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kanerallels · 22 days ago

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If You Could Read My Mind, Love, What A Tale My Thoughts Could Tell

My first contribution to @kaneraweek!! Shoutout to @singswan-springswan for helping me come up with this au

Taglist: @accidental-spice @day-to-day-thots @auroramagpie @opalknight @ana-cantskywalker @cassie-fanfics @nyxlotl (DM me if you want to be added or removed from the tag list!)

Read on AO3!

Hera had known that blending in with humans would be difficult—and it was, for the most part. Avoiding iron, dancing around where societal conventions and the laws of the fae clashed, and just not knowing a lot of simple things combined to make life potentially awkward or painful.

But it was also…beautiful. Watching the lives of humans, who were so different from her people. Building her own life, such as it was. Running a business turned out to be simple in comparison to other issues she dealt with.

The coffee shop had been a longstanding cover for faeries in the area, and it had been more than one business over the years. Most recently, a restaurant, abandoned quickly when the faerie in question had completed their goal in the area. Hera, along with Zeb, her self appointed guardian who was far too paranoid about what all the humans were up to, had moved almost five years ago now. And to her surprise, they’d been able to make a profit.

Which was good, considering Hera had no idea when she was going to leave.

She’d had an original goal when she came here. Getting back the passkey she’d left behind when she’d come here seven years ago. It had taken her far too long to realize where she left it behind. Hera had always hated to be confined solely to the Other World. She simply wasn’t built to stay in one place forever, not when there was so much to see out there. So she’d developed a habit of slipping through the veil, visiting far off places and exploring a little. It was easy enough, with the passkey to guide her to nearby portals home and unlock them, if necessary.

But of course it was here. Lothal was an ancestral home for her people, to the degree that the passkey was barely necessary. And the night she’d come here to visit had been…eventful, to say the least.

That was the first and only time she’d ever been spotted by a human. Animals, sure. Even other faeries on occasion. But Hera had never been seen by a human, until Kanan Jarrus.

She hadn’t known his name at the time, of course, let alone anything about him. But now…she knew him. And he knew her, almost too well.

It would have scared her if it hadn’t thrilled her.

“Hera!”

Zeb’s gruff voice cut through her daydreaming, and Hera looked up from the counter she’d been wiping down. Nodding towards the door, the massive man—though technically, he wasn’t. Human, that is—said, “Customers on the way. Pretty sure it’s one of your favorites.”

“Thanks,” Hera said, ignoring his look of disdain. Zeb pretended not to like the humans, and for the most part, he didn’t. But Hera knew there were a few he had a soft spot for, whether he acknowledged it or not.

Ducking into the kitchen, she checked on the coffee—still fresh—and poured it into a to-go cup. After adding the cream, she started heating milk for hot chocolate. This took a little more maneuvering—the pot was made of steel, not straight iron, which helped. But she preferred to be careful when she could be. There was already a burn on her palm from her last brush with iron, and Hera really didn’t want more injuries than she could help.

The bell at the top of the door jingled cheerfully, and she heard familiar voices out front. Ezra was cheerfully heckling Zeb, as he usually did, and Zeb growled something unfriendly in response. And then there was Kanan’s voice, steady and deep, calmly mediating. Hera’s heart skipped a beat at the sound.

Don’t be silly, she scolded herself as she whisked the ingredients of the hot cocoa into the pot. He’s a customer, a friend at best—and most importantly, a human. Your heart shouldn’t be focusing on him.

Setting aside the whisk, she grabbed the to-go cup full of coffee and headed out front.

Kanan was sitting at the counter, watching Zeb and Ezra bickering. He glanced up at the sound of her footsteps, and a smile spread across his face. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Hera said, sliding him the cup, and his grin widened.

“How do you always know?”

“It wouldn’t be any fun if I gave away the secret,” she told him, leaning against the counter. “Ezra’s hot chocolate will be ready any minute.”

Shaking his head as he took a sip of his coffee, Kanan said, “One of these days you’re gonna have to tell me how you know we’re coming.”

“Magic,” Hera deadpanned, and he laughed.

“I almost believe that.”

That was the problem with Kanan. Hera never really knew if he did believe her when she made jokes that weren’t really jokes. He laughed at her jokes, those included. But there was always something that made her wonder, does he know?

He couldn’t. They’d met first seven years ago—a blink of an eye for her, but a long time for humans—and she’d looked nothing like she did not. There was no way he could know, and that was a good thing. The truth about who she was had to remain a secret.

“Hey, are you busy tonight?”

Kanan’s question snapped Hera out of her thoughts, and she looked up at him, surprise flashing through her. “What? Why?”

