Private A Convergence Of Misplaced Dreams

[Auraya Irath-Ur]

Auraya turned red when he mentioned the blindness being the worst part. Of course that was the case... Truthfully she'd never thought it wasn't, but tingling seemed easier to help him with than, well, not being able to see.​

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"Uh... Why were you, you know, in stasis..?"​

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Even the way she said it suggested she knew that it was probably a sensitive topic, something she might not have any right to broker. Part of her wanted to take it all back, but truthfully she did want to hear the answer.​

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Provided he was willing to share it.​

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It was around this time that she realized her mistake with the onion. She set it aside, then cleared the sink to put the meat back inside. "So now we wait..? Or should I get to chopping..?"​

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Auraya wasn't entirely confident in her knife abilities, but she'd rather do it than Davron. Two slices atop dough was one thing, but potatoes and onions? Yeah, that was a recipe for disaster, not just beef stew.​

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Davron Feln ​

 

[Davron Feln]

Well, he should've known she'd ask after that eventually. Even if he didn't exactly want to start spelling it all out right then and there. To a more experienced, higher-ranking Jedi it was one thing, but for this kid...that might seem too much. But he wouldn't lie outright either. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he replied with a noncommittal shrug. It really did, truth be told. Just...waking up almost nine hundred years later made it seem like a very poor idea in hindsight.

"Anyways, yes, yes, get to chopping. Decent bite-sized pieces. You'll chop the meat up basically the same size. You can keep the potatoes submerged in water if you don't want them to start browning in the air."

He paused.

"Or we could wait for the meat to finish thawing, it's up to you. Either way the bread will be out and cooling by the time we've got the stew started. You don't even need to peel the potatoes! I just do that when I'm with pickier people. Keeping the peel on is healthier for you, anyways." She was new to cooking and he was new to being blind. All around, it was turning into a very odd afternoon for him, trying to figure out how to explain the entire process rather than just shuffling around on autopilot like he normally would have. With his eyes available to him he'd probably be slightly better at maintaining a consistent train of thought related to it all, but it didn't feel like it would go much better than his explanations currently were.

"How, by the Force, does anybody teach anybody anything?" he joked after a moment, with a small chuckle. "I feel like I need to figure out how to think five steps ahead of whichever one I'm currently talking about just so that I don't confuse myself. Incredible."

Auraya Irath-Ur

 

[Auraya Irath-Ur]

"Oh."​

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An answer and a non-answer all at once. She supposed that was as much as she deserved right now all things considered. They were still little more than strangers after all, acquaintances at best since they had bothered to exchange names. It seemed a good way to let the matter lie, too. Something she decided to respect. A nod of her head cut short when she realized he couldn't see it, and then she got back to prepwork.​

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"It gives me something to do if I do it now" she replied to the choice set out before her, "Skins on is good, I think." Extra nutrition and less work for her? Yes please. Yet as she brought the first potato over to the chopping board and picked out what looked to be the right kind of knife from the drawer, Auraya found herself faltering slightly.​

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Just... Cut it. It's not that hard. Fingers out of the way, and cut... Last thing she needed was a missing finger. A soft exhale helped to release some of the suddenly pent up uncertainty she was struggling over, and then she brought the knife down. It cut effortlessly through the potato, skin and all, and she let out a more relieved sigh in response.​

From there is was easier, given that there was a flat side to work with. Davron's words drew her attention, so she paused and looked his way so as not to have an accident. "I'm not sure, but all of that was mighty confusing too..." She couldn't imagine having to explain every step of something, much less when you couldn't see to know if they'd done the right thing in the first place.​

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She turned back to the potatoes.​

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"Who taught you how to do all of this?" she asked after a few quiet moments. "Cook and, uh, bake, I mean..."​

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Davron Feln ​

 

[Davron Feln]

"People I used to travel with," he replied with another shrug. "Other Jedi, some mercenaries working with us, those sorts of people. Not always a lot to do in hyperspace, and sometimes there's only so much meditation or practice or what-have-you that a person can stand, so it's either books and holonet, or learning some useful life skills. I was never any good at anything mechanical, so one of the things they put me on to doing was cooking and baking." Otherwise, his only skills had really related to what they actually had assigned him to do, or medical work.

Which later got him reassigned, though he wasn't telling those stories just yet.

"Bit odd to think about, really. Even with some fairly fast hyperdrives, going all through the Outer Rim and the Unknown Regions, the galaxy still felt like a massive place. Nowhere near as cramped as the core always seems."

Auraya Irath-Ur

 

[Auraya Irath-Ur]

As someone who hadn't ever really traveled that much until the past few months, Auraya had yet to reach the point in time that hyperspace became tedious. Of course advances in technology and faster starships definitely helped her cause. She'd gone from a quiet little enclave Force-knows-where to the central hub of the Galaxy, Coruscant, in what felt like the blink of an eye, and it had been dizzying and difficult to come to terms with. Even now she felt out of place among it all.​

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How long would it take for her to adjust enough that even the marvel that was space travel became stale?​

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"Well, it certainly seems a nice way to pass the time" she remarked, paying close attention as she cut up the potatoes into manageable chunks. "I've never really gone too far since coming to Coruscant, travel's never taken much more than a day. Plenty to do in a day!"​

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Would that change now? She had no real idea how long Davron planned on keeping her around, probably just until his sight returned. Who knew how much time would need to be wasted in the meantime.​

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At least she was learning something, though, even if it wasn't strictly Jedi related. Much better than losing her mind wandering aimlessly around the Jedi Temple without any direction. That much was for certain.​

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Davron Feln ​

 

[Davron Feln]

Davron nodded along to what Auraya was saying, while the smell of the baking bread started to slowly fill the kitchen space. It had been a long time since travel through hyperspace had carried much novelty for him, between his time in the Exploration Corps and the Clone Wars right after, but it wasn't hard to understand how Auraya had avoided becoming so...jaded to it. "Most travel from Coruscant to other planets in the near vicinity is pretty quick," he explained after a moment. "Even further afield, like Alderaan to Tatooine, is only a few hours. Anything along a major hyperlane works without much trouble, generally, unless you have to cross through the Deep Core or something like that. That's what makes going from Coruscant to Alderaan so much slower than from Tatooine to Alderaan."

Or, alternatively, what made going from Coruscant to Tatooine take almost a month, with a class one drive and along the main route. "It depends how many stops you take, as well. If I was going from, say, Chandrila to Naboo, there'd be multiple planets to stop at along the way, so it taking a few days wouldn't make much difference. Far out in the rim, though, you might be looking at days of nothing between planets. There are even a few parts of the galaxy where gravitic anomalies mean that going from one planet to another, even with a fast hyperdrive, can still take weeks."

The Kathol Outback being a good example, or poking around exploring in the unknown regions. Anywhere that wasn't well charted, or at least where you didn't have access to the charts, turned into a slow slog hopping from coordinate to coordinate. Making new hyperlanes was always a lot of boredom with very small bursts of excitement to break it up.

"You can imagine how being on a single small ship, with little to do and nowhere to go, for weeks on end, with only the occassional drop out of hyperspace to reorient and jump again, could get...tedious, to say the least. I can only imagine what it would have been like if I hadn't liked any of the people I was with."

Auraya Irath-Ur