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Of Sith And Street Rats

Between thinking it best to steer as far away from the Core as possible given the current regime, and needing repairs to his ship, he finds himself on some backwater planet in the middle of nowhere. Not only that, but so far as he could tell, there were only a handful of cities worth the name with one of them being the capital city. Which was also oh-so-imaginatively named Capital City. It seemed to be his best bet, so it was the one he chose to land at.

While his ship was undergoing repairs, he heads out into the city. The workers don't need him breathing down their necks, so he may as well see what, if anything, was of interest. So lightsaber firmly hidden in his jacket, and anything the mechanics didn't need access to firmly locked, he heads out. May as well start with the market. Wherever it is.

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"Mmm, depends on what some of it is. There's the obvious ones like, say, not making objects go fly around in public. But there's others that are still fine to do since they're not extremely obvious."

"Others..." Garth'zel tilts his hand from side to side in a 'depends' gesture. "Depends on what's being done in what context around how many people."

"How do I know what to do if it depends?" Why can't Garth'zel have an easy answer for him? "And... an' does that mean you can't teach me how to use it?" Disappointment builds up at the thought.

Garth'zel calls his glass to his hand to take a sip, raising an eyebrow at Ezra. Not that he'd do so normally, just making a point. "Being able to do things like that will come in handy and it'll be stupid not to teach you. Like when you're old enough to help with certain repairs around the ship, trying to get a tool that got dropped somewhere tricky would be much more annoying to retrieve the hard way."

"As for the other, common sense often has the answer," he says with a shrug as he sets his glass back down to go back to focusing on his sandwich.

Despite the tug of longing Ezra feels at seeing Garth'zel move his cup with the Force, the little boy scowls, hard and fierce. "But I have common sense!" he protests. "But I don't know! I've never had'a hide it before!"

"The things you've been doing aren't things that people are generally going to notice as anything out of the usual," Garth'zel says patiently. "The ones that require common sense are things you don't even know how to do yet. Not consciously, at least."

Yet. Yet. But they'll be things he knows how to do someday, because Garth'zel said he would teach him. That means Ezra can't completely dispel his fear.

He knows Garth'zel wants him to, though, in that nameless way that he sometimes just knows, so he ducks his head, worrying the edge of his shirt. (His emotions are probably still completely transparent, even if he's trying not to be.) "What if I mess up?" he asks. "What if they find me anyway?"

"How that gets handled depends on what exactly happened and who's involved. If it's basically a regular person, I can make them forget they ever saw anything. Someone like us would be trickier to handle and it may come down to a fight. Which I'd be able to handle; if I weren't a good fighter, I wouldn't still be alive," Garth'zel says firmly.

"Before you ask, yes, I'll teach you how to defend yourself. But best to help you learn how to get a proper handle on your Force abilities first to make teaching you how to use them while protecting yourself more effective." ...Hopefully, he didn't just manage to use words too big for the kid again.

Maybe he did, but maybe it also doesn't really matter. The important message was communicated to him anyway - that Garth'zel can and will protect him. Hearing something like that is a powerful thing for a kid who's had no one looking out for him for a year. Not something Ezra can articulate, but something that definitely has an effect. Already seated next to Garth'zel, Ezra turns to bury his face in the man's side. Emotions are confusing and he doesn't know how to express them.

"What if I just stay with you forever?"

Garth'zel blinks but immediately wraps an arm around Ezra. He probably should have expected that burrowing attempt.

"Saying you want to be glued to my side permanently instead of having a day to explore on your own?" he teases gently. "Better if you can take care of yourself until I can get there to help instead of being completely reliant on me, isn't it?"

Yes, he'd be there as soon as he could, but better if Ezra is able to try to minimize the amount of trouble he's in for as long as possible to buy Garth'zel enough time to reach him.

"I guess..." Ezra says reluctantly, because no, he doesn't actually want to give away all his freedom. Still, he doesn't make a move to peel away from Garth'zel's hug either. It's been a rough day for him, emotionally, and a hug is just really what he needs. It's just Garth'zel's luck that he's the only one Ezra has to give him one. Besides, pulling back would take energy, and he's a little tired after two trips back and forth from his house.

Garth'zel, you might be stuck like this for at least a minute.

"But you'll stay with me until I learn?"

"I'm still learning new things and I'm an adult. What makes you think you're going to learn everything there is to know about the Force?" Garth'zel points out with a crooked grin.

Not exactly what Ezra meant, he knows, but it may serve as something distracting. Assuming Ezra decides to take that and run with it instead of veering off in a different direction entirely.

