Starlight

[The Future Warrior]

For a few short, quiet seconds that seemed much longer than they really had any business being, the old man and the alien just stood there. One of them silent disappointed, the other just perpetually and cluelessly confused.

Eventually, the Sage cleared his throat. "Well, then, if you'll excuse me..." And he turned to start on his way again.

His movements were followed by the pink eyes of the small blue creature, as her head slooooowly turned to watch him, her body remaining facing the same way until she had turned to such a point any bones a normal creature might have had would be painfully snapped. Then her attention snapped into place to catch up with her wandering mind, and she hopped into motion, a few quick bounds catching up with the old man. "Hey, hey!" If she'd been more attentive, she might have caught the faint twitch, a subtle shift to adopt a guarded posture, from the Sage. "You said you were lookin' for something."

"...yes, that is correct. Information, to be precise."

"Information 'bout what?" By now, she had fallen more or less in step beside the hooded sage, looking up at him with wide, unblinking eyes.

There was a moment of hesitation that even the azure abomination could pick up on, eliciting a faint tilt of her head as she leaned forward just slightly, trying to see past the hood to his face. "Information about...the whereabouts of someone. Supposed to be in this town, or nearby to it," he finally admitted, words slow, as if they came with great effort. "I'm finding it a little difficult to navigate, being so...unfamiliar with the area."

"Oooh." She nodded in agreement, turning to look forward again. "Yeah. This place is...it's a little strange. I only got here yesterday, and I've been kind of lost. Like this place just kind of popped up, not actually built like a real town."

The Sage cocked his head slightly to one side. An interesting observation, even if it was only so because of who it came from. "Yes...I suppose you could say as much." Pushing that matter aside, he hunched his shoulders against a stiff gust as he carried on. "Regardless of that matter... What brought you here, exactly? You said you were looking for someone."

"Oh, yeah!" She nodded again in agreement, before lifting a hand up to lightly press one index finger to her temple, gently prodding. "It was, uh...uh..." She trailed off slowly, eyes going blank. The slow, grinding turn of gears desperately creaking and trying to get up to speed in her head was almost audible. Somewhere, a desert cricket added its voice to the situation at hand, in an almost comical twist. "...something..." she muttered, faintly. Her eyes snapped back into focus. "Stars. Somebody that does something with stars. Looking for one that fell near here."

The sage had been reduced to a dumbfounded stare, watching the tiny creature rack her brains to recall such a simple fact. How...how did she function? How had she made it this long around the Omniverse? Clearly not by virtue of brainpower. Putting that conundrum aside for some other time, he briefly digested the information she had finally managed to dig up and provide. "So...they do something with stars, and are here looking for one that fell nearby..." he repeated. It didn't take more than a moment for him to turn that one over in his head, putting two and two together. "...an astronomer, perhaps?" he finally ventured.

Graowr's eyes practically lit up, nearly glowing in the dim desert night. "Ah, yeah!" She held up a closed fist. "That was it. Astronomer! Here looking for a star that fell. I'm trying to find them, so I can see if they know anything about where it actually fell. So I can find it."

The puzzlement on the old man's face was evident as he heard this, slowly turning to look down at the small blue thing. "Why...are you looking for it?"

She looked back up at him, and grinned brightly. "'Cause it was just one of seven of 'em. And I wanna find all seven."

Well, that served to answer nothing. "Why...should it matter that there were seven?"

"Good things always come in seven!" she said in response. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Once someone gets all seven of them together in one place, something cool will happen." Her fist clenched a little more tightly, the glove on her hand stretching taut over her knuckles. "I just know it!" A few seconds went by before she dropped her clenched fist, her free hand coming up to lightly prod at the buttons on her scouter. "And...there was this old guy I met who came from the same world the star pieces did. He wants them all gathered together, too."

Well...more than one reason. A sensible one and a completely ridiculous one. Comforting. "Well...it's good to have a solid objective," he finally managed. "As it so happens, this astronomer you're looking for is the one I was searching for information on the whereabouts of, myself." He could feel the unblinking gaze snap up to look at him as the words left his mouth. "Perhaps we could work together, on that front?" It was unlikely she would provide much in the way of intellectual help, but...if they did find the astronomer, it was likely that it wouldn't be easy to recover the star piece, if he had any idea where it was. And there was little doubt the eager little blue creature would be of help in that regard.

"Oh! Yeah, that'd be great!" Her agreement came immediately, with scarcely time to have even fully registered the words. "We could probably find him easier that way. Maybe." She turns to look up, toward the sky. "...maybe once it's daylight out and we can find someone to ask, though..."

A brief glance upward and the sage was inclined to agree. "Yes, that might...might make things easier."

All word/character counts according to wordcounter.net
Word Count -- This Post: 1,005 // Total Word Count: 3,398
Character Count -- This Post: 5,700 // Total Character Count: 18,931