Episode 1
Kanan Jarrus x Padawan!Reader
Warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of hunger/small body-types (she's a street rat! she's going to thicken up soon)
Summary: This is a Star Wars Rebels AU where you, a young (over 18) female, are the street orphan discovered by the ghost crew on Lothal. The romance stuff will develop in later episodes—this one just sets up the premise. Some of these will loosely follow Rebels plots, but most will not. Also, in this AU there is nothing romantic between Hera and Kanan, and Hera is a lesbian lol (as much as I love Kanera, I also love the idea of her having queer vibes). Real talk, I wrote this because I wanted to read it. It's my own fun little innocent fantasy, and I hope you enjoy it. If you stick around until Episodes 3, 4, and 5...there's quite a bit of fluffy romantic angst coming your way :)
The sun shone down on you as you breathed in the fresh air of Lothal. You felt the hum of life beneath you, perched as you were, hidden on the roof of one of the homes in the outskirts of Capital City. You listened to snippets of conversation, closing your eyes, hearing the distant sounds of Loth-cats rummaging through garbage bins, feeling the vibrations created by the speeders transporting morning shipments. The hunger gnawed at your insides, but you didn't mind. You were used to it by now, the aching pangs pulling your torso apart, your tongue salivating from the thirst you had grown all too familiar with.
"You need a permit to sell here," you heard a deep, monotone voice say below. "New imperial rules."
You crouched, hiding, hanging your head over the side of the roof to peer at the spectacle below. Three imperial generals surrounded the street vendor, and you identified the one who spoke as the same one now hoisting a basket of fruit into his arms.
"These now belong to us," the general said, greedily taking a piece of fruit in his hand and biting into it, the juice slopping down his uniform.
"But—you can't—" the street vendor protested, looking at his crop mournfully.
"Oh, we can," one of the other imperials said, picking up a piece of fruit and examining it. You'd seen enough. Descending from your perch into the adjacent alley, you walked forward, keeping your head down.
"Hey, mister, spare a yogan?" you asked, pretending to accidentally bump into the imperial.
"Get out of here, Loth rat!" the general said, pushing you off him with revulsion.
"Sorry, sorry sir," you said, feigning remorse as you scampered away, back into the alley, out of earshot. Raising the comm unit you'd just stolen off the imperial officer to your mouth with a grin, you pressed the broadcast button. "All officers to the main square immediately," you said into the comm, throwing your voice into a lower register. You had a particular talent for manipulating the sounds that came out of your mouth. "This is a code red!"
"I guess it's your lucky day, Lothal scum," you heard the imperial say from the square. You peeked around the side of a building and watched as the officer dropped the large basket of fruit, taking one regretful look at it before hurrying away with his associates.
You rushed forward to help the older vendor, who was reaching for his fruit.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the vendor asked, watching you pocket several yogans. You waved the stolen comm in his face, smirking at his look of surprise and awe.
"A Loth rat's gotta eat," you said, and with that, you inconspicuously dropped the comm unit into a passing speeder, running back to the alley to climb to your safe perch above the city.
Looking down at Lothal, you took your first bite of fruit. The feeling of the sweetness and the moisture touching your tongue was both heaven and agony, the feeling of the quench combining with the burn of your out-of-practice salivary glands. You finished the fruit quickly, your stomach feeling almost satisfied, your body feeling energized. Abruptly, a current rocked through your body. You straightened. It was as if you had been pulled up by an invisible string, as if every muscle in your whole body had twitched at the same time. You felt an odd quiet that didn't fit your surroundings. You tried to listen for sounds on the wind, but heard only one—the sound of someone breathing. The string pulled your head to look to your right, and beneath you, in the square, you saw a man standing very still, as if he were waiting for something. You watched him, confused by this feeling, this tug you felt in your body. As you looked, you felt before it happened that he was about to turn around, and you quickly dropped to your stomach, peering out over the side of the roof's railing.
You stopped breathing. He was tall, older than you by a good few years, but still in many ways a young man, his brown hair pulled back into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. His eyes were the color of the sea in clouds, green with a hint of blue. His face was beautiful, but it wasn't any of these features that gave you pause. Looking at this stranger's face gave you the oddest feeling. It was as if this was a face you were intimately familiar with, as if your body, your psyche knew this man, but your mind had forgotten. You saw him looking around, wondering how he had felt your stare on the back of his head. You watched as he turned to a passerby and tapped his leg twice.