Not distracting enough. At least, not if Garth'zel was trying to distract him from the question Ezra was asking. If he was trying to distract Ezra into letting go of his hug so he can look up at him with a frustrated huff, though, he is one hundred percent on point.

"No, I mean, will you stay with me until I know how to- to protect myself?" He's not going to say take care of himself, because he already knows how to do that.

"Well, that's one of the responsibilities I accepted by agreeing to take you on permanently," Garth'zel points out.

...He's going to need to try to figure out what to work on when regarding that sort of thing, isn't he? One thing at a time.

"While I'm thinking about it and before I forget to ask, do you want to move what you were originally thinking of doing today to tomorrow since we've had unexpected work to do today?"

"But I didn't give you a 'sponsibility. I only asked if I could go with you." He really hasn't thought through what he'd been asking.

He kicks his feet under the table then, debating how honest to be. Even without lying, he doesn't have to say everything. On the other hand, he doesn't see a reason anymore not to admit what he'd been doing these past few days with all the stuff he'd come up with for Garth'zel to look at. "We don't have to," he says. "I just wanted you to stay a little longer. I didn't wanna be alone again."

"I mostly just wondered what the flowers were actually reacting to," Garth'zel says with a slight shrug. "I'm not really that invested in seeing them. I worked out that you were trying to find something, anything, to get me to stay when you brought them up."

It was not that hard to guess, kiddo. "So. Seeing what to do with your clothes and what absolutely has to be replaced today and getting things tomorrow to prepare to leave, it sounds like. What year of school were you in?"

If Ezra thinks he's not getting more mundane lessons, he thinks wrong.

"School?" The question seems to come out of nowhere. Ezra blinks, caught off guard. "I dunno. I went there a couple years?" And he's probably forgotten a lot of what he learned, honing only what he's needed to survive. "Why? I'm not going back there if I'm goin' with you."

"No, you aren't going back to your old school. That doesn't mean I'm going to be letting you escape having lessons with me as the teacher instead," Garth'zel says patiently.

He already figured on Ezra forgetting some of what he's learned and was intending on starting the year the kid had been in over again. Which should thrill the kid, he's sure. ~~Not.~~

Edited 2018-10-17 01:04 (UTC)

Ezra shifts in his seat, unsure of how he feels about the prospect of resuming his old school lessons. On the one hand, he remembers school being a little boring, but on the other hand, it won't be the same with Garth'zel, will it? It's been okay when Garth'zel was teaching him about stuff he wanted to learn. But on the other hand, what about the stuff he's not interested in?

"You don't have to," he finally decides, magnanimously absolving Garth'zel of any feeling of obligation. "I learned enough already to take care of myself."

Edited 2018-10-17 01:25 (UTC)

Garth'zel arches a brow at Ezra. "So you already have all the skills at reading, writing, and math you need? Along with an ability to understand the most common languages out there besides Basic?"

He already knows the answer to that. He's also not mean enough to present Ezra with his usual reading material and math problems far beyond his skill levels to make his point.

Ezra's little shoulders hunch defensively, and any mood he'd been in to hug Garth'zel evaporates instantly. "I've been doin' just fine already," he says mulishly. "I've been fine for a year!" Other than being lonely, but this isn't about that one bit.

"As you get older, you're going to need to know more of all of those things. Among others," Garth'zel informs him patiently. "Particularly math if you're ever going to fly this ship when you're old enough."

"That's leaving aside needing to be able to do math to help make sure you aren't getting cheated or swindled and to help you understand how valuable something actually is."

Most of Garth'zel's argument fails to win any ground with Ezra. He's pretty sure he can tell if he's getting cheated or swindled, or how much something is worth. Even if it's something he doesn't know yet, he thinks he can figure it out.

But one thing Garth'zel said catches Ezra's attention, and his eyes widen a little, not sure if he heard right, or how math relates to it.

"You'll let me fly your ship?"

"Not until you're at least fifteen," Garth'zel says firmly. "By then, you should be tall enough to see what you're doing without needing to have something stacked on the seat. Among other reasons, which yes, involves having the needed math skills to properly calculate things like the ship's path."

At least this time he remembered to use a word an eight-year-old was likely to understand rather than 'trajectory'.

"But you'll let me?" Ezra presses, regardless of the stipulations Garth'zel just set. "If I learn, you'll let me fly your ship?" His eyes are fixed on the taller man now with single-minded attention. This is big. This is bigger than almost anything he's ever been promised.

Look at that, Garth'zel. Looks like you've just found a carrot for your stick.

Edited 2018-10-19 00:36 (UTC)

"If you learn what you need to know in order to do so," Garth'zel says, still in that firm tone. "It's harder than it looks when you start watching me do it."

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