"Not bad, Love, considering."

    "You'd say that no matter how bad it was." The droid is definitely needling her.

"No, really. Daira, what do you think?"

"Better than what I usually have, but that's not saying much, I'm a terrible cook."

"Daisy's a great one. And she grows most of the ingredients, too, at home."

"I spent six months on a freighter," Daira shrugs, "if it's not the slop they were feeding us there I'm happy."

"Well, hopefully the garden won't be too far gone when we get back, you'll be in for a treat. And this really is fine, Love," she reiterates.

    "All right," Daisy grins, and Pradnakt turns her attention to her meal.

Daira doesn't really know what to make of their relationship, but it's hardly any of her business. She eats quickly, not noticing whatever problems with the stew Daisy had been worried about.

And soon enough they get back on the road.

The next two days are much the same; driving, meals, camping out. Daisy continues to be reserved, in the way droids often are, with Daira, but more open with Pradnakt, who treats her just as oddly as she has been, and clearly cares about her quite a bit. Pradnakt continues to meditate in the evenings - she always starts with the same round of intense emotions - and to provide marked pebbles and interesting telekinesis tricks whenever they have nothing else to do.

Mid-afternoon of the fourth day, she turns off the main road, almost U-turning onto a barely visible trail.

Daira is quiet for the rest of the trip, except when asking questions about the aforementioned telekinesis tricks; regarding those she is a font of questions and speculation. 

When Pradnakt turns onto the trail, Daira suppresses a flash of - something. Excitement, unease? She's become somewhat comfortable with the easy routine of travel, and different has often meant dangerous for her.

Pradnakt slows, and shouts over the sound of the speeders. "Our house is this way. A few more hours."

"Got it," Daira shouts back.

About ten minutes later, they pass the first piece of art: swirls of metal incorporated into an apparently natural rockfall, glittering in the afternoon light.

Oh that's gorgeous.

There are more, one every ten or fifteen minutes for the rest of the two hours it takes to reach their destination, all variations on the rock-and-metal theme, all abstract.

When they get there, the house itself is perhaps a bit disappointing - plain white adobe, unadorned, without even windows; a scraggly tree shading the well by the front door is the closest it comes to having any decoration. The yard in front, though, hosts a tall, twisting silver sculpture, almost obelisk-shaped, that rather distracts from the building's plainness.

"Your sculptures remind me of - how the Force feels," is the first thing Daira says when they can finally talk without shouting.

"Thank you," Pradnakt grins, but she's obviously pretty distracted. "You'll have to excuse us for a bit, we need to take care of the farm first thing. You can go in and get a glass of water if you'd like, the pitcher is on the table."

"Where should I -" Daira gestures at her speeder.

"Leave it there for now, if you put it in the garage now it'll block the trailers in. Won't be long." (Daisy has already left, heading around the side of the house.)

Daira nods, grabs her bags off the speeder, and heads inside, hesitating briefly on the threshold. She finds the water and, after a brief search, a glass, and drinks quickly. Then looks around the room she's found herself curiously, trying to see what she can find out about the place where she's going to stay.

It's a workroom, and obviously the main room of the house; it takes up easily half the size of it. It's dominated by a huge, square wooden table, liberally scattered with tools and stained and scarred in the way worktables often are, surrounded by benches in similar condition. A door, a cabinet - wooden, with a swirl of inset metal studs on the doors - and a pair of large, freestanding metalworking tools sit along the back wall; the side wall farthest from the door, hosts bins of scrap and parts, some unsorted, some sorted by type or color. The nearer side wall, between the front door and the door on the back wall, is mostly taken up by a cozy galley kitchen, where one person could work comfortably but two would be quite cramped, and the front wall is empty except for a set of pegs next to the door, currently holding a hooded black cloak with gold embroidery at the hem and around the hood opening, and several pieces of colorful, decoratively draped fabric. The other walls have fabric decorations, too, wherever there's room that's not otherwise occupied.

[house layout, entrance at bottom]

Daira tilts her head curiously at the decorations, and then goes to examine the tools left out in the open. She recognizes a few, but most are new to her. She picks one up to look at it more closely, and then drops it guiltily and crosses her arms over her chest to ward off the temptation to touch anything else - she's familiar with the protectiveness craftspeople often feel about their workspaces.

Touching Pradnakt's tools fails to summon her.

Daira pokes around some more and looks at the other doors in the room but doesn't open them, uncertain of exactly where she's welcome. Eventually she drops her bags on a bench and leans against the table next to them, trying not to disturb anything.

Whatever they're doing, it's taking a while.

Eventually Daira sticks her head out the door and looks around, not sure what else she's supposed to do.

Neither of them is in evidence at the front of the house, and the speeders are still sitting by the garage.

(If Daira's paying sufficient attention with the Force, she may notice that there's some kind of large but low-power telekinesis effect happening behind the house.)