[phone calls OTA] Technical Difficulties

[st_abby]

He'd passed by the alien, gleaming thing in his room a hundred times by now, or nearly must've done, and hardly stopped to examine it. It was strange, but so were most other things in this place. A shiny, awkward looking device attached to the wall by means of a long cable, set on one of the little tables that seemed to litter these rooms. It had neat rows of square buttons with numbers etched on, and a handle, so Vax'ildan had supposed it was meant to work some feature of the room in a way he could scarcely imagine. He didn't want to break it, but eventually the boredom and curiosity got the better of him, much like with the door locks. It would probably fix itself, if it came to that.

After the first few moments spent listening to the monotonous warble that came from the handle, Vax'ildan reached to jab a finger into a button. When it beeped but did no more, he pushed another. And a third...

OOC Note: If you would like a thread with Vax, please leave a top-level comment to this post and he will reply! No need to pre-arrange, but as one does when learning new technology, he may disconnect the call etc. accidentally or your character may tell him to leave them alone in very few words if they so choose - most of these threads are likely to be short.

Comments

[st_reyofsunshine]

Rey turns at the sound of the ringing. No one has ever called her before. Ever. Comms weren't exactly in surplus on Jakku, and any one she found that was semi-functioning was better spent trading in for portions. It wasn't as if she had anyone to keep in touch with anyway.

Not anyone she knew how to reach, anyway.

Rey presses her lips together, then raises the receiver. These comms were backwater -- nothing like the comms she had seen the members of the Resistance use, anyway. "Hello?" she asks, tentatively.

[st_abby]

"Hello, yes," was her somewhat uncertain yet somewhat excitable answer. "Is this - Are you yelling into one of these beetle-looking things with the cables, too?"

[st_reyofsunshine]

"Yes," comes Rey's tentative reply once more. She hasn't heard this particular voice before.

"Do we know one another?" she asks.

[st_abby]

"No, I don't think so," Vax admitted, though he stopped to scour his memory. "You don't sound familiar to me. Do I sound at all familiar to you?"

[st_reyofsunshine]

"No..." Whoever this person is, they're a little weird. Not that Rey thinks that's a bad thing, of course. Maz was weird, too, and she was one of Rey's favorite people.

"I'm Rey," she says into the speaker. "Who are you?"

[st_abby]

"I'm Vax'ildan," he replied in kind, with the twist of a lilt seamlessly sewn in the midst of the name. His tone was largely amused, not bothering to share in her hesitation. "I've been pushing the buttons on this beetle device, and it seemed to think I needed to talk to you," he explained.

[st_reyofsunshine]

"Need to talk to me?" Rey replies, surprised. She presses her lips together, wonderingly. Was this the Force, maybe?

"What do you want to talk about?" she asks, her voice more solid than it had been before.

[st_abby]

Vax didn't laugh, but he did grin at the abrupt change in her tone, curious what could have put that seriousness into her of a sudden.

"I'm not sure yet," it was at least an honest reply. "I've only just met you. Are you expert at anything in particular? Do people tend to come to you for something or other?"

[st_reyofsunshine]

An expert?

"I'm a capable pilot," Rey says into the speaker, though being a good pilot is hardly helpful here, where there are no ships to maneuver. "I'm good at scavenging and fixing things too."

A beat.

"Do you need anything fixed?"

[st_abby]

He looked around the room idly before answering. "Not today. But those are useful skills to have, and it's nearly as useful to know who can do what you're no good at. ...What is it that you 'pilot'?"

[st_reyofsunshine]

"Speeders, ships," Rey says. "The space kind." That much she's learned to specify since her arrival here. Spacehships didn't exist for everyone. Not yet, anyway.

"Can you do anything?"

[st_abby]

Her answer confused him, and Vax made a bit of a face. He didn't know what 'speeders' were, but more specifically, it was the bit about 'the space kind.' All ships took up space, after all. Didn't they?

But she'd already moved on to her own question, and that was at least something he could speak to. "I'm good at getting in and out of places quietly. Scouting, that sort of thing." He thought that sounded much more diplomatic than 'breaking in and stealing stuff.' "I can hold my own in a fight, if it comes to that. Not much use for those things here as of yet."

[st_reyofsunshine]

"Oh?" Rey said. The syllable hung in the air for a second before she finally continued.

"With a sword? Or with some other weapon?" A pole and a lightsaber were two very different weapons. While she managed to hold her own against Kylo Ren, it was only because he had been badly injured by Chewbacca. In a fair fight, Rey is certain she would have lost.

[st_abby]

"I prefer daggers," he admitted, since she seemed to have an interest. "Sneak in close, stick them, disengage quickly. I can do a lot of damage, and I can dodge well, but I can't take many direct hits."

[st_reyofsunshine]

For a moment, Rey is silent.

"Would you mind teaching me?" she asks. "How to avoid being hit, I mean. I'm sure there's something I can teach you, too, if you'd like. Maybe how to fix things, or salvage them."

[st_abby]

"Teach you to dodge?" Constance wanting to learn how to use a dagger seemed an easier thing to teach, all told.

"I suppose that I could show you a few things. Something of timing, how to read your opponent's movements, sure," he agreed after a moment. "But a lot of it's you - how swift and nimble you've got the ability to be, your reflexes - and a lot of it's time. I've been trying not to get killed for a good long while now."

[st_reyofsunshine]

"I appreciate it." And it's clear from Rey's tone of voice that she does. "But what's been trying to kill you?" There's plenty of things where Rey's from that could kill you -- especially on Jakku.

[st_abby]

"What hasn't been, would be the easier question to answer," Vax pointed out. "All sorts of people, monsters, dragons, demons," he rattled off easily enough. "A goliath with razor burn, on occasion."