thatwaslucky | Minfar- Sunday

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Minfar- Sunday

Rey had loved Minfar the last time she'd been here. She had not loved getting to the Zixon city. It was a trek through the jungle, sliding down into dark secret tunnels covered in color-changing bioluminescence, and watching for giant things that thought they were food.

But for as long as it was taking her, Summer, Rose and Chewie to get through it, it had been fairly quiet the whole way. Well, mostly. When they got to what looked like a bottomless pit, Chewie was ready to nope right out.

"It's fine," Rey told him. "There's a bridge, and we're almost there."

She pulled her staff loose so that she could tap the bridge, black rock that matched the walls so that it blended in perfectly, but the sound of metal clanking against rock proved that it was there. "I can even go first."

[For Summer!]

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Look, if Rey said there was a bridge there, then Summer would take her word for it, though she did appreciate the extra reassurance with the staff as she narrowed her eyes at the pit trying to actually see the thing, and then blinking her gaze away and shaking her head before she went cross-eyed from the attempt.

"Yeah, okay," she said, "but why?

"I guess it could be a good way to dissuade the more faint-of-heart," she added, with a tentative tap the tip of the very sturdy but still very cute boots she was.sporting for this whole adventure onto the supposed space over the pit, "although you'd think all the jungles and tunnels would handle that, too."

All the things that thought they were food, too, but since that hadn't been much of a problem so far, that wasn't as much a thought.

She definitely wasn't going to complain, this was actually great, but she did still hope that the Zixon had really good showers.

Edited 2020-09-20 13:25 (UTC)

"Oh, everything on Minfar wants to kill the Zixon," Rose explained. "The grobel won't come across because it thinks there's a giant pit and couldn't cross the bridge anyway. It's ingenious, if terrifying."

"The grobel is what, um, made the tunnels," Rey added.

You know. The giant tunnels they were currently standing in.

"Oh," said Summer brightly. "Fun!

"But at least that benefits us, too, once we get across, right?"

Thing had gone...pretty smoothly so far, maybe even suspiciously so, but Summer wasn't about to be That Person by pointing it out. She was mostly going to hope that if something happened to the bridge and they couldn't see it, Rey could, like, sense it or something.

And also totally stealing this idea if she ever wound up with a secret lair of some sorts, which, you know, could so totally happen one day.

Chewie would really like to take this moment to point out that there was no benefit if they all fell to their deaths forever.

And as far as Rey knew, she was the only one who actually knew what he was saying. At least in detail. "Yes, that benefits us, so if we just get across..."

So just to prove the point, she took a couple very careful steps out onto the bridge, which looked like she was standing on air. It really was still terrifying.

"I think," Summer said, her eyes a little wide at those first steps and just how unnerving it was to even just look at it, "this is one of those few occasions where you could do one of those flying leaps and have it not make me laugh."

Still, she was more than willing to follow Rey's example and follow cautiously behind her, if only because she'd like to just get it over and done with, and she made the mistake of looking down at her feet, and seeing them basically like they were suspended on nothing, though she felt the solid bridge underneath her and this was a trip, and, boy, that.was probably a long way down...

"Uh, maybe on the way back," Rey said, knowing full well that no way in hell.

But she was also a crazy person who found that if she closed her eyes and just felt her way across, she felt better about it and moved faster until she was at the other side. Which was a change from the last time she'd done this.

Summer shorted at the response (hey, she was a big.believer in levity during situations like this!), but most of her attention was on at least trying the keep pace with Rey, because, yeah, the sooner to the other side, the better. She did feel compelled to look back, though, to see how Rose and Chewie were coming along....assuming they even were, with no idea what to do if they weren't, but those were always sort of those in the moment things, anyway.

And better to look back than down again.

Rose and Chewie were coming. Rose didn't look thrilled to be pulling up the rear, but she knew she was fine doing it. Chewie meanwhile was a little slower, because he was bigger than the rest of them and the bridge was really pretty narrow, but he was managing.

And then they both stopped when a deep rumbling started.

Yeah, Summer had very specifically avoided asking about how wide the bridge was, figuring she was better off just not knowing and making sure it wasn't a problem.

That sound, though? Definitely sounded like a problem, and Summer was stuck between wanting to dash the rest of the way to the other side and her feet actually not letting her.

