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stellarstarwarsimagines · 4 years

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75 and 94 with Sith Anakin :)

Thank you so much for requesting this because this has to be one of my favorite Anakin stories I’ve ever written. It’s super sad, but I still hope you enjoy! :D

This was not how you wanted today to go. It wasn’t supposed to be a difficult mission. Get the supplies, and get out. Was it a dangerous place? Of course, but everything was these days with the Empire marking their territory wherever they went. But never in your wildest dreams had you expected there to be Inquisitors hiding there, and never had you expected to have to deal with two. As good of a Jedi as Ezra was becoming, he wasn’t able to take on one by himself yet, and you had done the best you could to make sure he was out of harm’s way before surrendering.

You knew Kanan would kill you for it if you ever saw him again, but you cared more about Ezra staying alive than getting killed yourself.

They had stripped you of your lightsaber and cuffed you, leading you to a star cruiser that they mentioned belonged to Lord Vader. They seemed to enjoy talking about what he was going to do to you, and how they hoped they would get to watch.

Having heard of Lord Vader, the atrocities he had done, the only thing you could do was hope that you could find a way to annoy him enough to make your death as quick and as painless as possible. After all, you didn’t fear death anymore.

Not when it would bring you back to the love of your life.

You showed no resistance as you were shoved into an interrogation chair and strapped in, all fight drained out of your body. What was the point? Unless the Ghost Crew could pull off another miracle, you were about to die. You just had to make sure you didn’t give up any Rebellion secrets while you were doing so.

Eventually the two Inquisitors left you with your thoughts, and you took this moment to close your eyes in meditation, saying a final goodbye to those you loved. Obi-Wan, your oldest friend who had saved your life more times than you could count, Ahsoka, the girl you had watched become a warrior with the kindest heart you knew, Rex and Rutt, the two clones who had laid down their lives for you. Then there was the newest, but some of the most important members of your family. Hera, the sister you never knew you needed, Zeb who always could make you smile no matter what the situation, Sabine, the selfless and talented woman who always put others first, Ezra, the young and incredible Jedi you had been helping to train, and then there was Kanan. Sweet, amazing, Kanan who had done more for you in the past few years than you could remember.

A tear dripped down your face as you could almost feel the man through the Force, a flicker of anxiety and turmoil from miles and miles away. You knew he wouldn’t want you to give up, you knew he would try to save you, but if it was time . . . It was time.

Your only regret was knowing that you were leaving behind the most important -

You heard him before you saw him, his boots were heavy on the shining black floor. The darkness surrounding the man in the Force was suffocating, and you dropped your head, trying not to drown in it. “A Jedi, surrendering . . . I never would have expected it.” Was all he said from behind you, the voice diluted with a modulator from the mask you knew he wore.

“What did you expect? Me to let you kill my friend? I suppose that’s what the Empire would do.” You responded, your voice shakier than you would have liked.

He chose to ignore your words, his footsteps pacing back and forth behind you, allowing you just a glimpse of black and the silver flash of your lightsaber in his hands. “Where did you get this lightsaber?” Vader asked.

Was that the question that he wanted to open with? You would have assumed there would have been some threatening, the usual, tell me what you know about the rebellion, where is the secret base, blah, blah, blah. Not where you got your lightsaber. After all, that answer was so obvious you didn’t feel the need to respond.

“Do I need to repeat my question?” Vader asked once more, his voice calm, and didn’t even give you a chance to respond to him. You felt a pressure around your throat, growing stronger with every passing moment until you couldn’t get any air into your lungs. You started coughing, your hands trying to fly to your throat, but unable to strapped down at your sides. Tears of panic formed in your eyes as you struggled against an unforeseen force, but then as quickly as it had arrived, it was gone, leaving you gasping for air. “Where did you get this lightsaber?”

You were scared. You hated to admit it, you knew that Jedi weren’t supposed to feel it, but you were. The darkness Vader seemed to emit almost smothered you in your entirety. You had never felt someone so dark, and your fear, as it always had when it reared its ugly head, made you lash out. “Where do you think I got it? A market? I made it! Went to Ilum, found a crystal, constructed it myself -” You choked out before he interrupted you.

“You’re lying!” The sudden burst of emotion in his voice shocked you. From what you had heard about Vader he was always calm, precise, even when he was in the midst of torturing someone. “I know the woman who made this, and she is dead!”

“Oh, so I’m dead? Good to know. It’ll save us a lot of trouble here then won’t -”

You felt a hand grip your hair, tugging it up sharply until you were face to face with the mask Vader hid behind, and in that moment . . . something changed.

The dark, terrifying, intimidating, Darth Vader gasped out your name in a low, weak voice and collapsed to his knees in front of you.

This version of Vader frightened you even more than the one you had seen earlier. “W-what are you doing?”

He didn’t answer you. For several moments, he stared at you through those black lenses, and you wondered how he could even see you through them. You knew he was though. You could feel his gaze piercing your skin like a glacier, sending chills all the way from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. You didn’t want to look at him any longer, hating the way it made you feel, and that was when his head dropped. You watched him with confused eyes as his gloved hands went to his helmet and began to lift it off, something you knew he never did, to reveal a head of dirty blonde waves, the ends of them brushing the shoulders of his dark robes.

Then, he lifted his head, and you were met with achingly familiar eyes, even with their change of color.

That was when the fragile pieces of your life came crashing down around you. For several years now, all you had ever been sure of, was that Anakin Skywalker was dead. Your Force connection with him had been so strong. It was the only explanation for it blinking out of existence the way it had, ripping what felt like a part of your soul along with it. Obi-Wan had told you that he was dead. That the Emperor had killed him.

Yet here he sat, on his knees in front of you, looking as fragile and distraught as you felt. You had stared into that handsome face too many times to confuse it with anyone else. You knew every single inch of that man, he had been seared into your memory, and there was no doubt in your mind that despite everything you believed, it was Anakin in front of you.

“The Emperor . . . he told me that you were dead. That Obi-Wan had killed you.” His gloved hand went to your cheek, touching you as if you were made of glass. “If I had known . . .”

His touch, something that you had longed for, dreamed of for so long, tore you apart. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening no matter what you were seeing. Was Vader putting these thoughts in your head somehow? There were three people in the whole universe who knew how deep and strong you and Anakin’s love had been. How could he have found out something so personal to torture you with? Because that’s what this was, the deepest torture you had ever had to endure, and you knew, if Vader kept this vision going he could get whatever he wanted from you. As long as he let you stay here with Anakin. Tears started filling your eyes once more as you looked at him, his face even more vibrant than it was in your memories. “I wish this was real,” you whimpered, your fingers itching to touch him, but unable to in your secured state. Instead you leaned into his touch, nuzzling against his gloved palm. “All I’ve ever wanted was to see you once last time.”

Then something incredible happened. Anakin reached out, and undid your restraints, catching you in his arms as you collapsed. “This is real! I am real!” He said, squeezing you so tight in his arms he could have broken your ribs, but you didn’t care because it felt so good. You were right back where you belonged, safe, comfortable and free in Anakin’s arms.

Free . . .

He had let you out of your straps. Vader never would have let that happen, even in a vision. It would be too dangerous. Your eyes shifted to the helmet that lay at Anakin’s side, and your world collapsed once more. “No . . .” You murmured, shaking your head. “Please no, no, no,” you murmured the word over and over again, tears dripping down your face in a stream as your hand reached for the helmet, holding the cold metal in your hand. You pulled back enough to look into those eyes, those red and orange eyes that now seemed so different. “Anakin, please tell me you’re not Vader. Tell me you’re not the one -”

“It doesn’t matter,” His hands cupped your cheeks, forcing you to look at him. “It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? You’re alive, and now we can put everything behind us! We can do what we always dreamed of doing -”

There was so much desperation in his voice you felt your heart shattering again. It was too much, trying to reconcile the man you grew up with, the man you loved, with all the things that you knew Vader had done. “You’ve killed so many . . . Killed Jedi . . . People we knew . . . destroyed villages . . .” You couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore. Your emotions were drowning you, burying you underwater with each and every new atrocity that you remembered Vader had committed and bringing you to a conclusion that left a giant, gaping wound in your chest. “Anakin, you’ve become a -”

“No!” The anger and frustration in his voice had you cringing. “Don’t you understand?! I had nothing! Ahsoka was gone, Obi-Wan was gone, you were gone! What was I supposed to do?”

“Not turn to the dark side! Anakin, you’re breaking my heart all over again . . . How could you do those things?” You sobbed, trying to pull away from him when every bone in your body craved to keep being held by him.

His grip became tighter, crushing you to his chest. “You were dead, and it was the Jedi’s fault. They deserved everything they got.”

His words shook you more than anything else he had said. He had done all this . . . Because of you? He had turned to the dark side, destroyed villages, people, tortured hundreds . . . because he thought you were dead.

Despair ripped through your body, as you came to the realization that all of this was your fault. If only you hadn’t believed Obi-Wan when he told you Anakin was dead. If you had gone looking for him yourself instead of escaping to Tatooine to hide from the Empire, none of this might have happened. “But I’m not dead, Anakin . . . I never was.” You looked up once more, meeting his gaze through your tears. “What other lies has the Emperor been telling you?”

You watched as he absorbed your words, but his face was unreadable.

“Lord Vader!” A panicked voice broke through the bubble the two of you had created and you flinched as Anakin’s hand shot out and sent the intruder flying backwards against the wall and pinned him there.

“What do you want?” Anakin hissed at him from behind the chair, and it was then that you realized why he had pushed the guard back in the first place. He hadn’t wanted him to see the two of you.

“Rebels!” The man croaked out, and you glanced over to find Anakin’s hand clenched in a fist, choking the man the same way he had done you. As soon as Anakin saw where your gaze had gone, his fist immediately uncurled. “There are Rebels on the ship. They’re trying to take the bridge!”

You couldn’t even be grateful. You knew who it was. Kanan’s Force presence was getting stronger with every few seconds that passed, but all you could feel was pain, and not just your own either, now that you knew Anakin was alive, you could feel him. Not like earlier, when you had both been Jedi, the dark side shrouded him in too much blackness for that, but you could feel something . . . pain and confusion that echoed yours. “Stay here.” He instructed you, reaching for his mask.

You grasped at his arm, stopping him. “Ani,” you gasped out, the first time the nickname had been directed at him in years made him stiffen. “Please don’t. Please. I’m begging you not to hurt them. They’re trying to save me, that’s it.”

Anakin stared at you and for a moment his gaze softened, but as soon as you had seen it, it vanished again. “You have always been mine. I’m not going to let them take you away from me again.” Anakin leaned forward and you shivered as you felt those soft, familiar lips press against your forehead. “I’ve lost everything. Now that I know you’re alive, I won’t lose you too.”

He stood up, pulling away from you, and placing the mask back on his beautiful face. “You were always mine too, Ani . . . Can you still say that?” You whispered to him.

Anakin didn’t respond, merely stood there and stared down at you for a moment before leaving you, shutting the door behind him.

You collapsed onto the cold, unforgiving floor, you fist hitting it as you screamed and sobbed out your pain. Never had you realized how cruel fate could be. First it had tortured you with his death, and now it had done something even worse. To have him dangling in front of you to snatch him away again was pure torture. It seemed as if you had now lost him even more than you had all those years ago. You were so lost in your own grief you didn’t hear the door opening, didn’t hear the call of your name until you were hauled off the ground and upright. “It’s me! It’s me! We’ve got to get you out of here!” The familiar voice said, shaking you somewhat to grab your attention.

Finally, your vision cleared enough, and you saw the man crouched in front of you, concern in every line of his face. “Kanan . . .” You gasped out, flinging your arms around his neck. “Please, please get me out of here.” You pleaded, clinging to him as if he was your lifeline.

“Hey, it’s okay,” You heard him say, gripping you tightly in his arms. “We’ll get you out of here. The Ghost is waiting.” And without another word, the man lifted you up into his arms as if you weighed nothing. “Sabine! Clear a path!” He called out to the woman you hadn’t even noticed.

Relief filled your body for the briefest moment until you remembered something. If Kanan and Sabine were here . . . “Who’s on the Bridge, Kanan?! He’s going after them! They’ve got to get out of there!” You almost screamed in panic, flailing for a moment as you tried to get out of his arms.

“Nobody!” He tightened his grip on you. “It’s R4 and Chopper! They made a distraction, and then they went back to the ship. Everyone’s safe, we’ve just got to get you out of here.”

You collapsed against him in relief, burying your face in his shirt as you clung to him and closed your eyes. You didn’t want to see anything. You didn’t want to risk seeing him because you knew he must have felt you leaving. Your suspicions were confirmed as Kanan ran up the ramp to the Ghost and it began to close as soon as you were all clear.

He screamed your name, loud and broken through the Force, and it forced your eyes open, staring into those black lenses from across the ship once more until the ramp blocked your view and Hera shot the ship into hyperspace.

Kanan had heard it too. In fact, Ezra, who had joined the two of you, was covering his ears. “What the hell was that?” He asked, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, all you did was hold on to Kanan, burying your face in his shoulder as more tears fell down your cheeks.

Never had you felt so broken, so tortured, so weak. You had been crushed by everything that had occurred, and you had no idea what to do about it. The only thing that managed to pull you out was a fragile voice. “Mom?”

You lifted your head from Kanan’s shoulder, shock filling your eyes. “What are you doing here?!” You made Kanan put you down, running over to the little boy and gripping his shoulders, checking him over for any injuries.

“He stowed away.” Kanan answered you. “He overheard that you were kidnapped and wanted to make sure you got home. We never let him out of the ship though, I promise.” He assured you.

“Who was that man? That was screaming at you? I felt weird when I saw him . . .”

Leaning forward, you pressed your forehead against your son’s for a moment, and then pulled back, looking into those familiar blue eyes that you had seen the dark version of moments earlier. “Don’t worry about it, Ani. Why don’t you go with Uncle Ezra for a bit. You two can practice lifting stuff, okay?”

Anakin nodded, concern still on his little face, but he allowed Ezra to lead him back up the ladder. You brushed your tears away as you watched them go, turning back to Kanan when you felt his warm hand on your shoulder. “I’ve never seen you like that before . . . What did Vader do to you?”

You placed your hand on top of his, giving it a squeeze. “I’ll tell you later, but first we’ve got to get back to base. I’ve got to talk to Ahsoka.”

#anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #anakin skywalker x you #anakin skywalker imagine #star wars imagine #Anonymous

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bedlamsbard · 4 years

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Okay, so I woke up today thinking about Down in the Devil’s Lair (the sequel to Backbone) for the first time in a while and pulled up the completed first chapter and the in-progress second chapter to look at, and it’s...good, actually? But what I can’t get over is how different the tone between Lair and Crown are, especially having been working on Crown for the past year.

Crown is an S4 story and it’s dark and bitter and claustrophobic and grieving and ANGRY, it’s so angry, which is one reason it’s rough to work on a lot; there’s probably more emotion tied up in it than almost anything else I’ve written. Lair, on the other hand, is an S2 story, and it’s open and hopeful and just generally optimistic (despite having what’s inarguably a very dark opening scene). Which is why I had to put it down -- I literally could not sustain that level of Rebels optimism a year ago. (And, in all honesty, I’m not sure I can now.) Lair is also a story I started working on after the series ended -- actually, that’s not quite true, one of the opening scenes in the first chapter was written several years ago in the middle of Backbone, so around when S2 was airing; the flashforward that actually opens the story was written after S4 ended. It’s not that I wasn’t aware that Crown is an angry story, but it’s just really shocking to look at alongside Lair.

also, Ezra.

Ezra in Lair (chapter 2):

“So?” Kanan asked him. “How was it?”

“No grumpy robots, no smelly Lasats…” Ezra’s tone was light, but he let the words trail off, scratching thoughtfully at his ear. After a moment he drew his feet up and rested a forearm across the top of his knees, not quite meeting Kanan’s eyes. Kanan waited patiently, letting his hands rest loosely in his lap.

“I forgot what it was like,” Ezra said finally. “Being on my own. I mean, yeah, Sabine was there, and Zeb was over in Kothal, but…” He stopped again, frowning over the words. “I know those kids, Kanan,” he said. “Not just from Capital City, but I used to be those kids, the ones that got picked up from the streets or the shelters or the jails. If you hadn’t –” He paused, looking uneasy. “If it hadn’t been for you and Hera, I could have been one of those kids for real. And then there really wouldn’t have been a way out. I just would have been stuck there until I died, or – I don’t know, maybe the stormtroopers recruit from there. I probably would have volunteered to get out.” He thought about that. “Do the stormtroopers recruit from there?”

“I think so,” Kanan said. He bit his lip, trying to remember, and then nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they do.”

Ezra ran a hand back through his hair, shaking his head. “I never thought about this before,” he said, and managed to sound both bitter and abashed about it at the same time. “If something bad happened to someone else, that was their problem, you know?”

vs.

Ezra in Crown (chapter 6 or 7):

The Emperor didn’t condescend to respond to that, just gathered the lightsabers from the throne before he descended the dais. Ezra flexed his fingers, his wrists straining at the binders, and shoved down his urge to snatch the lightsabers from him. Half of it wasn’t even the urge to strike him down; it was that he just couldn’t bear them being in the hands of a Sith lord.

Palpatine walked away from him without seeming to care that he was turning his back on an enemy. After a moment’s hesitation, Ezra followed, his worn boot heels clicking against the floor. He stepped into the turbolift alongside the Emperor, the back of his neck prickling at the Sith lord’s nearness to him, and clenched his fists as the door slid shut in front of him. It would have been so easy – deceptively easy – to turn and sling his arms around Palpatine’s neck, strangle the fragile-looking old man or bash his head in against the turbolift wall or even use the Force to take his lightsaber from him. It would only take a heartbeat, maybe two, and then it would all be over. The galaxy would be free. His friends would be safe.

Ezra was enough of a Jedi to know that it would have been a mistake to try. So he stood there with a dark lord of the Sith close enough to touch, clenching and unclenching his hands, and trying to ignore the way the Force coiled curiously and temptingly around them both.

The turbolift didn’t descend more than a few floors, barely more than enough time for Ezra to weigh and discard the idea of attacking the Emperor. He let it slip aside regretfully as the doors slid open.

#adventures in accountability #secret project #kanera agents of the empire tag #I was thinking really seriously about putting lair 1 up but I just don't want to put up a chapter without the next two chapters done in draf #they are so different but I hope recognizably both still ezra

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thedistantstorm · 4 years

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Project Compass 05

Read Along on AO3 Here

<< Previous Chapter << >> Next Chapter >>

This time: Un’hee confirms sinister forces at work, both past and present. Thrawn is delivered harrowing news. Ezra observes and contemplates his course of action.

Next time: Ezra encounters the Grysks. Thrawn has a confrontation. Vah’nya does something that could jeopardize everything.

Six months. It had taken almost all of that time for Ezra not to feel entirely out of his depth amongst the Chiss. It was only recently that he felt comfortable enough to wander around alone and actually make conversation with the rest of the crew in their native language. Suffice to say he wasn't great at speaking Cheunh, but he could get by - and didn't mind the pronunciation corrections and tips as much as he let Thrawn believe.

He also suspected he was in the best shape of his life. In addition to his need to learn language, the team that assessed him felt him lacking in hand to hand combat. They didn't care about his abilities with a lightsaber - it wasn't as if they were anywhere close to kyber in the Unknown Regions - so that was another deficiency Thrawn set out to correct in their free time.

It was… strangely good to have Thrawn as a teacher. Thrawn, who, despite what Ivant had suggested, wanted Ezra to call him by his core name, who never demanded formality behind closed doors or during lessons was a good teacher. Ezra might even, with only a small amount of begrudging and a tiny bit of hand waving over their shared past, call him a friend.

Okay, so maybe he just considered Thrawn a friend, the rest of it be damned. Time, getting to know Thrawn, seeing him at work painted a different picture than what he'd seen with the Rebellion. And he wasn't fifteen anymore, it wasn't as simple as good versus bad. Thrawn had done bad things. But the Force stopped whispering caution and started murmuring trust a while ago, in conjunction with Ezra's shifting perception.

