Fwurg

[Mercury]

The Jedi gardens were a tranquil and immaculately kept park north of the Jedi Temple, hidden in a dome of its own to keep the bright light used to keep the trees and plants fed from leaking into Unity City. During the simulated night though, the lamps turned off and the enormous dome opened its windowpanes, allowing a clear view of the galactic sky above Unity City.

Flanked on both sides by hills leading up to the side wall of the dome, it's northern side featured a large lake with a carefully managed stream running through the park up towards the lake, various bridges and stepping stones leading elegantly across.

The park was split up into various smaller gardens, some open planes of grass, others forest-like and even some rock gardens, but many featuring small benches to sit and take in nature, statues or even small fountains or waterfalls. The strange plants in the park came from planets all over the Union, giving everyone a corner which reminded them of home, and various smaller and bigger wildlife graced the area with their presence.

The different individual gardens were connected by carefully kept paths underneath a canopy of leafs, casting soft shadows from the lights above and allowing people to have a private conversation while enjoying the mesmerising beauty of the park.

The gardener and gamekeeper and his family kept a small farm near the main south entrance leading into the Jedi temple, from where him and his wife, with the assistant of some gardening droids, kept a careful eye on the park to make sure its balance was maintained and its paths remained immaculate.

All in all the garden was a place of great beauty and it was a favourite spot for the Jedi to meet with one another, chat, enjoy the park and meditate.



((OOC: The garden is intended as a place where Jedi can have casual meetings in a relaxed setting without having to face challenges or problems.))

[Salia]

The park was normally tranquil and several Jedi had found their spots to meditate and focus their thoughts - some had been given instructions by their masters to meditate on deep philosophical problems and others were pondering the deeper meaning of their existence and their connection with the Force.

Salia did not appear to be one of those though. The young Twi'lek girl had instead found the stone path leading through the park to be a perfect track for cartwheeling and she felt it important to let everyone know which way she was oriented by going "wheee!" every time she was upside down.

Suddenly she stopped in front of one of the Jedi mid cartwheel, balancing precariously in a handstand and causing her loose white top and knee length skirt to slide down slightly, though never enough to expose her - not that it'd matter as underneath she wore a shiny white bodysuit that covered her from the neck down, with a matching headdress covering her lekku, leaving only her face exposed. As it too was white, her huge blue eyes stood out all the more as they stared at the Jedi.

"What are you doing...?" she queried curiously.

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

Two unblinking green faceted eyes belonging to a being that looked otherwise mostly human looked back to the blue eyes. If Salia tried her best, she might just see the small twitch in one of his facial muscles. A few seconds later, a small frown appeared on the face.

"You sure are energetic..."

That morning, Khalash had gone to the gardens to meditate in silence, hopefully getting closer to the Force inside of him. It was not really in his nature to do so either, but he was determined to become an example for his people and suffer all hardships that had to be suffered. For a change, he had fared pretty well at the beginning of the day, but then someone had to start woo-hoo-ing every damned second and it was breaking his concentration.

[Shebi Ajava]

'My own feelings are not relevant on this.'

Wheee!

'It will not do for me to go.'

Wheee!

'I should let others do this.'

Wheee!

'Wheee! is not a relevant function', the veolian padawan thought to herself while she slowly joined the different partitions of her brain. She couldn't yet remember when she was, let alone which day it was. As she joined the many partitions of her brain, 'Twelve this time...mother would be proud', she focused on the auditory impulse she kept receiving for the past few minutes. But now it had suddenly stopped.

As soon as she joined her optical cortex, she slowly opened her eyes. She could feel the distinctive burning in them. 'Ugh, not again. The one trick my grandmother thought me, and I even fail at it.' She could barely make out her surroundings through the blue haze slushing through her optical cortex.

'Roughly seventeen hours and forty minutes', another rejoined part of her brain informed her. 'Ask master Screetor what his opinion on this matter is', she received, as yet another part of her brain connected to her consciousness.

"What are you doing...?"

Suddenly, her concentration collapsed, and all strands of Shebi Ajava's consciousness snapped into place. She clearly remembers sitting down, yesterday evening, glad she could take the night off this time. Unlike other species, Hemet Veolians did not sleep -- a fact that was not missed by Jedi Master Screetor.

Curiously, she walks toward the source of the question, completely forgetting that her eyes still glow with a very bright blue hue.

