Hey all! Happy belated new years!
Anyways, here's chapter 4, and the first of the OCs for this series. I'm sure you're quite familiar with her, as she's basically been in all of my stories.
Hope you enjoy! And as always, concrit is welcome!
"Hey Hera, have you seen Sabine?" Ezra asked, peeking his head into the briefing room.
"Hmm, not recently, no," Hera replied, tilting her head slightly to face Ezra while still keeping her attention in front of her. "I think Sato assigned her to meet with some Imperial contact off world. She's not going to be back any time soon. Why do you ask?"
Crossing his arms, Ezra leaned against one of the tables. "We were supposed to go scouting together, Kanan wanted us to take a look at some of the nearby areas around the base,"
"You two have been doing a lot of things together haven't you," Hera said with a sly smile, her attention now fully focused on Ezra. "Reminds me a little bit of how Kanan and I used to be before all this trouble with the Rebellion," She said, placing a hand under her chin and sighing dreamily.
"First of all, ew," Ezra cringed. "And second of all, you're the one who has been assigning the both of us on the same missions over and over again,"
"True, but I don't remember asking Kanan to assign you and Sabine on this one," Hera smirked.
"Well, scouting missions are quite boring to do on my own," Ezra replied, avoiding Hera's gaze.
But Hera wasn't buying any of it. "Really?" She asked doubtfully. "And it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the areas Kanan wanted you to take a look at are Krykna nests?"
Ezra went silent for a moment, opening and closing his mouth as he tried to come up with a response.
"Well.." He began, but Hera quickly cut him off.
"You're afraid of the spiders aren't you?"
"Don't tell Sabine, but yes,"
Hera shook her head in disbelief, feeling more amused at Ezra than pity.
"Well, if you're that against the idea of going alone, I could try and convince Kanan to put it on hold for now," Hera scratched her head. "But I promised Sato that we'd be able to get that intel by today…" She trailed off, hoping to come up with a possible solution.
"I could go with him," Hera heard someone behind her say.
Both Hera and Ezra turned to look at the source of the voice. It came from one of the newer recruits, a Mirialan girl about Ezra's age. She stood up from her seat, walking over beside Hera. "It's just a bunch of spiders right? Nothing I can't deal with," She said confidently.
"You do know what you're getting into right?" Hera asked, somewhat surprised by her courage.
"Of course, I read the reports about when you guys first found this place. Back at home, spiders like those were pretty common," She explained. "They invaded our homes so frequently, that I had to personally fight them off more than a few times, just to keep my brothers safe,"
"Aren't you from Mirial? I thought the icy world didn't have any spidery like creatures?" Hera questioned. But the young woman only smiled.
"My family mostly travelled," She began. "Met quite a few of those types on Kashyyyk and Utapau,"
Ezra arched her eyebrow at the Mirialan Rebel, very vaguely recognising her. Besides Hera, most of the members of the Spectres didn't really have the opportunity to interact with any of the newer recruits. So for Ezra, this was his first time even talking to her.
"What did you say your name was again?" He asked.
She turned to look at Ezra, looking as if she was putting on her sweetest smile. "You can call me Kiara," She replied.
"Well, Kiara, I'm not sure the spiders you met before in the past really hold up to the Krykna," Ezra explained. "These ones are blaster resistant, and I can't really use the Force to stop them or anything,"
"I'm not too worried. Sure, it won't be easy. All the more reason you need someone capable with a blaster to watch your back," Kiara countered.
"I guess, but I'm just worried I won't be able to keep you safe,"
"Just because I'm not Mandalorian doesn't mean I can't take care of myself," Kiara said with a pointed huff. "Besides, I've dealt with giant spiders before, I can deal with them again,"
"Wasn't Hera briefing you for something?" Ezra countered, clearly not as enthusiastic as Kiara was about her joining the mission. "I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate you leaving right in the middle of it,"
"Actually," Hera said with a smile. "I think it might be better if she went with you. I really need some intel in that area, and it would help to keep us in Sato's good graces,"
Kiara turned to flash Hera a grateful look, although Hera seemed to be in it more for Ezra's amusing reactions. "Well then that's settled. When are we leaving?"
