#arc trooper training has a LOT of squats

[where-theres-a-farm]

How big are those thighs?

...is this what Civvies do with the holonet?

big enough to sit on, how 'bout that?

[naberiie]

fit for the 439th

a present (2.8k) for @mandowo, because i love all of the 439th so much and love writing them (and misi!!), especially when they have to deal with a little goblin child named manae elsheva who does what she wants, including trying to sneak onto the mercurial. happy birthday💜

The ship was much larger than she had expected, but that just made the little orange Twi’lek more determined than ever to get on board. It wasn’t fair that their irn'era Amaranth had been able to go so many times, and when she’d asked the troopers who’d come to eat at the Rose Lantern, they’d just laughed and patted the top of her head and said, “Maybe someday, ad’ika.”

Well. Manae Elsheva had decided that ‘someday’ was today.

Behind her, her older brother Dohan shivered at the sight of so many big ships – Jedi cruisers, they’d called them – and all the clone troopers marching smartly around. Manae thought they looked very impressive, but she was ‘specially watching out for the ones with bright purple paint. They were irn'era Ama’s friends, and though Manae couldn’t remember their exact number right now, all she’d needed to remember was the color, and what ship they came off of.

Dohan tugged her hand so that she turned around. He shivered again, his eyes big and scared, as he whispered, “We should go back, Manae. We shouldn’t be here…”

She wrinkled her nose at him and signed, You’re chickening out?

“So what if I am? We’re not supposed to be here, and besides, they’d already promised that they’d let us visit soon!”

Chicken! I’m getting on that ship.

“You’re gonna get in trouble-”

No, I won’t! We know them. She was absolutely confident that they just had to find their friends, and they’d be allowed on the ship, but Dohan was absolutely not convinced.

“We know some of them, Manae.” Her big brother’s eyes darted back and forth across the massive shipyard, the troopers walking across it every which way. Manae wasn’t frightened of it – she was thrilled even just watching the action. She’d never been off planet before, and the troopers who came by the restaurant always had such good stories about the places they’d been – she twisted her nose up, thinking.

No. No, sometimes the stories were sad, but the troopers were always so nice to her. She wanted to see them, and that’s what she was gonna do.

Besides, she had tell Shocker that Henal hadn’t bothered her after she’d punched him right on the nose, like he’d had shown her! Mama hadn’t been too happy when she’d come back home with a triumphant grin and sore knuckles, and maybe a little bit of the bully’s blood on her shirt, but it’d made him stop pulling on her lekku, so ha!

She knew that the 439th were on break now, because irn’era Ama’s friend Jazz had been really happy for the past week, and then been really really happy yesterday, because Null had shown up at the restaurant with some flowers for Jazz (they weren’t real, Manae had snuck over when they’d gotten distracted and investigated the petals. Fabric – but still really pretty).

Anyways. They’d seen her home, and now she wanted to see theirs.

The ship was painted in bright purples stripes, loud and proud and brighter than any of the other ships docked at the yard. She pointed at it excitedly from their position on top of the huge dish-like shipyard – there were other people walking back and forth on the walkway, too, but most of the adults paid no attention to the excitement down below.

She wrinkled her nose again. Grownups.

Manae stood up and started confidently towards the gate, and it took her a good minute to realize Dohan wasn’t following her, like he’d promised he would.

Hey! Come on!

He shook his head, his face dark and angry, and folded his arms, sitting on the bench like a big baby. Manae groaned in frustration, We’ve been planning this for weeks and you’re going to give up now??

He nodded once, firmly, and Manae sniffed in annoyance. Fine! I’ll go by myself!

Some of the purple-painted troopers were walking towards the exit, and Manae stopped, watching them, and all of a sudden her bravery and bravado gone. She thought she would have known some of the troopers, there’d been so many at the Lantern… She fidgeted as they came closer, laughing and smacking each other on the shoulders – one of them had a big huge animal that was the only one who noticed her, and Manae’s bravery turned to full on timidness, because it was big and had lots of teeth and legs… but its eyes were sweet as it watched her watch them.

Plus, if it was with them, it couldn’t be mean. Her shoulders relaxed, and she waved shyly at it.

The animal nudged one of the trooper’s hands, got her attention, and wagged its tail when it looked in Manae’s direction again. The trooper – she stared hard at her armor, but she didn’t recognize it – looked over and saw the little Twi’lek girl watching them curiously from beyond the entrance to their world.

“Hey there, little one! Are you lost?”

Manae shook her head as the trooper came close and knelt in front of her. I’m not lost! I wanted to… and she got shy again, and the trooper smiled at her so nicely that she felt brave enough to go on, I was sitting up there with my brother and I wanted to get a closer look at the ships and stuff, that’s all.

“Ah! You wanted a closer look at the action, huh?”

