Ask EZ Targets

[Theia Durand]

Nubia

Theia knew she would get super grounded for doing this, but she felt her reasoning was justified. Despite the effort she put into trying to get her mom to tell her what happened with Ezzie, Uncle Em and the rest of the family, all she received was ...Just give him some space for now.... Theia would vocally admit every time she did not like that response, she had felt something that day and she did not like having to accept she would have to wait. Though the real issue for Theia was she missed Ezzie and Jayna; she didn't quite understand what it meant for Ezra to train with the Jedi and how he would be gone - frequently, and now something happened to where she felt she hardly seen or heard from him. And though Jayna didn't do the jedi thing, she was also gone, a lot too; not that she didn't mind visiting Jaikus and Emryc, it just seemed...empty in the manor without the twins present.

Knowing that her mom would not approve of this trip on her own, the teen managed to loop in a friend to cover for her over the weekend. In exchange, Theia gave up her Saylor Twift ticket as payment and to vouch to say she would be spending the weekend with their family at the Naboo's lake country. This plan wasn't fool-proof as she knew eventually her mom would figure things out, but by the time she did, she would already be on Nubia visiting Ezra. Theia would admit she was giddy about the plan working so far, and even daydreamed how it would feel to get away with it, though it was a long shot. Regardless, she would not arrive empty handed and this time was more prepared with a smoothie for herself and one specifically for him to ensure she could at least enjoy one this time.

Shooting off a message prior, the redheaded teen promptly arrived, knocking on the door as she suddenly fought off the what if thoughts of him ignoring her or not bothering to answer.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra felt like he was harboring a fugitive when he got the text that Theia was coming to visit. They both knew she wasn’t supposed to be here, and she likely knew that Ezra was avoiding his family. He wondered if this was an intervention - what if she showed up with his parents? In the end it was Dash that talked him out of his paranoia.

When she knocked on the door, Ezra answered. He was adorned in a simple shirt and jeans, though it was all designer and fit well around his defined torso. A steely gaze met the red head before his eyes flicked past her suspiciously in case anyone else was behind her.

Ezra stepped aside to let her in, closing the door behind her, “You didn’t have an escort droid?” He asked, genuinely impressed she managed to escape Auntie Tia. The woman had a penchant for popping out of the bushes practically anywhere. In fact, Auntie Tia even showed up to haunt his dreams and Dash (@Alhon) usually lost his shit laughing when Ezra woke up in a cold sweat because of it.

“Why’d you want to come here?” He asked as he led her through the very fancy penthouse he shared with Dash.

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

Theia was relieved that Ezra answered and couldn't hide the big stupid grin she got whenever she see him. She stepped inside, for a moment distracted by the penthouse as he asked about her escort droid. Shaking her head, the teen took a sip of her smoothie before handing the other to Ezra, "Did...Mama just gets an error message if she tries to check in." the girl said nonchalantly, clearly retaining some engineering knowledge. "Buuuut, she thinks I'm in the Lake Country with Lena." Theia paused to look down at the city from the window with awe and curiosity before turning to look at Ezra when he asked her why she had come.

The redheaded teen frowned, "I wanted to see you and hang out, I hardly see you anymore Ezzie." she was blunt, but honest as she took a seat on the couch, slouching back into the cushions. "Jayna too, she's gone a lot." her light eyes flickered to Ezra before she continued, "And talking to Uncle Jai isn't the same, and Uncle Em just doesn't say anything, and Mama just says this is part of life, and well, I don't like it." Theia huffed, seeming dissatisfied.

"Are you just too busy to hang out anymore?" she asked him.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra was impressed - outsmarting Auntie Tia was almost impossible. He was caught off guard when she admitted why she came. He hadn’t really considered the impacts of him distancing himself from his family - it included Theia, Jayna and others beyond his parents. People that hadn’t done anything wrong, per say. Despite all that, Ezra wasn’t exactly great at comforting others.

“I’m the CEO of EZTech,” He said dryly, “Actually, you might be able to help me with some of my prototypes,” He pondered aloud. He wasn’t too keen on bringing other engineers into his work and risking his IP, but Theia was practically family. And she was brilliant. His gaze flicked to her two smoothies, “Are those both for you?”

