Brunch.

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]

"There was that fight on Togoria, but other than that, I didn't see any other reason to stick around. Nobody liked me there, anyway. @[member="Karen Roberts"] and all them thought me more of a brute, which.."He begrudgingly shook his head a few times. They weren't terribly far off. He was sort of more of a thug in most cases. Actually, a goon would be a better term. Again, watch the highlights on the Holonet of him beating the hell out of anyone on the other team. Her hands were rugged, the beauty marks of a pugilist. She wasn't the ballerina that she claimed to, at least, not entirely.

Ah crap.


Like a bad pazaak player, he showed too much, and she definitely knew she had gotten through. Why? Why did he have to be so obvious? Probably because he wore a helmet most of the time. Bringing his thumb to graze over the space between her index and thumb, before that same handsome grin crossed his features."Momma has been on me about girls since I left the house. Apparently, saving the Mandalorians, being awesome, beating the crap out of pirates and Sith, nonononono...no, Momma still wants me to have a nice girl to bring home."Brown eyes met black, and a grin formed again.


"I'm not suddenly hungry anymore, are you?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Bunch of mamby-pamby Jedi thinking warfare and a good fight could be all clean sailing. They played at war until some of them started figuring how brutal it is. Down and dirty fight. The way you fight, it's honest. You know what happens in war and you do what needs doing until it's done. Keep your head up. It becomes you." Doing it for his Mum, eh? She couldn't say she blamed him, trying to please one's parents.

"You know Eli, it's a relief." The plate was pushed away with what remained of her appetite, "You get to whisk me off for an adventure, preferably with a fly on a jetpack, I get to help your Mum make peace with her boy out there in the wide universe, and I can pretend to be the nice girl. Can't say I've ever been the nice girl, but heck, I danced on my toes. I'm used to tottering on the edge." Disentangling her hand from @[member="Preliat Mantis"], Aditya reached into her clutch purse and put on a pair of thin black gloves. Epicanthix were hearty, weren't they? Even their dancers. Her thumb brushed the tops of her covered knuckles as she spied around for the Maitre'D and the waiters.

"Yeeaaahh, I'm full!" Pushing both hands on the table, she went to get up and whimpered, sat back down and stuffed another bacon wrapped steak bite into her mouth. "Feese awr weally good." She chewed and swallowed, grabbed another one and shoved it in her mouth. "I'm full for real. Whisk me away, gallant ruffian." She held both arms out for Eli.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]


Preliat stood up, slowly slipping on his crushgaunts. He paused for a moment, reaching for his helmet. He let the jetpack reattach itself magnetically, and he smiled for a brief moment, before slipping the helmet on. Oh god, how he wanted to kiss her. He was lucky that she and he were both Epicanthix, he would hate for someone to read his mind right about now. He stood up gently, smiling and laughing as she stuffed another steak into her mouth. Woman loved to eat the good food, he supposed. He shook his shoulders, gently taking her by the waist, letting her slender arms rest across his shoulders. Bracing his knees first, he gently lifted up her legs so that she wouldn't be caught in the initial release of thrust from the jetpack.

"Hold on, we're taking the best dine-and-dish route ever."

He smiled. Insert dirty joke here.

Bracing his legs, he shot himself upwards, and with her along with it. He wasn't heavy enough to constitute the jetpack failing, but it definitely did move slower. He jetpacked over the side of the building, the streams of cars, the gust of the winds, did little to deter him. He weaved through the cars with such efficiency that was nearly impossible for anyone watching to not be impressed by his sheer elegance with the jetpack. He had grown, grown a lot, since Elrood. Elrood. Thoughts still danced in his mind of that horrible darkness that he helped stopped, but...he didn't want to think about this now. He smiled and looked down at Aditya, the most beautiful woman in the galaxy in his arms.

"Ever gone skydiving? You wanna try free-falling?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Come now, bacon-wrapped-steak-bites. The carnivore in Aditya was no friend to a diet of nuts and berries, a girl had to keep herself well fed to survive all the hearty fights. If she did starve herself on nothing but salad (which would explain the holograms of her as a near waifish ballerina teenager), how could she throw a punch and break faces? Some things had to be a priority. Hopping up into his arms, the 5'6" woman pretended to swoon. "My hero."

Then burst out laughing and kicked her feet. "My shoes!" reaching for them, she yanked them on and grinned. "Now I'm reaaaaaahhhhhh!!" Off the ledge they went and the sky tumbled around her. For the first few seconds she shut her eyes, giggling into her scream with a petulant enthusiasm.