[Salia]

"You two have funny eyes!" the girl observed "Are you brother and sister? You don't look alike, but one of my teachers said yesterday that just because two people look alike it doesn't mean they are related." she knew

"Can you use your glowing eyes to see in the dark? That seems really useful to me because this one time it was dark and I couldn't see anything and then I bumped my toe and it hurt!" she states as if to warn the other two of a potential danger

"Do you even have toes?" she inquired curiously "Not everyone has toes, and not just because they lost them somewhere but because they weren't born with any, but they can still walk because their legs work differently." she nodded firmly

"You two are different too, but you both have funny eyes so that is exactly the same except that they are completely different. So are you family?"

She looked expectantly at the two Jedi.

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

For a while, Khalash just wondered at Salia's ability to say so little with so many words. Then he turned his head to look at the other person she was referring to. As soon as he realizes which person Salia meant, Khalash starts laughing. Could the girl really be that dense? A couple of years ago, the girl's remark would have been a grave insult to him, but right now it only seemed hilarious.

After -hopefully- meeting eyes with Shebi Ajava, Khalash gives the woman a slight nod and a bit of a confused look. This was one way to start a conversation, Khalash guessed. Besides meditation, he had also been given the assignment to socialize a bit more. Since he had failed miserably on the meditation, why not try the other assignment?... But why a Veolian? Was this a test of some kind?

"To be honest, girl, you two seem more alike to me with the blue eyes and such. Wouldn't you agree?"

With his last words, he turned his head slightly towards Shebi Ajava, in order to direct this question at her as well.

"Aaaaaand no. We're not.... siblings."

[Shebi Ajava]

The scene unfolding in front of her sparked a laugh in Shebi Ajava.

She walked over to the duo, one azarya looking a bit out of place, and a small twi'lek, currently upside down.

Directing her attention to the twi'lek, "No dear, we are not family. I'm a veolian, and he is an azarya."

"Hello", she looked at the azaryan, "if you want a quiet place to meditate I can tell you somewhere better."

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

Nebesnogo had taken the evening off to go flying trough the gardens of the jedi temple. By his second tour of the pond he found a big frog sitting on the grass net to the pond. “Hello there comrade frog.” he said a he hoovered a some distance from the creature. He landed and the frog hopped away from Nebesnogo.

He laughed and made his own version of a frog hop and hopped after the frog. “Njet comrade frog. I have you now.” he said as he captured the croaking frog just before it jumped into the water. Nebesnogo then lied down on his back careful to not squish his wings holding the frog above his head.

After playing with the frog for a bit he noted someone cartwheeling down the track. Deciding to see who that was and why they would be standing on their hands he took of and flew after them with the frog still in his hands.

After a few moments the other person vanished behind a bush and stopped shouting and started talking to someone. Using that to catch up he flew over the bushes seeing the person who was cartwheeling standing on her hand together with a jedi he did not know and Shebi Ajava. “Privet, comrades what is going on?” he asked hovering somewhere behind Shebi Ajava.

[Salia]

The girl looked at Shebi Ajava a moment, then back at Khalash

"Nah, I look nothing like Aveolian, her head is on top instead of near the ground and she has more lekku, though they are smaller, but size isn't everything except when you have to fit into something because then when you are too big you don't fit, and Aveolian is much bigger than me and also her feet are below, so we're different." the girl observed from her upside down position.

Spotting Nebesnogo approach, she waved, something she probably should not have done standing on her hands as the girl suddenly began tipping over to the side where she had lifted her hands.

"whoah"

She let out as she rebalanced herself, putting both hands safely on the ground.

"Hello there!" she stated happily to Nebesnogo. "These are my friends Aveolian and Anne Azarya! We're talking about things that are different. You seem to be different too, so you can join in!" she nodded firmly as if this was her decision and everyone had better take note of it.

[Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka]

Oh boy. Was this girl this dense or was she just being silly? Khalash really didn't know what to think of this. He had to admit that the girl's observations about the Veolian were quite funny. He started to imagine what it would look like for the Veolian to crawl into something and then get stuck for the reasons Salia had mentioned. Khalash nodded at the Veolian's greeting, but shrugged as she offered to lead him to another place of meditiation. Perhaps another time.

Then some strange creature appeared flying behind the Veolian. Well, that obviously concluded his meditation for the day. Khalash wanted to reply to his question, but the upside-down girl had already answered his question, Resulting in Khalash bursting into a fit of laughter. Anne.. Azaryan... Seriously? He looked at the Veolian and shook his head.

"Well... 'Aveolian', I don't think you've improved the situation much, what do you say? Heh."

Then Kahalash looked back at the creature who had recently joined them as he tried to get his laughter back in check.

"Hahahaha. Sorry to burst your bubble, upside-down girl, but you mixed up my name and my species there. The name's Khalash. Khalash Shiaraz Azara-ka. Khalash will do though... And yes, I' m an Azaryan."

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

Nebesnogo flew a bit closer seeing that they were being nice.

