The unwilling dragon

Disclaimer: see previous chapters.

Once upon a time, when Rose Tico had finished fixing what her sister and Poe allowed to grow slack, and was greasy, sweaty, and tired, and really wanted to take a shower, there was a knock on her door.

"What?" she snapped, as she opened a door, and saw Armitage Hux of all people.

"Phasma and I wanted to tell you thank you in regards to your fixing our – I mean her – harness," Hux did not back down.

"Your gratitude is accepted," Rose muttered, feeling as if she was drowning her own clothing and skin – so sweaty, dirty, and greasy she currently was – and Hux was really unnecessary here and now, period. "Now go away!"

"No can't do, little Tico," Hux was not cooperating, sadly. "This isn't how you think it is. You need to go down to the river, where Phasma's waiting and all-"

Rose's temper snapped. It was always possible that it was some sort of a stupid prank, her relationship with Phasma, (and by extension Hux), was never all that good, but right now she felt rather like Phasma herself – too angry to be properly tired; and so, with a proportionally loud snarl, she launched herself at Hux, who dodged her with the ease of someone, who had dealt with an angry Phasma for a long time now, and so an angry Rose wasn't much of a challenge.

Rose did not care. She gave chase. Snarling and hooting, (the latter was entirely Hux's doing – sometimes the red-haired man could be strange in a very disturbing way), the two ran… all the way down to the river, where Phasma was waiting for them.

So was Ben, but that was a good thing:

"Hux, you idiot!" he shouted. "Did you mess it up on purpose?"

"Who, me?" Hux effortlessly caught his breath, while Rose did not. Not as effortlessly, anyhow. "OF course not!"

"Phasma," Ben pinched his nose, "this is your man slash closest friend in our circle, correct? Do something about him, would you?"

"It's probably years too late," Phasma muttered, but slapped Hux on the back of his head all the same: "Bad Hux, bad!"

Hux glared at Phasma, and instead of verbally replying, just jumped on her, and the duo began to roll around on the river shore.

Rose just looked at Ben. "Yes, the two of them still didn't get fully over Phasma's tree top excursion," Ben sighed. "My fault this – I believed them when they told me that they did." He sighed and sat next down to Rose. "Now they are going to go at this for a while…"

"That's okay," Rose sat onto Ben's lap – she might as well spread her misery – and greasy dirt – around. "We can wait."

Ben blinked and looked down at Rose. Given their respective positions to each other right now, this was less than a stretch at one hand, and something else on the other.

"…Right," Rose muttered even as Ben had had issues. "Where were we?"

The river water developed gentle ripples as they began to move towards the shore. Phasma and Hux ignored them, (and they had actually moved away from the water's edge into the jungle proper). Ben and Rose noticed them, but did not feel like doing anything about them.

"There are caiman in this river," Ben confessed. "I don't think that they will launch an attack on dry land, so far from the water."

"I hear you," Rose echoed brightly – after the monster spider slash spider monster, she did not really feel like doing anything heroic, especially if it was unnecessary…

Something emerged from the water – not a caiman or a crocodile, but rather an anaconda, the water boa. It could be hard to say if it was more dangerous than a caiman or less, but right now, it didn't seem to be too antagonistic towards humans, but rather, it crawled into an out of the way place, and stopped.

"Now what?" Rose muttered, as the two of them eyed the great snake, and vice versa.

"I'm not entirely sure," Ben confessed. "I've encountered black caiman down here before, and they don't tend to be too hostile when out of the water, but this is something new. We have not encountered too many anacondas like this around here before-"

The snake flexed. It flexed some more, and then it promptly began to give birth. Unlike the caimans, which made nests and laid eggs there rather like birds, this reptile began to give birth to live young – literally. Not unlike humans either, if humans were shaped like great big constrictor snakes.

"…You know, this feels rather like Phasma's thing," Rose pinched her nose, as she felt even more uncomfortable, hot and sweaty, (in a greasy way) than how she did before. Then she realized that she had picked up one of Ben's habits, and turned somewhat red.

"…What do you think Phasma is currently doing, with Hux?" Ben muttered back, sounding not too happy himself. "Why do you think that Hux and I don't always get along? I don't do voyeurism; I don't like having front row to their escapades, or sexcapades, for that matter."

"So what do you want to have?" Rose asked quietly.

"A bath. In the shower. With you maybe?" Ben alternated between being red and white. "Just not in the river-?"

Rose looked at their local river, which did look about as swampy and uninviting, as always. "Good idea," she said brightly, as she got onto her feet, and helped Ben get onto his. (The giant snake placidly ignored them). "Let's go and do this, shall we?"

…And that was what they did: they got up, and went back home, (well, to their home base), and they had a shower together, and they did have fun, (among other things). Moreover, when it was over, they found something else at the door – a rather nice crocodile-skin bag, (legally bought, and made, and what else have you) – a gift from Phasma, it was.

"You know, maybe she isn't so bad, especially when the theatrics aren't involved," Rose muttered to Ben demurely.

Ben skeptically looked back, but said nothing.

End