Work Text:
Stars, this is boring.
Kallus swiveled his foot back and forth where it rested on the arm-rest of the couch, watching idly as the soft material subtly changed shades as his heel pushed the short fabric fibers back and forth. It was a mild distraction from the boredom, watching as the color shifted from a faded orange to a brown-adjacent shade that reminded Kallus of his favorite shirt. It was kinda pretty, he figured. Sabine would probably like the colors, which wasn’t saying much since she found a way to like most colors, but the sentiment still stood.
He lolled his head to the side, staring at the living room’s center table instead. It looked exactly the same as it had two minutes ago when he’d looked at it last. There were two flimsi book copies that sat there. Mocking him.
One of them was written in basic- a thriller that Swain had recommended to him a few months back- with a bookmark jammed somewhere in chapter 17. It wasn’t a bad read, not by any stretch of the imagination, but the main character's friend had gotten really annoying around chapter 10 and Kallus just had to put the thing down. The worst part is that Swain had even had the same complaint, but it seemed that her mental fortitude was simply much stronger than his own. The second book that laid there, bound in a firm but flexible material with a rich green color, was not written in basic, much to Kallus’ chagrin. No, that book was written in Lira Sana. Zeb had picked it up at the store for him, telling him that it– according to the bookshop owner– was one of the most popular books they carried, the title translating roughly to Lords of the Hills. The Lira San cultural equivalent to The Hoddit, Zeb had said. Kallus had decided to keep it to himself that he liked The Hoddit, but he kind of preferred the holofilms, and he took the book happily.
He’d been excited at first. What a fool he had been.
To be clear, it’s not that he disliked the book, its just that he couldn’t have a single fucking opinion on it if he wanted to.
Zeb had started teaching Kallus how to speak Lasana some four-ish years ago, and Kallus had been quite proud of how quickly he took to it. Yes, the sounds were unfamiliar in his mouth– some of them impossible for humans to even make– yes many of the sayings were all too flowery for him to understand at first, and yes sometimes he still needed Zeb to repeat himself when he went on long-winded rants with big words that Kallus had never heard before, but he was nowhere near bad at it! It took longer to learn how to read it, the characters in its alphabet unlike anything Kallus had ever seen, but he’d gotten it down. Eventually.
It had been difficult to learn, but it had been rewarding. It was fun.
Lira Sana was not fun.
“'s barley different from Lasana,” Zeb had told him when they’d first begun settling in, “'s mostly the same.”
Zeb was a big stupid liar. Lira sana was not like lasana on steroids, no, Lira Sana was like if you put lasana into a jar with a bunch of bees, and then you shook the jar, kicked the jar down a staircase, and then you took lasana’s mangled bee stung remains out and put them all back together with office staples. (Kallus knew that metaphor was maybe a bit factually incorrect, since Lira Sana was really the first of the two, but he didn’t care).
When he first arrived on Lira San, every conversation made him feel like he was having a stroke. It was terrible. These days he could catch bits and pieces, he could put two and two together if he listened to a conversation for long enough, and he and Zeb worked on it often, but the thought of trying to speak it in public still made his face red with heat.
He’d figured that maybe a good read was what it would take for him to really immerse himself, maybe it would subconsciously click and all of his multi-lingual problems would be solved.
He was wrong.
He’d spent 25 minutes on the first page before Zeb offered to help him. It wasn’t fair, Kallus had groaned, how Zeb could just soak up these things like a sponge. He spoke more languages than Kallus could count on one hand (six? Maybe seven? He was nowhere near fluent in all of them, but he could get by), and he had to gall to look Kallus in the eye and say it wasn’t that different from lasana. Zeb had even said that since Kallus was already knew his way around a few languages-- he knew basic, obviously, his lasana was pretty much there, and, though he was probably rusty, he still knew his way around his mums first language-- it would be a breeze.
In hindsight Kallus had to roll his eyes at the idea.
To be fair, the book had been a little bit helpful, so long as Zeb was there to explain it. Kallus could vaguely understand chapter one, but without Zeb around, the frustration of starting chapter two was unbearable.
So no, he wasn’t going to pick the book up from where it sat on the table because, yes, he was bored, but not bored enough to resign himself to madness.
His gaze drifted then to the plant on the table. It was a fan shaped thing with broad leaves, and apparently it would bloom with pretty yellow flowers during the wet season that Kallus had yet to see. He liked that plant though, even without the flowers. Good plant. Impossible to kill. As all houseplants should be.