“I was thinking about how you seem to not know any of the best movies out there,” Kanan explained. “Figured we should fix that. Ezra’s going over to a friend’s house, so you could come over, we could try a few movies—popcorn and snacks guaranteed. What do you think?”

Oh. Hera hesitated, indecision tugging at her chest. “I…don’t know,” she said slowly. What if he finds out? Spending time in close quarters with a guy who may or may not actually know that she was a faerie seemed like a bad idea at the best of times. With Kanan…she couldn’t tell if the fluttering in her stomach was nervousness or excitement at the prospect.

“Hey, no pressure,” Kanan told her. “Just think about it and get back to me. In the meantime, what are the odds we can get some baked goods to go with that hot chocolate?”

The hot chocolate! “Absolutely,” Hera said, turning to head for the kitchen. “Just give me one minute.”

She ducked back into the kitchen, quickly checking the pot she’d left to heat up. Thankfully, she hadn’t been gone long enough for it to start boiling, but it was already heated to the perfect temperature. Carefully, Hera filled a to-go cup, added a few mini marshmallows and a dash of cinnamon, and headed back out of the kitchen.

Ezra had joined Kanan at this point, and his gaze lit up at the sight of her. “Hey, Hera!” he said, scrambling up onto a stool. “Can I have—”

“Hot cocoa, mini marshmallows, cinnamon?” Hera finished, handing him the cup. “Of course.”

Grinning, Ezra said, “You’re awesome, Hera. Thanks.”

“Agreed,” Kanan said, digging through his pockets for a minute before locating his wallet. “Add on a couple of chocolate croissants, and how much do we owe you?”

“About twenty bucks,” Hera said. Or…this is definitely a bad idea. But when has that ever stopped me? “I’ll give you a discount if there’s dinner with that movie tonight, though.”

Kanan’s gaze flashed up to her, and a slow, delighted grin crossed his face. “Sounds like a plan. Should I pick you up?”

Shaking her head, Hera said, “I know the way to your house, dear. What time?”

“Ezra should be leaving around five thirty, so…six?”

“Six sounds good,” Hera said as the bell over the door jingled. “I’ll see you then.”

Sliding her a twenty dollar bill, Kanan said, “See you then, Hera.”

She rang him up quickly, ignoring Zeb’s side eye as he helped the other customers. By the time they were finished, Kanan and Ezra were long gone.

However, that didn’t prevent Zeb from saying, “Tell me you’re not actually going on a date with that guy.”

Rolling her eyes, Hera said, “It’s not a date, Zeb. We’re just seeing a few movies and having dinner.”

“Right. Last I checked, that is the exact definition of a date,” Zeb pointed out. “Look—I like him well enough for a human, but it’s a bad idea.”

“Well, then, it’s a good thing this isn’t a date,” Hera said, and promptly received a deeply skeptical look from him. “It’s not! We’re just friends, and that’s always been clear.”

Sure, he’d flirted a little when they first met, but Hera had made it very clear where they stood, and he’d respected that. Since then, their relationship had changed. Deepened into a real friendship.

Kanan was one of the people she cared about most, in this world or the Other. And truthfully, she was starting to think that she didn’t know what her life would look like without him.

But that didn’t mean this was a date. It didn’t. So Hera firmly put the idea out of her head, and kept working.

The rest of the day slipped by quickly enough, and before she knew it Hera was leaving the coffee shop in Zeb’s capable hands—they really did need to hire more employees, though where they’d find some who were willing to overlook the quirks of two fae pretending to be humans, she didn’t know—and slipping into the apartment she kept above it to change into something a little nicer.

Not date level nicer, obviously. Just a soft, dark blue sweater to keep out the autumnal chill, and clean pants. Pulling her hair out of the dual braids she wore for work, Hera wrapped it back with a green scarf and headed out of the door.

She walked, obviously. It was only a few miles to Kanan’s place from hers, and she didn’t have a car. Though there was a tiny, very un-faerieish part of her that wished she could drive one. The massive machines were fascinating to her, even if touching one could be incredibly painful. But she didn’t go enough places to even pretend to need one, and it was probably better in the long run.

Kanan was waiting for her on the front porch of his massive, slightly run down house when she got there. Hera still wasn’t quite sure what a human with one kid and a grandfather who only occasionally visited was doing with a three story dump like this, but she knew better than to question Kanan’s lack of logic at this point.

“I could have picked you up,” he said. “You wouldn’t have had to walk that far, and it’s getting cold out.”

Hera shook her head, heading up the steps of the porch. “I like walking. And it’s not that cold.” Which wasn’t exactly true—her hands were already ice cold, and she’d been able to see wisps of her breath here and there on the walk in.

Snorting, Kanan said, “Well, that’s a blatant lie. Come on, let’s get you something warm. I can make you coffee.”

Hera laughed. “I don’t actually think you know how to make coffee, dear.”