And, because he considered Thrawn a friend, Ezra had a lot to think about. Aside from their tasks: menial, semi-useful but mostly time-consuming, and Ezra's training and education, they didn't really do much. The ship they were on trained Navigators. It was an extensive nine month program, by Thrawn's estimation, an orientation and adjustment period, followed by theory and education, followed by practice in what was deemed a relatively safe space. Literally. Several times they had docked either on Chiss planets or tethered to larger ships and a Navigator had gone on their way to their new post.

This wasn't why Thrawn had further risked Ezra's ire to slowly slowly earn his trust. And it was, as he felt like he said almost every day, a waste for Thrawn to be forced to spend all his time and attention on him, to be forced to complete tasks more appropriate for people half Thrawn’s age (or whatever he assumed Thrawn’s age was, he hadn’t really seen any old-looking Chiss).

Something was happening here. Something that wasn't being talked about, that perhaps not even the majority of the crew knew of. Thrawn didn’t say anything to Ezra about it, but he was obsessed. Rarely did he leave the door to his quarters open - only if Ezra was working on something and would call for help with a translation - but Ezra’s understanding of the Chiss script was better than his sloppy spoken linguistics. Thrawn was looking into the Navigators and news surrounding them, and similar ships to this one. There weren’t any.

At first, Ezra suspected Thrawn's search for knowledge stemmed from his previous role, the amount of control he exuded over a situation. But as time went on, he realized that wasn’t entirely the case. Thrawn, someone Ezra viewed as the eye of a storm, a moment of calm despite chaos all around, was at odds with himself. He could feel the Chiss’s imbalance in the Force. But it didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t felt it before they arrived here, and no matter how much Ezra pressed him about his prior rank in comparison to his reprised one and all of its far less glamorous tasks, Thrawn never betrayed any hint of his emotions to Ezra after that first time. Not once.

So maybe, Ezra was starting to think, it wasn’t rank. In fact, for a short while, he almost forgot about it entirely, because Thrawn was acting more or less normal. Still very focused on the truth of whatever was happening aboard the Compass, but normal for Thrawn. Then, they had been put on alert, forced to travel far and away due to Grysk activity in their sector that had claimed two Chiss ships, seen three Navigators taken captive and the vast majority of the crews of both vessels slaughtered...

Un’hee had come to their quarters late. So late that both Ezra and Thrawn had been in their respective quarters, Ezra asleep and Thrawn brooding (or whatever he did since Chiss didn’t seem to sleep like humans did). She’d slammed her palm so hard into the control panel it rocked the wall of the suite, alerting Thrawn, but Ezra had been able to sense her fear in his dreams, and had fallen out of bed over it.

It had taken them a long time to get her to do more than cling to Ezra, burying her face into his chest while she sobbed. In the end, Thrawn had sat across from Ezra on the low table, using the most docile command-tone Ezra had ever heard from him (it wasn’t kind, but it wasn’t laced with the malevolent undercurrent that some of his more gauche statements had been). Slowly, his simple questions that were answered with head shakes or nods fell away and she spoke of her own free will.

“Eli and Vah’nya are busy,” She said to them softly, tilting her head away from Ezra’s chest, although her eyes remained closed. She seemed to be counting through her breaths, Ezra realized in hindsight. It was something he’d seen before, after Kallus had joined their group. Zeb would sit next to them sometimes, and the two of them would sit shoulder to shoulder while Zeb counted inhales and exhales, speaking softly and un-Zeb-like until Kallus’s Coruscanti accent fell into place again.

“Busy with what?” Thrawn asked. Normally, he’d mention the lack of formalities, but this was not the time, and they both seemed to know it.

“They took Navigators,” Un’hee cried. It took her another moment to compose herself. “They said it was a slaughter.”

“The Grysks?”

“Yes,” The Chiss girl confirmed. Ezra had a hard time reconciling these Navigators as the children they were at times, but this was not one of them. “T-they’re consulting with the Admiral, and I couldn’t-”

“It’s alright, Un’hee,” Ezra had said. “You can stay with us.”

“It’s not alright,” The little Navigator said, crying harder. “I know how they think,” She said between gulping breaths, “They’ll put themselves in danger again. They’ve already been captured once,” She cried.

“They?” Thrawn reared back, watching Un’hee very carefully, trying to gain context without interrogating her. “Who was captured? The Navigators?”

Un’hee shook her head. “Vah’nya wasn’t supposed to go, but her Sight told her she needed to go with him, so she did. The Admiral was furious, and then-” She looked up at Thrawn. “It was a ch'accuscehn ch'erei,” She said.

Ezra didn’t understand, but looked to Thrawn instead of asking.

“A suicide mission,” Thrawn translated slowly, the words rolling dangerously off his lips in basic. “Vah’nya and who?”

“Eli,” Un’hee held Thrawn’s inquisitive gaze. “He wanted to protect all of us,” She murmured, small blue hands scrubbing at her eyes. Their red glow illuminated the damp tracks of her tears. “I don’t want him to do it again. He was gone for so long,” She whispered. And then she reached for Thrawn.

Ezra had been careful not to cage the girl in with an embrace, but Thrawn drew her against him as though it was second nature, and Un’hee seemed far more comfortable in his arms than she ever had been in Ezra’s.

“Captain Ivant-” Un’hee flinched. “Eli,” Thrawn revised slowly, the word sounding awkward on his lips, as though he’d spoken without permission. “He is not going to fight the Grysks today. Our orders were to set course for a sector closer to Wild Space. We will not engage with them, Nav-” He caught himself, “Un’hee.”

“They’ll come after us.”

“They are our enemy,” Thrawn had said, but he was frowning with just his eyes, locking onto Ezra. The young Jedi looked concerned, but stayed silent while Thrawn rose with the child in his arms. She was still short, likely anticipating a major growth spurt, or perhaps it was simply that Thrawn was that tall. “If not the Grysks, the Vagaari,” He said softly. “We must strive to protect that which we care about. It is why we serve, is it not?”

There was a moment of silence between them. “I don’t want Eli to die," She leaned back in Thrawn's grip and looked up at him. "Last time,” Un’hee trailed off. Thrawn tightened his grip on her. If Ezra hadn’t taken stock of his ramrod straight posture, he would have assumed he was comfortable with cradling the child to him as he paced the length of their shared space. “I didn’t want to see, but I had to,” She said. “Vah’nya wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t-”She shook her head.

“You do not have to tell us,” Thrawn soothed. “Not if it troubles you.”

“You want to know,” She said. “And this is what I can tell you.”

Ezra’s lips pursed, his brow furrowing as he focused on the child. The Force hung around all of the Navigators, not Light, not Dark, not like it did a human. It was present and alive and neutral, almost like the Bendu had been, but different still. Right now, around Un’hee, it was a maelstrom of emotions: fear, guilt, and sadness. Behind it, small and growing, a feeling of safety. Comfort. But it wasn’t just Un’hee. He felt Thrawn, too. Thrawn’s worry was strong in the Force. Palpable. And with each word from Un’hee - how the Captain, then a Lieutenant Commander, had managed to kill and escape what the Navigator called Scratchlings, saving Navigator Vah’nya in the process, how he’d been promoted on his deathbed by Admiral Ar’alani, unsure if the long-term injuries would be something even a Chiss could survive - that worry went deep and grew stronger until it churned with fear and longinging, a lonely pain that Ezra felt in his core.

When the Navigator had inevitably cried herself out, falling asleep on Thrawn's shoulder, Ezra made a quiet joke about how Thrawn was going to pace a track into the duracrete tiling. Thrawn hadn't responded, and Ezra finally took it upon himself to stand in Thrawn's way, easing the exhausted girl out of his arms and settling her on the couch.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Ezra asked him as he stepped into his small room to pluck the blanket from his bed, throwing it over the child. He knew the answer would be a negative, but he left the option open.

Thrawn lingered in the doorway of his room, stiff-spined and wound. Ezra leaned against the wall that led to the tiny front corridor of the suite, where his quarters were. They stayed that way for a long, long time.

"Eli Vanto was present when I was found by the Empire," Thrawn said evenly. To Ezra, it had felt like being briefed on a mission. "I persuaded the Emperor to give him to me as a translator. We worked together for more than a decade, in service to the Empire."

"You were friends," Ezra said, connecting the dots.

"I-" Thrawn looked to Ezra in that moment, and it struck him that a man like Thrawn did not have many friends. He had allies. Enemies. A brother, apparently, though who knew where they stood with each other. "I had hoped so."

… And that was that. Thrawn had never given Ezra more than those few words. Not that he had to. Ezra was careful not to bring it up again. But he watched, now. He saw how Thrawn was not eager to please, but willing to pull his weight. He wanted to earn the Captain’s trust, but that seemed impossible. Ivant was never in the same room as Thrawn for longer than five minutes, it seemed, and if it was that long, it was because he was speaking with someone.

Their longest conversation had been during a report in which they’d been sent down planetside to a world that spoke more Sy Bisti than Cheunh, about a month after Un’hee’s stay in their quarters. It had been a standard debrief, nothing much had happened, but Captain Ivant had spoken with Thrawn as though they’d always had this relationship. Ivant’s Sy Bisti was more impressive than his Cheunh. His drawl fit in perfectly with the language, sounding polite and yet inviting.

Afterward, Ezra pretended not to hear the slam of a datapad across the desk inside Thrawn’s quarter’s and left him to his own devices.

But it had him wondering. And that was why he’d decided to do some recon of his own. Not on what the Chiss were up to. He had a feeling that would reveal itself in due time. There was a reason he was in this place. He’d felt that in his meditations for a while now.

Un'hee slipped into the mess with a big yawn. Her braids were definitely slept in, and she tucked a stray blue-black lock behind her ear with one hand while she waved at Ezra with the other.

Hardly anyone was here at this hour, the Chiss tended to stay up late and sleep until later in the morning, rather than sleep and rise early. It worked out in his favor. He was usually awake before Thrawn, who readapted to Ascendency life rather gracefully. It had been quite a surprise to the Chiss at first to find Ezra an early-riser, but some things about Rebel culture were ingrained. Ezra pushed down some of his homesickness and looked into his caf - black, the way he'd gotten used to drinking it after Kanan was injured to save their remaining sugar for his tea - then pushed it back altogether and he saw Un'hee approach him from the corner of his vision. She reached for his mug and refilled it with the warming kettle she must have gotten from the mess staff.

It was nearly empty, but Un'hee dashed to return it. The interaction with others was enough to wake the young Chiss up. "You're here early," she said as a greeting. "Is everything well?"

"Everything's fine, Un'hee."

"It does not seem like it," She said, frowning over a warm cereal that Ezra tried once and hated. Apparently the bread was the most modest of food offerings amongst the Chiss, but Ezra had always believed himself to be a rather simple guy. Stranger still was that he shared a common taste in Chiss cuisine with his suite-mate (except for that dreaded half the crew drank).

“Humans are used to getting up early and sleeping when the sun is down - so at the end of a standard rotation,” He explained in Cheunh. It was slower than speaking in basic, but Ezra was trying to do as Thrawn instructed and speak only in Cheunh during the day. It was getting easier. He still dreamed in basic for the most part, but that was likely to continue regardless of how many languages he learned. “I think the standard day here is a little longer.”

“Yes,” Un’hee agreed. She set down her spoon rather than point it at him. The young girl had a tendency to talk with her hands when she was excited or off-duty, and this was at least the latter, though he was sure she’d be more excited if she hadn’t just rolled out of bed.

“Why are you up so early?”

“Oh,” Un’hee shrugged. “No reason.”

“You don’t have anything for another five standard hours,” He said, looking at the chrono-projection on the wall. “It’s definitely too early for you.”

Un’hee reclaimed her spoon and pushed some of the cereal around. “I have supplemental lessons,” She said, quietly. “Like your language ones.”

“For what?” Ezra’s face wrinkled with his frown. “You aren’t struggling with any of your studies.” That, Ezra knew, was true. Un’hee, despite only being nine years old, had the maturity and intelligence of a being at least five years older, and a recall that was otherworldly thanks to the strength of her Sight.

She shrugged. “I didn’t ask for them,” She said, sharing a sly smile, and the tiny twinkling of a giggle with him. With an eye-roll more befitting an ornery teenager, she continued, “I just go as ordered.”

Ezra nodded in sympathy. He understood how that went. “Don’t let them work you too hard,” He said between bites of his bread. Today he’d had some kind of butter put on the flat slices. It was a more savory than sweet flavor, and Ezra found that he liked it more than the sweet jam Thrawn always slathered over his own. He pushed away the thought of how strange a sweet-toothed Thrawn was, and tried to keep his focus on Un’hee. Though their abilities in the Force were minimally similar, the Chiss Navigators always managed to tell when his thoughts wandered.

“So,” She said, when most of her cereal was gone, and she had only a glass of some milky green juice left, “Why are you up and in the mess this early? You almost always wait for Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

That was a classified question, but Ezra could hardly give the girl such an answer. He had to come up with something. His goal had been to eat a quick breakfast and see if he could make it to the workout center on the second level that the Captain was rumored to frequent in the mornings. Like the Navigators, he had been given permission to use whatever training facilities aboard he wished, while the rest of the crew were assigned to facilities by rank and proximity from their lodgings.

“I’m-”

“Navigator Un’hee,” An authoritative voice called from behind the girl. In an instant, the young Navigator was on her feet, at attention.

“Admiral Ar’alani!” She squeaked, both surprised and elated. It appeared to take an effort in the girl's part not to run to the superior officer.

Ezra was quick to rise as well, shoulders and back straightening to Chiss standards. "Good morning, Admiral," He said in Cheunh when Ar'alani's intense gaze - like Thrawn's, but more obvious about looking for slip-ups - trailed over him. It felt heavy and appraising, much now Ezra had considered Thrawn in the past. He forced himself to stay still under her scrutiny.

"Good morning, Ezra'Bridger," She replied. "At ease," She instructed them next, and though she gave no indication, she seemed approving of Ezra's understanding of the instruction, shifting to parade rest rather than relaxing fully like Un'hee.

"It seems Mitth'raw'nuruodo has provided adequate instruction," Ar'alani moved closer. "Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Yes, Sir." He replied, again in Cheunh.

She nodded. Her voice was interesting, Ezra decided. Dangerous and silky like Thrawn's, but more melodious. Coiled, like a deadly predator, waiting to strike. "You do not have supplemental lessons like Navigator Un'hee this early, is that correct?"

Ezra stiffened. "No, Sir."

The smallest hint of satisfaction curled her lip, there and gone before Ezra could blink. "Excellent. Will Mitth'raw'nuruodo be necessary to translate for you?"

"I should be alright, Sir."

"Fine. You will ask if you do not understand. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Admiral.”

She nodded, satisfied. To Un’hee, she instructed, “Finish your meal. When you go to your supplemental session, please Vah’nya know he is with me. Captain Ivant is aware.”

Un’hee nodded while Ezra reached for his datapad, sitting beside his tray on the table. “Should I inform Commander Thrawn?”

“No,” Ar’alani said, lips thinning. Ezra’s finger’s stilled over the datapad before he could open his communications. “With me, Sky-walker.”

#Thranto #Mitth'raw'nuruodo #Ezra Bridger #Un'hee #Eli Vanto #Vah'nya #Eli Vanto/Thrawn #Thrawn #Star Wars Fanfiction #My Writing #At some point I'm going to slow down on this fic but right now please enjoy my obsession with writing it

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prepare4trouble · 7 years

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Star Rars Rebels fanfic - The Right Direction (4/6)

Little By Little Masterpost

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

“Well,” Kanan said, leaning back in his seat in a satisfied way. “It wasn’t perfect, but that could have gone a lot worse.”

Hera sighed. He was right, of course. She knew first-hand how badly it could have gone; she had already been through it the day before. “I just hope this goes a way to repairing the damage.”

Kanan frowned; whether it was at her tone, her words, or whatever he was sensing from her through the Force, she wasn’t sure. “I don’t think there was any real damage done,” he said. “Ezra’s more resilient than we give him credit for sometimes. I mean, this is testing him to the limits right now, but a couple of uncomfortable conversations aren’t going to break him. Look at everything he’s been through in his life already. He’s tougher than he seems.”

Kanan was right, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. They had all been through a lot, and it didn’t seem like things were going to get better anytime soon. Toughness was necessary for the struggle against the Empire, but they shouldn’t needed it at home, with family. She had made a mistake, but she had fixed it. She hoped she had fixed it.

“I was thinking,” she said. “It’s been a while since we did something together, all of us.”

Kanan nodded. “Well, we’ve been a little preoccupied,” he said.

“I know. That’s my point. We’ve been so busy trying to fix things and organize missions, that we’ve forgotten to spend time together. Maybe if we’d still been doing that, we’d have been able to communicate better in the first place.”

Not necessarily, of course. But maybe. And anyway, she missed them all. Spending the night with Kanan again had reminded her of what had been absent from her life since arriving at the base. Everything had started to change around that time, and not all of it for the better. It wasn’t because of the base, of course, far from it. But that was a factor. It used to be just the six of them, together in close quarters. They couldn’t have avoided one another if they tried. Now, she sometimes went days without seeing Sabine or Zeb. Ezra had been growing increasingly more distant too, although his reasons were obviously different.

“So what do you suggest?” Kanan asked. “It’s not like we can all head out to Lothal and launch an attack on the Empire together. For one thing, it goes against our orders right now, for another, you’ve just told Ezra he can’t go on missions just yet. I’m no expert, but I think taking him on a mission might send mixed messages.”

Hera rolled her eyes. “Thanks,” she said. “That was exactly what I was going to suggest doing, it’s a good thing you’re here.”

Kanan smiled. He edged a little closer to her on the padded bench that surrounded the holotable, and snaked an arm gently around her shoulders underneath her lekku. “You’re right,” he said.

“That it’s a good thing you’re here?”

“Well, obviously.” His smile widened into almost a grin, then faded. “But I mean about the other thing. It’s good that everyone has other friends and connections around the base, but sometimes it might be nice to just come together and talk. About stupid stuff. Not about the Empire, or the war, not about Ezra. Just…” he hesitated, “whatever we used to talk about before.”

She nodded. “Honestly though, we mostly used to talk about the Empire. And Ezra.”

That wasn’t completely true, of course, but certainly since Kanan had begun to train Ezra, and since they had become more and more focused on the efforts of the Rebellion, those things had started to come up more and more often in conversation. Taking on an apprentice had been a huge thing for Kanan, and obviously Ezra hadn’t been the only thing they talked about, but he had featured pretty highly a lot of the time.

“Oh.” Kanan frowned then shook his head. “Well… Maybe it’s time we changed that.”

Hera leaned in a little, resting some of her weight against him. “I was thinking we get together for a meal,” she said. “Like we used to back when we were based around Lothal. Only if people want to, of course, but it’d be nice to get together and think about something else for a while.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Kanan agreed.

The idea had come from Kanan, actually, indirectly. He had said the night before that they needed to stop making everything about Ezra’s sight. He was right; it wasn’t good for anybody. It would do them all -- and Ezra especially -- good to remember that there were other things happening. He had probably been trapped inside his own thoughts for too long.

“So, when were you thinking?” he asked.

She shrugged. “How about tonight?”

Kanan frowned. “Don’t you think that’s a little soon?”

“Everyone’s got to eat anyway, why not do it together? It doesn’t have to be a special meal or anything, in fact it’s better if it isn’t. I don’t want people to start thinking it has to be an occasion for us to get together. We’ll take a few servings of whatever they’re making in the commissary, and eat here on the Ghost.” Well, as long as it wasn’t a repeat of the ridiculously hot chili she’d heard about, but thankfully missed out on, a week or so back.

“Okay, sure,” Kanan agreed. “Sounds good.”

Hera smiled. “Know what would sound even better?” she asked. “If you made dessert. Nothing fancy, I just realized how long it’s been since I tasted those flatcakes you used to make. We have plenty of syrup to have with them, assuming Zeb hasn’t decided to use it all on his waffle stash.”