The last thing on the table to look at– other than the colorful tile coasters that their neighbor had given them as a housewarming gift– was his datapad.
If it were any normal day in the past seven years he might have picked it up, refreshed it for any assignments from rebel intelligence to work on and busied himself with documents and files until he grew tired of it. If it were any normal day off he’d have gotten up and marched to the intelligence offices the second he grew bored and General Kraken would have given him something important to do. However, that wasn't an iption now, as it turns out that wartime intelligence assignments aren’t in very quantity during peacetime.
These days, Kallus had been working with a handful of people at the center of the galaxy who were trying to set up a rehabilitation program for all the imperial political prisoners that the New Republic now had an abundance of. He wasn’t the one to come up with the idea, but he kind of wished he was. In concept it made sense, un-indoctrinate all the people who could see wrong in their ways, get them in the headspace to act like normal people again by educating them on why the empire was evil. The issue was that the whole thing was very very difficult to implement on such a wide scale, especially with the new senate’s skepticality on the whole thing. Kallus couldn’t blame them either. It took some convincing (and a request from Leia Organa) to get him roped into the whole thing as a “valued consultant.” (He’d originally been shouldering his way into efforts in the new republic to oversee economic reform on Coruscant, but he’d have to return to that another time). He understood how it was a hard sell in the senate, but with General- no, Chancellor Mothma’s support the notion passed. The whole thing was more of a permission slip with a three year expiration date so that the program– the Amnesty Program, they were calling it– could have a trial run of sorts. There were caviats of course, high ranking captains, commanders, admirals, and so forth, would be ineligible for the program, and every imperial prisoner was still to face trial on an individual basis. These first three years would just be to see if ex-low ranking officers, ex-stormtroopers and the like would be willing to see the flaws in their ways and actually change. Now it was up to him, and the Amnesty Programs board, to get regulations set.
There was only one issue: Time zones.
Kallus was lucky enough that he could do all of his work from the comfort of his own home, whenever he wanted, which was often, but when he was done, when he’d sent all of his propositions, and edits, and the like to the other board members he would just have to wait. His midday was most of the board members' midnight, and he often wouldn’t get responses from them until the late hours of the night, after he’d turned his datapad off.
On this particular day, he’d submitted all of his work earlier that morning. He’d just have to wait, now.
Usually he’d take this time to make dinner himself and Zeb, or put on a holofilm and cozy up to Zeb on the couch, or take Zeb outside to spar, or talk to Zeb at their dining table over cups of tea or caf. Zeb wasn’t here, though. Which was fine.
Zeb had duties to the New Republic, just as Kallus did, the only difference was that Zeb had his trips. Trips where he’d go out, train new recruits, and help planets piece their cities back together after imperial devastation. It was important work, helpful work.
Kallus ran his hand down his face.
His work didn’t feel important. He knew it was, it was important to quell the right-wing rhetoric that allowed the Empire's rise in the first place. It was work that could become imperative for the future stability of the new republic. It just… didn’t feel like he was doing much. He always hated this– the detached deskwork– it made him antsy, always itching to do something more. Even in the empire, he did all he could to get away from his desk, to have his boots on the ground. He’d done the same in the rebellion, running mission after mission for intelligence to avoid being cooped up for too long. He wanted to see every mission and every report through to the very end, he wanted to go places, help people and do things, but apparently that’s not what the New Republic wanted him to do.
He dragged his hand down his face.
He already went on a run this morning before the sun had come up. Maybe he’d go on another.
No. He quickly decided against it.
It was the time of day that kids got out of school. Every time he went on a run when the kids got out of school he got asked a lot of questions by children– sometimes adults, too– who’d never seen a human before. He didn’t mind the questions, in fact he was usually happy to answer them. Most kids were just perplexed by his lack of fur, his small five-fingered hands, and his shoes. Especially the shoes. Usually, though, Zeb would be around to translate the bits and pieces that Kallus didn’t quite understand yet. Without Zeb he’d have to give an apologetic, and rather awkward, “I don’t speak very much Lira Sana,” which was the first sentence he’d become well acquainted with in the language. The questions had become less common, now that most people in the neighborhood were aware of his existence, but he didn’t want to bet on anything. People here were friendly– really friendly– and he wouldn’t put it past anybody to try and strike up a conversation if he walked past. Even if he ran past, somebody might try to say hi, and he didn’t want to come off as rude if he didn’t hear or understand them.