With his opinions outnumbered, Ezra slumped his shoulders in resignation. "Alright, I guess you're coming with," He said with a tired sigh. "Come on then. The sooner we get this done the sooner I'll get to wash myself of those spiders,"
Hera watched with a smirk as Kiara happily trotted over to Ezra's side. It wasn't going to take a genius to figure out why she was so eager to volunteer for this assignment. And while it wasn't really fair to put Sabine on the back foot in this particular case, at the very least, Hera was confident that Sabine's reaction to the situation was going to be just as entertaining as Ezra's.
With a weary sigh and a tired slump in her shoulders, the young Mandalorian known as Sabine Wren trudged her way right through the entrance of the Ghost. She fell right into the seat of the dining room chair, melting in its comforting embrace as the oh so matronly Hera Syndulla watched from beside her, a bemused smile on her face.
"Rough mission?" She chuckled as she wrote her report.
"That's an understatement," Sabine replied through a tired groan. "Why is it that everytime Sato sends me out to meet an Imperial spy, he always picks out the most incompetent and useless ones for me to meet? It's like they're not even trying to give us good intel!"
"Well, I guess it hasn't been easy for us to find good replacements ever since we shut down the Fulcrum program," Hera said, smiling sympathetically as she turned to face Sabine. "So I take it that this spy of ours did not have any reliable intel?"
"Not even a little bit," Sabine groaned. "Honestly, I don't get why I'm the only one who gets these kinds of solo missions. Ezra gets the go on small extraction missions. Why can't I get the cooler missions? We should just pass off the responsibility of meeting inept spies to the new recruits. Give them something else to do besides scouting for a change,"
"We do need experienced people for tasks like those," Hera replied. "Besides, we wouldn't want to scare off our new recruits with troublesome jobs like these now would we?"
"I guess not," Sabine stretched, before pushing herself off the chair. "Welp, guess I better go and find Ezra. He practically begged me to go with him to check out some Krykna nests. If that's not an indication of how much he's afraid of those spiders, I don't know what is,"
"So you do know about his fear with those spiders?" Hera repeated, feeling somewhat surprised.
Sabine shrugged. "Well yea, he's not exactly subtle with it. Speaking of which, where is he? I thought he would be around here waiting for me?"
"Oh he's already left," Hera replied, trying to remain as nonchalant as possible. "He found someone else to go with him,"
"Who?" Sabine jerked her head back to Hera. "Kanan?"
Hera shook her head. "No, not Kanan. Kiara. One of the new recruits I was briefing today,"
Sabine furrowed her brows, trying to remember who it was. "The Mirialan?"
"Yeap. They left not too long ago on one of the bikes," The gears in Sabine's mind were slowly turning, and the look which was beginning to form on her face was definitely the form of quality entertainment Hera had expected to see.
"Well it's great!" Sabine chuckled nervously. "Ezra's making new friends, that's good for him!"
"Really? Good for him?" Hera asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yea, real good…" Sabine trailed off. "Well, since he's already gone on the mission, guess I can just get some rest. But before that… I was wondering…. Which way did they go?"
A teasing smirk slowly curled up to Hera's lips. "Well, I'm sure if I look for a bit, I might be able to find their coordinates."
Sabine's face lifted in joy. "Perfect!" She basically shouted.
"But, I don't think I have the time for that," Hera continued.
Her face immediately fell.
"Unless you're able to make it worth my while," A sly smirk formed on Hera's lips.
Sabine narrowed her eyes, realising that if she was going to get what she wanted, she was going to have to play along with Hera's games.
"Fine, I'll take your next three patrol shifts. That enough to make it worth your while?"
"Make it four,"
"Done,"
"And, you're in charge of doing maintenance for the Ghost and the Phoenix for the next month,"
"The Ghost and the Phoenix?" Sabine exclaimed in disbelief.
"Me and Kanan haven't been able to get much quality time together lately," Hera mused. "Not having to think about maintenance will do wonders for our relationship. Surely you wouldn't mind helping me out with that now would you?"
