fic – when we wander

12 Days of Christmas Celebration

↪ day three ❤  

fic – when we wander for the lovely @imsfire2

Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso,  1192 words, All the Fluff, Post-Scarif, Pre-Relationship, Romantic Cassian

Jyn feels the ship stutter as Cassian
quietly lands the ship on Panatha. The Outer Rim planet was under Imperial Rule
but the inhabitants, the Epicanthix, had maintained a certain degree
autonomy.  

“Cassian, are you sure you want to do
this?” She leans over his shoulder. Somewhere in the background, the murmur of
the ship slows and pulses as he powers down.

“I want to show you this. I have something in
mind.”

She rolls her eyes and stares back at him, “You
only brought us to an Imperial planet with a race of people with mind shields.
What could possibly go wrong?”

He stares back, wounded, “It’s not like I seek out
trouble.”

“Right.” She straightens up and reaches down
unconsciously to tap her blaster. Grabbing her scarf, she winds it around her
head tucking the ends beneath her hair. The silence on the ship is in complete
contrast to all the noise from a few moments earlier. “So, what’s the big
surprise?”

“Take a look.” He points at the doors and
follows her as they open, and she steps out.

“It’s a city,” Jyn continues to look left and
right at the crowds. Crowds were a bittersweet blessing, great to hide in but
too many people around her made her twitchy. “A busy city.”

She looks around at Cassian as he steps
alongside her. “It’s a beautiful city, one that seems to be left to its
devices, most of the time. Let’s go and enjoy this while we can.”

She looks at him, eyes darting around the
crowds, seeking anything that may be out of place. “Are you expecting something
to happen?”

“It’s not going to rain.”

She looks over at him, confusion
spreading across her face.” It doesn’t look like it. Does it matter if it
rains?”

Cassian tilts his head, and points at her hand. “Aah,
I need your hand. It’s just…the crowds…and it’s not that I don’t think you can…trust
me.”

Jyn nods slightly and extends her hand
towards him as he casually grabs it and pulls her alongside him. Jyn nearly
recoils at the unexpected contact but quickly realizes that the roads and
sidewalks are so congested that she would have lost Cassian if he didn’t have a
firm grip on her. She relaxes incrementally into his touch.  

“Huge festival happens every lunar calendar and
I thought you would like to see it.” He pauses, the corners of his mouth
turning up. “The biggest light display in the galaxy.”

Jyn smiles up at him, his calmness and happiness
coming through in his quiet voice. “Is the festival here? In the heart of the
city? I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“It’s possible. Thousands of people gathered
together, despite the heat, to spend the day waiting for the lights.”

“Where would thousands of people fit?” Jyn
glances around at the towering buildings surrounding her, built consistently
side by side, covering everything in sight.

“Jyn, this city is really something else. It’s
been left alone, for the most part, and a lot of the old traditions and culture
are still intact. It helps that it’s a humanoid planet but their regard for
culture and art are renown.”

She looks around dubiously but can feel nothing but
anticipation and eagerness in her surroundings. People are moving quickly
around them in either direction, all moving at a hurried pace. It doesn’t
trigger any warning bells in her head, the speed at which people were moving so
she decided to follow along and trust Cassian.

It had gotten so much easier to do that.

Jyn smiles as she trails behind him, clutching
at his hand. He walks briskly, weaving his way through the crowds. She finds starts
to feel nervous as the crowds grow thicker and denser, pushing against her and
starts to tug on her hand to gain Cassian’s attention. She finds herself rushing
headlong into his back as he makes a sudden stop.

“There, over there,” He turns to her and leans
closer, pointing at a large building. “See, over there.”

Jyn looks up, squinting into the sunlight and
ahead of her stands a large stadium. Colorful, alarmingly large and
surprisingly non-descriptive. It is surprising at how perfectly it fits into the
landscape of the congested city and she is suitably impressed. “Are we going in
there?”

“Yes,” He turns to her as he speaks, “Everything
will hold up. I would bet my life on the person who made them.”

Jyn starts to walk towards the building, she
knows he is referring to their scandocs. She is still wary of all these people
and the fact that they are going to join this crowd is not helping, but she
knows he will have a way out. He always does, “When is this festival you
mentioned?”

“Tonight.” Cassian glances around at the
swelling crowds. “People start to gather early in the day and they stay all
day.”

Jyn tugs at Cassian’s hand, “What are we waiting
for?”

_

They pay their entry fee and as night falls, Jyn
and Cassian join the crowds and wander aimlessly throughout the stadium.
Cassian insists that they not miss a single thing. For Jyn, it is one of the
happiest days she’s experienced in a long time and she is grateful for this
day.

“Almost time.” Cassian comes to a stop and looks
up at the sky. “We’ll watch from here.”

Jyn looks around and realizes he had chosen a
spot with their backs to the wall, both of them tucked out of direct view of
most onlookers. She glances to her left and notice a set of stairs that can be
used to climb down the side of the building if needed in a pinch. It’s perfect.
She watches as Cassian takes the green mat that they had been given upon their
entrance, and places it on the ground and gestures to Jyn to do the same. She
sits quietly next to him, absorbing the chaos around them.

For the next hour, they watch the pyrotechnic
display uninterrupted. Cassian leans over and whispers, “Did you know that the Epicanthix
believe that these light shows for the festival mean good luck. It’s why they
do it every year.”

She laughs to herself and simply enjoys the
moment. Days like today were impossible to image only months ago and this is
why she trusts him above anyone else, why she stays with him. He tries to find
hope in the small moments of every day, believes so much in what he is fighting
for and as she looks around she believes anything is possible.  She has never seen anything this amazing and
wants to carve every detail into her mind, commit it all to memory. She will
never get tired of these small moments.

Leaning over, she places her hand on his arm and
pulls herself closer to his warmth. “Thank you for today. I loved every moment
of it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” She nods emphatically. “Every moment.”

.end 

Taken some liberties: Epicanthix is an outer rim planet (which I modeled after China in this
story)

The festival is Chinese NY Year or the lantern
festival