meanwhile, on the ss babysitting duty

[resnipstance]

Who: Ahsoka Tano, you
Broadcast: Video
Action: OUT AND ABOOT
When: 31st

ACTION
[Ahsoka is wandering around outside with her usual air filtration mask on, but something is different-- obviously different. This isn't the sixteen-maybe-seventeen year old girl of yesterday. This is a pre-teen. And she seems lost.]

... Skyguy? ... Master Kenobi? I know you guys are around! You can come out now...! "Prank the padawan" isn't funny any more...

[She shudders.] This planet is giving me the creeps.

VIDEO
[The video is simple: a young, familiar alien graces the screen, except... something's off. Way off. It's not just that her clothes are different-- she's shorter, horns smaller, too. When she talks, her voice is more high pitched, and the cadence different too. Less... calm.]



Hey! Is everyone just okay with the fact that we can't go outside without air filters?! What sort of condition is this for people to live in? What's being done to help the local inhabitants? Or move them off-world?

I need to speak to the person or people in charge! Immediately.

Comments

[resnipstance]

I just woke up on some ship here! I was getting some shut-eye on the Twilight on our way to our next mission and then-- all of a sudden I wake up on a different ship!

I thought it was a prank at first... or some kind of hazing ritual.

[experiencepoints]

Well... Okay, don't worry too much. In my experience, you'll probably only be here a day or two. A week at the most, I think.

[resnipstance]

A week? We can't wait that long. There are people in the Bestine Sector who need our help!

[experiencepoints]

It's okay. It's... a little complicated, but you can think of it like a little vacation outside of time. No time is passing back home while you're here.

[resnipstance]

Nice try. But I'm pretty sure time doesn't work that way.

[experiencepoints]

It doesn't. I'm oversimplifying to avoid freaking you out, and that is truthfully the basic effect of what is happening.

[resnipstance]

[If the pout is anything to go by, she doesn't seem happy with that. But she reluctantly accepts it. Petulantly:]

I wouldn't freak out.

[experiencepoints]

If you are half as excitable as you seem, then yes, you would absolutely freak out.

[resnipstance]

[WOW]

I can be not-excitable!

[Whose point are you proving here, Ahsoka.]

[experiencepoints]

[between that and the 'not a child' comment, I'm noticing a pattern.]

I find myself doubting that.

[resnipstance]

Fine. Doesn't matter. I'll just find out from somebody else.

[experiencepoints]

Okay- Look, if you're definitely going to do that, I'll explain more completely, just... Last warning, you really, seriously don't want to know.

[resnipstance]

I'm tough. I can take it.

[experiencepoints]

Okay.

You've been here for a while- A few months now, I think. That's how I knew your name. We're friends. You're normally older. Several years older. You've been regressed physically and mentally to a child. It happens to people in places like this- It happened to me a couple times, too.

Anything you have going on back home is irrelevant because it's already happened, you've just been reset to a point where you don't remember it happening yet. All there is for you to do here is to ride it out until it wears off and you're your proper age again.

[resnipstance]

[The explanation goes by pretty quickly. And Ahsoka isn't dumb, and it lines up with what Padmé told her, but the really important take away here is--]

Wait. You mean I'm a time traveler?

[experiencepoints]

No. You've just been hit with a status effect.

[resnipstance]

Well, it sounds like the same thing if you ask me.