I got this idea after reading word puzzler's amazing story 'The Weight of Shadows', So definitely give that a read.
Also from him is the way Ezra swears. After reading it, I can't imagine Ezra without it.
Beta - word puzzler
"All'n'all," Ezra Bridger mumbled to himself as he approached his tower, sarcasm lacing in his voice, "today was... not bad."
The day really wasn't terrible. Stormtrooper count was low, the gangs were...mostly quiet today, and he managed to scrounge up (steal) enough credits to get a good meal. There wasn't an actual reason that Ezra should be in this kind of mood but he guessed it just had something to do with how...uneventful the day was. Nothing happened. At all. Nothing to remember, nothing to collect and throw into his collection (not junk despite what Moreena used to call it), no reason to remember today at all. If anything, he could just jot it down as another day alive (another day survived) until…
Well Ezra didn't know until what exactly.
Reaching his home, an old abandoned Imperial communication tower, he climbed up the ladder until he reached the balcony that overlooked the open fields leading into the city. Normally a breath-taking sight, the effect had lessened in the years Ezra had come to live here. Still willing to try though, he walked over to the edge and laid his arms on the old rusting railing, using them as a cushion to rest his chin on.
To his surprise and pleasure, the view was still nice. Ezra had chosen a good time to enjoy the view as the orange glow of the setting sun looked beautifully upon the rolling fields of grass that gently swished back and forth with the wind. His gaze moved upward until it finally rested on the city. The normal drab, sandy colored buildings now carried a nice golden brown in the light of dusk mixed with the bright yellows and whites of the night life of the city coming to being. Combined with the gentle breeze that kissed his face, it brought a calming sense of bliss to Ezra.
It made the city look…peaceful (even though he knew it was anything but, though he decided to forget that for this moment).
'Maybe...maybe today it'll be one worth remembering after all,' Ezra though, losing himself in the image of the city and allowed himself a small smile to grace his lips as his weird mood from earlier evaporated.
*Crash!*
The blissful scene shattered as Ezra jumped and turned around sharply at the sudden sound.
A second crash. It was coming from inside.
Ezra's bad mood returned with a vengeance and brought it's friends.
He took in a shaky breath, curled his hands into fists and angrily stomped his way inside his home in search of the source of the disturbance. Oh yeah, someone was going to pay for ruining his good mood.
His angry demeanor changed into one of disbelief when he got inside and he saw the sheer disaster his room was. Now by no means was Ezra a neat freak, or was it to say that his room was ever completely clean to begin with, but this was just...a mess.
While never spotless, he always kept it in a certain order, with shelfs on the wall lined with stormtrooper helmets that he'd placed in a careful order of when he'd gotten them, (an old Clone Trooper helmet being first on the very top) and other mementos, boxes with nik-naks and personal trophies he gotten from his years from pick-pocketing unsuspecting victims ranging from imperial offices and stormtroopers to wealthy "first class" citizens underneath the line of shelves. Ezra had always had his place in such a way, that when he needed something he'd know exactly where it would be.
Now, the top shelf was broken off the wall creating a domino effect that knocked down every shelf below it. All of the helmets that lined those shelf were now scattered across the floor with the shattered glass of the visors spread across the floor from their sudden impact with the ground. One of helmets rolled right at Ezra's feet, which he picked up and stared at the broken face of a TIE pilot's helmet.
He simply stared at the helm while his hands refused to remain still and it shook in his grasp. Suddenly, a sound of something shifting in one of the boxes broken his attention from the helmet to the sound of the disturbance. Something was rummaging around one of his memento boxes.
His eye twitched.
Anger returning to him for a third time, he threw down the helmet, lost cause that it was, and marched over to the box.
Before he could open the box, however, the culprit to the mess hopped out and sat on top, staring its black eyes into Ezra's electric blue ones.
It was a loth-cat.
A loth-cat that had the gall to look innocently at him and meow adorably.
Ezra Bridger was not amused.
He swore he could almost hear the universe laughing in his face.
His left eye still twitching, staring at the loth-cat with a dead panned look, his arms hanging freely at his sides.
He decided today would be a good day to test if the loth-cat can fly.
Grabbing the feline, he rushed out to the door frame and chucked it from there with a shout, the loth-cat soared over the railing with a screech as it fell towards the ground.
Breathing and heart slowing, coherent thought untouched by the rage returning, his breathing immediately stopped when he realised what he just did.
"Oh tihs." With a heavy conscience, he rushed towards the railing, and looked down to see what happened to the cat.
And it was sitting on a rock at the bottom, completely fine. It was looking back up at Ezra with that same innocent look on its face. It actually look like it was amused.
He could definitely feel the universe laughing in his face right now.
When the cat up and scampered away into the tall grassy plains, all Ezra could do was just stare at the place it left, his eye twitching.
After what seemed an age, he took another series of breaths to calm himself down and walked back inside, rambling to himself about "stupid cats".
Deciding that the mess and recovery would be dealt with in morning, he went to his bed, eager to be done with today.
Striping off the top half of his orange jumpsuit and putting on a black t-shirt, he got into his sheetless bed, curled in on himself and closed his eyes.
'Well you did want something to remember today by,' a voice in his head laughed, 'now I doubt you'll be forgetting today anytime soon.'
"Mmm...traitor…" he said to himself gloomy before the welcoming embrace of sleep overtook him.