“Rude,” Kanan responded as they headed into the house. The interior was warmly lit and smelled like something savory and delicious, and Hera was already glad she’d suggested dinner. “How do you think I have coffee when I don’t show up at your shop?”

He led the way into the kitchen, which was painted bright yellow. Hera suspected it was a compromise from when Ezra had suggested orange, knowing the boy as she did. Luckily, it gave the whole place a warm, welcoming feel, and she couldn’t help but be fond of it. Bright colors appealed to the fae, even at their most elegant and refined.

“Are there times when you don’t come to the shop?” she asked Kanan, lifting a very skeptical eyebrow.

Grinning a little, Kanan admitted, “Not really.”

“I figured. Get out the coffee,” Hera commanded, heading for the coffee machine. She’d become pretty adept at working the various machines, and the one at Kanan’s place was as simple as they came. She worked on making the coffee as Kanan pulled the oven open. A wave of the same spicy, savory smell washed out and Hera nearly swooned.

“What is that?” she asked as Kanan examined the dish in the oven.”

��Birria,” Kanan responded, closing the oven. “And it should be ready soon. Seems like it turned out pretty well.”

Frowning, Hera said, “Didn’t you tell me that this takes a lot of prep? And it’s not exactly the kind of meal you’d make for one?”

“Possibly,” Kanan said with an expression that utterly failed to be innocent. “I might have made it with the hopes that you’d be here for dinner. And if you weren’t, you’d get leftovers eventually. Force knows someone needs to feed you—Zeb and the local takeout places can’t be solely responsible for you.”

Rolling her eyes as she pulled a mug out of the cupboard to her left, Hera said, “I’m going to choose to thank you for that instead of taking it as an insult.”

“I would never dream of insulting you, Hera,” Kanan said, accepting the mug of coffee Hera passed him. “Hey—what happened to your hand?”

“What?”

“Your hand,” Kanan repeated, setting his coffee aside and catching hold of her hand before Hera realized what he was doing. Turning it over, he traced a gentle finger over the raised burn on her palm, so light she barely felt it. Hera felt her stomach do a decidedly not unpleasant flip at the touch. Looking up, he raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t try cooking again, did you?”

“Ha,” Hera deadpanned, trying to cover the relief she felt at the joke. It pushed aside a little of the way she felt, with his hand cradling hers and that concerned look in his eyes. Pulling her hand back, she said, “No, I just burned it working. Hazards of the trade.”

It wasn’t like she could tell him that it was from a cast iron pan she’d touched in a store. She hadn’t realized what it was until it was too late, and had barely managed to restrain her gasp of pain. There were salves that soothed iron burns, but fae healing magic didn’t affect that kind of injury. Hera would just have to wait for it to heal like any human.

She couldn’t tell if Kanan believed her excuse or not, so she quickly changed the subject. “Is there anything I can do to help with dinner?”

That brought a grin to Kanan’s face. “Not a chance. You already made coffee—drink some of that and tell me about your day, and that’s enough for me.”

“Not exactly very helpful,” Hera said, taking a seat at the kitchen table anyways and curling her hands around her mug, enjoying the warmth seeping into her fingers. Though it wasn’t much of a replacement for Kanan’s hand around hers.

Enough, she scolded herself, pushing the thought away.

“It’s helpful to me,” Kanan assured her, leaning against the counter. “And it’s mostly a waiting game at this point.”

“Fair enough.” Gathering her thoughts, Hera began to recount some of the events of the day, telling Kanan about the customers who’d stopped in. Most of them had been there a thousand times, but in a small town like Lothal, there was always something new and occasionally crazy going on.

Kanan was a good listener—he asked the right questions, laughed at the right parts. Hera always found herself relaxing in his presence, sharing things she wouldn’t share with anyone else.

It was dangerous. But she couldn’t bring herself to turn away from it.

Dinner was ready in short order, and they feasted on the incredible dish. Kanan’s cooking was always fabulous, and this was no exception. Hera relished every savory, spice-rich bite, and didn’t hesitate to have seconds.

When they’d finished, and she’d helped him tidy up in the kitchen, despite his protests, they headed into the living room, where Hera settled on the couch while Kanan flipped through the DVD collection. “Let’s see,” he mused aloud. “You’ve seen The Princess Bride?”

“Thanks to your never ending rants about it,” Hera said wryly. When she’d first met Kanan, it had become obvious that she had some serious gaps in her knowledge about human life, and she’d done a lot of research. Most of it in the form of watching some of the many movies he’d been horrified to learn she hadn’t seen, and a few extras.

There were still plenty she hadn’t seen, however, and it wasn’t long before Kanan found one. “Really?” he said, popping in the dish and heading over to drop onto the couch next to her. “You’ve never seen The Mummy?”

