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[ No Anakin isn't filming Padmè without her consent but his device is filming him. His eyes are half closed, there's a small smile on his face, and there is a noticeable lack of tension around his mouth and jaw. Laughter and matching young voices can be heard in the background. ]

Anyone else skip the party tonight? There's a custom of children in costumes going to homes and asking for candy. It's...charming.

[ Charming likely due to his wife's delight but details. ]

[ There is a filtered video attached, to Rex, Luke, Leia, Jaina, and Rey, Jane and Anakin's voice is hushed. ]

If I were to need a blank of wood suitable for carving, about one and half meters tall and equally in diameter, any idea where I could go looking? And keep it from Padmè? I don't want her to see it until I'm finished.

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[Nikolai's not even trying to hide the grump in his voice.]

More like it's stupid.

Though I guess some of the costumes are ok.

How come?

They are great really. Especially the ones you can tell the kids made or their parents did.

What, stupid needs a reason?

Tch. I guess I can give the handmade ones a pass. But even then they're a lot of the same and I think I've seen way too many Ironmans to count.

Why do you think it's stupid?

[ Tch he sounds like Obi-Wan there. ]

Kids share idols with their friends. We all used to cheer for the same racers unless I was the one racing.

[ Then they cheered for him of course. ]

Because it's not like there's other ways of getting free stuff. [Like a five-fingered discount, but he's not admitting that.]

Tch. Sure, but eventually, those idols let you down in the worst ways. [Not bitter at all, nope.]

Well yeah. But it's nice to now have to work so hard for it sometimes.

[ Please Anakin stole things all the time in his toughest years. ]

Maybe. Depends on what you are idolizing.

But that takes forever.

[Spoken like a true teenager.]

Yeah right. They're all the same in the end. One way or another, they'll let you down, complete with bullshit excuses and claiming you'll understand why later.

Sometimes. Time is strange.

[ He's barely more than a teenager himself. ]

I was one of those pilots remember. And more now.

[ Just pointing out to remember who you're talking to. ]

People are people. No one's perfect. Remembering that is going to be good for you.

Grandfather? You do woodcarving?

[She knows the broad strokes of who Anakin Skywalker was and became but no one ever knew things like hobbies]

That's weird. You know that's weird right?

But yeah. Little pieces mostly and it's been a while - I work with metal now most of the time. But mom and I used to carve wood and bone to make jewellery.

What is?

[She doesn't think woodcarving is super weird]

I worked with wood for a bit until my parents let me have a multi-tool that worked on metal.

Calling me grandfather. It's odd when Luke calls me father but...

[ He's twenty for suns' sake! ]

I don't remember not being allowed to work on metal but metal jewelry and Tatooine's suns are a bad mix. We'd use glass to make gems sometimes but that's more knapping and polishing than carving. I mean, we'd sell them too or trade them but. Mostly it was nice to have something new and pretty to wear.

It's how I've referred to you my entire life.

[Which yes is super weird when he's twenty but what's the other option?]

They let me get a real one when I was seven. The wood one came in pretty handy though...

If I was alive then, I would have protested then too, for other reasons.

[ What's with them being so formal? From what he remembers of his step-brother, he wasn't that formal and Tatooine wasn't. Leia maybe... ]

Sounds a good age for that. What was the wood one useful for?

What... should I call you, then?

It was good for a little tinkering and breaking out of weird Dark Sider compounds...

I don't know? You can use my name if you want? Or something else? Grandfather is just so formal.

Yeah I bet it would be. I used knives on Tatooine or tools I had made.

Calling you by your first name would be weird even if it wasn't my little brother's name. Grandpa's taken though...

The guy who kidnapped us would never have let us have a knife. He forgot to check my pockets.

[Amateur]

There's other names than those two? You could just call me by my last name too, that's what pretty much all the Jedi do, expect Master Obi-Wan. And I know most people here wouldn't get the significance but I'm still proud of it.

