I have no excuse enjoy!
Chapter 6
After introductions of the kids with the missing member of the Ghost crew were over, Ezra took them outside into the opened hanger to make introductions of his own. He started with his daughter being properly introduced to the rest of her (soon to be hopefully) family then went on to his coworkers. After that, they all ate and played games which is standard for an Amazon cookout. Everyone was enjoying themselves and Ezra was starting to think that maybe he would be forgiven by those of the rebellion.
Ezra noticed that Hera was talking with Dante, probably about the ships in the hanger and what all needed to be done with them, Sabine was laying on the ground with the kids star gazing, and Ahsoka was sitting at one of the tables with Rex talking. Ezra also took notice that Iris was with Sabine and the other kids although she wasn't really talking with them just enjoying the view. If he had to guess she probably went over there first and the others followed. Either way he was happy she was getting along with everyone.
Ezra walked over to where Hera and Dante were and sat down. "...and that one over there crashed into the hangar because the engine gave out." Dante laughed while telling Hera the story of one of their most destroyed ships. "The owner of it said that he didn't care if we fixed it but sends us payments every month to keep it stored here. We work on it every now and then when we're slow."
"That's an amazing model of ship and he doesn't even want it?" Hera asked, dumbfounded.
"Says it's not worth the trouble fixing." Dante explained, shrugging.
Hera didn't respond, instead she looked over at Ezra and smiled. "So, how did you end up here?"
"Oh, ah, it's kind of a funny story. Me and Iris were traveling from one place to another and when we landed here they were celebrating, what was it, 346th anniversary of the overthrow, when they became an independent planet. Dante was one of the float drivers and almost ran over Iris and myself. She knocked me out of the way and they offered to help me with anything I needed as an apology. So I started renting a house here that I now own and got Iris into school. Although, she only went for about two years before being homeschooled." Ezra explained.
"Homeschooled? She didn't like regular schooling?" Hera asked, confused. From what she knew of the girl she seemed to be a very curious and eager learner. Always ready to try new things if need be.
"Nope. She stayed to herself at school so she wasn't making friends -even though she gets along with everyone in the community- and she enjoys being able to move around while working. Sometimes she'll walk in circles around here while reading." Ezra laughed. "But most of the time she does her schooling at the house because of her you-know-what." Last year Iris told him she felt she wasn't training enough and asked if she could start homeschooling so she could train and study. Ezra thought she meant that when she got done with her work she would meditate or something but one day he got home early and caught her using the Force to write her answers done in her data-pad. Hera's eyes widened and she nodded her head in understanding.
"She's, what, about ten years old so she's in fifth grade?" Hera continued.
"Actually, she's twelve. When I found her she was hanging on to life and while she's better now she still has a long way to go before she looks like her proper age. Then again, she just turned twelve a few weeks ago so she's doing alright. Anyway, she's in seventh now."
"Wow. What all is she studying?" Hera continued, choosing not to dwell on the sadder part of the story. "Math? Science?"
"A little bit of everything she can. Right now I think it's the town's history and astronomy." Unlike other planets' school systems, Amazon's school system lets the students pick what courses they wish to study and then go from there. Then after half a year they test them on the materials and let them choose new courses once they pass. If a student had too much trouble with a course, the school would provide a tutor or the student could choose something similar to the original material that was easier.
"And she's enjoying them?" Hera smiled.
"She is. She's a really smart kid, definitely nothing like me." Ezra laughed at the glare Hera sent him. "You want to ask her yourself?" He asked after a minute. Hera smiled at him and nodded her head so he called out to Iris. The girl in question looked over from her place on the floor before getting up and walking to the table Ezra, Hera, and Dante sat at. She sat down next to Ezra and looked up at him with big eyes. "Hera wants to know how you're liking school."
"It's good, I guess." Iris replied in a small voice. "I've always loved looking at the stars and history is important."
"You know, when I was your age, I was fascinated by the stars and space too." Hera said, making her voice soft like she was telling a secret.
Iris smiled at her, a sparkle in her eye. "Is that why you're a pilot? My dad said you were the best one the rebellion had when fighting the empire."
"Yeah, that had something to do with it." Hera answered. "I've also always loved the thought of flying through the sky. Gives me a sense of freedom."
"You know Iris, Hera's the one that taught me how to fly." Ezra said with a smile. "That's why I'm so good at it." Hera laughed at his showboating, shaking her head softly.
"Your dad's got a big head also." Hera replied, earning a laugh from Iris and an offended "Hey!" from Ezra. They talked and laughed and argued for about another hour before the cookout came to a close. Dante agreed that Ashoka, Hera and their crew could sleep in their respective ships in the hangar. "You will be coming back with us, right?"
