Valla wants more than just vengeance (the_nephalem) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-04-24 01:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, ahsoka tano, li-ming |
Who: Ahsoka and Li-Ming
What: Random run-in and lunch
When: Some time in the last couple weeks
Where: Record store then a restaurant
Warnings: Pretty low
Ahsoka had swung by the music shop on the way home. She’d felt a peculiar urge to find something that reminded her of home. Not the home here, no, but alien worlds and ancient temples. So far, she hadn’t had much luck and they didn’t really have an ‘old as balls temple’ section. She wasn’t really a musician though. But maybe if she checked the meditation section. Which was probably fine except there was nothing that sounded alien enough for her.
Barriss would probably find something in ten seconds flat. But then if Barriss showed up there would be words and possibly a lightsaber duel. And crying. She absently played with her watch glamour and picked through the electronica section.
Li was trying to familiarize herself with the area. It wasn’t easy, but she at least spoke and read English well enough that all she needed was Google Maps and possibly an app on her phone that helped to translate things into Chinese if she couldn’t understand something. Her travels today took her to a music shop. She wanted some music she could listen to for ideas for her own compositions.
She had an ambitious project of composing a piece that combined Western musical tonality and traditional Chinese musical tonality. It would be a difficult accomplishment, but Li was up for a challenge. So she was looking for some music that would help break down some parts of both styles of music. She found a couple compilations of traditional Chinese music and was moving to find some good Western music. She was passing the electronica section, thinking starting with something more atmospheric may be best for combining music styles. Reaching out her hand brushed against someone else’s.
“Oh I am sorry,” she apologized, quickly bringing her hand back and looking over at the other girl.
That kind of tonality might be similar to what Ahsoka was looking for, even if she didn’t quite know it yet. Only one of the cds she’d listened to samples of had really struck her and she was reaching for it when someone brushed her hand. “It’s okay.” She turned to look at the person who’d spoken and stared a little. But staring was rude, regardless of how pretty someone was and she fumbled with the cd, dropping it on the ground. “Uh...that’s my fault.”
The piece would be a difficult piece to play if only because the way she imagined it would go would shift between the tonalities, going from the gongche notation to the Western notation and so forth. When the CD hit the ground, Li bent down and picked it up, giving it a glance over before handing it back to her. “It happens. Though I have not heard that artist before. What is the music like?”
Ahsoka searched for the right word to explain the music. Their hands brushed again when she took the cd and she momentarily forgot English. She tapped it against her palm. “Exciting? A bit like a high speed starfighter battle, blasters going everywhere and the force throwing you against your seat.” She blinked and half her attempts to talk to pretty alien girls flashed back to her. “Like in movies. Which I watch. It’s not the kind of thing you meditate to but I haven’t found anything I like in that department.”
Li had to smile at the description. “That sounds like it is a wild ride.” Perhaps an understatement, but she moved on to something else that caught her attention. “Meditate? You practice meditation?” She wasn’t certain if it was part of a religion or not, so she wouldn’t attach it to any. Simply ask about the meditation itself and go from there.
“Yes,” Ahsoka nodded, and hoped her glamour would hold today. “It helps to center me when I’ve had a bad day, or I’m having emotional issues.” Her dreams lately had been giving her far too many emotional issues to handle and she constantly felt the need to center herself. It was funny. Teen her had had so much trouble mediating. But she’d grown up a little.
The topic, at least, made it so she wasn’t mentally flailing, and she smiled easily at Li.
“It is a very useful skill to utilize, I must say. Meditation does help those things.” Li meditated as well. She also practiced yoga. It tended to help her relax and focus when she was particularly stressed. She smiled warmly at her. “Though what are you looking for to help you meditate?” Not that she worked there, but Li could probably suggest something. Or compose something herself if need be.
“Something...it’s really kind of hard to describe.” Ahsoka moved her hands around, as if that would somehow help. “I’ll know it when I hear it, but….” She shrugged helplessly. “Nothing really seems to fit, at least here.” She smiled shyly. “I know that’s not much help.”
Li thought for some moments. Partly she was just thinking, and partly she was translating things in her head. “Something otherworldly sounding, maybe? I believe that is the correct word for something that sounds not from this world?” Li didn’t literally mean something from alien planets, just the term that was sometimes applied to ambient music.
“Otherworldly is a good word for it.” Ahsoka tried to keep a straight face, because otherworldly could definitely mean ‘alien’ with her. Really, she didn’t want the conversation to end. Her friends tended to either only exist in her head or be the quieter, not-talky type. Which was okay, really. “Just something to set the mood, you know?”