“Are we really going to have this conversation again?” Hera returned, and Kanan laughed.

“Fair point.”

They settled in to enjoy the movie, and Hera did, to her surprise. Though she shouldn’t have been—Kanan had good taste, for the most part. Watching them with him was a new experience, but she liked being able to argue about plot points and joke about parts of the movie with him.

When the first film ended, Kanan put in the sequel—undeniably poorer writing, but equally fun—and made them popcorn. It was late when they finished it, but Kanan managed to convince Hera to start some natural disaster movie that he insisted was a classic.

Classic and fun it may have been, but Hera felt her eyes sliding shut only a little ways in. She jerked awake, suddenly and painfully aware that she’d fallen asleep for a little while.

Lifting a hand to rub the sleep out of her eyes, she registered the weight of something heavy and warm against her shoulder. Glancing to the side, Hera’s eyes widened a little at the sight of Kanan, fast asleep.

It was strange to see him this way. Usually he was so self possessed and confident, upbeat and snarky. Seeing him asleep, hair slipping free of its usual tie, felt…vulnerable.

Almost without knowing why, Hera reached forward and brushed a loose lock of his hair out of his face. Her fingers stilled, tracing along his cheekbone as she studied him, heart beating fast without any real reason.

And then she saw the cord around his neck. The necklace he always wore, keeping it tucked under his shirt. She’d never asked, and he’d never brought it up. But now, slumped to the side like he was, it had slipped out.

It was the passkey.

The blue crystal shimmered even in the dim light, and Hera stared, shocked. She’d suspected, of course, but…He had it all this time?

Why?

It couldn’t be because…no. There was no way.

She lifted her hand, reaching out to touch the passkey. She could take it now and leave, before he even knew what had happened.

Instead, Hera tucked it back out of sight, closed her eyes, and let her head rest against his. When he finally moved again, waking at a loud sound from the TV, she was fast asleep. She didn’t even feel him tuck a blanket around her and settle in to finish the movie, arm resting around her for just a second too long to be anything resembling casual.

No, Hera simply slept, and dreamed, and she would wake the next morning at peace for reasons she couldn’t even fully explain yet.

#kaneraweek2024 #kanera #star wars rebels #swr #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #faerie hera au #writing stories is a kind of magic too #fantasy au

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kanerallels · 20 days ago

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Like A Flash Of Bright Light In The Middle Of The Night

For day three of @kaneraweek, we have a little prequel of sorts to day one! Hope y'all enjoy it, and definitely check out this art by @singswan-springswan that helped inspire it!

Read on AO3!

Taglist: @day-to-day-thots @auroramagpie @accidental-spice @opalknight @cassie-fanfics @ana-cantskywalker @lothalnyx (DM me or send me an ask if you want to be added or removed!)

Kanan hadn’t always believed in magic. Even in a world that had seen the effect of magical beings had recently as 10 years ago, there were many in the galaxy who believed beings like the fae were simply a hoax. At the very least, most who believed were certain that the last of the fae had died out years ago.

He hadn’t been raised in a family who believed that, though. The Windu family took the existence of magic as fact, though this earned them plenty of ridicule. Kanan remembered, when he was only ten years old, coming home from school after picking a fight with kids who mocked him for believing in something as childish as magic.

His mother had still been at work. But his grandfather—Grandpa Mace to him. It was only later in life that he realized what an intimidating, indomitable figure Mace Windu was in most settings, academic or otherwise—had been there. He’d brought Kanan into his office, given him a cold pack for his bruised hand, and frowned at him severely.

“You know better than to hit people for not believing the same thing you do, Caleb,” he told him. Mace always used his first name, even years later when Kanan had started going by his middle name. “Violence very rarely convinces anyone you’re right. Just that you’re willing to hurt someone to make them believe what you do.”

“I know,” Kanan—still Caleb then—mumbled, staring at the ground. “But they were calling you and Mom names.”

Mace smiled a little then, softening his hard features. “That means they don’t understand, Caleb. And that they’ve been taught to revile and fear what they don’t understand.”

Caleb wasn’t quite sure he knew what revile meant, but Mace continued anyway. “Hate can’t stop hate. Defending your mother’s honor is well intentioned. But you’re going to have to learn to work that out with words, not fists. Now, let’s see your hand, make sure you didn’t break anything.”

“I didn’t,” Caleb said, offering Mace his hand anyway. “I hit him just the way Styles taught me.”

Mace snorted as he examined Caleb’s knuckles. “We need to stop letting you hang out with Depa’s army friends.”

Personally, Caleb disagreed. He thought Styles and Gray and the others were cool. Besides, Styles’ brother was a few years older than him, but they still got along. But that wasn’t the most pressing of the questions in Caleb’s mind at the moment. “Grandpa Mace?” he said. “Why do you believe in magic?”

