InsaneJournal

Anna was a morning person. There was no morning on the ship, technically, and she was already starting to realise some of the less than awesome parts about being there. Like the lack of birds chirping at her window, or the lack of that warm feeling of the sun on your skin, and everything about the Enterprise was so white and clean. The castle at home had so much color that you couldn’t take one step without seeing one.

But she was not to be deterred by this. First, she needed breakfast. And also, she needed to track down her strange roommate, because she’d snuck off early. So the second that Ahsoka showed her face outside of her room she was confronted by a sunny disposition in a dress with sunflowers on it, who immediately grabbed her by the elbow.

“Good morning roommate! You’re up! And that means we can eat! Right? Because I am all out of sandwiches and I don’t know where to go.”

“You’re not used to having a room-mate are you,” Ahsoka noted. It was too early in the morning for someone to be this cheerful, but at least in person she was a lot less in your face about it. She gave Anna a toothy smile. “You’re just in luck, I’ve only been on the ship for a couple of weeks but I know where all the hot spots are.”

Letting Anna hang onto her elbow (Ahsoka was cool like that), she started to lead her to the mess hall.

"Well..." Anna squinted up at Ahsoka, who was super tall. Wow, aliens were tall. Well, at least these ones were. There were probably all kinds of aliens in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Anna thought the height made her new friend look dignified and strong, though. It wasn't a bad combination. "Elsa was my roommate when we were tiny? But then something happened, I don't know what, and she was gone while I slept. I just woke up one day, completely alone..."

Which, still kind of hurt. But she'd had a full year with Elsa to make up for that time, and now at least she knew why. "Later on I learned that she'd accidentally hit me with her ice magic and they separated us to keep her secret safe. It's okay now, we're okay, I mean, we're trying. But no, I never did have a roommate after that, why do you ask? That's good though! That you know the hot spots, I mean. Is there a place here with grass?"

“I’m sorry.” Ahsoka didn’t know what to say about that, but she knew what it was like for someone to turn on her. She glanced at Anna, one of her eyebrow-markings rising. “I have some experience with the idea of separating people to keep them safe. At least something similar. It never ends well.”

Trying to keep up with Anna was a little daunting. A bit like dueling with lightsabers only less dangerous. “They have a botany lab, and an arboretum with grass. I don’t go there as often as I’d like. Some of the other travellers like to.”

She preferred to avoid the Sith who’d taken a liking to it.

"Arboretums sound like fun? I don't know what they are at all, but I guess it's a place with lots of trees and things like that!" It had to be that, otherwise there wouldn't be grass, Anna thought. And a place like that was probably the closest thing to going outside she'd get, being stuck in a gigantic ship. "Oh, but it's okay! It wasn't for a long time, but it is, now. No need to be sorry! She just needed to learn to open up, and I probably needed a few lessons in personal space."

Speaking of personal space, she realised she wasn't giving Ahsoka enough of that. She ducked her head and gave her a new friend a sheepish grin, "Which... I probably need to learn again."

"That's what they're for. Trees and plants and things. For anyone who lives in space for any period of time, having a place or at least a plant is kind of important. It reminds us that we're sentient, living creatures." Ahsoa didn't seem to mind the proximity. She'd met a few people with Anna's energy and it was a refreshing change of pace.

At least in small doses.

"And here is the mess hall. There's a lounge too, where you can get drinks. They serve fresh food here, but there's a replicator for late at night or if you're in a hurry. It's marvelous technology." So many planets that had been starving could have been saved with just a few of them during the Clone Wars.

"Why would you need a separate place to get drinks? Is it like... Oh, one of the places in town had a stand this summer where you could get lemonade! Is it like that?" Anna asked, excitedly. The Mess Hall was filled with delicious smells and people seemed to be drinking a mixture of things she'd seen before, and some things that were... "Why is that blue? What can you be eating that's that shade of blue?"

