I Know Something About Pain You Don't

Master Atreides's class today had been the first real test of her newly integrating personality, and Tahiri was relieved that it had gone well. There were still things she had to get used to, new reflexive reactions and thought patterns, but instead of feeling like she was at odds with herself it was more a case of trying to unlearn bad habits or adjust her way of thinking.

That wouldn't be an instant fix, but it was a hell of a lot less stressful to deal with.

After class, she headed back to her room to check her messages and get caught up on what was going on at home. She might've had a little bit of an ulterior motive there. She had an Idea.

It couldn't be that bad an idea, could it? Those had only ever been a real recipe for trouble when she'd been around Anakin.

. . . keep telling yourself that, Tahiri.

[OOC: Hey, look who hasn't roomposted in forever. For the boy, but open after.]

The girl who came back to room 529 and rested her head against the doorway for a moment before putting her key into the lock and heading inside was the same one who'd left a week ago, but looked like she'd been gone for a lot longer. Because she had. (And had, as of yet, no idea how long -- or relatively not -- she'd been gone.)

It wasn't just the hair, which had been even shorter than the almost-shoulder-length it was now; there was a subtle difference in the way she walked -- spending more time wearing shoes than you normally did would do that -- and she looked a little older. Definitely tired.

Sometime on the shuttle trip back it finally hit Tahiri, the reality of the pilots she'd lost in that gigantic kriffing battle. As first experiences went, it was not near the top of the "Fun" list. She'd kept that locked down so far but, as she dropped her backpack beside her bed and curled up on it quietly, she figured she'd have to talk to someone about it eventually. As far as people with experience in that sort of thing went, Fandom wasn't without its options.

For now, though, she was just going to be glad to be back.

[OOC: Hahaha up super early because I am heading to Disneyland for the morning, but back in the afternoon, so open but SP for the next few hours and don't think I wouldn't tag from the ride lines because I have so done that. *is dork*]

Tahiri had been expecting this call for a while now; she just hadn't expected it to come now, and she supposed the timing could've been worse. It could've been better, granted, but she'd sort of given up on hoping for these things to ever happen at a good time.

Times like this, she wished packing involved more than just making sure she had her comlink, blaster, and lightsaber and throwing a couple of spare sets of clothing (including a certain too-big-for-her shirt) into a bag along with her datapad and oh yeah, those stupid boots. Which she'd need more than usual on this trip, she knew. She wasn't sure how ready she'd be for all this, although out of everything she was expecting, it was the prospect of seeing Jacen that had her the most worried, so it would've been nice to have to concentrate more on packing. Traveling light had its downsides.

It wasn't just for the sake of keeping herself busy between now and the time her shuttle arrived that she left messages for a few people, of course, although she felt bad about giving people more to worry about on the heels of the past week.

So. Packing as slowly as possible, and trying to stay calm. Force, she hoped she was ready for this, but seriously, she was sixteen years old and needed boots just to reach the foot yokes in an X-Wing, and who'd thought it was a good idea to give her a kriffing squadron, anyway?

[OOC: Establishy, but open -- it's canon catchup tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime again.]

News from home continued to be grim, but that was par for the course these days and so far nothing particularly troubling had come up, although there had been several not so subtle inquiries as to whether she was making much progress in her flight class. (If Tahiri had been insane enough to let on who was teaching said class, she suspected those inquiries would be a lot less restrained.) Somebody had something in mind, clearly, and Tahiri made up her mind that she'd better get serious about asking Jaina for those extra flying lessons sometime soon.

She transmitted her most recent report -- wow, they really had no idea how much she was leaving out -- and set her datapad aside, reaching for a holocube that sat on her nightstand, one that Tionne and Kam had sent her a little while ago. The image inside was of her and Anakin in the days shortly before he'd left the academy to go fight in the war; Tahiri turned the holocube over in her hands but didn't really look at it.

After a minute or two, she set it back on the nightstand and tucked her knees up under her chin, staring out the window into the growing darkness. It had been a hell of a week, and maybe getting away for a day or two would be a good idea.

[OOC: Door is closed, and post is for a certain barefoot buddy but open if you wanna knock or stop by, or live here! *kicks emo girl*]

She'd spent all morning sitting in and advising on a far-too-long conference call she'd been hoping to put off for a while longer but just couldn't avoid any more, so the lingering effects of having to think Yuuzhan Vong for a while weren't doing much to help Tahiri's mood. Afterward, a long workout down in the salle (where she'd taken more than a few stun bolts in the process) had worked off just enough stress that she thought she could keep Riina in check, but there were still things on her mind.

Hurley hadn't come home last night, and that on top of Ben's weird behavior yesterday had had her edgy enough. When she finally got around to listening to last night's radio broadcast, it just added on to the pile. Not just Hurley, but John and Francine, and Dinah had been out there, and more people besides.

No, Tahiri was definitely Not Happy right now.

