fulfilling a promised lesson on the fine art of blasting things ...

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Walking back to the Millennium Falcon through the Nexus has gotten a little bit easier each time.  The first time, it took him more than an hour to get back despite the fact that his ship has always been parked about a thousand yards away from a path that leads to the forum.  The shiftable nature of this place makes no walk to and from anywhere as straightforward as it seems, but you can get used to it.

 

For a while, he cleans up the areas that he thinks both he and Verity are likely to be in for a while - the cockpit and the lounge especially, but also near the entry ramp and the living quarters.

 

He did promise lessons on how to fly and in due course, he will get her into the sky with him ... but he's still doesn't have a ton of fuel yet and the priority was always teaching her how to use the blasters.  So he's pulled four weapons out of the storage lockers, completely disassembled them and cleaned them.  He also discharges all, but one, of the plasma magazines.

 

They get placed them on top of the holochess board, which, sadly, is among one of the biggest flat surfaces available to him on the YT-1300 and then, he takes a shower and slips into a light weight pair of pants.  It seems to take a long time for him to drift off in the small bunk that he's claimed for himself.  The sound of the winter wind skips across the surface of his ship and makes a low howling sort of sound.

 

This is one of the reasons it's always preferable to put your ship in a proper hanger, but, when you're Han Solo, you work with what you got.  After a few hours he wakes up, not knowing what time it is, until he opens the entry ramp and looks outside.

 

It seems too early for her to arrive.  The sun hasn't even reached the apex of it's path yet, so he decides to lay back down.  Leaving the ramp down for her to facilitate her letting herself in. 

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

Yes. He's allowed to be amused. She won't even be mad at him for it.

"Oh, does it?" She can't reply without giggling, but she made a valiant effort.

Wait, this part is serious, she should pay attention. "Exhale before shooting. Okay. Should I try again?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Sure, if you want." That she seems genuinely amused by him makes him feel like he accomplished something, even if he doesn't end up teaching her a damn thing.

"I'm gonna go behind you now and see where you're hitting." He says as he starts walking around behind her. "Remember, keep your shoulders down and try to keep your posture somewhat relaxed. Take your breath first and then, squeeze the trigger."

[brave_heart_verity]

Making her laugh is a great accomplishment. He should cherish it.

"Shoulders down, relaxed, breath, then shoot. But no pressure." She waits until she hears him behind her before firing off a few more shots. These are timed more evenly. Her aim isn't bad, but it tends to wander; the target is large and distracting.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

She does pretty well. Better than he would have thought yesterday, but at that point, he didn't realize she was otherwise practicing with Samus. When they have a chance to go to a range or set up proper targets, then they'll see what she can really do.

"Looking good, Ver."

[brave_heart_verity]

"Thank you." She sets the safety again before turning and offering the blaster back to him. "Will you show me how you do it?"

She learns as much from studying as from doing. And it's not like the view won't be fun.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han accepts the blaster and nods his assent. Yes, he'll take a few shots so she can watch him.

What she'll see when he takes his place, more than anything else, is that he's completely at ease. It's not as if taking pot shots at a giant sign is high stress shooting by his definition, but you just get the feeling that when it's time for Han to blast something, he gets in a comfort zone that not everyone has.

He takes about half a dozen shots in a stance that has him facing square to the target. Then another six shots just so that she can watch him again. His shots make a pretty tight cone, but without seeing the marks on the sign, it's hard to say for certain that he's hitting in the same place every time.

He takes an equally relaxed side stance and seems to have a similar amount of success. Six shots. For the hell of it, he'll even draw for speed at the end, manipulating the gun in and out of the holster while snapping off a few shots.

[brave_heart_verity]

Ver takes a step back and folds her arms, watching him with her head tilted slightly to the side. The showing off at the end doesn't surprise her; she had a feeling he needed that. He's good at what he does and wants to be seen to be good at it. Everyone needs their ego stroked sometimes.

When he finishes, the smile and the applause she offers are both genuine. "That is amazing."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

"Thanks."

