Fwurg

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

Khalash looked around him as he sat on a bench in the meditation garden. The weather was lovely for the time of year, though maybe a bit cold. There was a slight breeze and people happy went about their life. This was wrong. It was unfair? Why was he in this peaceful place when so many horrible things were going on?

As he mindlessly shifted his position, he wondered if he should try and find some of the people he had met in the academy before he had left. He wondered if they would even recognize him. Probably not, since he had only been here for a couple of weeks until that had happened.

Maybe he should just walk up to one of the groups of people around here and say hi., introduce himself, ask if he could join them. Just walk up there... Sadly, even this proved to be rather difficult for Kahalash at the moment. Ever since he had returned he had difficulties formulating clear thoughts and actually act them out. It was like a hole was left in his mind, even though (ironically enough) in that hole probably had been a lot of his own actual mind. He felt empty, lonely, angry.

And so, Khalash sat.

((OOC: This is the first of my re-introduction threads. If any of your characters have at least the slightest bit of empathy, (s)he might notice that Khalash really needs someone to talk to and/or cheer him up))

[Salia]

As Khalash sat silently in the gardens, he could hear the sound of footsteps approaching fast and at high speed. A Twi'lek girl wearing a white bodysuit raced down the paths holding a large pink sphere.

Stopping in front of the guy, she smiled up at him.

"Hi Anne Azaryan who isn't named Anne!" she greeted him "Do you wanna play ball?"

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

When the girl in white stopped in front of him, Khalash didn't recognize her at first. He was about to ask her if she was lost when the girl opened her mouth... And called him Anna. Now the memories started returning to him. This was the incredibly dense girl who had refused to understand the difference between his name and his race. Khalash had a faint recollection of annoyance when they had first met, a smile still appeared on his face. At least someone had remembered him.

"Damn right I'm not called Anne. The name's Kahalash. I guess I could play ball with you for a bit, it might help me take my mind off of things. On one condition though: you will call me Khalash from now on. Deal?"

It was worth a try, right?

[Salia]

"Sure," Salia stated happily, making some distance and tossing the extremely pink ball at Khalash in a nice little arch. "but if you lose your mind while you have taken it off of things, I am not helping you find it, that sounds way too much like meditation and that is boring though if it were more like a scavenger hunt then I would join because I am pretty good at scavenger hunts though usually its not on purpose, but I do tend to find things by accident, like people to play ball with who are not named Anne but Kahalash, but you knew that already so really I do not have to tell you as you already know though sometimes when people already know things they still need to be told again because they forget like how I already know you should be quiet in class but sometimes I forget, but not like how I already know you should not cartwheel in the hallways because sometimes I do that anyway even though I know I should not because its so much fun but I only do it when nobody is looking because that way nobody knows and when they do not know they cannot scold you because nobody likes getting scolded after all, especially for things like that, but generally for anything really, like accidentally breaking your data-pad for school or forgetting to do your homework or losing your mind or making other people lose their minds, which sometimes happens when I am around but that is really more of a strange coincidence and not at all my fault so you had best keep an eye on your mind in case you lose it too, also do you like dancing?"

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

Does this girl even breathe?

Kahalash was so amazed that he almost forgot to return the ball. He tried to make it not too difficult for Salia to catch the ball. He really had to hold himself back not to throw the ball too fast. He then continued listening to what the girl had to say.

Hm, somewhere inside that whirlpool of words, there were even some hidden truths... Too bad it was only a small bit of wisdom hidden amongst all those other random thoughts. One of those thoughts made her end with a totally irrelevant question about dancing. This girl had the attention span of a goldfish, hadn't she? Maybe if she could focus a little more, she really would have potential.

"I.. Errr... Don't really dance to be honest. Why you ask?"

[Salia]

"Uh, because dancing is -fun-, duh!" she looked at Khalash as if he said something silly. Come to think of it, that did seem to be the girls primary motivation.

Catching the ball, the girl quickly tossed it back at Khalash.

"It's also really easy to learn, but you do have to practice because practice makes perfect even though you do not always have to be perfect but if you chase after perfection you can get XLN's, so you should probably use protection to make sure that doesn't happen because it sounds unpleasant, but when you dance it makes you feel good and everyone likes to feel good especially when people feel sad because then you do not feel good and feeling good makes you feel better so I figure you should probably try some dancing and then I can teach you if you want!"

[Salia]

"Okay, first you stand with your legs spread and your feet pointing outwards, and then you put your arms out slightly and you have to bend your wrists and stretch your hands, like so" she demonstrated "but you have to keep your back straight and look forward and smile, its always important to smile when you're dancing!"

[Salia]

"Come on, you do have to go along and do it, otherwise it doesn't work..." Salia pulled on Khalash' arm impatiently, bounding up and down on her feet besides him while generally being annoyingly in his face with absolutely zero respect for personal space as if the entire concept was alien to the little Twi'lek.

