Chapter Text
Ezra glanced over his shoulder as he walked on the edge of the street, eyes narrowing briefly before he turned back around. Gaze darting across the crowd, he found a mark and weaved through the crowd toward them. The teen slipped a hand out of his pocket, keeping it close to his side as he stared straight ahead. He would collide with the Rodian in less than three seconds now unless he changed course.
He didn’t.
He hit his mark with a shoulder, immediately stumbling back but not quite lifting his gaze as he apologized profusely.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry. Just in a hurry, sorry!” he called behind him as he continued to back up before hurrying forward again, this time away from the Rodian. They yelled what sounded like a curse in Rodese after him as he vanished back into the crowd.
Ezra cast another furtive glance behind him, struggling to keep his expression neutral as he searched for any of the Coruscant officers. None that he could see. He was okay for now.
When a break in the crowd came up further ahead, he took advantage of it and slipped out and onto a side street.
There was less traffic here, but still enough that Ezra felt he could’ve found another mark and gotten away with it.
But he didn’t want to push his luck today.
He turned onto another street, making a right onto a third that was barely an alley before doubling back onto the second street and continuing straight. He glanced over his shoulder once before turning, slipping into a space between two of the buildings into which he barely fit. Edging along it, he stopped near the end of the space and stooped, pushing his bag through a small cavity near the bottom of the wall before squeezing into it himself.
Emerging into the wider space, he stood, shaking his head in a vain attempt to rid it of the dust that still clung to it from the less-than-dignified entrance. He moved to a crate beside the hole and shoved it in front of the gap, taking a step back to make sure he had covered it all the way.
Satisfied, Ezra grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder as he turned to head deeper into the building. He’d never been able to tell for certain what purpose it had served before, but there was a room on the other side of the ground floor that looked like it had had various mechanical equipment at one point (there were fragments of several cords lying around, some half-frayed and others missing the protective rubber), though if there had ever been anything of value it had been looted already.
Not that he minded too much, after all, it just made it less likely that his building would get targeted by more looters.
He approached the small collection of crates off to the side of the room, setting his bag down next to one as he sat on another. He fished in his pocket for whatever he had pocketed from the Rodian earlier; he hadn’t gotten a chance to look at it yet. His mouth twisted as he counted out six credit bars. Enough for two days, maybe four if he stretched it.
Ezra sighed quietly, slipping the credits into his bag and pulling out the bag of polystarch from another expedition a few days ago and the container he’d stolen with it, pouring a small amount of the powder into the container before resealing the bag and dropping it back in the backpack. He extracted a water bottle, unscrewing the cap and pouring just enough into the polystarch to cause it to rise before he slipped the water back into his bag.
He would eat half of it today, he decided, and the other half in a couple of days. If he was careful, he’d have enough water without stealing some to make the rest of the polystarch loaves as well.
As he broke off part of the loaf, swallowing hard, he felt it again—the weird humming noise that he both heard and felt deep in his gut. The humming had always been there, more background noise than anything, though it had only increased upon his arrival on Coruscant.
Eventually, however, that had faded into the background too, becoming just another foreign aspect of the unfamiliar planet.
But in the past few days, the humming had gotten louder, until he could no longer ignore it and was forced to acknowledge it. No one else he saw seemed to have any issue with it, but that had been the same back home, too.
It was just...he still didn’t know where it was coming from, or what was causing it.
If he knew the answer to either question, maybe it wouldn’t have bothered him so much. Then again, maybe it still would’ve.
He sighed, tearing off another small chunk from the loaf. Maybe he’d investigate it tomorrow. Or maybe not.
And besides, if he did he could always pick a few pockets on the way.
As usual, he didn’t sleep much that night, only his headache was worse than normal thanks to the persistent hum.
Ezra gave up around what he thought was about 0400 and, sighing, grabbed his bag and headed back out onto the streets.
There weren’t many people around this early, at least not many that even he wanted to be seen associating with, so he found a dumpster close enough to the ground that he could climb up it without having to toss his bag up first. From there, he climbed the rest of the way up and sat on the edge of the building, watching the scarce figures on the streets below.
At some point, the chrono must’ve finally shown a decent hour, because the thoroughfare began to slowly fill with people. He remained on the roof, attention briefly drawn to a scuffle between a Sullustan and a Togruta. Now would be a perfect time to pick another pocket or two.
He climbed down from the building a different way than he had gone up, blinking in the half-light as he shouldered his way into the growing crowd around the fight. Weaving through, he bumped into several individuals, spewing vacant apologies that were barely heard over the sounds of the fight anyway, his hand repeatedly returning to his own pocket.
The humming was only getting worse, to the point where he was getting an actively throbbing headache, but maybe it was just because of the noise level.
And maybe the fact that it sounded like a maglev was roaring past as he spotted a human distracted by something else, a holo or something on a nearby building, was because he was on edge slightly more than normal today.
The man had an odd-looking canister clipped to his belt. Ezra had no idea what it was.
It was probably worth some amount of credits on one of the black markets regardless.
He took it, unclipping it before clipping it onto his own belt as he shouldered past the man roughly. The man glanced down, brow raised, but seemed to accept Ezra’s apologies as the teen hurried past.
He headed back to his building a different way, eventually ending up in the alley he normally used as he slipped in through the hole. After blocking it, he unclipped the canister from his belt, studying it until he found what looked like a button.
Pressing it caused it to emit a shaft of blue light.
A lightsaber.
Did that mean the man he had robbed was a…?
Kriffin’ stang.