Zeb found it hard to get up that morning, with the local weather forecast being very rainy starting the night before and ending sometime in the early afternoon with overcast skies for the remainder of the day. Alex being the type to get up early on any occasion was something that he still hadn't gotten out of the habit of, however since coming to Lira San he managed a few days where he'd sleep even past what Zeb considered late. This morning, however despite how miserable the day outside looked, Alex still was up early but not at his usual 'wake up before the sun does' routine; no, he was up an hour or so before Zeb had fully woken up. He might have heard the Human grumbling about trying to shut down his internal wake up clock when he stumbled towards the refresher. Now that was something Zeb would wait and see if that had ever happened.
A half hour after waking up Zeb no longer could resist the call of the 'fresher and got up, glancing up at the wooden clock hanging above their dresser to see what the time was before going inside their refresher and relieving himself, as well as brushing his teeth. He'd shower later, neither himself nor Alex needed to go anywhere and the few things he had done on his own personal data pad for a couple of paying jobs he had finished up the day before. They had done their weekly market shopping two days prior and did not need anything, Alex even had gotten some extra boxes of flavored bagged teas so he'd have some to spare if he ever ran low of the loose leaf ones he was so found of. Fresh fruit was on the counter top, some packaged ones in their can and box cabinet, and their cold items stored away for when they would make meals later in the week; Zeb had half of a mind to go through their kitchen cabinets and make a list of things they were low on and things they rarely used and didn't need to get so much of next time.
He only stopped that line of thought when he ambled out of their bedroom and stopped in the middle of the living room, looking outside past their enclosed screened-in porch at the rain coming down outside. The first time he had been on Lira San when it rained was nearly eight months after finding out that it had existed and he had brought his third group of Lasan survivors to the capital, only because two of the survivors had been officials of the Lasan Royal Court and needed to go straight to the capital to talk to the current Royal Family. That had been a very rough trip for Zeb, not because of who the survivors were but because they not only tried to help Zeb try to save the palace when it fell but they also didn't blame him one bit about him failing in his duty. The day that he presented the survivors to the Royal Family, as soon as he stepped out of the building where the monarchy and the government held office, Zeb looked to the sky as the heavens above opened up and let down its own tears in tune with his own.
That had been a bittersweet day for him and one that helped him solidify that was on the right path to healing and forgiving himself for what he hadn't been able to do. Zeb hadn't known how long he had been standing in the rain that day, but it had been long enough that the two former officials came out after they finished their business inside and had stood out in the rain with Zeb for longer still. No words had been exchanged between the three after that, they parted ways once the rain had come to a halt, and Zeb did not know how either one had taken to life in their new home until years later when both had died to natural causes within months of one another. It was only then that he had been told they had found solace in their new life, that they no longer had to be on the run from the Empire, and the news that the rest of the galaxy was free reached both of them before they took their last breath.
Zeb smiled sadly at those memories, shaking his head and tearing himself away from the weather outside their home. As he came into the kitchen he locked his gaze with Alex's, who was sitting at the kitchen table with a data pad in his hands, a cup of tea in front of him, and watching the Lasat look outside, lost in memory. He hadn't bothered him, having seen that look quite a bit in the last several days when they both had gone to the Temple several times to talk with the Lasan survivors, both publicly and privately. Alex felt that he had made some headway in gaining the trust of this group of survivors, enough at least that Taiki started not giving him a death glare every time he looked towards Alex or in his general direction; that was one Lasat who had publicly stated he wasn't ready to have a more in-depth private talk with the former Imperial, having only done a short fifteen minute conversation on the last day of the survivor's meeting. Alex agreed with him, he also did not want to push any more talks with anyone, either publicly or privately, until everyone was ready and willing to talk in full. That had been the only time they had all agreed as a group and Alex wasn't going to give up what little success just because he was more ready than they were.
"About time you got up, was going to start breakfast without you," Alex joked, taking a drink of tea as Zeb came to the table.
"No you weren't," Zeb said, rolling his eyes and grinning. "You didn't get up much earlier than me, I just didn't want to get up."