"I don't know yet." Ezra answered hesitantly. "I want to talk with Iris about it first. This is the first home she's ever known and I don't want to take that away from her. Plus she still has school, even though I guess we could take that anywhere."
"Talk with her and get back to me by noon tomorrow." Hera said with a smile. "Now can you help me move Dume from your med-bay to mine?" Ezra did as he was asked. Moving Dume was not that hard of a task, he was out like a light and showing no signs of waking anytime soon. They got him hooked up to everything he needed and Ezra left with Iris shortly after that. They walked in silence to their home and once they entered Iris broke the silence.
"You want to leave with them." She said, quietly. She wasn't asking a question but rather making a statement.
"I want us to leave with them." Ezra corrected. "Iris, I think it'd be good for both of us. I really want to see everyone I left. I don't want to lose Hera and Sabine and the others again. But I'm not going to force you to leave. If you don't want to go, we won't go."
Iris looked at him for a minute. "What about school? What about my training? Or our house? Will we ever come back or are we leaving our friends for good?"
"Iris, I'm still going to keep the house and we'll come back and visit whenever you want. And if at any time you want to come back and stay we will. As for your schooling and training, you're already doing homeschool and your training can happen anywhere we are."
Iris looked at him for another long minute before saying, "Okay. We'll leave."
Ezra smiled at her and quickly gave her a hug. "I promise you won't regret this. The rest of the members of the rebelling will welcome you in with open arms and there'll be more kids for you to be with. Maybe even more in training like you so you don't have to hide anymore. Plus, we'll take our own ship so you'll have your space to get away. And like I said, if at any point you want to come back, we will."
Iris smiled back at her dad. She really wasn't sure about the change but if it made him happy she'd try it. Plus, she wanted to stay close to Dume so when he woke up he had a familiar presence. And if she was being honest, she actually kinda liked the crew that she's met so far and was excited to meet the rest. Plus, the two kids seemed really nice and inviting to her. She smiled at Ezra and gave him a hug before heading to her room for the night.
…
Morning came sooner than anticipated. Iris and Ezra walked back to the hangar where their ship was to get ready to leave with the rest of the former rebellion crew. They said their goodbyes to Dante and the rest of the mechanics before leaving. "How long is it going to take?" Iris asked as she sat in the copilot seat.
"I don't know. It'll be a while though, we're pretty far out." Ezra answered, leaning back in his seat as he let hyperspace do its thing. "Why don't you go find something to do? Like training or something?"
"Because I don't want to." Iris replied evenly. "Maybe I'd rather sit here and annoy you."
"Really, that's how you want to play this?" Ezra asked with a smirk. "You know I always win the most annoying contest."
"That was before I came around." Iris remarked, sticking out her tongue. Ezra smiled at her and leaned over to mess up her short brown hair. As expected, she pulled out of his reach with a whined "dad" at the contact, fixing her hair back how she liked it. "That's never funny and you know it," she glared at him. Ezra could only laugh at her expression. They sat in silence after that for a few minutes before Iris asked, "Can I ask you something?"
"Technically you just did," Ezra shot back with a smile. He looked over at her and saw she was being serious so he sobered up. "Of course you can, Iris. You know this."
"Will you tell me about Du- Kanan? When he was your master and what happened to him?" She asked, pleading in her eyes.
Ezra thought about it for a moment and decided it couldn't hurt to tell her some things. If any it would help. "Kanan and the crew found me on Lothal. Before that I was living on the streets since my parents were taken from me at a young age. They were stealing supplies from the Empire and I decided to be an inconvenience. I stole from them after they managed to steal the supplies and tried riding off with them. I didn't even know what was in the crates, I just saw them and decided I wanted them. Anyways they stopped me, of course, and I reluctantly helped them finish their mission. They were selling some rifles to a crook and giving food out to a local town. Kanan sensed the Force in me before we even properly met and set up a test to see how force sensitive I was."
"Why didn't you know I was force sensitive then? When you found me?" Iris blurted out before she could stop herself.
"I was constantly surrounded by the force at that time. It was the only thing guiding me forward. I guess somehow I just missed it." Ezra explained. In all honesty he knows he should have sensed it but he didn't. Maybe she had her wall too high up even on the brink of death or maybe the force itself blocked her out for some reason. At her nod he continued with the story. "I passed the test and he gave me the option to stay and train with him on the Ghost. I thought about it, almost declined because I barely knew these people that were wanting to take me away, but something in me made me agree to his offer against everything else in me telling me to run. He became my master, I his padawan, and the entire Ghost crew became my family over time." Ezra finished his tell, waiting for Iris to get her thoughts in order before he planned to continue. He knew his daughter had a very curious mind and wanted to give her the opportunity to ask questions if she desired to.
"What about what happened to him? Why does he have scars on his face? And why did you think he was dead?"