Kanan, being well-versed in the ways of the Force, felt an odd current in the air as he walked the streets of Lothal, getting into position. The sensation made him cautious, but not fearful—this was a routine mission, after all, and he'd faced far worse threats than a few stormtroopers guarding a shipment of weapons. Still, as he waited for the imperials to move, waited to send his signal, he felt different. He breathed in deeply, allowing the Force to guide him, and suddenly, as he stood at the street corner, everything went quiet.
All Kanan could hear was the sound of his own breath. He felt a presence behind him, a presence in the Force that seemed almost to be reaching out to him, calling his name. He turned, suspicious, and though in his mind he thought he felt movement, he saw nothing. He looked across the rooftops of the city, and felt as if there were someone sitting behind one of the pillars, calling to him. Whether friend or foe, he didn't know. But this was impossible—no unfamiliar presence had reached out to him through the Force since...
He pushed the thought from his mind. He needed to focus on the mission. Sensing that the stormtroopers had begun their trek with the shipment, Kanan signaled to Sabine, who signaled to Zeb. They were in position. Sabine dropped the explosive casually, walking away as the device decimated the first group of troopers. On cue, Kanan jumped into a speeder, blocking off the second group with the shipment, using his blaster to shoot the stormtroopers from their seats.
Just then, out of nowhere, Kanan saw a girl jumping down from the rooftops, swiftly and gracefully, moving as if she slowed the air around her. Kanan sucked in his breath in surprise. The girl, who looked to be around Sabine's age, was thin, rugged-looking, and dirty. Though it seemed that she was severely underfed, her wiry muscles stood out in the Lothal sun as she adeptly hopped aboard one of the speeder bikes abandoned by the unconscious troopers. She looked up at him and smiled, a mischievous grin, and Kanan, though his mind was still on the mission, lost himself for a moment. It wasn't just that the girl's face was striking, wasn't just that he felt captivated, watching her—it was as if the universe itself had been leading him to this very moment, the moment when he would look upon the face of this girl. It felt as if he were, finally, after all these years, coming home.
"Thanks for these!" the girl said impishly, her grin widening as she sped away with one of the crates.
"Blasts, who was that?" Kanan heard Zeb yell through the comm.
"No...idea," Kanan replied, quickly gathering the rest of the crates in the shipment into the speeders. "But I'm going to find out." He waited for Sabine to jump into the other speeder.
"Get these to Hera!" Kanan told Sabine, before taking off after the girl.
Though this mysterious young thief had a head start, Kanan knew his speeder was faster than the speeder bike of a stormtrooper, and once he saw the familiar route the bike in front of him followed, he pulled off onto a shortcut.
You sped away from the city, gleeful at the day's haul, your wrists pushing at the handlebar controls of the speeder bike, willing it to go faster. You didn't think you were being pursued, but you could never be too careful, and you wanted to get this crate hidden as soon as you could. You thought of everything you'd be able to buy with the credits this steal would earn you on the black market—a whole feast, new boots, maybe even your own speeder, depending on what was in these crates—but suddenly, unexpectedly, your vision was blocked by a figure, fast approaching in your path.
"Aghh," you let slip as you clumsily skidded to a stop, your quick reflexes saving you from crashing into the figure standing by his speeder. You looked at the man in front of you, feeling, finally, a twinge of fear.
"I believe that belongs to me," the man from the square said, his brown hair and sea green eyes overwhelming you for a moment as you took in the sight of him.
"Hey, I stole this. It was mine first," you told him defiantly, setting your lip in a stubborn pout. He reacted to the sound of your voice, his features softening for a moment, but brushed it off quickly, composing his face into a glare. This confused you, but you stood your ground. "Must be pretty valuable, if you came all this way after me."
"It's not about who has something first," the man said, laughing, "but about who has it last." Suddenly, you had no idea how, but suddenly your crate had moved from the back of your speeder bike, and was hovering in front of this man.
"Look, buddy, I don't know who you—" the sound of blasts behind you cut off your words, as you turned to see two tie-fighters shooting at you. You took advantage of the distraction and jumped toward the crate, pushing it with your weight as you tried to run away from the blasts.
"Are you seriously going to try to run away from tie-fighters on foot?" the man asked, watching you, exasperated, as he fired his blaster at the incoming ships. "Spectre 2, I need a pick up. Ties in pursuit."
