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Description
A tiny bit of an RP with Artoveli , a crossover with her Topmost Topaz story.

Rover had stayed in the bathroom as long as he possibly could without anyone wondering if he was having some sort of reaction to the food. He hadn't been able to come up with a better plan than 'keep changing the subject'. They WERE real humans and he didn't want to leave. He wanted to learn more about them. But he also was terrified of making a fool of himself. Of anyone and everyone in the entire universe THESE were the people he wanted to impress. What would they think of him if they knew he remembered nothing of Earth, nothing of humans....nothing even of his own family. Things he should know. He SHOULD know!
He didn't usually have to think about his lost memories. He was too busy having fun, going on the next adventure, plotting his next sale. He didn't like to think about it because it made him feel.....broken. So...so he just never thought about it, pretended it wasn't a thing. He...he could just keep doing that if they would just stop bringing it up. Change the subject. Change the subject. He could keep doing that indefinitely right?

He took a deep breath and stepped out of the bathroom. "Whoo, boy! Never buy a drink from a Blawzork, I tell you! They....." He stopped dead when he saw that Anne was the only one left in the room.

She held up her hands. "It's okay. The others are taking a tour of the ship." She lowered them again. "You and I need to have a particular conversation, and it seems like it will be easier on you if you don't have to do it in front of a room full of people." She took a small step forward and looked at him, soberly. "Rover Finnigan, I ask you in confidence... What's the first thing you remember?"

Rover took a step back but ran into the wall and for a moment looked like a trapped animal before he pulled that carefree face again. "Well, shucks, ma'am. Kinda personal question ain't it? I hardly know you. Ain't childhood questions a second date kinda thing?" He said trying to make a joke out of it. then realized what he said and laughed frantically.

Anne couldn't suppress a grimace of surprised amusement. She crossed her arms and stared him down for a looong moment, before shaking her head with a smirk. "Nope, they ain't. Now siddown." She swivelled one of the chairs around to face him, and plunked herself down in the one next to it. "We're gonna swap childhood memories, and we're gonna be honest."

Rover winced and eyed the door, looking like he might make a run for it. But after a moment of pause he sat down and stared at his hands, then looked up at her with a halfhearted smile, knowing he couldn't get away with it. "Soooo.....any pets?"

Anne smiled. “Desperately wanted a cat. But all I got was a series of interchangeable goldfish. What about you, any pets?”

He chuckled softly. "Nah. Tried to catch a wild Droofin though. Got bucked off and dragged through the sand a heap of times ‘for I finally stayed on the critter. Then it ran through town like a rampaging bull. knocking over stalls an’ whatnot. That fellah did NOT like to be rode, let me tell you. Never did tame it."

Finally. Anne's eyes softened a little. "Sounds like a mess. Did you get in trouble?"

"Oh, sure. Big ol' long lecture like you never heard before. Had to apologize to every one of them vendors. See...heh...Soorn had told me like a million times to stay away from them critters. But I ain't the type to listen too good." He said with a shrug.

“That reminds me of a time when Rand and I were kids. He was on one of his quests to find evidence of intelligence in the station’s network. He was always chasing blips. We were kids, and I tagged along in an effort to keep him out of trouble, which didn’t work. His homemade turing rod got too close to some exposed circuitry and shorted out the lights on an entire level. Oof, did we ever get it!” She leaned on one arm of the swivel chair. “Okay, my turn. Favorite and least favorite school subjects?”

He laughed, a genuine one this time.

"Well, least favorite is easy. Family economics." He rolled his eyes. "On an’ on about the psychology of the family unit, how to look after an ovaderma right down to polishing the shell. Dull as watchin’ a dune move. I wasn't much for school. Though, if I had to pick a favorite, I reckon it'd be Xenobiology. Learnin’ about all them planets an’ people out there. That was alright."

She nodded. “Did your teachers tell you family economics could save your life one day? That’s the line they always used on us when we moaned about algebra. Math and I have never gotten along. I didn’t really mind most of the other classes, but my true love was English literature. Always been a fan of stories. Okay, your turn.”

He nodded, lacing his fingers and leaning a bit on the table, clearly starting to relax. "I fancy a good yarn myself. Alright...let's see. Where did you live? Grow up on Earth?"