"This is the best day ever! Ooo! Lookit! A Z-98i Speedster Coupe!" The hot new speeder streaked by as Aditya pointed, craning herself in @[member="Preliat Mantis"]' arms to get a better look at the drivetrain. Hugging her arms around his neck, her face snapped back to look at him, hair flying wildly around. "Are you off your karking mind!?"

Let her go? Free-fall in Coruscant? How could she say no to that!? "Never been skydiving, been Zero-G repairing ships from the outside, but never in an atmosphere! Let's do it already! Free-fall like a pro! Wooooooooohhhoooooooo!!!"

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]

He smiled when she was worried about her shoes. And then the speeder comment, but honestly, you could put the nicest speeder on the market in front of him and he could probably only tell you the color. Tucking his legs inward, he let Aditya go. For a moment, everything moved slow for the Super Commando. He was so focused, everything was in focus. Speeders went by in a blur, the lights bounced off of their tinted windows and hulls. But more importantly, she was in focus. Her hair was moving about her head, but not so much in a wild sense, but in a chaotic beauty. There was a terrible beauty about Aditya, something that Preliat could not ignore. She was so beautiful, but not in the runway model. She was independent, she was fierce, and he himself had seen herself put herself in great risk for low reward.


Plus she thought he was cool, I mean, NOBODY else thought that.

He spread out his arms, feeling the wind tug him upwards. He tumbled around, dodging speeder after speeder. He rolled towards her, and then dived downwards. He tumbled around, and showed finesse as he did. He moved fluidly, compared to other Mandalorians, who were brutish in their movement, but Preliat moved with finesse and skill that showed in both his normal day routine and in combat. He spread his arms and legs out, full eagle, coming near Aditya.

"So far so good?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Gravity had the distinction of being Aditya's favourite scientific concept. Both flexibly pliant and universally respected by the most integral cosmic fluctuants, it drove a humanoid to its bidding with less friction than a kid sliding on an icy slope. More than the complicated physics equations involving folding space-time and massive cosmic objects, gravity felt all powerful when one was driven by it. As she continued free-falling, even the designer speeders whizzing by became nothing but strokes of colour and brushes of wind across her face.

Nothing could catch up with her. No emotions, no memories nor moments in time, for time was a fickle mistress which hadn't been paid and had sped off with the fabric of the universe for richer pastures. Her heart beat loud enough to rocket against her ribcage and the dress she wore wicked away at the knees. All she could hear was the whistling sound of doppler homogenization thundering god-like in its chariot. If she continued at this speed, if she fell all the way down, maybe her troubles would be perpetually too far off, maybe for more than the living end of this moment, Aditya would return to the knowingly spastic wide-eyed engineer girl who spent her childhood and adolescence under the oppressive whip of the ballet troupe. Would it regress her, this bought of gravity, would it carry her back in time before the destructive insignificance & incapacity of her failed marriage to a point before, where rings were never passed and the only possible disappointment was the lack of a standing crowd at the finale of another breathless, exhausting show?

Didn't get this level of impetuousness on Atrisia. As the sky veered away from her tossed body, Aditya let herself go pleasantly limp, glancing to the side with tears from the velocity brushing against her eyelids as @[member="Preliat Mantis"] flew through the air like a bird. Bird of prey, no swans there. She tried to crane her head over to Eli, bubbles of laughter crossing her lips with their delight.

"Doing good, Eli! Good! Woo!" She yelled at the receding sky, and shut her eyes as gravity and atmospheric shifts in pressure tossed her further from the entangling snares of recency.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]


Preliat laughed. He was laughing, he was happy. Normally he was angry, he was callous and cruel. Vicious even. Ordo had given him a name, Wrecking Ball, due to his brutality and level of...wrecking. He began to see what he was lacking in his life, what he had lacked for so long- since Elrood. Since the Dark Harvest. He wondered where Aditya was, if she remembered such a horrible event. The horrors of that would never escape his mind, but maybe, he could move on. He was dwelling on his demons, his lack of connections, the violence he had inflicted since then. His body did not feel the wind, armorweave and a helmet did that, but he didn't need to, after all, he was feeling something greater...happiness.

It was such a joyfree, carefree, wondrous experience in which he had been lacking for so long, lacking in his soul. He turned to Aditya, and noticed the ground was growing near. Tumbling over to her, the hawk took the soon into it's talons, rescuing her from a particularly nasty splat to the ground. His jetpack sprang to life again, short bursts that eventually, marked their descent, before a long burst gently laid their feet upon the...steel. Ground didn't apply on Coruscant.

"Well that was fun."