"Copy that," said a voice through the comm link in the man's hand. You yanked at the crate, trying still to pull it away from him, but he was too quick for you. He jumped over the crate, jumped higher than most people were able, and landed in your path, putting his hands on the other side of the crate, lowering his face to meet yours, grinning in victory.
"This. is. MINE." You argued obstinately, growing pink in the face with effort as you pushed. Unfortunately, you hadn't had anything to eat but fruit in days, and you felt your muscles strain, the lack of protein weakening them. The ties had come back around. The ground shook with more blasts.
"I suggest you come with me," the man said, holding the crate against your efforts with ease. "If you want to live."
You heard the sound of missile hitting metal, the explosion above you almost knocking you off your feet. The man grabbed you by the arm, keeping you upright. One of the tie-fighters had been destroyed—you could see it crashing to the ground in front of you—but by what? By whom?
The large, unfamiliar ship sped into view from behind you, the sound deafening. It lowered in front of you, and you put your hands over your head.
"Jump!" the man yelled back to you, jumping onto the opening ramp of the ship, lowered for him to enter. You turned back, running for the crate as the ship began to rise into the air.
"Leave the crate, you'll never make it!" The man yelled again, and you heard fear in his voice. You were determined. Allowing the crate to hover in your arms, you ran and leapt, higher than most humans were capable, and thrust the crate onto the rising ramp, clinging to it for dear life.
"Woah," the man said, surprised, reaching around the crate to grab onto your hand and pull you to safety.
Kanan pulled you onto the ship, your thin frame sturdier and tougher than he had expected. Much like your personality, he thought, laughing to himself. Hearing you speak had solidified the odd pull he'd felt in the Force when he'd first looked at you. Your voice was musical, yes, but more than that, Kanan felt your speech ring with a power he'd only known in a previous life, when he was surrounded by force-wielding warriors. When you spoke, you commanded more than the sound of your airways. It was thrilling, and confusing to him. He wasn't sure what it meant, this Force tug he felt from you. He wanted to find out.
Kanan looked you over, collapsed on the floor next to you, taking in your size, your obvious lack of care, lack of nutrients, lack of a safe place to sleep, to bathe. Where had you come from? How had you bested him during the mission? How had you jumped so high? He was unwilling to form to any conclusions as of yet. You looked so small, so weak, and yet you had already done more than enough to prove that appearances can be deceiving.
"I'm Kanan, Kanan Jarrus," he said, reaching out his hand to shake yours. You sat, huffing, glancing at him warily, looking suspiciously at your surroundings. "And this is the Ghost," Kanan continued, still holding his hand out in front of you, daring you to rebuff him after he had just saved your life.
"I'm Y/N," you responded, reluctantly taking his hand to shake. The moment your palms touched, you both felt within you that odd quiet, that hum, that feeling of thread pulling you toward one another. Kanan quickly pulled his hand back from yours.
"Kanan, who's the stray?" Zeb asked, rubbing his hand behind his neck, looking at you with a judgmental expression.
"Kanan, what's that stench?" you countered, looking the Lasat in the eyes, the tiniest of smirks glancing over your mouth. Kanan couldn't help but laugh at your expression.
"Are you saying I stink?" Zeb asked with a growl.
"I don't see any other smelly Lasats in here," you replied, casually looking around the ship's main hull.
"I think I like this one," Sabine said, coming into the hull behind Zeb. "Kanan, can we keep her?"
"Guys, this is Y/N," Kanan replied, smiling at your bemused look. "She so very kindly helped me acquire the rest of OUR shipment from the imperials." You glared at him, looking between Kanan, Zeb, Sabine, and the crate, as if trying to decide if you could take all three of them. Kanan laughed again.
"Well, Y/N, we are grateful for your service," Hera said, walking into the hull behind Chopper. "I'm Hera. The captain of this ship." Hera turned to the others. "We're safely in hyperspace."
"Hyperspace?!" you shrieked, looking around you wildly, like you were trying to find an exit. "Wait, you need to take me back to Lothal."
"We will," Hera said, taking in this reaction with curious eyes. "We just have to leave the system first, and come back when they won't be expecting us." Chopper beeped.
"Yeah, Chop, she does look like she could use a bath," Zeb said, laughing. "Bit bold, to comment on my odor."