"Ow that makes more sense because I know her name is Shebi Ajava." he said indicating towards Shebi with his frog.

"Its nice to meet you mister Khalash and upside-down girl. My name is Nebesnogo Sveta I am a Mudry from the planet of Darya." He looked at his hands. "And this is Comrade Frog he is a frog I found him near the pond." He said holding out the amphibian so the others could get a good look at the wriggling creature.

He then turned his attention to the Twi'lek girl still standing on her hands. "Is it not easier to stand on your feet than on your hands?"

[Shebi Ajava]

Shebi Ajava looked at Khalash, then at Nebesnogo and the upside-down girl, and back an Khalash.

"Yes, Anne Azaryan", she joked, " but it seems you will have your hands full with these children, while I get to walk out of here. Next time, take me up on my offer."

Shebi started to walk away, clearly not in a hurry.

[Salia]

"Oh..." Salia seemed confused a moment as Khalash explained his real name "That's okay too. With so many species and different cultural customs and common names, it's surprising this doesn't happen more often." she noted

"But I'm not upside-down. My name is Salia and I am a Twi'lek" she explained, as if the two lekku on her head required more clarification. "Actually, you all are upside down and I'm the right way up, because we are on the pole of the planet. All planets have poles, but I think usually only two and sometimes they move around a lot, but I don't think that is the case on Unity because I can't stand on my hands when the ground is shaking and then I fall and hurt myself, but I'm not falling now so the poles are probably pretty stable."

She looked at the frog Nebesnogo was holding with a look of surprise "Wow, neat!!" she called out, way too loudly "It's got the same name as its species so you never confuse one with the other! Standing on your hands is easy though because hands and arms are exactly like feet and legs, except that they are on the other side of your body but if you are upside down, they are the other way around anyway, and they are called differently but it is not like a species and a person because arms aren't a species... at least I don't think they are. They do sell them in the city centre though, I saw a salesman who was trying to sell them." she nodded seriously "I don't think you should sell people's body-parts, because they need them. If someone sold my arm, I'd always fall over when standing on my hands and that'd be no fun at all!"

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"No that not right. Down is the way you fall when you stop flying." Nebesnogo says with conviction and he lands to demonstrate the effect. "And why are you wearing shoes on you feet if you say there hands? Because shoes go on feet not hands." he nod's to show he agrees with himself.
"You can't sell people hands that the police would arrest you. So they can't sell your arm. My momma did once by an arm it was for a droid. The mechanic made it for our droid cause its arm got broken and he needed a new one."

[Salia]

"My feet aren't hands!" Salia explained with shock "They're feet. And my hands are hands. And my lekku are both lekku." she knew. "I saw it myself though, they had this huge sign, it was really big like as big as a Rancor, only not as scary, because Rancors are really scary and I saw one once and then I ran away really fast and I hid, but then it turned out it was just my imagination so luckily nobody got hurt, but it was still pretty scary. Have you ever seen a Rancor? I think if one were to get out, we'd need a lot of more stores like the one I saw in the city because a lot of people are going to be needing spare bodyparts like your droid so I guess in that case it would sort of be okay except that people shouldn't sell bodyparts that belong to someone else, because that is sort of like stealing except it isn't stealing because you aren't taking it you are just selling it, but I still think they should just shut down the armsdealer in the city because it is wrong."

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Arms dealer... Ohh I know he does not sell arms." he said now realising what the word meant. "That person sells weapons. He uses one of those confusing words that means two things at the same time." he said sounding frustrated about those words.
"But if those are your hands why are you standing on them? Hands are made for holdings things, like Comerade Frog, not for standing on." he says still not understanding.

[Salia]

"If they sell weapons they shouldn't say they sell arms, that does not make any sense. Words shouldn't mean different things then it is confusing!" she knew.

"I can stand on my hands though." she nodded firmly, rolling from her handstand to her feet though. "I'm not standing on my hands any more, can I hold him now?" she asked a bit unsure "I promise I'll be extra careful!" she said as she rolled her Lekku together.

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

As Nathan stepped into the gardens he took a deep breath. He looked around at the beautifull garden. He spotted a large tree and started to walk towards it. As he sat down under the tree he noticed two small aliens. One had wings the other stood on its hands. He overheard them talking about something called 'Comrade Frog'.

The one standing one its hands rolled to its feet and asked if she, because her voice sounded slightly too high pitched to be a boy, could hold what he assumed was this 'Comrade Frog'. Then he noticed the small creature in the winged ones hands. Nathan had never seen such a strange creature, but then again he had never seen any of the three spicies he was looking at before. Logging on to the closest wireless network he looked all three up. He learned the winged one was a Mudry, the creature he was holding was called a frog and the remaining was a young Twi'lek.