“Come to think of it, I did smell waffles last night,” Kanan mused. “When I was heading to your quarters. But sure, if we have everything we need, I don’t mind making them. Only…” he hesitated and she felt him tense a little beside her.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Well, something… This’ll be the first time I tried to make them since losing my sight. I don’t know… I’m not sure, it’ll probably be fine, but I might need some help.”

Hera pursed her lips. She hadn’t thought of that, but of course Kanan was right, the last time they had eaten flatcakes had been for breakfast not long before he had gone to Malachor with Ezra and Ahsoka. Another meal that hadn’t been an occasion, back when it really hadn’t.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to,” she told him. “Maybe it’d be better to try it for the first time sometime when Ezra isn't there.” She didn’t mean to imply he wouldn’t be able to do it, it was just that if he ran into a problem, that might not be helpful for Ezra.

Kanan shook his head, half a laugh escaping from his lips. “No, it’s fine. It’s good, actually. And even if they don’t go perfectly, it’ll show him that’s not the end of the world, and that needing help isn’t something to be ashamed of. It might end up being a good teaching experience.”

“I thought you didn’t want everything to be about that,” Hera said.

“I don’t. But this isn’t everything, it’s one thing that may or may not come up. We don’t have to avoid it either, just make it something we can talk about without it becoming some huge thing.”

That was going to be easier said than done. Kanan might be able to sense Ezra’s emotions through the Force, but she had seen Ezra’s face every single time the subject came up, and she could see exactly how huge a thing it was to him. It was going to take a lot of work and a lot of time to change that. But Kanan was right, they needed to try.

“If it comes up,” she agreed.

Kanan sighed. “Talking of Ezra, I’m going to have to start to think seriously about these lessons,” he said. “Honestly, I never really had a plan before, not for teaching him about the Force; I never needed one. He just seemed to pick up whatever I taught him so easily I just made it up as I went. The only thing I really had to work to do the right way was lightsaber technique. This is going to be different.”

She nodded; it was different, but it was also the same. “Remember, you don’t have to plan everything now, though,” she reminded him. “Have an idea what’s coming next, what order you’re going to teach things in, maybe have an alternative plan you can move to in case something isn’t working, but mostly you just need to know what you’re doing today. Or maybe for the next few lessons if you want to start laying groundwork early. You don’t need to plan everything now.”

“I know,” Kanan told her. “And I do have an idea what we’re going to do today, I just need to build on it a little.”

“Would it help to talk it through?” she asked. They had used to do that when Ezra had first joined them, those times when Kanan had been unsure where to go next; how to teach something he barely remembered learning. She hadn’t had a lot to add, of course; that was Kanan’s world and she couldn’t possibly understand it like he did. He had tried in the past to explain what the Force was like, and he simply hadn't had the words to make someone understand that couldn't experience it for themself. It had still seemed to help just to have someone to talk to.

Kanan shook his head. For a moment she took it as a rejection, until he replied. “I never thought I was going to have to teach this. I thought maybe, one day, it might come up just as some interesting trick or… I don’t know. Something to teach him when he already knew it all. I never thought he’d need it like this. I keep thinking, what if I can’t teach it? What if I do it wrong and I end up scaring him even more than he already is?”

Hera pulled away a little and turned to face him. She placed a hand on each of his shoulders. “You’re going to do great,” she promised. “You said something similar once about teaching him anything at all and look how well that turned out. He’s going to be fine, and if you make a mistake, well… it happens. You don’t have a choice here, not like you did when you decided to train him to be a Jedi. The alternative then was that you didn’t train him and he went back to his life as it was. The alternative here is just to watch him go blind and let him figure things out on his own.”

He shook his head again, “Obviously I’m not considering doing that.”

“Then you do your best, and if anything goes wrong we’ll deal with it. Why don’t you tell me what you have planned for today?”

Kanan sighed. “When we talked yesterday, he said the thing that’s worrying him the most right now is being able to get around, knowing where he is, where other things and places are. I want to start with that. But it’s such a huge topic, there’s no way we can cover everything in one afternoon. It’s going to take months. Maybe more.”

“So start small,” Hera suggested. “What’s the first thing you learned?”

“My quarters,” he said. “I pretty much didn’t leave for weeks on end, by the time I did, I was very well acquainted with exactly where everything was. That, and the route from there to the ‘fresher, I guess. But the layout of his own quarters is something he can learn by himself. I’m thinking of starting off with something a little more general, something he can use wherever he might be. Sensing objects, knowing where things are, noticing something in his way, that kind of thing.”

Hera nodded. It sounded like a good place to start.

“He’s done it before,” Kanan added. “He’s been practicing a technique he made up himself, he actually told me about it once, and it works. It’s just… not the best way. It only gives him an idea of what’s directly in front of him, and it takes a lot of concentration. What I do gives me a more general idea of what’s around me, then I can concentrate on a particular area if I need to. He’s done that before, too, in a way. The planet where we picked up Rex; remember I told you about the dust storm? I directed where we needed to go, Ezra manned the gun and took out an Imperial walker.”

“I remember you telling me about it,” she said.

“He and I were the only ones that could see out there,” Kanan laughed softly. “Still would be, if it happened again. Ironic, right?”

Something twisted inside her, and although she smiled, and she had to admit it was good that Kanan could laugh about it, she couldn’t get herself there. Not yet. “So, walking around,” she said, going back to the lesson plan. “How are you going to do that?”

He shrugged. “I can only go by my own experience, but it worked, so I’m thinking learn by doing. I’ll set up a few obstacles in the cargo bay, and…” he broke off and sighed.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, just… Ezra doesn’t react well to blindfolds. Or to being in the dark, or, well, to anything that means he can’t see. I could ask him to close his eyes, that way he’s more in control, but honestly I don’t think he’s going to be able to resist opening them to see how he’s doing, and that’s not going to help.”

The day before, in the Phantom, she had seen for herself exactly how Ezra reacted to darkness. She shouldn’t have done that. She had been trying to prove a point, and she had done so, possibly too effectively. She had turned the lights out on him once before too, during their tour of the Ghost, while she had been blindfolded and attempting to show him that it was possible to get around the ship without sight, even without being able to rely on the Force. Both times, he had reacted badly. Of course, both times it had been unexpected.

“Maybe if he was ready for it, it wouldn’t be so bad,” she suggested. “Or maybe he has more self control than you think and he could keep his eyes closed.”

Kanan shook his head and smiled like there was something funny about that. “I don’t think so,” he said. “He’s been reacting badly to the idea of a blindfold since long before I knew what was going on with him, it never mattered if he knew it was coming or I sprung it on him. And self control? He has plenty of that, but so do I, and I know I’d have peeked if it was possible.”

Of course, Kanan’s situation had been different. Knowing you can’t look and wanting to wasn’t the same as knowing that you could, and resisting. But he was right, Ezra might sneak a peak, and that wouldn’t be helpful. Of course, he could lift a blindfold almost as easily, but to do that would take conscious thought, while he might open his eyes before he even realized what he was doing.

“So what are you going to do?” she asked.

Kanan shrugged. “I’m going to have to help him get over the blindfold thing. I have a few ideas, whether or not they’ll work though, that depends on him.”

It had to work. The syndrome wasn’t going to slow down because Ezra wasn’t ready for it. Sooner or later, he was going to find himself unable to see whether he was blindfolded or not.

“There’s another thing I’m considering,” Kanan added. “Not yet, but maybe soon, depending how he gets on with what I try to teach him. Have you noticed he’s already started avoiding going out at night?”

Hera frowned. She hadn’t noticed. If that was happening, it was the kind of thing she should have noticed. “I thought he was still going to the dokma races most nights,” she said. Although, she had noticed, and didn’t know whether it was due to Ezra, that the lighting around the racetrack, and certain other parts of the base, had been improved recently.

“He is,” Kanan agreed. “But you have lights on main parts of the base, and I assume the guys running the races have rigged them up over there too. I was out with him a little further away, and he was having trouble. And it’s only going to get worse. Granted, I haven’t seen the lighting around here, but if it’s like I’m imagining, there’s going to be gaps, places that are darker than others?”

Honestly, she wasn’t sure. Not without going out there at night and looking at it, but the distances between the points of illumination meant it was almost a certainty that there would be areas darker than others.

Why had Kanan, who hadn’t even seen it for himself, thought of that when she hadn’t?

“So what do you suggest?” she asked. “Double the number of lights? Someone already made it brighter, somehow. Did you have something to do with that?”

“No,” Kanan told her, “but that’s good. No, I didn’t mean you should do anything to the lights. I’m just thinking, if he doesn’t take to using the Force to sense his environment, there is something else he could use. Temporarily, of course. It’d be helpful, I just don’t know how he’d feel about it.”

Hera thought about it, but whatever it was that Kanan was thinking of, however obvious it was to him, she didn’t follow. “What?” she asked.

“Remember about a week or so after I got back from Malachor, you gave me something…”

A cane. She had given him a cane, and he had hated it. He hadn’t said that, of course, but she had been able to tell. She remembered the way he had held it awkwardly, and tried to smile at her as he had thanked her, and how she had seen it standing in the corner of his room unused for days after. He had even tried it once or twice before it had disappeared, and when she asked about it, he had told her it had broken. When she had offered to replace it, he had turned her down.

Honestly, she thought Ezra might react in the same way as Kanan had, or possibly worse. Ezra wore his emotions a little closer to the surface than Kanan, and he’d had a hard enough time accepting that people even knew there was a problem with his sight. That wasn’t surprising, not after he had kept the secret to himself for so long, but it made her doubt that he would be comfortable using something that so clearly advertised it. It would take time to get him there. On the other hand, it had to be preferable to being led around the base.

Ezra being Ezra, though, she could easily imagine him choosing neither of those options and staying on the Ghost after nightfall, no matter how badly he might want to be elsewhere.

“He picked up almost everything else you taught him easily enough,” she said. “You said yourself what a quick study he was. Why assume this will be any different?”

“Because it is different,” he told her. “It’s… I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like, imagine learning something how to do something, then finding out that you have to go back to the beginning and figure out a new way to do it, but with both hands tied behind your back. Or blindfolded, I guess.” He paused, then frowned. “That sounded better in my head.”

That was good, because to her it had sounded awkward and confusing. She just hoped that if Kanan even needed to say whatever he was trying to articulate to Ezra, he would do better.

Kanan let out a frustrated sigh. “The point is, this isn’t the same as anything we’ve done before. Even the times I’ve asked him to hit a target with a lightsaber without looking, it’s different when it’s…” he hesitated, appearing to falter slightly, and for a moment she thought he was going to stop. “It’s different when it’s just... everyday life. It feels different. Hopefully he’ll take to it quickly, but honestly I think he’s going to resist my attempts to teach him, even if he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.”

Hera frowned. She hoped Kanan was wrong, but feared he was probably right. “If you want me to try and get hold of another cane, I will. It didn’t help you much though.”

“Yeah… but it probably would have, if I’d given it more of a chance,” Kanan told her. “But no, don’t worry about getting another one for now, I’ll wait and see how things go. It’s something to think about, though. And it’s something that doesn’t involve the Force. He’s going to have to get used to the idea that not everything he needs to know is about that. I talked about it with him a little already, but I think the sooner it comes up in practice the better.”

That was probably right. The sooner everything came up the better. Honestly, Hera didn’t know how much of what Kanan did relied on the Force and how much involved more conventional methods; she had never really thought about it before. The important thing was that it worked for him. She hadn’t wanted to make him uncomfortable by asking too many questions too early, but maybe it was something they should talk about now.

“He’s not going to like that,” Kanan added. “When he realized how much of what I do is just regular stuff similar to what his aunt would have done… he knows it, but I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. He’s still thinking he can ‘see’ with the Force. He said as much just now, did you notice?”

She hadn’t. She thought back through everything Ezra had said to them during their brief conversation, but whatever it was that Kanan had picked up on hadn’t stuck in her mind. “No, I didn’t notice anything,” she said.

Kanan leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “Good, maybe I’m misinterpreting the whole thing,” he said, “but when he talks about ‘seeing’ with the Force, I think he still half-believes the Force is going to somehow put images in his head. It won’t. I wish it would do that for him, but it’s more about piecing together what you can hear and sense and… it’s nothing like seeing.”

She touched his arm gently, an attempt to reassure him. “I know. And I think he knows that too. Why do you think he’s so afraid of the dark suddenly? But you can’t blame him for trying to hold on to some hope, if that is what he’s doing. Just start to teach him what he needs to know, and he’ll figure the rest out for himself.”

Kanan sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you’re right.” He exhaled as he stood up decisively. “Okay then, if you want flatcakes, you’re going to need to help me check we have all the ingredients.”

He held out a hand to her invitingly. Hera didn’t need the help, of course, but she took it as she got to her feet.

(part 5)

#star wars rebels #swr fanfic #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #little by little

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warsamongstthestar-keen · 3 years

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Chapter Ten

Master Quinara lands her ship back on Lothal, this time hidden, away from all the occupants of the planet. She senses the presence of Kanan and Ezra, and follows it, relying on the Force.

Keen hears the Knight talking, trying to train his Padawan, so she stands off in the grass, watching them.

"Can we do this another day?" Ezra grumbles. Keen can sense that something is wrong, yet, Kanan persists, still trying to get some training in. It's clear to her that he's trying to teach him how to connect with creatures, and for some strange reason, decides the best way to do that is to antagonize a Lothcat, by throwing a rock at it. If Keen wasn't trying to keep quiet and not draw attention to herself, she'd probably hurl a rock at Kanan, but, alas, she cannot.

"You're resisting. He can sense it."

"He can sense it? What is he, like, a Padawan cat?" Ar'iabel can't help but smile at that.

The Jedi Knight smiles at him, trying once again to get him to focus, and connect with the creature.

"I get that this furball's trying to kill me. Give me your lightsaber, and I'll make the connection." Keen's eyes widen, looking confused, and yet, she can still sense great sadness from the boy.

"Excuse me?"

Ezra sighs, saying, "Sorry. I just don't see the point of this."

"The point is," Keen says, stepping forward, startling the Padawan, "that you're not alone. You're connected to every living thing in the universe. But to discover that, you have to let your guard down. You have to be willing to attach to others."

"And what if I can't?" he asks her, after he calms down from almost being scared to death.

"If you hang on to your past, if you always try to protect yourself, you'll never be a Jedi," Kanan replies

"Then maybe I'll never be a Jedi." The kid says, turning to leave.

"Kid, whatever's going on with you, you need to spill it," the Knight calls after his fleeing Padawan.

Ezra sighs, turning back around, "I'm sorry, Kanan. I don't mean to wear you out. Today's not a good day. It's never a good day."

Master Quinara walks up to the boy, draping an arm over his shoulder, wrapping him in a half hug, while Kanan sidles up on his other side, "Today?" the two ask, practically in sync.

"Empire Day." It looks like he's planning on saying more, but a whirring overhead causes a distraction for them all. Flying over their heads are three TIE Fighters, heading in the direction of a small village, "What are so many TIE's doing out this far?"

"Nothing good. Come on," Kanan says, running in the same direction of the ships. Ezra and Keen following behind him, just at a slightly less urgent pace.

"So, Ezra, want to tell me what's going on with you? And, before you say nothing, I can sense that it's something, and I know when you lie to me," she gives him a pointed look.

"It's just, Empire Day brings up a whole lot of bad memories, but, I'll be fine, I just don't like the day."

Keen sighs, eyes drifting down to the top of the blue mop of hair on the kids head, "Listen, I know that you've been told that a Jedi doesn't listen to their emotions. But, bottling everything up inside doesn't help you, believe me, I know. So, if it gets to be too much, or anything bothers you that you just can't handle anymore, come to me, or even Kanan, and talk. It's healthy, and it will, most likely, help you gain a better connection to the Force."

"Yeah, sure," Ezra mutters, walking into the cantina behind Kanan. He sees an Imperial pilot, and immediately grabs for his energy launcher on his wrist. The Knight holds up a hand, "Not unless we have to."

The pilot grabs a Rodian by the shirt collar, lifting him, a picture of another Rodian on a Datapad, comparing the two. Keen had made her way across the bar, sitting across the room from where the other Jedi and his Padawan are sitting. Zeb, Hera, and Sabine are nearer the door. She can sense a vague recognition from the Padawan, almost as if he knows the Rodian in the picture.

"He's not the one," the pilot grumbles, marching for the bar area, "The Imperial HoloNet broadcast should play here at all times!"

The Hammer-head barkeeper looks at the pilot, replying, "No one's requested it for, well, ever."

The pilot barks at the barkeeper, telling him it's the law, and the alien grumbles, flipping on the HoloNet. The Imperial Announcer is talking about Empire Day, how She'ev 'ended' the Clone Wars, and founded the Empire. The Jedi Master wants to shout something about how Anakin Skywalker single-handedly ended the Clone Wars, but, holds her tongue, not wanting to cause trouble.

"You heard the man!" the Imperial shouts, grabbing the cup of some customer, lifting it into the air, "Raise your cups to the Emperor, Citizens."

Suddenly, the HoloNet cuts out, and Gall Trayvis' voice filters through, he's instructing everyone to boycott the celebrations in protest. The pilot jumps at the bar, shouting, "Shut this off!" at the barkeeper.

"Can't," he shrugs, "It's the law." Keen smiles at the act of protest, and stifles her chuckles, passing them off as a cough, Kanan, from across the bar, glaring at her.

The Imperial glares around the cantina, once again looking for the Rodian, but, once seeing that no one else has entered, he, and his cohort abruptly exit the facility. The doors slide shut, and, almost simultaneously, the HoloNet shuts down.

Kanan turns his attention to the barkeeper, asking questions, as Sabine strolls over, joining the Jedi and Padawan. Keen heads over to see Zeb and Hera.

Sliding into the seat Sabine just left, she smiles at them. "Well, look who finally decided to show up," Zeb grumbles.

"Yeah, not like I didn't just save your life like a week ago." Hera looks at her, asking a silent question. Keen nods, letting her know that the information she provided was invaluable.

"They're after a Rodian," Kanan informs, breezing over.

"Just be glad they're not after us for once."

"With what we've got planned for today's parade, they'll be after us again tomorrow."

"Sorry, wasn't here for the brainstorming, care to inform? What are we doing at the Empire Day parade?"

"Just follow our lead," Zeb tells her, the entire group leaving the Cantina.

"Well, you're gonna have to do it without me," Ezra grumbles, walking in the direction opposite the parade.

"Where do you think you're going?" Kanan shouts after him.

"I just need to be alone. Today has brought back some memories."

The Knight forlornly watches his Padawan. Master Quinara places a hand comfortingly on his shoulder, "I'll go talk to him, you have a parade to crash." She takes off after Ezra, following him to a tower on the outskirts of town.

She stands outside, deep in the Force, and she senses the great sadness radiating from the boy. He steps out onto the platform on the outside of the tower. He leans against the banister and Keen ventures up to see him. "Hey," she says in a soft voice.

"Gah!" he jumps, "You have got to stop doing that! I said I wanted to be alone."

"I know. Just pretend I'm not here, unless you want to talk."

The two stand in silence looking over Lothal for a while, the silence comfortable, until the Padawan starts, "Today's my birthday. And it's not really a great day."

"I understand. But, I can sense that there is more to the story. Do you want to tell me?"

"The Rodian, in that picture. The one the Empire is searching for."

"What about him?"

"I know him...he was my parent's friend, and...I know where he is," he says, and begins to run off out of the tower, towards the festivities. Keen smiles at him, following right behind him.

(Beginning of Empire Day/Gathering Forces)

#Wars Amongst the Stars #WATS #Ari'abel Quinara #AU Fix-it fic #Star Wars Rebels

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rey-skywalkin-away · 7 years

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Kanera Fix-It Fic I was Talking About

Y’all thought I was joking when I said I had 3000 words of a fic all lined up to fix this, right? GUESS AGAIN. 4117 WORDS. I had to delete 90% of my original 3000 words and re-write it just now to conform to what happened in the midseason premiere, and it took me four hours, but I did it! Anyway, I put myself into the queue to make an archiveofourown account, but that’ll take a month to activate, so until then, I’ll just post this chapter-by-chapter on here. I got part 1 done tonight, and it might be a few days before chapter 2: I have college life and work that’s going to be occupying my time this week. But I’m not abandoning this. I am FUELED BY PAIN.

