Private The Kind of Day You Remember

[Jett Vox]

"You can probably keep doing that," said Jett absently, ambiguously responding to everything - even Aren's explaining the various nuances of the city-planet, and the imperative to move forward. That was what Aren had that Jett seemed to lack. An ability to have a goal and like a heat-seeking missile, narrowly direct yourself and your resources to achieving that goal. Jett was aimless, a buzzing bee lazily zipping about from colorful flower to colorful flower, directed almost entirely by her curiosity. It was a quality that Jett especially admired. While she could get distracted or be distracting with a million questions about a million things, Aren had an ability to narrow her efforts and get done what needed to be done. Even in a simple situation like getting lunch.

A sudden rumble of the girl's stomach interrupted the thought, and the smell filled her nostrils, dismissing any other musings she'd had before. Suddenly excited with thoughts of hot food, even the alien smells and odd spices did nothing to diminish her appetite. "Hope they cooked enough for all of us," she said, with a measure of doubt that they could feed her as hungry as she was now.

"What even is this place?" She leaned over to whisper to Aren, her hazel-green eyes darting about to take in the sights, the people, the sounds. "There's so many blo-- so many people...!" She cut herself off from swearing.

Servers dashed about with carts and trays, cooks worked in full view, chopping and cutting and flipping and cooking. Sounds of sizzling and rhythmic thumping and metal sliding against metal, fire wooshing and then suddenly going out. It looked like a war zone, but it smelled like heaven. Even the cooks were in uniforms that looked like white versions of officers' uniforms. Some were fresh, others spattered with food and grease and stained with other, unnamable stains. Brown and black and red and green. Every color was represented somewhere. There were as diverse a group of cooks as their patrons.

"Where do we sit?" Just then a waiter seemed to pick them out of the crowd of chaos, and gestured for them to follow. He was a Pau'an, tall and lanky with pale skin and long limbs. He practically glided his way across the room, dodging with ease as if guided by the Force. Jett and Aren found an easy path with the way he cut through the groups like a knife.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren followed the waiter without difficulty, weaving through the crowd with the same quiet confidence she carried through almost everything. The noise didn't seem to bother her. Neither did the sheer number of people packed into the restaurant. If anything, she looked mildly amused by Jett's increasingly distracted attempts to take everything in at once.

"Trust me," she said as they walked, glancing sideways at the younger woman. "If they couldn't feed people like you, they wouldn't still be in business." Her gaze drifted toward a nearby table carrying enough food to feed a small platoon. "Places like this survive because somebody eventually challenged them to feed the impossible customer, and they took it personally."

The smell of grilled meat, spices, fresh bread, and a dozen other things she couldn't immediately identify rolled through the air around them. Aren wasn't immune to it either. Her stomach had already started reminding her that breakfast had happened a very long time ago. Still, she seemed far more interested in watching Jett react to the experience than the food itself. The girl's excitement was difficult to miss, and despite herself, Aren found it oddly entertaining.

When Jett asked what kind of place it was, Aren looked around for a moment before answering. "A diner, technically. At least that's what most people would call it." Her eyes followed one of the cooks flipping something across a massive grill while another shouted an order in a language she didn't recognize. "A good one, apparently." A faint smile appeared. "The rule with worlds like Denon and Empress Teta is that the best food usually comes from places that look slightly chaotic. If everyone's moving too calmly, you're probably paying too much."

By the time they reached their table, Aren had already taken stock of half the room without appearing to do so. Families. Workers. Off-duty security personnel. Travelers. Students. A handful of beings who looked like they had wandered in simply because they had smelled the food from outside. Normal people living normal lives. She pulled out a chair and sat down before looking toward Jett. "Try not to stare too hard," she advised with a small grin. "Nothing marks you as being from out of town faster than looking like you've just discovered civilization for the first time."

Jett Vox

 

[Jett Vox]

"But I have," protested Jett immediately. "I lived on a farm for sixteen years, and only heard stories about places like this. Stories I thought were exaggerated, when - for real - they didn't stand up to what I'm actually seeing with my own eyes." She said, bemused wonderment tipping at the scales of being fully overwhelmed. "Why would being from out-of-town be a problem? I can't imagine that everyone is from here. There's just so many."

Jett took a seat across from Aren and did her best to not stare at an Icthorian who's head was the biggest thing she'd seen on a living sentient creature. Her effort not to look started looking more conspicuous, with her hand coming up to shield her eyes as she stared at the table and then looked away over her shoulder where a Besalisk was chopping vegetables for a salad. Something insectoid scurried out of a bowl, and the creature snatched it off the table and stuffed it into his mouth before Jett could see what it was. She wrenched her gaze away so fast it almost made her cross-eyed, but soon she was just staring down at the table muttering something that couldn't be heard over the bustle and the clatter.

Her fingers drummed anxiously at the surface, her natural curiosity battling with her desire not to embarrass Aren in a no-holds-barred cage-match, with the Inter-Galactic title belt on the line. Soon enough, their Pau'an host returned with menus. The words were in Aurebesh, but virtually nothing made sense. Animals and plants she'd never heard of, and a select few she had on her farm. After a bit she realized her family had raised the least expensive and obviously difficult foods available. Everything she recognized had intense amounts of seasoning and spices listed in the recipe. Jett felt extremely unprepared. She flicked her menu over to Aren where it landed atop her own. "Order for me?" She said pleadingly, peering up at Aren with glistening Lolth-puppy eyes.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren watched Jett's increasingly desperate attempts not to stare at everything around her with growing amusement. The effort itself was probably drawing more attention than simply looking would have. Every time Jett successfully stopped herself from staring at one thing, she seemed to immediately discover three new things that demanded investigation. By the time the menus arrived, Aren was fairly certain her friend had experienced more cultural shock in ten minutes than most people managed in a year.

The pleading look earned an immediate surrender.

"Alright," Aren said, taking both menus before Jett could accidentally order something with six legs and a warning label. "I'll order for you."

She lowered her gaze to the menu and began scanning through it with practiced efficiency. Unlike Jett, she actually recognized most of what she was reading. Not because she was particularly adventurous, but because years spent living in major cities had taught her that menus were often exercises in unnecessary creativity. Somewhere beneath all the elaborate descriptions, there was usually something simple pretending to be sophisticated.

After a moment, she nodded to herself.

"You need a nerfburger." The answer came with complete certainty. "Grilled nerf, fresh bread, basic toppings. Nothing strange. Nothing that stares back at you." Her finger moved down the menu. "And fried tubers on the side." A brief pause followed. "Which are essentially fries, just with a more expensive name because city planets enjoy pretending they invented potatoes."

The corner of her mouth twitched as she slid the menu back toward Jett.

"You're doing well, by the way."

The compliment arrived unexpectedly.

Aren glanced around the crowded restaurant before looking back at her.

"Most people from small settlements spend their first day somewhere like this either staring openly at everything or trying to hide from it." There was the faintest trace of pride in her voice. "You've managed to do both simultaneously."

A beat passed.

"Which is honestly impressive."

Then she leaned back in her chair and nodded toward the bustling dining room around them.

"And for the record, nobody here cares that you're from out of town. On a planet like this, half the people are from somewhere else." Her gaze drifted briefly toward the crowd. "The trick is acting like you belong until you realize you actually do."

A faint smile appeared.

"Now stop worrying about embarrassing me and focus on being hungry. You're about to discover why cities survive despite all their other flaws."

Jett Vox