"I didn't, either, but I had to get up to use the 'fresher." Years ago he wouldn't have slept long enough to get to the point where he needed to wake up just because he needed to use the refresher, he'd have been up hours before that. Now that his life had taken a less hectic turn, and he no longer needed to function on less than six hours of sleep, Alex found himself relaxing a bit more, even before the war had ended. There still was that constant pull from his old Imperial self that he needed to get rid of, and many of his old habits he still struggled with, but that was a battle he was slowly but surely winning.
"Yeah, that's why I got up." Zeb then gestured to the data pad. "Whatca reading?"
"Oh, just a few things here and there, nothing really important." His smile faded a bit, his eyes losing some of the humor he had only seconds ago. "Light reading."
"Is that so? Your idea of light reading is tend data pads worth of long stories in half of a day." Sitting down in the chair next to Alex, Zeb leaned on the table; he hadn't quite taken notice that Alex had gotten slightly defensive when he had sat down. "What, exactly, is the 'few things' you're reading?"
"Some history of Lira San Gron had downloaded for me, plus some differences between the Lasana dialect and the Lira San one." Alex had studied a few languages while studying at the Academy but it wasn't until after Onderon did he start learning the Lasat language of Lasana. It had been a rather morbid learning experience now that he looked back at that part of his past and once he and Zeb started their friendship after Atollon, he was thankful he had someone who was willing to correct his pronunciations. "And, no, I do not read ten data pads worth of your so-called 'long stories' in half a day. Some of it is those trashy holo-dramas Hera got me hooked on when she was pregnant with Jacen."
"Really? Then you don't mind if I take a look at them." Grabbing the pad out of Alex's hands before he could get a good grip on it, Zeb gave him a wide smile as he looked down at the pad now in his hands. Scrolling through a list of things that had been downloaded onto it, and opening up some of the documents, he had to chuckle at some of the things on there. "Some of this I could've told you, this list of words different from Lasana is outdated by six years, and I don't see any of those holo-dramas on here."
"Zeb," Alex warned, then slumped back into his chair when Zeb's ears flattened against his skull, all humor left his face, his teeth bared, and his eyes glared up at the man sitting there, trying to look smaller than he was.
"So Gron decided it was okay to send you a history of atonement rituals?" Zeb growled, setting the data pad down with more gentleness than he wanted to at that moment. "What, exactly, are you going to do with that information?"
"I'm just reading about them, its not like I'm actually going to go through with them!" He tried to reach for the pad but Zeb held it down firm with his hand. "Garazeb, I am not going to through with any one of them, I promise you that. Those were made specifically for Lasat in mind, and I asked Gron to send me something that Lasats do to atone for what they did."
"Exactly, it was made for Lasats and Lasats only, you wouldn't be able to reach the half way point in at least two dozen of them. I know you're capable of taking quite a bit, but not with these." Picking up the pad, Zeb's eyes moved along as he scrolled down further; if his ears could, they would flatten against his head even more. He had to set the data pad back down before he read any further, pushing it away from both of them. "Some of these rituals were created on Lasan centuries ago for the Honor Guard to do in the days before they took their oaths, I know because I went through a couple of rituals myself. How did Gron come across these on Lira San? Even on Lasan almost all of them weren't widely known outside the Guard and they were lost when it fell."
"I honestly don't know, I really don't Zeb. He just sent me the information when I asked, that's all." Alex took in a deep breath to calm himself, it was not good for him to get just as angry as Zeb was at the moment. "Look, Zeb, Gron had a much worse reaction than you just did when I asked for those things. I'm surprised he sent the information at all. He wasn't very happy when I did ask and made me swear in the Temple, and in front of Chava and a dozen others, not to go through with them. I won't, Garazeb. I can't even make out what is supposed to be done in some of them!"
Zeb opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at the table in front of him. On Lasan there had been ways of showing a way that one was sorry of any past actions that might have caused hurt to anyone, many of them being atonement rituals that were publicly done in front of a large crowd and many of these rituals involved being physically hurt by the one who had suffered at the hands of the Lasat going through the ritual. Even when Zeb was a kit these rituals were rarely done, even the simpler ones that didn't require much, and he had only been present for two of these in his lifetime. By the time Lasan had fallen these rituals were almost unheard of being done, it was easier to just spar and let the troubles resolve themselves than go through a ritual that was hard to do, even for a Lasat. He could see why Alex wanted to study them and the tone he had only minutes before, and using Zeb's full given name, pacified him enough that he didn't believe that he'd go through with these things – at least not yet. He'd have a talk with Gron about giving him these type of rituals, even if it was just for information purposes.