“Alcoholic drinks,” Ahsoa elaborated. “People like to gather together to drink. It’s a social thing that seems to transcend galaxies.”

She looked at the blue thing. “I don’t know what that is. As long as it’s some kind of meat I’m fine.” She grinned, showing off her sharp teeth.

Alcoholic drinks, those were something that Anna was supposed to have been avoiding, according to her governess. Anna pondered the fact that they'd passed around glasses of bubbly alcohol at Elsa's coronation, and that they looked sparkly and smelled delicious. The adults were all quite fond of it, but she'd never really had the chance to imbibe herself. Everything had gone bad rather quickly when she'd returned to the ballroom, and before then she and Hans had been having too much fun together.

Completely fake and meaningless fun, that heartless scoundrel. Maybe HE had over imbibed the adult drinks. "It's probably a good thing we don't drink much of that. Elsa's already a force of nature when she's got a cold, I can't imagine her on too many fizzy drinks. Apparently those go straight to your head!"

And then Anna stopped talking and stopped staring at the blue stuff, and instead stared at Ahsoka's sharp teeth. Her mouth bottomed out, and she blinked her eyes momentarily while her jaw hung open. A few seconds passed, and then she mumbled, "What."

“They do go straight to your head.” Ahsoka still remembered the first time she’d gotten drunk. It had been with … Barriss. Which had been both embarrassing and enlightening and a drunk Mirialan was honestly a little hilarious. She hadn’t touched anything again for several years.

She tilted her head. “My people are carnivores. I can’t actually digest plant fiber, but I can handle many spices and flavorings.”

"You don't... have to eat... your vegetablesTHATISAMAZING!" Anna said, starting out slowly, as if her brain was processing Ahsoka's information in real time while she spoke. Then she flapped her arms excitedly at her friend, "I wish I had an excuse not to eat vegetables! I'd just eat roast and sandwiches all the time but oh no... you can handle bread, though? Or did I accidentally poison you last night?"

She seemed fine, so probably, Anna was concerned for nothing. But unfortunately her lack of brain to mouth editing was even greater than some of the other people on board. It was already out there, and Anna was inspecting Ahsoka, like she was checking her for illness.e

“I get the impression a lot of people don’t like to eat their vegetables. I had a friend that was a vegetarian. A lot of the Jedi were, actually.” Ahsoka put her hand on Anna’s back. “Bread is fine in low amounts. Go ahead and ask the replicator for anything.”

"They aren't very fun, and they taste bad," Anna explained, while walking up to the replicator. She stared at it for a second or two, not sure where she was supposed to talk to, or how the device remotely worked. She stood up on her tiptoes, trying to find a person to speak to, and then squatted down low, before finally shrugging a shoulder and asking, "Hello!? Uhm... hi. Can I have a... do you know how to make krumkakes?"

The computer's voice came seemingly out of nowhere to ask her which flavor filling she wanted, and Anna jumped excitedly, "YESSssss, okay okay I want one with vanilla, and three with chocolate, and then... a stack of pancakes, with powdered sugar and strawberry compote?"

She thought she was going to die when the food she'd ordered appeared inside the receptacle in a flash of sparkling light. "Oooo, it gave me butter and syrup too!"

Ahsoka laughed, delighted by Anna’s delight. Honestly she might have whooped the first time she’d had her meal replicated like that. It was extremely undignified and she was glad Kanan hadn’t been able to see that.

Or hear it. Poor Kanan…

“I wish I could try that, it looks pretty good. I wonder if there’s a meat version.”

"There is!" Anna said, while taking her tray. The food had arranged itself neatly on there, and she turned back to the computer to ask for a big glass of milk before holding up a finger for a second. "Hold on. Okay... uhm, computer? Nice lady. Do you know how to make meat cakes? Or... loaves? It's ground meat with spices all baked together with some eggs, and... Oh! Thank you!"