@secrettunnelyeah you’ve been losing your shit with me, so I hope this helps. @fluffyapplecat thanks for all your support! @commoner64 because you said “please””. @blueboxdrifter you expressed support for this a few weeks ago, so here you go! @brickhawk you gotta help read this shit before the next chapter. I can’t post again without a second opinion.

Um, I hope you all enjoy.

Fair warning to everyone else: this is my first time posting any kind of story online, and it’s as rough as any story can be. I normally spend time editing my chapters, as any writer should, but I was just hammering it out as fast as I could to a) get it done before I fell asleep and b) to give you all a little hope after this agonizing premiere. So I’m sorry if it’s full of errors that I’m too tired to edit right now, and that the format under the cut is kind of wonky. I’m not entirely happy with the content, either–it’s kind of melodramatic and rushed for my taste, but I’m running off pure emotion right now. Hopefully I’ll find time to edit it before I before I post it on Archive. The chapter and some explanations for various things are down below. Happy readings, and everyone be okay out there!

*Writer’s Notes*

First off, I had literally 20 ideas for how Kanan would survive this premiere, and I had “explosion” down for two of them. Here, he survives by basically copying Ahsoka during her fight with the Inquisitors and Force-clapping backwards into Hera’s arms. He gets burned up and spends 3 weeks recovering in a bacta tank. No one’s going into much detail about it in the story, because they don’t want to re-imagine it all over again, but that’s what I was envisioning happening.

Second, Kanan is still blind: him getting to see Hera before he died was painful and sweet, but I honestly felt he had a lot of growth because of his injury, and it needed to stay. (And disability representation is important).

Third, I can’t start calling him “Caleb Dume”, guys, I’m sorry! I’ve spent four years calling him Kanan, and I can’t get into the habit of calling him Caleb.

Fourth, his beard and ponytail are coming back.

Fifth, I have a very large, multi-fandom, decades-long (in-universe) fanfiction world that I’m always playing with and developing to further my own writing prowess, character development, and storytelling skills. I’m going to make references to that multi-fandom work in this story (not a lot, but if there are moments where you’re thinking “where did that come from? I don’t remember that in the show or comics”, well, it might be from the multi-fandom). I’m including this story in my collection of works, and I don’t feel like editing it all over again just to include references to it. So you should all be able to follow what’s going on, but there might be a few odd moments.

————————————–

Chapter 1

Hera checked her calendar again, counting down days and weeks and making notes as she went. Nine weeks ago…captured. Eight-and-a-half weeks ago…rescued. Five weeks ago, we…and four weeks ago…well, I’m now very late. I should’ve started another cycle by now. And on a regular diet for over eight weeks, with additional nutritional supplements to get back to full strength after confinement. And we’re hardier than humans; we don’t get so out of sync after missing a few meals and getting a few electric shocks. So that shouldn’t explain why I’m late. She then checked her star charts for any habitable systems nearby, and winced when there weren’t any. Should I divert our flight path to go to the nearest star system just to buy a test? No, we’re fine on other supplies, and everyone will ask questions as to why I think we need to make a stop. She would’ve killed for a certified medical droid onboard her ship in that moment, but she was out of luck. They’d left the medical system on that nameless little asteroid five weeks ago now, and they were back to their own devices out in space. Great. Just great. Gonna have to go on instinct this time. And she wasn’t liking what she was coming up with.

Hera opened her mouth to say the word out loud, but couldn’t do it. Pregnant. You’re pregnant. You’re four weeks late, and your idiot self didn’t want to think about protection after you were saved by Kanan and the others. And after what nearly happened to Kanan…

After her rescue, after telling Kanan that she loved him, after he nearly died and had to spend three weeks in a bacta tank, the minute he’d showered off and went to his own bunk to be alone, she’d slipped into his room and reiterated her love for him. Free of drugs and pain, she’d finally broken down for once in her karking life and loved him, not as a general, or a pilot, or a freedom fighter. Just him and her, together, as it should always be. To remind herself that he’d been blasted back into her arms instead of dying in the fuel explosion, that he’d survived three flatlines before they could find him a bacta tank. That he’d eventually woken up and immediately began to listen for the sound of her voice. And afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms, she’d whispered that, now that his beard had grown back and his hair was beginning to return, he’d better keep it that way. Kanan had laughed, but they’d clutched each other in the semidarkess and just listened to each other breathe. No, of course you weren’t thinking clearly. He needed you, and you needed him. But look what came of it.

Hera rubbed the corners of her eyes and tried to think past the rising panic in her gut. What am I going to do about this? Pills? A clinic visit? Which is cheapest? What’s safest and gets me back into the pilot’s seat without anyone noticing something was wrong? She thought back to the pamphlets and medical texts she’d memorized when she’d left Ryloth to strike out on her own in the galaxy. Twi’leks were always targeted anywhere one went in the galaxy, and she’d prepared herself for what to do if she was attacked and how to handle any possible outcome. But thinking about the next few steps right now made Hera’s heart hurt. A few years ago, this would’ve been an easy decision for her. Three months ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated. Today…

Hera knew why she was conflicted. Will there ever be a tomorrow? We got lucky this time—will I be next? Or will the Force finally decide to call Kanan back to wherever it is Jedi go when they die? Will there ever be a second chance for us to conceive? She hadn’t given much thought to the end of the war, to her future, but sitting next to Kanan’s bacta tank and listening to his pulse monitor for several hours a day had broken something inside her, and she’d begun to think. A mild, deserted little planet. Not dry and harsh like Ryloth. Someplace cool and wet and green. A little home, with rooms for the rest of the family. Sabine can paint the family room with murals of our adventures. Maybe little tookas frolicking on the baby’s nursery walls. Zeb can carve us furniture with all the designs of Lasat that he’s lost. Whatever he can remember. Ezra…he can have a real bed, not a bunk. And a home-cooked meal that didn’t come out of a ration pack. When was the last time he had one of those? Chopper can have a nice oil bath and shut down without worrying that we’ll wake him up for an emergency. And our baby will run in the grass and will never know war, and…

Hera swallowed back tears and controlled her emotions. You’re dreaming again, Hera Syndulla. It’s one thing to admit your feelings for Kanan and finally be open in your relationship, and it’s another thing to abandon the rest of the galaxy to pursue your selfish dream. How many people want the same dream as you? How many people have the skills and resources to make that dream come true for everyone else that can’t help themselves? Your little fantasy will have to wait. Get rid of this and get back to work.

Her heart broke as she made up her mind, and a sudden fatigue overcame her. Raw emotion? Something related to the pregnancy? She knew nothing about pregnancy, come to think of it. Or how to be a mother. What makes you think you have time to learn? Especially now? You aren’t ready for this. You know what you have to do.

Hera wearily glanced at her chrono. A few hours until your shift. When I’m back in the pilot’s seat, I can tell the others I’ve got nerve damage from torture, and that I need to see a specialist somewhere. Maybe I could say we all deserve a treat after what we’ve all been through. She shuffled to her dresser and opened the secret panel on the side to check how many credits she had left in her emergency fund. Enough for the procedure and a little left over for the others. This could work. Damn it. This’ll have to do. There will be other opportunities, Hera. Just have hope.

But it could wait. The fatigue was seeping throughout her body, fogging up her mind and turning her limbs to jelly. A few hours to nap, and then it’ll be time to call everyone. In twenty-four hours, this will all be over. A few tears blurred her eyes, and she roughly wiped them away. Either get out all the sorrow now, or sleep and cry afterwards. Hera chose the latter, and she barely made it to her bunk before she collapsed on top of the covers and sank into a deep, misery-filled slumber.

———————————-

It only felt like a few minutes had passed before Hera was startled out of her uneasy sleep. “Who is it?” She rasped. She groggily sat up and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

“Hera? It’s me.” Hera shivered at the sound of his voice. Every word that he spoke seemed like a precious gift after what nearly happened. But now, after what she’d finally admitted to herself, he was the last person she wanted to see right now. Or, maybe she needed him most. Can he feel it? In the Force? Does he already know? Does he know what I’m planning to do?

“Kanan.” Her voice caught in her throat, and she couldn’t keep going.

“Can I come in? Please?”

Hera hesitated. Either you don’t tell him now, and you don’t involve him at all, or he knows what you’re planning to do. Could she do it alone? Without him? She didn’t know if it would be more painful to involve him, or to never let him know what could have been.

But Hera had made a commitment to Kanan when she’d told him she loved him, and there was no backing out of that commitment now, no matter how she’d chosen to handle her pregnancy. “Come in,” she whispered.

Kanan was framed in the light of the hall for only a second before he shut the door and crossed the distance to her bunk. He sat down next to her, his hands automatically wrapping around her shoulders; he froze when his hands met the rough fabric of her blanket. “Hera? What’s going on? Are you ill?”

Not in the way that you’re thinking, but yes. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, I…” He hesitated. “I know it’s getting pretty old for me to say it, but I feel a…disturbance in the Force. Around you.”

Hera tensed up. Oh karabast. He knows. “Tell me what you feel.” In their first years together on the Ghost, if they had time to rest, they’d park the ship in the first meadow they could find. Stretched out on the hull, in the light of the stars above, Kanan would describe the world to her as he felt it in the Force. A web connecting all living things, from the deadly dance of predator and prey in the grasses below them, the cries of the plants as they cried out for rain, jostled to and fro by the silent paws of some canid beast, to the needy, incessant hunger of newborn chicks in the trees at the edge of the meadow…

This time, she couldn’t control her tears, and Kanan’s fingers were immediately brushing them away from the corners of her eyes as soon as she sucked in a strangled breath of air. “I feel…you’re so unhappy. You’re full of…pain, and despair. Hera, I don’t understand. Why do you feel like you’re losing something?”

He doesn’t know. Oh stars, if there was only another way…But there wasn’t. She gently took one of his hands away from her face and held it in her own. “You can’t understand because you’re looking in the wrong place.”

Kanan cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“You’re looking into my mind…” She held his hand up, paused, and pressed his fingers against the still-flat skin of her lower torso. “Try feeling here, and you’ll know why I’m so conflicted.”

Hera wasn’t sure if he felt something in the Force or if he immediately understood her implication. “Hera–!”

“Only five weeks,” she whispered. “I wasn’t assaulted in prison, so I definitely know it’s yours. And I know the date of conception. But only five weeks. Not that far along, really…” She trailed off as she noticed Kanan’s face shutting down, closing off all emotion. Oh no. She waited a few moments to allow him to process the news, to say something, anything, but he didn’t. “Kanan? Luv? Tell me—what’s going through your head right now?”

He coughed. “Do you have any water?”

“I—uh—yes. There’s a pitcher and some cups on the dresser. To the left of my ‘fresher.” He nearly banged his head on the top of the bunk as he stood up and held out his hand to feel his way along. “No, your left.”

He bumped against the edge of the dresser and winced. “Do you want any?”

This was definitely not the reaction she was expecting. “…sure. I guess.”

Kanan poured two cups of water, spilling what seemed like half the jug before he was done. Hera took the cup from him so he could have a free hand to feel his way back to her side without hurting himself further. She sipped her water while he chugged his straight down and tossed the cup aside. “Kanan. Please. Talk to me.”

He sighed. “I don’t…I don’t know where to begin.”

“I don’t either. But we have to start somewhere.”

“Well then…I suppose…did you ever want to be a mother?”

Hera sat down her cup and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. “I wasn’t lying when I told you that I hadn’t given much thought about my future after the war. But I started thinking about it when you nearly died.”

Kanan’s breath came in a soft, weak gasp, and he pulled Hera into his arms. She melted into his embrace and felt his trembling. At least he doesn’t hate me. And he knows me well enough to know what my feelings are on this. Somehow, she allowed herself to speak about her dream life after the war: their quiet home together, the rooms for the rest of the family, their child playing in the yard outside. She felt his tears begin to run down his cheeks and drip on top of her lekku, and she knew that he could feel her sorrow in the Force.

“You know,” he said slowly. “I hadn’t thought much about kids, either. But I started thinking about them more when we found the others. Especially Ezra. We’re like their parents already, aren’t we?”

Hera chuckled, in spite of her pain. “We definitely are.”

“And I started to think…it wouldn’t be so bad, to do it all over again. But with a baby of our own…”

Hera closed her eyes and pressed herself against his chest. “But…?”

Kanan swallowed; she could feel the effort it took him. “But I know you. And whatever you choose to do, no matter my feelings…I’ll support your decision. You’re the pregnant one, after all. You’re the one at risk. Its—it’s up to you.”

“What are your feelings, Kanan?”

“They don’t matter.”

Hera sat back and cupped his face in her hands. “Yes, they do. I love you Kanan, and I wouldn’t have told you about this if I didn’t want to involve you, no matter what. So please, tell me your honest, true feelings.”

“Honestly…I’d love nothing more than to have a baby with you. I don’t know when we’d get another chance, with the war…”

Hera sobbed, half with relief and love, half with pain. “This damn war. It poisons everything it touches, including us. Our futures…”

Kanan started to cry again. “I know you. And I know what you want to do. I know it already.”

“I want this baby, too, but I don’t know how we’d make time. We can’t have a baby here, on the Ghost. It would be cruel just to bring it into the world and have it blow up with us in battle. Or die from some sickness.” Everyone knew babies didn’t thrive in prolonged periods in space. “And we can’t send it to my father; you know how dangerous it is on Ryloth.” She’d told him about her brother before, and he nodded. She started to cry again, and they held each other for long, painful minutes. Stang, I don’t want to do this. But I have to. What other choice do I have? I can’t leave the war. Not while others suffer. But at least I won’t have to do this alone.

But, for some reason, she felt tension in Kanan’s arms. Hera pulled back again. “What is it?” Why do you look so…guilty?

“We could leave the Rebellion and raise the baby together. Or get an abortion.” Hera made a sound of assent in the back of her throat. “Or…there’s another option.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What if I were to leave the Rebellion, maybe with Ezra, and the two of us raise the baby while you and the others keep fighting?”

Hera gasped. “Leave? Are you serious?” Was he so upset about what happened at the fuel depot that he wants to run away?

“I don’t know how to put this into words. When I was in the bacta tank, in the coma, I remembered something. Something from…right after Master Billaba died. I’d forgotten it until I was at the edge of death. I don’t remember what happened, but… I woke up with the sense that I was supposed to die at the fuel depot.” He choked on the last few words, and Hera couldn’t have spoken if she tried. “And I feel that, whatever happened in that blank in my memory as I was running away from her body, it saved me. Not…oh karabast, I don’t know how to explain it. But whatever it was, it gave me a feeling: that I needed to leave the conflict, or else I wouldn’t get a second chance to live. For some reason, Ezra’s been getting a weird feeling, too. Not quite the same as me, I don’t think, but he’s been hinting that we need to leave and do more Jedi work away from the rest of the group. Maybe something similar happened to him when he was younger. I don’t know. I haven’t been able to ask. But…”

Hera stood up. “After everything that happened, you were just going to leave us?” Leave me? She couldn’t fault him for listening to his visions, but it stung, especially after she’d finally opened up and bared her soul to him for the first time in years. I give you my love and you leave. “Whatever happened to being careful about listening your visions? Or was that all just a bunch of Jedi nonsense you were feeding to Ezra? Hmm?”

“Absolutely not. This feels completely different from a Force vision. Like…someone physically told me these things and blocked my memory. Not the Force. Not some cosmic energy. A person.”

“So you’re going to run away because of some half-remembered whispers?”

He felt for her hand and pulled her back onto the bunk. “Hera Syndulla, I love you. I love you more than I ever knew I was capable of loving someone. And I wouldn’t leave you and the others unless I was absolutely certain that this vision was something I needed to listen to. It’s going to kill me inside to do it, but I believe it’s what must be done if we want to survive. What if there are other Inquisitors out there? And what if Vader decides to end us once and for all, especially with what happened at the fuel depot? I’m stronger now, Ezra and I both are, but we couldn’t defeat him. And I couldn’t let the rest of you be put in jeopardy because you’ve got two Force-users leaving a trail for a Sith Lord to follow.”

Hera squeezed his hand. Just a bit. “So…you’d leave? And raise the baby? Are you sure you could do it? With your blindness?”

“Ezra could be my eyes and help out. And think about it: we could keep the house while you’re all away, and you could visit whenever you wanted, and keep fighting. And you’d know that there’d always be a home for you to return to, and the minute you wanted out of the fight, we’d be there, waiting for you.”

Hera turned away. “Could you really do that? Wait at home while we risked our lives out on the battlefield?”

Kanan sighed. “I��d be happiest if you were home with us. And I want to keep fighting, same as you. But if we could make some of your dream come true this way…I’d bow out.” His voice caught, and Hera suddenly realized how hard this all was for him. “Just…promise me one thing. Could you do that?”

Hera took his hands again. “Ask me first.”

“If this war keeps dragging on…will you consider finding a window of opportunity to leave? And be with us?”

Could you do that? Leave the fight, even if it wasn’t over? But Kanan was sacrificing part of his happiness, too. He’d be worrying every day, watching their child, waiting for her to come home. And if she never did, all he’d have was their baby to remind himself of how happy they could’ve been. Hera reached over and cupped his cheek in her hand, her heart bursting with love for him. “Yes. I will consider it, Kanan, knowing that you’re waiting for me. You’re the only one who could make me leave this fight. You…and the baby.”

Kanan sobbed with joy and pulled her into a crushing hug. They cried together again, but Hera’s joy was bittersweet. Why can’t I get to fully enjoy my dream? I want to be at home with Kanan and the baby. But I can’t. Not just yet.

But this way, there was a chance to have that future, when there otherwise wouldn’t be. And Hera Syndulla’s life was never fair from the moment she was born; she knew it, and wasn’t one to dwell on it for long. Besides, there were much more wonderful things to think about. A baby. We’re having a baby. “If I don’t miscarry, that is,” she muttered to herself.

Kanan frowned. “What was that?”

Hera wiped her eyes and looked around to find some tissues for them both. “Sorry, thinking out loud.”

“About miscarrying?”

Hera found some tissues and grabbed them. She passed a few to Kanan and blew her nose. “Just…it would be awful for us to go to all this trouble just for me to miscarry after the stress of a fight.”

“Hmm. You’re right. Maybe we could hang back for a while and do some logistics work. At least until you’re further along.”

“I’m going to have to find a way to hide this pregnancy, Kanan. If Inquisitors are still out there, hunting down Force-sensitive children, they’ll come for our baby, I’m sure of it.” She paused. “Is there a chance the baby could be Force-sensitive?”

Kanan blew his nose and she took it from him to throw in the trash. “I don’t know. There was a pretty big taboo about getting pregnant at the Temple, if you could imagine that. But I guess there’s a strong possibility of it.”

“Then we’ll have to hide my pregnancy. No one can know about it. Well…maybe Mon Mothma. But she’s it, outside of the crew.”

“I…oh damn, I think that means that I’ll have to fake my death. Ezra, too, if he comes along to help out.”

Hera banged her head on the top of her bunk. “Ow! What?!”

“Careful, careful—the baby—“

“A bruised lek won’t kill the baby, Kanan. But faking your death—“

“Well, that’s what we’ll have to do if we want to make sure we’re not tracked down. If everyone believes without a shadow of a doubt that we’re gone, no one will come looking for us. And your “grief” will give you an excuse to pull back for a few months, while you need to hide the bump.” Kanan suddenly moved off the bed and ran to the tiny ‘fresher.

“Kanan!” But he waved her away, and she hung back, waiting until he was done vomiting. Then, she found a rag and wet it from the remaining water in the jug. She went over to Kanan, who was still slumped over the toilet. She pulled him away from the bowl and gently began wiping his face. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be getting morning sickness, remember?”