She nodded, and the trooper grinned and held out a hand. “My name’s Ampersand, what’s yours?”

Manae!

Ampersand regarded her carefully, and then raised one of her eyebrows and gave Manae a crooked smile, “You an Elsheva, by chance?”

She beamed, and Ampersand’s smile grew bigger, too. “Thought so! What’re you doing all the way up here-” and then her eyes focused on walkways behind her, scanning for the rest of her family, and Ampersand’s eyebrows knit together in worry when she couldn’t see Ama, or Mama, or anyone else. “Where’s-”

Manae jumped up and started signing to get Ampersand’s attention so that she wouldn’t get Manae in trouble, I wanted to see your ship! The big one, there, and she pointed over the group’s shoulders, hoping she wouldn’t ask again.

One of the troopers, with long curly dark hair and lots of piercings and tattoos, glanced at the ship, and then back at Manae. They smiled and started to sign, You want a tour?

Any excitement she’d had at the idea of a tour of their home was immediately taken over by the excitement of seeing them sign. She jumped again and signed, Are you Rang? I asked a bunch of troopers who all signed mostly and they said Rang, and Wesk, and Nadi, and some other people, too-

The trooper was laughing, and so was the person next to them. No, no, I’m not Rang. I’m too pleasant to be him. I’m Wesk!

The trooper who was in charge of watching over the animal – who wasn’t leashed, and was just patiently sitting by their feet – said, “I’m Half-Arc, and this is Trooper. I gotta get it to the training facility, so I’ll have to bow out of the tour.” He smiled at Manae as Trooper sniffed near her, and said, “Have fun, okay? Don’t get into too much trouble without me.”

The other troopers nodded and said their goodbyes, and then Manae took Wesk’s hand in one hand, and Ampersand’s in the other, and tugged them back towards their ship as hard as she could.

Ampersand set down her tools and as she was cleaning up, Wesk let Manae examine the freshly inked tattoo on their arm.

Manae was very careful not to touch it, because it looked like it had hurt – but Wesk hadn’t even flinched, not even a little bit, and that had been very impressive. It was much smaller than any of the tattoos they already had, just a little bit of shading on one they’d already had, but Manae had promised not to freak out if they let her sit and watch.

“What’d you think about that, kid?” Amp asked, smiling as she took off her gloves and discarded the used needle. “Pretty cool, right?”

Manae’s hand hovered over Wesk’s arm – she was sitting on their lap now, their arm held out so she could see it better – and she bent a little closer to examine it. The ink was much darker than the rest of the tattoos that she had seen, the skin a little puffy and stretched, but Wesk and Ampersand looked proud of their work.

You stabbed them a bunch of times with a needle! And it didn’t even look like it hurt! She finally signed, absolutely delighted. You were very brave! She told them sincerely, and Wesk gave her a big grin and a two-finger salute.

She laughed and returned it, and then Ampersand did it, and she saluted Ampersand, and they were all laughing when the doors to the medbay slid open and two more people walked in. Wesk and Ampersand nodded to them, still biting down on their laughter, as a Jedi and another trooper – with fancier, bigger amour than the others – walked in.

As soon as she saw who it was, she was sliding off of Wesk’s lap and running full-tilt towards them, skidding to a halt just before the amused angel and the quiet man next to him.

The General – Misi! – recognized her as soon as he saw her, and he laughed in delight, and Manae suddenly remembered Ama telling her that Misi was an angel and when he laughed he glowed, just a little bit, and she beamed at him as he came over and squatted in front of her.

“Hmm. I don’t know about you, Chyth,” he said, talking to the man standing behind him, “but it looks to me like rookies are getting shorter and shorter every day.” He winked at her, and she pressed her hands to her mouth to hold back a laugh.

“I should say so,” the Captain – Chyth – said with a straight face, looking down at her – but when she gave him a shy smile, the corners of Chyth’s mouth twitched up in amusement. “She’ll be good for sneaking missions, I suspect.”

Manae’s chest puffed up in pride at that. That’s right! Dohan and I wanted to see where you all lived but he chickened out and went back home but since I’m much braver than him I went ahead and did it anyways!

This time, the Captain gave her a real smile. Misi laughed as he watched her hands fly and then he patted the top of her head fondly. “Well, welcome to the Mercurial, Manae Elsheva. You’ve been given the grand tour of our ship, huh? What do you think?”

I liked the place with all the littler ships! And Wesk also showed me where they and Ampersand do their tattoos, and how they do it, and I also liked the big rooms where you all sleep! She tapped her chin, thinking a bit more.

He was still grinning, and shifted so that he was sitting cross-legged in front of her, so she sat down, too. Ama had told her Jedi were much less serious than people always said they were, but Manae thought she was just thinking of Misi when she said that. She didn’t really believe they’d had a food fight when Ama had gone on her assignment with them. Wesk and Ampersand leaned against the walls as he asked, “You liked all those bunk beds?”

