Okay everyone here is chapter 20. I hope you enjoy it.
Medical room 45 minutes later
Galen glanced over at Ezra, seeing the young man look down into his hands as he tried to form some sort of reason for why he decided to have his little escape attempt two weeks prior.
"I told you, Bendu called me to him," Ezra finally said after a few moments. His strength sapped from his meditation session.
"Yeah, we know," Galen started, "But Sato doesn't know that. He seems to think that you were trying to contact the empire."
"He is under the assumption that you and your brother are agents for the empire," Sabine interjected.
"To be fair he's not far off," Ezra half-heartedly joked, before moving to get up.
"Uh-no," Sabine said placing a hand on his shoulder and pushing him back to the bed, "You are still on strict bed rest."
"Look, something has come up, I need to talk to Kanan and Choni, preferably sooner than later," Ezra replied,
"Why?" Galen asked trying to find out why his brother was seemingly spaced out of the conversation.
"It has to do with Shilli," Ezra responded. Before getting up and moving past Sabine. His strength seemingly returned with a new sense of purpose.
Choni's room
The young Pantoran sat and half-heartedly listened to her sister blabber on about her time meditating with Ezra. Her real focus was on a new propaganda piece for the resistance. It showed a Twilek woman in flowing robes sinking to the bottom of the ocean clutching an infant. With the words "Remember the Bombing of Ryloth" in large orange letters above her. She just couldn't get the shading right.
"Ugh, I guess I will need to go talk to Sabine-" Choni started, interrupted by a soft knocking on her open doorframe.
Glancing over she could see the solemn face of the blind knight Kanan, beside him was Ezra's hunched over body, reeling from a spasm from his ribs. Just behind them, she could see Hera's lekku peeking between them.
"You guys need something?" Choni said, trying to ignore the solemn gaze of both the Knight and Ezra, who had gotten over his spasm, "Because I need to to go see Sabine about this color scheme and its kind of important, I'm already behind on it,"
"Hera, can you take Shilli to go get some food, Kanan and I can handle talking to Choni," Ezra said, ignoring the question.
"Yeah, I can do that, remember if you need me just call me on my comm-link" Hera replied as she motioned for the toddler to follow her. Shilli started before turning to look at her sister.
Choni just nodded at her sister who skipped over to the smiling Twilek, excited to get food with Hera. Hera always allowed for her to get an extra dessert.
"So what's this all about?" Choni asked motioning for the two force sensitives to take a seat.
"You might want to sit down for this," Ezra said, motioning for her to take her seat once again.
"Okay, so are you guys gonna tell me what's up? Or are you going to just dance around my questions?" Choni replied, sitting at her art desk.
"What do you know about the force?" Ezra asked trying to gauge the waters.
"Not much, just that some people can use it and some can't," Choni said, "Like you two,"
"Well, Ezra made a discovery, one that is fairly substantial," Kana replied, his mask, which concealed his burned out eyes boring straight through Choni.
"Okay, how does that affect me?" Choni asked.
"Shilli is force sensitive," Ezra blurted out, unable to take the tension that seemed to be rising. His revelation took all the air out of the room.
"Shilli's force sensitive?" The comment came out as a question as Choni tried to process what she was told. This would most definitely put a target on her back, more so than before. The group just sat in silence as Choni tried to come to terms with what this meant. This went on for ten agonizing minutes before Kanan and Ezra were able to get the conversation going again.
The conversation was interrupted by a soft knocking followed by Hera entering the room with Shilli on her hip. The Pantoran toddler was snuggled up into the crook of Hera's neck, and one could just make out the faint tearstains on her cheeks.
"What happened? Are you okay?" Choni asked her previous worry replaced with her new concern over Shilli's condition.
Shilli seeing her sister started to tear up again as she reached out for the familial comfort.
"Shhh. It's okay, I got you now," Choni cooed into Shilli's ear, "What happened?"
"The cafeteria was closed, so we went on a walk. And she wanted to show me a trick near the border fence. But one of the krykna screeched at her and scared her I believe" Hera responded, feeling utterly terrible at the plight of the toddler.
