Private Pink and Purple

[Loomi]

Pink and Purple
Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

"Loomi..."

Yogurt hovered above the head of the young Godoan padawan. The scarred girl was curled up in the grass of the gardens in the Jedi Temple, her arms wrapped around her cybernetic knees. To say that the last night she had was rough would be an understatement, a fact which the spark droid was all too aware of. A panic educed episode had driven her out here in tears, brought about by something she had remembered. As a mental health monitor, Yogurt had been trained to handle cases such as amnesia, but the droid had not been expecting such a severe reaction to the returning memories. It seemed that his job was far more complicated than initially expected.

Working up his confidence, the spark droid floated down closer to her face.

"Loomi, you must wake up," the droid insisted. "Your scheduled to attend a very important seminar today."

The Godoan's good eye flitted open, and the teen gazed at her droid companion with exhausted confusion.

"Yogurt..." Loomi muttered.

With no warning, Loomi reached up, snagging the little droid out of the air before wrapping her arms around him, much like a young child may cradle a stuffed animal. Before long, just as soon as she had woken, the padawan was sound asleep again, her mechanical companion clutched tightly to her chest.

"L-Loomi!" Yogurt buzzed, "Don't fall back asleep! Are you listening to me?"

The droid struggled for a moment, but all in vain. He was, indeed, very stuck.

"Oh dear," the spark muttered to himself. "What am I going to do..."

At this rate they would both be reprimanded. Yogurt had a record of perfect punctuality. Losing such an achievement would be a travesty.

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

Coruscant was massive and noisy. Similar to Port Solaris, the capital of Mnemosyne, only it covered the entire planet with endless buildings and people everywhere. It was too much! The influx of emotions swirling throughout the upper city streets came in droves, unrestrained and invasive; Jaitre wasn't going to make the mistake of leaving the Temple again....But the Jedi Temple itself...-It was far beyond the one on his homeworld.

The young boy had awoken early in the morning in an attempt to escape all the hustle and bustle of Jedi coming and going throughout the halls. He needed some air and some peace and quiet, to be safe with his own thoughts and feelings. It was difficult enough trying to juggle the anxiety of being in a new place surrounded by endless amounts of people, coupled with the pressure of wanting to live up to the expectations of his adopted guardian and Jedi Knight Caedyn Arenais, but Jaitre was a Zeltron too and the way in which the emotions of others influenced that of his own was chaotic and not something he ever felt like he had a chance to prepare for.

The gardens seemed like a safe bet. Once he had managed to find them. It would be cold out, but he didn't care as long as he was able to get some peace for at least a little while. The Padawan walked through the halls at a brisk pace, almost running but not quite wanting to appear like one of those juvenile younglings who could not be controlled and restrain themselves in the halls of the Jedi. He was thirteen right, not some kid but...-Well, not exactly an adult either.

Finally, his reddish-pink skin felt the cold kiss of the morning dew, and he kept walking until he would find himself surrounded by the green life of the gardens, a place that very nearly reminded him of Mnemosyne. Only it was still noisy, the echoes of traffic could be heard above the garden surrounded within the outer walls of the Jedi Temple.

"Oh dear," the spark muttered to himself. "What am I going to do..."

A voice cut through all the noise and the anxiety of Jaitre's beating heart, a panicked robotic voice that sounded so unlike anything the boy had expected to hear at this point in time. And even strangely, Jaitre didn't feel any invasive sense of panic or concern coming from anywhere around him. There was only a calm, almost distant feeling that could only be described as someone present, but not altogether there at the same time. Driven by a sense of curiosity, Jaitre would move towards the noise quietly and much to his own surprise, see a droid being cuddled under a tree by a Godoan girl.

'Wait, did she sleep outside all night?' he questioned, leaning forward to peer between the shrubs and flowers at the sight of the other student. At least he had assumed she was a student because how anyone else could be out here this deep within Jedi grounds and not be discovered by the Temple Guard was beyond him. With a bit of a frown at having to fight his nerves, the boy pushed his way through the bush and out into the open, his eyes glancing between the droid and the Godoan.

"Hey..." He said quietly to the droid, trying not to wake up the girl but at the same time feeling he needed to help the thing, "Did she steal you from the artisan wing?" he asked, trying to make some sense of the picture.

Loomi

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

"Did she steal you from the artisan wing?"

Yogurt's photoreceptor eye rotated in it's shell, catching sight of the Zeltron boy who had said this. There was concern in his tone, but it was a rather incorrect assumption.

"Most certainly not," the droid corrected. "Miss Loomi is many things, but a thief certainly isn't one of them."

"THEIF!?"

Loomi shot up immediately, her eyes darting around to scan the room. That had woken her up. Yogurt let out a mechanical sigh, wiggling free from her now loosened grasp.

"There's no thief," Yogurt assured. "This young man was simply asking about the circumstances of... uh... How I wound up in your service?"