Kanan waited, expecting another snarky reply, but it didn't come. Where'd you gone? "Y/N?" he asked, turning to see your back as you walked toward the cockpit.
"Hey, not so fast," Hera said, rushing after you. Kanan followed.
They found you at the cockpit's entrance, standing behind the captain's seat, your hands on the headrest, gazing with wonder at the flashing blue lights in front of you out of the viewport. Kanan stopped behind Hera, watching.
"It's just," you said, unable to take your eyes away from the viewport. "I've never been to space."
Hera looked at Kanan, and he saw concern flit across her eyes.
"We'll get you home. Your parents must be worried sick," Hera said in a calming tone. At this, you turned around to face them.
"I don't have parents," you replied, your face impassive. "And I'm older than I look." Kanan watched emotions cross your face, and felt you mask them through the Force, blocking him out. "But I would appreciate the ride home," you continued.
Kanan hadn't felt someone so young wield the Force as you did since...since the time of many Jedi. He didn't know what to make of it.
"We'll return soon," he said. But there's something I want to see, first, he thought.
You sat in the ship's lower deck, arms folded around your knees. It wasn't that you were hiding from the Ghost's crew—you trusted them, at least as far as not attacking you went—but you were so used to being on your own that being in their constant company made you anxious. You closed your eyes, trying to calm yourself, reminding yourself that you'd be back home on Lothal soon.
Yeah, you thought bitterly, hungry and alone.
As you dwelled in your unhappiness, the supernatural quiet came over you again. This time, you heard no breathing, but rather, a sound like a swinging, an electric kind of sound, coming from above you. You stood up, wanting to follow the sound, to follow the direction you felt in your gut.
Climbing the ladder and making sure no one was around, you followed the feeling to a closed door. You wanted to knock, but thought better of it. Somehow, some way, you knew no one was inside. You pressed the button to open the door and entered what seemed to be sleeping quarters. Kanan's sleeping quarters, you intuited, and this thought made you apprehensive. The last thing you wanted was for this striking and intimidating man to find you snooping around his bedroom. Still, the pull of the thread pushed you forward, and you closed the door quietly behind you.
The first thing you noticed was how clean the room was—how few possessions there were. It didn't look like anyone slept here on a regular basis. There were no signs of personality, no trinkets, no photos littering the walls. This confused you. Still, the string tugged you toward a drawer underneath the bunk, and you pulled it open hastily.
Inside the drawer you found two objects. The first was long, cylindrical, and as you took it into your hands, you felt inside you a feeling of wind. Of pressure against your insides. A feeling of hope. Mesmerized, you knew instinctively to press the button near the top, and to your amazement, a long, blue light beam cut through the middle of the cabin. This was a laser sword. A lightsaber. The weapon of a Jedi, you thought.
You had heard of the Jedi, of course. Your parents had told you childhood bedtime stories about the great warriors of old who once kept peace and order in the galaxy. You learned from them that Jedi were brave fighters, and also mystics, philosophers in life and battle. Was Kanan such a warrior? But the Jedi were thought to be extinct, years ago. Surely Kanan wasn't old enough to be one. You felt yourself blush at this thought, and you pushed it aside quickly. You swung the lightsaber around, and heard the swishing sound you'd felt earlier. You pressed the button again, and the blue beam faded.
The second object was square, hard, and you took this up in your hands, confused as to what it was. It didn't look to have any seams to open, but you knew it wasn't just a trinket, not here, in this spot, next to the weapon of a Jedi Knight. You pulled on it, pleaded with it, but it remained hard, immobile. Frustrated, you held it in your hands and closed your eyes, breathing deeply.
You felt the movement before it happened. The square object broke apart, and before you'd opened your eyes, you heard a voice.
This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Your eyes opened in surprise, seeing the hologram figure rising from the pieces of the square object, now floating and orbiting each other. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place.
You felt that it would happen before it did, and you moved quickly to conceal the lightsaber in your boot, tripping and sending the pieces of the mystery object back into itself, back into an imperfect square shape. The door opened.
"What are you doing in here?" Kanan asked as he stepped into the room. He spoke as if he didn't need an answer. His voice was calm, serene.
"I—" you blushed, not knowing what to tell him, embarrassment overpowering you at being caught in his chambers, looking through his things. He waited for you to continue, his calm in great contrast to your sputtering.