"If we may, can we play a little game with Shilli?" Kanan asked, pulling out a deck of Sabacc cards from his pants and handing them to Ezra.
Choni gave a defensive look, before relenting and positioning Shilli on her lap, so she was facing the force users.
"Okay, Shilli, this is really simple, I want you to tell me what card I'm holding up okay?" Ezra instructed the Pantoran.
Ezra held up the first card, a green card with a single square dot on it.
"I don't know its name," Shilli told Ezra,
"Okay, just tell me the color and what is on it," Ezra replied.
"It's green, with a single square dot," Shilli said, after concentrating for a moment.
"Good job, now how about this one," Ezra said holding up a new card, this one was red and had six round dots on it.
"It's red, and has six round dots," Shillis said, getting excited with this new game.
"Okay, and what shape do they form?" Ezra pressed, wanting to see how strong in the force she was.
Closing her eyes and concentrating, Shilli reopened them and said, "I don't know that shape yet. It's like a circle but smooshed,"
Stifling a laugh, Ezra replied, "Okay final one,"
This time he showed a queen card.
"Ummm, its got yellow around it. And has a pink thingy in the center," Shilli said, trying to come up with the right words.
"Okay, that's close enough," Figuring it was best not to expose her more to the addictive game,
Ezra turned and handed the deck back to the blind Jedi, and letting him take the lead for the rest of the conversation.
"So what was the point of that?" Choni asked, trying to avoid what she knew the Jedi was going to ask next.
"We wanted to see how well she was at sensing what the force was telling her," Kanan replied, "And she is quite adept at it. I wouldn't expect this level of senses until she was a little older,"
"So you want to train her?" Choni said glaring at Ezra, "You really think I would just turn her over to you after what you did to our people?"
Ezra was shocked, "How-Why? Who told you that?"
No one noticed the look of confusion coming across Hera's face.
"I knew I should have listened to Riyo, you and your brother want to turn her into a weapon for this rebellion don't you?" Choni accused pulling Shilli closer to her, alarming the child slightly.
"Ezra wouldn't be training her," Kanan said stepping in to try and ease the tension, "I would, and it won't be in any sort of combat training, right now it would be more based on helping her hide her force signature and learning to meditate,"
"I-," Choni paused before looking at her sister, "I will have to think about it,"
"Okay, that seems like a plan, just let me know when you come to your decision," Kanan said before rising and retreating out of the room, with the other two in tow.
Choni slumped back into her seat looking worse for wear. This revelation was a big one. She wasn't sure what to do.
Shilli tapped her sister on her shoulder, "What are you thinking about?"
"Lots of things Shil, lots of things," Choni said, trying to keep her younger sister from being afraid.
"I don't want to train with the blind guy," Shilli said suddenly.
"What?" Choni said. Not quite hearing what her sister said.
"I want Ezra to teach me!" The toddler shouted. Unable to contain herself.
"Why? Why would you want him to teach you?" Choni shot back.
"I dunno, it just feels right," Shilli said getting a little defensive.
"Well I don't care if it 'feels right' or not, I still haven't decided if I'm going to allow you to learn this stuff at all yet," Choni told her sister.
"But I want Ezra!" Shilli yelled again
"And I don't want you training with a monster!" Choni shouted back. Shilli was shocked into silence, she had never felt her sister this angry and hurt before.
"I know you don't understand this right now but please, trust me, Ezra isn't someone you want in your life any more than necessary," Choni told her sister, "Now, please, I think it's time for you to take your nap, and I need to clear my head,"
Shilli merely pouted before crawling up into the large bed in their room that they shared and getting under the covers.
Choni sighed before going over and tucking in her sister, "I know you don't like my decision, but trust that I'm only doing what I feel is best for you,"
"Is that what mom and dad told you to do?" Shilli asked, her eyes starting to droop, it had been a big day so far.
