This chapter is set some time in Season 2, but I'm not going to nail down a specific episode or time to avoid any major inconsistencies.
Given this is set during Season 2, Sabine and Ezra have gotten closer and he's dialled back his more obvious signs of his crush on her, but it's still not all gone. Sabine's attitude to him can still be cold sometimes but there's a friendship there and it's still growing. Anyways, that's my mindset for this chapter.
Painting her armour was always a private affair. Sitting in her cabin, alone, for hours on end carefully touching up the latest scratches or redesigning her whole aesthetic was her own personal escape from everything else in the galaxy. As she sprayed the applicator over each minute detail, she blocked out anything beyond the small paint-covered quarters she called her own. This time there was no major overhaul of her paint job, just going over parts chipped or damaged during the last mission. There wasn't too much this time, most of them were just from her slamming herself against cover too hard rather than from a glancing blow from a blaster bolt. It didn't matter to her, carefully applying the colour to each dent and scratch was cathartic.
She brought the applicator to a dent on her shoulder piece, a few inches away from chipping the central design on her right pauldron. She'd chosen a frynock for her shoulder this time, a reminder of that disastrous mission with Hera. As much as she hated the monsters, when looking back at it the mission had been fun and a good lesson in trust. Besides, it would be a cold day on Ryloth before Sabine didn't enjoy creating multiple explosions using Rhydonium canisters.
Pulling the trigger, a blast of purple shot out and smoothed over the chipped portion of the surrounding shoulder pad. Cutting off the stream at the right moment, Sabine was left with a perfectly blended patch where the chip had been. Perfect.
Peeling her attention away from her success, she scanned her chestpiece for her next target. As she identified another scratch, a knock sounded on her door. Placing the applicator down, she stood up and walked over to the door control and opened it. In the corridor she saw Ezra standing there, smiling up at her with his goofy Loth-rat grin.
"Hey", he greeted as the door slid open.
"Hey...", she replied, leaning against the doorway, "Is something up?"
"No... no not really. I was just wondering what you were up to?"
Is now really the time, Ezra? Sabine looked at him standing awkwardly in the corridor, a cautious smile plastered on his face. She looked up and down the corridor to see who else was about. From the cockpit, she could hear Hera giving some orders to Chopper who wheeled past them with a grumble a few seconds later.
She sighed at him, "I'm painting my stuff right now, which means you leave me alone for a bit, okay?"
Ezra nervously ran his hands through his hair, "Oh... okay. D- Do you mind if I sit in with you for a bit?"
Karabast, Ezra. Did you hit your head or something? Everyone knew painting time was Sabine's time, even Hera did her best not to disturb her when she knew she was working. Sabine had become far less biting toward intruders over her time on the Ghost, she'd nearly shouted at Zeb for walking in on her mid-painting in the first few months, but now she'd just ask people nicely, if bluntly, to give her privacy. Ezra knew this full well, he was the recipient for most of her denials, but it didn't discourage him much.
"No, Ezra. Same as always, I paint alone", she told him impatiently, repeating the same sentence she'd used at least a dozen times before. "Can't you go bother Zeb? Or Kanan?"
"I sorta got kicked out of my room, Zeb's trying to sleep and no way am I sitting in there with his snoring", he laughed. "And Kanan's busy with something, so I can't go spend time with him."
Sabine laughed to herself, Zeb's snoring was absolutely a good reason not to stay in that room. Plus Kanan spent so much time meditating or attending to some task from Hera between missions that Sabine sometimes wondered when he ever had the time to teach Ezra all the powers and training he was so rapidly gaining. Still, a good excuse not to see the others didn't make a good excuse to distract her.
"Okay...", she started, "Why don't you go sit in the common area? Play a game of dejarik against the ship's AI?"
"Because the common area is off-limits to all of you for a bit", called the soft voice of the ship's Captain. Hera had moved out of the cockpit and was walking past, her hands on her hips and a smile on her face, before she stopped outside Sabine's room to talk to them.
"Off-limits?"
"Off-limits", Hera confirmed. "Just for a few hours."
Sabine looked at her in suspicion, "Why?"
Hera suppressed a laugh, "If you really need to know, it's the one day of the year where Kanan and I deserve a break from you lot."
It clicked instantly. Heart's Day? Again... Really, Ezra? Sabine shot a glare at Ezra who seemed to shy away from her as if she was about to hit him.
"Ezra." she said menacingly. Her glare alone threatened to hurt him and wordlessly demanded he explain himself. She remembered all too well what happened on this same day last year.
"That's not the reason! I mean, it's not the only reason, I guess it's part of it but..." Ezra trailed off into a string of jumbled and hesitant justifications for coming specifically to see her on this day, yet again.
Silently, Sabine looked to Hera as if silently pleading with her to mediate everything. With a smile she remained quiet and neutral, watching the two members of her crew in their engagement.
