It's a nice library, especially for such a small town, with plenty of everything, but a focus on science and poetry, a well-appointed children's' section, a nice selection of music and holovids, and comfy chairs offering varying amounts of privacy.
Right now, though, it's closing time; the announcements have been made, the final checkout rush handled, and now the librarian is making one last check before she locks up for the night.
"Sure. You should probably stay up here, though, it's a little cage-ey from the inside."
She nods, and hops in, skating on her heels down the slope. She ducks out of sight when she gets to the bottom, and a second later there's a deep humming, a puff of disintegrated dust all around the edge of the bowl, and a lattice of glowing red bars forms over her head, with flickering orange deflector shields taking up the spaces between them.
He makes a quiet, startled (but not scared) sound. And then he just stares for a little while, not sure what to make of it, but finding himself smiling slightly.
"Pretty, huh? In a Sithy sort of way, but it's not a bad aesthetic. Don't touch, though, I can't put bits back if you lose 'em."
"Yeah," he agrees quietly. Gives an almost amused sound. "You don't risk touching things you don't understand," he says.
"Well, depends on the things. But don't risk anything you can't afford to lose, for sure."
"Maybe," he agrees, and falls silent for a little while just watching, twisting his fire absently around his hands.
There's a seat - salvaged from a spaceship, perhaps - at the base of the sphere; Pradnakt settles into it. "Let me know when you're ready to go."
"All right." She deactivates the barrier and hops out of the hole - it'd be an impressive jump even without the heavy bag of water she's still carrying; as is, it's obviously Force-assisted - and then heads along the cliff edge, following a path that gives them a little bit of distance from it, but maybe not enough for comfort.
He follows after her, avoiding looking at the edge of the cliff. He's not precisely afraid of heights, but he's never spent much time, and he knows that falling from the height would not be pleasant. He's used to dealing with the low-level constant fear, and doesn't seem to really have recognised that he's feeling it.
"There's a long way around, if you want - I'm not going to let you fall, though."
He starts to reflexively say it's fine, and manages to stop himself, frowning as he thinks. He's a little startled to realise that he believes Pradnakt when she says that.
"It's fine," he decides.
The path down is a switchback trail, mostly naturally occurring, but with a railing added for safety and metal plates filling in the gaps where it's too uneven to be comfortable. Pradnakt gestures for him to go down first - "if something happens, I can catch you faster if I can see you."
He nods and goes down in front of her. A little slow, but still fairly sure footed.
She hangs back a little, to make sure he doesn't feel rushed.
There's another trail at the base of the cliff, running parallel to it; she heads off along it, and after a few minutes they come to the art. It's a huge piece, spanning the entire twenty-foot cliff face along a stretch perhaps half again that wide. The naturally sandy stone has been darkened to shades of grey, from a medium tone a few shades darker than durasteel to nearly black in rough bands and splotches, and set with sense swirls made up of hand-sized pieces of metal cut to organic shapes and treated to obtain a variety of colors: mostly a rusty red that shines purple from some angles, but good portions of indigo blue, deep orange, dusky gold, and even a pearlescent white in a few places.
A trio of rocks sit across the path from it, giving visitors a place to sit; Pradnakt claims the farthest one.
Nova stares up at the cliff for a moment, before edging over to perch on the first rock, settling himself cross-legged. He continues to stare up at the cliff, not entirely sure what to make of it.
"That's - not exactly what the Force looks like, but it's close. It's pretty impossible to capture, really."
"...wow," Nova breathes, his gaze dragging from the cliff, to the flames around his hands, and back up to the cliff. Quietly extrapolates. "It's- like it's my flames. But more?"
"Mmhmm." A fierce joy is clear in her tone; it's obviously something she feels strongly about.
He smiles, and it's almost carefree, as he thinks what it would be like to actually see this, not just the pale imitation his fire is, and the art that can't capture it - like something solid would have a hard time capturing living, breathing flame.
"Wow," he repeats.
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