"I know this is going to sound crazy, but—it's like that thing wanted me to open it," you said, gesturing toward the object. Kanan nodded, his face politely curious. You looked down, avoiding his gaze.
"That's called a holocron," Kanan told you, still standing causally in the door, his presence exuding calm.
"Oh," you replied, still embarrassed. A loaded silence passed between the two of you, and though you had no explanation for it, you felt as if you and Kanan were communicating, as if you were conversing without words.
"What happened to your parents?" Kanan asked, speaking aloud. You reminded yourself that mindreading was impossible—you must need sleep. You shook your head to clear the delusion.
"I don't know," you told him honestly, looking at the floor.
"How long have they been..." Kanan tried to ask, trailing off.
"I've been on my own since I was seven," you answered, still looking at your feet, a bit of defiance entering your voice. You knew how to take care of yourself. You'd been doing it almost your whole life.
"Well, we've arrived back at Lothal," Kanan said. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but as you waited, he only reached out his hand for the holocron. You gave it to him. "We can drop you outside the city, if you'd like." You nodded, your cheeks still burning. Kanan reached out with his other hand, offering you a large package filled with freeze-dried Yala meat and dehydrated bread. You took it, your eyes widening. You hadn't ever had this much food in your possession all at once. Not since you were small, and someone else fed you. You breathed deeply.
"Thank you," you told him, looking him in the eye. He nodded. "On the southeastern side, if possible," you said quietly.
"Of course."
You walked back to your abandoned communications tower, alone, feeling dejected, hopeless, and confused. You were used to being on your own. While on the Ghost, you had felt on edge, the unfamiliar closing in around you. But now that you were back in a familiar place—now that you were walking through the grass of Lothal, and climbing back into your tower, back into the life you knew—you felt as if something had changed. You pulled yourself up from the ladder, opening the door to the interior of the tower and taking in the familiar surroundings: your trinkets, your drawings, random value-less objects you had collected over your years as an orphan. A Loth rat, you corrected in your head. Suddenly, it all felt meaningless to you, the objects having lost their charm, their power. You kneeled and pulled the lightsaber out of your boot. You sensed the presence immediately, but somehow, you weren't afraid. It was as if you knew he would come.
"What's the Force?" you asked without turning back to regard him, as Kanan Jarrus stepped through the door behind you.
"The Force is the collective nature of all things," Kanan replied. "It is everywhere. It binds everything together. It gives all of us life. It strikes a balance. And it's very strong with you, Y/N."
You nodded, understanding, but only a little, as you turned to face him.
"Why are you here?" you asked, looking up into his sea green eyes.
"To give you a choice," Kanan said. "You've taken something that belongs to me." He gestured to the lightsaber in your hand, and you blushed again, but held his gaze fiercely. "If you'd like, you can keep it, and stay here, letting it become one of your dusty souvenirs," he said, looking around at your collection. "Or, you can give it back, come join our crew—our family—and I can teach you the ways of the Force." Your mouth parted open in shock at this offer. You'd been alone for so long. You couldn't comprehend what he was offering, what it might mean for you, and for your future.
"It's up to you to decide," Kanan said, and with that, he turned away and descended the ladder, leaving you alone.
Kanan Jarrus sat on the Ghost's open ramp, looking out in the direction of your communication tower, deep in thought. He knew that his life was forever changed—that something, maybe the will of the Force, had rippled in his life, that meeting you was no coincidence. Still, he didn't have any confidence in you, in what you would choose. You, a skinny, scrappy orphan, only just an adult, stealing and scavenging to eat, to survive. He didn't know how long you'd been alone, or how long you'd been fighting for the simplest necessities on this occupied planet.
"Well, she passed the test," Hera said from behind him. "She opened the holocron." Kanan turned to regard his friend.
"She did," Kanan replied. "And now we wait."
"She'll come." Hera smiled down at Kanan, a knowing sparkle in her eye, and he felt his face growing hot, his stomach turning. He was thankful that she was not Force sensitive enough to know what he was thinking right then. He didn't want to admit it even to himself.
"How do you know?" Kanan asked genuinely.
"Because I can see her coming," Hera replied with a laugh.
Kanan stood up on the ramp and turned to see your figure walking through the haze rising from the long grass. He ran out to meet you, and you saw him, stopping in front of him, holding his lightsaber out in front of you. He smiled, took it, and put his hand on your shoulder. His Padawan you now would be.