"So yeah, do you mind if I hang out with you for a bit?", Ezra asked. Sabine saw him looking to Hera for approval, she knew she'd have to manage this gently in front of her.
"Ezra I've said, I don't like people watching me-"
"Sabine", Hera scowled motherly at her.
"Wh- Hera?! You know I don't like it?", she retorted with more than a bit of frustration.
Hera placed her hand on Sabine's shoulder, "Just this once, please?".
Looking at the Twi'lek's pleading eyes and her caring smile, Sabine couldn't bring herself to say no to her. Hera was a master at breaking past Sabine's hard exterior and getting her to do what she asked. It wasn't manipulative, it was just that Sabine couldn't bear to disappoint or annoy her with everything she did for her since joining the crew.
With a sigh, Sabine looked down at Ezra. "Fine, you can stay. But don't distract me or I will lock you in with Zeb."
Ezra perked up with glee and grinned at Hera, who let her hand drop from Sabine's shoulder.
"Good, I'm glad we got that straightened out. Don't annoy her, Ezra", Hera told him pointedly with a smile.
"I won't, I'll be alright"
With that, Hera turned around and headed to the common area. "Remember, off-limits!", she told them as she disappeared through the door.
Still leaning against the door, Sabine looked Ezra up and down as he stood happily looking up at her.
"You can come in but I swear if you start trying to smooth talk me or annoy me when I'm working", she didn't need to finish the threat for him to get her message.
Ezra nodded to her in response. With a sigh, she pushed off the doorframe and walked back into her room towards her armour.
Seeing he was still standing cluelessly in the doorway, she huffed. "Come in then, and close the door."
"Right... sorry", Ezra answered quickly and stepped inside with the door sliding closed behind him.
Sabine watched him as his head looked up at the designs covering the walls and ceiling of her room. They were a daily sight for her, but rarely did any other of the crew set foot in her private haunt. The boy looked in wonder at the symbols, icons and patterns that adorned every wall and space in her room. Stormtrooper helmets, starbirds, various creatures and animals, items, weapons, abstract images, even stylised impressions of famous figures and people from recent galactic history. Sabine was a little bit humbled to see him so taken aback by everything, but the boy standing in awe in the middle of her quarters was a bit of a distraction to her nonetheless.
"Ezra?", she called, causing him to jump out of his skin. "If you're done staring, you can sit over there", her fingers pointed towards her bunk.
"Y-your bed?", Ezra stammered.
Oh please, not this again. She should have been wary of this. "Get your head out the gutter Ezra. Sit", she commanded.
Without a response, Ezra meekly made his way to her bunk and sat on the edge of it, his legs hanging a few inches off the floor still. Sabine watched him sit and then start to look at all the art in her room again.
Shaking her head, she finally turned back to her chestplate and reached for her applicator. Shifting in her chair, she placed her body just about in the way of his view of her armour. She had no worries about showing people her completed work, she'd plaster it in public spaces proudly to mark their sites, but there was something about her creative process that she didn't really like sharing. Graffiti and street art was a different story to be sure, her armour though was much more personal. It was her's and her's alone, not for everyone else to see unless she was sure it looked exactly the way she wanted. Yet now there was someone else sitting a few feet behind her probably watching her every move. Then again, it wasn't just someone. It was Ezra, her friend, her crewmate and, sometimes, the bane of her existence. Of all the people to get to see her doing this though, at least he wasn't the worst option.
Sighing, she refocused on her armour. Where was I? Her fingers traced across the hard plate, guiding her inspecting eyes over every inch of it. Quickly, she identified the site she was going to work on earlier and set the right colour in the applicator. Another blast from it and the impurity was removed, leaving another section of her armour looking as good as new.
"Hey Sabine?", a voice interrupted.
"You said you weren't going to annoy me Ezra", she huffed at him, gritting her teeth.
"I know, I know... I was just going to say I liked the stuff in your room. The pictures, they're cool."
Sabine rolled her eyes with her back to him and sighed, "Thank you, Ezra. Can I get back to this now?"
"Yeah, I... sorry."
Sorry? Sabine looked at the applicator in her hands and the armour it was there for. You don't need to say sorry for, ugh... Here she was, painting and working to express herself, yet she'd bite at anyone who so much as complimented her for her work. He wasn't trying to be annoying, he was trying to be nice to her. What about that could she be mad at him for?
Sabine dropped her hand down against the table, keeping the applicator clutched in it. "What do you like about it?", her eyes staying on the half-finished armour.
"It's more you, I guess", Ezra replied almost instantly. He wasn't reaching for a compliment, he wasn't fumbling for an answer for ages, he just said what he thought of it.
It was a surprise to be sure but a welcome one for him to give her an actual answer this time. Dropping the applicator down and turning back to look at him, she decided she'd probe just how much he'd actually thought about this.
