Chapter Text
It was cold. That was the first thing Cee registered upon waking up. Next was the usual dull whiteness of the walls, and the roughness of the old blankets. Then, there was Ezra’s course snoring which reverberate through the entire cabin. He sounded like a Jata Bhalu with a cold.
Cee flipped over to face the interior of the room, Ezra has his back to her with the blankets wrapped around his body in a cocoon. Cee stared at his back for a few seconds, watching the rhythmic expansion and contraction of his torso as he breathed. He was alive.
It had been around a year since their shared nightmare on the Green Moon. They had barely survived the shootout with the mercenaries, particularly Ezra, who had been stabbed in the stomach, puncturing a hole in his already old and worn-out suit. He had yelled at her to leave him behind, to let him rot to his death on this lush hell. But Cee could not bring herself to leave him. Yes, he had killed her father, but she had shot him during their first up-close encounter, causing his infection, then she had left him to face the wrath of the Satyrs alone, during their negotiating session gone wrong. This led to her also being partially responsible for him losing his right arm, since the Satyrs had not given him the medical attention he needed to save the limb from infection.
They had both cause each other a great deal of anguish, and yet, they understood each other. Despite their beginning, they were still here, together, battered and bruised, but alive. They really were all each other had now.
Cee’s mother had died years before she had set foot on the Pug. Damon, Cee’s father, was also gone. Number Two, Ezra’s prospecting partner, whoever he was, was also dead, gunned down in the altercation that had killed Damon as well. The crew Ezra had initially come to the Green with had been scattered after a disagreement turned to bloodshed. Ezra had mentioned having a brother once, but they were not on good terms from what Cee could tell.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ceasing of Ezra snores and the shifting of his linens. Cee shut her eyes tight, making it look like she as still asleep. Ezra lifted his head, his short, dark brown hair messy and fluffed out with sleep. He turned he head to Cee, “I know you’re up, birdie, you know the eyes in the back of my head are always open.” He quipped. Cee tried, and quickly failed to stifle a smile. The most shit-eating, cornfed hick smirk appeared on his face, before rolling over to sit up, shucking the blankets off his body. He grimaced for a second, feeling the sharp change in temperature. “Damn, it’s cold.” He remarked “How are you not a popsicle? Although, I do suppose, unlike myself, you gotta warm heart.” Cee sat up, “You sure about that?” she replied. “I have not a singular doubt.” “I meant about you, Ezra, that you don’t have a warm heart.” Cee said.
Ezra paused, he had been tying his indoor shoes. He looked up at her, his expression was hard to read. It only lasted a split second before he chuckled. “I am usually always in the mood to debate, little bird, but not before I’ve had my coffee and some grub.” He finished lacing his shoes and stood up walking to the small washroom. “I wanna be there early, more for us.” Cee stood up going over to the small chest at the foot of her bunk where she kept her clothing. “-And more importantly fewer stares and less whispering.” She said under her breath as Ezra shut the door.
Even though a year had passed since their return to the Pug, the rumors had hardly died down. Word traveled surprisingly fast. Before their misadventure, Ezra had a reputation as rather chatty hothead with the inability to NOT put him self in danger. He was reliable when it came to finding aurelac, but a liability when it came to not losing it as a result of some hair-brained, half-baked idea to get a bigger cut.
Damon, on the other hand, had been much quieter, but his drug usage was an open secret. He never used publicly, but once, while most of the Pug was asleep. He’d gotten high on some hallucinogen from a plant on a planet they had been prospecting. It caused him to have a terrible nervous fit, resulting in him hooting and hollering while dashing about the halls. Thankfully, he had the wherewithal to keep his undergarments on despite being otherwise naked. Cee, of course, being only 11 and his only associate, had to drag him back to their cabin, while onlookers emerged from their own rooms to investigate the commotion.
Naturally, the crudeness of Damon’s behavior soured others’ view of Cee as a result.
Then, Cee, the daughter of an aimless druggy, and Ezra, whose greed made him a ticking time bomb, both returned to the Pug in a ship neither of them owned. To make matters more jarring, there was the gaping wound in Ezra’s stomach and, perhaps even more noticeably, was the matter of his missing arm.
Furthermore, the absence of those that had travelled to Green with them only raised even further questions. They were an odd pair, sticking out like a sore thumb among the other prospecting groups. Bits and pieces of their story circulated, but it could never paint the full picture.
Ezra emerged from the washroom, wiping the moisture from brushing his teeth off his mustache. Cee, who had now change clothes and brushed her hair in a way that it now looked slightly less like a rat’s nest, followed the man out of the cabin, through the small hatch lower down on the wall, trying to anticipate whatever Kevva decided to through their way.