He snorted, but let her keep tending him. “It’s just…we’re going to have to make sure everyone thinks, beyond a doubt, that we’re dead. And that means leaving no body— ” He turned around to retch again, but nothing came up. “And that means—fire, and explosions—“

“Oh, Kanan…” She held him until the panic attack—or flashback, whatever it was—subsided, and he’d calmed down again. “We’ll find a way to make it work. A safe way. If there’s anyone who could do it, it would be Sabine.”

“And how could I do that to Ezra? Put him at risk like that?”

“Well, we have to tell him about the baby, first. We’ll have to tell everyone. But, for right now, let’s just go lie down.” She helped him to his feet and into her bed. They crawled under the covers together, and Hera settled comfortably into his arms. I don’t know how I lived without this for so long. This feels so right, to be here with him.

Kanan’s eyes were drooping. “Don’t you have a shift soon?”

Hera’s fatigue was setting in again. “I’ll just tell one of the others that I have a call to take from someone in Rebel command. They’ll understand. Or Chopper can take the shift.” She yawned and couldn’t keep her eyes open. “I’ll deal with it later.”

They fell asleep, wary about the future, but both full to the brim with love for each other and the life beginning in Hera’s body.

—————————-

Okay, so I promise that this story is going to get happier, okay? There’s just a lot of depressing stuff that needs to be ironed out in this first chapter. It’s not going to be all sunshine and roses, but it will have a happy ending.

I also was originally going to have Kanan and Ezra faking their deaths by pretending to blow up when the rebels attacked a weapons supply store. They were going to dig tunnels underneath and be well-away before the explosion happened, but were going to pretend to be killed by the fire/explosion/falling debris. It hits so close to home in light of the midseason premiere that I don’t know if I can do it.

Or maybe I will. Because I’m kind of sadistic.

Also, the reference to Kanan being “warned” to escape is the reference to my multi-fandom story. There’s some Prisoner of Azkaban-level time travel shenanigans that go on, but it’s not “adult Kanan visits ‘lil Caleb”. It’s a lot more complicated and I don’t feel comfortable explaining it.

#kanera #star wars rebels spoilers #kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #swr spoilers #i'll tag more characters as they appear #but here ya go #my rough stories #star wars rebels

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gkingoffez · 7 years

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The Sun Comes Shining In My Eyes

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Words: 1,858

Summary: Kanan asks Ezra to describe the sunset to him. It doesn’t quite work out that way.

AO3 | FFN.Net

The sun was setting over Chopper Base. Kanan knew this not because he could see it, but because a dusk chill was starting to creep under his clothes and he could feel the long warm dying fingers of the sun sliding down his mask-less face. He also knew it because Ezra was standing at his shoulder, trying and failing horribly to describe it to him.

“Well really, it’s all just a whole lot of orange,” Ezra was saying, and Kanan could sense his arms flailing about as if to punctuate his words, the effect, of course, entirely lost on Kanan. “Well, orange and yellows and pinks, but there’s also a bit of blue and purpley stuff in there as well. And it’s all kind of… smushed in together, really, bluer colours on top and orangey ones on the bottom. What’s that word? When more than one colour all blends in together in a line?”

“An ombré?” Kanan supplied helpfully, raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah, it’s all an omber thing. Ombré? Ombré’s everywhere you look, but the colours are all soft and making everything else like the sand and the rocks look like they’re glowing. It’s putting all those big plant things in shadow and makes them look bigger and darker and more ominous than they actually are. And that other planet’s up there as well, in the blue bit. All blue and shadowy and… big? Is this any good at all?”

“I would say no, but I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” Kanan replied, turning to grin and bump his shoulder playfully against Ezra’s.

Kanan expected a snarky reply, but instead Ezra sighed, long, frustrated and tired. His next words were slightly muffled, as though he’d scrubbed a hand down his face and kept it there.

“I’m terrible at this. You should have asked Sabine to do it, she’s the artist. She could probably use all those fancy art words and describe it so good you’d get the perfect image of it all in your head. I’m useless.”

There was a note of bitterness in Ezra’s voice that Kanan recognised immediately. How often over the years had he felt like he wasn’t enough, not strong or talented enough to help someone he cared about, even for the smaller things like making Hera the perfect cup of caff on a rough day or describing a simple sunset to someone who couldn’t see it.

Ezra sighed again. “It’s just so beautiful, Kanan, all the colours are amazing. I wish you could see what I’m seeing,” Ezra said with such longing in his voice it made Kanan’s heart ache.

Besides the shining light of the holocrons, Kanan hadn’t seen anything other than impenetrable darkness since he’d lost his sight. He’d made peace with it some time ago and had even found a new and different sight in the Force, but there were occasionally moments he wished he could experience through his own eyes.

Today, the sunset had become one of those moments- he’d found himself earlier that day wistfully regretting the many setting suns that had gone by without proper appreciation in his life before Malachor. That was why he’d dragged Ezra along with him to Zeb’s hangout spot (apparently the best place to watch it on the base, or so Zeb bragged), and why they now stood side-by-side in the dying light. Perhaps he could have asked Sabine to accompany him, and maybe he would do just that another day to get her more artistic perspective, but for that evening he had wanted nothing more than to hear Ezra’s view.

Kanan reached out and gripped onto his padawan’s shoulder. “Okay. How about we come at this from a different angle- forget how it looks. How about you tell me how it feels.”

Ezra shifted under his hand, confused.

“Feels?”

“How does the sunset make you feel? When you look at it, what emotions does it evoke?” asked Kanan. “Tell me what you feel… I want to know,” he added softly.

He felt Ezra’s gaze on him for an extended moment, before it shifted back frontwards. Kanan kept his own sightless stare firmly on where he knew Ezra’s face to be.

“It feels… um. Warm? Comforting? But also a little cold, like the warm is being taken away? I mean, it is, but... no, that’s stupid.”

Ezra paused there, clearing his throat, and Kanan knew he was frowning from the tension in his shoulders. The kid stayed silent for long while, long enough that Kanan started to feel the need to try and break the awkwardness that had settled between them.

However, Ezra beat him to the punch.

“It feels different than on Lothal. The sun is warmer here, and there are probably different things in the atmosphere, and obviously there’s so much less green in the landscape. But it’s still mostly the same, the same colours, anyway. A lot of things are different here, but the oxygen is breathable and I have you guys here with me so it’s not bad-different. The sunset feels… well, it does feel comforting to watch. It’s soft and bright and hopeful, and- I feel hopeful when I look at it.”

Ezra drew in a deep breath and noisily released it before continuing.

“It’s like- Kanan, there are so many terrible things out there in the galaxy that want to kill us, but here we are now watching the sun go down and it’s so beautiful. It makes me feel peaceful, it reminds me that beautiful things still exist in the galaxy, natural things that the Empire can never destroy because it’s impossible. That’s a good thing to know, that not even the Emperor himself can stop a sunset being beautiful.”

Kanan found himself smiling, a swell of pride burgeoning in his chest.

Ezra broke out his reverie with a shake of his head, and barked out a laugh. “Or maybe I’m looking too deep into it. I mean, it is just a sunset. They happen every day on nearly every planet in the galaxy.”

Kanan knitted his eyebrows together and turned his head away. Behind his eyes, there was nothing but blackness. The sun could be dancing a cantina dance and drunkenly sauntering towards the horizon for all he knew. It was a big galaxy, who’s to say that couldn’t happen.

“Not for me,” he whispered.

There was a heavy silence. He couldn’t tell what Ezra was thinking, but he knew his words had upset him.

Ezra’s next words were tentative.

“Do… do you want me to show you how it makes me feel? Might be better than me trying to explain it with words, anyway. You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to.” He laughed awkwardly. “Actually, you know what, forget I said anything, never mind. It’s stupid.”

Kanan considered the offer, reaching up to stroke at his beard. It was a kind proposition to be sure. Immediately, he thought of turning it down. There was no point in an exercise where he would only feel envious that he couldn’t experience a feeling for himself, and besides, it wasn’t fair for him to try and live vicariously through Ezra.

But that other part of Kanan, the part that wistfully missed sunsets, rainbows and Hera Syndulla (also known as The Most Beautiful Sights In The Entire Galaxy) ached for it with all the fierceness of an exploding supernova.

The second part won out, and he sighed, nodding. “Actually, I’d like that very much, Ezra. But only as a one-time deal, there’s no point in making it a habit. That wouldn’t be good for either of us.”

Kanan felt a hand touch his shoulder and then an arm reach around his back and grip onto his waist. He obliged by lifting his own arm up and completely wrapping it around Ezra’s shoulders, locking their sides together, before allowing his padawan to direct both their attentions to the space in front of them.

“Open yourself to the Force,” Kanan instructed. ”We are all connected by it, you and I most especially. Find me in the waves of energy that surrounds us, and forge the connection so I can see what you feel. You’re good at connection, Ezra, I know you can do it.” Kanan wasn’t exactly sure when this had turned into a lesson.

The warmth was starting to fade with earnest from the air, the sunset probably fading with it. Ezra nodded in understanding and began slowing down his breaths to a meditative pattern. Kanan mirrored him, closing his eyelids out of habit more than anything else.

They stood there breathing in unison for a short while.

At first the feeling was slight, approaching timidly through the ebb and flow of the Force, and Kanan opened himself up to its embrace eagerly. Suddenly, he was swept up in a tide of feeling; it was warm and tingly, and safe. Hopeful, like Ezra had said, and awash with the feelings of soft bright colours- blues and oranges, pinks and purples. Kanan felt almost overwhelmed by how beautiful the feeling was. He missed sunsets like a long lost old friend. He missed a lot of things he’d never be able to see again.

As quickly as it had come, Ezra’s sunset receded back into the folds of the Force, and Kanan was almost surprised to find himself back on Atollon, Ezra on his side and Zeb’s hideout of stacked crates and chairs behind him.

“Kanan? Kanan, is that okay, was that too much?” Ezra asked, voice thick and concerned.

Kanan chuckled, feeling warm all over despite the bite of cold in the air. “No, it’s fine,” he said breathily, “Ezra, thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.”

Ezra sniffled quietly, and Kanan felt him furtively try to reach for his face. He probably thought he was being sneaky about it, but Kanan knew without needing to see that Ezra was crying. He gave the boy’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“It’s okay. You’re right, you know. The Empire will never be able to take things like this from us. They can’t take our hope, no matter what they do.”

Kanan turned towards and reached around with his spare hand to ruffle at Ezra’s short, slicked back hair, before gently cupping the boy’s cheek. He used his thumb to wipe a tear away. Ezra ducked his head, probably in embarrassment, but didn’t push away Kanan’s hand by any means.

They both turned back frontwards and stood there for a few minutes, until Kanan could feel the last rays of sunlight travelling down his legs towards his toes. The approaching night time had most likely already dulled the bright hues of the sunset, so Kanan shifted his attention to merely enjoying half-hug that neither Ezra nor he had yet broken off from.

The sun must have been gone completely over the horizon by the time Ezra suggested they head back. Kanan didn’t see it, but he felt it in the chill in the air and heard it in the chattering of Ezra’s teeth.

“Thank you,” he said again as they headed back. He imagined Ezra grinning in response.

So this was intended as both a soothing balm for that last fic I published and as something nice because I don’t know about ya’ll but I’m really sad Rebels is ending.

This started with just wanting to have Kanan wipe away Ezra’s tears, and for some reason it became beautiful fluff instead of angst like all the others????

(An alternate title for this fic is ‘Fucking Nerds Watch The Sunset And Cry Like Losers And It’s Really Cliché’.)

#star wars rebels #swr #ezra bridger #kanan jarrus #swr fanfic #my writing #im just *tears up* so into this show and these idiots

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spacesaladdin · 8 years

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Valentine's Sabezra Fic!

Hey guys - if you don't wanna read it just scroll past it but here is a fic i did after trials of the darksaber, and I hope you enjoy it! Happy Valentine's Day! Sabine sat on the edge of the Ghost's ramp, trying not to process what had happened that day. But it had happened. She broke down and let everything, everything go. She had sobbed till she couldn't hear herself think. It wasn't often that her guard broke down like that; in fact, it never happened. She pushed everyone away, and it hurt. And now that it was out, it still hurt like hell, viciously tormenting her. The look on Kanan's face when she exploded, disarming him with her raw emotion. The look on Ezra's face when she finally admitted what he had been pressing her about for so long. Her mother. Her father. Her brother. Betraying her and leaving her to rot, as if family didn't matter. It was too much to bear. Oh gods, Ezra. She didn't mean to lash out at Kanan like that. And to be reminded that Ezra was an orphan... It wasn't their fault. Her demons still plagued her after 4 long years, and it ate at her to know that she could have hurt them. She apologised profusely to Kanan, but Ezra was still busy with... whatever he was doing. He probably thought to left her alone for once. And this time, she wished he hadn't. She held her head in her hands, and decided she had 5 more minutes of weakness and then would get on with her life. She would paint, and then... Well, she would decide that later. Sabine Wren didn't do crying unless it was in the dead of the night, where no one would see or hear. The night was often a sea of comfort in which she could wash away her nightmares and pain. But her emotions got the best of her, and she was determined it wouldn't happen again. Then a slight cough and some whistling of a familiar tune woke her out of her stupor. There was Ezra, walking along in that easy-going lope of his towards her. It reminded her of how he seemed to sway with the wind on the fields of Lothal. Their eyes met, and Ezra gave her a soft smile. "Hey there. You... uhm, okay?" he asked. She folded her arms and nodded. "Fine." He shook his head. "No you're not. And that's why you're coming with me." Sabine snorted. "Going where, exactly?" He shrugged. "Offworld. It's time we caused some bucketheads a little more trouble, don't ya think?" She stared at him. "Are you for real, Bridger? Hera's going to kick both of our butts worse than I kicked yours today." Ezra grinned and leaned down. "Why don't you ask her, then? Oh, and I kicked your butt first. Rookie." Sabine elbowed him. "Call me rookie one more time, I dare you." Ezra's gaze turned mischievous. "C'mon. Where's your sense of adventure, 'Bine? Its been a while since we did anything... fun." She snorted. "Right. Fun. No time for fun in a rebellion." He scoffed. "Oh, come on! Let's face it, you've probably had the roughest day, like, ever. You need to de-stress. Oh, and Kanan's cool with it. Just so you know." She considered what he was saying a little less disbelievingly. "Are you sure you're not just lying your butt off to take me out somewhere and disobey orders 'cause you're in this whole rebelling phase again?" Ezra's eyes widened and he raised his hands in a who, me? gesture. "Ye of little faith. I promise you we got permission from both Hera and Kanan. And Chopper is coming with us. It's all for you - no selfishness included. So whaddaya say? Wanna cause some trouble with me?" She laughed a little. Okay, maybe she did need some kind of break. From... everything. "You had this whole thing organised, didn't you?" she asked, while Ezra shrugged sheepishly. "Alright, Bridger. Let's go somewhere." Ezra pumped his fist in the air and whooped, while Sabine shushed him - "You'll wake up Zeb!" They walked over to the Phantom, where Chopper and Hera were waiting for them. Hera had warmth in her eyes when she said, "All right, I had to tweak a few things to get you two out of here. As far as anyone knows, this is a recon mission as well as getting those DLT-19's out of the system - so I want at least two bags of joguns, waffles, chili dumplings, dried kelp strips for Kanan and yes, Ezra, you can get a Bantha burger. " The padawan jumped up in the air and hugged the twilek. "You're the best, Hera!" Hera smiled. "Don't get caught by the Empire. That's all I'm gonna say - this is a one off for you two!" Ezra mock-whispered, "Meh, she'll cave in next time." Hera gave Ezra a steely look. "Don't wreck the Phantom, hotshot." While Ezra protested, Sabine smirked. "He won't. I'm flying." Ezra wheeled around. "Oh no you aren't. You don't even know where we're going!" he retorted. Sabine raised an eyebrow. "So where are we going, oh Master Tracker?" Ezra wiggled his brows. "You'll see. Time to fly, boys and girls - uh, should I say, droids and girls. This pilot's got a few tricks up his sleeve." Sabine rolled her eyes as she entered the Phantom, while Hera watched on amusedly. Garel, Evening Garel's city lights twinkled and glowed lilac, while the sea was a wash of black and blue. Since the Ghost crew and Phoenix Squadron had left, the number of Star Destroyers had lessened quite a bit, though Imperial presence was still notable. Sabine looked over to Ezra, who was humming to himself. "By the way, Chopper got your sprays on board - just thought you'd want to know." Sabine turned to Chopper. "What the - Chopper! You know no one is allowed to touch those!" Chopper warbled his reply, and the Mandalorian wrinkled her brow, and then burst into laughter. "Ezra, is that what you were getting at this whole time? Seriously?!" Ezra grinned modestly. "What can I say? It's been a while since we defaced some Imperial property. I also brought some explosives - y'know, just in case we need them." Sabine felt something a lot like joy creep into her heart and swell up inside. Before she realised what she was doing, she ran up to Ezra as they landed and wrapped him in a fierce hug. "Woah there!" he laughed, and something warm and gushing filled his eyes as he embraced her back. She quickly broke away, slightly embarrassed and said, "I can't believe - I mean - " Ezra stopped her, his mouth twisting into a lopsided grin. "You can thank me later. Chopper, let's roll!" They jumped out of the Phantom, and put on their helmets, Ezra's the scout trooper helm Sabine painted for him, and Sabine her Mandalorian helmet. They grabbed 3 detonators each, and Sabine got her paint canisters out along with her sprayer. "Oh, it feels GOOD being able to use these babies properly again!" she exclaimed, and Ezra's eyes sparkled. He loved making her feel better; so often she'd comforted him when he was down, so what better to help her than by doing what she loved best - mixing art and explosions. "Remember the old days when we were tagging and blowing up crates on Lothal?" Ezra asked as they snuck around the backstreets. Sabine gave a breathy laugh. "Those were the days. Small rebellion, huh?" "It's a big one now," Ezra replied. "But, we can always revert juuust a little bit." With that, he leaped up into the air and onto the roof of a building. "Show off," Sabine said, and climbed up the stalls to join him. They spotted their loot, and got going. Two heads hung upside down off the roof of a building. Quietly, Sabine crept down and dropped, light as a feather on the ground. Ezra followed, only missing his step slightly and almost doing the splits. Before he could cry out in pain, Sabine pulled him into a side street, trying not to laugh. " I see you've still got your clumsy face on," she teased. "Oh, shuddup," he grumbled good-naturedly, and Sabine got to work. The quiet sound of paint swishing across the crates of DLT-19 guns alerted three troopers to her whereabouts. When they saw her, one gave an audible gasp, and Ezra swore he could see the wide grin beneath Sabine's helmet. They recognised her, alright - or at least knew of her. 'The Artist'. "Hey boys. Did ya miss me?" she asked, cockily, in a way that Ezra absolutely loved. The troopers took a step back, and the tallest stated, "Call for back up. One Mando female - it's the Artist!" Sabine felt her smile grow wider. "Ah, good to know my rep still stands. And you'll be glad to hear I've brought back-up of my own." She pressed a switch and somersaulted out of the way, as the first detonator went off, blasting the crates sky high. Ezra dropped like a stone from the roof and landed splat on one of the troopers, successfully drop kicking him. "Hah! Made it!" He exclaimed triumphantly. The Mandalorian tilted her head. "A bit sloppy, but that was a first. Now come on!" She grabbed his hand and spun him around as they ran towards the bay parallel to where the Phantom was. The thrill of the chase rushed over them, and Sabine found that she was laughing when the second crate blew up, and Ezra bowled her out of the way. "Oh, oh, we should do that again - over there!" Ezra raised his eyebrows. "Well you're having a good time now, aren't you?" She let out a wild laugh. "Are you kidding? This is the best I've felt in ages - oh, don't let it get to your head, blasterbrain." Ezra flashed her his best grin. "You know you love me." She pressed the button a third time and Ezra swung his arm, using the Force and letting the blaster jelly go flying into the air; landing on an oncoming tie. It spontaneously combusted in colours of orange, purple and bright pink, flashing across the sky, as if the stars were setting alight. Both of them paused in their run, letting out a sigh of pleasure as they saw just how beautiful Sabine's creation really was. The padawan noticed how the orange reflected off her eyes and danced between them. He was more than glad to see her like this, to be doing something that she really loved. He snapped out of it when Chopper arrived in the Phantom, ready to pick them up and go. Sabine's eyes twinkled even more as she replied, "Do I know that? Maybe I do." She danced into the Phantom, and Ezra shook his head, gazing up, his heart feeling as though it were going to shoot into the sky amidst the explosion. Chopper's grumpy beeps urged him up, and they were soon off and being chased. "Ready for the last one?" Sabine asked, and Ezra gave her another of his lopsided smiles. "Ohhh yeah. Hit 'em with it 'Bine." She paused. Her eyes seemed to give him a look of, thank you, and she leaned out of the Phantom. "Hey bucketheads! Eat THIS!" The final explosion was the brightest Ezra had seen in that entire time, and he watched as the Imperial compound flashed blue and gold. The Ties kept chasing, and the pair high-fived before buckling in as Chopper went to hyperspace. "So... I never got to say thank you," Sabine began, mid-hyperspace. Ezra turned round from the pilot's seat and folded his arms. Amusement danced in his eyes, as well as that strange fondness that seemed to glitter whenever they spoke. "For what?" She raised her eyes to the sky. "For - you know... teaching me how to use a stick." Ezra raised both eyebrows. "A stick? Just a stick?" Sabine huffed good-naturedly. "Not just a stick. The lightsaber forms. Even for a person who isn't a Force-User. Also... for this. It actually felt really, really good to be messing with troopers and helping put an end to those shipments. Also, tagging my art again." Ezra's eyes twinkled even more. "Anything for you, 'Bine. Maybe it was just an excuse to hang with you." She rolled her eyes as he flicked her on the shoulder. "Although we still need a round two of the sticks. Gadgets or no gadgets, you know I'm gonna beat ya." "Oh yeah? You'll be begging for mercy before YOU know it, Bridger." "You would know," He responded cheekily. "Oh, shut up."