He certainly does like having his ego stroked and it's been a goal of his to impress her while she was here with him. On some level, he apprecates that he accomplished both things.

Captain Solo flips the safety over on the gun. He suspects he's either going to be handing off the gun or putting it away.

"Wanna keep going or maybe head back inside?"

[brave_heart_verity]

She's been thoroughly impressed several times, so, mission accomplished.

"It's very tempting to keep--" playing "practicing, but. It's getting pretty cold out here. Maybe you could show me how to do that quick draw thing once we've warmed up again?"

[twelve_not_fourteen]

She wants to learn how to draw? For some reason that surprises him, though, perhaps when he thinks over it again, maybe not. She has been game to learn just about everything he's been willing to show her. Perhaps it's the nature of it. It's relatively niche as far as blaster skills go.

Still, it makes him regard her thoughtfully for a moment.

"I think that's a good plan." He says, as he starts walking back toward the access hatch they climbed through to get here. Han opens the door and coaxes Verity to enter. "Ladies first."

It makes sense to have her go down first, anyway, so he can slide the door closed behind them.

[brave_heart_verity]

She wants to learn. And maybe she enjoys watching him. That's allowed. She's pretty sure that's allowed. If it's not a skill she ever really needs, that's okay.

The longer he looks at her like that, the more she's going to wonder why.

"Thank you." She'll scamper down as quick as she can and step out of the way. This watching people on ladders thing isn't so bad, she's starting to see why he enjoys it.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

There's another component to learning how to draw that maybe she doesn't realize. It's going to mean a lot more Han in her personal space. Should be interesting to she how she handles that considering she asked for it.

In terms of the ladder, just wait till she gets to see him go up and down a ladder when he's not wearing a parka. The view is even nicer. She certainly doesn't need to steal glances from Han, though, unless she's worried about him being too encouraged by it.

As soon as he's off the ladder, Han unzips his coat. He's not particularly cold apart from his hands, which only got a little chilly when he started demonstrating for her. She seems pretty fond of the DL-44, but then, she hasn't got to shoot anything else. He wonders if it should become his next side project to begin modding the other one.

"You did alright." He says. It seems to be an appropriate time to give his thought on how it went. "At this point it seems like all you really need to do is put in some practice."

[brave_heart_verity]

No, she hadn't considered that, but she did ask. This time, it's on her.

She's noticed that people assume there's more to the looks than she has to offer. Her looks are usually for purely aesthetic reasons; she looks at art the same way. It might be a lovely view, but she's not going to try and snog a statue.

"Practice makes perfect," she repeats with a small nod. It's not a surprise to hear that. "I can live with having made a decent start. Maybe someday I'll bring you to the shooting range and you can see the weapons I'm used to. I'm sure they'll seen laughably old-fashioned to you."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

A part of him wants to say 'how different can it be?' If so much of what he showed her about his ship seems rooted in certain consistencies that are universal, he can't imagine her worlds 'blasters' being much different than his - though, to a certain degree they are.

Still. It's the nexus and if there's one thing he's noticed, there's a lot of room for the unexpected.

"What makes you say that?" He says, as he shrugs out of his coat and lays it out on a nearby crate.

[brave_heart_verity]

Ver takes a moment to remove her coat before trying to explain. "The guns I've been training with use small explosions to propel small pieces of metal at the target. No lasers, no light show, but a lot of noise and kick."

It's so disappointingly primitive when she says it out loud like that.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

It does sound like her people have hardly evolved from throwing rocks at each other, to be honest. When you say it outloud like that.

"Interesting." He says as he rubs his rough hands together for a little bit of warmth. "I'll be honest that does sound a little backwards."

You know what's funny is that he didn't really plan for much entertaining after the blasting and looking over the ship - though he knows there's still a little bit left to show her. It suddenly dawns on him that his life is kind of empty when you get passed his work. A realization that makes him feel small for a moment, before he literally starts trying to shake it out of his head.

