cage fight AU concept 1

[bedlamsbard]

Some concept writing, something self-indulgent I’ve been working on to clear my head post-finals!  I started this scene last year for a different AU and have gone back to it a few times since, but this time it evolved into its own thing.  Like most of the others, this is a Devil’s Backbone AU with cadet!Hera and gunslinger!Kanan on Naboo.  As usual, please remember this is concept writing and not a polished, titled fic.

About 6.3K beneath the break.  (Also, sexytimes, if you wanted a warning for that.)

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Hera was definitely having second thoughts about coming to Kanan’s fight, even though it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The lower floor of the Spotted Shaak was hot and crowded with beings of what seemed like every species in the galaxy, most of them drunk or getting there.  Hera had spent her entire life in the company of either Twi’leks or humans – and never both at once – and while Twi’leks could certainly get rowdy on occasion, the last four years had been spent in the Imperial Academy, where such things were absolutely forbidden.  Hera was thinking longingly of the quiet of the Academy now, pressed against a suspiciously sticky wall in the big room and wishing that Kanan had chosen another way of making a living.

She hadn’t had to be here.  She could have said no when Kanan had offered and waited for him back in his room at the Poison Rose, boring as that might have been alone, or even stayed at the Academy for the night instead of taking the holiday off. Hera probably should have done the latter, since as careful as she was being, spending every free moment outside the Imperial Complex was starting to tell a little on her coursework.  She was still at the top of her class, there was no doubt about that, but it lacked the urgency she had felt before and she could feel herself slipping.

But she wanted to see Kanan, and a few extra late nights seemed worth that.

On the other hand, Hera still wasn’t certain that this was worth that, especially because she couldn’t even see Kanan: he had already gone off to join the other fighters in the locker rooms.

“I haven’t seen you before,” said a low, sweet woman’s voice with the familiar lilting inflection of a native Twi’leki speaker.

Self-conscious and badly startled, Hera turned to face the speaker, a woman a few years older than her with skin so dark a purple it was nearly black, shading to dusky lilac along the lengths of her lekku and bare arms, and bright orange eyes like a hawk. It was unusual coloration, but not unattractive.

Hera swallowed, dry-mouthed, and said, “This is my first time here.”  Despite her best intentions to the contrary, her normally-restrained accent bled into the words.

“I thought you looked shy.” The other Twi’lek smiled.  “I’m Tlarit,” she said, and looked inquiringly at Hera.

“Hera,” she said, hesitating even over those two syllables and biting her tongue on her surname. Many Twi’leks, especially plebeians, didn’t have them; not giving one wouldn’t make her stand out, especially since Tlarit hadn’t given hers either.

Tlarit hooked a hand into the curve of Hera’s elbow, smiling at her familiarly. “So did you come here with someone, Hera, or were you hoping to leave with someone?”  She waggled her eyebrows a little, her lekku twitching, just in case Hera hadn’t gotten the innuendo.

Hera felt her flush travel all the way up to her earcones and the base of her lekku, though the latter was covered by her cap. “I was hoping to leave with the person I came with,” she said.

Tlarit’s laugh was low and sweet. “Anyone I know?  Though I haven’t seen you around before.”

“His name’s Kanan,” Hera said hesitantly. “He’s one of the fighters tonight.”

“Human boy?”

At Hera’s nod, Tlarit grinned, revealing sharpened teeth – unusual for a Twi’lek female.  “He’s a handsome one.”

Hera hadn’t been aware that it was possible for her blush to deepen, even though it wasn’t as though Tlarit had said anything particularly racy.

“I bet he kissed you for luck and swanned off with the other fighters,” she said, tugging Hera in the direction of the crowd. “Come on, darling – let’s get you a drink before he goes on.”

“I don’t drink,” Hera protested.

“And you’re still here? That’s brave of you.”

Hera didn’t think that “brave” was really the appropriate word, but she didn’t see a point in saying as much.  Tlarit’s grip on her elbow was strong enough that she didn’t want to try to pull free and risk causing a scene, either, and – well, it wasn’t as though she had anywhere better to be.

