Weapons:
Tag: Valery Noble
Gatz was not feeling particularly joyous this time of year. It was hard to be excited for Life Day—for his own birthday—when he had no one to spend it with. No place to go, no people to be with. All he wanted to do was crawl into the bottom of a bottle, and pretend like he didn't have to go visit his parents' graves. And, on that day, he probably would.
But it was still a few weeks before the dreaded day itself, and as much of a Life Day grinch as he was destined to be, Gatz still couldn't bring himself to not show the people in his life how much he appreciated them. That meant buying and wrapping gifts. And, yes, every little reminder of the holiday season tore him apart, but his best friend had five little ones who deserved to enjoy the holidays as much as he had when he was their age.
That was what he told himself. That was what kept him going today, walking through a Nubian shopping mall decked to the halls. He would never enjoy this season again, but that didn't mean Valery's little ones shouldn't. So, armed with a list of gift ideas graciously provided by her, it was Gatz's aim to buy her twerps each the perfect present.
His favorite Noble had been the easiest to shop for. Valery said Vera liked plushies, and she was something of a troublemaker. So a big plushie of a Narglatch—a particularly ferocious Nubian predator—seemed like a good pick for a wild child. Plus, the soft and velvety aspect of the plushy greatly diminished how truly terrifying a Narglatch was, and instead made it look very huggable. Like a big friendly cat.
Conversely, Aris had been the most difficult. He was, by his own mother's definition, a "nerd." Gatz had no idea what nerds liked, because he'd been a troublemaker like Vera and Aeryn. He'd settled on a light textbook about the nature of stars, but one with plenty of diagrams and illustrations to make the reading less tedious. Plus the stars would actually glow their proper colors in the dark, which was really cool for a textbook of all things. But also defeated the purpose of the book, since reading in the dark was impossible so... Eh, hopefully the kid would like it.
The triplets came real easy. For one, they had distinct personalities and strong likes appropriate for young children, which made his choices of gifts for them much larger. Plus, with Valery's own knowledge given freely, it made it pretty simple to shop for them. Aurra loved tauntauns, and so she was getting a tauntaun plushie bigger than she was. Adam liked speeders, so Gatz had gotten him an remote control speeder toy that actually floated above the ground. Aeryn was rambunctious and liked things that went "boom." So she was getting a foam dart gun that made a loud noise whenever she shot it.
He was sure Valery and Kahlil would hate that last one. It would be the most annoying gift to deal with. And that made a very small part of him smile.
Gatz wasn't exactly familiar with wrapping gifts. Thankfully, it was that time of year, and the mall offered gift wrapping. Now it was just a matter of getting the gifts to Valery. Mailing them was a possibility, but Gatz didn't like the idea of giving anyone her address, not even the Nubian Post Office. Plus... he was a freighter pilot. He kind of was the mail. Gatz supposed he could just bring them with him to New Cov, but Valery flew an X-Wing. She wasn't going to be able to fit all the gifts in it.
Ah, to hell with it. That was a problem for later.
With his shopping done, his gifts wrapped, and his heavy heart feeling just a tiny bit lighter, Gatz departed from the mall.