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Freedom. If only it lasted forever and the chain of events which chased relentlessly would veer off and never return. Caught up in the air, Aditya was laughing and light-headed. She tumbled into @[member="Preliat Mantis"]' chest and burst out laughing again, hands splayed on his Beskar'Gam. "Wild, man! That was amazing! Did you see that speeder? The Tarrati? It was the LXE edition with the turbo charged spindler engine! They can …. eheh. Nevermind. I'm a Gearhead." Fixing one shoe at a time, Aditya peered upward at the bellies of speeders quickly passing by and whistled.

"It was. What's next? …. Hold on." Whipping out her data pad, Aditya tapped at it and walked a few steps to answer it. It would seem no carefree time could include a break from her company or the responsibility it entangled her with for long. "How're you going to top that?"

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]


Preliat cocked his head, removing his helmet. The hairstyle didn't change, it was still the mohawk, tightly pulled back in a bun. He smiled brightly, then looked at her. Strong hands, gently wrapped themselves around hers. His crushgaunts were a curse, he couldn't feel her gentle skin.

"I don't really pay attention to the speeders. I was enjoying another view."The Beskar'gam melting grin washed over his features again. He sheepishly looked down, before his brown eyes met hers again, and the smile broadened. Kiss her you idiot, kiss her! Someone was screaming in his mind for him to do it. Probably was his mom somewhere.

'OH GAWD PRELIAT WHOSE DIS OH LAWD SHE'S PRETTY, COME ON IN, EAT, EAT!'

OOC:
Preliat's mom is a Jewish mom from New York.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"I..." Aditya glared down at her hands, wondering where they'd gone to under the muffled size and strength of @[member="Preliat Mantis"]'. A burn took her throat inch by inch as she thought of what happened next, the tension of waiting for a Mandalorian to be courageous or courteous. One of the two, perhaps. Which one did she want more of? "I don't know how you missed them. They're more beautiful than anything I've ever seen. Been wanting to get my hands on one, dig into its bits and rebuild its' engine and repulsor unit. See what makes them tick. Engines are simple. Far more simple than people."

One then the other Aditya pulled her hands out from Eli's and dusted them off on her skirt to calm the growing nerves as her eyes cast up to watch the speeders go by. "Well! We should... figure out where we are, shouldn't we? On our way and all, see the Mandalorian zones."

Her own mother had been far less sweet and more demanding than the voice in Eli's mind. Squaring her shoulders, Aditya watched Eli's face and the meltingly charming smile graced thereon. He was sweet, this vicious marauder. Sweet and stumbling over himself like any number of young men in front of a pretty lady and for the moment it reminded Aditya that she was only 22 and should be carefree. More concerned with dance moves and wine glasses than staffing and credit numbers. How'd it happened that she lost the spontaneity of youth? When had she given it up?

Truth was, she knew exactly where and to whom. "Take me away. Right now, right now." Putting her hand inside of Eli's again, Aditya smiled up at him, attempting to unfurrow her brow and look peaceful, content, a little shy or coy or lovely.
OOC: I'm picturing a middle-aged, getting on Fran Drescher. My mind's eye is happy.

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]

"Simply speaking, I missed them because I'm a Mandalorian Super Commando who finds more interest in weaponry and in armor than things I can't afford or use practically."The girl had a special tendency to render the killing machine rather silent for a moment, and the perpetual habit of biting his lip when intrigued like this. He realized after a moment, that he should say something, or do something. There was for a brief moment longer, the hum of passing speeders, and the passersby melted away, to where the two were alone on the steel platform, under the orange light of Coruscant. Brown eyes blinked, and his long mohawk fluttered in the wind for a moment, and he smiled. His teeth cast a glint, they were pearly white. Preliat definitely cared about how he looked, and took care of himself.

"We're on level 1893, my ship...is on level 2340."He said bluntly, his eyes turning this way and that, getting his bearings definitely. Numbers popped out, which is where he got his definite location. He looked back at Aditya. He smiled when she asked him to take her away. He intended to.

"I forgot to do something, though."

That's about when Preliat leaned in, and kissed Aditya on the lips. PTSD, the wars, the fights, the battle, the smoking, none of that mattered now. Only her, and her alone. He didn't want to separate. In fact, if he died, and all that was his afterlife was this moment, on a loop, he wouldn't be too upset about it. Maybe a little, but honestly, he was very happy at the moment. It seemed all the problems, the plagues, washed away, just because Aditya was here, touching, wanting to be with him. Like Aditya, Preliat's youth had been taken in a different way, he had been forged into a warrior, forged into hardened metal, forged into this great and ruthless Rally Master, but had forgotten to live at some point, and he was planning to take that back, starting with kissing the most attractive woman he had ever met. He broke it after a moment.