She followed the other woman as she threaded her way through the crowd, occasionally throwing an elbow and occasionally flashing a bright smile instead.  She was wearing a low-cut top that revealed rather a lot of her substantial cleavage, which Hera suspected helped; she knew that she wouldn’t get the same effect even if she was inclined to try, which she wasn’t.

Tlarit released her to collect a couple of brightly colored drinks from the bar, offering them both to Hera, who stared blankly.  Tlarit lifted them one at a time.  “This one’s meiloorun juice and Corellian vodka, and this one’s a local Naboo cocktail, I think it’s got three kinds of fruit in it?  Kicks like a gutkurr, though.”

“I’ll take the meiloorun one,” Hera said after a moment, and Tlarit passed it to her.  She tasted it uncertainly, relieved to find that it mostly just tasted like meiloorun.  “How much do I owe you?”

Tlarit waved that off. “Call it a gift from one Twi’lek to another. Us girls need to stick together, hmm?”

Hera smiled back, made a little uneasy by the proffered camaraderie.  She took a less cautious sip of the cocktail again and coughed; this time she had tasted the alcohol.

“Easy,” Tlarit said soothingly. “Don’t drink too fast.”

“You don’t say,” Hera managed, raw-voiced.  As Tlarit grinned in easy amusement, Hera cast around for some kind of small talk to offer up.  Kanan was easy to talk to, about anything and everything, and in the unlikely case they ran out of material Hera had recently discovered that kissing worked just as well and even better.  That wasn’t exactly an option here.

Besides Kanan, Hera couldn’t actually remember the last time she had talked to anyone for more than a minute or two other than to give a report or to defend herself in interrogation. It had probably been Agent Beneke; it certainly hadn’t been any of her classmates, even in group projects.

Hera would much rather have been back in Kanan’s rented room making out, which was a new and exciting development in their strange friendship.  She hadn’t thought she was capable of wanting anybody, let alone a human man.  She hadn’t even thought she was capable of likinganybody, given that she hated everyone she had met at the Academy over the past four years.

She must have been quiet for too long, because Tlarit gave her a thoughtful look and said, “You don’t do this often, do you?”

Hera tasted her drink again to cover up her reaction. “Which part?” she asked cautiously. “I mean – I haven’t been to one of these before, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wasn’t,” Tlarit said. Her gaze flicked to Hera’s covered lekku again, then to her neck.

Hera covered the base of her throat with one hand even though there was nothing there to hide, looking around the room and wishing Kanan would come back.

“How did you meet Kanan again?” Tlarit asked.

“I didn’t say.”  Hera bit her lip.  “It’s kind of a long story.”  One she couldn’t think of any way to tell without revealing that she was an ISB cadet, which probably wouldn’t go over well with this crowd.

“If you’re in some kind of trouble,” Tlarit began cautiously. “Kanan’s very sweet, but he’s a man, and men aren’t exactly the most observant creatures in the galaxy –”

Hera stared at her, uncomprehending. “I’m not in trouble.  I just haven’t – oh, no.”

“What is it?” Tlarit demanded, turning around to look over her shoulder.  She had been standing with her back towards the door and hadn’t seen what Hera had seen.  Not that it would have meant anything to her, unless she had a lot more experience with the ISB Academy than Hera had assumed.

Hera looked frantically around for somewhere to hide.  “The boys who just came in – I know them.  If they see me here –”

Then it would be all over the Imperial Complex by morning, and Hera would never hear the end of it. Not to mention whatever Agent Beneke would say, which would probably be the least of her worries –

Tlarit grabbed her free hand and said, “Come on.”  Before Hera had a chance to respond, the other woman was dragging her through the crowd and into a narrow hallway just off the main room.  She put her head into a room with an open door, apparently found it empty, and drew Hera inside.

“If the fights had already started there would have been someone in here already, but no one’s gotten their engines revving yet,” she observed as she slid the door shut behind them. “That won’t be true in about an hour or so.  Who were they?”