Yes, it was best to scrap the idea of going for a run.
He kicked a pillow– the one with the pretty red embroidery– off of the couch just to see how far it would slide across the wood floor. The answer was not far, the corner dragged on the rug under the couch and ruined the momentum. He grunted as he finally swung his feet over the edge of the couch. He sat up, retrieved the pillow from where it had fallen, and tucked it back into the corner of the couch cushions.
“Okay,” he said to himself as he stood, as if it would motivate him to do something. He looked down at the rug beneath him and moved his foot across the ornate design on it, just to see if it would do the color changing thing that the couch did. It didn’t. “Right.” There was a beat of silence, as if he were waiting for somebody to respond. “I need to get a hobby,” he grumbled, stepping away from the living room and heading towards the kitchen, “or another job.” He looked back at the plant. Maybe he should take up gardening.
He opened the cabinet and stared for a long moment. Plain glass dishware was something of a rarity on Lira San, so he was faced with choosing between the handful of colorful ceramic cups that he and Zeb had accumulated in the past few months. He reached towards the back of the cabinet, feeling around until his fingers brushed smooth wood.
This cup was perhaps the silliest one to look at, not because of any quirky visual, or shitty pun that you’d usually find on mugs in the greater galaxy, but because this wooden cup had a large oval shape carved out of one side. It was a gift from their neighbor's husband– the same neighbor who had given the coasters, her name was Abina, her husband's name was Elski– who had made it so that Kallus’ “long nose wouldn’t get in the way.” Which had been both objectively hilarious and shockingly thoughtful.
That was another thing, people here were just friendly for the sake of it. Kallus had met plenty of people, who spoke to people with big smiles and firm handshakes, metaphorical knife at the readh for any backstabbing that was to come. That was what he expected. Oddly enough, from what Kallus could tell-- which, to be fair, wasn't much-- people here were genuinely kind. Just because they could be. No strings attatched. It was bizzare.
In a way it reminded him of when he’d first arrived in the rebellion. He’d been shocked to find just how many people were genuinely kind. It wasn’t everybody, of course, but the number of people that were genuinely nice just for the fuck of it was exponentially higher than Kallus would have guessed.
Kallus filled the wooden cup in the sink and took a long sip, his ‘long nose’ fitting into the ovular cut-out so that he didn’t have to tilt his head backwards. It didn’t make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things, but he had to admit that the idea was pretty unique.
He set the cup back down with a soft clack against the smooth, stone countertop.
I should check for any transmissions, he thought.
The office was, if not for the bedroom, quite possibly the most lived-in room in the house. It was small, too small to be a bedroom, but just large enough to fit a soft, ornate rug, a tall bookshelf that Kallus was working on filling, a desk that housed other impossible-to-kill plants, a stack of files that they didn’t yet have a cabinet for, Kallus’ portable computer where he did most of his work, and their transmitter. The transmitter in particular was a small, sleek looking thing, especially compared to the bulkier ones that would have been be found in Rebel control rooms, but its appearance was deceptive. Kallus had spent the better part of a month fitting it with upgrades so that it could transmit past the imploded star cluster that surrounded the planet and out into some of the furthest reaches of the galaxy.
He figured that if he needed to be reached by anybody for any sort of emergency that he’d need to be reachable no matter where they were. Sabine bounced between a number of planets, usually near Lothal, Hera was constantly jumping back and forth between Coruscant, Lothal, and Ryloth, Swain was always force knows where doing force knows what, and Zeb of course had his trips for the New Republic. He wanted to be available to any and all of them worst came to worst.
Part of him wanted to call it paranoia, but the search for Ezra was a never-ending mission that would undoubtedly get somebody into hot water at some point. He’d just rather be safe than sorry, is all.
That was another thing he hated about the desk work. For obvious reasons, he and Bridger were never close, never had conversations outside of Bridger attamelting to annoy him on purpose, but he liked the kid. Respected him more than he’d ever respected many of his imperial higher-ups, even if he was an annoying 17 year old boy. He worried about the kid’s well-being. Often. He knew that Zeb would often use his time in the outer rim to ask around, and investigate any leads on where Ezra might be, Hera and Sabine did the same. He wanted to too. He wanted to be out there. Helping. The issue was that the New Republic liked to make things like that everybody’s
“We need your full attention on your current responsibilities regarding the amnesty program. Your insight is imperative,” they’d said. It’s not as if he wasn’t allowed to leave Lira San, but stars the New Republic ran a strict program. Sometimes he thought about just tagging along to Zeb’s assignments, off the record. He’d pondered the idea a few times now, but he knew of at least one proposition in the senate that argued for any ex-imperials who defected and / or joined the alliance during the war to be tried just the same as every other imp. Kallus doubted anything to come of the proposal, especially with Mon Mothma serving as chancellor– her word wasn’t final, but it had a great deal of sway– but he decided that it may be best to lay low until any debate about the matter died down. Best not do anything off record until he knew for certain that it wouldn’t be held against him in a court of law.