The Godoan cocked her head and turned to look at the boy. He was younger than her by a few years it seemed, along side being a face she didn't recognize. They must have been new. A frown came to her face as she processed the assumption more. Her? A thief? Loomi didn't know if she'd be able to live with herself, not after...

Not after what? That didn't seem right. She could have sworn she was thinking about something, but no such memory surfaced.

"Of course I'm not a thief," Loomi pouted as she got to her feet. "I'd be a lousy Jedi if I was one."

A look of remorse quickly came to her face.

"Golly, I'm sorry," she apologized. "That came out a lot ruder than I thought."

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

Jaitre Lanabre frowned, feeding off of Loomi 's sudden defensiveness; "Hey, I was just trying to help!" he exclaimed in a bid to free himself of any possible blame. The offence that she had taken from the question had rolled right through him as the Zeltron Padawan felt her emotions as though they were his own, soon followed by her guilt that complicated the matter even more so.

Jaitre had to remove himself from looking at Loomi, to try and redirect his attention elsewhere so that he could focus on controlling himself. 'Block out all that threatens to sway your heart' he thought the words once spoken to him by one of the Jedi on Mnemosyne, trying to regain control of his feelings.

"I didn't mean to make you mad" Jaitre spoke up, though he still had his back turned to the Godoan, the young Jedi's words were ushered with more restraint than he had originally responded with; "Please calm down" he added, wanting very much for his own sake to feel a sense of calm around him. Unfortunately, he did not know what sort of effect those three words could have towards the opposite sex, and so his intent wasn't nearly as condescending as the words that he spoke, may have been received.

This was exactly why he had been avoiding other people, it always meant getting caught up in their feelings and making what could've been a small mess into a much larger one. "It sounded like your droid needed help is all..." He would half turn to glance back to Yoghurt rather out of interest in the floating metal orb. Technology is a great interest of his, especially with regard to their lack of emotions and subsequent lack of influence over him.

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

"It sounded like your droid needed help is all..."

"Oh," Loomi frowned, her expression immediately shifting.

To most, it would be jarring how quickly her mood shifted. It was almost as if she had forgotten everything that had been said previously, down to the boy trying to get her to calm down. She was quick to turn to her companion with a curious look on her face.

"What did you need help with?"

"Waking you up," Yogurt buzzed, irritation inflected surprisingly well in his synthetic voice. "As of five minutes ago you're late for your seminar."

Loomi's remaining eye dilated, her face becoming flush red.

"WHAT!?" she exclaimed.

The Godoan fell backwards onto the grass, clutching her face in shame. She had never missed a class of any kind before. A wave of fear came over her as her imagination raced through the different possibilities of the punishment she may receive for the sudden appearance of laziness in her behavior. Everything was falling apart all over again, just when she had managed to get a grip of herself. Loomi could feel every part of her sinking deeper and deeper into the soil below her.

"Aw shucks," the teen muttered, "I can't go to detention. My record will be ruined."

Suddenly, an idea popped into Loomi's mind. She leapt to her feet again, quickly turning to the Zeltron boy.

"Hey, whats-your-name," she addressed, but paused train of though for a moment. "What's your name? A-anyways, sorry for making you upset or something earlier, but can you help me find an excuse for missing my thingy? I don't want this following me till the end of time."

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

Loomi 's emotions were intoxicatingly powerful, and now with fear washing over the Godoan girl, Jaitre had to try to block out yet another wave of crippling feelings trying to invade his heart and being. A chill ran through his body, and it felt as though darkness was clutching at his heart. While she may have been having a normal response to the revelation of missing a class, the fear was so strongly felt by the Zeltron boy that he had to say something to her.

"Can you please just stop for a second?" He pleaded, arms crossing over his chest in a protective manner as he asked Loomi to get a hold of herself as if these feelings were intentionally manifested; "You're making me feel all over the place, it's too much!" he added, his hands pulling away and soon being placed to his temples, his body language and the manner of his change in demeanour within such a small frame of time suggesting that he was more than a little anxious and uncomfortable.

Suddenly, Loomi seemed to find some sense of hope, however, and this came as a great relief to Jaitre who almost seemed to cheer up immediately as the feeling rushed through him. "Thank the Force..." he exhaled the words with a big sigh of relief as if having just conquered a really difficult hurdle of some sort.

"And my name's Jaitre Lanabre" he would answer Loomi's desire for an introduction, "and sure, whatever. Just...Please try to relax?" he asked her for one simple condition which would make his morning go so much smoother.

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

"All over the place?" Loomi frowned, assessing the boy.

He certainly did look worked up. What had he meant by making him feel all over the place? He seemed to shift when her attitude did, appearing relieved. Did the things she feel have an effect on him? It certainly seemed the case.