The room had a single bed, a table with an empty water carafe on it, and a few chairs, with a window that looked out onto the street above them.  Hera glanced at the bed, feeling heat rise in her cheeks, and said, “They’re – they’re classmates of mine.  I’m a student.”  Probably better not to say a student of what. Kanan didn’t seem to mind, but he was different.

“That’s all?” Tlarit asked, eyeing her narrowly.

“They think some things about Twi’lek females,” Hera muttered, glancing down. “If they saw me here, then they’d – they’d be certain of it.”  Which wasn’t fair, because she wasn’t even sleeping with Kanan.  Not yet, anyway.  “And yes, Kanan knows.”

“Some beings are idiots,” Tlarit said sympathetically, but she didn’t look quite convinced by this.

Hera had to admit that it didn’t sound particularly convincing, even though it was, technically speaking, the truth.  She had just left out a few pertinent details.  And Kanan did know.

“I can’t hide in here forever,” she said, changing the subject. “I told Kanan I’d watch him fight –”

“By the time the fights start, no one’s watching the crowd,” Tlarit said.  She hesitated briefly.  “Unless you want me to get him now?”

It was tempting, because Hera would have liked nothing more than to go back to Kanan’s quiet room in the Poison Rose, order in food, and spend the rest of the evening making out. But Kanan had told her that he didn’t fight unless he really needed the money, which meant that if he didn’t do so now he might not be able to afford the room.  Or the food.

She shook her head reluctantly and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.  “It’s all right.  I don’t think they can really tell Twi’leks apart anyway, especially if I’m out of unif –” She stumbled over the word, glancing up at Tlarit to see if she had caught the slip.  Plenty of private schools required uniforms.  There was no way that Tlarit could know she meant the ISB Academy.

“If they didn’t see me, then there’s no reason for them to think I’m here,” Hera said quickly. “And they’ll be watching the fights anyway – I mean, that’s why they’re here. Probably.”  She couldn’t think of any other reason for them to be here. Like most humans she had met, Imperial cadets enjoyed violence, both watching it and participating in it.

Tlarit frowned at her, worried in a way that made Hera self-conscious and uncomfortable.  She could guess what the other woman was thinking, but it wasn’t true.  There just wasn’t anything she could say to make Tlarit believe that.

Half-heartedly, she said, “You don’t have to stay here with me.”

“Us Twi’lek girls need to stick together,” Tlarit said, her frown deepening a little. “Especially with all these humans around.  There aren’t too many people from the enclave here tonight.”

Hera blinked. “What enclave?”

Tlarit blinked back at her, surprised. “The Twi’lek enclave.  You know – here in Theed.”

“There’s an enclave here?” Hera said, then could have kicked herself.  She hadn’t known that because she hadn’t started leaving the Imperial Complex on a regular basis until she had met Kanan, but she should have at least pretended to know it.  A civilian would have known that.  “I don’t get out very much,” she added. “Is – is it nearby?”

“It’s not too far away,” Tlarit said. “Hera, I’m serious.  If you’re in some kind of trouble – if you’re in a bad situation – there are people who can help you.  If you need to get in contact with someone on Ryloth –”

“No!” Hera said sharply, leaping up.  Tlarit didn’t move, but from the way her eyes narrowed Hera knew she had reacted the wrong way.  Well, she hadn’t needed Tlarit to tell her that.  “No,” she said again, trying to keep her voice calm and clenching her hands into fists so that Tlarit couldn’t see them shaking.  “No, I – my family’s not on Ryloth.”

Watching her steadily, Tlarit said, “Or the fleet?”

Hera stared at her. “That’s treason.”

“Hera –”

She was interrupted by a knock on the door and Kanan calling, “Hera?  Tlarit?  Are you in there?”

“Yes!” Hera said, looking away from Tlarit with a gasp of relief as the door slid open and Kanan appeared.  He looked inquisitively at them, then made a low, pleased sound of surprise as Hera flung herself at him, wrapping an arm around her waist as he caught her.

“Are you all right?” he asked, sounding worried.

Hera kissed him quickly. “I’m fine.  There are a lot of people outside,” she added as a half-hearted explanation that she didn’t think for a moment he actually believed.  “Tlarit found me somewhere to sit down.”

