Saga - OT Just Dance | Holiday Fic Gift for @Findswoman | Zeb, Sabine, Ezra| fluff

Title: Just Dance
Author: Raissa Baiard
Genre: Fluff
Characters: Zeb Orrelios, Sabine Wren, Ezra Bridger
Timeframe: Circa 4 BBY, sometime during season 2 of Rebels
Synopsis: The Spectres must meet an important contact at a trendy night club--and that means Zeb has to dance.

Notes: Written for my dear friend @Findswoman as part of the 17th Annual Non-Denominational Winter (for Some) Holiday Fic-Gift Exchange, and also double dipping as a response to her Madonna Challenge, (for which I receive the song Vogue). Her request was :

Here you go, my friend-- hope you enjoy this little tale.
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“I look ridiculous in this get up,” Zeb snarled, tugging at the hem of his cheap crinkle-silk poncho. Its virulent toxic-waste yellow color looked extra sickly when contrasted with his violet-gray fur. It was at least a size too small, and it refused to stay down over his chest. The matching pants would have been more generously cut on a smaller being; they were skin-tight on Zeb but at least they covered his posterior. And just to be extra, Sabine had accessorized the outfit with tacky plastiform wrist and ankle cuffs with pulsating lights that throbbed to the bass of the heavy-isotope music the DJ-unit was playing. If there was a being, anywhere, under any circumstance who wouldn’t look like a complete and utter karking idiot wearing his outfit, Zeb wasn’t sure he wanted to meet them.

A sharp look from Sabine forestalled whatever smart remark Ezra had been about to make--no doubt confirmation that Zeb did indeed look like a total moof-milker Not that the kid had any room to talk, what with the magenta puff-sleeved shirt and bedazzled flare-legged pants he was wearing.

“Stop complaining, Zeb,” she told him a bit tartly. “I did the best I could on a fifty credit budget; the Osk of Krill shop didn’t have much in your size. This wouldn’t have been my first choice, either, but it’s important that we fit in until we find our contact.”

Zeb snorted. Dressed in a velvoid bodysuit the color of a ripe jogan fruit and with her hair styled into an elaborate swirl of turquoise curls, Sabine was the only one of the three Spectres who didn’t look like she’d been dressed from the “final markdowns'' bin of the Order of the Ka’ra’s thrift store on Garel.

“Yeah, about that…this is not what I thought you meant when you said you need me to go clubbing with you.” He’d been looking forward to bashing a few bucketheads, but instead Zeb had found himself in some sheevy, trendy dance club where he brought the average age up by a good ten years and dressed like an explosion in a droid factory

“Hey, after all the times we’ve had to meet our contacts in abandoned munitions dumps or on creepy asteroids, we’re due for someplace fun,” Ezra commented, bobbing his head in time with the music. He stared out at the dance floor like the proverbial youngling in a sweet shop.

“We’ve got a mission here, you know,” Sabine sighed. “We have to find someone wearing a crimson arvensis blossom— a red flower with five petals,” she clarified at Ezra’s puzzled expression. “They’re supposed to have a code cylinder smuggled out of Grand Moff Tarkin’s office.

Zeb gave a low, impressed whistle. That was quite a prize, all right. Almost worth looking like a moof-milker for.

“Remember, the code phrase is ‘Can you do the boxnov-three step?’’Sabine continued. “They’ll answer, ‘No, just the Lepi-hop.’ We need to split up if we’re going to find them, so let’s get out there and dance, Spectres.”

Zeb snorted, lingering at the table as the two younger Spectres melted into the crowd of beings gyrating to a souped-up dance mix of The Modal Nodes’ “Mad About Me”. Get out there and dance. Easy for Sabine to say. She was still young and spry enough not to look like a nerf-herder doing those moves. Whereas Zeb was big, clunky and--might as well face it--when compared with those mooka pups out on the floor, old. Let her and Ezra handle the dancing; he’d look for the mystery being with the red arvensis blossom from the sidelines. Preferably with the help of a nice New Blarrus Dark Ale.

After obtaining his drink from a Bothan bartender who looked down the considerable length of her equine nose at his pedestrian choice of beverage, Zeb grabbed a bowl of warra nuts and camped out at the table again. He hadn’t had more than a quarter of it, though, before Sabine sprinted off the dance floor toward him like an angry buzz-beetle.