#swr #kayardia writes #sabezra #ezra bridger #sabine wren

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pomrania · 8 years

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Shared

((part of the Little by Little AU))

Zeb referred to Kanan and Rex's regular get-togethers as their "wine-and-whine", and thought the name incredibly witty. He was wrong on three counts. First, although it did involve alcohol, the drink in question was almost never specifically wine. Second, they weren't "whining", they were going over shared or similar experiences, and venting about things no one else would necessarily understand. Third, the name wasn't that clever.

But Zeb wasn't the matter at hand. That was someone else.

Rex wasn't currently on the base, but he was on his way. Before he arrived, Kanan located a room for them, and then sent a message of where it was this time. It was never a given that any particular location would be free, but that room was empty and, more importantly, reasonably soundproofed. He didn't want anyone to be able to overhear what he had to say.

While he was waiting, he cleared the floor of anything he might trip on. There was an entirely new hazard in getting drunk when one used the Force to sense where everything was; Kanan wasn't planning on getting drunk, but just in case. He didn't find much he needed to move, just some spare cords; he shoved them in the corner, where they joined an empty bin and a chair which really should have been taken to the trash compactor.

He knew he wouldn't have long to wait. Rex was good about being on time.

Kanan didn't take his mask off, even though he was comfortable with the other man. (Sometimes it was hard to believe they had ever been at odds.) It had eventually come out that although Rex didn't have a problem with seeing Kanan's facial scarring and scarred eyes -- they were battle wounds, nothing to be ashamed of -- he simply liked the look of Kanan's mask, so normally Kanan kept it on when they were together. That was good. It meant that it wouldn't invite questions when he hid behind it.

He felt Rex approaching, and turned towards the door as it opened.

"Nice place you picked here," Rex said dryly, and pulled out a chair. "I especially love the view."

They both knew that there was no view; the small room was windowless, and any windows would only have revealed the opposite wall.

Kanan gave an easy shrug. "Hey, you take what you can get," he said. "What do you have for us today?"

"I brought something special this time," Rex said, and set a metallic object down on the table; probably a flask, judging by the fact that liquid sloshed slightly at the movement, and there wasn't much else it was likely to be. "Behold, the fruits of our labours," he announced, and removed the stopper.

Kanan sniffed, and was greeted with the familiar scent of something alcoholic. "I don't recall either of us raiding this type of supplies, or making it ourselves."

"Not directly, but we're still responsible for it." Rex got out the cups, and began pouring. "You remember the still on base -- of course you do, you'd said you would never be able to forget something that tasted so bad -- and I helped build it, so that's my contribution. I recently discovered that one of the people you recruited," he passed a filled cup over to Kanan, "had been a brewer before the Empire shut down all 'non-essential' services where he used to work, and that the people running the still got into contact with him. As for the result, try it for yourself."

Kanan took a hesitant sip, remembering the last time he'd had something from that particular source. It had been... well, it hadn't been the worst-tasting alcohol he'd ever had, as there had been some pretty horrible drinks he'd consumed, but it certainly had not been desirable in any sense other than "can get you drunk".

"This is from their first 'new and improved' batch. What do you think?" He imagined Rex was looking expectantly at him.

He swished it around in his mouth, and considered. There was the familiar burn as he swallowed, but he didn't feel the urge to cough as it went down. "It's a definite improvement," he said. "I've come across worse served to non-desperate people. I don't feel like this is going to corrode my throat, and I'll probably still have a sense of taste afterwards. Give my compliments to the brewer, as I wasn't sure it was even possible to make something this drinkable from that... contraption they have rigged up. Still not the greatest though."

Rex shrugged. "Only so much you can do with limited supplies, no matter how skilled you are. All we can do is try our best, and deal with what comes out the other end. Besides, we've both willingly had worse."

Couldn't argue with that.

“What's been happening on your end? Anything new?”

Behind his mask, Kanan squeezed his eyelids. No more putting it off, and simply having a normal get-together. If he didn't respond to that, he would officially be stalling.

He took a swig. "Do you remember when I asked you if you'd noticed anything odd about Ezra?"

Rex grunted an affirmative, and swallowed. "Heh, and I'd said that asking a clone about if something was normal for teenagers was... well, that was really not the best choice of people to ask," he said once his mouth was empty.

A year ago, in that type of situation, Kanan would have stared into his cup, but that wasn't an option any more. Instead he swirled it around, feeling the slight pressure changes against his hand as the liquid moved. "...I found out what was wrong," he said. "What is wrong."

"Oh?" Rex's voice was only curious, as was his presence in the Force. He had no idea.

Kanan wished he could go back to that time, when he had thought nothing was wrong, and Ezra was perfectly healthy if a bit odd. It seemed so long ago, so much had changed since then, but it had only been a few weeks.

No. Even if he could have remained in blissful ignorance, Ezra would have had to deal with it all by himself for longer, and that was not an option. Kanan would have traded away all that false complacency in a heartbeat, just to have been able to help him from the start.

"So, are you going to tell me, or is this one of those Jedi secrets?"

Kanan took a deep breath. "He's going blind," he said, and drained his glass.

Rex said nothing, just automatically reached over to refill the cup. Just as automatically, Kanan took a drink from it. He knew that there would be no visible reaction. Maybe, after all the time they had spent together, he would have learned the slight twitches that gave away any emotional response, but only if he'd been able to see.

Slowly, carefully, Rex set down his own cup. "...what did you say."

"You heard me. He's losing his sight."

Rex got it then. There was no denial, no asking if they were sure. Good; Kanan wasn't sure he'd be able to say it a third time.

"How --"

"No." Kanan sighed, and vaguely gestured something he hoped would be understood as an apology. "I don't want to go through this again. I could explain but... I really don't want to. All the information you should need to know is on... where is it... on here."

Rex took the datapad and slid it into his bag. He probably didn't even glance at it. "Okay." He knocked back the rest of his drink, then, from his posture, probably stared into the empty cup. "Does Hera know?"

Kanan took another sip; he didn't need to down it all at once, and it was probably going to be the best stuff he'd get for a while. "She does," he confirmed. "She was the first person to be specifically told. I found out accidentally, and the medical droid... confirmed it with tests. Sabine and Zeb learned about it yesterday, when they came back. Hera said she was going to tell Sato today, so for all I know you're hearing about this before him."

"News travels fast, especially in the army. Now, this may not resemble the armies we both grew up with --"

Kanan had to snort at that. It most certainly did not.

"-- but it's close enough in that respect. Are you, and more importantly Ezra, prepared to deal with people you hadn't told, knowing and asking about it?"

"We haven't really talked about it," he admitted. "It was hard enough getting him to realize that he needed to tell the others before it was unavoidable... do you know he hid it for almost a year? And then I found out, and Enno-fifteen found out, and it must seem to be happening so fast to him."

Rex refilled his cup, and drank. "Life doesn't wait for any of us, unfortunately. I remember... but you would know too. Everything changed that day, and it didn't stop at just that."

Neither of them wanted to think too much about that, the utter betrayal of everything they had stood for and believed in. They hadn't just lost friends -- family -- but the very Republic they had been fighting for, and any sense of security.

"How much of that stuff do you have left?" Kanan asked, changing the subject.

Rex shook the flask. From the sound of it, it was a little under half full. "Enough for a few more drinks," he said. "I was planning on saving some for later, but we might need it now."

"I probably shouldn't have much more," Kanan said. "Remember when," he couldn't even smile at the memory, "the time we raided a supply ship loaded with a generous supply of the good stuff, smuggled out a few bottles, and then you had to guide me back to the Ghost because I kept running into things? Drinking too much is a bad idea for me, if I want to be able to get around later."

A snort of laughter. "I remember you saying you had a lot of experience with getting drunk, and there shouldn't be a problem."

"It was true," Kanan protested. "After... then, and before I met Hera, I spent most of my time in bars. I just didn't use the Force to sense things back then, I had no way of knowing it would interfere...." He couldn't stay distracted for long. "I'll have to warn him about that. Once he learns how to... but it's difficult."

Rex leaned forward and patted his arm. "I'm afraid I won't be able to assist with the Jedi stuff, but what can I do to help?"

"I don't know," Kanan said, and it came out as more of a groan than he'd intended. "There's nothing that can stop it or slow it down, cybernetics wouldn't work, I can barely figure out myself how I sense things let alone be able to teach it, Sabine rushed off this morning on some mission she wouldn't tell anyone about, Zeb said he was going to see if the spiders were good eating if you cooked them right and I really hope that somebody talked him out of it, Hera's barely been able to stop moving since she found out and I'm worried she'll break down if she doesn't have a proper rest, the atmosphere on the ship is so thick I'm surprised I haven't started coughing on it, Ezra hates the med droid, Chopper's been incredibly nice lately and it's really creepy, I have to pretend that I don't know about Zeb's waffle stash...." He stopped. "Sorry about that."

"Nothing to worry about."

Kanan would have looked away. "It's good just being able to talk with you," he quietly said.

"I understand that," Rex said. "Without my brothers... without Gregor and Wolffe, the years would have been even worse to me. Even if nobody wants an old soldier in the fight, I still have my experience and my mind, and I'm able to use them."

"I can't say that I wish I'd met you earlier," Kanan said, "as I never would have stuck around long enough to get more than a vague glimpse without Ahsoka's requests, or gotten to know you without being forced to work together, but... it worked out."

"Here's to more things working out in the future."

"It would be a nice change."

They clinked glasses.

Rex shook his head. "Still, that’s some coincidence. First you, then Ezra...."

"Technically, Ezra would be earlier," Kanan said. "He was already having some problems, before," and he gestured at his mask. "Maybe...." He sighed. "Maybe that was why. On bad days, I'd thought that maybe it was all my fault, that the Force was punishing me for rejecting it for so long, and that's why it didn't warn me enough, didn't let me block quickly enough to save at least some of my sight. But maybe it was so I could learn how to function without being able to see, and help Ezra with what he's going through, and will go through."

Rex gave a gentle snort. "That's a Jedi for you, always thinking of others. If I get a clear shot on Maul, I'm still going to take it," he added.

Kanan smiled, and there was almost feeling in it. "I'd only stop you if there was some reason we needed him alive."

There was silence for a moment, as they both worked on their drinks. It really wasn't so bad after all, Kanan thought; or maybe he'd just forgotten what decent alcohol tasted like.

If he hadn't had any bad news to share, what would be happening at the moment? They would talk... he would have asked about Rex.

He grabbed onto that, for a semblance of normality. "What about you, anything interesting happening?”

Rex shrugged. “Just the normal. Another mission coming up for me in four days, in an advisory role for some recent recruits; can't tell you what or where, but I don't think you'll be familiar with it.”

That was only fair. Secrecy was always an issue, and even if neither of them would leak sensitive info, it was just good practice to keep names and places on a need-to-know basis as a general rule.

“It's only predicted to take a day or two, but we all know how much that's worth.”

They did indeed. Kanan had heard that a group of analysts were, in their spare time, working to calculate the amount of discrepancy between projected and actual mission durations. It seemed like a waste of time to him, but if it kept them happy, he wasn't going to argue.

"I'm staying here with Ezra," he offered, "unless I'm specifically needed."

"Do you expect that you will be?"

"I really hope that nothing comes up," Kanan found himself saying. "I might not be able to do much to help him, but... at least I'm there if he needs me, and I'll know if anything happens."

Rex idly tapped his fingers on his glass. "Just remember, even Skywalker couldn't solve all of his student's problems."

"And I don't have a hope of measuring up to him?" Kanan smiled slightly, to show he didn't take it harshly; a few months ago, he would have.

"I didn't say that...."

He raised a finger. "But you thought it."

"Well, if we're comparing you to the greatest Jedi in known history... but he's not here. He never had to deal with some of the things you do, and he had the authority of the whole Republic behind him. Even if the Seppies didn't recognize that authority, that was a lot of resources and security he had that you don't."

Rex stopped, and suddenly snorted. "I just pictured Skywalker and Ezra in the same room, talking to each other... it could only end in disaster and property damage and something completely unexpected happening. It's good that you're no Skywalker. The galaxy could only handle one of him, and even that was difficult."

"I remember...." Kanan reached for his cup again. "There was a game we played, as younglings. Someone would share three stories about him; two were true, and one was made up on the spot, and we'd have to guess. The only real strategies for that were to figure out how the person acted when they were making stuff up, or to keep on top of everything about him so you'd be familiar with what was actually reported that he did. Otherwise, there was no way of telling."

Rex chuckled. "Would you believe it, some of the younger clones did the exact same thing."

"How did it go for them?"

"Eventually they moved on to the exploits of other generals, as Skywalker kept proving even their most outlandish fictions true. That, and his stories spread so quickly, soon enough everybody knew what had happened and there was no point in trying to guess."

Yet another reminder of Ezra's situation, and the problems surrounding that. Kanan sighed; there really was no escaping it. "Speaking of 'stories spreading'... how long do you think we have?"

"For what?"

"Until it's common knowledge.

Rex made a thoughtful noise. "It really depends on who's there to overhear anything, and I suppose also on how Commander Sato chooses to react. He can be... I wouldn't say 'inconsiderate', but he doesn't always realize how people will feel about his actions and decisions. It may simply not occur to him that this is something he should keep quiet.”

"I guess you've worked with him closer than I have. How bad is it going to be?"

"Just remember, he means no harm by any of it. Whatever he does."

Kanan crossed his arms. "That... does not sound comforting."

"The thing about Sato is, and don't get me wrong, he's great at what he does, it's just...." Rex scratched his beard. "He thinks in terms of what's best for the mission, not for the soldiers. That's good in a commander, it's what you need. But if you're the soldier in question, it can feel a little different."

Kanan frowned. "That sounds pretty normal to me. Hera gets like that too, when she leads her squadron."

"The difference is that he doesn't even realize that some of what he does is hurtful. He won't apologize for it afterwards; not because he's cruel or too proud, but because he doesn't even think of how it might hurt someone."

Kanan had known there was something different with Sato. The commander didn't always seem to understand things that should be intuitive, such as how to respond to certain social cues; but it had never affected anything before, and Kanan hadn't made the connection, that it might actually cause problems for Ezra. No. Sato wasn't the problem. No person was the problem. Even the Emperor couldn't be blamed for this one. It was just... people doing what they thought best, sometimes what actually was best, and the consequences that came from it.

"...It sounds like I need to talk with Ezra as soon as possible," he sighed.

"Let's hope there isn't going to be a problem."

He snorted. "Hope? That and two credits will buy you a donut. Anyways, how long are you going to be here for?"

Rex finished off the last of his drink. "Not too long," he said; "even if it's in a few days, I still have prep work and rookie wrangling to do, and who knows how long that’s going to take. But while I'm still on the base, I was supposed to report on how this stuff went down, literally. Any final words on the matter? How was the smell?"

"As I said, it was -- wait, the smell? Wouldn't how it tastes be more important?"

There was the distinct impression of Rex raising an eyebrow. "Word has gotten around that you have a particularly sensitive nose," he said. "Your opinion on that matter would be especially valid."

Kanan was confused for a second, then buried his face in his hands. "I know exactly where this came from," he mumbled. "It was just an excuse! Spur of the moment! I needed to think of something to tell Hera without saying more than I was supposed to, and I don't even remember if Riechend was the planet they were talking about in the first place with the sulfur, it was years ago and I was drunk at the time."

"Okay, whatever that was about... but do you have anything else to say about the drink?"

"Tell them...." He gave a humourless smile. "Tell them it's the best thing to happen to me in the past few weeks."

"Are you sure about that?"

"No." He considered it some more. "On second thought, don't say that at all. Actually, ask the brewer what supplies he'd need to improve it, and I can keep an eye out for that stuff."

"Will do." Rex gathered the flask and empty cups. "I guess this is it for today then."

"Yeah, pretty much... sorry for dumping this all on you."

"That's what we're here for, listening to each other's problems and drinking lousy booze. Or whatever it happens to be." He stood up. "Take care of yourself."

"I have been. Somebody needs to set a good example."

"Well, then it's a good thing that Hera's with you guys."

The corners of Kanan's mouth twitched involuntarily. "You got me on that one."

Kanan stood up as well, and they both made their way to the door. They clasped arms.

"See you next time," Rex said.

"Yeah, you too," Kanan replied, as Rex turned and went his own way.

That was one of the great things about Rex, he thought; the clone wasn't afraid to use normal expressions referring to vision around him. It was just words, after all... words that, too often, came with awkward reactions.

Kanan frowned. He remembered, early on, when that would bother him, but it had bothered him just as much (if not worse) when people were very obviously trying to not say "eyes" or "see" or anything of the like. At times he had taken great pleasure in using those phrases as deliberately as possible, just to make the other person feel uncomfortable; it was petty, he knew, and had known, but he hadn't cared.

Had he -- had he ever done that to Ezra? He couldn't remember; which was probably a good thing, as he had a sneaking suspicion that the answer was "yes".

It was different, now. He would say "I see" not to cause pain, but to express that he understood. The same way that anyone else would use the phrase.

Did Ezra have a problem with that? And if so, was it because of the phrase itself, that reminder of what people considered "normal" and which would soon not be for him, or because Kanan, who couldn't see, was using it?

Kanan had eventually come to a type of epiphany. He had realized that he could either spend the rest of his life avoiding common expressions, making people feel guilty whether he intended to or not -- no point in lying to himself, there were times when "making someone feel guilty" was the desired outcome; or, he could accept that it was part of the language he spoke, and move on with the rest of his life.

(If he thought about it, there was a third option, of finding a language which didn't use visual metaphors as part of its vocabulary, and communicating in that exclusively, but he didn't consider it feasible. Besides, a language was only as good as what you could do with it, and no awkwardness was worth cutting himself off from Hera and the others.)

It had been a hard lesson to learn, but an important one. A private one, too. He had never shared that with anyone... but it looked like he had to. And if the only alternative was watching Ezra suffer needlessly, well then it wasn't much of an alternative at all.

He probably had to get back soon. There were a lot of things he needed to eventually talk about with Ezra, and putting them off wasn't going to make it any easier.

