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Hera first made this climb years ago, back in her activist days. Not even that long after she'd first left Ryloth. Back then it had only been months since the start of the fires that had ripped through Veron's rainforests, destroying the ancient Gazaran cities and settlements that had spidered among the forests' high branches and dense foliage. The Empire had claimed the fires were the result of natural disasters, part of the planet-wide cataclysms that it had come to help the local population combat. But where there had once been lush rainforest and Gazaran homes and schools and temples, there was now an Imperial base, a construction yard, a supply distribution center, a prison. The winged Gazaran were forced to either migrate to the existing settler trading communities, among Rodians and humans and other species that had migrated to the planet over the years, or retreat to the mountains and more temperate forests. One option put them directly under the control of the Empire, the other indirectly, as outside their rainforests the Gazaran couldn't survive without imported food and water.

Which was where Hera and her contacts had come in, bringing supplies to those Gazaran still living outside the settler communities, giving them a way to avoid the Empire. And, later, recruiting those who were willing to inform them of the Empire's activities on Veron. It was a network she'd continued through the tumult of her early years off Ryloth. Despite what they had been through, the Gazaran were friendly, gracious, and always glad to see visitors. Being among them was the closest Hera had felt to being home on Ryloth, something she especially looked forward to after months of Stormtroopers and sleazy cantina patrons.

It might be why she's not complaining about the hour they've already trekked, along the slopes of a moderately tall mountain, nor about the hour of hiking they still have to go. The ground is mostly dry soil and pale brown clay, with little sign of plant life, though in the distance ahead of them, a few trees sway in the breeze. The sky is half clouded, half bright with sunlight, nearly cut down the middle as the clouds blow west. Hera can no longer see the Ghost behind them – they'd left Chopper back with it, all other systems powered down to avoid planetary scanners. And even still, they'd landed far out of their way, to ensure if the Empire were to come across it, this wouldn't lead them to the Gazaran.

But that has meant hiking. Hiking with loaded packs, and a crate between them that bobbles along in its little antrigrav field.

So while not complaining, Hera does slow for a few seconds, and reach to take out her canteen.

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"No, I'm sorry." She looks away again.

"It was just something the Hutts used to say about Ryloth. That we hated it, that we sold ourselves just for the chance to leave."

She's more than once had others assume this was why she'd become a pilot. Strange to think she couldn't love more than one thing at once.

"Of course they did."

Do Hutts do anything that isn't horrible? Kanan's not actually sure he wants an answer to that question, but if he had to bet he'd say 'no'.

"I bet a lot of people want to buy that idea, too, as if it scrapes the guilt off."

It's true, but Hera doesn't feel like dwelling on it. She'd like to avoid talking at all about the Hutts - but she knows that's unlikely to happen, if she really tells this story.

Still, she presses on. "I liked the desert. Even when things were hard - I felt like I had everything. It was always busy somewhere inside, in the main hall or in my parents' rooms. And if I wanted quiet I could slip downstairs, or wander outside to the canyons nearby. I could climb out a window and onto the mountain, and look at the sky. And when I got older I could hitch rides into the city."

With another look to him, "That's when I was there - we couldn't always stay there, especially during the war."

"It sounds like you had everything," Kanan says, thinking back to holos he's seen, and stories he's heard -- even things he's witnessed on many of the other worlds they've visited -- about what makes children seem happy. "Deciding when to be alone and when not to be, having that kind of freedom . . . I can see it."

He looks over at her, then, mouth quirking down at one corner.

"They knew where to find your father when you were there, given it's the home of the Syndulla clan?"

A family home is a hard thing to lose, or so he's seen.

"That was one reason," she says.

"It's not easy to find. It's deep in the desert, through terrain that's rough for most outsiders. When they were building it they realized if they dug deep into the rock, the lifeform scanners the Hutts used didn't detect them."

She's mentioned it again, but Hera actually smiles, very slightly, as she adds, "And most still don't.

