
For jedi_interrupted:
It's early evening, and Sahaal is returning from the Bar to his room with a large plate of cheesy nachos. It's been a slow day, what with a significant percentage of the Milliways residents hung over from the celebrations last night. He's never seen Star Wars before, so his plan is to work his way through the films tonight and tomorrow, so that he can finally understand what those Warp-damned toy laser swords are about.
Now, he's got Netflix, and he's had the films on his list for a couple of weeks, but he has been told to skip the prequels. Usually, he wouldn't follow the advice of someone he barely knows, but the man calling himself Sam Wilson said that he really wouldn't wish the dialogue on anyone, including the characters. Apparently, they got some details wrong when they recorded that universe's history for posterity. Although, some people apparently enjoyed them, so who knows?
Anyway, when he gets to his door, there's a pair of packages, one in the brown ridged cardboard of an Amazon delivery, the other in a small crate with holes for air and light. Cautiously, he sets the plate of Mexican food down, pulls out the combat knife he keeps on his belt and opens the Amazon package. Inside, once he's stripped away the cardboard and a cocoon of bubble wrap, is a loose action figure, like the ones he's seen on eBay. This one is, well, strange.
As far as he can tell, it's a plastic representation of some sort of bipedal xenos, with backwards bending knees and brown skin. Most of it is covered by brightly coloured armour, comprising of thick orange-red plates and an underlayer bodysuit of green scale-like material. The face is a little off-putting, with its four mandibles full of sharp teeth and a bright yellow breathing apparatus jammed into its mouth. But, whilst it does look like something he'd have killed in the Great Crusade, he quite likes the figure, in a strange way. Why, though, escapes him at the moment.
Instead of dwelling on the strange figure any more, he turns to the other package. He cuts away at it with neat, precise slices to the seams, and after a few moments, it opens to reveal a plant in a terracotta pot. Sahaal, his face sporting a look of confusion under his goggles, inspects it a little closer. Given that his knowledge of botany ends with photosynthesis, he's not really able to comment on many details, except for the fact that it has thin stems with broad leaves and smaller leaves at the top, and that's it green. It also has quite a nice smell, one that reminds him of the breath fresheners that used to be included in Imperial Army ration packs, except more natural. There's also a small label sticking out of the dirt in the pot, and it reads, in neat but slightly smudged print: "Mentha × piperita - (Peppermint)"
As Sahaal picks both of the items up, he notices a pict tucked into the second package. It's a good quality one, very good in fact, framed almost professionally. However, the subject matter is quite informal. It shows four figures, human by the looks of it, and all male, sitting on a fallen log in a forest at night, the scene lit by a small campfire. On the far left, there's a man with pale skin, a small tattoo of a spider on his hairless scalp, a wide grin on his face and a finger up at the camera. He's wearing dark clothing, and a few glimpses of bare torso can be seen through the coat he's hugging against himself. Next to him is a very tall and slim figure, wearing a richly embroidered longcoat and wearing a peaked cap at what Sahaal assumes he thinks is a rakish angle. Two of the cap-wearing man's fingers are augmetic, and good quality.
The next one to him is young, very young, perhaps only twenty Terran standard. He's in a black t-shirt with a cog symbol on it and grey fatigue trousers, and he's making a very goofy face at whomever is taking the pict. The last man on the log, though...
It's him. It's Sahaal, with the same goggles he's wearing now reflecting the firelight. He's smiling, showing no teeth, but smiling none the less, with his hands in his lap and holding a small glass of what looks like some sort of amasec. He's got no idea how this is possible, he's never met any of these people before and he'd certainly remember a strange bunch like that. To be frank, he's been up for three days already, so he decides to just take the photo, figure and peppermint plant into his room for now, and figure out what to do with them in the morning. Given the strangeness of the entire situation, he probably should sleep on it.
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Three hours and seventeen minutes later, Sahaal's eyes snap open. He'd been having a strange dream, about nachos that had been forgotten and cried out to be eaten and enjoyed, but even in his slumber, his enhanced senses are still hard at work. Right now, his hearing and sense of smell is telling him there's someone in the room with him, they're walking over to his desk and they smell of lilac and gun oil. Slowly, and trying his hardest to avoid rustling the thin sheets, he turns over, his eyes picking out the details in the darkened room as it were noon.
A person, a female human in some sort of military uniform he doesn't recognise with short blue-black hair and a sidearm in a holster is rooting through the detritus on his desk. As he watches, she pulls the pict from earlier off a pile of books and slips it into her thigh pocket. Something makes her turn around, and she pivots on her bootheel. Her eyes go wide in the darkness, and with the barest whisper, she says in an unfamiliar accent: "Go back to sleep. It is fine."
Of course, Sahaal would beg to differ, and he jumps out of bed, knife in hand and sheets draped around him. A small smile forms on the woman's face, and she presses a button. The blue-white flash that comes after blinds his sensitive eyes, and he stumbles back, blinking tears of blood from his eyes. After perhaps three minutes, or maybe close to four, he can't tell through the pain, his vision heals itself enough that he can see that the strange woman has gone, taking the pict. Nothing else is gone, nothing else is disturbed.
In its place, however, is a small note, written on lined paper torn from a notebook. The language is too formal to come from a native speaker or rather writer, and the letters are traced out with great care.
"We cannot let you keep the note. Keep the figure and plant, they were gifts for another. He says you should have them. I am sorry for disturbing you."
There is no signature underneath, no mark of who wrote it. Sahaal would write it off as just the craziness of Milliways, but this feels different. Whatever it is, he's not going to figure it out tonight.