“Because it would be silly not to believe in something that’s real, no matter how foolish it seems to others,” Mace said. Handing Caleb back the cold pack for his hand, he added, “And because it’s good for the human heart to believe in something beautiful, Caleb. It gives us a longing for something better than the mundanity of the world around us. Sometimes, that means something magical. Sometimes, that magic is something as simple as the people you love.”

As Caleb turned that over in his head, Mace rose from his desk, resting a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “Now, come. Let’s get you a snack, and we can talk about some better ways to handle disagreements at school.”

Despite Mace’s best efforts, he’d still gotten into quite a few scrapes at school. His grandfather always scolded him for them, while his mother gently reprimanded—but generally, she also asked him if he’d won. As a former Army Ranger, Depa knew a thing or two about getting in fights, but she’d encouraged him to sort things out peacefully from the day he’d been adopted, when he was much, much younger.

His family was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Caleb had known that much, in a lighthearted sense. But he hadn’t realized just how much he needed them until one cold, slick night, when he and Depa had been driving home from a college visit.

There’d been something in the middle of the road—a large animal, probably a deer. Caleb could have sworn at the time it was a wolf. But he’d swerved to avoid it, and the icy pavement had sent them spinning out.

The car had been soundly totaled. Caleb had woken up with quite a few scars, and Depa? His mother hadn’t woken up at all.

Caleb barely remembered a time without his mother. He knew there’d been a time before he was her son—though she’d argued that he’d always been her son. “We just didn’t know each other yet,” she said with the wry, enigmatic smile she used whenever she was acting like the scholar her father had tried to raise her as.

But he’d never thought he’d lose her. Not now, not so soon.

And yet, she was gone. Mindlessly, numbly, he moved through the funeral, the wake, but even after the ceremony was over and his mother had been reduced to an urn of ashes, Caleb couldn’t put the pieces back together.

It was his fault. His fault that his mother was dead, that his grandfather only had a shaken teenager left to lean on. He could have handled it being his fault if it was anything, anyone else, but his mother? The one person in life he’d always known he could depend on, who would always protect him and guide him down the right paths?

The distraction of college was something he’d seized eagerly. They’d picked out a school in Lothal, a small town almost three hours away from his home. From Mace, and the memory of his mother.

Once there, he’d found plenty of other things to occupy his time, and not just studying. Partying and drinking seemed to push away the pain well enough. He started going by Kanan—every time he heard the name “Caleb”, it was like he could hear it in Depa’s voice—and firmly ignored his grandfather’s calls. When summer came, he found a job in town and stayed at a friend’s apartment, barely scraping by until school started again. All he knew was that he couldn’t go home, back to where her ghost was waiting for him.

And then. One day, in his junior year. Things changed again.

It was after a party, late enough that it was early. Kanan stumbled his way out of the abandoned house the party had been at, head spinning and stomach churning. The cool air of the spring night eased the ache a little, and he took a quick breath, letting it steady him.

Okay, I’m fine. Just need to get back to the dorm without passing out. Shouldn’t be a problem. All things considered, he’d had more to drink in one night before.

The abandoned house was tucked away from the rest of the town, along an out of the way road, deep in the woods. There were stories in Lothal, about things that prowled in those woods late at night. About people who’d gone missing in those places.

At the moment, Kanan didn’t really care about stories. All he cared about was finding his way back to his room and his bed soon enough that he would be semi-functional for class in the morning.

So he plunged into the woods, keeping his wits as about him as he could. The trees seemed to blur in front of his eyes, but he kept moving. Kept breathing. It wasn’t like he really had another choice.

However, his sense of direction wasn’t really the best under normal circumstances. This drunk, they were even worse, and soon Kanan paused, hand resting on a tree trunk. Am I…lost?

He squinted at the woods around him. Nothing but trees and shrubbery. No real paths, no signs of life or streetlights. Kark. This was not good.

For a moment longer, he wavered, trying to figure out if he should try and go back the way he came, or go forward—and then he heard it.

A voice. No, not just a voice. To call this voice beautiful would be to do it a disservice. It was ethereal, yet warm, like a moonlit night next to a fire. Unwavering and rich, it was…singing?

“Little bird, where are you going?

Would you mind if I came too?

I thought I had it all together

But then I saw your lovely colors,

And it’s almost too much for me to bear.”

Not much had made sense to Kanan in the past year. But one thing he was absolutely, 100 percent sure of? He needed to find out who that voice belonged to. Carefully, stumblingly, he moved toward it.

It was a woman, he was sure of that much. She kept singing as he moved.

“Little bird, tell me a story,

One you’ve never told before.