"But we had to be where the fighting was. And my father thought if the Separatists did find it, they'd be less likely to destroy it if they found it empty."

Kanan cracks a slight smile, shifting his grip on the crate and shifting it back into position as it wobbles.

"Good to know mountains aren't just decorative."

A pause.

"Was he right about that, your father?"

"Twi'leks were building into mountains for millenia," Hera says. "But before anyone else came it was more about getting out of the sun and avoiding predators."

That's also something that still works now.

"And the Separatists never found it. There were bombing campaigns over the province, but they were mostly focused on the cities. But it would've been harder to keep it a secret if we'd tried to stay there."

"Predators is definitely the right word."

About Hutts, about the slavers, about --

Anyway.

"Have you been back since?"

"Since I left?"

She shakes her head. "The Empire hasn't found it either, as far as I know. But they haven't bothered to learn much about Ryloth, besides where they can mine Ryll."

"Well, that's good. That it's still there, I mean, if we ever . . . "

You know. Get back there.

Hera's eyes fix on their crate, and she reaches again to check its steadiness.

"Near the end of the occupation, this Y-wing crashed right outside it."

She waits a few seconds, perhaps deciding how she'll say this. "By the time anyone reached it, the pilot was dead. But - I recovered its astromech."

Kanan's eyebrows lift toward his hairline, he can't quite help it. But he composes his expression before looking over at Hera again, because the last thing confidences need in return is any hint of incredulity.

(Or surprise, but in the moment a lot of things can be misread.)

"How much repair did, uh, the astromech take?"

"It took me about two years."

She glances back to him, confident he knows exactly which 'astromech' they're talking about here. "To get everything I needed, and to figure out how to repair him."

Here Kanan does wince. Sure, he and Chop gripe about each other, and around each other, and drive each other completely nuts, but at the end of the day he's crew.

"It was pretty bad, huh?"

"And I didn't have much in the way of resources or training for that kind of thing."

She tilts her head. "But a real repair crew might've just replaced him."

"At least we all know he's irreplaceable."

There's a dryness to Kanan's voice, but some fondness, too. Life without Chopper would just be . . .

Very, very strange. More peaceful, maybe, but disquieting to contemplate all the same.

"You've gotten a lot better at all the mechanics since then, though. Maybe because of it?" At least in part.

"Learning by doing. Like most things."

At least, that's how things tended to work for Hera.

Kanan scrubs one hand through his hair, then jerks a little as he remembers he needs that hand to steady the crate.

Whoops.

"Yeah. I'm used to a lot of meditating before the doing -- and sometimes during, I guess."

It's not really like that at all, but when he thinks back to being Caleb . . . maybe it kind of was, then. When there was time.

"Probably not a bad idea for what you were doing."

She doesn't feel much room to question the Jedi approach. "But I never felt like I had time for that."

"Because of the war? Or from before that, just from . . . "

How to put this?

"How spacers are, around Ryloth. About Ryloth."

Hera takes her time thinking over this question, her eyes flickering up to the sky, the cloud cover creeping farther along it.

"It didn't start with the war," she says. "But some of it was also just how I was. I wanted to wander outside, I wanted to meet everyone I could - and my parents decided they'd rather drill me in how to protect myself than keep me locked away."

"The galaxy's too big and too full of stuff to wait around?"

There's a reason Caleb was always asking questions. Kanan can relate.

"Something like that," she says, with another small smile.

"And when I was that young, I didn't - I never felt the way others must have seen me. I didn't feel small, I didn't understand why I couldn't go where or do what I wanted."

"Good to see some things haven't changed," Kanan says, voice warm. He can't quite help himself.

"When did you figure it out? That . . . how other people saw you, I mean, and that it was different from how you saw yourself?"

Her first thought is not to answer. She knows if she tells Kanan she'd rather not talk about it, he'll respect it. And the truth, the answer she feels down in her bones, the moment she realized that she was small, and weak, and limited -

That's not something that she'll share today.

But -

"There's a reason, you know. Why our home was built to be a place to hide."