Zonama Sekot, Friday Fandom Time

[weetuskenraider]

She'd promised to try and make it back to Fandom at some point soon, but the way she was caught up in a particularly tangled set of negotiations at the moment Tahiri wasn't sure if that was going to happen. And it wasn't even as if it was some kind of huge, civilization-endangering crisis, just a thousand tiny details that neither side seemed to be willing to concede.

It was hard to be too frustrated, though, when a good number of those points of conflict were kind of funny if you were Tahiri.

Which was why she was relaxing in what amounted to the living room of her little cliff dwelling, reviewing notes on her datapad and chuckling softly.

[OOC: Open for calls/texts/what have you, whee. SP until evening though!]

Comments

[weetuskenraider]

Oh sure, make me have to elaborate on the things I randomly make up. "Well." Tahiri took a breath and went on at some fast-paced length about the ritual importance of water to one group of refugees (and how she sympathized, having grown up on Tatooine).

"Which is a little bit of a problem when we've got another group from a place that flooded a lot and has an almost superstitious fear of being too close," she concluded."

[endsthegame]

And this is why we don't give Ender these kind of ideas. He chuckled. "So it's a matter of finding a water hole that makes for a decent compromise," he said. "Not too close, not too far..."

[weetuskenraider]

"Essentially," Tahiri agreed. "I suspect the arguing about exact measurement is more of a stalling technique than anything, but I don't want to jump to the conclusion just yet."

[endsthegame]

"At least it'll keep them busy for a while," Ender said wryly.

[weetuskenraider]

"Them and me," Tahiri said. "As long as I can keep them from getting far too into the argument before I come up with some kind of compromise I'll consider it good."

[endsthegame]

Ender quirked a little smile at the phone. Then, more seriously, he said, "No aftereffects from the crisis last year?"

[weetuskenraider]

There was a slight pause on Tahiri's end of the line before she said, sounding like she was trying not to laugh, "Well . . . I think I'm a little bit taller now."

But she had to respond in kind, so her more serious answer followed pretty quickly.

"As far as I can tell, though, everything is about as it was. No ill effects that I can see."

[endsthegame]

Ender almost nodded, then realised that wouldn't communicate across the line anyway. "Considering the way we fixed it, I don't think it hurts to check," he said. "I have no idea what damage remembering anything wrong might cause."

[weetuskenraider]

"Is that how you brought everyone back?" Tahiri asked, blinking a little. "By remembering?"

She let out a little Tusken grunt of consternation. "I can see how that might be cause to worry."

[endsthegame]

"Remembering, and a dash of whatever power lives in Special Collections," Ender said.

And being Ender, he hadn't really stopped worrying about that since it had happened. "So far, everything and everyone I've encountered seems more or less the same - but that might simply be because they're based on my memories of them."

[weetuskenraider]

"Mmm," Tahiri, whose more suspicious character traits were right there with him, agreed. "Memories are a tricky, tricky thing. I'll be looking more closely for differences now that you mentioned it; this could be interesting."

Now that he had mentioned it, she had been wondering if Face was even more of a pain lately . . .

[endsthegame]

"If you do notice anything specifically wrong, let me know," Ender said. "If there are any long-term consequences, I want to know about it."

Not just so he could angst about Ben's sudden decision to come with him. Honest.

[weetuskenraider]

Uh huh, Ender.

"Would you like the full report?" asked Tahiri, whose predilection for being a bit of a smartass had clearly survived the Nothing. "Or just the quick rundown?"

[endsthegame]

"Whatever you're willing to give," Ender said easily.

He was the most stoic member of a school full of smartasses. Really now.

[weetuskenraider]

It was more fun to be a smartass when you had a straight man (so to speak) to play off of. Just ask Anakin!

"I'll see what I can do," she promised. "It's hard to tell from here, anyway. Next time I get a chance to get away I'll find out if any of the places all of us know much better seem to be any different."

[endsthegame]

Ender smiled a little. And then to his own surprise, he chuckled a little bit.

"Sorry," he said. "I thought this would wind up being more awkward. A crisis really does bring people together."

[weetuskenraider]

"So did I," Tahiri admitted, "but I'm glad it isn't. It really is good to hear from you every now and then. Your insight on things is . . . definitely appreciated."

[endsthegame]

"And I continue to be incredibly interested in what you're doing," Ender admitted. "And you sound like you've been taking it in stride, too. The work, I mean."

[weetuskenraider]

"The advantage of doing the work a long way away," Tahiri intoned wryly. "No squirrels to report on the occasional need to vent a lot of frustration -- but it's been rewarding. Not what I thought I'd be doing, if you asked me at fourteen, but how often do those guesses ever end up being right?"

[endsthegame]

"I was told I was either to become a governor of a far-away colony, or spend my life on an asteroid when I was that age," Ender said. His tone sounded a little wry, but not grim. "I'm afraid that still holds true."

[weetuskenraider]

"But how does it sound to you now, as opposed to how it sounded then?" Tahiri wanted to know. "That has to make some difference -- I'm guessing, anyhow."

[endsthegame]

"I was angry for a short while, but that quickly passed. Then I was just happy to get out of there," Ender said. "As for the present-- I'm very happy to get out of here?"

Ben's part of that was his to tell - he wasn't going to bother Tahiri with it.

[weetuskenraider]

"As opposed to dreading going back," Tahiri observed, and if she had any speculations on the reason she wasn't voicing them. "That almost makes it an entirely different situation, doesn't it?"

[endsthegame]

"Not really," Ender said, exhaling a breath. "As soon as I realised I was never going back to Earth, anywhere else would've done. Though, I suppose, I was more apathetic to the possible choices then than I am now."

[weetuskenraider]

"You might be surprised how much difference that makes," Tahiri pointed out as tactfully as she was capable of doing. She thought so, anyway; at fifteen she would have been apathetic to almost anything she might have been told she'd do down the road if she knew she'd be doing it without Anakin around. At nineteen and a half (accounting for timeline variances, of course) and with all the attendant experiences that had come in that time span, that younger view seemed almost laughably simplistic. "I don't know that it's something you can predict, though."