He was dreaming.
It was a strange type of dream. It was like Ezra was a passenger in his own body. He could feel his body moving, even his lips, but he never willed himself to say or do anything.
Right now, he was running.
From what?
He couldn't tell.
Then he felt it.
A warm presence besides him.
"Kid, don't look back and run!"
The scene before him cleared up a bit.
He and the presence were in Lothal's capital city. In a...back alley?
What were they running from?
"Kid, I'm right behind you! Turn left at this corner now!" the presence spoke behind him again. It was strange, his voice. It was like he's heard it all his life and yet at the same time there was something just...in there that was so different that it refused to identify in his head as anything.
"Who are you?!" he heard himself speak out this time. "Why are you helping me?"
"We can deal with the whos, whats and whys later!" the presence answered back franticly. "Let's just get out of here and I'll-"
The presence stopped his sentence short and Ezra could immediately tell why. Even through the murky unclearness of the dream, he could make out the unmistakeable site of a wall of Imperial stormtroopers that cut them off once they turned the corner.
Ezra felt himself skid to a stop.
"Ah, parc," he could hear himself and the other say in resign frustration.
Then the scene changed.
He was in a… cell? Yeah, he was an imperial cell, staring at the ominous red force-field that kept him trapped inside.
Then he (but it wasn't him) turned his head to look at…
An incomplete picture.
That was to say, that now this was the first time he could actually see the presence for what it was. A person. But for some reason, his (since it was definitely a guy) face was blurred.
"So is that what you are?" He heard his own voice ask. "Is that why you have that thing? Your-"
"You need the Force to be a that kid," he interrupted, his tone low and dark. "And I don't have it."
He pick up his gaze off the floor to look at Ezra.
"But I think you do."
Then the scenes started to change more rapidly.
"Dev Morgan, and you?"
"...Ezra Bridger," he heard himself reply.
The blur on the presen- on Dev's face cleared up on the a bit to make out a smile.
"Nice to meet you, Ezra."
The scene changed again.
"Hey… hey wait! Thats my ship! I can't- That's-"
An explosion in the distance.
"...Was. Th...that was my ship."
He saw Dev sink to his knees before the scene changed again.
This one was different. He could feel wind on his face now and he was drive away from the city on a...speeder bike?
"Really?" he heard himself call back to someone behind him teasingly. "'We'll try our luck'? All that time and that's the best you could've come up with?"
"Hey!" he heard Dev say with mock offence in his voice. It sounded oddly muffled and metallic for some reason. "I am an ace pilot and sharpshooter, not a word puzzler!"
"Ace pilot. Riiight."
"Now is not the time for sass!"
The scene changed again.
Now he was on a ship. It wasn't Imperial, that was for sure. It wasn't… it didn't give off the same oppressive feeling that anything imperial-built gave off.
"Hey, come on," He heard Dev say as he walked down the hallway away from Ezra. "Give these guys a chance. Wasn't too long ago I was sticking it to the empire like them."
"And I'm all for that!" heard himself call in a raised voice. "But aren't we stretching our necks to far with this? I don't want to go down with this ship in the middle of dead space!"
And then he turned.
For some reason the blurriness was gone and he could see his face.
Obsidian black hair. Twin scars on the side of his temple. But the most notable thing was his blue eyes. Just like his.
"Don't worry so much Ezra," Dev said as he walked back to him. "Everything'll be fine."
"But how do you know?"
Dev ruffled his hair as he let out a small chuckle. "Have I ever lied to you?"
"Ack!"
Ezra furiously rubbed sore his forehead after banging it on the ceiling of his bed cell.
"Every morning. Every morning this happens," he muttered to himself. "Seriously, I gotta find a way to get an actual bed up here so then-"
He stopped talking to himself when he realized something.
The dream.
The dream.
His sore forehead and thoughts of beds forgotten, he sat with his hands on his temples on the side of the bed try - desperately - remember what he can about the dream.
'Come on, come on think Bridger! There was something about a… a speeder bike, right? Or was it a ship?'
He was getting frustrated now, his brows furrowing and his forehead creasing in concentration as well as frustration.
'Think! THINK! What was his name? Bev? Zeb? No that doesn't sound right.'
Eventually he let out a growl in defeat and let his hands fall into his lap as his whole mind was completely blank when it came to that dream.
"The one time I have a dream worth remembering, it's just gone," he groaned.
"Like poof," the word blowing a tuff of hair out of is face as it hung in resignation.
After a few moments he looked up at his room, to the mess that happened the night before.
"And then there's that too," Ezra sighed, remembering that he's going to have to clean this up too.
The days were certainly looking brighter for Ezra Bridger.
Speaking of brighter, his eye caught a small ray sunlight peaking through his doorway, slowly rising.
Seeing as he had nothing better to do before having to clean up the mess, Ezra go up with a sigh and walked out to watch the sunrise. He just stood there, in the same position as when he watched the sunset, watched as it lit up the rolling plains and let the sun slowly warm his exposed skin.
Then he realised something.
He did remember something from the dream. He could still remember the presence. The warmth.
And Ezra granted a small smile to himself as he watched the sun rise on a new day.
This is going to have a bit of a spin on the genre you might not see coming.
Note: "Moreena" is an actual character for those of you who don't know. She is Ezra's friend in the story "Ezra's Gamble" where he was palling around with Bossk.
Keyrim, out.