Second Floor Common Room, Wednesday Afternoon

[puppy_fair]

Now that Zack was officially done with classes for the summer, it was time for a little getting out and about and being social. It was also, Zack decided, the perfect time to get the gerbil that Deadpool had given him out for some exercise.

And that was why, armed with a hamster ball and a bunch of notebooks, Zack was hard at work constructing the most epic gerbil floor-maze the second floor common room had ever seen!

Poor, poor Mr. Winkles.

[Open, as common rooms tend to be!]

Comments

[puppy_fair]

"There should be, at..." Hm. "Um!" Hrm.

This was hard.

"The beach!"

That was big and open, right?

[momslilassassin]

"Good idea!" Ben said. "It's where I go running every day."

[puppy_fair]

"And just so long as we don't go floating away, we're all set!"

Though it would be interesting to be trapped in a giant hamster ball at sea.

[momslilassassin]

"That's what the mine fields would help prevent," Ben said wisely.

Because minefields on a beach was brilliant!

[puppy_fair]

"Brilliant! Man, this is going to be so awesome. Er. Astral."

Awestral? Astrome? Cool?

Doooooom.

[momslilassassin]

"Either one works," Ben said. "Astral's just slang at home."

In his head Jacen began yammering about pointless words with the sole purpose of severing one generation from the older one above it. Ben ignored it.

[puppy_fair]

"It's neat slang," Zack laughed. "I can't think of anything from back home that people don't use around here anyhow, so you've got one up on me, there."

[momslilassassin]

"It helps being from a different galaxy," he replied with a laugh of his own. "We have all sorts of different words because the authors go a little nuts."

[puppy_fair]

"Hey, I'm not from Earth, either," Zack grinned. "Gaia's similar, but way, way not the same."

[momslilassassin]

"What's Gaia like?" Ben asked.

[puppy_fair]

"It's kind of different all over," Zack said, breaking into a bigger smile yet. "Oceans and forests and deserts and small towns, and cities!"

Because that was totally unique, right.

"And monsters, I guess. There are monsters all over the place. It makes it pretty dangerous for people to stray far from home."

[momslilassassin]

"Oooh," Ben said, sounding impressed. "I grew up, well, kind of all over, but we spent a lot of time on just one planet-sized city called Coruscant. It's the capital of the galaxy. We don't have monsters, exactly, but we do have a lot of different species."

[puppy_fair]

"A planet-sized city?" Zack's eyes widened a little. Oh, yes, he was totally enthralled, now. "The biggest city I've ever been to was Midgar. It's the biggest on Gaia. I can't picture a whole planet as one, though. So many people!"

Zack was totally a people-person, but he'd probably get completely overwhelmed and implode in a place like that. He was from a small town, originally.

[momslilassassin]

"At least a trillion of them," Ben said, nodding. "Not counting the transient visitors. It gets overwhelming."

[puppy_fair]

"A trillion," Zack echoed, staring. It was going to take him a moment to get his head around that number, yes. "There are millions, in Midgar. Maybe a thousand in Gongaga, where I'm from. I don't think there's a trillion on all of Gaia and Earth combined. That's massive!"

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded. "I don't know them all."

No kidding, Ben.

"But there are so many people that we have to import water and food and, well, pretty much everything."

[puppy_fair]

"There'd be nowhere to grow it," Zack noted. "Midgar has to do the same thing, but that's not because of the people so much as just the area. Nothing grows there, either."

Which, in a way, actually was because of the people, yes.

"So you import stuff from... other planets, then? Through space?"

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded. "Which makes Coruscant kind of an obvious place to try to lay siege to during wars."

[puppy_fair]

"I guess it would, wouldn't it? It'd be one big hub of inter... planetary? Commerce. A good way to take big chunks out of a bunch of different economies at once."

This space thing seemed huge.

[momslilassassin]

"Interplanetary, and intersystemic," Ben added. "Coruscant is quite literally the center of our galaxy. Its coordinates are Zero-Zero-Zero."

[puppy_fair]

"Kind of like how the ShinRa building is located in Sector Zero of Midgar," Zack mused. "And it's right in the middle. Makes sense, but on a much bigger scale."

[momslilassassin]

Ben grinned. "Much, much bigger. So this is the second planet you've been to?"

[puppy_fair]

"Second ever," Zack agreed, grinning and bouncing a little. "I never thought I'd leave the one I was on. The space program is still really new on my world. They're just building a rocket now, nobody's ever left the atmosphere before, though."

[momslilassassin]

"We totally have to fix that before you go," Ben decided.

[puppy_fair]

Oh, Zack was about to start making excited squeaky noises, again. Just wait and see.

"Really? Like, really out there, in space? What's it like out there? Big and dark, right? I mean, that's what it looks like at night when you look up, but I can't even imagine what it would be like to look down at the planet from way up there, and-- Really?"

Eeee!