She pointed at him. “Good question- I didn’t! I was born on a space station orbiting Saturn. My Dad owned his own little skiff and had a mining license for the rings. Small-time entrepreneur, you know. We lived out there until I was sixteen, and then we moved to Earth, when my Dad hurt his back and couldn’t handle the rigours of being a ring-runner anymore.” She cocked her head, remembering. “I did not want to go. I’d spent my whole life on that station- it was my Earth! And having Saturn right there outside, enormous and constant... It was such a comforting presence for me, and losing it was really hard... But you want to know the funny thing? The minute I set foot on Earth-- My first ever time standing on solid rock-- I fell in love. I felt like, like I was home. Like this was finally the place I was made for. Of course I had a ton of stuff to learn, now that the concept of Earth wasn’t just academic anymore. But it wasn’t a chore at all, honestly. Earth is a fascinating place.” She sighed, then looked at Rover. “How about you? Where’d you grow up?”

He listened to that little story with clear interest but seemingly no recognition. "Bet that was really somethin'." He shook his head for a moment. "I grew up on Jssfloon, Little Blue's home planet." He nodded in the general direction of the door. "We were pals growin' up. Jssfloon is a tourist destination, see? All palm trees an' warm beaches. Folks come from all kinds of places to visit." He curled his fingers and brought up his little hologram again. This one showed the planet he described with peach colored sand, rainbow auroras and inviting waters with aliens of all kinds enjoying the beach. "Course we didn't live in any of them main tour hubs, though we visited from time to time. Naw. Blue an' I lived on this itty bitty agricultural island called Nool. Only one kinda-big town, the rest was little forests and farms. Not enough places to get into trouble, if ya ask me. But we tried our best. Heh...well, I tried my best, an' dragged Blue along. Boy we had some times, though."

She rolled her eyes, good-humoredly. “Sounds like Mr. Flyspur and I had some things in common, growing up. Still- it’s a beautiful place! I haven’t seen auroras in a daylit sky like that, before.” She rubbed her chin as she leaned forward in the chair, elbows on her knees, considering the hologram. She leaned back again and flicked a finger at Rover’s head. “I have to ask about the hat. If you grew up so far from Earth, how did you wind up with something so quintessentially Earthling?”

He broke eye contact with her and turned off the hologram. It seemed for a moment like he was going to clam up again. Then he sighed. He reached up and slipped it off his head and put it on the table beside him, running an organic finger over the rim. Now that his hat was off, she could see more of the scarring around his hairline, and under that mass of curls there was a glint of metal. "I don't know..." He said quietly, his voice and expression subdued. "They just...they just told me they found it when they found me. But I...uh...I don't remember." He swallowed hard and couldn't seem to look her in the eye again.

Anne sat up straight, hands in her lap. “Oh, no... I’m sorry... That’s terrible.” She stared at the hat, question upon question bubbling up inside her, but not knowing how to work around to asking them in a way that wouldn’t be insensitive. She wracked her brain. Did she have anything comparable from her own experience that would make him feel less alone? Well, yes, maybe... But that wasn’t really a story for telling. They both stared at the hat in silence for a while. In the end, eyes still on the hat, Anne just said, “Well, it’s a white hat... That means whoever gave it to you was a good guy.”

He smiled a little, nodded slowly and gave an ever so slight chuckle. "That's what I figured." The smile faded again and he let out a long slow sigh. She wasn't going to quit. They were going to run around back and forth until he told her what she wanted. Then...all she was going to think about him was some poor broken orphan who didn't care enough about his family to even remember them. He might as well get it over with. Rip it off like a band aid. "You asked me what my first memory is." He kept his eyes on his hat, still fingering it's contours. "It's wakin' up in a Jssfloon healing house with nothin' but hurtin'...everywhere. Had a metal arm and a good chunk of it in my head too. Somethin' told me they didn't belong, but I didn't remember not havin' em. Didn't remember nothin' cept that bed I found myself in. Didn't know where I was, who I was. Didn't know why my head felt like a supernova. Didn't know why everything else felt like I was layin' on a hot griddle......." He paused for a moment. "There. I answered your question. I'd...I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself. Ain't never told no one but Blue."

Her heart went out to this man, and her hand went out to his shoulder. “Hey. I’m honored. And I said this was in confidence. I meant it. If anybody asks, I’ll just tell them...” she looked to the side, considering. “Would it be okay if I told them you don’t know how you got here? No age, nothing specific? Or should I just not say anything about it at all?”

He finally looked up at her. ‘Honored’ was not what he was expecting. "I reckon that'll do if someone yanks it outta ya. But if you can manage to keep it locked up all together I'd be obliged."

“You’ve got it.” She sat up straight in her chair again, and returned her gaze to the hat. “... So... How in the universe did you manage to extrapolate an entire cowboy persona from a single hat?”