"I'll take you anywhere you wanna go."

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Ah, that makes sense. You know, with the flying and the death and the pew pew pew, pow kaPOW and… I'm gonna take you flying in my speeder sometime. You'll get why I love them then." Freedom. Flight equalled freedom to the young Epicanthix woman in the same way falling from that great height had felt like freedom. Nothing could catch them up and the woman was addicted to the speed. The sweeping doppler effects of nearby speeders rushed by her ears and out her mouth in a sigh. Her gloved hand stroked at the side of @[member="Preliat Mantis"]' cheek - he really was being terribly sweet. The smile, the tension lost from his face, the squaring off of his shoulders even in armour were all indicative of a man in release. Reprieve had found Eli, when would it strike out for her? Brushing the backs of her fingers across his cheek, Aditya found her lips curve upward in a graceful, timid smile.

Yes, there it was. Aditya's innocence unfurled from the hidden depths of her raggedly tired mind like a flower in spring and she peered up at the sky. "Does that mean we get to fly again? 'Cause that was incredibly fun and I didn't see a mother of all elevators so that makes me think maybe yes? Please?"

It occurred to Aditya as Eli kissed her that his lips were possibly the softest she'd felt, and that for being a Mandalorian Super Commando, that was some strange feat. Possibly of the Force! The occurrence lasted as most did when one was struck upon by the sudden escalation of physical affection and drifted off to that lasting remembrance one finds in looking back. Winding her arms around his shoulders, Aditya picked herself up on her tip toes to hold tight. Once she could breathe again, Aditya knocked back on her heels and blinked. "Woa."

Her eyes looked back to Eli, she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, pulling herself up to hold on tight. After all, it would suck to get one last kiss then go splat on the ground several thousand feet below. "Anywhere. Show me where you like to be."

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]

"Really? I coulda sworn I was flying right now. Feels like I am, anyways."There wasn't any lying with Preliat, there wasn't a sense of cheesiness or that he was trying too hard to do this or that with her, to say something romantic- he simply said what he wanted to, said what was on his mind. Said what he meant, and meant what he said. He looked upwards, and smiled."Yeah, we get to fly again. I don't think you're objecting, however."He smiled, holding tightly unto Aditya, before looking upwards. He didn't want to put the helmet back on, but he couldn't exactly hold onto it while flying.

"Honestly, I want to be with you. Doesn't really matter where I am."Preliat said, grasping her as he was about to activate his jetpack. He smiled, his hands beginning the trek to place his helmet on."To adventure, right?"

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Must've been some kind of kiss. I might be out of practice, but apparently that's alright. Good to know a girl's still got it." @[member="Preliat Mantis"] was something else. Not sure what that something was, Aditya did her best to give the man his dues and his good day. If a man wanted to be a romantic and enjoy his time, then who was Aditya to pull the soggy woollen blanket over his mood? She snorted and laughed softly, shaking her head in a slow motion.

"You barely know me, Eli. Don't get taken by a dream, spend time figuring me out." Hands were clasped behind his neck, she knew what came next and if she was going to hold on for dear sweet life, she'd do it with both hands secure.

"To adventure. Why else do we exist if not to hit the best spots? Safety's for newbs. Fly on, flyboy." Aditya smiled and pushed her head onto his chest in anticipation of a sudden acceleration. The thrill which would strike her belly would be worth half the last year, at least this time around she had somehow found an honest man to take interest in her. "Thanks, Eli. This day, it's… I needed this."

 

[Preliat Mantis]

@[member="Aditya Amadis"]


"Meh. I was a Hockey player and now I'm a Mandalorian. Taking my time isn't exactly what I want to do, or what anyone else expects me to do, so...sorry."The smile that was dragged across his features, obviously didn't mean it. Like, at all. He was a very dangerous individual, with moreso dangerous skills. Skills that put people like...James Parker in the dirt. Begging for his life, Preliat curb stomped him in an empty nightclub, when pretty much everyone else failed to get him. Fun day.

He pulled on the helmet, the magnetic locks sealing, and the T-faced visor, replacing the smile."A little overdramatic?"And that's when he activated the jetpack.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"I like time. It helps me breathe and collect my head. Never have enough of it lately." Aditya bit her finger, glancing outward and away to the skyline as if the width and bredth of this idea was still a blueprint in the making and she hadn't known the final design. Would the design come with time, or did she have to make the decision and mould it from there? Hugging onto him so she wouldn't fall, Aditya nodded.

"A little? Hoh boy that was more dramatic than a ballet class on hormone therapy. I sweaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!" The jetpack. It made conversation moot. @[member="Preliat Mantis"]