(no subject)

[rightchoices]

Who: Lee Everett and Naomi Wildman
What: History and kadis-kot lessons.
When: Now'ish?
Where: The library.
Rating: G or PG, at most.

It wasn't until he'd started putting together lesson plans that Lee remembered how much he really missed teaching. It was one of those things- an echo of normal life, before his court date and trial, before the Walkers had risen and started trying to kill everything in sight. Naomi reminded him vaguely of Clem, too -- at least as much as he'd spoken to her over the journals, young and earnestly eager to learn. It was nice- maybe he'd spent too much time around jaded university students.

But he'd be waiting for her in the library, notepads and three books piled on the table next to his elbow, different chapters marked with post-it notes in a half dozen assorted colors. He'd had a lot of free time on his hands.

Comments

[rightchoices]

Her smile gets one from him in return. He's relaxing - this is more his normal element, or at least had been before the undead had taken the streets over. He slides her a folder. There are papers inside - timelines, headers, all early American history. "Here.. I've written some basic history down. The founding of the country that I'm from. How about you read over that later today and we meet about it tomorrow to talk it over?"

[minicaptain]

Naomi nods in response, happy he's relaxing and that he's at all willing to help her learn things. "Okay!" She won't mind meeting him again at all. He's been really nice to her so far. "Is it okay if I ask questions if I don't understand something?"

She will ask all the questions. Earth is as foreign to her as the Delta Quadrant to everyone else here.

[rightchoices]

"That's what I'm here for." He smiles at her - still a little awkward, because Clementine and Duck are really the extent of his interaction with children in the past year - but he's trying. "Ask me whatever you'd like, okay? And I'll do my best to explain."

[minicaptain]

"Okay!" Naomi grinned as she glanced at the papers he'd given her. It all looked very interesting and she would be sure to read through it all. "Does this mean I can teach you kadis-kot now?"

[rightchoices]

"Absolutely." He smiled at her, tipping his head forward. "But you might need to go slow - I'm a little thick in my old age." It was a joke. Sort of. He was trying!

we can handwave a lot of the game and just have them talk!

[minicaptain]

Naomi couldn't help giggling at his joke, able to figure out that he was teasing. Or at least she hoped he was or else she might have just insulted him without meaning to. "That's okay. I've taught a lot of other people." And with a smile, she carefully launched into an explanation of kadis-kot.

sounds good to me!

[rightchoices]

Lee followed along closely, and despite his little joke, was able to follow her instructions without too many problems. "You been playing this for long?"

[minicaptain]

She had to think about that for a minute. For as young as she was, she'd been playing it a long time. "For as long as I can remember, but I think I'm only three. So... uh... a year, maybe?" It's hard to remember, exactly. "It's my favorite game and I play it whenever I can."

[rightchoices]

Lee stuttered almost visibly at her answer, trying to figure out the mental math. "You're only four?"

[minicaptain]

Three, four. Something like that. Naomi nodded. "The Doctor says I grow fast because I'm half-Ktarian."

[rightchoices]

And this was perhaps the biggest surprise to him that day. "That's.. pretty quickly. Half Ktarian, half.. human?"

[minicaptain]

Naomi nodded again, her expression nervous. "Ktaris is a planet, but I don't think it's a lot like Earth. I don't really know much about it. Mom was going to teach me this year, I think."

[rightchoices]

He smiled again, trying to soothe the nervous look from her face. "Well, you've got a lot to learn here. I wouldn't worry so much about that."

[minicaptain]

It worked and Naomi smiled again, nodding happily. "I'll learn everything I can while I'm here. Mom would want me to and then I can Neelix stories about Earth while he tells me stories about his planet."

[rightchoices]

Lee hesitated, had the feeling that he probably shouldn't pry, shouldn't ask. "What planet is he from?"

[minicaptain]

Naomi doesn't hesitate to answer. This is all normal to her. "His people are from Talax, but I think he grew up on one of the moons." Space travel and alien life-forms are all part of her daily routine. "I've never seen it, though. He joined Voyager before I was born."

[rightchoices]

And it was entirely fascinating to Lee.

"And Voyager was...?"

[minicaptain]

"A starship. That's where I was born. Voyager is my home."

She was coming to realize that she was different in that way. Home to her was a ship, not a planet, so talking about cultures and experiences and anything related to homelands was hard for her. She only knew what Voyager knew, the sum of its crewmembers, and with so many different people with different memories and experiences of "home," it was sometimes hard for her to sort out what she'd heard from what was "normal" to her.