At least her hands had no problem finding her blasters, though!

"Please tell me that was because someone skipped breakfast!" she said. "Like, big time!"
"

"That's exactly the problem!" Rose called.

"I've got you, just hurry," Rey added. She could totally pull people out of the air if they fell running, right?

"I meant one of us!" Summer clarified, but she really didn't need to be told twice to get moving, sprinting with abandon toward the other side, thinking that if she did misstep and fall off and Rey didn't actually have her (like, fine, she was pretty confident she could handle her, and Rose, but Chewie was pretty big, and all three of them?), then at the very least, if she were to die, at least she wouldn't die single...

But she made it, she definitely made it, and she may have straight-up long jumped the last few feet to the edge like this was a track meet back at Harry Herpson High, rolling off to the side once she was sure she'd landed on the other side to make room for the others (talk about a big oof if she'd rolled before she got there!), and, crouching, aiming her blasters for anything else that might be coming that wasn't an adorable engineer or a Wookiee.

That was a good move on her part since Chewie hadn't gotten to 250 years old by not getting out of bad situations (when he was able to do so) (and when he hadn't made Han get into them), and he picked up speed to get to solid ground as soon as possible.

Rose lost her footing not far from the end of the bridge, but it wasn't far for Rey to pull her along to safety.

And it was just in time for a group of short, green-furred Zixon to appear, ready to handle this next part.

"You can put your blasters down," Rey told Summer.

Summer hesitated, but only for the briefest moment. When she lowered the blasters, the breath she'd been holding rushed out of her, and she glanced somewhat dubiously at Rey...and curiously at the incredibly timely Zixon.

Still tense, and ready to test her reflexes at a moment's notice, but they were on the other side, now, so there was that, and that curiosity was just growing now.

The grobel burst through the other end of the tunnel, a giant wormlike creature with teeth and shimmering scales, which had spent years scraping along the sides of the tunnels to smooth them down.

It was not a great sight.

But the Zixon burst into action, racing across the bridge to attack it with xinda flower dust to drive it back.

There was only one Zixon left with them there, a female who was wearing just so many modern weapons on her bandolier. "We welcome your return," she said. "You can follow me now."

Yeah, no one needed to see that.

Just ignore the fact that Summer was tucking her phone back into her pocket by the time she turned a smile toward the Zixon and turned with an eagerness to leave the whole mind-trippy bridge-of-potential-death behind them. "Good timing," she offered appreciatively.

"The Zixon are prepared. It's really impressive," Rose told her, and turned to the Zixon. "We can go now, right?"

"This way," the Zixon said, maybe looking a little amused, even though the others clearly had this covered.

"This is Lim," Rey said as they started further down the tunnel. "Lim, this is Summer and Chewbacca."

"Hi, Lim," said Summer, smiling again with a little wave. "It's really nice to meet you."

And not just because of the fantastic timing, either!

And she loved how, for all the varied traffic she got back in the jello shop, there were still new species to encounter out here.

"I take it you know Rey from the last time she was here?"

"Rey and Rose came to our assistance, and we are very grateful to have friends like them," Lim said, leading them further down the tunnel.

"It's much nicer to be here when it's not an emergency," Rey said.

"I'll bet," said Summer, grinning. "And I'm sure we're pretty grateful to have friends like you guys! Is it still very far to the city? Any more invisible bridges or stuff like that to look forward to?"

"We're almost there," Rey assured her.

"It is, uh, almost all uphill, though," Rose warned, like she didn't want to look like she wasn't looking forward to it in front of Lim. But she wasn't looking forward to it.

Summer's mind harkened back to Rey telling her about comfortable shoes for this, and her nose may have wrinkled a little, but in light of Rose's own attempt to make light of it, she added cheerily, "Looks like I get to skip leg day next week!"

Seriously, though, jungles and mind-trip bridges and uphill tunnels? There had better be good showers!

Ooh, or a spa. Alien spas were totally always the best spas...

Right. Mission. Focus! And walk. Uphill. So much uphill.

There were no spas.

There was a lot of uphill, though! Like, even after Fandom's stairs, even after getting around on Ahch-To, this was the kind of trek that would make Rey's legs burn.

Then once they left the tunnel, it was a short walk through the jungle to another camouflaged tunnel, which required them to crouch to get into it. Chewie hated that one.

