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Hera never brings him food herself. She does usually help prepare it – she has a better sense of the Terran diet than most, and when it comes down to it, she doesn't fully trust the others not to poison a meal they know is going to their half-Terran 'guest.' But she always finds someone she does trust to take it into him. And then, at first, she'd waited, leaving him to eat alone before she entered his room.

She kept to the first. But the second, she gradually eased. Hera remembered how total her isolation had been, and what had eased in her when she'd grown used to sharing meals. That was something she could do, even if she wouldn't serve him.

So the time she waits becomes shorter and shorter. Until today, when it's only a few minutes after seeing Muroc exit the makeshift cabin that she approaches. She nods to the guard, and then though she doesn't have to, she knocks on the door. She doesn't wait for an answer before entering the room.

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She blinks, just a hint of surprise in it.

"I didn't mean to interrupt your meal."

"No, it's fine, I just -- "

His cheeks are very faintly pink, and he ducks his head to focus on eating for a little while longer.

"Sorry."

Hera doesn't answer this.

But after a few seconds, maybe sensing that her watching him might make him uncomfortable, she averts her eyes to the floor instead, and waits in silence for him to finish eating.

The flush of color fades from Kanan's skin as he finishes eating. (The absence of Hera's direct gaze helps, too. He still resents the gratitude a little, but even that fades with time.)

Eventually he looks back up, pushing the tray away from himself and taking a last swallow of water.

"I'm done. Thanks. Um. You were saying?"

Her eyes flicker to the empty tray.

And then she stands, folding her hands behind her back as she moves. "You can come with me."

She turns, partly, but waits for him to move before she takes another step.

It takes him a moment to fully absorb that statement, looking from her to the door and back to her again before clumsily pulling himself to his feet.

He almost knocks the tray over, but manages to rescue it, eyes cast down for a moment. Then he resolutely looks back up.

"All right. I guess I'll find out where we're going when we get there?"

Hera watches this, and meets his eyes as he looks back up to her.

And with some effort, she softens her voice. Slightly.

"Just somewhere with a little more room."

"Fair enough," Kanan says, but he's not smiling at all now.

And he waits, hands clasped behind his back, for Hera to open the door.

Hera does open the door, again nodding to the guard as they pass, who also rises to follow them. She leads him down the hall, and up a couple flights of stairs. Most of those they pass walk by with their eyes averted, though a few do openly stare, and one Kelpien slipped right out of the hall the moment he spotted them.

Hera doesn't acknowledge any of this, though she does frequently blink back to Kanan, and the guard walking behind them.

After about five minutes, she stops at another door, and opens it. The guard takes up a position standing by it, and as Hera enters the room, lights lined along the ceiling flicker on. It is a larger room, and mostly empty, except for a steel cupboard in one corner, a few hooks along the wall, and set of black mats laid out along the floor.

Kanan's face is like stone. Maybe someday he'll figure out how to separate mental shielding from the more physical kind, but --

Right now it's a no-go.

Some of that stiffness falls away as he enters the room behind Hera, studying the setup with surreptitious glances.

(The back of his neck still prickles with awareness of the guard, sometimes. This is one of those times.)

Hera heads for the cabinet, opening one side of it. Near the top hang several sets of white clothing, and below this there's a shelf with a closed pitcher and several steel cups. Hera pours water from the pitcher into two of the cups.

She pauses after setting the pitcher down again, for a few seconds just staring down at the cups. But then, she shakes her head a little, and lifts up the cup, before walking back over to Kanan.

"I take it they didn't teach you much about other species." she asks, as she holds out one of the cups to him.

"No."

Kanan shakes his head, reaching out reflexively to take the proffered cup.

"At least -- nothing that I wanted to learn."

Which was certainly a disappointment to his father. Wanting to take people apart is a useful talent in the Terran Empire.

"Well, I want to show you something one of my teachers taught me."

She pauses long enough to take a sip from her own cup. "It's a Klingon martial arts form called Mok'bara."

He half-smiles, though the wariness doesn't quite leave his gaze.

"This isn't some half-baked excuse to break all my bones, right?"

Then he shakes his head.

"No, sorry, I know you wouldn't -- "

She'd just do it, is the thing, no excuses necessary. So this really is what she says it is.

Hera lets that one pass without comment.

"Mok'bara is the basis for many Klingon combat techniques. But its purpose is to clear your mind, and to help you stay calm and focused."

She suspects it goes without saying that this is something he could probably use.

Edited 2018-08-14 05:38 (UTC)

"Focused, huh?"

He leaves the 'calm' part alone, largely because that's the more true piece of things.

"That'd be . . . nice."

"Then if you'll follow my lead -"

She holds her hand out to take his cup back, so she can set them both down by the side of the mat. They'll need their hands free, after all.

"- I'll start to walk you through it."

"All right."

He leaves about half the water in the cup, holding it out to Hera.

"Thanks."

Maybe it's too soon to say that, but --

Her eyes linger on him for a moment, but she takes his cup, and walks over to the edge of the mat to place both cups on the floor.

"All right," she says, as she returns to him. And then, for the first time, she turns her back to him, her arms held loosely her side.

"Take a wide stance, feet about a shoulder width apart." She shifts her left foot as she speaks. "You want to feel centered and grounded, like nothing move you."

Kanan startles, he can't quite help it, and takes a half step back to put more space between them. It --

It seems like a good idea, suddenly.

"On the balls of my feet, right? Or -- planted, like a tree."

It's a question, even as he shifts his legs into the indicated stance, awkwardly looking at the way Hera's holding herself so that he can better mimic it.

Hera glances back at him, waiting for him to seem to settle.

"That's right. Now, lift your hands -" She does the same as she speaks, lifting her hands in front of her face, palms down, letting her fingertips barely brush as she lowers them again. Though she keeps her eyes ahead, she angles herself so Kanan can follow her movements. "- and then down again -"

"Lift," Kanan mutters, repeating the movements as Hera makes them -- or rather, repeating them just a count-and-a-half behind. His fingertips don't brush so much as crash into each other, and he frowns.

"And down . . . "

She guides him slowly through a sequence of five steps, and then smoothly moves back to the first, so that they can repeat them in a cycle. As they repeat the steps, she gives fewer instructions, and gradually moves more quickly.

After the third repetition, she stops, and turns, watching to see if he can move through them on his own, without her demonstration.

His brow is furrowed, and his movements are halting -- he goes too quickly through the rise, and only a hair slower on the fall -- and the placement of all his limbs is more swinging than deliberate, but --

He makes do.

Hera lets him repeat the sequence twice, watching but not speaking, and then holds up a hand as he finishes.

"All right," she says. "How do you feel?"