“We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Kanan said, his expression concerned. “Really.”

“It’s all right.  I just got a little overwhelmed.”  She kissed him again.  “When are you up?”

“Third.  The first fight’s starting in about ten minutes.  I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

Hera wondered if he had spotted the other ISB cadets too, recognizing them for what they were even out of uniform.  He was observant enough for that, even if he had never met them.

Something on her face must have asked the question, because he said, low-voiced, “Yes, I saw them. They were over by the bar.  Did they see you?”

“I don’t know,” Hera admitted. “I don’t think so.”  She kissed him quickly. “I don’t think they came here for me.”

“That’s good.”  He looped his arms around her waist, smiling down at her, but there was a serious edge to it.

“What happens now?” Hera sked him, eager to change the subject. “Do I wish you good luck, or is that bad luck?”

“Luck’s nice,” he grinned. “I don’t need it, but it’s nice.”

“This is traditionally where you promise him a nice reward if he wins, or a consolation prize if he doesn’t,” Tlarit put in from Hera.  Hera turned to look at her blankly, and she clarified, “Generally in the form of sexual favors.”

“Oh!” Hera said, her face going hot.

“She’s joking,” Kanan said quickly, but his cheeks were burning.  He glanced over his shoulder as a bell sounded somewhere in the main room and said, “I’ve got to go.  Are you going to –”

“I’ll come watch,” Hera promised.  She leaned up to kiss him again, managing to keep her voice steady as she whispered, “There might be sexual favors later.  Whether or not you win.”

“Hera –”

She pushed him quickly back out into the hallway before he could finish, the door sliding shut between them.  Tlarit arched a curious eyebrow as Hera turned back to look at her.

“We’re not actually sleeping together,” Hera said.  She hadn’t thought it was possible to blush harder, but apparently it was; she could feel heat in her ear cones and all the way up to the base of her lekku.  “I mean…not yet, anyway.”

“I see,” Tlarit said, sounding thoughtful.  Hera could see her mentally revising whatever she had previously thought about them and wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or embarrassed.  “Do you want to?”

Hera’s lekku twitched in a reaction she couldn’t help.  “I don’t know.  Yes.” She caught her breath and added quickly, “We should go.  I mean, you came here for the fights, you probably want to see them.”

Tlarit nodded, her eyes narrowed as she considered Hera.  As they were leaving the room, she said casually, “What’s your surname again?”

“Syndulla,” Hera said without thinking, then glanced anxiously at Tlarit.  Then they walked into the roar of sound and people that was the main room and Hera forgot about it, letting Tlarit drag her through the crowd to the front, near the cage where a lanky Rodian and a narrow-hipped Pantoran were sizing each other up.

“They’re going in order of weight class,” Tlarit half-shouted into her ear. “More or less. Later rounds that stops mattering.”

“The order?”

“The weight class.” Whatever else she was going to say was lost in the rush of yelling as the Rodian took a swing at the Pantoran and the fight began in earnest.

Hera had been expecting something like the measured sparring matches at the Academy, not the frenzy of violence that followed.  By the time the Rodian hit the floor and didn’t get up again, she was surprised to find herself gasping, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her lekku.  As a pair of Gungans hauled the luckless Rodian out, a slim, pretty Togruta woman dressed mostly in what looked like lingerie flung herself into the cage and the Pantoran’s arms.  He pressed her back against the mesh as he kissed her and there was another roar of approval; Hera glanced aside, embarrassed, until the girl dragged the Pantoran out of the cage and through the crowd, presumably to one of the rooms in the back of the cantina.

The next pair of fighters were both female, one a green-skinned near-human who Hera cautiously thought was probably a Mirialan, the other a Nautolan with elaborate tattoos on her head-tendrils.  They were both stripped down to hip-cloths and breast bands, making the males and quite a few of the women in the crowd shout appreciatively.

The Nautolan won, but leaned down to help the Mirialan up; the two women grinned at each other, then left the cage arm-in-arm, to yells and propositions from the watching crowd.