He watched her for a long moment, as if appraising her. Finally he just shrugged. She knew everything else. What difference does it make? "There were only two things in that little crashed escape pod along with me. This hat, and..." He reached under his shirt and pulled a chain with a little gold pendant over his head and set it on the table. He touched the pendant and it opened, revealing a charred, half-broken little device the size of a small stick of gum. He took it out and pressed the little button on one end. A holo screen the size of a mid sized tv appeared. On it were little boxes labeled with nearly every western show, movie or song one could imagine. "...and this."

Anne leaned forward, eyes wide, scanning the titles projected before them.

"Westerns..." She said, understanding dawning in her eyes. "These were your only connection to your planet, your people, your language, your culture..." she turned to look at Rover. "Man... You must be pretty underwhelmed by us."

To his surprise, THIS conversation wasn't going as expected either. She hadn't laughed at him, for one. Neither had she looked at him like some poor pathetic lost puppy. Suddenly it felt....good...to tell her this. And that surprised him.

"Heh, you got that right. I mean, I reckon I knew the world had to have upgraded a tick since then, as the tech ain't exactly space flight worthy. But I reckon I didn't expect much of a change. You folks ain't exactly what I pictured. Kind of silly, ain't it?"

“It’s not a jot sillier than us thinking Humans were alone in the universe.” She shrugged, with a smile. “We’re sentient creatures. Sentient creatures tend to make assumptions, and then feel silly when we find out we were wrong! I feel silly all the time, out here. But, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of silly. Just gotta own it.”

He smiled a little. "Heh. Yeah. I reckon. Speakin' of silly. Sorry about... makin' a mule of myself before. I was tryin' to cypher everything out 'an tryin' to keep this penned up. Likely wouldda saved face if'n I’d just told ya." He gave a shrug and a little wince, realizing only now how bizarre his behavior must have seemed.

She waved a hand. “Eh, don’t worry about it. Honestly, with newly rescued crew members constantly acclimating to the situation here, we’ve gotten fairly used to ignoring weird behavior.”

She was silent for a few moments, considering something. Then she stood up and took a few steps toward the door. “Come on,” she smiled back at him, “...I’ll show you where we keep the horses.”

Description
A tiny bit of an RP with Artoveli , a crossover with her Topmost Topaz story.

Rover had stayed in the bathroom as long as he possibly could without anyone wondering if he was having some sort of reaction to the food. He hadn't been able to come up with a better plan than 'keep changing the subject'. They WERE real humans and he didn't want to leave. He wanted to learn more about them. But he also was terrified of making a fool of himself. Of anyone and everyone in the entire universe THESE were the people he wanted to impress. What would they think of him if they knew he remembered nothing of Earth, nothing of humans....nothing even of his own family. Things he should know. He SHOULD know!
He didn't usually have to think about his lost memories. He was too busy having fun, going on the next adventure, plotting his next sale. He didn't like to think about it because it made him feel.....broken. So...so he just never thought about it, pretended it wasn't a thing. He...he could just keep doing that if they would just stop bringing it up. Change the subject. Change the subject. He could keep doing that indefinitely right?

He took a deep breath and stepped out of the bathroom. "Whoo, boy! Never buy a drink from a Blawzork, I tell you! They....." He stopped dead when he saw that Anne was the only one left in the room.

She held up her hands. "It's okay. The others are taking a tour of the ship." She lowered them again. "You and I need to have a particular conversation, and it seems like it will be easier on you if you don't have to do it in front of a room full of people." She took a small step forward and looked at him, soberly. "Rover Finnigan, I ask you in confidence... What's the first thing you remember?"

Rover took a step back but ran into the wall and for a moment looked like a trapped animal before he pulled that carefree face again. "Well, shucks, ma'am. Kinda personal question ain't it? I hardly know you. Ain't childhood questions a second date kinda thing?" He said trying to make a joke out of it. then realized what he said and laughed frantically.

Anne couldn't suppress a grimace of surprised amusement. She crossed her arms and stared him down for a looong moment, before shaking her head with a smirk. "Nope, they ain't. Now siddown." She swivelled one of the chairs around to face him, and plunked herself down in the one next to it. "We're gonna swap childhood memories, and we're gonna be honest."

Rover winced and eyed the door, looking like he might make a run for it. But after a moment of pause he sat down and stared at his hands, then looked up at her with a halfhearted smile, knowing he couldn't get away with it. "Soooo.....any pets?"