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

((OOC: Yes yes yes, getitng on with it :)))

Khalash had caught the ball, but his mind had been drifting off for a while, so he hadn't at all realized that Salia had been coaxing him into dancing with her. He had just absentmindedly been nodding and making some slightly approving sounds. It wasn't until the girl was right next to him and was pulling his arm that he got back to his senses. He looked down at her with a frown.

"I, err, well, don't think dancing is really my thing. Sorry. Anything else you would like to do? Maybe play tag or something. You're fast, right?"

Khalash hoped that this idea would take Salia's mind off of dancing. If it didn't, he had a foreboding feeling that he would end up dancing anyway...

[Salia]

"Tag is also fun, but I think you are more of the dancing type than the tag type, but we can play tag after I teach you this dance, it is really awesome and it goes with a song about brushing your teeth I think but I do not remember but it was on the holonet once so you can probably find it there and I copied the dance but I gave it my own twist so its more fun because it is important to have fun while you are dancing since having fun is the point of dancing so it is important to have fun and why would you want to do it anyway if it is not fun, right, because that would not make any sense like those upside-down skyscrapers they have on this planet which I do not remember the name of but I think if you are going to be upside down you should just do it, not make a building for it, I mean what is fun about a building, nobody likes buildings though I suppose buildings can be fun to play or live in but that is just because of the playing and living, not because of the building, I mean I suppose a building can be beautiful, but that is not really a reason to put it upside down, and I know that is true because Master Screetor said I am not allowed to put pieces of art in his office upside down even if they are prettier that way but I do not think skyscrapers are prettier upside down, though they would be more fun if they could dance, and they would have fun doing it too, and they are not really dancing buildings either so if they can have fun dancing, you should as well, so come on, just do as I do before someone realises buildings could play tag and then they will be running around all day and nobody could enter because the door was constantly somewhere else!"

Salia took up her position once more, waiting impatiently for Khalash to follow her lead.

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

It really never ended, did it? There was a constant flow of words coming from that girl's mouth and judging from the words he actually managed to hear, there wasn't very much sense in the words either. Then again, what was to be expected form a young girl? Khalash figured someone should teach her to think before she talked. It wouldn't be him though.

Even though Salia was being rather 'convincing' (others would call it forceful) about the entire dancing matter, Khalash really, really wasn't the dancing type, even more so when it was a dance meant for children....

"I... Have tried, and I really did not enjoy it. I don't mind watching you do your dance, but, well... I'm not going to join."

Tact wasn't wasn't one of Khalash's strong points, so he already had to push it not to blatantly say no. He actually started to become a bit frustrated with this girl.

[Salia]

"Awww..."

Salia looked deeply disappointed, looking up at Khalash with her huge blue eyes.

"We can still play ball though, right?"

[Ariana Danacia]

Ariana walked through the gardens and walked past the bench were Khalash was sitting and Salia was running around.

Ariana was used to avoiding human and twi'lek children by now since they displayed too much excitement at the wrong moments. She walked around Salia to try not to attract her attention.

After a moment she stopped and looked around.

"Is that you Khalash? I almost did not recognize you."

Ariana walked towards Khalash and looked at Salia for a moment. "Is this little girl bothering you Khalash? You seem upset."

"I heard the news about the battle on your planet. My condolences for all the family members you lost. I don't want to be rude, but why did you come to Unity? Why didn't you stay to fight on your homeworld?"

[Salia]

"I'm not bothering anyone, we're playing ball, PRRFFFFFFTTT!!" Salia stuck out her tongue during the last part making a face at Ariana, then crossing her arms and looking away, though not without peeking a glance to make sure Ariana knew she had been snubbed.

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

Now Khalash felt almost guilty. Ah well, at least she got the point. That and she hadn't started crying. In the end, this was a good day. Khalash smiled and nodded at Salia's question.

"Of course we can still play ball. I never said I didn't want to, right? Catch!"

This time, Khalash made the ball bounce to the ground once instead of throwing it directly. Then he noticed another familiar face heading for both of them. Kahalash knew he had seen the woman before, but sadly couldn't remember her name.

"Well well. Another familiar face. Though I'm afraid I have forgotten the name that belongs to it. A shame, wouldn't you say? And no, Salia here is not bothering me. Even though she is a bit... active... She has kept me from thinking about the entire situation back home. She's a good girl, really."

If Salia would allow it, Khalash would pat her head a couple of times before continuing.

"As for why I am here, well, our empress has fled our home world and I had been assigned to protect her on the journey back home. Why I am still here now? I had an order form our Mother herself to get back to my training as a Jedi instead of heading back to aid our people. I don't know about her reasons, but I have no doubt that they're well thought through..."

[Ariana Danacia]

"I am Ariana, we met for the mission to protect the Veolian Empress.

Now your empress is safe here on Unity. Will you return to your homeworld if the Jedi choose to get involved in the situation again?"

[Salia]

"Neat!" Salia jumped to catch the ball, tossing it back to Khalash from a bit of a distance. For the moment she seemed - finally - to be done talking, listening quietly to the talk between the Praetorian and Azaryan Jedi. There just -had- to be a catch to the current unexpected silence...