#star wars rebels #little by little #fandom: star wars #original content #not a reblog #writing #kanan jarrus #captain rex #star wars au

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rebel-21 · 8 years

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Ezra Medical Emergency

Description of story

What if Ezra was epileptic and he's been hiding it from the crew until he runs out of the meds that kept alive and there out in the middle of space. Will Ezra be able to hide the symptoms of his seizure to the crew or has Ezra just put himself in very grave danger?

It's never something Ezra would ever like people to know about. Living streets was a hard life and when people found out that you had some sort of medical issue people like to us that to gain some sort of control over the other person. Ezra never like when people did that but when you're on the street you do what you have to do even if it meant telling evil people that you were sick. Sometimes people were sympathetic about it and would just give him the money other time he had to do something for that person before he was allowed the med.

He rolled the container in his hand there were no more he took the last pill yesterday. He knew he was in big trouble he knew he needs to tell them about his condition he just never thought he would be in this type of potion. He parents were never shy about his medical condition. He was never felt like he was something to be ashamed of or hide about. But… when he had to learn how to live on his own everything that his family ever taught him about living with his condition got to throw out the fucking window. He will be forever changed because of what the empire had done to him and his family.

As he could here Zeb sleeping on the bunk below him. What was Zeb going to think of him? He probably was never going to let him live it down they were not on a very good speaking term. At the moment and he didn't think Zeb like him all that much. But hey what you going to do if he was not trying to kill him he was fine with being around the big fuzzy guy.

As his mind wandered to Hera. What was she going to think of him once she found out about his condition? She was already worried about all the other issues he had. She wanted to send him to an off world doctor. Cause she wanted to make sure he didn't have any lasting damage from him being on the streets. He knew he was very skinny for his age and he had not really grown much he was 13 teen and yet he looks like 9 years old. Hera said something about because he had not gotten a lot of good nutrition that his body just stop doing what it needed to grow normally.

He felt tears fall from his face he didn't know why he was becoming so emotional about this he never got upset anymore. He got used to the fact that no one cared for him. Or the fact that he was alone. As he lay back down and tried to go to sleep but his mind started to wonder again.

What would Sabine think of him? Oh, great he thought to himself wait ago mind way to make him not sleep. As he rolled himself over to face the wall. Sabine was not one to judge him.

Only if he tried to flirt with her. He was a guy he couldn't help it and it not like he had good role models on the streets. He just didn't want her to think any differently of him. They like to push each other around and he didn't want to lose that.

As he sighed he now wondered when he had he gotten so comfortable around these people he had only known them for three weeks. He cursed himself little for being so very open.

He knew that was going to bit him. He didn't want to grow so attached cause that when bad things happens he kicked himself mentally. Come on they were in a fucking war there was no time to think that he could be happy let alone a family that cared for him.

But then there was Kanan telling him to open up to his feeling and that he was not alone anymore. What would Kanan think of him? Would he stop training him was it unsafe to be a force user and have seizure like him? Could that do more harm than good?

What if he overused his power could affect his epilepsy. Ugh, this was so fucked up. He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. Maybe some sleep would help as he didn't need to wait long before sleep claimed him,

“Hey Hey!” As he felt someone shaking him awake. As he curled more into himself.

“What?” he mumbled into the blankets. “Leave me alone.”

“Come on kid Hera want everyone up and to help clean the ship today.”

Zeb said in a little bit more grumpy tone. He did not have time for the kid to act... well like a kid today. “Up! Now!” As he pulled all the blanket off leaving the boy shivering.

As he left the room not wanting to deal with Lothrat anymore then he had to.

Ezra sighed he didn't want to do anything now. He felt like his head was pounding and he was so tired. He knew he should get up but his body just told him that he should just stay in bed. He didn't know how much time had passed before he was able to will himself to get out of bed.

He slowly made his way out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom to change when he was done he slowly made his way to the kitchen and sat down with his head in his hand. It felt like someone banged his skull against his head repeatedly.

“Ezra? You ok?” A soft voice spoke to him from a couple of feet away.

“Amok Hera just tired.”

As he picked his head up from the table to be met with a concerned eye. “Am fine Hera. So what for breakfast.?”

Hera smiled “what do want to eat?”

Ezra shrugged “you know me all eat anything that you put in front of me.” As he rubbed his temple to try to ease his headache.

Hera gave him look but said nothing. As she turned to start making breakfast for everyone. Taking a glance at Ezra every once in while he looks very pale and looks like he handed slept in days.

Ezra Know all too well what these headaches meant and he was becoming very anxious. What he hated the most of have epilepsy was the warning signed but not fully knowing when a seizure was going to hit. As he was bright out of his thought when he senses Kanan walk into the room.

“Morning” Ezra mumbled not in the mood to talk to anyone. Really all he wanted to do was go back to sleep.

Kanan smiled and grabbed a cup of Kaf from Hera as they both said good morning to each other.

“So how are you doing Ezra?” Kanan asks in between sips.

Ezra just shrugged as he felt the sensation of Déjà vu wash over him as he sat up straight.

“Ezra, you all right?” As Kanan watch Ezra sit straight up like he had been shocked by something.

The feeling slowly washed away as Ezra shook his head little to shake off the lingering facts.

“Yeah am ok just little Déjà vu.”

“Don't you hate when that happens” Kanan joked as Hera brought over his hot cereal.

As he took it from her “thanks, Hera don't worry about cleaning up all do that after am done.”

Hera rolled her eyes but she knows that it was better for Ezra being busy then Ezra who was doing nothing less reason for him to get in trouble.

“So did Zeb tell you what are the plan for the day?” As Hera sat down next to him

“Yeah, he said something about cleaning the ship or something like that?”

“Your smart kid Kanan smirked.”

Ezra just rolled his eyes he was not really in the mood for Kanan really bad jokes. “So what job do want me to do?” As he took another bite of the hot cereal.

“You can help chopper rewire some stuff I find that some of are Navigation have been little off lately.”

“You want me to work with chopper?” As he dropped his spoon in his finished bowl. As he sighed and walk over to the sink.

“Yes, I do,” Hera said calmly again. “I know you and him don't get long but you guys are the only ones that are good at this. Soit either working with chop or working in the bathroom? your choices.”

Ezra sighed “yeah fine all work with chop.” As he brought his stuff up to the sink and started to clean.

Hera quickly left the room to do some other stuff around the ship.

As the day where on Ezra could feel his headache getting worse and he was starting to losing his patient with Chopper and with himself.

“Ugh.” throwing his hands up in frustration Kanan gave him a look.

“What wrong? Ez do you need a break?”

“Am fine!” Ezra snapped at him. He didn't mean to snap it was just he was tired and his head was pounding. He could feel his hands shaking and he knows that it was just another damn symptom of his seizure that could come at any moment It was making him on edge.

“Ezra? You there?” He was brought out of his thought by Kanan waving his hand in front his face.

“Uh What?” As he shook his head. “Am sorry Kanan what were you saying” He put his hand to his head. Did he just faze out on Kanan or was he just didn't hear him.

“I ask if you wanted to have a break you don't look that well. Maybe some food will do you some good?”

Just the thought of food made him want to throw up.

“No am goo Kanan I just…” As he could feel his words slur as his vision went in and out as he felt his body lock as his eyes rolled inside his head and he knew no more.

Ezra woke to the sound of a beeping noise as he felt so tired and drained his body felt so heavy his mouth tasted like copper. He wanted to spit it out but he had no spit to even spit. As he could feel the need to throw up was growing stronger by the seconded.

As he started to gag he was too weak to roll over as he felt someone roll him over. As he throws up on the side of the bed as the person shoes were now full of his sick. As the person was rubbing his back and was talking to him but for the love of force, he could not understand anything. As he lost concuss once again.

The seconded time he woke he could still hear the beeping but there was voice around him and he could sort of understand what was going on around him.

“Kanan the doctor said he was going to fine please calm down dear” The soothing voice of Hera could be heard next to him.

“I know he will be fine Hera I just wish…. I wish he would have told us do you have any idea what could have happened if we were on a mission or something like that.”

Ezra felt his heart sink he never thought about that before now he just felt plain stupid.

“Kanan he has been alone for half his life” Sabine jump into his the conversation. “Don't be too mad at the kid if I was him I sadly would have done the same thing. Am sure once he has meds in his system and we keep on his med now he will be fine.”

Ezra slowly opened his eye just wanted to get this over with. As he tried to move but his body was so very sore as groaned slip through his mouth.

“Ezra?!” he turned his head to see that everyone was in the hospital room. he was hooked up to an IV and heart mentor.

“How are you feeling bud?” As Kanan sat on the bed “you scared us badly Ezra you been out for a couple of days. Your body went thru a lot and the doctors thought it is easy for you to recover if they put you to sleep.”

Ezra nodded as he looks at his Master as his heart clenched to see that Kanan look like he could fall over at any moment he looks like death. Did they care about him? They even took him to a hospital so they must mean they must care, right?

Hera sighed and ran her hand through his hair” Ezra I don't understand why you did this to yourself why didn't you tell us.”

Ezra looks away he didn't want to say they would now think he was beyond stupid. “Ezra” Sabin jumped in please “don't do this to us we deserve an explanation.”

Ezra sighed “fine he mumbled I… I ran out of pill couple of days ago. I was worried that when you found out about my condition then you would dump me on some unknown planet.”

when he was done with his story he realized that he had tears slipping down his face. As he whipped them the way he was always a rack when he woke from a fit. As he sniffs as he felt a hand on his head.

“We would never do that to you Ez.” Kanan's voice sounded sincere and he could feel the force wrap him in warm in a brace as he realized that it was Kanan own force. As Ezra did the same as their bond at that seconded seemed to lock. As he looks at his master.

“You're still going to teacher me?”

Kanan shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Of course, Ezra am not leaving you like that. Your so very powerful and am not let you down not again.”

Ezra shook his head” Kanan it was not your fault! I t was all mine.”

Kanan sighed “I know there was something up but I didn't push I should have maybe I could have asked you about what was wrong.”

Ezra sighed “it not your fault. My condition fault please don't start playing the blame game. I learned long time that sometimes there nothing you can do. You just go with the flow. Even if it means I black out.”

“Am safe now and that all that matter.”

Zeb patted him on the back “you're not alone anymore Loth rat. But if you throw up on me again am throwing you in space do you understand.”

Ezra smiled “I can't promise that but I can promise that all tell when I don't feel well how does that sound.”

Zeb sighed “yeah fine I guess that will do he didn't know what came over him as he wrapped his arm around the teen. You scared me, kid, please don't ever do that.”

Ezra tightened his hold on his brother “I promise” he mumbled am so sorry” as he let the tears fall he finally had family and people that understood him and that all he could ask for. Epilepsy could fuck itself because he had people to help him now and he felt like he could take his disorder down now. He would make sure that he would live through this now he had reason to live.

#star wars rebels

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rockrevoltmagazine · 7 years

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ALBUM REVIEW: SCREAMING FOR SILENCE, HOUSE OF GLASS

The long awaited EP from Screaming for Silence entitled House of Glass is set to release on July 28, 2017. We here at RockRevolt Magazine were lucky enough to get a preview of the album and see what it was all about. Read below as we give a song-by-song synopsis of the album.

“House of Glass”

“House of Glass” comes at you with furious guitars and backing percussion as Zeb Christensen comes on with the vocals to even out the verses before ramping things back up again for the course. The songs title carries a lot of the weight of the song and actually acts as a spoiler if you put your mind to it. We all know the old adage; those in glass houses should not through stones, well, “if want to throw stones, baby let’s go.” “House of Glass” is about the all too well known story of a relationship gone bad with the added shit talking festival that usually goes with it. I have to say I do love the imagery used in this song

“Long Way Up”

For me and this is just my opinion, this song is the guys telling the tale of the journey they have been on to try and make their musical dreams come true. Not only is it about the journey, it is about the doubters along the way and the trials and tribulations that they have faced along the way, and now that they are there you will not take it away from them.

“In Your Eyes”

“In Your Eyes” is a powerful song with a great message in it. Today’s youth, as well as many young adults, are fighting battles with depression and anxiety at an alarming rate. “In Your Eyes” is a message to everyone out there that they are not alone, there is someone that is there and ready to fight with you. If you can relate to any of the above aforementioned battles, listen to this song and really try and soak in the lyrics.

“Beetlejuice”

So when I saw the name of this song I was like, ok what the hell am I in store for? Well I have listened to the song five times now and have not the slightest idea where the name of the song came from. I will tell you this is by far the most aggressive song on the album, and it kind of has the same theme as “House of Glass” but in a less P.C. way, and in a more of a go fuck yourself kind of way. So what I gather is that our friends at Screaming for Silence are just doing us all a favor and between “House of Glass” and “Beetlejuice” you can very nicely tell your other half what is on your mind, or you can tell them to tie a cinder block around their leg and jump in a lake.

“Worth Fighting For”

This is a song that will get you going and should make you feel good about yourself. Honestly to me, “Worth Fighting For” kind of puts a bow on the EP because I feel that it ties in with every song. Whether you are fighting that battle with depression and anxiety, or trying to get the nuts up to have that talk with your significant other, “Worth Fighting For,” is a song telling you that you, yourself is what is worth fighting for and to take that stand and to better your life.

This is a strong showing for the boys out of Omaha. This EP is filled with a lot of anger and emotion that was laid out in a beautiful story for us all to follow. I am happy to say that with this EP and a lot of other new music I am hearing, songs are starting to be driven by the lyrics again and the emotions of the bands writing the songs.

Album Review by Ace Sims, RockRevolt Magazine Journalist

ALBUM REVIEW: SCREAMING FOR SILENCE, HOUSE OF GLASS was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

#album review #House of Glass #IBOTW #RockRevolt Magazine #Screaming for Silence

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kinsingersystem · 7 years

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100 questions for a bored host

1: Is there a boy/girl in your life? / People, yes. 2: Think of the last person who hurt you; do you forgive them? / At this point of time, no, fuck them. 3: What do you think of when you hear the word “meow?” / A kitten that I would adopt if you give me the chance. 4: What’s something you really want right now? / To get the binders shipped out now so we can try to pass a little better, but alas, we have to wait until the check from work processes. 5: Are you afraid of falling in love? / … Yes. I tend to get attached against my will. 6: Do you like the beach? / God yes. Cloudy days only, though, or it sparks a painful migraine. 7: Have you ever slept on a couch with someone else? / Many times. 8: What’s the background on your cell? / MLP:FiM fanart. Lock screen is the Grim Reaper. 9: Name the last four beds you were sat on? / Ours, Jasper’s dorm, Jasper’s own, and uh… I think that’s it for the past year or so? 10: Do you like your phone? / It’s still new to me, but yeah, it’s pretty handy. 11: Honestly, are things going the way you planned? / Fuck no, but I’m still doing it. 12: Who was the last person whose phone number you added to your contacts? / I don’t remember, maybe a coworker’s for ease of access. 13: Would you rather have a poodle or a Rottweiler? / The only correct answer is both. 14: Which hurts the most, physical or emotional pain? / Emotional. 15: Would you rather visit a zoo or an art museum? / Both, different days. 16: Are you tired? / Constantly. 17: How long have you known your 1st phone contact? / Seven years now? 18: Are they a relative? / HAH. No. 19: Would you ever consider getting back together with any of your exes? / Seeing as I don’t really date much, I don’t think I have exes. 20: When did you last talk to the last person you shared a kiss with? / Jas. 21: If you knew you had the right person, would you marry them today? / No, we need more planning than that. 22: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? / Just did, so yes. 23: How many bracelets do you have on your wrists right now? / Me? None. 24: Is there a certain quote you live by? / “Love is patient, love is kind.” 25: What’s on your mind? / My back’s killing me. 26: Do you have any tattoos? / Me personally, yes. I’m covered. Body? No. 27: What is your favorite color? / I can’t choose that. That’s just heartbreaking. 28: Next time you will kiss someone on the lips? / Probably in a bit. 29: Who are you texting? / None at current. 30: Think to the last person you kissed, have you ever kissed them on a couch? / Yeah…? 31: Have you ever had the feeling something bad was going to happen and you were right? / More than I want to admit. 32: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to? / I have friends of all sexes to chat with. 33: Do you think anyone has feelings for you? / I don’t know. Possible, but then there’s the whole… I’m not the kid… thing. Then complicated. Plus, we’re on the last legs of a rough poly relationship and we’re kind of better off without that third… In my opinion, at least. 34: Has anyone ever told you you have pretty eyes? / Me…? I’m not sure. 35: Say the last person you kissed was kissing someone right in front of you? / If it was someone else in our groups, I’d be fine.. 36: Were you single on Valentines Day? / No. 37: Are you friends with the last person you kissed? / They’re my partners, so yes. 38: What do your friends call you? / V. 39: Has anyone upset you in the last week? / Yup. Happens a lot. 40: Have you ever cried over a text? / Not me, personally. 41: Where’s your last bruise located? / Fuck if I know, we bruise like a fucking banana. 42: What is it from? / ^ 43: Last time you wanted to be away from somewhere really bad? / No. 44: Who was the last person you were on the phone with? / I don’t remember. Probably had to scare off some asshat who keeps calling me looking for another person. 45: Do you have a favourite pair of shoes? / The boots, but they’re torn up. 46: Do you wear hats if you’re having a bad hair day? / Not really. 47: Would you ever go bald if it was the style? / God no. 48: Do you make supper for your family? / Constantly. 49: Does your bedroom have a door? / Yes. 50: Top 3 web-pages? / Equestriadaily, BBC News, and Discord. 51: Do you know anyone who hates shopping? / I’m sure there’s some here who don’t like it. 52: Does anything on your body hurt? / Spine, neck, ribs, head... 53: Are goodbyes hard for you? / Immensely. I tend to put up a front and walk away briefly before they need to leave to avoid that ache from getting intolerable. 54: What was the last beverage you spilled on yourself? / Soda or water, I’ll guess. 55: How is your hair? / Short and nothing to worry over. Me personally, usually a lion’s mane. 56: What do you usually do first in the morning? / Curl back up and grumble about being woken up. 57: Do you think two people can last forever? / I think so, but it takes a lot of work. 58: Think back to January 2007, were you single? / I have no idea. 59: Green or purple grapes? / Both. 60: When’s the next time you will give someone a BIG hug? / Depends when Jasper wants one. 61: Do you wish you were somewhere else right now? / Maybe… Would like the poolside, but that’s effort. 62: When will be the next time you text someone? / Probably when we head to work later. 63: Where will you be 5 hours from now? / Getting ready to head out. 64: What were you doing at 8 this morning? / Watching South Park. 65: This time last year, can you remember who you liked? / Same as now. 66: Is there one person in your life that can always make you smile? / Zeb or Jasper. 67: Did you kiss or hug anyone today? / Yes. 68: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night? / I need to keep just aware enough to make sure J is up to watch the Tony Awards. 69: Have you ever tried your hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? / Yes. 70: How many windows are open on your computer? / Around ten. 71: How many fingers do you have? / Eight, two thumbs. 72: What is your ringtone? / … I actually don’t know. Probably something from Relapse Symphony. 73: How old will you be in 5 months? / 25 for the body, doesn’t change for me. 74: Where is your Mum right now? / … Fuck her. 75: Why aren’t you with the person you were first in love with or almost in love? / Fuck /him/. 76: Have you held hands with somebody in the past three days? / Yes. 77: Are you friends with the people you were friends with two years ago? / I think at least two. 78: Do you remember who you had a crush on in year 7? / No…? 79: Is there anyone you know with the name Mike? / Nope. 80: Have you ever fallen asleep in someones arms? / Yeah. 81: How many people have you liked in the past three months? / I generally like people as a whole? But romantically, eh… not so easy. 82: Has anyone seen you in your underwear in the last 3 days? / Partners. 83: Will you talk to the person you like tonight? / …? 84: You’re drunk and yelling at hot guys/girls out of your car window, you’re with? / I’m not doing that. 85: If your BF/GF was into drugs would you care? / If it was life-threatening, yes. If not, as long as I understand /why/ and it’s the only option there... 86: What was the most eventful thing that happened last time you went to see a movie? / I don’t… know. 87: Who was your last received call from? / Jasper. 88: If someone gave you $1,000 to burn a butterfly over a candle, would you? / Fuck you. 89: What is something you wish you had more of? / Sleep. 90: Have you ever trusted someone too much? / Who hasn’t? 91: Do you sleep with your window open? / No, I get sick too easy. 92: Do you get along with girls? / Yes…? Why should gender matter how well I get along with someone? 93: Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth? / I don’t think so? 94: Does sex mean love? / No. 95: You’re locked in a room with the last person you kissed, is that a problem? / Nope. 96: Have you ever kissed anyone with a lip ring? / I wish I had my own, but the body’s too sensitive. 97: Did you sleep alone this week? / No. 98: Everybody has somebody that makes them happy, do you? / Yes, multiple. 99: Do you believe in love at first sight? / No. 100: Who was the last person that you pinky promise? / My son.

