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There are days when Kanan wishes the detection capabilities of the Imperial fleet were a lot less good than they are. Those days usually coincide with missions that involve a lot of sitting around in a dead ship, with a deactivated Chopper and a lot of time to kill until contact is made.

Like today, for instance.

Probably all day, too. Hopefully not into tomorrow.

"So," Kanan says, voice pitched low and not quite sibilant enough to be a whisper. "How do you feel about another round of I Spy?"

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It makes her consider that she can't ask Kanan the same in any of this. The Jedi, maybe, but not the people he came from. She's not even calling him by his real name.

Her first feeling is a quiet remorse, but the next is that she's not the person to feel that.

Hera takes a deep breath, and looks back out to the stars.

"Kass rituo," she says. "Means… hello. Kind of."

Maybe that makes more sense, as a place to start.

Edited 2017-05-08 13:03 (UTC)

"Kind of?"

Kanan leans back a little, stretching his spine with tiny pops and cracks. Maybe he needs to add more stretching to his daily routines.

Anyway.

"Kass ritwo. No, that's not right. Ritwo. Rituo."

These vowels will be the death of him.

"Kass means 'day.' Or... circle. Or cycle."

They all sort of fall into one another.

"And rituo means safe. But it's something you can say for 'hello.'"

"Safe day, huh? Makes you think of what life must have been like, back before we had the stars. I mean, not that it's easy now, but it feels like it would have been different, somehow. Stuck on a planet. Stuck in one valley, even."

Caleb wasn't built for that kind of life. Kanan -- wouldn't have liked it much, either.

"Do formal and informal mean anything, language-wise? Or is that not a concept for Twi'leki?"

There is no moment, here, in which Kanan imagines meeting a Twi'lek that is important to Hera, and screwing it up with the wrong kind of greeting. Nope.

"Ryloth could be - hard to live on."

For many, many different reasons, throughout its history, that they don't need to get into right now.

But she takes a moment to think over his question, and answers, "There are different words for ... strangers and acquaintances, and for friends and family. I think they used to use the stranger one for anyone not in your clan, but now it's more for outsiders."

Edited 2017-05-08 13:49 (UTC)

"Deservedly, these days."

Ryloth keeps getting a shitty hand. They both know it.

"So what would I call myself? If I were introducing myself in Twi'leki?"

Edited 2017-05-08 13:50 (UTC)

"Um..."

She's not really following his thinking, other than that she supposes this is a pretty natural progression from where they started.

"Kass rituo. Sen Kanan jaine. Metuantcho kale."

Mostly Kanan was wondering how he'd introduce himself as an outsider, and if it would be different somehow, but his natural awkwardness when talking about anything not related to mission prep has risen its head, so here we are.

"Sen Kanan jaine."

He makes jaine sound a lot like Kanan, somehow. Vexing.

"Is that 'my name is Kanan'?"

"Yes."

Beat. "It's 'I call myself Kanan.' But that's how you say it."

"Sen Kanan jaine."

He pronounced jaine better, this time. Less like it rhymes.

"Is it the same for you? Sen Hera jaine."

"Yes, it is."

She shifts to turn back to him again.

"The next part - it means 'I hope for your health.' If it was someone I knew, I might say 'Metuantete kale' instead. -cho is for a stranger."

Kanan listens hard when Hera pronounces Twi'leki, because he wants to get this right. (And it sounds . . . good, hearing her speak her own tongue.)

"Metuantcho kale. Is the ending for people you know ete or tete? With the cho I can't tell."

With something close to a grimace (she knows this must be confusing) -

"It's ete sometimes, or te, it depends on the word. For metuant it's ete."

"I'm gonna let that go for now."

There's already a lot to try to remember, and this -- this seems like jumping ahead several steps. He still isn't sure how verbs work, for one. Or if there are verbs the way he knows them.

"Is it just the two endings for stranger versus a friend? Or are there family and acquaintance endings, too?"

"No, it's just those two."

She thinks this over for a minute, and then adds, "Some Twi'leks use the 'stranger' words for anyone who isn't in their family or clan, even if they know each other well. But mine used it for anyone who became our friends."

"Got it."

Well, no he hasn't got it, but he's trying to put pieces together. So far, so good?

"Family's a big thing, then, huh?"

Hera goes quiet for a moment.

Softly, "It is for some people."

Kanan reaches out, very slowly, to lay his hand on Hera's wrist.

"Yeah."

Hera lets him, lowering her hand slightly so that it's closer to his reach.

"Et koriseun," she mumbles, maybe to herself.

Kanan slips his hand down to hold on to hers, to remind her that whatever else, here and now she's not alone.

And, with his best attempt at the correct accent --

"Viulen usnajmen."

It probably won't help much, but it's what he's got.

Hera laughs again, a short, soft burst as she nods.

"Ze. Yes, they are."

After a little, Kanan leans back again, settling in comfortably.

At least he gives off that impression, or tries.

"One sentence down. I think I'm gonna like this whole new language thing."

"Fortunately we have probably have... a lot of time left."

At least, there's no sign of movement beyond their windows yet.

"Rilokacho shendor - it means, 'See your home,' or 'you must see your home,' but you can say it for 'goodbye,' for strangers."

" . . . You know I'm not actually going to have all this down by the time our pickup contacts us, right? I mean, I've definitely never been that kind of prodigy."

Caleb, either.

"Are there times when hearing the 'cho' doesn't mean strangers? Because I hear it here, too, and I don't want to focus on it if that's not . . . what it means."

She bites back a sarcastic response, instead keeping her voice, at least, reassuring.

"And I'm not much of a Twi'leki teacher. If you remember your one sentence a week from now, I'll be impressed with both of us.

"And cho doesn't mean strangers. It means 'your.'"

Beat. "... for a stranger."