And sitting around here wasn't going to help matters much. Growling under her breath (things that Sliven would have been horrified to realize she'd overheard and remembered), she stalked back out of the room to find something to do. Someone who had a plan, people who needed help, anything. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts right now.

[OOC: Mostly establishy, but if you wanna run into her on her way out, who am I to stop you?]

Sometimes Tahiri wondered if there was some kind of cosmic rule about everything going wrong at once. The day had started off well enough, and the field trip had promised to be fun.

But then there had been zombies, and Tahiri was far less than thrilled about her reaction to them. Getting back to the group hadn't been a highlight of her day either.

And as if that hadn't been bad enough (because really, hadn't it?) she'd come home to find a message from Firekeeper about going away for a while, and on top of that there was the message from Ben that was about the farthest possible thing from reassuring.

Sore, exhausted, and badly freaked out for reasons that had nothing to do with the zombies themselves, Tahiri headed straight for a really, really long shower and then her room, where she promptly curled up on her bed and tried to put herself through some meditative techniques.

[OOC: Establishy/linkdroppy, but open if you want with the caveat that I'm going to bed in about an hour. ETA: Wait, did I just linkdrop? Well, now I'm scared.]

Tahiri was half expecting it, really, when she came back to her room and found messages from home waiting for her. There wasn't much in the way of news: Jacen was still missing, and she still wasn't sure how to feel about that, and the map of New Republic-held worlds kept shrinking. It was the couple of strategic queries that made her grit her teeth, and keeping in mind Master Skywalker's advice she pored over her datapad for a while until she'd come up with a polite (she hoped) but firmly worded reply that amounted to "I'm sorry, but you're asking too much."

Message transmitted, she set the datapad down on her nightstand and stared at it for a while, almost daring it to beep with a response.

So far it hadn't.

She wasn't complaining.

[OOC: Open door, open post, offer not valid in select -- oh wait, yes it is.]

Tahiri had been too wiped out to even take her boots off on the shuttle back to Fandom, but the first thing she did when she set foot on the causeway was fumble the laces undone and kick off the evil Sith-invented things. (She'd long since revised her theory that they were torture devices due to . . . well, perspective, but she was still sure the Sith were responsible.)

She was moving a little stiffly, the side effect of sitting on a couple of ships in hyperspace for so long, so soon after the physical punishment of Lord Nyax's pain-wave. The first thing she did when she got back to the fifth floor of the dorms was hit the shower and change into one of the new, clean flightsuits she'd gotten just before leaving Borleias. With her hair still dripping a little, she headed back to her room and stood in the doorway for a minute, just looking at her bed.

"I've missed you," she told it, not paying any mind to the one surprisingly well-worn (and quite frankly gross) boot that rolled out into the hallway as she dropped her pack on the floor and went to sprawl out. It had been quite the trip, and there were a few things she was going to have to think about, but for now she just wanted to lie down and not move for a while.

[OOC: And she's back, yay! Post is open, and door is cracked, and there's a shoe in the hall, but she's not getting up off that bed. Feel free to assume she sent you a message or seriously, just wander on in. Bits of SP here and there when I go to run errands, but otherwise around! ETA: For time purposes I'm gonna say she beat the cruise people back to the causeway by a little bit. ETA: Yeah, you're all chronologically before Ben, okay?]

It had been just over two weeks since they'd arrived, and Tahiri was packing. ( Not to go back to Fandom -- not yet. )

And here she'd been thinking this trip hadn't been awkward enough.

Tahiri wondered how much time had passed in Fandom; from what little the Jaina there had told her about her own trips home, she guessed that time didn't necessarily move at the same pace. She had no idea how much longer she'd be gone or even what would happen, but for now she had a few minutes to herself. It seemed as good a time as any to put in a call or two back to Fandom, or wherever her friends were now.

[OOC: Yeah, this post is totally a spacer to spread things out a little longer. If your character knows what she's up to and would like a (brief) call from Tahiri, feel free to ping in as receiving one! She won't really give out details (so I don't joss myself) but you're welcome to have her check in with you if you like. Mega-SP during the day as I sneak tags on my phone and then around in the afternoon/evening Pacific time.]

Tahiri, after some debate (and Dinah's persuasion), had decided that the school spring break trip sounded like it would be fun after all, even if initially the idea of being out on the water didn't seem like a good idea for a girl who'd grown up in the desert and still couldn't really swim. She was halfway under her bed, rooting around for her equipment pack, when her comlink beeped.

That was enough to catch her attention; when she got communications from home they were usually asking her for advice on how the Yuuzhan Vong thought, and any news had been vague at first, only now starting to divulge more than just the barest facts of how the war was going.

( This wasn't really the conversation she wanted to have tonight. )

"Sithspawn," Tahiri grumbled. "Of all the stupid, stupid timing."

She sighed, put down the comlink, and picked up the phone to make a couple of calls.

[OOC: Establishy and details of convo NFB, but open if you want to see her before she heads off for the week. I apologize in advance for spamming your flists the next few days, but I couldn't resist doing this over spring break week. Because I am mean.]