Anne smiled. “Desperately wanted a cat. But all I got was a series of interchangeable goldfish. What about you, any pets?”

He chuckled softly. "Nah. Tried to catch a wild Droofin though. Got bucked off and dragged through the sand a heap of times ‘for I finally stayed on the critter. Then it ran through town like a rampaging bull. knocking over stalls an’ whatnot. That fellah did NOT like to be rode, let me tell you. Never did tame it."

Finally. Anne's eyes softened a little. "Sounds like a mess. Did you get in trouble?"

"Oh, sure. Big ol' long lecture like you never heard before. Had to apologize to every one of them vendors. See...heh...Soorn had told me like a million times to stay away from them critters. But I ain't the type to listen too good." He said with a shrug.

“That reminds me of a time when Rand and I were kids. He was on one of his quests to find evidence of intelligence in the station’s network. He was always chasing blips. We were kids, and I tagged along in an effort to keep him out of trouble, which didn’t work. His homemade turing rod got too close to some exposed circuitry and shorted out the lights on an entire level. Oof, did we ever get it!” She leaned on one arm of the swivel chair. “Okay, my turn. Favorite and least favorite school subjects?”

He laughed, a genuine one this time.

"Well, least favorite is easy. Family economics." He rolled his eyes. "On an’ on about the psychology of the family unit, how to look after an ovaderma right down to polishing the shell. Dull as watchin’ a dune move. I wasn't much for school. Though, if I had to pick a favorite, I reckon it'd be Xenobiology. Learnin’ about all them planets an’ people out there. That was alright."

She nodded. “Did your teachers tell you family economics could save your life one day? That’s the line they always used on us when we moaned about algebra. Math and I have never gotten along. I didn’t really mind most of the other classes, but my true love was English literature. Always been a fan of stories. Okay, your turn.”

He nodded, lacing his fingers and leaning a bit on the table, clearly starting to relax. "I fancy a good yarn myself. Alright...let's see. Where did you live? Grow up on Earth?"

She pointed at him. “Good question- I didn’t! I was born on a space station orbiting Saturn. My Dad owned his own little skiff and had a mining license for the rings. Small-time entrepreneur, you know. We lived out there until I was sixteen, and then we moved to Earth, when my Dad hurt his back and couldn’t handle the rigours of being a ring-runner anymore.” She cocked her head, remembering. “I did not want to go. I’d spent my whole life on that station- it was my Earth! And having Saturn right there outside, enormous and constant... It was such a comforting presence for me, and losing it was really hard... But you want to know the funny thing? The minute I set foot on Earth-- My first ever time standing on solid rock-- I fell in love. I felt like, like I was home. Like this was finally the place I was made for. Of course I had a ton of stuff to learn, now that the concept of Earth wasn’t just academic anymore. But it wasn’t a chore at all, honestly. Earth is a fascinating place.” She sighed, then looked at Rover. “How about you? Where’d you grow up?”

He listened to that little story with clear interest but seemingly no recognition. "Bet that was really somethin'." He shook his head for a moment. "I grew up on Jssfloon, Little Blue's home planet." He nodded in the general direction of the door. "We were pals growin' up. Jssfloon is a tourist destination, see? All palm trees an' warm beaches. Folks come from all kinds of places to visit." He curled his fingers and brought up his little hologram again. This one showed the planet he described with peach colored sand, rainbow auroras and inviting waters with aliens of all kinds enjoying the beach. "Course we didn't live in any of them main tour hubs, though we visited from time to time. Naw. Blue an' I lived on this itty bitty agricultural island called Nool. Only one kinda-big town, the rest was little forests and farms. Not enough places to get into trouble, if ya ask me. But we tried our best. Heh...well, I tried my best, an' dragged Blue along. Boy we had some times, though."

She rolled her eyes, good-humoredly. “Sounds like Mr. Flyspur and I had some things in common, growing up. Still- it’s a beautiful place! I haven’t seen auroras in a daylit sky like that, before.” She rubbed her chin as she leaned forward in the chair, elbows on her knees, considering the hologram. She leaned back again and flicked a finger at Rover’s head. “I have to ask about the hat. If you grew up so far from Earth, how did you wind up with something so quintessentially Earthling?”

He broke eye contact with her and turned off the hologram. It seemed for a moment like he was going to clam up again. Then he sighed. He reached up and slipped it off his head and put it on the table beside him, running an organic finger over the rim. Now that his hat was off, she could see more of the scarring around his hairline, and under that mass of curls there was a glint of metal. "I don't know..." He said quietly, his voice and expression subdued. "They just...they just told me they found it when they found me. But I...uh...I don't remember." He swallowed hard and couldn't seem to look her in the eye again.