“Zeb,” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

He held up his mug. “Drinking this ale, what’s it look like? Don’t worry,” he assured her as she continued the angry beetle impression, buzzing and sputtering in indignation. “I can watch for the contact just fine from here.”

“Really? Have you got a set of macro-binoculars hidden somewhere, because I can’t see how you can tell one dancer from another from here.”

She had kind of a point. From this distance, all the dancers seemed to meld together into a single massive being with a superabundance of gyrating appendages. Not that he was going to admit it to Sabine, though. Zeb took a determined pull of ale and stared straight ahead.

“Zeb! We need all the eyes we have on this mission! If we miss getting this code cylinder because you’d rather sit and chug a cold one--”

“I don’t dance.” Zeb muttered into his glass. Since Sabine seemed bent on making him confess, fine, he would.

She looked at him as if he’d said he was giving up this pesky breathing business, thank you very much. “Anyone can dance, Zeb. Look at Ezra.”

“Yeah, look at him.” The music had changed now, to an outdated Gungan deesco tune that was accompanied by an elaborate participation dance. The song was played at every nuptial banquet, coming-of-age party, and neighborhood bash from Coruscant to Tatooine, and had been for several decades. Everyone and their mooka knew how to do the Yert-Mirn-Cresh-Aurek--everyone except Ezra, who’d spent his formative years living on the streets. He was consistently half a beat behind the music, was making the wrong letters with his arms, and kept crashing into the Chadra-Fan dancing next to him, but from the look on his face, the kid was having the time of his life. “Anyway, I didn’t say I can’t dance, I said don’t. I. Don’t. Dance. I used to. Once. But that was before…"

He’d been reckoned a pretty good dancer, once. He knew all the steps to the Honor Guards’ bo-rifle dances, the bachelor dances, the reels and line dances that had been staples of Guard Galas from the time he’d been a cadet to when he’d become captain. He’d actually been pretty at the fancy couples’ dances, too, though that mostly came from having a good partner—the best. No one more graceful or light-footed than his Shulma. Without Shulma…without Shai and Groz and Gunvar…karabast, even Velibor… Without all of ‘em there, what was the point of dancing?

Sabine seemed to understand what he’d left unsaid; she was quiet for a moment and then laid her hand atop his. “You know, sometimes dancing can make you feel better—no, really,” she added when Zeb snorted his opinion of that. “It’s like art; it can help you let your emotions out and find the joy that’s still inside. All you have to do is let the music move you. Look, I have to get back out there. I can’t make you dance, Zeb, but…just think about it, okay?”

Zeb watched Sabine slip back onto the dance floor and get lost amongst the forest of dancers. He snorted into his glass—let the music move you, right. It’ll make you feel better—sure! Because doin’ the Mantooine Minuet was gonna make him forget everything the Empire had done. He was fine right here with his ale, and… Zeb slammed his mug down with a sigh. Sabine might or might not have a point about the healing power of dance, but she’d been right that the Spectres needed everyone on deck for this mission, and he wasn’t gonna be the reason they failed. So… dancing… Hooray…

There was a pause in the music as the DJ-unit queued up the next track. Zeb sidled to the edge of the floor, and took a deep breath.

A low swirl of strings and synthi-clav rippled across the dance floor, building in pitch and intensity until it was joined by a pulsing bass line and snapping percussion beats. Zeb’s toes began to twitch to the rhythm, just the distal phalanges at first, but the cadence quickly moved up his prehensile toes, until his feet were tapping.

The synthi-clav’s notes swelled into an irresistible hook and a xylophone joined the percussion, tap-dancing up and down the scales as trumpets blared a counterpoint. Zeb’s left knee started bouncing, then the right. His hips swayed of their own accord; his shoulders shrugged in time.

He was dancing.

“Let your body move to the music,” sang a smoky, sultry female voice. “Let your body go with the flow!”

Oh, yeah… So this was what Sabine had meant. Zeb had a fleeting thought that he probably looked like a big, clunky purple moof-milker among all these tiny, young dancers, but he quickly dismissed it with who cares? Never gonna see any of ‘em again anyway.

Then suddenly, the flow of dancers parted around him and Zeb found that he had a partner.

She was neither tiny nor young, a female Balinaka, an ursine species known both for their impressive height and their thick, glistening white pelts. She wore a flame red shawl that fluttered around her shoulders, and tucked behind one shaggy ear, an enormous crimson arvensis flower. She caught Zeb’s eye and gave him a wink and a wide smile full of pointy teeth as gleaming white as her fur.

