Author Note - Request fic for Europa Sky.
"What is that? And why is it here?" Hera stood unmoving in the doorway to Sabine's room, staring at the tawny tooka currently licking its hand-like paw contentedly on Sabine's table. The empty cans of fish stacked nearby may have had something to do with its apparent calm.
"Hera, surely you haven't forgotten about the loth-cats so quickly? We used to see them outside the ship all the time." Sabine spoke innocently, playing dumb where she was settled in her chair with her sketchbook propped on her knees.
"Outside the ship yes, on Lothal. Not inside my ship and half a system away. What's it doing here?" Hera's tone sharpened a little.
"Well, it's..." Sabine started.
"And if you say washing its foot whatever punishment I had in mind is going to be doubled." Hera spoke warningly. "You and Zeb were supposed to be out buying food, not pets."
"I wanted him as an artistic subject. As important as Lothal has been to Ezra, and to starting to get our message out, I've been meaning to come up with a design that really says Lothal, and he's perfect for that. The best holos in the world can't beat having a real live model to study." Sabine pointed her pencil at the loth-cat, who swatted at it playfully.
"Uh huh." Hera stared doubtfully.
"Plus you said get food, he was being sold as food. We couldn't just leave him there like that. Someone might have eaten him. " Sabine pulled the pencil back before the loth-cat could bite it. "Tell me you could have looked Ezra in the eye after leaving one of the very few things we've seen from Lothal to be turned into loth-cat fritters?"
Hera put a hand over her face "Alright, I see your point. It can stay." She held up her hand when Sabine started to thank her "Just until we can arrange for it to get shipped back to Lothal where it can be set free, where it belongs."
"Thanks Hera. You're the best." Sabine grinned, distracted enough that the loth-cat succeeded in grabbing the end of her pencil and starting to gnaw.
"Just don't make me regret this" Hera sighed.
"Kanan, could you come to the galley. I seem to have… uh… just get here, alright?" Zeb's voice came from over the com, sounding embarrassed.
Kanan sighed, standing up from where he was kneeling in meditation. Ezra looked up hopefully and Kanan waved a hand at him. "You keep meditating, I'll handle it. Whatever it is." He brought the com up "I'll be there."
It only took a moment to duck out of his room and down the hall, where Zeb sat tensely with the loth-cat Sabine had named Cetare'ika curled up asleep on his lap.
"Good, you're here, tell this thing to get off me." Zeb pointed at the curled up ball of fur.
"You're kidding me. Just push him off." Kanan started to turn to head back.
"I tried that already, he bites! And those claws are sharp." Zeb shifted in his seat, getting a low warning growl from Cetare'ika at the movement.
"Come on, he barely weighs more than a pack of cards. Don't tell me you can't handle that." Kanan chuckled.
"It's not funny, Kanan, wait!" Zeb started to stand up as Kanan walked away and then yelped as the claws dug through his clothing. "Just you wait." He grumbled, settling back into the chair and holding very still as the loth-cat stood up, tromped around a little, and then flopped down in a new position.
"You're lucky Sabine's fond of you, hairball," Zeb growled. Cetare'ika just yawned.
"So you're the one making him fat." Sabine spoke up from behind Ezra, making him startle.
"It's not that much, just a few treats." Ezra sounded guilty where he was crouched with a can of fish and one of the toys they'd put together for Cetare'ika from junk laying around. This one was a stick, a string, and some crumpled paper. The loth-cat sat about six feet away, washing his shoulder and ignoring Ezra.
"What are you doing anyway?" Sabine crouched down with him to watch.
"I wanted to see if I could, you know, make friends." Ezra waved the crumpled paper in Cetare'ika's direction, getting ignored.
"Couldn't you just do that Jedi mind thing on him and make friends that way? It would be easier." Sabine asked.
"I could, but that's making him do what I want. I want him to do it on his own, so it's not cheating." Ezra started scooting closer. Cetare'ika ignored him until he was almost close enough to touch him, then got up and strolled away until he was the same distance apart they were before.
Sabine tried not to laugh, Ezra looked insulted enough and she didn't want to make it worse. "Just let me know when you want to do this, I can skip his lunch and maybe if you're feeding him too he'll start warming up to you.
"Maybe." Ezra sighed, sitting down and trying to wiggle the toy again.
"I'll leave you two to try and make friends." Sabine reached out to pat his shoulder, standing.
"Think it'll work?" Ezra sighed as the loth-cat went back to grooming.
"It can't hurt, as long as this isn't taking time away from training or chores." Sabine said.
"Kanan says it's a good lesson in patience." Ezra shrugged a little.
"Then good luck with that." Sabine headed out on her way, leaving him to his loth-cat charming.