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prepare4trouble · 7 years

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Star Wars Rebels fanfic - The Right Direction (2/6)

I was going to post this tomorrow (before the episode obviously) but with people abandoning tumblr to avoid the spoilers, I thought I’d do it now while there’s still a chance of people seeing it!

Little By Little Masterpost

part 1

Kanan hesitated briefly outside Ezra’s quarters. He could sense Ezra’s presence on the other side of the door just as clear as he would have been able if he were inside with him. Walls and doors were a barrier only to sight, not to the Force.

Ezra was alone; Zeb had left earlier that morning to finish off his sweep of the base perimeter. He had been putting a lot more time and effort into that task than Kanan had expected, and Kanan had to wonder what he was doing out there -- or what he was finding -- that was so interesting.

Knowing Zeb wouldn’t be there, he had briefly considered taking the meeting to Ezra’s quarters, but he had dismissed the idea almost immediately. The last thing he wanted was for Ezra to feel trapped again. Yesterday, Hera had chosen to speak to Ezra in the Phantom. Not only that, but she had taken it up into orbit around the planet while she did. She had done it for a reason: to deliberately leave him with literally nowhere to go if he felt the need to bolt.

While Kanan had to admit it was frustrating when Ezra decided to disappear without warning, and he admired her ingenuity, he wasn’t about to replicate it. Intruding upon Ezra’s personal space for the discussion wouldn't be as bad as that, but it would still make it more difficult for him to leave.

Of course, being Ezra, he had any number of hiding places around the base. Kanan knew a few of them, some he had discovered by accident and one he had found while actively searching for Ezra one day. Ezra wasn’t short on places to run to if he felt the need. Still, nothing was quite like being able to hide behind the door of your own quarters.

Suddenly, Kanan felt a little guilty for watching him through the walls.

There was a calmness about Ezra that felt unfamiliar. Although Kanan could still sense that same low-level anxiety buzzing below the surface that he had been aware of for weeks now, it felt further away somehow; less urgent. It was almost as though Ezra were sleeping.

No, not sleeping. More like meditating. Not in exactly the same way that Kanan did, not as deeply, but he realized now that he was witnessing an attempt to commune with the Force; his student was beginning to flex those muscles that he had resisted for so long. This was good news. In time, those muscles would strengthen just as his other Force abilities had, and they would be there for him to call upon them when he needed them.

Which he would, very soon.

A swell of sorrow hit him at that thought, and he pushed it back, tried not to feel it. He had said it to Hera the night before, and he had meant it; they needed to stop thinking like that. There were far worse things that the universe could throw at a person than the loss of a sense. It was going to be hard for him to cope with, for a time, but he was going to be okay. Dwelling on their own initial feelings about it wasn’t going to help Ezra.

Not only that, but for a Force-sensitive with Ezra’s talent for connections, even if they tried not to show those feelings, it could be dangerous. He would pick up on them easily, possibly without even realizing what he was doing.

If every stray thought had the potential to make things harder for him, the people closest to him had a responsibility to control those thoughts.

That was so much easier said than done, of course.

He deliberately steered his mind back to the moment; dwelling in Ezra’s future or in Kanan’s own past wouldn’t help anything. Ezra still appeared to be meditating, and Kanan wondered whether he had been doing this regularly without him noticing, or whether it was a new development. Although he had never enjoyed meditation, Ezra had proved himself more than capable of doing it in the past; for shorter periods than Kanan usually liked to, and certainly not as frequently, but he could definitely do it when he chose to. And his work with the dokma incorporated a lot of the same skills and concentration needed to commune with the Force.

It was unfortunate that Kanan needed to interrupt him now, but he had no choice in the matter. They needed to do this sooner rather than later, and there would always be some reason he could find to put it off.

He bypassed the door chime, with its more intrusive sound, and opted for knocking quietly on the door. It was one thing to disturb someone’s meditation, it was another to do it with a loud, invasive sound. He waited.

On the other side of the door, Ezra’s attention shifted as he roused himself from his meditation. The door opened, allowing him entry into the room.

“Hey, Kanan,” Ezra said.

He didn’t sound surprised to find him there, it was almost as though he had expected him. Maybe he had; he had to know Kanan would come by at some point today. Kanan wondered whether he had sensed his approach, or maybe his hesitation outside the room.

“Lesson time?” Ezra asked.

Kanan shook his head. There would have to be a lesson today, and he hadn’t forgotten that. One thing he needed to do was tell Ezra when it would be, so he could be ready for it. They probably wouldn't be able to stick to a regular schedule all the time, but it was important that they both had an idea of when they would be doing what. It would be unfair for Kanan to just come by like this when he had some free time and expect Ezra to drop everything, it was more important than that. It wasn’t something that should be fitted into spare time, like their lessons had often been in the past. It needed to be scheduled, to ensure that it happened, and that it happened every day.

“We’ll get to that,” he promised. “Later.”

“Oh. Okay… so…” Ezra’s feet shuffled on the floor of his quarters, and through the Force, Kanan got the impression of him wrapping his arms around himself as he stood, waiting.

On the subject of lessons, Kanan realized that he had allowed himself, and Ezra, to slip into bad habits recently. Just a few short weeks ago -- and it was difficult to believe that it had only been that long since he had learned the truth about the secret that Ezra was hiding -- but just a few weeks earlier, when he had suspected, but not yet known, they had still been training with the Force regularly. It hadn’t been daily, but then it never had been. But several times a week they had been training with the Force, or sparring with lightsabers. Since the moment that Ezra had told him what was happening, without Kanan even really noticing, they had reduced the number of lessons and eventually they had stopped. It wasn’t fair.

There was no wonder Ezra had come to him yesterday demanding a lesson. It wasn’t only the things he had discussed with Hera, it was what Kanan had been doing; what he hadn’t been doing. Ezra must feel so abandoned, left alone to deal with everything by himself while the rest of the crew carried on with their lives around him.

Kanan wanted to kick himself.

“What?” Ezra asked. He sounded curious; concerned, even.

Kanan realized that he was open to the Force, and didn’t know whether it was his emotions or his body language that had had given him away. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “We are going to have a lesson, okay? This afternoon. But before we do, Hera and I need to talk to you. About what happened yesterday.”

“What do you mean? What happened?” Ezra asked. There was confusion and worry in his voice now, like he thought something significant might have happened and he hadn’t been informed.

“No.” Kanan shook his head. “That’s not what I… I mean what happened between you and Hera.”

For a moment, Ezra didn’t reply. “Oh,” he said finally, dully. “Right. That.” He sighed. “Look, it’s fine. I get it. I talked to Zeb last night and he said some stuff about… well, maybe Hera was right. Maybe I…” he faltered just slightly, and took a deep breath to calm himself. “Maybe I shouldn’t be on missions right now. Hera’s in command, and it’s her decision. It’s her responsibility.” He sat down on the bottom bunk, apparently not ready to go with him.

Kanan frowned. He didn’t know what he had expected Ezra to say, but that wasn’t it. “That’s… good,” he said. And it was good. It also didn’t make any difference; they still needed to have this discussion.

“I still think I made the right choice,” Ezra added. “I still want to learn how to do everything without seeing. You’re not going to change my mind about that.”

“I know,” Kanan told him. “I don’t want to. You’re right; you do need to learn that, and the sooner the better.”

Even with the most optimistic of estimates, Ezra was looking at just a few short years of sight, and much much less than that of useable vision. Nobody wanted to think about it, but it was a fact, and one that they couldn’t get away from. He needed to be working on ways that he was going to cope. He needed to already have been working on it. Ezra had known for over a year that this was coming. If he had been honest about things sooner, maybe they would have had some of that time.

Not all of it, of course. There would have been a period where Kanan simply wouldn’t have known what to do, and a time after he returned from Malachor when he might not have been able to…

He wondered how things might have been different during those months if he had known. Would he have reacted differently to the loss of his own sight? Would he have forced himself to rejoin the universe sooner than he had? Would he, perhaps, have have looked to Ezra for guidance?

It didn’t matter. None of that had happened, and he had learned a long time ago that there was no point dwelling in ‘what ifs’. Even as things stood, they should be a month into these lessons. There were things that Ezra should already know how to do that they hadn’t even touched; that they hadn’t even thought about.

“But you said…” Ezra began.

Kanan raised a hand, the universal signal for silence. “We’ll talk about it with Hera, okay?”

For a moment, he thought Ezra was was going to protest, but instead he sighed. “Okay, but does it have to be right now? I was just in the middle of something.”

“It doesn’t ‘have to be’ at all,” Kanan told him. “It’s not an order; we’d just like to talk to you. ”

“I know,” Ezra said. “I didn’t mean…” he sighed. “Okay, fine, let’s go.” He hesitated. “She… doesn’t want to talk in the Phantom again, does she?”

Kanan shook his head. “In the lounge. Nobody else is home; we won’t be interrupted.” He headed for the door, then stopped and turned back to Ezra, still seated on the bunk. “The thing you said you were in the middle of,” he said. “Were you meditating?”

“No,” Ezra said quickly. The bunk creaked slightly as he moved. “I mean… kinda? Not really, but… I mean, you’re that one that’s always going on about how important it is.” He said that almost accusingly, like he was embarrassed, and it was Kanan’s fault. Like he had been caught in the act of doing something he shouldn’t.

“It is important,” Kanan assured him. “If you can deepen your connection to the Force, it’ll make it easier for you to use it to sense the world around you. It’ll make everything easier, and the more you do it, the more it’ll help.”

Ezra sighed, sounding unconvinced. Kanan took a few steps across the room and sat down next to him on Zeb’s bunk. “If you want, we can do it together,” he said. “Having another person there can help. That’s how we were taught in the Temple; the younglings took guidance from a Master that could sense what they were doing and give advice.”

Ezra appeared to consider it for a moment, then dismissed the idea. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said, then sighed. “Well, I mean, I don’t want to, but that’s another story. It’s just that like we said yesterday, there are other things I need to know. I don’t want to waste the lessons sitting around with my eyes closed when I could be… uh…”

He trailed off and forced out a sigh. Kanan sensed a strange mixture of anxiety and amusement within him. He waited, allowing Ezra time to either finish what he was trying to say, or not.

“Uh… when I could be walking around with my eyes closed, I guess,” Ezra said. He laughed once, quick and nervous, then took a deep, calming breath. “Sorry,” he added.

Kanan shook his head, unable to decide whether Ezra was apologizing for telling Kanan he didn’t want to meditate with him, or for the attempt at a joke. Either way, it didn’t matter. He clasped a hand onto Ezra’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. “We can set aside extra time for it, if you want, it doesn’t have to eat into the other things. I know you don’t believe me, but it really will help with everything else.”

He didn’t only mean with the lessons that he intended to teach him. A deeper connection to the Force would definitely help with that, but sometimes just taking some time to sit and be calm, and not dwell on what was happening, was a huge help. When every waking moment was filled with one overriding thought — and for Ezra that must be how it was right now even if he didn’t realize it — the ability to get away from that was important.

Ezra sighed. “Maybe. Yeah.”

It wasn’t a no; that was progress at least.

“Come on,” Kanan said, turning back to the door. “We’ll talk about it later.”

As he pressed the control and the door opened in front of him, he heard Ezra get reluctantly to his feet and follow him out.

(part 3)

#star wars rebels #swr fanfic #little by little #kanan jarrus #ezra bridger

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hollywoodjuliorivas · 7 years

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At USC, a Hindu lawyer leads the spiritual way Varun Soni is one of a few to break the Protestant chaplain mold VARUN SONI, dean of religious life at USC, speaks during a service honoring professor Bosco Tjan, who was killed in December. (Photographs by Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times) SONI, middle, Father Richard Sunwoo, left, of USC’s Caruso Catholic Center and the Rev. James Burklo, associate dean of religious life, embrace at the ceremony for Tjan. () By Rosanna Xia Varun Soni straightened his shoulders and grasped the lectern, his dark suit flanked by the stately white robes of priests and ministers. A beloved professor had been stabbed to death. As USC’s head chaplain, it fell to Soni to help the hundreds gathered outside that day to process their loss. And so he spoke to them of the stories he’d collected, the pain he’d shared, the grief he had witnessed. And he offered words to help them, though not from the Bible or any other religious text. “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,” he said, quoting Maya Angelou, before he bowed his head in a universal “Amen.” Soni is an unusual college chaplain. He is a Hindu. He has a law degree. In 2008, when USC hired him as its dean of religious life, he was the sole head chaplain at a major American university who was not only not a Christian but not an ordained Christian at that. Today, at a time when differences — religious and otherwise — grow ever more fraught and complex, he remains all but alone in breaking the Protestant chaplain mold, except for a rabbi at Dartmouth, another at Wesleyan, a Buddhist at Emerson. “It’s very, very hard to divorce the pomp and circumstances of academia from particularly Protestant traditions,” said Dena Bodian, president of the National Assn. of College and University Chaplains. “Chaplains like Varun enable us all to rethink what chaplaincy in higher ed could look like.” The job, after all, is about much more than Christianity. As USC’s spiritual leader and moral voice, Soni oversees about 90 campus religious groups including atheists and agnostics, Baha’is and Zoroastrians. Inside and outside the lecture halls and dormitories, he bridges what he sees as the gap between the slow-moving wheels of academic change and a new generation’s impatience with tradition. He counters the tendency to split apart and subdivide with a message of tolerance, coexistence and respect. “If we want to know what religion is going to look like in the United States in 20 years, just look at what’s happening on college campuses now,” he said. “Particularly at a time when our country is so polarized, and people aren’t speaking to each other.” Soni himself exemplifies the many in the one. He holds five degrees — from Harvard Divinity School, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA’s law school and the University of Cape Town, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation in religious studies on Bob Marley as a spiritual figure who used his work to spread a divine message. As an undergraduate at Tufts University, Soni studied in India at Bodh Gaya, where Buddha attained enlightenment. He’s consulted for the Obama administration, produced a graphic novel and advises celebrity religious scholar Reza Aslan. The son of immigrant doctors, he was raised in Newport Beach, where he went to a Catholic elementary school and learned from his best friends, who were Jewish, and his grandfather, a Buddhist who grew up around Mahatma Gandhi. “Gandhi, that’s why I went to law school and studied religion,” Soni said, nodding to a framed portrait hung alongside the Dalai Lama and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his office. “Those are my guys — people who brought together the spiritual and the scholarly world for the purposes of social change.” What better place to bridge these two worlds than a college campus? It’s not easy, Soni acknowledged, to guide a generation that grew up seeing religion as a source of terrorism and patriarchy, whose institutions covered up child abuse and preached discrimination. More and more millennials are rejecting formal religion but seeking a spiritual sense of purpose. It helps that Soni’s approach centers more on commonality than God. “We’re oriented around meaning and purpose and authenticity and identity and significance,” he said. “My concern is that as students leave traditional religious congregations, they haven’t been taught how to build an intentional community of like-minded people in a way that creates empathy and compassion and a sense of belonging. That’s compounded by the fact that this is a generation that was born into technology.… You may have 500 friends on Facebook, but what does that mean in real life?” Around campus, he’s facilitated interfaith retreats, promoted LGBTQ Bible studies and taught courses on misunderstood religions such as Islam and Sikhism. “My programming is my pulpit,” he likes to say. After the Trump administration announced a travel ban that alienated Muslims, his phone rang nonstop. Empowered by Soni’s inclusive approach, dozens of students, professors and religious leaders rallied alongside their Muslim peers and attended a local mosque, where they joined in the midday Juma’h prayer. “Varun does a good job of keeping us moving in the same direction,” said Dov Wagner, a rabbi at USC. Soni, who is 42, could be mistaken for a graduate student. His hair is cut in a fade. He often teaches in jeans. He knows how to speak to a generation used to abbreviations and hashtags. One afternoon, he walked his students through the religious history of northern India’s Punjab, where his family is from. He rolled up his sleeve to show them his Sikh kara , a delicate steel bracelet he has worn since his mother gave it to him when he was small. “Traditionally, these are much thicker and protected one’s wrist when you went to war,” he said, attempting to mimic a sword fight with his hands. “Luckily, my days of swordplay are over.” After class, one student came up and said he was Punjabi as well, then shyly reached out for a handshake. “Right on, Pun-ja-bis!” Soni cheered. Soni tries hard to reach everyone. As a way to include students who don’t believe in God, for instance, he hired a “humanist chaplain” to collaborate with other religious leaders on campus. “Because of Varun, these other chaplains aren’t threatened by me,” said Bart Campolo, who uses his skills as a former pastor to guide students in a secular way. “I’m not here to attack anybody’s belief system. They realize I’m just another guy trying to help students answer life’s ultimate questions.” Eugenia Huang, whose father died a week before she went off to college, said she was grateful to encounter Soni at a freshman dinner, at which he urged students to feel free to come talk to him. “I really liked the idea that he was about spirituality, instead of forcing any religion down my throat,” Huang said. “You often see people turn to religion when they’re sick or experiencing pain, and so I had always viewed it as something for the weak.” Now a sophomore, she is taking Soni’s global religions course, which has changed her thinking: “I’m learning that a lot of the times, people turn to religion for the community and they just want to know: What’s our purpose?” Soni also has inspired a number of non-Christian students to pursue careers in religious leadership. Interfaith Youth Core in Chicago has led the way in bringing college students of different faiths together. Founder Eboo Patel speaks of students who’ve learned from Soni as if they’re top players in a fantasy draft. The Buddhist who went to multiple divinity schools in order to one day be a campus chaplain like Soni. The Muslim doctor who is studying religious diversity as it applies to healthcare. “You don’t get interested in that unless you’re influenced by somebody like Varun,” Patel said. “Now multiply that by 25 or 50 young people a year, and multiply that by 10 or 15 years, and think about the number of people who are going into everything from diplomacy to chaplaincy to medicine to business who have a really refined sense of religious diversity.” As an ever more diverse group of religious leaders seeks positions on ever more diverse campuses, universities will need to let go of outdated assumptions about what a head chaplain should look like, said Adeel Zeb, the imam at the Claremont Colleges. “We’re at a crossroads,” said Zeb, who was elected recently as the first Muslim to lead the national group of college chaplains. “If you start defining a chaplain as a spiritual healer, an ethical leader and emotional healer on campus, regardless of anyone’s faith traditions, if you start focusing on the human emotions and the human spirit, it enables more diverse possibilities.” One day in February, dozens of USC religious leaders of many faiths gathered in a conference room next to Soni’s office. It was their first all-chaplain meeting since President Trump’s inauguration, and each came troubled by anxieties many of their students were feeling. Soni sat back and listened to his colleagues — Episcopalian, Catholic, Mormon, Buddhist, Jewish — weigh in on the hatred unleashed by the recent political rhetoric. “So what should our role be, running our different groups on campus?” Soni asked. “Is an attack on one religion an attack on all religions?” Campolo, the humanist chaplain, brought up the words of German Pastor Martin Niemoller, familiar to everyone in the room: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me. A fellow pastor led the group in a prayer. They stood in a circle, raised their right hands toward Soni and vowed as one to lead their communities on the path they all shared. [email protected]

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