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It starts when Bly discovers the hallikset that General Vos left on the ship after the last time he showed up without warning to see Aayla. General Vos seems to have picked up that habit early in the war, despite the disapproval Bly has voiced several times. Last time, He had left in a hurry after the battalion he was supposed to be shadowing had put out a call for back up. Bly found the instrument left behind in a corner of the room General Vos had stayed in, and, mostly out of curiosity, had fooled around with it in his spare time.
It continues when Bly discovers that Aayla is incredible attracted to him playing an instrument. His brief sessions fooling around on the instrument had done wonders for his love life. Later, Aayla would confide that the hallikset’s music was calming to her. It reminded her of an easier time in her life, and something about sitting there and listening to the music of it made all of her problems seem somehow farther away. When she felt like that, Aayla would continue, she felt like she could do anything she wanted. And so, she did.
And, as time goes on, Bly discovers that he quite enjoys playing the seven-stringed instrument. However, it can be particularly hard to find copies of sheet music while deployed. This time, Bly knows he packed sheet music that he borrowed from the Jedi Archives – a song from Ryloth that General Nu had recommended. Bly doesn’t know where it is now. Oh sure, he has his suspicions. This sounds exactly like a torrent thing, which means that Lt. Vaughn is immediately a suspect. However, as his roommate and the only other person who has the code to his door, Lt. Galle is who Bly would bet on if he was a betting man.
Either way, Bly is currently in one of the conference rooms with General Vos’ hallikset and no sheet music, fooling around with melodies. As he plucks away at the chords he learned on the holonet, Bly begins to hum his own melody. Before he knows it, Bly has most of his own song written.
Bly pauses with his fingers above the strings, looking around the room. He just needs lyrics now, to have a proper song. The part of him that has been studying this instrument on the holonet tells Bly that he should write a song about something profound. The part of Bly that is always vode first tells Bly that he should write about something stupid to piss Galle off enough that the other vode will return his sheet music.
Casting his eyes around the room, Bly spots a packet that was left behind on the table after the last briefing that was done in this room. Bly was pretty sure that it was the one on the native life from New Holstice. It was open to a page on the birds they could expect to finds there. Because Galle has always had a thing about birds, Bly knows he has his song topic. Carefully, he begins to strum his melody again, this time adding lyrics based on the portions of the native briefing he can see.
“The woodpecker bird likes pecking wood
The bluebird's a bird that sings pretty good
Sparrows are a bird that are pretty cool ay”
Bly sings, but then pauses because he had planned for a fourth line in this verse, but he can’t make out enough of the final portion of the page to make a lyric out of it.
“But the ibis is a bird that drinks bin juice all day” Aayla’s voice chimes out in song, matching his silly tone for the lyrics before, even if she has no music backing it. Bly laughs in surprise, looking at her, leaning against one of the doorposts.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not the fourth bird on the New Holstice,” Bly responds with a grin.
“Yeah, but the Ibis is a demon bird and it should be said,” Aayla responds, her lekku twitching with amusement. Bly goes to respond when the whole ship shakes with the force of coming out of hyperspace. Aayla makes a disappointed noise.
After a long campaign on Honoghr, Bly collapses into a chair in the corner of Aayla’s office. The hallikset that he has begun to think of as his rather than General Voss’ is perched on the end table next to the chair. Bly drops his back down to the floor, drawing the instrument into his hands instead. As he drops his pack, it topples to the side, and a small wave of papers spills out. Bly winces and sets the instrument aside as he goes to put everything back into the pocket of his bag where it belongs.
As he works through the papers, however, he sees one that sparks an idea in his mind. Sitting on practically the bottom of the pile is the page from the briefing on Honoghrese wildlife. Specifically, Bly comes across the page on the birds of Honoghr. He sets that page aside and finished putting the rest away.
Once the papers are all where they belong, Bly pulls the hallikset into his lap on the chair, and positions the paper so that he can read it and see the images on the page. As he begins tuning his instrument, the door to the room opens, and Aayla walks in. He can tell the exact moment her lekku pick up on what he’s doing, because they give a noticeable twitch, and then Aayla whirls around.
“Bly, what are you playing?” She asks, and Bly doesn’t respond. Instead, he strums the chords he had put together before, and launches into his song.
“The woodpecker bird likes pecking wood
The bluebird's a bird that sings pretty good
Sparrows are a bird that are pretty cool ay
But the ibis is a bird that drinks bin juice all day”
He leaves the line Aayla had added in the song, and even leaves it with little to no instrumental backing. It’s a fun line, no matter how much it was not what he had intended there, and it gets a laugh from her. Bly glances over at the sheet from the Honoghr briefing before launching into his next verse.
“A crow is a bird with a heaps mad squawk
A cockatoo's a bird with a sick mohawk
Chicken is a bird that tastes good and lays eggs”
He pauses to maintain the rhythm from the first verse, and that was his mistake because Aayla jumps right in with another line.
“And ibises are bin juice drinking dregs”
Bly gives her a look, to which she responds with a beaming smile. Bly stifles his snort, and he attempts to continue the song.
“A goose is a bird that's chilled like a duck”
At that point, Bly realizes that he’s used all the birds on this side of the page, and reaches out to flip it over to read the other birds he knows are on the other side, at which point Aayla jumps in with another addition of her own.