“I have a suggestion, though I am unsure if they carry it here,” Li said, moving back to the electronica section. She flipped through a few sections under “A,” but finally found something by a group called Amethystium. “Give this a try, see if it is something closer to what you are looking for?” Li was rather well-versed in music that she could at least give suggestions.
Ahsoka took the album, her fingers brushing Li’s again. She looked it over, “Well, lets listen.” She found it in the system and then put on the headphones. Curiously, she wore the headphones in an unusual way, the band pushed back on her head and the earphone part slightly offset on her ears. She was glad Kyu wasn’t around - she’d say something pervy about this music.
Li smiled, letting Ahsoka listen to it. She didn’t comment on the way she wore the headphones. Everyone seemed to have their own way of wearing them, so she dismissed the possibility that it was anything other than how Ahsoka typically wore headphones. While Ahsoka was listening to it, Li was poking through some CDs, seeing if anything caught her interest.
“I really like this.” Ahsoka pulled the headphones off after another few moments. “Its not quite what I was looking for, but I like it anyway.” She came over to Li. “Thanks. I’m Ahsoka, by the way. Ahsoka Tano.”
“It was worth a try at least,” she said with a smile and turned back to Ahsoka. “I am Li-Ming, it is a pleasure to meet you, Ahsoka.” Introductions were certainly appropriate currently.
Ahsoka held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. What kind of music were you looking for? Maybe I can help. Since you helped me.”
Li shook her hand. “I was looking for some more ambient type of music. I am a composer and have an idea of a piece I wish to compose, but I am in need of some music to help me break the composition down better, if that makes sense?” Sometimes things got lost in translation from Shanghainese to English in her head.
“You kind of want samples so you have an idea of what you want it to sound like?” Ahsoka guessed. She tucked some hair behind her ears, though it was a conscious effort to not nervously tug on her lekku. She had to develop a habit of touching her hair in order to keep up appearances. It made her look a little nervous.
“Yes. I have this idea of wanting to combine the traditional Chinese music tonality with the Western music tonality in a piece. It will be challenging, but I do enjoy a challenge.” Li smiled, brushing a hand through her long hair. It was longer than some may expect it to be upon first glance, and she kept it rather silky.
“That would sound really cool!” Ahsoka liked the concept. She wasn’t sure what it would sound like, but it had to be cool. “Do you play an instrument? Or just do like, composition and stuff?”
And Li’s hair looked very soft and Ahsoka stifled the urge to touch it. She tended to develop crushes on half the girls she met and it was getting tiresome.
“I am a violinist. My parents wish me to be a concert violinist. I...wish to take a very different career path.” Which only made for continuous headaches on both sides, really. “I have composed a full symphony already, as well as some other pieces. Though I wish to expand my borders of music, and my parents do not appreciate that.”
“Do you enjoy playing the violin, though? Or would you rather play a different instrument?” Ahsoka seemed genuinely curious, and certainly impressed that she’d already composed a symphony. “I like to think variety is important, otherwise you’d get bored and who wants to get bored of doing something they love?”
“I do enjoy it, yes. I simply wish to explore more about music in general and not simply focus on classical. My parents wish otherwise. I suppose they were spoiled by the fact I am a prodigy.” Li said with a slight shake of her head. “They are rather traditional, and I do not fall completely in line with the path they laid out for me.”
Ahsoka smiled, leaning casually against a case. She was cool, she could be cool, how was one person’s hair so perfect? “I get that. I really do. What’s it’s like to have your life laid out before you, the expected path you’re supposed to take. And I know what it’s like to walk away from that path and try to find your own way. It’s really scary.”
Li smiled. It was nice to find someone who understood that sort of thing. “It is scary, but it is something I wholly embrace. It is, however, nice to meet someone who understands that struggle. I suppose mine is compounded by culture shock, but it is no less stressful under any other situation.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Ahsoka said. “And maybe you can make some friends along the way that can help.” She tilted her head. “Why don’t I buy that for you and we could get something to eat?”
“I would certainly like to make some new friends. I think I am doing well on that currently.” Li said with a smile. Though at the offer, Li blinked a bit. “Are you certain? About buying these CDs, I mean. I would like to get something to eat, though.”
“I’m sure! You helped me out, so let me help you out.” She bit her lip as she spoke. “It’s a friendly thing. Is there any food you haven’t tried yet that you want to?”