They danced until the music faded. “So, heh,” Zeb said, trying to sort out his feelings. Karabast, he hadn’t moved like that in years! “You know the boxnov-three step?”

The balinaka gave a throaty laugh. “No, just the Lepi-hop.” She reached up and unpinned the scarlet blossom from her fur and held it to her muzzle as if to drink in its fragrance. “Thank you for the dance. My people have always loved dancing, but we haven’t had much opportunity to do so since the Empire took over Garnib and declared us slaves. To see you here, dancing so freely and joyously…it gives me hope.” She pressed her flower into Zeb’s hands; nestled beneath the petals, attached to the barrette, was a slender silver tube--the code cylinder. “Use this well,” she said, and with another toothy smile, disappeared back into the crowd.

Zeb returned to his table with his prize. He laid the arvensis flower on the table and took a pensive drink of ale. Karabast, that had been…kind of fun, actually. The Balinaka was no Shulma, of course, but she’d had some moves. Across the crowd, Zeb could just make out a large, white figure slipping out the door. He hoped she’d find more opportunities to dance, wherever she wound up.

He didn’t realize that Sabine and Ezra had made their way across the floor to him until Sabine punched his bicep. “Good job, Zeb,” she said, smiling.

“I guess now that we got what we came for, we’ll be going, huh?” Ezra looked out at the floor wistfully.

“Eh,” Zeb replied. “I reckon we’ve got time for a couple more dances before we go.” It had been kind of fun, after all.

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Notes:
Balinaka: found while searching for “enslaved species” on Wookieepedia

Dances:
The Boxnov-three step, Lepi-hop, Mantooine minuet and deesco are all established, but the Yirt-Mern-Cresh-Aurek dance is my own invention

“Mad About Me” is better known as the “Cantina Song” from ANH

Arvensis blossom: arvensis is the species name of Anagallis arvensis, also known as the scarlet pimpernel

The Shulma mentioned in Zeb’s memories of dancing is @Findswoman ‘s OC. She can be found in almost all of her Lasat stories including The Captain, the H-Goater, and the Voorpak and Our Big, Fat Lasat Wedding, from which much of the description of the dances was taken. Shai, Groz, Gunvar, and Velibor are other Lasat OCs who appear in our shared Lasat stories.

New Blarrus Dark Ale is also @Findswoman ‘s fanon and is frequently mentioned as Zeb’s beverage of choice.

The Osk of Krill resale stores are also her fanon and can be found in: Artoo, Myself and the Little Blue Shiny Thing

 

What a unique place for a mission The teasing is great and I can almost hear the music. A lively beat.

Zeb was enjoying himself but he won't ever admit it.

 

This was funny and yet oddly wholesome.
It's nice to see Zeb healing a little through his groovy dance moves.
Never heard of the Balinaka before but now I can't get the image of them partying out of my head.

 

This had me laughing from beginning to end. Zeb and his ridiculous outfit but having fun dancing in it

 

Being now that person who brings the average age up by ten years when I walk in a dance club it's not an activity I partake in as often as I'd like to, but oh boy did this fic recall some memories of my wild youth The description of the club was just perfect, from the improbable outfits that looked like "an explosion in a droid factory" (been there, done that), the dancing crowd that looks like "a single massive being with a superabundance of gyrating appendages" (done that too, somehow people seems to grow extra arms and legs when they get up on the dance floor) and most importantly the way the music just grows into you, how you feel it pulsing and how you find yourself dancing wildly before you even know it. At the same time, this was such a touching story, with deep emotional undertones both for Zeb's memories of the happy past he's lost and for the few words the female Balinaka says. In that moment, as I reader, I felt like the music had gone silent, the strobing lights had stopped, and the reality of the wider situation was all that mattered. And so it is for Zeb, but he's wise enough to know how valuable it is for him to have rediscovered the joy of dancing, and he decides to allow himself a little more of it

Also, the Yert-Mirn-Cresh-Aurek being a Gungan deesco piece? Just priceless

It took me far too long to come and read this, but I'll know better in the future, because I have a silly grin spread all over my face now and I think I'll be in a dancing mood for the rest of the evening.

 

[looks up Balinaka] Oh that is extremely cursed. They look like starved polar bears. I would love to pick the brain of whoever designed those.

This was lovely! There’s an art to writing Zeb with the perfect mix of comedy and bittersweetness, which you and Finds have down to a science. How wonderful that he’s able to find some healing with a kindred spirit.