimaginable luxury for millions of people in the galaxy. But it helped me understand the importance of making sure everyone could make a good life for themselves, whatever that meant for them.

You're royalty? [She's duly surprised, and rather impressed.] That's two princesses I've met here, and not a single one in Eudio or at home. I'm quite surprised, though, you're both very down to earth - it's not what I'd expect from royals. Maybe it's only the English ones that are mad.

[Forgive her for that, but even someone who felt the keener side of stardom for herself can't resist the occasional tabloid.]

[It's Leia's turn to laugh a little.]

Technically speaking--yes. But it's not all that relevant a galaxy away from my people. And most of my work lately has been a little more up close and personal than your average princess', anyway.

I didn't know there were any other princesses here. What's her name?

A lot of people in the fleet have said that. That what they are isn't relevant here, whatever it is they are. And it tends to be the sort of thing that someone could still be very arrogant and impossible about if they wanted to be, so I stand by what I said - people here really are down to earth.

[She pauses for a second.]

Although I suppose that's not really an apt expression in any way, speaking of irrelevance. I'll need to think of a new one.

Oh, the other is named Margaery Tyrell. She's much more formal than you, very how do you do, more poise than seems quite natural... but she's still very warm and friendly for all that. It seems like a lot of might be how she needs to be, rather than her pure nature.

Fair enough. [Celeste never saw what kind of princess she was when Alderaan was more than a scattered diaspora of survivors--and admittedly, Leia can be pretty imperious when she needs to be.] And since we spend part of our time standing on the earth, you can probably keep the phrase.

[That "earth" brings to mind a specific planet is still a strange thought for her.]

Mm--I know who you mean. She's very polished. [That she was nobility, Leia had known, but they hadn't discussed royalty.] Nice girl, though.

I must admit, I may be biased by the sheer number of people I've met who'd take any excuse - the same excuse with different variants, really, which could make it better or worse - to hold themselves over others. But that's something my world suffers from in spades; it may not be so bad elsewhere.

[It takes her a moment to separate planet Earth from the idea of feet being planted on "earth," but she does get what Leia means. It was probably too much to hope for, the idea that they could touch down on Earth itself, or that it would be her Earth even if they did.]

Polished, yes, that's exactly it. But extraordinarily genuine for being so polished. She's quite unlike anyone I've met before.

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