I wanna know what keeps you singing,

I wanna know what keeps you dreaming.”

He nearly tripped over a tree root, ducked past a few more trees. There was a dim light up ahead, but it didn’t look quite like a streetlight, or even a fire. It was purer, almost like a star.

“Little bird, wait a moment,

I only just found out your name.

I wonder what else lies behind those verdant eyes

A mine of mystery.

Little bird, stay a while…”

The trees thinned into a clearing ahead. As Kanan approached, he saw a ring of stones in the center of it, and something in the back of his mind pinged, whispering a warning. What is that? What do I remember about this?

Then he saw the source of the voice standing near the ring, and everything else dropped away.

She wasn’t human. That much, he knew. Rich green skin, horns that curved down from her head elegantly with gold markings etched on them. She wore a white dress, shimmering with silver light. A cloak hung from her shoulders and he knew, just knew, that it concealed wings.

Her beauty was heartstopping, a punch to the chest. It was the kind of beauty that couldn’t exist in his reality, the kind that wasn’t human.

Faerie.

He didn’t say it out loud. But her head turned towards him, and glowing green eyes met his gaze. For a moment, Kanan could read every emotion on her face. The shock, the fear—but winding throughout it, the curiosity.

Wow, Kanan thought, wishing he could speak, knowing there was no way he could get a word out.

And then she took one step forward, into the ring of stones, and vanished into thin air, leaving him in darkness.

Kanan’s jaw dropped. He took a few wavering steps forward, then stopped. He might have forgotten a lot of the fae folklore he’d been taught, but there was something about that ring of stones that triggered alarm bells. If she disappeared when she stepped into it…what would happen to me?

Nothing good, he decided. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave without a souvenir. So, stepping towards the ring, he located a small pebble of stone, barely visible by the moonlight through the trees, that had fallen a few inches away from the ring. Tucking it in his pocket, he took one last look, and left.

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done. He was still hopelessly lost—however, he figured the fae would try and stay as far away from humans as possible. So he turned, put the ring of stones at his back and faced the way he’d come, and started walking.

The rest of the night was very, very blurry. He remembered stumbling over roots and fallen branches, unsure of which way he was going. There was a moment—a brief one—where Kanan seemed to sense a massive shape near him, nudging him gently in a specific direction.

And then, the next thing he knew, he was waking up to police sirens, and was blearily sitting up from where he’d been laying on the grass next to the road. He was soaking wet and had a blistering headache, but he wasn’t dead.

The cop who approached him, Officer Kallus, gave him an exasperated look as he approached. “Someone called in a dead body. I was hoping it wouldn’t be an irresponsible college kid who hopefully hasn’t been drinking.”

“Who, me?” Kanan said. Usually, this statement would be paired with a winning, innocent smile that made Kallus scowl. But this time…his head spun as he remembered the encounter of the night before. “I…think I need to call my grandfather.”

Kallus did not look displeased by this comment. In fact, he actually gave Kanan a ride back to his dorm and a stern lecture that was only half as long as usual before returning to work.

Kanan’s roommate wasn’t there when he made it in. Dropping onto his bed, Kanan fished his cellphone—somehow barely alive—out of his pocket, plugged it in, and called his grandfather’s number.

The first ring had barely finished when Mace picked up. “Caleb?”

Kriff, he hadn’t realized how much it would hurt to hear his name again. “Hey, Gramps,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “So, uh, I’m not sure if you’re busy today, but…there’s some stuff I want to talk to you about. Do you mind if—”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Mace’s voice was steady and calm. “Is there anything you need me to bring you?”

“Uh…some of your weird books about the fae.”

There was a very long pause on the other end. “I have a feeling you’re going to have a very interesting story for me when I arrive.”

Kanan snorted. “You have no idea.”

Despite the three hour drive, Mace somehow managed to narrow it down to two and a half, and arrived in time for lunch. The first thing his grandfather did when Kanan met him at the restaurant they’d found was hug him tightly. Kanan swallowed hard against the prickle of tears and hugged him back.

After a few seconds, Mace pulled back and studied him. “Sweet Force, are you hungover?”

Should have known he’d guess that. “Calm down, Gramps,” Kanan said, waving him towards a booth. “I’ll explain it all.”

Over burgers and fries and plenty of coffee, he recapped the events of that night, describing what he’d seen. “I know I had a lot to drink,” he said. “But it wasn’t that much, you know? And I couldn’t have come up with all that if I tried. So…was it? A fae?”

Only Mace Windu could look like a serious, dignified scholar while eating fries. “It certainly sounds like one,” he mused. “I’d always heard the rumors that Lothal was close to an area where the faerie had lived. It’s far away from most of the modern world, the perfect place for the fae to show themselves. Of course, there haven’t been any reported sightings since you were very, very young.” Rubbing his chin, he said, “And you say you took something from the ring of stones?”