"More me? What do you mean?"
Her friend leaned forward off the bunk to look around some more, his lips moving slightly as if he was thinking of what he wanted to answer. "I don't know, it's just, when you make all your other art on the streets or on mission, it's always got a purpose. It's always to say 'kriff the Empire' or to give people hope. It's always for, you know, for a reason."
Her eyes narrowed on him, but not angrily, "You're not trying to say my art doesn't have meaning, are you? Because that's more insulting than complimentary"
"Wait... no no. That's not what I' m saying! I just mean, like, it's not just for some big message or cause. It's for you. You paint it because you like it and you enjoy it. I'm not saying you don't enjoy your other stuff, just that this stuff you do for yourself, you know? Things you find funny or cool or you just want to play around with. It's personal, it's you". As he finished his sentence, he looked at her with a heartfelt smile.
She almost let her mouth hang open in disbelief. "Ezra Bridger, did you just make an actual observation on my art?"
He looked down to the ground and scratched the back of his neck habitually, "Yeah... I guess I did."
That had made her smile. Sabine had to process that for a second. He'd actually impressed her with a genuine compliment about her work, one that actually made her proud and even a little bit embarrassed.
Sabine laughed shyly, not sure exactly how to answer him, "Thanks, Ezra. I... appreciate that."
"Any time, Sabine", he said before leaning back and relaxing.
She looked at him for a bit longer, almost suspicious that the boy who sat in her room wasn't the same Ezra Bridger she'd spent the last year and a bit with. Nope, same old clothes, same bad haircut, same big nose, same scars, same voice, same eyes, same everything nearly... nearly, not quite. He seemed older, not so much looked it but acted like it. There was more maturity and less childishness. Jedi training and a year of rebel activity had forced him to grow up fast and move beyond the boy that had joined them on Lothal. She and Zeb had even stopped calling him 'kid' all the time. They never agreed to do it, just one day she observed that they'd both fallen out of the habit of belittling him that way. Not to say he was all the way there yet. At this point, he looked younger than he acted, still like a twelve or thirteen-year-old more than a sixteen-year-old. He was the same age now as she was when he'd joined, yet she still felt so much his elder.
The Mandalorian laughed internally, Heart's Day, huh? Not even a bad flirt this time, that's progress. Ezra was almost out of that phase really, not completely but almost. She was able to sit in a room with him and escape without even one comment on most days. Her panic earlier about his true intentions for seeing her might have been rooted in experience, but things had worked out for the best. Maybe he was finally starting to embrace being her friend after all.
If he was changing and growing, maybe it was time for her to start treating him differently too.
"Hey Ezra, you said you wanted to watch me paint, right?", she asked.
His body pulled up and he looked at her in confusion, "Isn't that what I'm doing?"
"I don't know what you can see from over there, idiot", she laughed at him.
"I thought you didn't like people watching you paint?"
Sabine shrugged, "Maybe it's time for me to grow up too. Now get over here, I want to get this done."
What should have taken her half an hour took her closer to two. Ezra was inquisitive and always asking, but Sabine was starting to enjoy just talking about it with him. She could ramble for minutes at a time about colour and patterns and what shade went with what, and he'd just listen to her intently. He still had that little look in his eyes sometimes, that little hint of admiration that had made it so awkward to be around him before. Yet he held his tongue, holding back any chance of ruining their time and choosing to let her talk his ear off. Despite his earlier comments on her art, Sabine knew he still knew next to nothing and she was sure half the things she told him went straight over his head.
Then, when the armour was done, she talked him through some of the images on her walls. Sabine told him tales of why she chose that particular helmet or that certain creature. She filled his mind with tales of the bounty hunters Cad Bane and Embo, two criminals that in her ignorant youth she'd wanted to emulate and follow in the footsteps of. Pointing to the picture of the crew above her bunk, she talked about why she chose each colour and artistic choice for them, even explaining why she wanted to experiment with certain shapes and shades on the various abstract symbols on her walls.
When Hera knocked on the door later on to let them know they were released from their confinement, Sabine realised she hadn't been eagerly waiting for her privacy like usual. When he wasn't being immature or trying to charm her, she could enjoy her time with him so much more. It must have been years since she'd just sat and talked with someone like this for so long and maybe, just maybe, she'd want to do it with him again some time. As Ezra left to head off to to bed that night, she wasn't relieved to see him go like she would have been a year ago.
Leaving her alone in her room, she sat back and smiled to herself. This was a friendship she could get used to and one that, she hoped, was only just beginning.
That's it for this one. They'll start getting a bit longer next chapter and the chapters after that, so if these are too short rest assured that problem should go away soon.
Again, RagnarDanneskjold still goes above and beyond to proofread every bit of garbage I chuck at him and I really appreciate all the support and help he gives every time.
Kind Regards - Lothcat1138