Kanan was up next, shirtless and barefoot, so utterly focused that he didn’t even look at the audience as his opponent, a horned Zabrak whose grin revealed sharpened teeth as he said something to Kanan.

“Nobody ever dies during these, do they?” Hera asked Tlarit uneasily.

“Hardly ever,” Tlarit reassured her, but she took Hera’s hand in hers anyway.

Hera remembered Kanan in the forest with the Trandoshans, that swift, efficient violence that Hera knew hadn’t been learned in any kind of cantina brawl no matter what he claimed. It was on full display now, fast and utterly brutal.

The Zabrak never had a chance.

He got two good hits in – enough to make Hera dig her nails into Tlarit’s hand – before Kanan finally slammed a kick into his chest that sent him spinning backwards, bouncing off the mesh of the cage before he hit the ground and didn’t get up again.

Tlarit pushed Hera forward as the Gungans opened the cage doors to drag the unfortunate Zabrak out; Kanan was shaking his head a little, as if coming out of a trance, then spotted her and grinned.  He followed the Gungans out of the cage, heedless of the shouts of the crowd – a few women and men had started to move forward until they saw him looking at Hera – and came over to loop an arm around her waist.  Hera cupped his face between her palms and kissed him, feeling him breathing hard, the heat of his body against hers spurring a sudden rush of desire that drowned out every other thought in her head.

Neither of them said anything, but when they drew apart, breathing hard, Hera grabbed his hand and pulled him back in the direction of the back rooms.  He came without protest and without looking for his shirt or shoes.

They stumbled into the nearest room with an open door already kissing again, Kanan hitting the door control with more presence of mind than Hera had left.  She was already tugging at the front of his pants, then, distractedly, at the hem of her own shirt.  Kanan helped her get it off, tumbling her back onto the room’s single bed as Hera arched up towards him.

He kissed his way down her body, mouthing at her breasts through her plain bra and making Hera gasp, then moved his mouth lower, across her belly, then paused to strip her out of her remaining clothes, leaving her naked in the bed.  He pressed another kiss to the inside of her hipbone, arching an eyebrow at her in a question.

“Yes,” Hera said shakily. “Yes, Kanan, yes –”

Then his mouth was on her, and Hera almost screamed.

*

The indeterminate period of time that followed passed in a haze of sensation that left Hera curled happily around Kanan, boneless and a little dazed and so satisfied that coherent thought was mostly beyond her.  She hadn’t thought sex would be like that.  She hadn’t thought anythingwould be like that.

Kanan had his arm around her, absently tracing one of the markings on the curve of her hip.  “These are pretty,” he told her when he saw her looking at him.

“They’re caste markings,” Hera said.  She shifted her hips a little, feeling the unfamiliar ache in her thighs, and touched one of the scars on Kanan’s chest. “What’s this from?”

“Blaster bolt.  A while ago.”

“How long?”

“Clone Wars.”  He arched an eyebrow at her questioning look. “So, a while ago.”

That was one way to put it. Hera yawned and put her head back down against his chest.  She hadn’t been planning to have sex with him tonight, but she had been planning to eventually.  And – she couldn’t have not had him tonight.

“How much money did you win?” she asked him sleepily.

“Enough to keep me in room and board for a few weeks,” Kanan said.  He slid a sideways glance at her, then added, “Or for passage for two offworld.”

It took Hera moment to realize what he had said, then she sat straight up, exhaustion suddenly gone. “What?  You want to leave?”

“With you,” Kanan clarified quickly.

“Why?” Hera demanded.

“I don’t exactly enjoy living in the belly of the Empire,” Kanan said after a moment, sitting up too. “And you deserve better than the Academy.”

Hera looked away.  “I worked hard to get in.  And what do you have against the Empire, anyway?”

He shrugged, then admitted under the force of her glare, “They killed everyone I ever knew.”

Hera stared at him. “What?”

He glanced aside, and that was how Hera knew it was true.