"You... feel my emotions?" she concluded, her eyes dilating nervously. "Oh golly, I'm so sorry. I-I probably gave you a heart attack. You may not want to hang around me then. I... uh... I don't know what it's called but I don't remember a lot of things. So random things sorta give me random memories that make me feel random things."

She turned away, becoming a little sad now. She hadn't expected that her fragmented mind would actually be so detrimental to someone.

"M-maybe you should just ignore me then," the Godoan sighed. "I don't really have control over my emotions, and I don't wanna cause you any trouble."

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

"M-maybe you should just ignore me then, I don't really have control over my emotions, and I don't wanna cause you any trouble."

"Uh, it's not you. I mean it is, but I don't have control of myself either" Jaitre admitted, not wanting the Godoan girl to feel bad while at the same time feeling a shared sense of concern for her. Though he might have been feeding off of her consideration for him, Jaitre wasn't a horrible person and would typically have wanted to reassure her. So it was genuine, right? Of course, it was!

He did his best to ignore the feeling of sadness, which was somewhat depressing but instead chose to focus on explaining himself; "I'm a Zeltron, people who are like this. Feeling the feelings of others. It can be confusing and frustrating when you sometimes don't know if you're feeling for yourself or for someone else" he explained with a somewhat deflated tone making it sound worse than he meant to.

"Uh, so anyway..." Jaitre tried to move on from what he'd sounded like, "What's this class thing of yours? I'm new here". Jaitre had been moving around the Galaxy to different Jedi facilities on some kind of transitional exchange, learning from all different types of Jedi and organizations. Perhaps Loomi might be able to give him some kind of idea of where to get started around the Coruscanti Jedi Temple. It was just way too big with far too many people!

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

"I'm a Zeltron, people who are like this. Feeling the feelings of others. It can be confusing and frustrating when you sometimes don't know if you're feeling for yourself or for someone else"

"Oh," Loomi frowned, tilting her head. "I guess that makes sense."

She'd certainly feel overwhelmed if she had the emotions of everyone else floating around in her head. The Godoan already struggled to manage her own. It wasn't long though before the important question was being asked.

"The seminar," she nodded. "It's for... uh..."

"Diplomacy and Ethics," Yogurt reminded.

"Yes," Loomi agreed hastily. "That thing. But I'm late now... That's a bad thing, I think. I-I'm not actually sure. I've never missed a lecture before."

It was probably a bad thing. Only rebellious, delinquent padawans ditched their classes. Loomi couldn't be one of them. All of her earned goodwill would be out the window in a heartbeat. She simply needed to find a good way to get excused, hopefully to at least avoid detention of some kind. But what to do...

"I'm stumped," she shrugged. "I'm not that good with ideas. You got any?"

 

[Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais]

Diplomacy & Ethics.

That sounded like an exciting class to attend, especially for Jedi. In Loomi 's case, however, she needed a good excuse and Jaitre had learned a thing or two about making excuses while in the social system of his home world. "You could always tell them you had an urgent appointment with one of the other Masters. You'd think they'd understand something like that. OR you could tell them that I got lost in the Temple and needed help finding my way around. I think that's sorta what you were thinking first right?" he listed off two reasons for arriving late to her class off the top of his head.

"Maybe there was something urgent that came up off-world, like some kind of family emergency or one of your friends was crying and needed some sort of help with something. Make an excuse that makes you seem like you're being a really good person, and they will go easier on you" he grinned thereafter. It was always his go-to when having to lie about where he had been or what he had been doing. Sure, being able to influence people around him had certainly helped in the past but when it came to the Masters of the Temple, they had ways of protecting themselves from such things. He had found that out the hard way.

"I don't care if you want to throw my name out there if it means you don't get in trouble. I'm pretty good with talking my way out of things but don't tell anyone else I said that" Jaitre smirked, feeling as though he could trust Loomi with saying something like that. He was trying to help her after all.

 

[Loomi]

Coruscant, Jedi Temple
Tags: Jaitre Lanabre-Arenais

"Maybe there was something urgent that came up off-world, like some kind of family emergency or one of your friends was crying and needed some sort of help with something. Make an excuse that makes you seem like you're being a really good person, and they will go easier on you"

"That won't work," Loomi informed the Zeltron boy sheepishly. "I think showing you around is a good enough excuse."

She didn't have a family, and she doubted that any of her friends would be crying at the moment. They all seemed so strong and stalwart, yet she remained an emotional wreck. If anything, the Godoan was more likely to be the one to end up in tears. She'd worry about that later though. The last thing she needed was to get this kid all emotionally confused again.

The mention of taking the blame for her did cause her to frown, however.

"I'd much rather not get you in trouble," she remarked, crossing her arms. "You're new here. I'd rather not sour you're early experience."

And she was older, so she sort of felt she had to be the mature one here. Loomi was certainly self-conscious about if she was mature or not, so that wasn't up for debate.

"Yeah, I can show you around," she reaffirmed. "Anywhere you don't know how to get to? I know my way around pretty well."