The Honor Guard rituals, however, were something of a different matter and what made Zeb's anger stall. Those he hadn't seen since before he had taken his oaths, ones that he had seen others go through before him and ones he taken himself; seeing these rituals in front of him on the data pad, in written word, made his heart hurt all over again. It was another part of his life that he had thought had been lost but here it was, written down by someone who had the forethought to actually dictate these personal rituals to another so that they wouldn't be lost like his home planet was. Whoever had done this he wish he knew and this was another thing he'd have to ask Gron about, not now though. Not when his vision was blurring and not from anger, tears stung his eyes and he felt Alex's hand on his arm; Zeb looked over at him as he wiped his eyes, a worried look on his face.
"I'm fine, I am. I-I didn't expect to see any of that on there, especially not the Honor Guard ones. Those – almost all of them were done only in the company of the Guards themselves and those who were about to take their oaths. Very rarely were those done in front of anyone that wasn't about to take them nor were they normally done in front of anyone else but current and previous members of the Guards. Only the oaths were done in front of a large, public crowd." Zeb smiled lightly, remembering that he had been more worried about doing the rituals than taking his oaths as a member of the Honor Guard. "Seeing these here, I thought it was gone."
"Zeb, I'm sorry. I made a promise to myself before you brought me to Lira San that I wouldn't intentionally hurt you again and here I am, breaking that promise." The bitterness in Alex's voice made Zeb shake his head and put his other hand on top of Alex's.
"No, no you didn't. I saw those atonement rituals, and I got angry – I still am. You want to atone for what you did as an Imperial?" Reaching over to pick up the data pad, he brought it back over to Alex and placed it in front of him, then tapped lightly on the screen. "These aren't it, they were even hard for adult Lasat to do, and were rarely done even when I was growing up – I only witnessed two of them in my life and those were the easier ones. If you want to show everyone what I already know and love about you, then keep going to those meetings and help where you can. I'll be right beside you."
Alex smiled briefly and nodded, about to say something when a knock at their back door stopped him. Zeb took in a deep breath as Alex got up, taking his now very cold tea cup with him and sat it in the sink as he went to the door; both were a bit surprised that someone would bother with coming over and with the weather the way it was. Zeb stood up and turned around, noticing that Alex was slightly favoring his good leg as he opened the door – it wasn't very noticeable, even to him, but it was there. Has to be the weather, it's a bit cooler today, he thought to himself as Chava walked in, thanking Alex in Lasana then turned and started to hobble towards the kitchen with that mysterious smile she seemed to wear when she either wanted something or wanted to tell the pair something in one of her riddles. Soothing a scowl – he already had his daily limit on those – he greeted her with a forced smile instead.
"It's too wet out there to do anything, but a good day to make food for later," she said when Alex asked her why she had stopped by and held up the basket she held in one hand. Glancing down at the contents – which held a variation of vegetables and potatoes – Zeb looked at her with eyebrows raised.
"And what are you thinking we're making today?" Despite his attempts to hold his rough tongue, some of his words held a bit of heat to them, but Chava paid Zeb no mind and pushed the basket into his hands before she turned to Alex.
"Garazeb and I will make the soup, you'll make the tea and watch." Poking Alex with her walking stick, she eyed his bad leg. "There should be some tea leaves for your leg, this weather isn't helping it – and you'll drink the tea!"
Alex gave him a helpless look and shrugged, moving over to the sink to start filling up the tea kettle, Zeb rolled his eyes as he sat Chava's basket down on the table. His plans to go through their cabinets later were dashed as he looked through the contents of the basket, Chava moving around the kitchen and engaging Alex in a conversation in Lasana, a soft smile appearing as he looked at the contents of said basket a bit more. Despite his foul mood this morning, he knew it would lessen considerably as he recognized many of the vegetables, potatoes, and now the small bags of seasonings found at the bottom, to be ones that were originally from Lasan but could also be grown here on Lira San. The climate was similar to both planets despite Lira San being behind that nebula and it was a surprise that many of the foods Zeb had grown up with were growing here when he finally made the decision to settle down here, with only a little variation of taste and texture, and that made his mood a little brighter.
And he hoped it would get even more brighter later.