“If you insist, then you may do so.” Li didn’t mind, even if she found it a little on the odd side for people who had just met. Nevertheless, she was happy for it. Making friends and all. “Do you know a place that makes good hamburgers?”
“You’re in luck.” Ahsoka took the cds up to the front to pay for them, then led Li out of the shop. “There’s this place up the street, they serve the best burgers in Orange County and the french fries are like…” Waves her hands. “Sinful!”
Li followed Ahsoka up to the register. “That sounds good to me. I have been wishing to have a burger that was not from a fast food place.” There were other things on her list as well, of course, but she felt like trying a burger today.
“Sometimes that’s all I have time for.” Ahsoka could only really eat meat, though she could handle something served with the meat. Cheese was good. Condiments were okay. Onions and other fixings not so much and her body went back and forth on the buns, but she ate the buns anyway. She handed Li’s CD to her, and nodded with her head. “Come on.”
“Are you a student?” From what she could tell, Ahsoka was somewhere around her age. Though sometimes Li could be terrible at judgement like that. But Ahsoka certainly seemed to be a younger adult to her. “Thank you very much,” she said, taking the CDs and following along with Ahsoka.
“Yeah. I’ve been taking computer sciences and doing call center work to pay for it.” She was very close to quitting, if only because every other day it felt like her callers were going to make her go to the dark side. “It can be kind of emotionally draining and I’m not sure its what I want to do with my life, but I haven’t really...found the right thing yet.”
Story of her life in either universe.
“What is a call center?” Li asked, not entirely certain what was meant by that. Or she may have had an idea, but she still wanted to make sure of what it was. “What things do you like to do? Perhaps the ‘right thing’ is somewhere among those?” She offered, hoping she might be able to help in that respect.
“Uhm. It’s a place where a bunch of people answer phone calls. LIke when you call for help with your new computer or your internet connections, or there’s a problem with your bill.” She offered Li a smile, glancing a her and becoming momentarily distracted by the way the sunlight was haloing Li’s head. “I like..” Pretty girl. “I’m not sure...meditation and training with …. Swords and stuff like that doesn’t really lend itself to a career. I like video games. And flying. I like to fly.”
Could she be a pilot? Other than something really fast and quick she couldn’t see herself flying anything for a career.
Li nodded in understanding. Call center made sense to her now. This was one of the reasons she wanted to practice English more. She didn’t know a lot of slang and the like. “Training with swords could make a career. You could be a teacher, if you wanted. Or even be a live performer of the art. But I am certain with time, you will figure out what it is that you wish to do.”
She was probably advanced enough to teach someone, but Lightsaber forms, particularly her favorite, didn’t really have many real world analogues and she wouldn’t have anything she could use to prove she was skilled. But she supposed there were probably people willing to learn. Fans of the movies she still hadn’t had the heart to see. “Thanks. I just really dislike feeling so lost.”
“It sometimes takes time to find the path you were meant to walk. I have not always loved the violin myself, and the past few years I have been experimenting and studying it more in-depth and in ways I did not think were possible. Perhaps you will one day stumble upon a door that intrigues you enough to open it and that is where your path shall lie.” Li probably sounded like a Chinese proverb there, but she didn’t exactly care about that.
She sounded like a Jedi there, something which Ahsoka could both appreciate and… not appreciate. The Jedi were a sensitive subject for her but she’d never hated them or those who wanted to follow the ways. Kanan was a better jedi than she could have been, she thought.
“I like the way you think. Wise and pretty.”
“I do my best to keep my looks in line with my intelligence,” Li responded with a laugh. She wasn’t serious about that, but she did have quite the sense of humor about her. Which sometimes was difficult to pick out when she was translating constantly in her head between English and Shanghainese.
“Well it’s something that takes effort. To look good. I mean. And of course being smart. You seem smart. Smart is good.” Ahsoka winced.
Li noticed the stumbling over words, but didn’t draw attention to it. She instead smiled and rolled with it. “It does take effort. Some days it’s more effort than I wish to put in, but we all have those days, do we not?”
Ahsoka always looked good. Thanks to her glamour she always looked the way she had when her glamour had been created. Sure, she spent a bit of time washing her face and polishing her lekku but that was more for her own benefit than anyone else. She wondered if she should have glamoured herself up as a super model. “I think most people do, yeah.”
In the short time Li had been here and been aware of the ValarNet, she had read back through some posts and known that things were really weird here. Dreams of other lives, strange happenings, things that defied the laws of science and logic of how Earth was supposed to be. It was a bit like being in some action-sci-fi movie with horror elements thrown in. But she would wait until she herself experienced things before she decided whether they were real or not.