[ He's trying. ]

Pfft. That was stupid.

I'm pretty sure calling you Skywalker would be more weird and formal. There have to be other options....

[Also it would be confusing...]

It's easier when they're stupid.

It depends actually. Most Jedi should simply call me Jedi Skywalker and that's both polite and casual. Jedi Knight Skywalker is more formal. Skywalker would be someone being rude, because it's cutting out my rank within the Jedi. Master Obi-Wan is the only one who calls me 'Anakin' because we're close. Same as my calling him Master Obi-Wan. I could call him Master Kenobi - and have when I've been upset with him, but at this point I'm no longer his Padawan, so I don't have to call him Master. I do, out of respect.

[ Jedi Culture premier, lesson one. ]

So 'Skywalker' is just what I'm used to being called.

I don't...it was always just me and Mom. I never had anyone else, so I don't know.

[ He shrugs. ]

It really does. People have tried with me but. It didn't end so well, even when I was younger than you are now.

[ Rex is in a police uniform, though not in one that appears to be donned for festivities. On the contrary, in the background are the noises of the hustle and bustle of a busy police station, a styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. ]

I skipped the party, [ he says bluntly, ] but not to give out candy. It's one of the busier days of the year.

I assume you'd be able to find what you're looking for at a carpentry store. Why?

...that sure sounds busy. What length of shift you looking at?

[ He's listening pretty closely to the background noise, for what might be happening. It's the electronic noise. ]

There are carpentry stores?

[ Really? Huh. ]

I want to make a present for Padmé. A statute of Shiraya, like she has at home.

[ Her main Goddesss. ]

Depends on how caught up we get with things. I'm guessing it'll be an all-nighter. Halloweens usually are. [ He raised a brow. ] Not that that's difficult compared to the sort of thing we're used to.

There's a store for damn near anything here. And for whatever there isn't a store, there's something available online. The search database here is sophisticated in comparison to the rest of their tech. I didn't know you were a skilled carver.

Well no. But don't you ever get tired of it, Rex? And there has to be a...better use of your time - all of you.

...But they don't make anything, they design things to be thrown away.

[ Frustrates him, clearly. ]

My mom taught me. It's not that different from cutting and shaping metal to repair droids, engines, so on. I just haven't really...had a reason to do it.

Well, you've got all the time in the world now. You don't need a reason to do things.

[ You can do things just to do it. A mystery to Rex, at first, but he's learned to embrace it. He shrugs. ]

And as far as I'm concerned, I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing. Back home is another story - [ a story of the future that he doesn't intend to tell; he'll leave that up to Anakin's family ] - but just because I'm not there anymore isn't an excuse not to do what I can in betterment of this place. The stakes are just lower here.

I've never had. I mean. Padmè helps because she has had 'down time' before but it's strange. I get nervous.

[ Privately, he can admit that. To Padmè, because of everything. To Rex, because Anakin depends on him and must do so much more in the future - and he probably understand. ]

Makes sense. It's just a lot and so different. I'm glad you've found a place here and I'm trying to - I think I am? At least with Padmè and Jaina. It's harder with Luke and Leia - much harder with her. But a job or anything? I can't seem to find my feet.

I wasn't used to it at first either. Made my palms itch. You get used to it -- particularly when you've got help.

[ He needed other people around him to help him just be. He's still not good at it, but he's better than he once was. ]

You could go into engineering, of a sort. I rarely see you happier than when you're tinkering in the engine in some ship or another.

Luckily I only have one to itch eh?

[ Although Rex was correct - he'd been able to manage it with his mom sometimes. ]

You're not wrong. These people want degrees for that though, and I don't have that. I could, probably, but...I don't care for classes like theirs.

We all have to do things we don't care for to get to where we want to be. The rules and regs are there for a reason. I had to go through classes and pass an exam to become an officer too.

You've just got to find something you want enough.