Anne sat up straight, hands in her lap. “Oh, no... I’m sorry... That’s terrible.” She stared at the hat, question upon question bubbling up inside her, but not knowing how to work around to asking them in a way that wouldn’t be insensitive. She wracked her brain. Did she have anything comparable from her own experience that would make him feel less alone? Well, yes, maybe... But that wasn’t really a story for telling. They both stared at the hat in silence for a while. In the end, eyes still on the hat, Anne just said, “Well, it’s a white hat... That means whoever gave it to you was a good guy.”

He smiled a little, nodded slowly and gave an ever so slight chuckle. "That's what I figured." The smile faded again and he let out a long slow sigh. She wasn't going to quit. They were going to run around back and forth until he told her what she wanted. Then...all she was going to think about him was some poor broken orphan who didn't care enough about his family to even remember them. He might as well get it over with. Rip it off like a band aid. "You asked me what my first memory is." He kept his eyes on his hat, still fingering it's contours. "It's wakin' up in a Jssfloon healing house with nothin' but hurtin'...everywhere. Had a metal arm and a good chunk of it in my head too. Somethin' told me they didn't belong, but I didn't remember not havin' em. Didn't remember nothin' cept that bed I found myself in. Didn't know where I was, who I was. Didn't know why my head felt like a supernova. Didn't know why everything else felt like I was layin' on a hot griddle......." He paused for a moment. "There. I answered your question. I'd...I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to yourself. Ain't never told no one but Blue."

Her heart went out to this man, and her hand went out to his shoulder. “Hey. I’m honored. And I said this was in confidence. I meant it. If anybody asks, I’ll just tell them...” she looked to the side, considering. “Would it be okay if I told them you don’t know how you got here? No age, nothing specific? Or should I just not say anything about it at all?”

He finally looked up at her. ‘Honored’ was not what he was expecting. "I reckon that'll do if someone yanks it outta ya. But if you can manage to keep it locked up all together I'd be obliged."

“You’ve got it.” She sat up straight in her chair again, and returned her gaze to the hat. “... So... How in the universe did you manage to extrapolate an entire cowboy persona from a single hat?”

He watched her for a long moment, as if appraising her. Finally he just shrugged. She knew everything else. What difference does it make? "There were only two things in that little crashed escape pod along with me. This hat, and..." He reached under his shirt and pulled a chain with a little gold pendant over his head and set it on the table. He touched the pendant and it opened, revealing a charred, half-broken little device the size of a small stick of gum. He took it out and pressed the little button on one end. A holo screen the size of a mid sized tv appeared. On it were little boxes labeled with nearly every western show, movie or song one could imagine. "...and this."

Anne leaned forward, eyes wide, scanning the titles projected before them.

"Westerns..." She said, understanding dawning in her eyes. "These were your only connection to your planet, your people, your language, your culture..." she turned to look at Rover. "Man... You must be pretty underwhelmed by us."

To his surprise, THIS conversation wasn't going as expected either. She hadn't laughed at him, for one. Neither had she looked at him like some poor pathetic lost puppy. Suddenly it felt....good...to tell her this. And that surprised him.

"Heh, you got that right. I mean, I reckon I knew the world had to have upgraded a tick since then, as the tech ain't exactly space flight worthy. But I reckon I didn't expect much of a change. You folks ain't exactly what I pictured. Kind of silly, ain't it?"

“It’s not a jot sillier than us thinking Humans were alone in the universe.” She shrugged, with a smile. “We’re sentient creatures. Sentient creatures tend to make assumptions, and then feel silly when we find out we were wrong! I feel silly all the time, out here. But, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of silly. Just gotta own it.”

He smiled a little. "Heh. Yeah. I reckon. Speakin' of silly. Sorry about... makin' a mule of myself before. I was tryin' to cypher everything out 'an tryin' to keep this penned up. Likely wouldda saved face if'n I’d just told ya." He gave a shrug and a little wince, realizing only now how bizarre his behavior must have seemed.

She waved a hand. “Eh, don’t worry about it. Honestly, with newly rescued crew members constantly acclimating to the situation here, we’ve gotten fairly used to ignoring weird behavior.”

She was silent for a few moments, considering something. Then she stood up and took a few steps toward the door. “Come on,” she smiled back at him, “...I’ll show you where we keep the horses.”