“Kanan,” Hera began, without any clear idea of how she was going to continue. “I –”

He leaned over and kissed her.  Hera kissed him back automatically, lifting a hand to his cheek.  Her whole body felt alert to his touch, over-sensitive; she suddenly wanted him again more than she wanted to breathe.

“Can we talk about this later?” she whispered against his mouth.

She felt Kanan’s smile. “Yeah,” he said. “We can talk about it later.”

“Good,” Hera said, and pulled him down to her.

*

She woke up much later to the thin, watery light of early dawn filtering in through the window across them.  Kanan was asleep, his arm flung across Hera’s waist; the sheets had been kicked off the bed, but the room – and Kanan – was warm enough she hadn’t noticed.  It smelled like sex.

Hera slid out from under Kanan’s arm, pausing to regard him for a few moments – there was a bruise coming up on his face where the Zabrak had hit him – then padded over to the small refresher.  She used the facilities and washed her hands, regarding herself in the scratched mirror. She didn’t look any different, except for the hickeys on her neck and collarbone.

She could leave.

She could leave him and go back to the Imperial Complex, pretend this had never happened or keep sneaking around with him.  Or she could leave with him and go away and do – what?

Fly, she thought with a sudden pang, closing her hands on either side of the sink.  She didn’t know if she would get the chance in the ISB, but if she left – if she and Kanan could get a ship somehow, then she could fly.  She could fly anywhere.

That would be worth it.

Would it? she wondered, and then, almost immediately, Yes.

Yes, she wanted Kanan. Yes, she wanted to fly.  Yes, she wanted –

She did want to be free of the Empire.  What had happened last night with her classmates had made that clear.  It would make her a deserter, but Hera could live with that.  She thought she could live with that.

It couldn’t be any worse than actually being a cadet.

She nodded to herself, still a little uncertain, and left the refresher.  She climbed up onto the bed beside Kanan, seeing him stir, then open one eye and smile when he saw her.  “Hi.”

“Hi.”  Hera leaned down to kiss him, which still sent a thrill through her.  “Yes,” she told him as she pulled back.

He hesitated. “Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll come with you.” She kissed him again.  “If you still want –”

“Yes.”  He wrapped an arm around her waist, grinning up at her with his face alight.  “It’ll be great,” he promised.

“We’re getting our own ship.”

“Any one you want.”

“And I’m flying.”

“I’m a great copilot.”

Hera grinned against his mouth.  “Can we have sex again?”

“Yes.”  He kissed her. “Then breakfast, then we can go to the spaceport –”

“Sex first.”  She clamped her knees alongside his waist and flipped them over, letting Kanan settle between her thighs as he stroked his hands up her hips.  He kissed her again, catching her lower lip between his teeth.

Then someone knocked on the door.

“Go away!” Hera and Kanan both yelled, barely a beat off each other.

“It’s Tlarit!” came the response. “Kanan, I’ve got your clothes from the locker room –”

“Leave them outside the door!”

“I can’t!”  There was a pause, and then Tlarit added, “You’d better both be decent when you come out here.”

Kanan sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, looking irritated.  Hera slumped back, fighting down frustrated lust.  “We can be in this room, can’t we?”

“Yeah, it’s a perk of the fight.  They rent the whole cantina out.”  He groaned and reached down to hook his pants and underwear up from the floor, then found Hera’s shirt and bra and handed them to her.

Hera found the rest of her clothes under the tangle of sheets on the floor and dressed quickly, then leaned in to kiss Kanan quickly as he started towards the door.  “I meant it,” she said. “About leaving with you.”

He smiled against her mouth, then kissed her again and reached for the door.

Tlarit, on the other side, didn’t even give him a chance to speak before she thrust his shirt at him. “Put that on.”

Kanan did, complaining, “This couldn’t have waited?”

“No.”  She handed him his boots, gun belt, and holstered blaster next, waiting impatiently as Kanan finished putting them on.  Her gaze flickered to Hera and she added warmly, “Good night?”

Hera supposed her blush spoke for itself.

“Tlarit, what’s this about?” Kanan asked. “Did something happen with the fights?”

“No, nothing like that.”