“You certainly are looking pretty today as well,” she complimented with a smile.
Ahsoka could prove it then and there, but she didn’t really want to scare away a potential friend. Especially one who complimented her. The normally graceful former-jedi nearly tripped over her own feet and grinned bashfully. “Uh. Thanks! I don’t really get that kind of compliment often.”
“You are welcome. I believe you should receive that kind of compliment more often.” Li appreciated beauty in its many forms, even physical ones. The world in general was a beautiful place, but most people didn’t bother to stop and take notice of the beauty around them.
Okay, even the glamour couldn’t hide how hard she was blushing. “You’re a beautiful person inside and out, you know that?”
Li smiled and shrugged a shoulder a bit. “I try to be, though I do not always succeed.” She was only human, after all. She wasn’t perfect nor could she be perfect all the time.
“Trying is all we can do. You can’t succeed if you don’t do something.” Sometimes Master Yoda’s words didn’t make sense. Other times they did, if you actually stopped to think about it. If you just tried, you never got anywhere. If you had the mindset of doing, you might just succeed.
“Yes. It is the state of being human. Some of us strive for perfection, but perfection is not attainable.” Or it didn’t even exist. It was difficult to tell sometimes. Li was a young woman of grace, but she had her faults just as everyone else did.
The burger place was less crowded than Ahsoka had expected - they were a bit early for the lunch rush, which suited her just fine. It would be easier to talk, and Li was really interesting. She sounded like a Jedi, which Ahsoka had thought before but it was just so striking. She grabbed a booth and held out a menu. “Doesn’t mean you should settle, though.”
Taking a seat across from Ahsoka, Li took the menu with a note of thanks and started to look it over. “No one should ever settle for anything, if you ask me.” Unless a compromise needed to be reached, but that was different. Now, the variety of things on the menu was a bit astonishing. And some of them just sounded like heart attacks on a plate waiting to happen. “What do you recommend?”
“Are you allergic to anything? What kind of condiments do you like? I like this one here,” Ahsoka tapped a particularly high in meat low in everything else option, “But that’s because I have certain dietary needs.” Aka most veggies made her sick.
“Not to my knowledge, no. I do not mind lettuce and cheese. I do not like onions much.” Li looked at the one Ahsoka pointed out. While it sounded good, it seemed to be a little too much of a meat overload for Li. Maybe one day she’d try it, but that was not today.
“You should try this bourbon burger. They marinade and cook it in this bourbon sweet sauce, and they use like...real cheese.” She couldn’t really eat the cheese but she could do the sauce. And it was good. “Actually I think I’ll have that, just without cheese or lettuce.”
“That does sound delicious. Perhaps I shall try that, then.” Li said with a smile. She was more than intrigued by it. And it also wasn’t so heavy that she could probably eat it. One thing was certain, food here was a bit different from food in China, and her stomach was trying to make adjustments. Too much grease was the issue there.
“It really is…” Just thinking about it made her mouth water. “What’s your favorite kind of food?” Maybe a not-so-subtle way to get Li to talk about herself, but Ahsoka was only subtle in some ways, not all.
Li did have to think for a minute about the question. “As far as a snack type food or a side in a meal, definitely Chinese steamed buns. They are amazing.” And luckily, she could make excellent ones. “As far as a meal goes, I enjoy stir fry. Does not matter what kind it is, I will eat it.”
“I don’t know if I’ve had those before, but I’d have to try them sometime.” If they had some kind of meat in them, anyway. Ahsoka smiled a little. “Stir fry, that’s actually something I used to be able to cook. Before I had to cut back on veggie anyway.” She really kind of missed that kind of food. She wondered if there was something she could do to be able to eat it again.
“They can be made plain, or they can have filling in them. I go back and forth between no filling and filling depending on my mood. They are good both ways.” Though as Ahsoka said she had to cut back on vegetables, she found that to be an interesting thing to have to cut back on. Normally it was meat or gluten or dairy or something that needed to be watched like that. “You could always do a stir fry without vegetables. Why not make your own recipe for it?”
“...you know I hadn’t thought about that?” It was a stupid thing to forget, but she’d honestly just been living on burgers and beef jerky. She rarely got to really enjoy a good meal, but then she was used to that from her dreams. So a nice juicy bourbon burger? Was a big treat.
“You could totally just do your own stir fry with what you like in it, add sauce and there you go!” Li said with a smile. She gave her order to the waiter and sat back in her seat. Once Ahsoka ordered and the waiter left, she leaned in again. “So what do you like to do for fun? Or what else, if I have already asked that question.”