The computer replicated a tray with at least three forms of the meat loaf in question, and Anna was just glad that it didn't ask her to specify which kind. Did aliens even have meat loaf? That would have been weird. She was also glad that none of anything they had was blue. "That smells really good. You should try that!"

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Ahsoka said, taking the plate and giving it an experimental sniff. It smelled good, and was certainly better than that time with the bugs that she’d never let Anakin live down.

“Thank you. You’re a very nice person, do you know that? I sense no bad in you, no duplicitousness.”

"What." Anna blinked a bit at Ahsoka, then shrugged one of her shoulders. Of course aliens who could hear through little horns and were super tall could also sense things about people. Right? That just made sense.

"Uhm... I think so? I don't know. I've always tried to be nice? What would being mean get you? Right? Hans tried to be mean and take over a whole kingdom and I hear he's shoveling horse manure somewhere, mucking out stables. And he's a prince."

“Who is this Hans?” Ahsoka shook her head. “It sounds like he got what he deserved. Take it from me, Anna. Just because someone has a fancy title, it doesn’t mean they’re a good person. I’ll tell you about the evil Count Dooku one day.”

"Count Dooku? That kind of sounds like..." Anna squinted her eyes a bit. Those were words that a princess probably wasn't supposed to know, but she did. She liked to blame Kristoff in those moments but he wasn't around. "Oh, that's sad. I wonder if Kristoff will ever end up here..."

She blinked at Ahsoka when she realised that her friend looked confused, "Did I say that out loud? Anyway, his name sounds like what a peasant might call horse manure so I'm thinking people must know he's evil when he walks through the door, right? But I already know all about people who are Princes who act very suave and tell you they love you and want to marry you and enjoy eating sandwiches with crazy sounding girls. Hans lied to me and tried to kill Elsa, and I think he got what he deserved."

“He used to be a good man who went evil and caused a lot of suffering and manipulated a lot of people, but had been manipulated and used the whole time by someone much worse.” Ahsoka summed it up. “And I may have made those kind of jokes when I was your age.”

"What kind of jokes?" Anna asked, genuinely curious. "Let’s find a seat, our food's going to get cold! I have had my fair share of cold meat and it's really awful unless it's on a sandwich." She paused and asked, "I wonder why that is?"

The mess hall had plenty of places to eat, and Anna pointed to the nearest table that didn't already have people at it. "Right there! So, your evil Count, he did a lot of bad things, did you ever stop him? And who would be worse than a count named after evil and smelly things?"

“Dooku and disgusting things.” Ahsoka shook her head. It probably wasn’t the best thing to talk about over breakfast. She sat down and looked at her meal. “He was eventually stopped. But his master … “ She sighed. “His master conquered the galaxy, and there was years and years of darkness and oppression.”

Anna had cut a triangle out of her pancakes and speared it with a fork while Ahsoka spoke. But the fork paused on its way to her mouth, and she frowned, "Oh no, that doesn't sound like a very nice story at all. Not a story for delicious meats and pancakes, definitely not."

“Yes. I’d rather talk about happier things. Do you want to tell me of where you come from? Assuming that’s not a sad story, in which case I’m sorry.” But Anna seemed so cheerful that Ahsoka couldn’t help but think it had to be better than the Empire, at least.

"OH I'd love to! I mean, there's some sad points, but there were some high points, too, and Arendelle is a beautiful place!" Anna said, while waving her fork around in the air. She shoved it in her mouth and then rolled her eyes over how delicious it was. "That's so good I almost died."

She sounded completely serious. "Speaking of dying, uhm, my parents did do that. But it's okay! I miss them, but I think they might have been holding Elsa back, too. It's complicated, lots of things are complicated."

Anna cut a few more triangles and reached for her milk, "Why don't I tell you something funny! This happened a couple of months ago, it was my first birthday with Elsa in my life. And she woke me up early in the morning, and had this gorgeous new dress waiting for me..."

After a gulp of milk, Anna began the tale of following a string to a multitude of birthday presents, while her sister sneezed and denied she had a cold.