A little unsure what to do he continued to observe the two as he relaxed his back against the tree.

[Nebesnogo Sveta]

"Sure you can hold him. Just be careful he does not slip out of your hands. He is a bit slimy." he says holding up the frog to Salia to who he now had to look up too.

"I know my big brother told my father this many times. But he said he like the name Sveta Firearms better than Sveta Guns." He says remembering a discussion his brother had with his father many times when his brother was the age Nebesnogo was now.

"So umm.. what do you think of Comerade Frog?" he says while wiping some of the frog slime he had on his hands of on his pants now that she was holding the frog.

[Salia]

"He is slimy!" she nodded as she took the creature from Nebesnogo, the creature slipping in her gloved hands a little, but she managed to hold it gently against her chest with one arm, petting it's amphibian head with the other.

"And it looks a little bit like Master Screetor" she decided as her Lekku uncurled behind her head. "Why is there a droid staring at us?" she used her head to motion to Nathan as her hands were busy "Droids shouldn't stare, its rude and sometimes when I stare, they say that too even though I'm not a droid."

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

As Nathan observed as the frog was exchanged between the two, he heard the Twi'lek call him a droid. It was not very strange as he thought about it, his cyborg body looked like the droids they used outside the STF, who purposefully designed their droids NOT to look Astrian. But since they had noticed him he desided to join the conversation.

He stood up and walked towards the two. Towering above them at his 2,20 meters tall, he looked down upon them.
"I can understand your confusion, but I am not a droid little Twi'lek." he said in a deep metalic voice. "I'm an Astrian from Stellaria and I apologise for staring but this is the first time I have left my home planet and I had never seen Twi'leks or Mudry before." he tried to make his voice sound as friendly as possible as he had no facial expression to show his good intentions.

[Salia]

"Hello Anastrian, my name is Salia!" she stated happily, not at all intimidated by his droid-like appearance it seemed "And this is Comrade Frog" she held out the frog to show him. "He's slimy!" she added "But not as slimy as slime eels, because you can't hold those and you shouldn't actually because they are fish and fish can only breathe underwater so you cannot take them to bed with you because then they drown even though there is no water and actually because of it. You can buy special suits for them to breathe though I think, because when I was on this one planet where they had a strange atmosphere, I wore a suit so I could breathe and wouldn't die and it was sort of uncomfortable, but it was also nice that I didn't die because dying is not any fun. Anyone want to play hide and seek?" she inquired.

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

"Actually my name is Nathan." his voice sounded amused. "As for enviroment suits, I don't really know anything about that. You see I am a cyborg and most of my body is mechanical. That's why I look like a droid to you. It also allows me to survive in atmospheres others can't and I can even survive in the vacuum of space."

He then turned his attention to Comrade Frog.
"hmm... It does look slimy Salia."

Nathan looked around, making the Mark of Regret on his shoulder visable to the others.
"I wonder if Serinas gardens where this beautifull." he said sillently to himself.

[Salia]

"Oh, okay, Nathan is a good name too. I saw a cyborg once before but he did not look anything like you..."

Suddenly Salia inhaled loudly as if in a happy moment of surprise realisation.

"You'd be able to use the arms-dealer!" she called out a tad too loud... a lot of what Salia said was a tad too loud to be honest. "Because you have a mechanical body and then you'd be able to replace your arm if you wanted to because it is mechanical, but you don't have to if you don't want to, but you could and then the arms-dealer would have work, except he actually makes weapons, but then he can become a real arms-dealer instead of a confusing one and it is always better to not be confusing because if you are confusing you have to sit down and quietly and slowly explain everything that happened and then every time you want to tell about something they say 'stop' and you have to get back to the main story but you already told what happened there and now you want to tell something else, but you can't because it is not allowed because you have to explain the confusing part first, so it is better to be clear the first time so when the arms-dealer starts selling arms it will make much more sense!"

Comrade Frog croaked in agreement: "Ribbit!"

[Nathan Miodrass Asillion]

"Huh?" Salias story pulled Nathan out of his thoughts.

"Oh, yes. Well we do have cybernetics merchants back on Stellaria, but they sell more than just arms." he said. "They also sell legs, eyes, ears, vocal implants, full bodies... Pretty much every body part exept internal organs, brain implants and artificial spinal collums. Those three are custom made and are paid by the government during growth or by insurance after Astrians get their final replacement when we are fully grown." he explained.

He turned his head quizicaly as he realised something.
"But I don't think they would start selling their goods here. To few people would want to buy that here, to expensive to transport it all." he nodded. "But maybe in the future when more Astians live on Unity."