Sabine's eyes twitched in annoyance. "You know, I have a jetpack. Combine that with a speeder, and I'd probably be able to find them myself pretty quickly," She replied, tapping her chin in a vain attempt to recover some control in this little game.
But Hera wasn't going to let herself be done in so easily.
"Oh look, they just asked for some overtime,"
They really didn't.
"Looks like they will be spending the night together in some cave,"
They really weren't.
"Alright, give me those coordinates," Sabine quickly decided.
Only Hera wins at Hera's games.
Ever wondered what a group of Kryknas were called? There was probably some sort of vocabularial term to call a large gathering of them. But given Ezra's fear for those multiple legged creatures, the thought of it wasn't something which often lingered in his mind.
Unfortunately for him, the naming conventions of a group of spiders was not a topic of conversation he could avoid. As for some reason, it seemed to be the only thing the person next to him wanted to talk about.
"A herd? Maybe?" Ezra suggested. "A herd of spiders sounds right to me,"
Kiara laughed and smacked his shoulder. "What, like cows?"
"I mean, it's not that farfetch'd of an idea now is it?" Ezra defended with an amused smirk. "We call a lot of cows a herd of cows, so we should call a lot of spiders a herd of spiders,"
"I'm no galactic linguist, but don't they use herds to group animals which are being bred for some reason? Like for their milk or something?" Kiara replied. "I don't know about you, but I don't see anyone milking those spiders," She said, making mechanical milking motions with her hands.
An image of a Krykna spider with udders flashed in Ezra's mind. "Please don't do that," He cringed. "I do not want to even imagine how a bunch of farmers would milk those creatures,"
"Hey, don't kick it till you try it~" She nudged his ribs playfully. "But I guess milking spiders is just a thing of the future," Kiara said, flicking her Lekku as she cast a sidelong glance towards Ezra.
"Your future maybe, I don't want to live on any planet which has a business in milking spiders,"
"Your loss Bridger. Just don't come crying to me when I hit the massive gold mine that is the spider milking operation,"
Thankfully for Ezra, the topic of spiders and how one were to milk them died down as they approached the next Krykna nest. They were on their fifth nest for the day, and from the way it looked, it seemed to be the biggest one of them all.
Originally, Kanan had requested to have only a single nest checked out, as he knew quite well how disgusted Ezra was by them, and didn't want to push his apprentice too much. But when Kiara very excitedly suggested that they should also check out the rest of the nearby nests, Ezra couldn't really find it in himself to say no to her sparkling personality.
As Ezra scouted the nest from the small hill, he felt Kiara slowly nestle close beside him. Gently brushing against his body as she did so. She had been quite touchy with him during this assignment. Slapping his arm here and there, jabbing a finger against his sides, and sometimes even patting his head. Ezra didn't really mind all the extra physical contact, chalking it up to some weird Mirialan culture thing. But he did find it weird that her emotions seemed to be at its most excited when he was nearest to her.
"See anything interesting?" Kiara whispered into his ear.
Ezra shivered as her breath tickled his ear, seemingly enjoying the new sensation. "Not much yet, what about you?" He asked.
Kiara only shook her head.
The spiders roamed creepily around the entrance of the nest, clicking their teeths as they scouted nearby. Unlike the previous nests they visited, this one seemed to be much more heavily guarded. It was like there was a small army guarding the entrance, protecting something inside. In all likelihood, the queen of their entire species probably lived in that cave, and it was starting to cause Ezra to feel a little bit worried, given that there was probably even more spiders inside the cave..
"I think we need to get out of here," Ezra said with a light tremor. "Wouldn't want to be caught dead here if they spotted us,"
Kiara nodded her head. "Yea, those things give me the creeps," She said as she stood up.
"I thought you said you wanted to milk them?"
"Well obviously, I won't be the one milking. I would hire some farmers and have them do the milking for- woah!" Kiara cried out as her leg was caught between some rocks. The momentum of her standing up caused her to fall over the edge, rolling right off the cliff and directly into the horde of spiders below.