Yeah but their classes are so...beneath my training level. It would be like making you sit through this planet's, er country's?, basic combat training starting with "so this is the pointy end" of a bladed weapon, for four-plus years. You'd have more hair than me by the end of that and I'd probably have left boot prints on the ceiling.

[ It's both the sitting still and being in classes with children again that is bugging him. ]

Funny you say that, sir, because that's precisely what I did. I went through the same combat training and classes that were required of me to become a police officer. And then I spent damn near a year handing out parking tickets. I can't say I enjoyed it, but it was a necessary step on this road. Their tech's different from ours too. It was useful knowing the way they work.

I didn't have to do it for as long, I'll grant you that. But there are ways of speeding things up, provided you lord your status as an imPort above 'em.

[ Skywalker knows how to do that -- or he will know. It comes with being a Jedi, and a General. If you can't use that to get to where you need to be, then what's the point? ]

Parking tickets!

[ He's entirely offended on Rex's behalf. That's insulting. ]

I'm seriously about ready to just throw my arm at them and dare them to do better.

[ Rex lets out a surprised bark of laughter at Anakin's belligerence. ]

Believe me, that's not where I saw myself either. But I understand why the people here need us to go through their processes first. They need to make sure we're trustworthy.

And I'll grant them this: their guns are different from blasters. Primitive weapons, but they're useful in their own right.

[ The laughter is a good sound honestly. ]

I can get that but I'm not asking to design weapons, just use what I know.

And yeah, they are more like slugiron, aren't they?

[ All things considered, he's probably more used to the idea of them than Rex. ]

Hmm. That would be tricky. You could see if there is an art studio or mixed media classroom somewhere you could use.

I didn't even think of a studio! That would be perfect. I'm glad to have someone from a place like this one to help because it's strange to me.

A place like this one? You mean a large city?

[ Anakins laughs a little. ]

Oh no. Coruscant is roughly the same size of this planet, with buildings about six thousand meters tall, and over five thousand different levels stacked on top of each other. And it's all one large city.

[ Big he's used to. ]

I meant a place like this Earth.

Really?! Whoa—yeah, that would be weird! How long did you live in a place like that? How did you get around?

From the time I was ten. Technically I still live there, I'm just often assigned to the Outer Rim these days. There are walkways and lifts of course, and speeders and speeder bikes. It's like city traffic here, just in three dimensions instead of two.

Huh. That would be something. At the moment, all we’ve experimented is with drones, but those can’t go too fast or far—and we’re having trouble keeping them from airports and private properties.

You don't tie them in with your navigational systems? Because that's the easiest way. How do your planes and water ships navigate? It should be able to be applied to terrestrial vehicles.

They are, at the moment, mostly controlled by wireless technologies. The ones that the average person has access to anyways. We try to keep them out of airports because of safety, and other places because of privacy. Anything more sophisticated belongs to the government and is tied to those systems, but those drones aren't meant for recreation.

[ He just rolls his eyes. ]

It makes more sense to share a mapping system than to forbid people to use it, from a military security operations side anyway, because then you can simply bar those without proper documentation from entering.

[Jane shrugs.]

Different laws, different regulations ... It's all new, anyways, with the smaller drones coming out to the public in only the last decade or so. There's a lot of uncovered ground, and when you get cameras on them ... But how hard is it for people to recognize that flying their little machine into an airplane with dozens of people on it is a bad idea? Or that using one to spy on your neighbors is illegal?

Your backyard, public spaces, all of those areas aren't barred and should be fine.

...they really know or they don't care? Because generally, they don't care.

Probably both. Hence us just trying to figure out a solution over all. Fines should be an effective deterrent, though. Unless other lines are crossed.

Fines and confiscation of the device?

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Sorry for the slow :(

Pfft it's all good

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private

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video; sorry i'm late!

you're fine!

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thanks for waiting! back from hiatus!

Anytime!

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