Ezra led her through the penthouse towards a large door. He typed on a keypad, the doors hissing open to reveal an entire separate section of the dwelling. This was his ‘cave’ and where he tinkered and created new products. She would see blueprints for speeders, bikes, newer models of the EZPhone and other gadgets. His preferred style of music was playing through surround speakers.

“I’ve been working on refining the language algorithm to include more dialects and slang,” He explained, referring to his EZPods. The products were putting a lot of protocol droids out of business, which meant he garnered a lot of criticism. On the flip side, it also meant pressure to continuously improve the product so protocol droids couldn’t make a comeback.

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

Theia didn't give an immediate retort when he mentioned he was the CEO of EZTech, though her mind wasn't as accepting as she thought about her mom running Asteria Industries, but still made time for her. Perhaps it did mean he was just too busy, he was right, he was a CEO, but he was also a Jedi-thing, and he was here going to school, and he had a guy... and thinking about all this made her heart sink briefly until he suggested there may have been something she could help him with in the lab.

The teen grinned when he asked about the smoothies, and the red head took a drink from one and handed the other to Ezra. She was unusually quiet, but being in his penthouse was a novel experience and that seemed to stimulate her focus for long enough as they reached his lab, sparing Ezra a few moments of quiet from the usually talkative teen. Though it wasn't without her gasping with "Oo's" and "Whoa's" as she wrapped her head around such a place could exist, though it would probably help if she actually visited more penthouses instead of the estates on Naboo.

Theia paused to look at the blueprints, amazed by his work so far; she wasn't sure how he or even her mom was able to create such things, she never felt she was creative enough to do anything like she saw currently. Ezra spoke, explaining his latest project and Theia turned her attention to him, thinking about the issue of updating languages. She leaned against one of the worktables, slowly rising to her toes and lowering herself down as she took to thought. "Slang will need something as fast as it evolves, its like a dialect, but you just need something to get a general context... What do ya have so far?" she asked him slurping on her smoothie.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra pointed to a screen with some code on it. If she looked, she would realize they were different types of algorithms, “I’ve been using generative AI to pull from existing texts and language teaching tools. You won’t believe the proprietary issues I’ve run into,” He grinned, “It allows translations for languages that are rare or lost…even things like Ancient Sith for example, though it’s fed only through existing texts and translated content. For the rest, users all around the galaxy are on an open source community to submit their content to the EZ Lexicon.”

He looked at her, “I have to do very little development myself beyond writing the algorithms,” He grinned at her, “Something I learned from Auntie Tia.”

Ezra sipped from his smoothie, walking over to show her all the little tools and items laid out all over the place, “Not sure what I want to build next. My theme has been everyday utilities instead of the big and obvious things that have saturated markets already.”

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

Theia walked over to the screens with the algorithms, listening to him explain how he has been able to collect the data. The girl grinned in return as he explained how it has been running so far. She couldn't even begin to image the mass amount of data that has been pouring in from users. He mentioned his inspiration from her mom and the girl's smile grew wider as she looked back at the algorithm. "Well, Mama uses anomaly detectors." she said as she begun to scroll through the equations and matrixes. "They're gonna pick up on outliers, those that don't fit with the rest of the known data. Then you can make a self-supervised learning system..." she paused, reading through the current anomaly detectors, "You just need to make one for new words, create a command for the existing one to make sure it doesn't get tagged as dialect....and those that don't fit in the dialect have them be processed through the new anomaly system."

Theia turned to look at him, "You don't have to worry about it being too much, you've already created a deep learning system, you can add the new anomaly systems, run, check for errors and you should be golden." she explained following him to his work bench that was organized with tools and projects he had been working on. Quietly she looked at Ezra and then at the table, thinking about what he could build next, something novel of course.

"Everyday things is a great crown-maker, you'll never run low on sales." she picked up a tool, fidgeting with it, thinking of the amount of crowns he could be dishing in several years from now; "Do other people in your jedi do what you do?" she curiously asked.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

He calmly listened to her as she gave her ideas. He had considered that angle, of course, it just sounded like more work and Ezra liked to be lazy sometimes. He knew he couldn’t cut corners with this, not when he wasn’t going to work with investors. It allowed creative freedom, but there was a finite amount of funding. He drank from the smoothie, scoffing at her question.