They followed her down the hall and into the cantina’s main room.  The cage had been cleared away and a few cleaning droids were moving around, sweeping up the last of the detritus from the previous night.  A few patrons were at the tables that remained, being seen to by a server droid; Hera spotted the Mirialan and Nautolan fighters, sitting together over a pot of caf and a plate of pastries.  Another table –

“Hera!”

Her cousin Doriah caught her in a bear hug that lifted her off her feet.  “Doriah?” she gasped as he put her down, then cupped her face between his palms, looking at her like he couldn’t believe she was really here. “What – what are you doing here?  Are you –”

The last time she had seen her cousin had been at the colony, when everything had been fire and blood and terror.  She hadn’t even known if he had survived.

He was taller than her now, broad-shouldered but too thin, his handsome face hollow-cheeked.  Hera just stared at him, barely able to believe that he was here and this wasn’t some kind of fever dream.

“We came for you,” Doriah said.

“We?” Hera said, a little blankly, then saw Doriah’s mother, her aunt Clotho, approaching from behind him. She put her arms around both of them, pressing a kiss to Hera’s forehead.

“Hera,” she breathed. “You’re all right?”

“I’m – I’m fine,” Hera said, too stunned for anything else.

Clotho disentangled her gently and held her at arm’s length, studying Hera’s face.  She was a tall Twi’lek woman with blue-green skin who looked a great deal like her younger sister, Hera’s mother Alecto.  “I didn’t tell your parents because I didn’t want to get their hopes up again,” she said, answering the question Hera hadn’t even thought to ask.  “I would have come alone, but this one –”  She touched Doriah’s lekku fondly, “– was in the room with me when Tlarit called, and he insisted on tagging along.”

“Xiaan wanted to come, but I’m not letting her off the Forlorn Hope,” Doriah said with a grim note in his voice.

Hera turned to stare at him. “Xiaan?  Is – are –” Are they all safe? she wanted to ask.  If the others had been let go, or –

“It’s just us,” Doriah said. He put his arm around her shoulders again, as though he couldn’t bear not to be touching her for even that long. “We were separated.  Xiaan and I – we’ve only been with the fleet a few weeks.  This is the first time we’ve been apart since…it’s been a while.”

Hera turned to look at Tlarit, because she couldn’t think of anything else to do. “You told them.”

The other woman met her eyes. “I knew the Syndulla was looking for a green-skinned girl named Hera, about your age.  And Clotho and I go back.”

“Hera?” Kanan said quietly. He had been watching them silently the whole time, but when he Hera looked at him it was to find his expression confused and a little worried.

Doriah shot him a sharp glare, his fingers twitching towards the blaster holstered on his hip. “Hera?” he demanded.

“Kanan this is my aunt Clotho and my cousin Doriah,” Hera said, falling back on politeness. “This is Kanan, my –”  She stumbled over the words and finally compromised with, “– friend.”

Doriah looked suspicious.

“Hi,” Kanan said, cautiously polite.

Clotho nodded back, equally polite, but Hera noted that her hand was near her blaster.  “Hera, we’re leaving,” she said. “Back to the fleet. Do you have anything you want to bring with you?”

“Leaving?” Hera repeated, startled and feeling like things were happening to quickly for her to keep up with them.  “But – I –” She had just decided to go with Kanan.  Her family hadn’t factored in.  She hadn’t thought –

She said the only thing she could think to say, which was, “My things are at Kanan’s.  And I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.”

“We can get you something to eat once you’re back on my ship,” Clotho said. “And we can get your things.  But I don’t want to stay on Naboo any longer than we have to.”

Hera opened her mouth, shut it, then looked at Kanan again and said the only thing she could think of, “Will you come?”

“Hera, he’s a human!” Doriah said in Twi’leki, outraged.

In the same language, Kanan said dryly, “I’m aware of that, thank you.”

Hera stared at him.  She hadn’t known he spoke Twi’leki; he had an extremely strong upper-class Coruscanti accent that he didn’t have in Basic.

To Hera, in Basic, he said, “I’ll come if you want.  I need to pick up my winnings, though.”