"Kiara!" Ezra called out as he heard her scream.
The spiders had all turned to face her, attracted by the sounds of her scream, and Ezra's concern for the Mirialan.
Thankfully for Kiara, the hill wasn't too steep. She had landed as safely as she could have without suffering any major injuries. But while she was able to stand up perfectly fine, the more concerning fact was the eyes of the many many-legged creatures now staring right at her.
Not wasting a single moment, Kiara quickly grabbed her blaster and fired off as many shots as she could, hoping to keep them off of her. Some of the spiders recoiled in pain and collapsed when the bolts struck them. But for most of them, it only served to further anger them.
"Ezra!" Kiara called out, begging for him to help her. But she heard no response. Taking a moment from the encroaching spiders, she glanced above her, but to her dismay, she saw that Ezra wasn't there. "Ezra!" She called out again desperately, before being forced to return her attention back to the spiders.
Eventually Kiara's barrage of shots weren't enough to keep the spiders at bay. One of them suddenly bolted towards her, swiping its legs at her and knocking the blaster out of her hand. There were too many of them. Blaster or no blaster, there was no way she was going to be able to hold them off.
"Ezra!" She pleaded again helplessly. Closing her eyes, she wondered if he had left her. She knew how he felt about these spiders, so it would make sense for him to lose a little bit of his courage in this situation.
But the moment those worries reached her mind, she heard the sound of an igniting lightsaber coming from above.
Opening her eyes, Kiara saw as Ezra very heroically leapt down in front of her, placing himself right in the sights of the spiders. He waved his lightsaber, slicing through some of them who got too close. When the rest of the herd moved closer, Ezra closed his eyes and shot his arms out. Sending out a heavy wave of the Force and knocking down any of the approaching spiders.
Sheathing his lightsaber, Ezra grabbed Kiara in his hands. Placing his hands under her legs and shoulders. "Hold on!" He cried out as she pushed her head into his chest.
Bending his own legs down, Ezra sprung up back to the top of the hill, bringing both he and Kiara out of danger.
Finding a safe spot behind a rock, Ezra gently placed Kiara down, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Are you alright?"
Kiara shook for a moment, and Ezra panicked, worrying that maybe she was scratched somewhere. But instead she leapt forwards, pushing Ezra down as she wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.
"That was horrifying," Kiara said between sobs. She dried her tears on Ezra's shoulders, leaving wet stains behind.
While Kiara was a sobbing mess, Ezra was as frozen as a statue. His arms hovered just above her back, unsure of what to do with them. Sensing the unstable emotions that were coming off of her in waves, Ezra gradually brought them down, soothingly running his hands across her back.
"You're safe, alright?" Ezra whispered kindly. "I got you, don't worry,"
The two stayed like that for a while. Kiara still needing some time to calm herself, and Ezra very kindly offering to comfort her. When they finally broke apart, Ezra flashed a warm smile towards her. But as her eyes rose to meet his, he could sense something changing between them.
She brought her arms away from his back, bringing a single one to his face. Her lithe fingers softly caressed his cheeks, as her brown eyes stared into his blue ones.
Ezra felt his breath catch as his mind went blank. The way she was touching him was so gentle, so careful. Yet it didn't feel as if she was treating him like some fragile object. Rather, her intentions were more tender. More… affectionate.
As if she was suddenly overcome by some emotion, Kiara slowly leaned in towards Ezra, only stopping herself when she felt his breath on her lips.
Her lips parted, and the words which came out of them would be one which Ezra would remember for the rest of his life.
"Can I kiss you?"
Sabine rode her speeder as fast as she could through the empty plains of Atollon. She had one eye on the road ahead, and another on the device on her wrist. Thankfully, Hera's idea of coordinates were literal trackers that she for some reason had on the two of them.
While Sabine would have loved to ask why Hera had trackers installed on her best friend and the new recruit, and why she was only finding out about this now, Sabine had more important things to think about.
Stopping just around the corner from the two dots on her device, Sabine quietly parked her bike and carefully approached them as she tried to ignore the creeping questions invading her head.
Why were the dots not moving anymore?
