|
Holding the Hand
Written by Sailor Hapes
The girl stared up at the imposing facade of the building, its four towers seemingly holding the sky up.
Of course, every educated person knew that the Jedi Temple did not hold up the sky. That was silly. Then again, so was wanting to climb it. Nobody had ever said that Argent Panic was sensible.
"Come on, lovely boy! We shall go climb and sing!" She tugged on the boy following her, who was turning bright pink.
It was one thing to be mocked by his brothers for his silly hair colour choices, but another entirely to be dragged by a silver skinned girl with orange, lavender and pink hair. Did he mention the silver skin and blinding clothing choices? Orange holographic checks, he was afraid, did not go with black and silver metallic mesh and chartruse leather plaid. And her boots... well, he was sure that Argent would manage to make six inch neon royal blue patent leather thigh high boots work for sightseeing. She hadn't ever let them stop her before.
The colourfully dressed girl skipped down the street, dragging the boy with her. Of course, it wasn't Argent's fault he didn't want to be bright and cheerful, was it? After all, he was trying. There was brightly coloured orange hair..but his roots were showing. That would have to be taken care of. She sang as she thought.
"One day she had nothing to do, sing rickety tickety tin, one day she had nothing to do, she cut her baby brother in two, and served him up as an Berchest stew. And invited the neighbors in, bors IN, invited the neighbors in," She trailed off. "How could the girl serve up her brother as a Berchest stew? 'Berchest stew' is a type of dance they do on the seventeenth level without the knowledge of the Berchest Entertainment Control Sector. It involves four females dressed like Berchii muhmmfmf!"
Balance Michael had covered her mouth before she could go any further. "Argent, I'm sure that while this is very interesting, it's not something we should talk about right now. I mean, we're at the Jedi Temple. The Jedi Temple. I doubt they want to hear about a Berchest Stew." Balance Michael made a mental note to find out exactly where on the seventeenth level this 'Berchest Stew' occurred. It might be fun to watch.
Argent pouted for a moment, then grinned, her sticky candy-pink vinyl lipgloss reflecting light and sparkles from the glitter. Balance Michael had to admit, the makeup and actual hair style did wonders for making Argent look older and more mature. Not to mention less like the guttersnipe she was. It seemed that the Financial people didn't care how their base workers lived, as long as they got the job done. It didn't seem fair, somehow. People who had a job, an important job, should be living elsewhere than the street. He sighed.
"Come on, Balance Michael! Argent shall take you to the furthest reaches of the Jedi Temple, showing you what only few have seen!" She dragged him up the glowing white steps, through the massive doors and stopped, her seven inch heels making tiny squeaking noises on the polished floor. "Up, down, widdershins, turnwise, rimward or hubward?" Argent Panic didn't believe in such simple directions as 'up, down, left or right'. It had to be in three dimensions. Otherwise, what was the point?
"...Up?" Michael was slightly confused by the options she'd given him, so he went with the one he could easily recognize.
"Then Argent shall take you up!" She began striding confidently towards a door emblazoned with blocky script.
'Let's all not use this door for safety,' Balance Michael read to himself. 'Oh boy...'
Dashing up the stairs after the brightly coloured Argent, Michael managed to not trip as they wound through several flights of stairs. Eventually, though, the stairs ended and they were left with only one way up.
That is, one way up if they could avoid the Jedi chasing them. "I knew we shouldn't have taken that door! Why did we take that door?"
"Because, Balance Michael, Argent Panic is very good at avoiding the Jedi! She knows their very weakness and therefore knows who is in the Great Library, level seven!" She dashed into the library, narrowly avoiding a flying tiny Jedi with lavender hair.
"Sorry!" Balance Michael yelled to the young Jedi who had tried to tackle Argent.
Argent had dashed around an extremely tall humanoid man in a battered black hat and boots, his body draped with several belts. He was sitting on a table, ignoring the dirty looks of the Jedi librarian, and looked to be waiting on the young man with the waistlength copper hair. "Look, Woodrow, I didn't ask you to - hey, watch where you're going, some of us actually have business here, you grak! - where was I?"
Michael only heard part of this conversation, but he thought he recognized the young man with the long copper coloured hair. So Eriks had survived after Nicholai had died. His friend Nicholai. "Balance MI-CHAEL!" Argent was tapping a pink booted foot by yet another door that politely requested them not to use it.
Eriks Chekov's head snapped up and his eyes zeroed in on Balance Michael. "You!"
"Oh frak," Balance Michael ran as Woodrow, the man in the black hat, easily slung an arm around Eriks' middle to restrain him.
Later that day, after Argent had returned all of the borrowed clothing (she'd kept the boots, for some reason) and had washed off the sticky pink lipgloss, she kissed Michael on the cheek and took him to see the newest concerto by the Coruscant Symphany. It was, of course, in the attic of the building, but it was still fabulous.
They were doing Ritual Fire Dances of the Outer Rim, complete with fire dancers. It gave him fodder to think about revenge for his dead friend.
Jeoran would have wanted that.