(no subject)

[5ame_heart]

Fives is in conversation with Bar - this is mostly one sided to an observer, as all such conversations are. Fives is sitting at the Bar his back to her and leaning back on his elbows to survey the room, and she is sending her answers directly into his feed interface as he chats.

Bar is trying to persuade him that there's fun stuff to be doing outside even in this weather.

"So you just - make balls of the stuff?"

Beat

"And throw it at people?"

Beat.

"But the cold...?"

Beat. After which a package of folded winter wear - in blue and white to match his hoodie - appears on the surface next to his elbow.

"...you make a good point."

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

If Fives does venture outside, there is a brightly-colored moving target available for practice, doing sprints between the greenhouse and the forge, her breath puffing into little clouds of steam.

How good is a trooper's aim?

[5ame_heart]

It's pretty good, as it happens.

Fives does what Bar told him to do: he comes out into the grounds and picks a nice spot a short distance from the greenhouse, where he starts the process of gathering the snow, patting it down, and creating a few balls in the way Bar told him.

Then he spots Rae, and picks up one of his snowballs, tossing it from hand to hand as he sizes her up.

Then throws it perfectly where she can run into its path.

[sunbaked_baker]

It connects with her center of mass with a very satisfying Pff!

And leaves the bakers spluttering to a stop, laughing even as she hurriedly tries to brush off the lingering bits of cold that've fallen down the front of her jacket. "What? What's this?" she laughs, spotting Fives. "An ambush?"

Better reload quickly - she's going for cover behind the snowdrift alongside the corner of the greenhouse to make her own ammo and return fire.

Her aim isn't nearly as good, but she's spirited and has the experience to make more snowballs quickly.

[5ame_heart]

"Ha!"

If Fives had any worry about starting what amounts to a combat sim with a civilian, it instantly dissipates when Sunshine laughs, and he shouts back in triumph.

Fortunately he has one more snowball to hurl at her retreating back - but he's not used to them as projectiles and this one doesn't quite make the distance - before he sweeps up a handful and starts to pack the next one.

[sunbaked_baker]

"You've picked the wrooooong fight, my friend!" Sunshine calls out, cheerfully. Her hands are smaller and her snowballs are likewise smaller than Fives', but they're compact, and fly well when she takes a moment to aim instead of flinging snowballs back as quickly as she can make them. She will make the most of having the benefit of cover while he doesn't, sending three at him in quick succession.

[5ame_heart]

"We'll see about that!"

He doesn't care that the first one is a great aim - he pulls one shoulder back and lets it fly past harmlessly before diving to the ground to avoid the other two.

He hits the ground in a roll and stays low, packing some of the snow on the ground up into a makeshift shelter, but really he's waiting for that first hint of golden red hair before sending his current snowball at her.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine packs a few more snowballs quickly, not wanting to give Fives time to get proper cover sorted. She pops back out from cover to send another barrage his way. "Eat snow!"

[5ame_heart]

Fives abandons that makeshift cover pretty quickly, opting instead for the tactic of making himself a hard target. He dodges most of them, takes one on his shoulder, and packs as he runs, before he finds a decent drift and clears it in a jump to hunker down behind.

[sunbaked_baker]

A couple of Sunshine's latest volley of snowballs knocks some of the snow from the top of the drift down on Fives, hunkered down in its protection, but the barrage ends shortly after.

A yellow corner of Sunshine's scarf is just visible over the snow where her drift leans against the corner of the greenhouse building, but it doesn't seem to be moving.

[5ame_heart]

Fives laughs again as the snow cascades on him, but he takes the time to throw a bunch of snowballs together as quickly as possible - regroup and reload.

Then he scurries along the drift to a different part and sneaks a look. Loads a snowball in his hand and checks again.

The scarf is still in the same place and he's immediately suspicious.

Fives sets about scanning the area for any further movement, at the same time working on his hoard of snowballs.

[sunbaked_baker]

There doesn't seem to be any sign of movement, though there is the faint crunching sound of snowballs being packed.

Fives is right to be suspicious, because a few moments later a snowball from his left flank pff!s into the top of the drift in front of him, scattering snow, and a grinning, scarfless Sunshine can be seen ducking out from behind the other side of the greenhouse. That ranging shot fell a bit short, but there's quickly more where that came from, even if Sunshine has left herself with less cover from drifts on the leeward side of the greenhouse.