"Chopper! Were you opening doors to let the loth-cat have the run of the ship?" Kanan pointed his finger at the droid, getting a rude series of beeps in return.
"No one's been opening any doors, I don't know how he's been getting out." Hera carefully held Cetare'ika at arm's length, carrying him back towards Sabine's room.
"About that… back on Lothal loth-cats were known to be pretty good at opening latches and getting into things they shouldn't." Ezra spoke up,
"You're saying this guy's clever enough to open ship's doors?" Hera sounded a little alarmed.
"No! Thankfully they're not that smart, but the latch holding the air vents isn't exactly hard to figure out." Ezra said.
"That would make sense for how he got all the way to the cargo hold, and clawed the seat of my bike to shreds, without anyone else seeing him." Kanan reached to open the door to Sabine's room, for Hera to carry the loth-cat in and deposit him on Sabine's bed. "There's plenty of stuff in here for him to claw and chew, stuff he's supposed to claw even."
Ezra checked the vent, swinging the cover lightly "Is the vent latch one of those things? He broke it."
Hera came over to inspect the vent cover. "Sabine and Zeb brought him on board, they get to fix what he breaks. "
"Ezra, have you seen Cetare'ika?" Sabine sounded concerned.
"Isn't he in your room?" Ezra blinked, he knew the vent covers had been reinforced, Zeb had complained about it forever.
In answer, Sabine held up the main part of a new reinforced latch.
Ezra whistled quietly. "He broke it already?"
"Yeah, help me find him before Hera realizes he's loose in the vents again? Please?" Sabine gave him her best hopeful look. It had never worked on Hera and Kanan, but Zeb and Ezra were sometimes a little more open to that sort of suggestion.
"Ok, but I'm not crawling in after him." Ezra closed his eyes, holding his hand out and focusing on his awareness of the ship around him. Now that he was thinking on it, something was off a little. Not in the vents, but…
"Sabine!" Kanan's voice rang out through the hall, and he didn't sound the slightest bit happy.
"Uh, I think Kanan just found him for you." Ezra grinned sheepishly.
"They're so tiny" Sabine marveled, reaching to pick up one of the still damp kittens and ignoring the warning growl Cetare'ika gave her for touching one of her babies.
"They're also disgusting, there's blood and fluids all over my bunk, and how did he... I mean she even get in here? Sabine? Zeb?" Kanan crossed his arms, staring at both of them.
"Don't look at me, your vent was on Zeb's list of repairs." Sabine rubbed over the tiny kitten before putting it back with its one sibling.
"About that, I may, ah, may have forgotten to get to yours. By accident." Zeb said sheepishly.
"They are cute at least." Hera spoke up, as Ezra picked up the second kitten to inspect. Everyone has crammed into Kanan's room where Cetare'ika and her litter were the center of attention. Even Chopper had managed to push his way in, even if it seemed more to get in the way than in any interest in baby loth-cats.
"This one likes me." Ezra rubbed a fingertip over the tiny head, getting a squeaky little mew.
"No one noticed she wasn't a he?" Hera asked, giving in and reaching out to pet the kitten Ezra was holding.
"She doesn't exactly like anyone messing around her tail." Sabine pointed out.
"I claim this one." Ezra said, smiling and holding the kitten up to his face. It was more of a smoky gray than the usual range of golden and orange browns loth-cats came in.
"No one's claiming any of them. As soon as we find a reliable transport back to Lothal they're all going home. That's the plan. They can chew and scratch and shed and get bodily fluids somewhere else." Kanan waved a hand to emphasize his point, ignoring the disappointed looks from the two other humans and the mocking trill from Chopper.
Kanan opened one eye as a happy buzzy purr cut through the relative quiet of his room. The silvery loth-kitten Ezra was calling Smoke ("They don't get named. They're not staying!") was doing his best to scale the front of Ezra's jumpsuit up to crawl inside his collar where it could tuck inside its preferred napping spot.
Ezra, to his credit, was doing an admirable job tuning out the distraction and continuing the meditation, the broken cup he was levitating never wavered.
"Your friend's back." Kanan said, trying not to sound amused.
"He's not a problem, see? I can handle it. Distractions are part of life, right?" Ezra never opened his eyes, the cup wobbling a moment then stabilizing.
"They've been in Sabine's paints again." Kanan said a little too casually.
"Mmm." Ezra didn't move.
"You've got bright green paw prints all over the front of your shirt now." Kanan smiled, just a little.
"Oh Karabast." The cup dropped with a loud thunk as Ezra opened his eyes and grabbed for the paint splattered loth-kitten.
Kanan bit back a laugh. Maybe they didn't need to rush on finding a transport for them after all.
Author Note -
Cetare'ika should be Mando'a for "Little Boots" which I thought was fitting with how loth-cats have little black feet.