“From next to it,” Kanan emphasized, digging the rock out of his pocket. “I’m not dumb enough to mess with something like that.”

“Good,” Mace said. “Otherwise I would have gotten a very different call this morning. That was a portal, directly into their realm.”

“Kriff,” Kanan muttered, setting the rock on the table. It wasn’t much more than a fragment of stone, crystalline and dark blue. In the fluorescent light of the restaurant, it seemed to shimmer.

Mace’s eyes widened. “That. Is not part of the portal.” Carefully reaching out, he picked it up, examining it intently. “You found this on the ground?”

Picking up his coffee cup, Kanan said, “Yeah. Why? What is it?”

“I’m not totally sure,” Mace admitted. “But it’s not from this world.”

Kanan choked on his coffee. “What?”

“Don’t sound so surprised. You saw a faerie last night. Magical rocks aren’t that big of a change.” Studying it for another moment, Mace slid it back across the table to Kanan. “I doubt it’s dangerous. But it’s definitely not from around here, and it’s probably magical. Keep it safe.”

“Got it,” Kanan said, slipping it back into his pocket. Pausing, he said, “Thanks for coming. I know it’s been a while—”

“And why would that stop me? Love isn’t a subscription you have to renew every so often, Caleb,” Mace told him, gaze serious. “We’re family. I’ll always be here.”

It took a minute for Kanan to work past the knot in his throat as Mace continued eating. “I missed you,” he managed eventually.

“I missed you, too. Now eat. You need something for that hangover.”

Snorting, Kanan said, “You’re not gonna let that go, are you?”

“Of course not.”

Something about that night, that moment, was like a breaking point for him. It still hurt, thinking back about his mother. But finding the faerie in the woods had pushed him to see his grandfather again, knocking him out of the fugue state he’d lived in for far too long. And, if Kanan was being honest, there was still a part of him that hoped he’d see her again.

Mace had warned him about going to look again. “Most people don’t survive seeing a fae without a glamour these days. Either the sheer magical exposure kills them, or the fae does. So don’t tempt fate.”

Kanan had agreed, reluctantly. But there was the tiniest part of him that, whenever he walked near or in the woods, was keeping an eye out.

Maybe that was why, when he graduated and got his first job as a teacher at Lothal City High, he bought the abandoned house that party had been at. Sure, he’d been up to his eyebrows in debt for a while, but it could be worth it in the end.