Why were they staying still right outside a Krykna nest?
What were they doing alone together so far from the base?
Was it something indecent?
Sabine at least hoped not.
Hiding behind a pillar of rock, Sabine slowly peeked her head around, and she felt her eyes widen as she saw what unfolded before her.
"I'm sorry?" Ezra managed to voice out.
The skin on Kiara's face turned a few shades darker as embarrassment flooded her face. But she kept her eyes on Ezra, determined to see this through. "You're really going to make me ask again?" She said with a shy smile.
"No! I mean… you want to kiss me?" Ezra asked as if he wanted to make sure.
Kiara nodded. "I just wanted to thank my saviour,"
Relief flooded back into Ezra's mind. "So, it's not a feelings thing then?" He asked.
"Every kiss has some emotion behind them, Ezra," Kiara responded, still gazing into his eyes. "And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some emotion behind the kiss I want to give you,"
Fireworks went off in Ezra's mind. Never in his life had someone thought of him this way, let alone a girl. He could see Kiara slowly leaning closer to him, and almost unconsciously, Ezra pulled away.
"Is something wrong?" Kiara asked.
"No! Nothing's wrong! I'm just… thinking," Ezra said nervously.
"About me I hope?"
Ezra rubbed the back of his head, unsure of how to reply.
"Or is it about someone else?" Kiara questioned with a small smile. "Is it about… Sabine?"
The image of her face flashed in her mind, and for some reason, it lingered. "I… I think so," Ezra hesitantly replied.
With a disappointed frown, Kiara eventually let him go, much to Ezra's relief.
"So you two are a thing?" Kiara guessed, but Ezra only grew even more flustered.
"No! I mean, no, we aren't," He quickly replied.
Kiara let a laugh escape her lips, her Lekkus swaying as she snickered. "I want to believe you, Ezra, I really do. But you're a terrible liar, you know that?"
"No, we really aren't together," Ezra repeated again.
Kiara shook her head dismissively, gently touching Ezra's hands for a moment. "It's ok. I find it sweet that you're trying to cheer me up. Especially since you're the one who broke my heart," Kiara said with a hand to her chest.
"I'm.. really sorry about that," Ezra hung his head low, feeling a little guilty.
"It's alright, Ezra, I understand," Kiara said with a smile. "Hey, I'm gonna head on back on my own alright?"
Ezra quickly raised his head. "Don't you want me to come with?" He asked, a little worried.
"Such the gentleman," Kiara said with a smile. "But I think I want some time to myself, especially after your rejection," She said with a wave of her hand. "It was nice having a crush on you Ezra Bridger, don't be a stranger alright?" Kiara shouted before running off.
"Wait a crush?" If Ezra was any redder, he'd probably explode.
Sabine let a sigh of relief escape her lips. Looks like that Kiara girl wasn't able to seal the deal. However, in her moment of relaxation, Sabine didn't notice Kiara running straight at her.
The two bumped heads as Kiara turned around a corner, eliciting a small shout of pain.
"Ow! Wait, Sabine? What are you doing here?" Kiara asked as she rubbed her head.
"Uhh Hi," Sabine replied awkwardly.
Kiara's eyes glanced suspiciously at Sabine, before finally clicking as she saw the device in her hand.
"You were spying on us weren't you?" She asked a little too excitedly.
"No! I was… uhh doing something else," Sabine defended weakly, trying to look around for something to justify her being there.
"Well, since you're busy with something else," Kiara said, eyes dropping to Sabine's belt. Her hands suddenly darted below, snatching Sabine's keys away from her and breaking out into an all out sprint for the bike. "I'm gonna take this bike and head right back to base. Have some fun with Ezra!" She called out before speeding off.
"Wait!" Sabine cried out but to no avail. Kiara had already sped off.
And as if things couldn't get more awkward, Ezra suddenly came from behind her.
"Wait, Sabine? What are you doing here?" He asked, repeating Kiara's question.
Sabine tried her best not to roll her eyes at the comical situation. "Hey! Ezra! Fancy seeing you here! Funny story…"
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
And thanks for reading!