That tunnel led to the city. They were still underground, but there was an artificial sunlight streaming down from above the treetops. The Zixon city itself was a lot to take in: the houses and buildings were small, arranged seemingly at random, and sometimes stacked two or three on top of each other. Some incorporated the trees around them. The streets were small, not too unlike Fandom, just lined with green-furred aliens going about their days like anyone else.

"Welcome to the city," Rey said.

Seriously, though, these guys really needed a spa up here. Although, thankfully for probably everyone involved, Summer was a little too tired for her little space entrepreneurial brain to really latch onto that right now.

She was mostly just relieved to hear those words and was very tempted to just slouch over and lean on Chewie for support. And thankfully for everyone involved there, she figured the climb might have made him just as sweaty as she was right now and...yeah.

"Ohmygod," she gushed, though she'd be willing to allow that this reaction may have been completely influenced by actually finally getting there. "This is great!"

She figured that would be marginally better than ohmygod, now where can we sit down?

"Come," Lim said, continuing towards the city center. "They are preparing the feast."

"They're very friendly," Rey told Summer. "They feed us and put us up in a house for the night."

"I figured you wouldn't be leading us right into the thick of it if they weren't," Summer said with a small smile, "but it's always nice when they're, like, super hospitable. They probably don't get many visitors this far out, though, right, so when they do, it's definitely, like, party time!"

She laughed a little, and then just sort of reveled a little in the moment because, god, she missed this sort of thing. And she really felt like nothing would go horribly wrong with the Zixon, too, which was always in the back of her mind. Things always seemed to take a sharp turn for the worse on past exursions, but, well, she supposed it was easier to avoid that when your traveling companions weren't total major douchebags.

"It's like you know them," Rey smiled. "I love the Zixon. The Empire was not kind to them, and all they want to do is live their lives."

Summer shook her head, thinking that the list of people the Empire was kind to was a pretty damn short one, if it existed at all, and it was hard to look around this place and think of how anyone would want to be cruel to them or ruin any of this. Even their attack on grobel seemed entirely defensive, not at all meant to kill or destroy the monster, but just to beat it back a little...

And she loved that Rey loved them. She was starting to feel a little of that, too, especially if it turned out they knew how to party, and, ugh, this all just felt so good and right.

"Right?" she said emphatically. "And they so should. I'm really glad we could help."

And, yeah, yeah, the timelines were all wonky, probably, and different universes technically and all that, but, in a way, even if she didn't really, technically...she liked to think that, in a way, she already had. In spirit, at the very least.

"So are they," Rose said as they arrived at their destination.

They were ushered to seating in a semicircle, where a few Zixon got to work immediately bringing them food in bowls and hot drinks, all cooked in front of them. And then the traditional dancing started, giving them a show while they ate.

"I do love seeing this," Rey admitted.

And so now Summer's grin was just as much for Rey's comment as it was for the food, and the preparation, and the dancing, all of it just wrapped up into a nice feeling for just...everything. Just a moment to soak it all in, appreciate it, and the fact that she felt pretty confident that, today, at least, now that they'd made it to the city, it was just going to be...nice. And wholesome. And she really did not get enough of that in her life.

"I really appreciate you bringing me along for this, Rey," she said, with a curious though tentative sip of the drinks they were brought, and a contented sort of sigh, because they still had everything else ahead of them to look forward to, too.

"Of course," Rey told her. "We need all the help we can get, and you probably know what you're doing better than I do."

"Well, I don't know about that," said Summer, though the way her shoulders hitched a little and her grin was beaming slightly made it pretty obvious that the modesty was a little bit put-on, like this sort of thing wasn't totally her jam or anything, "but I guess I do kinda know my way around a supply run or two."

"And it should be all it is," Rey said. "Just... with terrible weapons."

"Some of them are fine!" Rose protested from where she totally wasn't listening.

That brought a grin out of Summer, which she was sending over to Rose. "They better be!" she protested with a laugh. "Although, honestly, you could tell me to go fill my ship up with rarified air and take it out to Utapau, and I'd be happy just for trip..."

Rey smiled, even if she didn't know where Utapau was.

"Hopefully we'll have more coming up," she said. "The time difference works great for me but means there's a lot of time I'm not really needed for missions back here."

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Minfar- Sunday

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