“I’ll have to try it.” Ahsoka ducked her head and thought about the question. She felt an absurd need to impress Li. “A few things. Video games but I think that’s the same for most people my age. I do… sword training of a sorts too. And clubbing, sometimes I’ll go out to a club!”
“What sort of sword training? That sounds rather fascinating.” Li had always liked swords, though she’d never learned how to use one herself. Nevertheless, she found it was quite nice to watch. “Clubbing? My roommate seems intent on taking me to a club some time. I do need to have fun at times.” She said with a chuckle.
“It’s kind of my own personal take on a few different styles,” Ahsoka replied. “It’s easier to show than to tell. And dancing is fun! It’s a bit like training in a way, only you’re kind of…” she waved her hands, “Bumping into people, a lot.”
“I would like to see it some time, if you were willing to show me.” Hopefully she would be, as it was something that interested Li. “I have not been to a club before. Most of my friends back home were not the type of person to go to clubs.”
“I’d be willing to show you anything,” Ahsoka said, and mentally smacked herself almost as soon as she’d finished speaking. “Uh. Swords. Or dancing. Whatever, you know?”
“I would like that. Swords and dancing. What types of swords do you use?” Considering there were as many different types of swords as there were cultures on the planet, she was curious to know.
Ahsoka tried to figure out how to translate lightsabers into sword speak. “Sabers, kind of. It’s really hard to explain without showing you but it’s also… it’s weird. But this county is...really weird in general.”
She was saved by the arrival of food, and promptly took a bite so she wouldn’t have to speak any more.
“I have read some of that on Valarnet. It does sound like a lot tends to happen here.” Li was curious about it, even if she would be tentative about it. Some of the things she heard about the dreams were not good ones. She took a bite of her burger, taking the time to savor it as the flavors set in. “This is good!”
“You have no idea. You’d probably look at some of those posts and think we’re all crazy.” And she was including herself in that crazy statement. She sometimes wondered if her life was just a fever dream. Ahsoka smiled. “Glad you like it.”
“Some do sound crazy, yes, but it also seems to point to the fact that something is happening here. I shall simply reserve judgement for what that something is once I have personally experienced things.” It was the best way to go through life, wasn’t it? To not make up one’s mind about anything without having experienced it or learned the facts about it was not the best way to do things.
“At least you’re willing to do that. A lot of people want to just bury their heads in the sand.” Which made for a funny mental picture, if anyone asked her. She finished her burger in short order, and it really seemed like she could shred into it a lot easier than most people could.
“Most people are afraid of what they do not know or understand. The things I have read on Valarnet fall into that category. I, however, am not afraid of the unknown or the unexplained.” In fact, Li wasn’t really afraid of anything. Most nineteen year olds who spoke English as a third language might be scared shitless to come to school in America and find themselves a long way from home. But she wasn’t. She had culture shock, but that was to be expected.
Wiping her mouth with a napkin, Ahsoka grinned at her. “There’s so much unknown and unexplained out there that if you froze up with fear each time something new showed up then you’d never get anywhere. And there’s too much cool stuff that missing out seems like a shame.”
“Yes, exactly. There is so much in this world that to let fear dictate what you experience of it is a tragedy.” She was still working on her own burger, but she was eating at a quick clip. Li definitely seemed like she could pack the food away. While she wasn’t tiny, she certainly had a healthy appetite.
Ahsoka wondered where she was putting the food. Which made her wonder other things which she quickly tried to pretend she wasn’t thinking except she choked briefly on her drink. “Uhm. Yeah. I’d like to see more of it sometime.”
It was probably surprising just how much she could eat in one sitting. Sometime she would have to put Yang to the challenge and see who could eat more pizza. “Are you alright?” She asked, hearing the choke.
“Uhm. I’m fine.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m glad you liked the burger. It would have sucked if I recommended it and it had been terrible.”
“Yes it would have. But I am happy that it was good. Trying new things is always an adventure.” Li never was one to back down from a potential adventure.
“If you ever want to try something new, ring me up,” Ahsoka replied. There was a small hint of ‘challenge accepted’ to her voice. It wasn’t as though she and Anakin hadn’t gotten involved in a great deal of adventures. ‘Do it for the vine’ could have been their tag line.
“I’m always up for adventure and experiments!”
“I will certainly do that.” Li caught the hint of challenge accepted in Ahsoka’s voice. It was a tone she liked, and she did like challenging not only herself, but others as well. “That is certainly good to know.”