When he’d first heard of the proposition he’d cooped himself up in the office and researched it until he had about 3 mugs sitting on the desk, and dark circles under his eyes. The only reason he’d stopped was because Zeb had dragged him by his wrist to bed. The whole thing was conflicting to Kallus. On one hand, he believed in justice, and that many defectors, like the ones who had left the Empire but did nothing to fight against it, or the turncoats who joined alliance simply because they were scared of what would happen to them when the empire lost, maybe those people could be examined a little bit more closely. On the other hand, Kallus was well aware that his record was anything but clean, on the other hand, he had already undergone two weeks of isolated questioning by rebel high command after the battle of Atollon. He completely understood why, in fact he expected to be treated more severely, if his allegiance was not truly to the rebellion he could have been the most devastating security breach possible. Eventually, though, with testaments from Kanan (who’d said something to the effect of ‘seems brtter now,’ which was not a direct quote because Kanan was far more eloquent than that); Zeb, who’d recounted their encounter on Bahryn; Sabine, who’d offered her encounter with Kallus at the Skystrike academy; Swain told them how he’d broken her out of imperial detention, and sent her to phoenix squadron; and most damning, Ezra, who offered up his witnessing of Kallus’ attempt to assassinate Thrawn via droid, the framing of Lyste as Fulcrum, and Kallus’ opt to stay behind to continue his work after the fact that high command decided that Kallus wasn’t some sort of triple agent and tentatively let him off-leash. Since then he’d done nothing but commit himself to his work in the Rebellion. He’d gained the forgiveness and camaraderie of The Ghost Crew, and worked side by side with them till this day. He supposed there was also that whole thing where he and Zeb fell in love and moved in together on the ancestral homeworld of Zeb's people, but he doubted a court of law would really care that much about that part.
Another thing: he’d done the whole thing over again when Zeb brought him to Lira San. There’d been a big congressional hearing about whether or not he’d be allowed. It made news headlines planetwide. Everybody and their mothers became aware of it all, especially here in the capital city. Lira San didn’t really get a whole lot of visitors, only the refugees from Lasan who trickled in over the course of the war as The Ghost Crew discovered them. A human, especially one with a past as dark as his, was completely novel. He understood the sensation behind it all, and he was kind of glad for it. He would have been deeply uncomfortable if nobody knew. He would have felt like he was lying by omission to everybody around him, so for better or for worse, he was grateful that it had been settled in such a public manner.
He was also glad for it because that was how he learned of Lira Sans “forgiveness culture,” which was unlike anything he’d ever experienced in the greater galaxy. There was a popular proverb that roughly translated to “the river once sunk our boats, but now the stream is where the kits play.” People here liked to judge based on your actions now, not the ones you no longer stood by. If you were kind, humble, and willing to right your wrongs, your efforts were recognized so long as you recognized the efforts of others. Kallus had thought it a bit nïave, though perhaps that was the Coruscanti in him, but he was grateful for it all the same.
There were other fables that tied into it too, like the one about the warrior, the child, and the fool, which Chava had explained to Kallus in detail the first time they had met. The whole idea that a person would fall into all three roles throughout the course of their life, and the idea that sentient experience was something complicated and ever changing was a key point in Lira Sana philisophy as well. It wasnt like anything he experienced in the core worlds, but he was endlessly intrigued by it none the less.
He sighed, tapping his fingers against the desk.
He had to admit, he really had to stop staring at the transmitter screen that read “zero missed messages,” and go back to the living room to read that damn book. He had to get this language down asap. Community was quite possibly the most important thing on this planet, and he would be damned if everybody thought he was an anti-social asshole just because he couldn’t articulate himself. Even if he was anti-social. And an asshole.
With his mind made up he marched back out to the living room and sat back down on the couch, and he flipped the book open to chapter two.