"Yes and no, They wanted me to look out for you, and until you're older, it's my job to make these choices for you," Choni told her, saddened at the memory of their parents.
Shilli rolled over, so she was facing away from her sister, "Yeah, but I think you're just being mean,"
"I know that's what it seems like, but I know what's best right now," Choni said running her fingers through her sister's hair, before seeing her breathing slow down. Smirking Choni bent over the bed and kissed Shilli's forehead before turning to leave the room, seeing the unfinished poster. Choni sighed then grabbed it. What better way to clear her head from this force nonsense then to talk to Sabine about her art.
Sabine's room - Ghost
Sabine was working on her newest painting, it was a picture that Juno had asked her to make of her and Galen for the baby when it arrived. Sabine carefully observed the high definition hologram of the two. She had to admit, Juno looked gorgeous in her wedding dress. It was quite a bit more than what Hera got, She merely wore her cleanest flight suit.
A soft knocking drew her away from her painting. Opening the door, Sabine saw Hera standing with a worried look on her face.
"Hera, what's wrong?" Sabine asked. Weirded out seeing the usually happy Twilek so distraught.
"You remember your first night on the ghost?" Hera asked, her voice trembling a little,
"Not really, that was a while ago," Sabine replied,
"I told you that no matter what we had each other's backs, no matter what," Hera said, "I meant that and I still mean it. But I'm finding it difficult to understand why you and Kanan won't tell me what is going on with the Je'daii,"
Seeing she was caught between a rock and a hard place Sabine tried to play dumb, "What do you mean?"
"What I mean is that you and Kanan aren't telling me something, and I have Sato breathing down my neck because he is slowly losing his trust in Ezra and Galen. I have nothing to tell him. But I want to know why is it so important that it stays hidden from the leaders at this base?" Hera pleaded.
Realizing that playing dumb didn't work Sabine tried to throw her off the scent, with a small lie, "Well the only secret I've been keeping from you is that Ezra and I are official now,"
"Sabine, I'm not dumb, I knew you two were official long before you set off for Corellia, even if you two didn't know it yet. So I ask again why is it so important that this secret not be shared?" Hera was anything if persistent.
Sabine didn't know what to do, she wanted to tell the truth, seeing Hera like this hurt, she hated keeping secrets from her adoptive mother.
"I-I can't, it's not my secret to tell," Sabine said finally, her voice small and sincere.
"Okay-" Hera started before a voice interrupted her.
"I never meant to cause you pain Hera, I just don't like thinking about my past that much," Ezra's voice came from the open doorway, " I hope I'm not interrupting something, I wanted to talk to Sabine,"
"How much did you hear?" Hera asked her embarrassment noticeable upon her green features.
"I came in just as you said that you knew that Sabine and Kanan, weren't telling you everything they knew about my brother and myself," Ezra said, his hands fiddling with his tunic.
"I'm sorry, I just want to know why there is so much secrecy around you two, my crew may trust you, but there are others who don't," Hera said trying to put to words her frustrations in having to continually defend the Je'daii before Sato and the other officers.
Sighing Ezra looked at Sabine, silently asking if she could be trusted, Sabine merely nodded. At this confirmation, Ezra turned before checking the Ghost's hallway. Seeing it abandoned Ezra shut the door before locking it, making sure there would be no one casually stumbling in on this conversation.
"You might want to sit down Hera, this is one hell of a story," Ezra said as he moved beside Sabine, before reaching out and taking the Mando's hand. Ezra always hated when he relived his past. Unknowingly his hand started to tremble, Sabine, seeing the stress on his face merely gripped his hand tighter in a show of support as Ezra collected his thoughts.
"You see, it all started when I was a boy on Lothal-...
Okay, folks that's gonna be it for this chapter. I hope you like it. I tried to do my best at showing Choni as a stressed teenager dealing with the loss of her parents but also having to raise a toddler. Also, I know I describe Shilli as a toddler, but her ability to speak so well is because of her connection to the force and tapping into that. Well, I hope you like it, so please leave a review.
Television1