[5ame_heart]

"Target in sight," Fives announces to the world in general, as he sends one of his newly created projectiles flying straight at her, with the level of accuracy you'd expect from a clone trooper.

And there's more where that came from, reasdy for her everytime she shows her face to aim.

[sunbaked_baker]

Pfft!-"Ah! Cold!" Rae laughs and flails back behind the edge of the greenhouse and regrets her self-inflicted lack of scarf to keep snow from getting down her shirt.

Once she's regained her composure, Rae immediately goes on the offensive. She's got a good collection of snowballs there, and leans out to lay down some cover-fire. Her aim isn't bad; most are near-misses, but some of them are actually on-target. "I've got you now!"

As though she's not the one lacking cover.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia is already outside, and though she is enjoying the snow, it's not predicated on her ability to form projectiles with it; she likes the hush that happens when everything is blanketed in the fluffy layer of white. She blends in with the stuff: her coat and boots and trousers are all white, fur lining keeping her face and wrists warm even as the cold air keeps the little bag of chocolate hearts hanging off her arm from melting.

She may have an ever-growing ball of tinfoil wrappers floating along beside her.

But she does smile when she sees Fives, and floats a chocolate heart out to him.

[5ame_heart]

Fives grins at her, the blue lines of his winter suit showing sharply against the snow, and holds out a hand to catch the heart as it floats.

This place is full of basically Jedi, he likes now normal it is.

"Hard to believe this is the same place that was so warm only a few months ago."

He inspacts the thing he's caught, and once he finds how to unwrap the foil he does so, the symbolism of the shape meaning nothing.

[abyssum_invocat]

For someone with a remarkable overlap in abilities with Jedi, Sinthia is emphatically not one, and she could tell that from one conversation with Obi-Wan. Or she would have been able to tell that, but that she's not sure what a Jedi actually is. Or what the Force is.

She chuckles. "It is, isn't it? But I like winter. I like seeing the changes in the seasons."

[5ame_heart]

The foil from Fives' chocolate heart is stowed in his pocket for later, the heart itself disappears in two bites- but man chocolate is still good.

"I don't get to stay on one planet long enough to see it," he admits. "Coruscant hardly has seasons at all."

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia shakes her head. "I've never left mine. Except for here," she says lightly, pushing her hood back and finger-combing her hair back from her face.

"I wish you could see where I am right now," Sinthia continues. "Amsterdam. There are canals, but they don't freeze, so there's snow on everything, but ducks on the water, too."

[5ame_heart]

"Heh," Fives says, with a gentle quirk of a grin.

"Sounds a galaxy better than where I'm heading next. Ryloth - all hot mesas and armored carnivores, and crawling with Separatist battle droids."

[abyssum_invocat]

"So not like you," she says. "What are they separating from?"

[5ame_heart]

"The Republic," Fives says, and if there's no objection he reaches into the basket for another heart.

"Guess I never went into that, did I? The Separatists are the other side in this war."

[abyssum_invocat]

She shakes her head, letting him explain, and offers the candy out easily when he wants some. She too takes another heart, the tinfoil wrapper adding itself to the little amorphous ball of the stuff that floats sedately along.

"Why do they want to separate?"

[5ame_heart]

"They're not fans of democracy," Fives says. "Prefer a simpler autocratic system, freedom from taxes and laws about the way they treat people.

"I'm not fully up on the politics, to be honest."

SecUnit would be disappointed.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia's brow creases for a moment, her only real outward expression change, but...she's trying to figure out now where she lands on that scale herself, before she says anything.

"Oh," she says after a moment, because the silence is, to say the least, awkward. For her (and that's an uncomfortable new development on its own). "So they're...the bad guys?" she asks. Political intricacies she understands, truly. Terran political intricacies. She knows she doesn't have enough of a grasp on galactic ones to do more than crude generalizations.

[5ame_heart]

Fives is patient through the silence. He turns and he watches her, his own brow furrowing in the same way, as he tries to imagine what she might be thinking.

Eventually, he gives a rueful smile: "Yeah, they're the bad guys. If you think the Republic are the good guys, which obviously I do."