EP - tiny!Emcee

[i_am_your_host]

The door works in the strangest of ways.

So when a certain someone is holed up in his room, his younger self, his much, much younger self, enters the bar.

Small and pale and undernourished, the elfin ten-year-old boy (who could be mistaken for even younger than that) is dressed in secondhand school clothes from a distant era: knickerbockers and knee socks, a cardigan and cloth cap. He stares at his surroundings with large brown doe eyes.

Has he been here before? Perhaps in a dream? Why does it feel so familiar, when the door shouldn't have led here at all?

But this is a pub, and the little boy knows pubs. He goes up to the counter, peeking over it on tiptoes, to look for the barman. But there is none. How odd.

Even odder is the glass of milk and the plate of cookies that suddenly appear out of thin air.

This must be a dream.

Comments

[i_am_your_host]

"I don't know," he says quietly, glances around the room over his shoulders. "I feel like I've been here before, but I don't remember anything about it."

He eyes Cassian up and down. "You aren't from Berlin."

[childofrebellion]

"Time can be strange here. No, I'm not. I'm a pilot, a captain fighting in a long war in a galaxy with no Earth,"

He taps his rank on his jacket, its the simplest explanation and the truth and he feels certain this is Emcee somehow. And it matters to be honest as he can with him as their worlds are too alike, seeing him young is reinforcing that.

[i_am_your_host]

These are things that sound more like fiction than fact, but the boy is trying to take Cassian's word for it.

"You fly an aeroplane?" he asks, somewhat awed, because airplanes are still quite new in his time.

[childofrebellion]

"No, a ship through the stars but it can fly in the air too. It looks like this,"

On his datapad he finds an image of a U-wing and projects it, making the wings move to show how it can adjust.

[i_am_your_host]

The boy's eyes grow as big as dinnerplates.

"How did you do that?" he gasps with obvious delight, reaching out to try to touch the projection but then drawing back. "I've never seen anything like that before."

[childofrebellion]

"You can touch it, its called a holoprojection and made of light. It won't hurt you,"

Cassian moves the datapad over to Hansel and moves his hand through it, slightly disrupting the image but not breaking it.

[i_am_your_host]

He mimics Cassian's gesture, waving his hand through the image. He tries to pinch a wing between his fingertips, and he giggles.

"Do you have more pictures-- holo-- what was the word?"

[childofrebellion]

(OOC: Sorry for disappearing. Catching up on some much needed sleep.)

"Holoprojection and I do,"

He looks on the pad to try and find something interesting to a boy. Finally he finds an image of an X-wing.

[i_am_your_host]

"Holoprojection," he repeats slowly. He learned a new word today.

"Where is the propeller?" he then asks, curiously 'touching' the nose of the ship. "How does it fly without one?"

[childofrebellion]

"The engines are here," He points to the engines on the foils and the various weapons, "This is a starfighter, it also has weapons here."

[i_am_your_host]

Hansel doesn't understand how an engine on a plane without propellers might work, but now here is another concern.

"Why does it have weapons?"

[childofrebellion]

"Because there's a war going on and the galaxy's a dangerous place,"

Cassian adjusts the angle and shows how there are sort of propellers deep within the engines.

[i_am_your_host]

"Oh," he says softly with a thoughtful frown.

The image is so detailed from all sides, it's like looking at a model.

"Are you fighting in the war?"

[childofrebellion]

"Yes, I am. I get close to the enemy to learn what I can and do what damage I can,"

Cassian rubs the back of his neck, he remembers fighting when he was as young as Hansel, throwing rocks, winning his way closer to Imps by looking small and sad.

[i_am_your_host]

"Oh," he says again, growing quiet.

He doesn't like fighting.

"Do you have pict-- holoprojections of animals?"

[childofrebellion]

He looks down at his drink and then searches on his datapad finally finding a picture of a bantha,

"Yes, I think I do."

[i_am_your_host]

Hansel's eyes light up.

"What is that?" he asks with a laugh.

[childofrebellion]

The laugh gets a smile from Cassian, he can give a reason to be happy,

"That's called a bantha, they make blue milk that some people drink and every part of them is useful."

[i_am_your_host]

"Blue milk?" It's amusing and absurd, but it also makes him curious.

"Do you think-- that maybe I could try some?"

According to Mama Lily, milk is important for little children. She didn't specify that it had to exclusively be from a cow.

[childofrebellion]

"Yes, I think you could. Bar, could we have a glass of bantha milk for Hansel and two churros. I used to eat them when I was your age. They would sell them on the street,"

Before the Clone Wars but Hansel doesn't need to know that. Cassian finds an image of someone riding a bantha and makes it move.

[i_am_your_host]

The blue milk just looks silly! But Hansel is happy to try it, as well as the churro.

"Thank you," he says gratefully before taking a sip of the blue milk. It's very rich, but other than that, it really is just milk. The churro is crunchy on the outside and very sweet. It actually goes well with the milk.

He giggles at the holo of the bantha. "Have you ever ridden one?"

[childofrebellion]

"No, I haven't. I've seen them but never ridden them,"

He's never had a reason to and he takes a bite of the churro and smiles, its been far too long since he's had one.