“My Jedi?” He asked, amused, “No, Jedi normally do community service and good deeds for people that generally don’t give a shit,” It was difficult to keep a hint of bitterness from his tone. He had found home with the Jedi, but he couldn’t deny that many of them were delusional and not practical at all. There was too much idealism and not enough strategy.

“Hey..” He paused briefly, not sure how to broach the topic. Did Theia know about her mother and her Force abilities? “Did you ever think you were Force sensitive?” He asked bluntly. He wasn’t great at beating around the bush, and he wanted to learn how deep the Force sensitivity went with his family’s inner circle.

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

Theia would admit she was surprised by Ezra's response regarding the jedi; normally people stuck up for those they were working with or made it seem better than what was perceived. Ezra, however, in much of his bluntness, expressed with some mild disdain, thought Theia was uncertain if it were about what Jedi did in general or how people saw the jedi. The teen very much appreciated Ezzie's blunt demeanor, most of the time it aligned with her own opinions and somehow she felt she had more credibility if Ezra had the same ideas as she did.

Though there were other times when his blunt and forward questions seemed to catch her off-guard like in this moment when he asked her about being Force sensitive. She found herself retreating into quiet as she was revisited by memories of odd moments in her life that had really no clear explanation: from just knowing things to moving brownies her mom baked back into her reach. Though, instinct would answer for her as she suddenly seemed puzzled by her own response, "I think I am." her brow narrowed as she tried to grasp such an idea that was no longer just floating in her mind.

"Heh, but that would make sense, because I think Mama is," she continued, thinking on the times seemed to just know where she was or what she was doing, "Some of my friends say you can get it if you hang around someone who has it." Theia frowned, "Is that true? Because if it was, then everyone in my class and ballet would be able to use the Force." She was starting to feel uneasy to all the what ifs that were popping in her mind and used her smoothie to stop herself from asking them out loud.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra eyed her curiously as she answered. He could relate to the trepidation she felt with being a Force user. Like him, she largely grew up within ISC space and the entire sentiment was to be against Force users. His father’s platform was shaky already with his son being a Force user, and that was with the rest of them keeping Emryc's Force sensitivity a secret. The lies and secrets were unbearable, and it only enraged him.

“She is,” He stated flatly, “Theia, you need to train it if you have it,” He explained calmly, “The Force is something that can escape you and unleash without you meaning to if you don’t learn to control it. Have you ever thought about the Jedi?” Ezra was the last person to recruit anyone into the Order, but he also despised the thought of her going to the Sith. His entire family had Sith origins and it would be far too easy for her to fall to darkness.

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

Her gaze left Ezra as she seemed to retreat back to herself as he confirmed her mom is Force sensitive. However, with him telling her she needed to train or there could be undesirable consequences. She couldn't even start to think of what those consequences were, imagining herself like the dark wizard villians in holo-fantasy adventures where they start to choke the hero with just a pinch of their fingers. Theia thought that was unlikely, she wasn't evil, but the question of ever thinking of joining the Jedi, Theia couldn't help but give Ezra an unamused really? look.

"Thought about the Jedi? Ezzie, c'mon, I think about school, ballet recital, what Trisha is going to say if she thinks I'm flirting with her beau, I have to start university applications in a couple weeks, and I dunno how I am going to tell Mama I don't want to do engineering." Theia huffed and let out a long exasperated sigh.

"She's going to flip and then if I go and say, OH by the way Mama, I'm going to go with Jedi -which sounds like a nightmare if all they do is community service and die all the time- I might as well find my cardboard box to live 'cause she will disown me." Theia popped down her smoothie cup, wincing as she realized it sounded unintentionally aggressive. However, it was clear she was uncomfortable and immediately regretted even bringing up the topic of the Jedi.

"Ughhhhhhaaaa!" she let out a mix of a whine and small yell in her discomfort, "Will it go away? If I don't train it?" she asked.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

Ezra rolled his eyes as she rambled. He couldn’t stand rambling, but he learned from his father to stay silent and let people get their verbal diarrhea out of the way. Interrupting usually invited more rambling. After he was sure she was finished, he stared blankly at her.

“This isn’t some illness you cure by forgetting about it,” He said dryly, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against his workbench, “I’m in university, aren’t I? And I still got trained up as a Jedi,” He said, “You mean to tell me you can’t juggle a few extracurriculars?” He said with a scoff, knowing he was getting under her skin.