“All right,” Hera said, then shrugged out from under Doriah’s arm to kiss Kanan quickly on the mouth. “We’ll wait for you.”

He returned the kiss, gave Clotho a self-conscious nod, and stepped away, heading for the passageway that led to the back of the building.  As soon as he was out of sight, Doriah grabbed Hera’s arm again and said, “We should go now –”

“I’m not leaving without him!” Hera snapped.

“Hera, blast it, we came all this way for you, not some human who –”

Hera’s comlink crackled.  She snatched it off her belt and, because he was the only one who had her frequency, said, “Kanan?  What –”

“Hera, get out, get out now!” His voice was pitched high with panic.

“What –”

“Don’t wait for me, just go!”

A sound Hera didn’t recognize cut off whatever he was about to say next, then an indistinct voice too far away for her to make out the words, but dripping with menace.  Horrified, she started towards the back of the room before Clotho caught her shoulder and said, “We’re leaving.”

“I’m not –”

“Hera, get out!” Kanan yelled, then the comlink went dead.

Hera stared at it in horror until Clotho and Doriah each grabbed an arm and thrust her forward, towards the doors.  The other patrons in the cantina were on their feet, looking around with their hands on their weapons, but no one seemed to know what was going on. Tlarit ran forward to the doors, looking outside and reporting, “There are stormtroopers and a tank at the end of the street, but the other way is clear –”

“Is that for us?” Doriah demanded, at the same time Clotho said, “Is there another way out?”

“Yes, this way –”

They followed Tlarit to a side door that led out into the alley between the cantina and the next building, Hera twisting around frantically and hoping Kanan was following them.

He was nowhere in sight, but stormtroopers were running into the cantina, to the outrage of the patrons still there.  Doriah shut the door behind him and smashed the butt of his blaster into the control panel; shooting it would have been better but he clearly didn’t want to risk the attention a blaster shot would bring.

They took the ladder up to the roof of the next building, where Hera spotted Clotho’s small shuttle parked several roofs over amidst the dubious cover a rooftop garden.  Presumably the owners of the building weren’t aware of the intrusion.

Ignoring Doriah’s grab for her, Hera scrambled to the edge of the roof, looking down into the street below.  There was a troop carrier parked directly outside the cantina’s door, surrounded by anonymous stormtroopers.  The tank Tlarit had mentioned blocked off one end of the street.

Hera looked around for any indication that the ISB was there, but couldn’t spot Agent Beneke or anyone else she recognized.  Then the doors to the cantina opened and a being she didn’t recognize emerged – tall, pale-skinned, elongated beyond the human norm –

A Pau’an, she realized after a moment of confusion, and one wearing Imperial insignia and carrying something she didn’t recognize in one hand.  Behind him came another pair of stormtroopers, with –

Hera jerked forward and Doriah grabbed her from behind, keeping her from pitching forward off the roof.

“They’ve got Kanan!” she hissed.

He was unconscious or the next thing to it, being manhandled by the two stormtroopers on either side of him.  Even from up here, Hera could see the fresh blood on his face.

As she stared, he twitched a little, as if he could feel the force of her attention, then raised his head blearily in her direction.  He shook his head slightly, like a private message just for her, then slumped again as the Pau’an looked back at him.

“We have to –”

“We have to go,” Clotho said firmly from behind her. “We can’t do anything against that many stormtroopers, and we definitely can’t do anything about that Inquisitor.”

Hera looked back at her. “Inquisitor?”

“That’s a lightsaber he’s got.”

Hera stared down at the street below as the stormtroopers bundled Kanan into the troop carrier.  The Inquisitor – if that was what he was – paused just outside the door, looking around as if searching for them, then disappeared into the troop carrier.  A moment later it rumbled away down the street, leaving Hera staring after it in despair.

Clotho turned her around with a hand on her shoulder.

“We found you,” she said. “We’ll find him.  But right now, let’s go home.”

Hera stared at her for a long moment, then bit her lip and nodded. Clotho squeezed her shoulder, then turned away.

With a last glance back at the street, Hera followed her aunt.