“An ibis is a bird that's a picnic wrecking fuck!”
At this point, Bly idly thinks to himself as he speed reads through the other three birds on the page, the rhythm of the song includes Aayla’s unexpected yet somehow hilarious interludes. They might as well happen. Also, her face lights up when she laughs, which the way this song is shaping up certainly causes her to do. Bly grins at her and launches back into the song.
“Doves are birds that represent purity”
Then, he pauses intentionally, and glances at Aayla, who grins like a manic, and chimes back in.
“Ibises wreck picnics and disrupt the community”
Bly’s just going to trade off lines now.
“Penguins are birds that fall in love and mate for life”
Aayla clearly gets that memo.
“But ibises love nothing cause they're dead inside!”
As this song goes on, Bly finds himself wondering at the depth of Aayla’s hatred for the ibis.
“Swan is a bird that's graceful and that”
With a dramatic pose, Aayla finishes off the verse.
“And ibises aren't birds they're feathered bin rats”
Bly is very comfortable where he is, even if the small box in his pocket seems to be burning a hole through his coat. The coat he’s wearing is one he borrowed from Rex, which he’s pretty sure that Rex either stole from Anakin or was a gift from Senator Amidala. Bly can’t find it in himself to worry about it. He’s not usually one to dress up, but tonight was hardly just any night in Aayla’s office. He and Aala are on Coruscant, sitting together on one of the floating landing platforms. Bly had asked Fox to keep it clear for the night, and after explaining why, Fox had slapped him on the back and told him not to worry about it.
Spread out across the platform is a worn golden blanket, and a meal is laid out on top of it. It isn’t much, Bly had found a restaurant that served Ryl cuisine and ordered take out. Aayla seems to be enjoying it though, so Bly’s counting that as a win. He watches her grab and bite into another bread bun and feels the box in his pocket burn again. He can feel his nerve fading and he knows he has to go ahead with his plan.
Aayla is leaning back on her back, watching the ships flying across the sky above them. Her lekku curl around her arms, which she has thrown out around the platform. The lights of the ships reflect in her brown eyes, causing them to seem to glow. Bly can barely look away from her eyes, or the way the white leather wrap Aayla is wearing today is accented with gold so that it almost looks like a piece of their battalion’s plastoid. Bly loves her so much he can hardly breathe.
“More wine?” He pushes himself to ask Aayla, who grins in response, sitting up.
“Please.” She says and offers Bly her glass. He takes it from her with a flourish that pulls a giggle from Aayla. He pours the wine, and the red liquid splashes from the bottle into the glasses. Aayla reaches for her glass, but Bly smirks and instead sits down so that his feet dangle off the side of the platform. In a single fluid motion, Aayla moves to join him, and he hands her the drink. He kicks his feet and clears his throat.
“So. I was going to do a whole thing with this. I even brought the hallikset.” Bly gestures to the basket he hid the instrument in it. “I was going to sing you a song, and talk about all of our best memories and all of our plans for the future.” Bly rambles. Aayla looks at him in confusion, but one of her lekku wraps around his arm. Bly takes a deep breath and pulls the small box from his pocket, and pops it open in front of her. Aayla draws a breath.
“Aayla, will you marry-” Bly begins to ask when suddenly there’s a loud, earsplitting sound, and then black and white feathers that fill their vision. Bly knows he cries out as his is nothing but birds, and he can hear Aayla cry out too. He reaches for her, and just as his fingertips met hers, a giant bird rams into his face. He grabs onto Aayla’s hand, but as he does so, the box slips from his fingers and falls.
Just as soon as it arrived, the storm of birds disappears. When he looks over, Aayla is covered in black and white feathers, and from the way that his face itches and Aayla is looking at him, Bly assumes he’s covered in feathers as well. “What was that?” Bly cries out and spits out a mouthful of fluff. Aayla gives a bitter laugh.
“That, Bly, was a flock of actual ibis.” Aayla deadpans back at him. Bly sighs.
“Of course it was.” He jokes as he looks around for the box. “oh no, oh no, oh no.” He murmurs, looking around the platform.
“Bly, what is it?” Aayla asks, crossing to take his hand.
“It’s gone. It must have gone over the side when I let go of it.”
“It?”
“I had spoken to General Vos asking for the proper way to ask you to marry me, and then I went out and I had this wooden bead made the way he said was traditional. It had the symbols for the stars on it, and I was going to give it to you tonight.”
“You were trying to… to ask you to marry me?” Aayla asks breathily, and cups one of her hands around his head.
“Is… that a yes?” Bly raises an eyebrow. Aayla laughs.
“Ask me again without the birds, and I’ll say yes.” She kisses him. Bly blushes.
“Right. Another attempt, coming right up.” Bly kisses her back, running a hand along the lek which is still wrapped around his bicep. Aayla shivers and then kisses him again.
When Bly got back to the Aayla’s quarters that night, he used the hallikset to write the chorus that went perfectly with the rest of the song.
“It's the ibis
Bin juice drinking gronks
Yeah the ibis
Their beaks are gross and long
It's the ibis
Picnic wrecking jerks
Yeah the ibis
They're the worst birds”