He shrugged vaguely, “If Auntie Tia disowns you, just come live with my parents,” He said dryly. It may have sounded like a joke, but she would know it was entirely within the realm of possibility.

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

She hated that stare he had, Uncle Em had it too, and so did Jayna. It made her just want to shake them all when they did it; which was, of course, much better than when a younger Theia actually tried to fight Jayna after a series of disagreements resulting in the Thorne stare. Theia's lips pursed as Ezzie continued, calmly as he explained matter-of-fact about how he was able to do it and keep to all his goals. It almost sounded like she couldn't do it and the competitive side of the redheaded teen seemed to spark within her.

Deep down, she knew her mom wouldn't disown her, but the reassurance she would have a place where she was welcomed was always warming to hear. Theia was quiet for a long time, probably the quietest Ezra would have ever experience with her as she thought about what she could gain or what she could lose from this choice. So far, it seemed easier than telling her mom she was not going to engineering school. She took a sip from her smoothie, trying to clear her thoughts by internally reciting an equation (it always worked better than trying to count her frustration away) and when she finally felt she could grasp a thought, she would speak again.

"If its not like an illness, then...what is it?" she asked finally, "What do you do with it? Is it just community service, because that sounds miserable."

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

“It’s just a part of you,” Ezra said, “You know it is,” He added sharply. He had gone through it himself - making things happen without meaning to, intuition, unnatural reflexes. She would have witnessed all of it if she was truly Force sensitive. Ezra quietly sipped from his smoothie, scoffing at her question. He used to think it was nothing but community service, and her words echoed his own.

“Well, since I’m a Knight…” He trailed off, not even remotely pleased with where this was going. However, his family hadn’t been there to help him navigate the Force. He may have come across as a jerk to most, but he treated his family differently, and Theia was as good as family.

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

It was hard to believe that it was just there, but she knew he was right, that feeling and knowing without any real explanation to it being present. She looked down at her palm as though the Force would suddenly manifest and introduce itself, but instead, there were some things that would begin to click; numerous childhood games and tricks with unexplainable outcomes, sneaking up, think fasts, tag, saving skin when they accidently knock over expensive vases - Ezzie didn't catch it in his hand, even though he said he did, it floated, Theia remembered what she saw. Or when she had held out her hand to stop Jayna from tagging her, she had pushed her down some how. She remembered crying in confusion while sitting in time out.

"A Knight? Does that mean you can show me? How to control it?" she asked uncertain though what he meant by it, "If Mama is, can she train me? She has the Force too." though the idea of her mom telling her what to do even more seemed cringy. However, there was a curiosity to learning more about this part of her self but also worry about how it could change things. Would ballet kick her out because of the Force? Would she lose her scholarships?

"Do I have to be gone for a long time from everyone, like when you left?" she asked.

@Sreeya

 

[Ezra Thorne]

In truth, he hadn’t even considered Auntie Tia teaching Theia. He only gave a vague shrug at her questions, “She won’t teach you,” He stated flatly. He knew Auntie Tia, he knew she was trained as a Sith, and he also knew she cherished Theia above all and would never risk that. It was perhaps why his parents hid what they were to begin with.

“And yes, Knight means I can train you,” He said as he picked up a gadget and began fidgeting with it, “You will have to be gone for a bit,” He admitted, “But you’ll find a new home and new friends.”

He shrugged again, “But it has to be something you want, not something you’re forced into. So think about it.”

@GABA

 

[Theia Durand]

Theia sat up straighter, surprised with his quick answer to her mom not teaching her. It only brought more questions, but the idea of just beginning training to control this part of herself seemed more pressing. Ezzie confirmed that he would be able to train her, which was relieving that she didn't have to go off with some strangers, though it didn't make this decision any easier. She had a feeling Ezra knew this, reiterating it was a choice she had to make.

"I will think about it, but in the meantime, you and Dash should come to my recital at the end of the month. I've been doing more advanced pointe work, I can get up to twenty-eight fouettes so far. I want to get to thirty-two so I have a chance at lead in Swan Lake, its an Alderaanian classic." Theia sighed in her daydream of being solo-ballerina in such a performance.

She watched him fidget with a gadget, "What else are you working on?" she asked, "Do people give you trouble about you being a Jedi and making cool things?" she added.

@Sreeya