"The scars over his eyes happened long before the event that I thought had killed him. Our crew officially joined with the rest of the rebellion and were looking for a planet to house our base. We found one but shortly after me, Kanan, and Ahsoka left on a mission of our own. We were trying to find a way to stop inquisitors, or dark side users, that were constantly coming after us. We went to this planet, Malachor, and found a sith temple with a sith Holocene inside. We also found this dark side user, Darth Maul, and he tricked me into helping him. Kanan tried to warn me but I didn't listen to him and he paid the price for that. Maul tried to kill him so he could have me as his apprentice but luckily only managed to blind Kanan. After that Darth Vader, a Sith Lord, found us and we lost Ahsoka fighting him. Me and Kana-"
"Wait but Ahsoka's alive." Iris stated, looking worried. "She has to be. She's in the shop next to us going to the same place. She was with us just last night. There's no way sh-"
"Slow down Iris, I'm getting there I promise." Ezra laughed, putting a hand on her shoulder to ground her. "You're right, Ahsoka is alive but she wasn't for a few years. That's one reason you and her could communicate in the cave, remember."
"Right. I'm sorry dad, I'll be patient." Iris said, sitting back in her seat to show she was calm and ready to listen so Ezra started again.
"After the mission Kanan and I weren't really talking. He was trying to recover and learn to work with the force to guide him and I was caught in my guilt at losing Ahsoka and blinding my master. I was also using the sith Holocene at the time which really put a wedge between us. Maul also kept going back, trying to get me to join him. He didn't stop until Obi-Wan Kenobi killed him on Tatooine. I was the one that led Maul there and after I got back to the base, Kanan helped me get the last of the dark side from my mind. Maul had really managed to mess up my head in the year that he kept coming around. We were fine for a little while. But then our base was attacked and Lothal was in trouble. We went to try and help but Hera got captured on a mission and we had to go rescue her. Kanan was different during that mission. I had assumed it was because his lover was in trouble but I wish I had paid more attention to the signs that he didn't plan on coming back from that mission. He put me in charge and I told him to focus on getting Hera out and we'd find a way to get everyone home safe and maybe even finish the mission… We were just about to pick them up when we were attacked." Ezra took a deep breath. Even though Kanan was alive it still hurt to talk about his supposed death. Iris realized this and sent calming and reassuring waves through their bond.
"You don't have to continue, dad." She said in a small voice, leaning over and putting a hand on his arm.
"No, dear, it's alright." Ezra sighed, getting his thoughts in order. "It's good to talk about these things. I shouldn't have kept it in for so long." He took another deep breath before continuing. "Kanan and Hera had landed in the Empiral fuel yard, on top of one of the containers. When we were attacked, it blew up the yard. Kanan used the force to catch the explosion. I was going to help when he force pushed Hera at me, effectively knocking us both back. When he looked back at us his eyes were the clearest they ever were since Malachor and in them were protectiveness and acceptance. He knew he was supposed to die on that mission, but he made sure we made it out alive. He pushed us away as the explosion hit us and that was the last I saw my master. We went back to our makeshift camp, completely lost on what to do next. I left the camp shortly after, angry and hurt that I lost someone else. That was, until I met this giant lothwof named Dume. To this day, I'm not sure if it was a vision like dream or completely real but he guided me to my next move. There was a Jedi temple on Lothal, the one I used for one of my tests, and it was being mined by the Empire. We snuck onto the grounds and me and Sabine found this gateway to a plane of existence only for the force. It was weird, everything around me was happening at different times and I was just there walking around and listening as the whole universe played out around me. I was led to one portal out of all the others and found the battle between Vader and Ahsoka playing out in front of me. I watched as Vader got the upper hand and was about to kill Ahsoka but somehow I was able to intervene and pull her to safety. That's how Ashoka is alive today."
"But you couldn't do that for Dume?" Iris asked it like a question but Ezra could tell by her voice she already knew the answer.
Sadly, Ezra shook his head. "I wanted to. Believe me, I ran all over that place to find the right portal and when I did I was sure I could get to him before it was too late. But Ahsoka was my voice of reason. She told me the truth even though I didn't want to hear it. If I were to save Kanan when I planned to; me, Sabine, and Hera would've died. I watched as the flames engulfed him again, knowing there was nothing I could do to save him. After that we were hunted out of that plane by the Empire himself and Ahsoka and I split up until now. I went back to my time and helped end the Empire's control over Lothal but left my family in the process."
"And that brings us to now." Iris said, nodding her head. "How do you think it happened? Dume, I mean."
"I don't know. The force works in mysterious ways. However it happened, it was a gift from the force itself and not to be taken lightly." Ezra said with a smile. "Almost like someone else I know." He reached over and gave her a side hug, smiling down at her so she got the message of who he was talking about. "Now why don't we go find something to eat, yeah?"