(no subject)

[for_everyone]

In a corner booth, Hera and Kanan are settled over mugs of caf and Hera's datapad, its screen seeming to flash constantly as she flips through star charts and schematics. They've also been going through their tried-and-true motions for ensuring they aren't watched or overheard – surveillance droids aren't so much of a concern here, but Hera, with her back to the bar, keeps her eyes down on the table, her attention apparently consumed by her datapad, while her lekku are primed to sense approaching movement. Across from her, Kanan is leaned back on his bench, one arm resting along the top while his other hand his curled around his mug. His head is titled back, like he's resting, but his eyes flicker around the bar.

They speak quietly, without looking at one another.

"- no, I'd imagine if it were up to you, you'd want to go alone."

"I would rather not risk more pilots or ships than we have to," Hera answers. "But diplomacy was your suggestion, love. Doesn't that mean limiting our show of force?"

"Sure, but you should also have enough to cover your backs."

"Well, I do wish we had more variety in our fighter squadron, since we don't really know what we'll be up against."

"Hey, how about some more diplomatic thinking?"

Hera smiles, at last straightening, and raising her eyes from the datapad. "I think you're right. I just don't know if I'm much of a diplomat."



[ooc: Both pups here, open forever]

Comments

[notallofus]

Kanan snorts, he can't quite help it.

"We both know I'm not all that great at it, either. I think it's something about my face . . . "

Maybe his eyebrows?

[for_everyone]

"I'm pretty sure you got more training than I did."

That's part of what the Jedi did, right?

[notallofus]

"I mean," Kanan says, because it's true, "it doesn't take much."

It's a challenge to bite back a smile, but he tries.

"I was allowed to discuss a lot about diplomacy, sure. Maybe do a written assessment or two, while we were traveling."

[for_everyone]

Hera glances back down to her datapad.

"I did see my parents negotiating with allies while I was growing up. And -"

And, she actually had plenty of experience doing that herself. But that's not what she says. "I don't know that I always have the Jedi temperament."

[notallofus]

Kanan doesn't wince.

But --

"I think that's not always a bad thing, if I'm being honest. Being passionate about what we're trying to do is . . . not a disadvantage."

[for_everyone]

"Maybe, but sometimes I feel like I've been trained to assume hostility until proven otherwise."

She turns to her mug. "But maybe it's easier to not assume that when you've got the Force on your side."

[notallofus]

"Maybe it is. I'm not sure it's always wise not to keep the possibility in mind, though."

They never saw their squads coming, for one. And sure, the transition was fast, but surely there must have been something . . .

"Maybe don't let it control your decision-making, which I like to think at least some of Phoenix Squadron is good at, but the possibility isn't necessarily something to ignore."

[for_everyone]

"So don't think too much on it, but also don't ignore it."

Yet Hera smiles, looking up to him. "Does that sound like some Jedi philosophy?"

[notallofus]

"Live in the moment," Kanan intones solemnly, dropping his voice a little deeper in echo of the memory he's trying to evoke.

"I'm pretty sure I had that drilled into me at least a thousand times in the creche."

Chronic curiosity about what comes next was always something Caleb was good at.

[daringyoungman]

In theory, Dick Grayson is totally stealthy, always listening, can creep up on anyone.

In practice, the rafters aren't all dark and mysterious and a thirteen year old boy walking on his hands along one of them isn't exactly subtle.

It doesn't take long until an oh my gosh an actual fact alien catches his attention, and he pauses in his handstand, trying to think of a way he can approach that isn't totally uncool.

There is no way he can do this that isn't totally uncool.

[notallofus]

It's not that Kanan can read minds, exactly. But he can definitely detect the enthusiastic feeling of a mind like Dick's. Exposure to Ezra might have heightened this particular awareness, a little, but still.

Which is why the next words out of his mouth are --

"You know, Chopper didn't make one mistake today while he was straightening up the cabins. He's a good little guy."

[for_everyone]

"Is that right?"

