livingartifact

People'd be less impressed by the thrantas if they knew how karking stupid they were. Yeah, Jack had flown one once or twice as a kid; it was hard to grow up on this planet without it. But he viscerally remembered the stupid look in the thing's eyes, the way it would get distracted.

And his dad, grumbling about the wasted money the day after. Sitting in a chair at the medcenter, waiting for the kolto patches to be removed from Jaq's arms.

It'd been a long day out here. There wasn't much left of the town he'd grown up in. It'd been relentlessly renovated, older buildings removed and replaced with new, prettier ornate synthstone. If he had to take a guess, he assumed the people he'd grown up with had been priced out of the neighborhood.

Sorry, 'moved to more suitable housing'. It was Alderaan, after all.

And then they'd headed out, towards the mountains, a little more like the hiking trips they took back on Earth. But the mountains were taller and more majestic, and every once in a while, a thranta herd would come out from behind a snowy peak, and fly past the sun, and the sunlight would reflect on its wings, and Jack-- well, Jack wanted to grab a pebble and throw it out there with the Force. See if he could nail one.

( But he wasn't the only one there, and he knew it was an immature reflex. )

[[ nfb due to distance, can be open for comms/phone calls/messages ]]

The news had come in last night, and by 'come in', Jack meant that a single text message had rolled in from Trent at around 3 AM. He'd been the only one to get it - which made sense, because he was the only one who was always awake at 3 AM and everyone knew about it. And then he'd laid there, on the vaguely comfortable hotel bed, staring at the ceiling.

Wondering if he should wake up Dane, or if he needed to come up with something to say to Trent on his own.

In the end, he just texted back. Something something sorry. And an offer, to which he'd gotten no reply.

So it wasn't until morning, with him and Dane stuffed into a booth somewhere in the hotel restaurant, that he ( said it out loud. )

[[ nfb due to distance, can be open for phone calls/texts. ]]