[brave_heart_verity]

He wouldn't be entirely wrong. But in some ways, he's not so evolved beyond it either; violence is violence is violence.

"Yeah... there were more advanced kinds of weapons, but they weren't available to the general public. Which is probably for the best." There were enough problems with supervillains having horrible things. The banal evil of the careless and stupid was best limited.

She wonders what's wrong. It'd be hard to miss that behavior. Has she overstayed her welcome? Or is he regretting saying that about a dead universe?

"I suppose arming the general populace doesn't seem like such a good idea when people are sometimes born able to shoot lasers out of their eyes and stuff. The anti-mutant rallies would have been a lot more violent."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Oh, certainly the fact that it's her culture and not his culture has a high influence on his opinion of their primitive weapons. (And there are some people where he's from who think blasters are unrefined. They're misinformed, clearly.)

Han's egocentric viewpoint tends to make all the things he knows and is familiar with 'the best' which she has probably noticed by now.

Also, he still thinks her place is weird when she talks about it, he just realizes how much of a jerk he sounds like when he says it outloud.

"Mutants," he begins, drawing back to what she said earlier, "are the people who have powers, right?"

[brave_heart_verity]

She's noticed a slight tendency toward being self-centered, yes. It's a familiar sort of attitude, one she's always sort of going to miss when it isn't around.

"Right. They're born with a genetic mutation that gives them abilities. Some people decided it was not something their all-powerful god could tolerate, so they would sometimes take matters into their own hands. Yes, I know. They're very confused people."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

So, what he gathered there is that some people are born with it and some people are not. (Harrumph) And that the people lacking the power seem to object to them having it. Ver, also, seems to have picked a clear side to favor.

"Do they consider you a mutant where you're from?" He says after quietly pondering for a moment. As he understands it, she wasn't born with the truth thing - it was something of an accident, but she can do magic?

[brave_heart_verity]

Not being racist is an obvious choice to her. One of the perks of the curse: she's not taken in by rhetoric about superior races or genetic purity.

"No, I don't have that particular gene. I'm just a regular human being with a clumsy father." She gives a little shrug. "The government had a classification system for people with powers, and a training program. I was considered so useless they actually made a new lowest possible score for me."

She's not bitter or anything.

Okay, she's a little bitter. But it's still better to be considered useless than to have Maria Hill's attention.

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Han's not the type that would hold anything against people who are born a certain way. They didn't have any more or less control over the circumstances of his birth than he did, but, he can empathize with feeling like you've bombed out in divine favoritism.

Captain Solo is the consummate have not and sometimes it just gets to him. Resolving those issues is something of an ongoing process, but it in some respects drives him to a certain greatness itself.

"They just didn't know what they had." He says with a shrug. Clearly, he thinks they underestimated her. "Lots of people make that mistake."

[brave_heart_verity]

She's not sure she'd call what she's got 'divine favoritism'. Just plain bad luck.

"They knew exactly what they had. Maybe that was the problem. An organization with that many secrets might not like having a human lie detector around. But I'm probably better off this way, I'd make a terrible hero."

[twelve_not_fourteen]

Perspective. The grass always seems greener from the other side, as the old earth saying goes. Though, Han does have the idea that Ver doesn't exactly love her ability to see through people's lies. It at least makes him aware of the notion that having powers isn't inherently a blessing.

Though ...

"Yeah, I can't imagine you in a line of political work." Right or wrong, Han has the idea that lies come more fast and furiously in bureaucracy than they do in his line of work.

"Would you get rid of it if you could? Your power, I mean."

[brave_heart_verity]

This is true, and she's guilty of her own bouts of baseless envy.

"Politics?" The idea makes her laugh. "No, I wouldn't survive long. I haven't got the knack of telling people what they want to hear or the stomach for knowing I'll never follow through."

It's a question she's heard before, but she's still not quite sure how to answer it. "No. I don't think so. I hate it, but I don't know what I'd do without it. Getting rid of it wouldn't magically give me the life skills I'm missing, so..." There doesn't seem much point.