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After Ezra's eventful return to his galaxy it takes him some weeks before he manages to fly out to visit the last member of his family. And some new ones, as he soon learns.
Zeb has been living with his husband and mate, former Agent Kallus on Lira San for the last few years. They had retired from active fighting after Kallus had literally given an arm and a leg for the Rebellion on Hoth. Every now and then one of them would reappear in republic space, do a couple of jobs for the New Republic for three months or so, buy seemingly random supplies with the money and run off again. Hera would sometimes drop Jacen off to be babysat, especially when he was smaller and the New Republic wasn't as stable as it is now. Hera herself hasn’t actually been to the surface of Lira San and Jacen won’t tell Ezra about it, so he doesn’t exactly know what to expect.
Garazeb welcomes Ezra with a big crushing hug and Kallus pats him on the shoulder. The human is wearing some kind of faux fur jacket that reveals its purpose, when Ezra spots three tiny lasat clinging to Kallus' back. There are also two larger kits, who are following behind the man, one clawed hand each firmly attached to the harness fixed to his trousers.
As Ezra and Zeb follow with a slight distance they walk on wooden beams and ropes to reach a village suspended above a deep canyon, Ezra relying on the force to balance himself while Kallus’ prosthetic leg seems to be specialised for this environment. The lasat naturally move easily through the network of shaky “bridges” that make up their streets.
The whole situation feels surreal to Ezra, but that's just what his life is: One weird thing after another. He'd take Kallus and his army of baby lasat over Thrawn and his troopers any day.
After Ezra got a feel for the bridges he manages to concentrate enough to start up a conversation with Zeb. “Sooo… is Kallus a kindergarten teacher now, or what's up with that?” Zeb guffaws and knocks Ezra on the head. “Hera's not the only one who wanted kits, those five are ours.” He grins proudly. “Five children! You and Kallus have five children?!” Zebs' smile grows even wider and more mischievous. “Nah, we have six, but the oldest stayed home to keep the birds from snatching our dinner.”
It's later that evening, after Ezra has been introduced to the six new Orreliosses and the kits had all been put to bed, that the three adults sit in the rooftop garden, drinking some kind of human friendly local juice. Or that’s at least what Ezra thinks this drink is. Among the plants of the garden Ezra has spotted several of Zeb's favourite fruit. They always struggled to have even one of them aboard the Ghost every now and then, but here Kallus grows them all for his husband.
Zeb followed his kits example eventually and is already asleep with his head on Kallus’ lap when Ezra puts into words one question that had been on his mind since arriving on Lira San.
“Putting the whole brainmelt that you two somehow reproduced aside, I'd have thought that the kits would look more… you know like Jacen? Isn't that how it works with human-non-human hybrids?”
Kallus snorts and sips his drink. Sure Ezra guesses that was pretty blunt. He’s still not used to having decent conversations in basic again.
“Laugh it up, but not everyone gets a fancy Coreworld school education.” Ezra’s gaze wanders to the plants, but snaps back to Kallus, when the other human answers. He speaks softly so as to not wake Zeb.
“I certainly didn't learn this at “fancy school”. You've been told the simplified answer, but human genetics aren't as easy as that.
Yes, children of humans tend to turn out “human”, but things get less clear if you look at societies where humans are a minority.”
He takes a sip of his drink, probably thinking of how to continue. So Ezra keeps quiet for now.
“Coruscant has seen immigrants of all types of sapiens for thousands of years. The middle and lower levels are organised into neighbourhoods, based on either people's place of origin or some vague and to be honest xenophobic idea of sorting “similar” species together.
I grew up in a neighbourhood they called "The Litter Box”. You can imagine what kind of non-humans the immigration office placed there.
It wasn't all that bad, on the opposite side of the planet from the Senate, so we didn't get nosy tourists and politicians, high enough from the planets surface to be considered mid-level, so we didn't get stuck with the gunk on the streets, we got some sunlight and the air was breathable without masks.
Drunk idiots, mostly university students, used to drop off any tooka they could find as a dare, but the most idiotic stayed away as soon as they got wind about our apparently “free running nexus”.”
There’s a snort and another pause, while Kallus pets Zeb's ear and stares off into the distance.
“People usually don't leave neighborhoods like mine. They usually live their whole life there. They also find their partners there, be it long time citizens, new immigrants or tourists looking for fun and danger. Those tourists are the only new humans that stick around, or you know produce half-human offspring who stick around.
The few people who do leave are also all considered humans, like me.
I joined the Coruscant Academy a year into the Clone Wars and even then they weren't encouraging coruscanti non-humans to sign up. They even checked if my parents looked human too, before accepting me.
I haven't been back to the Litter Box since I left the very first time. At first I couldn't afford a trip to the other side of the planet and by the time I had saved up enough money it would have looked bad to travel to a neighbourhood like mine. When I graduated from what had become the Royal Imperial Academy I couldn't visit my family or home, if I wanted to have any decent standing. But that was the case for any ensign, who wasn’t from a rich and powerful family.”
Ezra felt regret and past loneliness from Kallus, throughout his explanation, but now he’s looking down at Zeb and shaking his head with a small smile on his lips, love radiating into the force.
“Anyways so most humans living on well traveled planets are part hundreds of different species, humans on elite, xenophob or isolated planets have only a couple of non-human ancestors, but in closed societies with a few compatible species, sooner or later almost everyone is just as diverse as the society. If I'd stayed in the Litter Box and had children with another “human” from there, chances are half our children would have turned out as human as I am, a quarter some for the lack of better words “feline” mix and the last quarter somewhere between.”
Suddenly there’s a growling coming from Zeb at the idea of his mate with another partner. Turns out he isn’t as asleep as Ezra thought he was. But all it takes for Zeb to calm and settle down is Kallus brushing his hand through his beard.
“Garazeb, like almost everyone from Lasan, has only lasat and a few wookies among his ancestors, so everything not typical lasat in our children comes from me and my family.
I don't actually know what kind of non-humans I’m related to. That was taboo to talk about for the human passing people. My parents wanted me to be able to leave and to have any perspective outside of the neighbourhood, only my human “enough” relatives existed on paper and even in my mind. The rest were just friendly neighbours.
In hindsight there were some non-humans I now believe were related to me, but I'll never know for sure.”
The sadness and regret flowing from Kallus increases until Zeb sits up and draws his mate into a hug. After a while the human huffs and relaxes.
“I have my own family now both here and among the former rebels and I know and love all of them, human or not, even semi-adopted nephews-in-law like you, Jabba.”