If he glimpsed her one more time, or heard her voice again, it would be worth all of it.

~~~

(7 years later)

“Hey, Kanan? You home?”

“In the kitchen!” Kanan called, a smile crossing his face at the sound of Ezra’s voice. It was good to hear the kid calling this place home. It had taken them long enough to build trust when they’d first met—partially because Ezra had broken into his house, and partially because he’d been on his own for far, far too long—but two years later, things were a lot better.

The kid appeared in the kitchen a second later, a frown twisting his face. “Are you making cookies? Do you ever work?”

“In two weeks, you’ll see that not only do I work, I’m excellent at it,” Kanan said, sliding a baking sheet into the oven. “That’s the one upside of you becoming a high schooler. Besides, your text said you were having friends over, so—”

“Wha—Kanan, I told you to stop doing that,” Ezra groaned. “We can just have chips or something.”

“No can do,” Kanan said, closing the oven. “My rivalry with Zev’s mom doesn’t disappear just because Zev’s not who you invited. Who is here, by the way?”

He glanced up just in time to see Ezra’s hesitation. “Uh. Promise me you’ll be normal about this?”

Before Kanan could even begin to ask what that meant, a voice came from the kitchen door. A voice belonged to a teenage girl, with brightly dyed hair and a leather jacket.

“Okay, where are the snacks you promised me?” she asked, glancing at Kanan with an air of suspicion. “Who’s this?”

“Kanan,” Ezra said, giving him a look that very clearly said, Be cool. “This is Sabine. We met while I was, uh, out…doing stuff.”

“That’s reassuring,” Kanan said drily. “Just tell me this much—when Detective Kallus shows up at the door, how much trouble are you in?”

“...not that much?” Ezra offered. “I was looking at that old abandoned storefront you were talking about the other day, and Sabine was putting up some art—ow!” he let out a yelp as Sabine kicked him in the shin. “What?”

“I told you not to tell him that,” she said, glaring.

Waving a dismissive hand, Ezra said, “It’s fine, Kanan’s cool. He only yells at me if I do something really bad. Graffiti is barely even a real crime. Anyway, Kallus rolled up, so we took off on our bikes, and I offered to let Sabine come hide here and also there would be snacks.”

“I can leave,” Sabine said, not looking at Kanan. But he could see her tense a little, as if she was waiting for the inevitable reprimand, and…kriff it.

“Hey,” he said, and waited until she looked up at him. “You can stay. After all, I didn’t bake these cookies for nothing. You’re welcome any time.”

“Thanks,” she said, a little of the tension leaving her expression. “It’s…Kanan, right?”

“That’s me,” Kanan said. “You guys want to sit down in here, or in the living room? Cookies will be out in about 10 minutes, and I can rustle up some other stuff while you wait.”

“In here’s good,” Ezra said, pulling out a chair at the table and dropping down. Sabine did the same, and as Kanan turned to start stacking dirty dishes next to the sink, he felt her studying him.

“Kanan,” she said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the name of that crazy teacher at the high school who believes in faeries?”

Ezra let out a snort. “Yeah, that’s cause that is him. Don’t worry, we both know he’s crazy.”

“Is it crazy if I believe in something that’s in most history books?” Kanan countered, and Ezra groaned. Glancing over his shoulder, Kanan saw the kid drop his forehead onto the table with a thunk as Sabine eyed Kanan skeptically.

“So…you think the fae are real? Or alive right now, I guess?”

“There’s no reason to suspect they’re not,” Kanan said with a shrug. “After all, just because we can’t see something doesn’t make it not real.”

“Except that it is,” Sabine said, and Ezra snorted.

“Oh, this is gonna go well,” he said, getting up and heading for the fridge. “Also that argument doesn’t work on him. He says he’s seen one.”

“You WHAT?” Sabine stared at him. “No way.”

Kanan felt a smile crossing his face. “It was a long time ago. But yeah, I saw a fae.”

“He was also super drunk at the time,” Ezra said helpfully, rummaging through the fridge. “Do we have any juice?”

“Try the left hand side, and I wasn’t that drunk,” Kanan countered. “I’ve been way more drunk than that.”

Leaning back in her chair, Sabine accepted the small bottle of juice Ezra handed her. “I can’t believe I accidentally befriended two crazy people.”

Looking smug, Ezra said, “So we’re friends now?”

“As long as you don’t secretly believe in Bigfoot, too.”

“We won’t go into that now,” Kanan said, holding back a grin as Ezra rolled his eyes.

Dropping back into his chair, he said, “You haven’t even heard the best part. He thinks there are faeries actually living in Lothal.”

“I’m starting to think you just like mocking him for his conspiracy theories,” Sabine said thoughtfully.

“Not conspiracies,” Kanan said, turning to switch on the faucet. “And she’s right, find another subject.”

Ezra accepted this without complaint, and as Kanan started working on washing the dishes, he thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t mentioned to Ezra exactly who he thought the faeries in Lothal were.

It wasn’t that crazy of a theory. The fae could glamor themselves, disguise their true forms in any way that they wanted. Why not as humans? True, they’d have to avoid anything iron at all cost, and that could be difficult. But Kanan was completely sure there were faeries in Lothal.

One faerie in specific, in fact.

It wasn’t obvious. Hera Syndulla acted fairly normal, all things considered. But he knew those green eyes, remembered them with startling clarity from a night where not much else had been clear. Of course, there was one other very clear thing. Her voice was still the most gorgeous thing he’d ever heard, warm and melodic.

It wasn’t something he could forget, or mistake for someone else. Kanan knew that she was the fae he’d met that night. His only question was why she was here. Was it for some other mysterious reason, or did it have to do with him?

Out of habit, he reached up, touching the blue crystal he wore on a cord around his neck. Maybe it had something to do with that. He’d found it left behind, and while he and Mace had never been able to figure out what it did, Kanan was sure it belonged to the fae he’d met. To Hera.

Maybe I should return it, he mused. But then…would she leave? Selfishly, he’d rather hang onto it if that was the case. And she probably wouldn’t appreciate him revealing that he knew who she was, anyway.

No, for now things would stay the way they were—Hera running her slightly strange coffee shop/bookstore across town, and Kanan showing up to hassle her every so often. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t enjoy it, even if it had technically started out as him investigating whether or not she was actually the fae he’d met.

Now, he went to visit her because he wanted to see her. Because he liked exchanging snarky banter and drinking her coffee which was somehow far better than anything else he’d ever drunk. He liked watching her laugh and teasing her and just listening to her talk, about anything and everything. Even a few minutes in her presence left him refreshed, happy.

Ezra’s claims that Kanan didn’t think she was a fae, he was just in love with her might not have been that far from the truth.

But that was a problem for another time, if it could really be called that. Right now, he had dishes to wash.

#star wars rebels #swr #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #kanera #faerie hera au #faerie hera syndulla #mace windu #ezra bridger #kaneraweek2024 #writing stories is a kind of magic too

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