(no subject)

[initiates]

Date: August 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings. Now with 200% more People-Seeking lists!
Warnings: None.

You've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities. Now and then around you you might spot paper fluttering in the faint wind from somewhere relatively dry. It looks like a list.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium.

Comments

we can pretend this is before he runs into Han for continuity's sake?

[politicking]

[Even after a month, the weather still isn't something she's accustomed to.

She's better prepared for it now than when she first arrived, certainly; a few purchases, some slight adjustments in her wardrobe, had seen to that. Experience and necessity had seen to that. But preparation hardly implies acclimation. Every so often, she finds herself taking pause, unable to stop images of Naboo (of home) from flooding her mind, unable to stop from contrasting them with her current surroundings. Comfortable warmth versus constant chill. Reliable presence of the sun versus barely any at all, hidden behind perpetual rain. Tranquility versus chaos.

But her attention is pulled away easily when a request for help comes from somewhere nearby. Such ruminations are hardly productive, after all. She's needed elsewhere.

She turns in an instant, a friendly smile already in place. It's a hope, at least, that that will do some good, even if it'd only be honest to acknowledge her limitations from the start.]

I can try my best.

For sure.

[taggingwomprats]

Thanks.

[There's something vaguely familiar about this woman, but he can't place it. So he shrugs the feeling of and offers an apologetic smile and tries to ignore the constant drumming of the rain. He's not sure he'll get used to it (and he's secretly still amazed by all the water, after growing up on a desert planet).]

I'm looking for someone named Han and a woman named Leia - you haven't met them, have you?

o/!

[politicking]

[There's something in the back of her mind. Something that shouldn't be there, has no reason to be there, but pulls with a certain insistence regardless.

It begins the instant "Han" leaves his mouth. Han, who claims to be from the future. Han, who claims the existence of an Empire. Han, who claims...--

In spite of herself, in spite of how she may feel about any of those claims, the pull is stronger. It guides her eyes to search his face, leads her to a double take. For a moment, the briefest moment, she doesn't feel like she's looking at a stranger. Her heart skips a beat as illogical familiarity hits her like a punch to the gut.

But that's what it is, isn't it? Completely illogical. She does her best to shove the thought aside.]

I've met a Han here. [Yet she still can't manage to shake a slight breathlessness from her voice.]

Re: o/!

[taggingwomprats]

[Luke catches that breathlessness, but he's not sure what to make of it. Trouble, perhaps? He blinks and cocks his head to one side.]

Uh, he hasn't gotten himself in any trouble, has he?

[Because knowing Han....

Still, there's something about this woman that seems horribly familiar.]

Oh, right - I'm Luke.

[politicking]

[What she can't shake is only the manifestation of a failed effort to suppress something that only continues to linger. The longer she looks at him, the more that the illogical tugs at her. The more definitive that flashes of her husband become. If it's difficult enough to maintain her bearings as it is, then the introduction is almost enough to obliterate them entirely.

Luke

There are pieces in place. An obvious acquaintance with someone named Han. The name she'd been told. Suggestions of a resemblance so uncanny that it passes simple coincidence.

Pieces, though, don't automatically lead to a conclusion. She'd be unwise to jump to one.

She inhales. Remembers her courtesies. Wills a smile to appear, just as it had before.]

I'm Padmé.

[Her own efforts to steady herself hadn't precluded her from taking note of the expression that had gone along with his question. The sense that she'd been the cause of it. It's up to her now to assuage him.]

He's in no trouble. Not that I know of. [A beat.] I apologize if I may have worried you.

[taggingwomprats]

[He hasn't put it all together himself, yet. He still can't shake the feeling of familiarity, but he's equally sure he's never seen her before in his life. So he presses on and tries to shake that odd feeling at the back of his head.]

Nice to meet you.

[That smile is back and with it comes some relieved laughter.]

Good to hear it. You can never really tell with him.

[Plus, there's a bounty on him.]

Huh - oh, don't worry about it! It's alright anyway.