She nodded fiercely, It’s like a sleepover every night!

“That’s one way to put it,” Ampersand said cheerfully. “Except imagine that it’s just your siblings, and some of them snore really, really loudly.”

Wesk made a face, sniffed and turned their nose up at that.

As Manae laughed, Misi looked her in the eyes and asked the dreaded, inevitable question:

“Manae, do your moms know you’re up here?”

She suddenly remembered that Jedi could read minds, and her face twisted a little bit, and he laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think they do, huh?”

She considered trying to lie again, but then sighed and shook her head.

“Well, we just gotta let them know you’re okay, alright? I bet they’re worried.”

Dohan probably told them where I was, so maybe we don’t have to do that?

He tapped his finger on his chin for a moment before shaking his head, “You know me! I’m all about accountability, and properly reporting, and responsibility and all that. We’ll just give Ama a quick call, okay?”

And Manae, who could definitely feel the looming sentence of grounded for life over her head, drooped a little as she signed Okay, fine. They’re gonna be mad, though… she warned him, but he just smiled again and nodded in thanks. Manae took Wesk and Ampersand’s hands, watching as her adventure started to come to a close.

As Misi pulled out his holo, they started swinging Manae back and forth, their big strong hands gently holding onto hers. As she laughed in delight, she could hear irn'era answer the holo with: “Hey – Misi – I can’t talk right now, Manae’s missing and we don’t know-”

Manae could also hear her moms in the background of the call, and her gut twisted in guilt – they sounded mad, and scared, and she didn’t like it when her moms were scared.

“She’s up here with us, Amaranth,” Misi said simply, and irn'era blinked before the holo was grabbed out of her hand and there was Mama. “Manae is where?”

Wesk snickered behind their hand, and when Manae looked up at Ampersand, the big trooper just grinned and winked at her. Misi straightened and nodded, “She’s on the Mercurial, we have her here-” and before Manae could shake her head, Misi was angling the holo to show her mom exactly where she was.

There was a beat of silence, and then Mama exploded in super-fast Ryl, “Manae! Dan fic geo hiko donah, gan go ktei ootay dan fic elan vil Dohan ohk go bee geo ea, dan toyid go fic asary ar elan bo Amaranth, dan fic ar rinkan nolelu? Do ohk cei penisla, I’m coming up there right now-”

Irn'era took back the holo from Mama, who went on ranting and raving, and Manae shrank back a little. Wesk looked down at her and gave her a gentle reassuring smile – which was impressive, because they had a lot of metal piercings and things on their face – and signed, Hey, she’s just worried about you. She’s glad you’re safe, that’s all.

Manae sighed morosely and signed sadly, I’m gonna be grounded for the rest of my life…

Wesk and Ampersand found that very funny, and Ampersand put her hand on Manae’s head – careful to avoid the lekku, just like Manae had told her – and said, “We’ve all been there, ad’ika.”

Manae threw her hands up as irn'era and Misi continued to talk, I’m gonna be a wrinkly old lady with wrinkly old lekku that drag on the FLOOR by the time I’m not in trouble anymore! She dragged her hands down her face and stamped her feet, just pretending to be mad. And her new friends found that even funnier, even though it was one-hundred-thousand percent true.

Misi hung up with her irn'era and turned around, hands on his hips and grinning broadly down at her before he knelt to her level. “Well, you’re a bit of a troublemaker, huh?”

Manae smiled as big and as innocent as she could, and Misi looked up at the quiet man with darker purple paint than the others and said, delighted, “She’s a natural fit for the 439th, huh?”

The quiet serious man, the Captain, gave her a stern look-over and then a short nod. “I’d say so, General. Fits right in with the rest of these chakaar.”

She didn’t know what word he’d said, but it had made every else laugh, so she laughed too, as big as she could, and that just made them laugh harder, and Manae thought that being grounded for two straight months (with extra dish washing duty) had been very well worth it.

Wesk had been right, though – when her moms finally arrived, with a very sheepish Dohan who wouldn’t look her in the eyes, because he’d told on her and gotten her in extra trouble – Mama dropped to her knees and pulled her tight to her chest, babbling things like “Thank goddess you’re safe, I was so scared-” and “You’re going to be washing dishes until you’re fifty, young lady, why in the stars would you try to sneak into a government facility-” while Manae’s other mom gave Misi and his troopers a whole basket full of snacks as thanks.

Ampersand gave an appreciative whistle as she eyed over the treats, and then she winked at Manae in a way that very clearly said You’re welcome back any time, little one.

And Manae gave her a secret grin and a thumbs up, and made plans to visit them again.

Two months wouldn’t be that long. She’d see them all again, and soon!

Nothing would get in the way of that. Not if she could help it.