you have a detective man. we all love him. 🔫 put the soft or funny headcanons in the bag and no one gets hurt (please)
Ryll’s detective agency always keeps it Ryll with you! Please sign here, here, here, aaaaaand here. Thank you! ^^
————
His corgi toast isn’t just a fun little companion, he also reminds Ryll to take his meds as well. He just can’t refuse that adorable little face.
Has taken a guy down with only a can opener and some duct tape….don’t ask.
He loves to soak his achy joints in a nice steamy hot bath and often falls asleep in them over night. Good things skeletons don’t need air.
He doesn’t have blasters like your typical skeleton monster no no, instead he has a very keen sense or foresight/intuition and is able to make multiple guesses on what his targets next move is, kachow 💥
The double tongue piercing is actually pretty recent. He’s only had it for a few years. Consider it his version of a mid life crisis.
He’s the type to wake up after being drunk in nothing but long johns and a …Hawaiian shirt???
The news spread quickly, as it always did in the army when it wasn’t part of operational security – the traitor, ARC-5555 was dead. Kix felt sick – all that hard work, everything Fives had been through just to survive, and he had managed to get himself killed on a stupid campaign by some lucky droid.
None of them wanted to believe it, but no-one had heard anything different, and this wasn’t something they had planned for. The plan had been for the 212th to ‘find’ the debris of Fives’ shuttle in a week’s time (war allowing), and neither Rex nor Wolffe had heard anything from Cody about a change. There was nothing except this one piece of news, and no-one dared to contact Cody to see if it was true. Kix wasn’t sure whether that was fear that such a communiqué might be intercepted and put them at risk of exposure, or whether they were afraid it was actually true.
Either way, they wouldn’t have been able to tell the remaining members of the 501st, because they simply didn’t know what was truly going on. Whether or not they believed that Fives was a traitor (and many of them didn’t), they had no way of knowing that he had been hiding in plain sight within the ranks of the 212th.
The whole of the 501st was off-balance: absolutely not the best time to be diverted to Saleucami (again). Not only was it their first true battle since Ringo Vinda and the loss of both Tup and Fives, but Rex couldn’t command because of the shoulder injury he had picked up on Scipio. Subsequently, they picked up more injuries than Kix would consider normal for a run-of-the-mill battle; not serious, life-threatening injuries, but stupid things caused by inattentiveness.
He had to admit that even he was nursing a spectacularly wrenched knee, not that he had any time to do much about it. And he definitely wasn’t going to tell Jesse, because he was already taking it hard. This was his first battle in command of the legion and the casualty figures were shocking.
Rex kept telling him it wasn’t his fault. Kix didn’t think it was sinking in.
At least it wasn’t raining? While it would have fit the general mood, rain would have just demoralised them even more (not least because rain reminded them all of Kamino). The arid climate was at least working for them in that respect.
Fives had become a legend within his own lifetime; as much of a hero to the vod’e as Kenobi and Skywalker were to the Republic in general. The 501st had always been proud to call him their own. Now… morale was crap; even worse than it had been in the immediate aftermath of Ringo Vinda. At least after the staged escape from Coruscant, the youngsters and those out of the loop had taken heart that Fives was still out there somewhere, still alive despite all the odds.
The 212th came to relieve them, to mop up the few pockets of droids remaining and to provide medical aid. That, Kix was grateful for – he hadn’t slept in… he actually couldn’t remember how long, and Jesse was too busy to nag at him about it, dashing about in his new pauldron and kama (they’d had the shiny knocked off during the long battle), doing the job that Fives should be doing alongside him. Rex was helping out now, but Jesse was still stressing himself out.
Kix was in the ruined building they had pressed into service as a medical storage, an awning pegged out to keep the blazing sun off the precious supplies, when Ryll suddenly appeared at his side. He was wearing gold bordered with blue, rather than the other way around, as his colours used to be.
“Well, at least they didn’t manage to get you killed too,” Kix grumbled, too tired to be properly glad to see his apprentice safe and well.
He was almost too tired to notice the slight smirk that played about Ryll’s mouth, one that grew as Ryll waved over one of the men he had brought with him.
Kix turned slowly, blinked at the familiar artwork that crossed through the gap in the stones denoting what had once been a doorway. The twin stripes adorned a shiny new bucket that was halfway off.
He put his fist in Fives’ face before he even had the chance to open his mouth and say something smart and irritating.
Fives, lying on the floor and nursing his jaw, nodded. “True enough, vod’ika. Can I get up now and explain that it was spur of the moment?”
Kix stared, speechless. Fives looked like he’d been through hell; he had a half-healed burn that scored unevenly across his temple and into his hairline, barely missing his eye, and only showing a tiny patch of rough skin on his ear. The shine, experienced eyes told him, was bacta gel slathered over it rather than scar tissue.
“Kriff me, Fives,” Rex said, striding in and taking in the scene without blinking, “I’m pretty sure Kix’s way would have been less painful.”
Rex held out his good hand and pulled Fives to his feet before hugging him tightly. “Do not ever do that again,” he growled into the ear on Fives’ good side, “or I will hunt you down and make you wish you had never been decanted.”
Fives’ mouth twitched. “It would be kind of redundant now,” he pointed out, clearly doing his best to not smirk.
“Mir’sheb,” Rex said, cuffing him round the back of the head.
Chapter 9 of On the Job, “Voice of the Past,” is now on AO3!
In this chapter we get a look at Hera’s relationship with Cham, the death of her mother and the roots of her resolve to bring down the Empire.
132 word preview below.
Ryloth under siege. The capital’s towers and villas smoldering as merciless winds syphoned black smoke into a blood-red sunset. She saw the planet ripped apart to its core and its precious ryll warped into mind-killing spice and set into the needles of interrogation droids. And across the galaxy the endless colors of her people scattered to the stars, struggling under the weight of chains. The image shifted and widened and she saw that Ryloth was only one of a thousand systems crying out for mercy. The beings of the galaxy reached out to her with grasping hands and wide eyes. Each one rasped for breath as the Empire’s gloved hand slowly closed around their throats. Among the cacophony of voices she could make out the far echo of her mother’s last scream.
A rather new character of mine. Her name’s Ryll and she’s very bad at talking to people. Her skills include sketching, sewing, avoiding eye contact and running away from human interaction. She likes being out in the woods around her town and sometimes spends weeks at a time wandering around and documenting what she sees. She might be the protagonist of a story I might write. Who the heck knows.