Hera rests her head in one hand, while her other flicks over her datapad, and its screen goes blank.

"You don't have one complaint?"

[daringyoungman]

Did Dick imagine that? Some sort of reaction? Probably. Almost certainly. This isn't Gotham, not everyone you see in a bar is going to be planning a bank robbery.

(He is probably getting stir crazy with assassin training. Needs to punch a bizarrely themed criminal in the mouth.)

If that was a reaction, he's going to need to say hi before someone starts asking why a teenaged human is staring at them from the rafters without a good reason. If it wasn't, he still wants to talk and doesn't want to be that awkward kid who opens with 'do you know Superman?'

There is one thing that never fails to break the ice.

He drops out of his handstand, tucks into a single somersault, lands neatly on the bar, orders a Zesti cola, and then looks around as if he's just seeing who happens to be in the bar right now.

Assuming that that display has attracted attention, he can then make eye contact and grin and wave hello.

Perfectly normal icebreaker.

[notallofus]

Kanan doesn't react at first, just meets Hera's gaze and tilts his head in the kid's direction.

Good idea to say 'hi', or do they still have work to do?

[for_everyone]

Kanan and Hera do not share a telepathic connection, but Kanan can probably read Hera's raised eyebrows as 'Yes, I figured it was the boy who just gracefully fell out the rafters.'

But she looks back to the boy, and what she actually says, her voice hovering somewhere between cool and impressed, is, "That was quite a leap."

[daringyoungman]

Usually when Dick is - well, Dick - around here and people comment on it he feels singled out. But when he was deliberately trying for attention, he basks in it.

"Thanks, it's not..." he catches himself in the explanation that might come across as false modesty (even though it's not that difficult) and just goes back to: "thanks."

He pops the cola and hops over, not so much joining them in the booth as perching on a chair at the table one over, the back turned towards them onwhich he rests his drink.

"I'm Dick. I'm not new but I haven't been around for a while, so I haven't don't know you yet."

He's very good at keeping both of them in the conversation, even though space-human is just less interesting, sorry.

[notallofus]

"Kanan," the space-human says straightforwardly. (He loves Hera's raised eyebrows.)

"You've got good spatial awareness."

This is something Kanan is in the habit of noticing, too.

[explosive_artist]

Later, after Mom and Dad Hera and Kanan have had some time to talk things amongst themselves, Sabine gets up from her booth and heads over to report on her findings.

Let's just say diplomacy was not something big in Mandalorian history and traditions.

"Didn't find much and what I found for protocols may not be relevant as it came mostly from Satine Kryze's time on Mandalore."

[for_everyone]

As Sabine arrives, Hera slides sideways to give her room at the table.

"From what you said, these Protectors don't seem like they'd have much in common with pacifists."

[notallofus]

"Hey, if it tells us what not to do, that might be worth it."

It's more to go on than they have right now, anyway.

[explosive_artist]

"That's what I was hoping to find. At least some ideas on how the odler clans, like Rau and the Protectors, might have done peaceful approaches. Didn't realy find much aside from a show of stregnth and not attacking."

It's not much but at least it's worked in the past right?

[for_everyone]

Hera glances over to Kanan.

"Well, for us a show of strength might have to be balanced with how much we can expose our fleet."

[notallofus]

"Do we have ideas of how much we can realistically spare?"

Kanan is willing to bet that the answer's 'yes'.

"And what might count as a sufficient show, to them?"

[explosive_artist]

Sabine sighs and gives the question some thought.

"I would guess a small squad of fighters should do it. No command ships, that would look like an invasion. I did read of a few successful negotiations that began with one Clan approaching the other but I don't think you'll like the protocols these accounts favored."

"The route was the straightest and most obvious to the other Clan's territory. Weapon systems were powered but not engaged. And the fighters were in a tight formation. Basically making themselves easy targets if the other Clan changed their minds."

[for_everyone]

"So exuding overconfidence?"

She considers it, and then, "I wonder if that might be seen differently from non-Mandalorians."