The Planet That It's Farthest From

[Ashin Varanin]

Hit the middle of nowhere and you'll find a hard but negotiable limit: the border of the Unknown Regions. You can get through and get lost, if you try hard enough. Keep going and you're in the First Order, the old Fringe stomping grounds. You'll cross the Blood Trail, the roughest, least reliable hyperlane ever built. You'll amble past the Ssi-Ruuvi stream cluster in the void between galactic spiral arms. At the very edge of everything, you'll find a place where explorers are sacrosanct, where civilization could take a century to track down if you lose your way. You'll find microbreaches in the great disturbance, the barrier around the galaxy. You'll meet people who risk their lives for the chance to sail into nothingness.

You'll find a quiet green world, human population, no prospects or importance. Stay the course and you'll find two women cooking porgs over a campfire.

 

[Spencer Varanin]

The little roasted bodies of the porgs rotated on the make shift spit. A woman dressed in survival gear retained her simplistic regal feel as she knelt down before the crank that rotated the porgs that had become their dinner. She watched as the juices oozed and self basted. Looking over towards the other with her she sighed. “Almost 25 years of being a vegan have gone up in smoke you know that?” She stood and placed her hands on her slender waist. It had been a few weeks since they had been out here - or was it longer? Either way, vegetables could only sustain for so long.

“Twenty-five years...jeez and I only just discovered the greatness of meat.” She knelt down again and ran her finger along the caramelized roasted flesh of the bird. The finger found its way to her lips as she moaned with a delicious satisfaction. “I can't believe I missed out on this stuff. Oh when we get back we should find more of these little things and fry them! Oh force I'm just drooling thinking about it.” One more rotation and the woman wandered to her pack to pull out a couple of pills. With being a vegan for so long, the sudden change to her diet hasn't been the easiest. The pills helped her body digest the meat and made her less cranky after.

“Ashin, dinner is going to be ready soon. Then I think we should move camps - I'm sensing something out there that would like us roasted on a spit. I only tan at the beach thank you very much.” Spencer smiled as she ran her hand through her blond hair and then twisted it up into a clip. She did enjoy her time with her wife, with reports of the moments she had gone active within the Galaxy it seems something had stirred the both of them. Either way, roasted porg was delicious. “I want potato salad...I miss potato salad.”

[member="Ashin"] [member="Lanter Kells"]

 

[Ashin]

[member="Spencer Varanin"]

There were certain things one didn't say to one's wife. 'You were only vegan because you were rich and could afford to be picky' was one of them. That was kind of implicit in their lifestyle shift, anyway. No more thrones and cakey banquets, not for now anyway - just whatever food they could secure on the remote world of Charal. Even when that food had really big eyes.

"I haven't eaten porg in years. Smells like Naboo duck - lots of fat." Ashin's stomach gurgled. Whatever half-mortal transcendence the Five had imposed on her, she still got hungry and then some. She stood, eyeing the porgs on a spit, and picked up her knapsack. "You're right, we should move on."

Once upon a time they'd have gone out, killed the predator, roasted it, and gotten back to their porgy repast. They'd gotten their fill of blood across any number of battlefields. Killing enemies was one thing; killing a creature that didn't have to die was another. Not that she wouldn't happily shred a threat that made itself immediate.

She wrapped metal foil around the porgs, spit and all, and held the meal gently by each end of the stick. The predator, admittedly, would smell it just fine, but she wasn't ready to give up the porgs. "You get any sense of direction?"

 

[Spencer Varanin]

[SIZE=10pt]Spencer nodded, she wasn’t in the mood to find out what ever was following them and the smell of the Porgs. Of course, Spencer couldn’t blame the creature, the Porgs were utterly delicious and it made her want to try other things. Especially that Naboo Duck. Spencer remembered smelling the duck times when they had dinners on Naboo when she had another face. Grinning softly, she remembered her adventures on Naboo. She did miss that face, but she preferred the original. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Shrugging, she gathered the other things that Ashin didn’t grab and followed quickly behind the woman. Pausing she heard the question and felt the area around her and the other woman. The Force was something she touched easily, but as time went on and she stopped using it for everything – at times it felt like working an old muscle. Sensing though, it was something her and Ashin depended on especially in their little adventures. Reaching out into the Force, Spencer sighed heavily. “It’s about 3 or 4 miles south of us. We’re moving in the right direction.” Keeping herself connected through the Force she searched for anything else that might show danger. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]“If I remember right, there was a cave network in this direction. We could probably shelter there till the creature or whatever is looking to enjoy porg along with them. Looking up towards the sky, Spencer frowned again. “Doesn’t look like the weather is going to play nice. Any ideas with that?” [/SIZE][member="Ashin"]

 

[Ashin]

[member="Spencer"]

"Well, the way I see it, we could expend phenomenal cosmic power...or we could walk faster and enjoy the rain."

Admittedly, there wasn't much to enjoy once they slogged into the cave. The rain was coming down in earnest now, and the porgs on the spit had cooled inside their foil. Ashin warmed them with a bright arc of lightning, hand to hand along the skewer. She set the food in her camp dishes and set about swapping her sodden clothes for a poncho.

"How's dinner?"

 

[Spencer Varanin]

[member="Ashin"]

“I haven’t gotten to expend phenomenal cosmic power in a while…” Spencer spoke quietly under her breath, if she was a few years younger that would have been the answer to just about everything. Yet, she was closing in on thirty…or thirty threeish at this point. She really stopped counting after twenty-five like a proper woman. She imagined the strain that expending that much power would have on her body and she shuddered. “But, I think walking faster is probably the best bet. I don’t want you to throw out your back, you’re heavy you know.” Walking along with her wife, she mused over some of the things they had done in their past along with how delicious dinner would be once they arrived into the cave.

It didn’t take them too long and once the food was warm she kissed Ashin on the cheek and began to devour the porg. “Dinner is delicious of course.” She continued to eat then sighed as a frown spread across her face. “I forgot the sweet bread that I had made for this trip.” Sweets. Even though she was an adult the sweet cakes and breads Spencer was fond of showered their kitchen counters and was the reason they had put on a few pounds in their retirement. Spencer had gotten active before Ashin, so the woman had returned quite quickly to the figure she had at the time of their marriage.

“How could you have let me forget them? You love them.” Of course, Spencer knew she loved them the most and Ashin wasn’t one for sweets. Still, how could the former supervillain just let her beautiful wife forget such important things. “At least you remembered the soft mat that goes under the sleeping bags…right?”

 

[Ashin]

[member="Spencer"] had a longstanding tendency to chatter; Ashin, unless called before a Jedi Council or something, had an equally longstanding tendency to be taciturn. She smiled and nodded, wrapping her poncho tighter and serving up the rest of the porgs. The little seal-puffins tasted fatty in the best sense. She used her fingers to slide bits of meat off the skeleton and strip it bare. A single porg wasn't much of a meal, but she'd roasted a few.

"Sorry, I forgot the sweetbread too." Not a white lie, either: she wasn't in the habit of making those. Had she consciously made sugary carbs less of a priority, and forgotten them entirely at the vital moment? No question.

The mat, though, was pretty much a necessity for people who weren't used to sleeping on the ground. She laid it out on the cave floor, and the sleeping bags on top.

"This is the fourth time I've retired, you know that? One of these days I'll get it right." She hesitated, trying to find the words for her frustration. Whatever state the Five had imposed on her, they certainly hadn't meant it to line up with the crass affairs of mortality. Like, say, a career and a sense of purpose.