Hera patted Chopper's dome, telling him to watch the controls for just a minute and monitor incoming transmissions while she fetched some caf. Normally she'd just ask someone else, but Zeb and Kanan had taken the Phantom on a short supply run and Sabine was teaching Ezra. It shouldn't take too long to make some fresh and then go back to taking care of things.

The machine was about halfway done when Sabine made her way into the galley, Ezra riding on her back.

"Tea, oh please tell me we're not out of tea. Next time I need to remember the hot drinks before I start an hour long lesson in shyriiwook." Sabine lamented, sounding hoarse. From behind her head Ezra just giggled, and then let out a fairly impressive roar.

"I think there's still a little left, enough for a cup or two." Hera smiled, stepping back so Sabine could get to the food storage to look for her tea.

Sabine found the tea container, shaking it and eyeing how much was left before starting the hot water. "I forget sometimes that his vocal cords are a lot more suited for those languages. I keep thinking he'll need a break first."

"Nuh-uh." Ezra bit at the back of her hair, tugging at the brightly dyed strands with a low growl.

"Oh no, I'm sitting down with my tea. Go see if you can beat your time on the obstacle course." Sabine shrugged, crouching some so Ezra could scramble off her back.

Ezra looked like he wanted to protest a moment then his ears flicked, tips dipping as he nodded and took off.

"You're really good with him." Hera observed, as the machine dinged to let her know her caf was done.

"I was an instructor at the Imperial Academy for a while. It's nice to teach when I can choose to teach whatever I want." Sabine added a generous amount of sweetener to her tea before taking a slow sip.

"I'd wondered."Hera retrieved her caf, starting back towards the cockpit and not minding that Sabine started to follow. "Language instructor?"

"That and some shooting. Would you want to teach him any Ryl? I understand more than I can speak." Sabine took a seat in the copilot's chair, sipping her tea slowly. It was adjusted up for Kanan's tall frame and only the toes of her boots touched the floor. It didn't look like it bothered her any.

"I don't know." Hera's lekku twitched as she thought about it, patting Chopper and letting him know she could take back over as she settled into her chair. "Most twi'lek speak at least a little Basic and I don't know how likely it is he's going to encounter it."

"Couldn't hurt, he's still young enough he's picking up languages easily and… wait, do that again?" Sabine focused her attention on Hera, learning forward some.

"Do what again?" Hera glanced down at the controls, she hadn't even really done anything.

"No, when you were thinking before, how you moved your lekku." Sabine waved a free hand to indicate the back of Hera's head.

"How I? Like this?" Hera repeated the movements. It was second nature at this point to include the non-verbal components when she talked, and one of the reasons Ryl was difficult for outsiders to manage. A great deal of the time the movements acted like inflection and could change the entire meaning of a phrase from straightforward, to sarcastic, to playful. The movements were thoughtful ones, 'I don't know' meaning that she was thinking it over, not dismissing it.

"Just like that. So that's where he gets it." Sabine looked surprised and pleased at that, taking another sip of tea.

"You've lost me. Who gets what?" Hera asked.

"Ezra. When he talks and gets excited he moves his ears like he's trying to mimic your lekku." Sabine grinned. "I thought he was just twitchy."

"Are you sure that's what he's trying to do?" Hera didn't bother to hide her skepticism. "Zeb moves his ears all the time."

"Pretty sure. It's a different sort of movement. " Sabine held one hand up to make a pointed Lasat ear over her own. "When Zeb's thinking over a question he tilts his ear back like this. And when Ezra's doing it he flicks them like this." Sabine mimicked both movements.

"He could have picked that up anywhere though." Hera protested, and tried to squash the hopeful feeling that Sabine was right. Sometimes it felt like while she knew Ezra liked her, he didn't want anything from her. He pestered Kanan endlessly with questions about the Jedi, even if they were still on a child's level of understanding. 'Could blank be a Jedi?' had lasted for three days before Kanan had declared that question off limits, with the blank ranging from everything from loth-cats to clouds. Ezra had gotten over his last few traces of shyness with Zeb once it finally clicked with him that he finally had someone big and tough enough to wrestle and play-fight with who didn't care if he bit and clawed. Lasat fur seemed designed to protect against flailing kits and Zeb was patient with him. Hera also wouldn't have been surprised if a good bit of hand-to-hand techniques weren't being snuck in along with the play. Sabine was the one Ezra always defaulted to first for showing off how he was improving with his blasters and so far he didn't show any sign of getting bored with the language lessons.

Hera though? The few times she'd tried to explain how the ship flew she lost his interest almost immediately and she wasn't sure if the fault there was with her instructions or if Ezra just wasn't interested in flying. Not everyone was, and she tried not to take it personally, but if she was being honest with herself it was a small disappointment.

"Maybe I can try teaching him a few words and phrases." Hera finally relented "Though I don't seem to have the knack for it like you do. If he's being stubborn about going to sleep all I have to do is start explaining hyperdrive functionality readouts and he's out like a light."

"Hmm, let me take a wild guess, you were the kind of kid who grabbed up every scrap of mechanical knowledge you could get your hands on years before you ever saw a ship closer than a flash in the sky?" Sabine smiled, leaning back with her empty tea cup held loosely. If her throat was still sore from the shyriiwook lesson she gave no sign of it.

"That was me." Hera didn't see any reason to deny it.

"Some kids are like that, they love collecting knowledge just for the fun of it. And some aren't, like Ezra. Not that he's not smart, but unless he sees a reason for learning something it's an uphill fight the whole way trying to get him to pay attention." Sabine waved a hand at the controls "Why should he learn hyperdrive functionality readouts? It's useless trivia."

"Being able to fly the ship without it exploding isn't useless trivia." Hera arched one tattooed eyebrow and quirked a lekku.

"And how often do you let him fly the ship?" Sabine questioned, then shook her head slightly, answering her own rhetorical question. "Never, I'm guessing he's not even supposed to touch the controls. Which is smart, he's just a kit. But right now readouts matter as much as… as the average precipitation reports on Kessel."

"So you're saying I need to start small, with something he can do." Hera's lekku twitched as she went over possibilities. "A speeder bike maybe. If he sat in front of someone he could get a better idea for how it works, but I could keep him from crashing into anything."

"Sounds perfect. Next time we're on a planet with lots of flat space to ride then, you can even borrow my speeder for it." Sabine offered.

"I didn't say I would be…. I did say that, didn't I?" Hera smiled, shaking her head slightly. "Alright, next time then. How does it ride?"

"Steady at low speeds, push it and there's an output flux that pulls it to the right that I haven't been able to pinpoint yet and it's not a big enough deal to strip the whole bike apart to try and find it." Sabine shrugged a little.

"Did you check the secondary relays? They'd only kick in with the higher demand and they're trickier to monitor." Hera questioned.

"I ran a basic diagnostic, but…" Sabine paused as Ezra burst into the cockpit, obviously excited.

"Can I help unload? Huh?" Ezra quirked his ears, looking pleadingly at them both and with a start Hera could see it, the way another twi'lek would hold their lekku. It wasn't obvious enough to actually work for going along with speaking Ryl, but… he was trying.

"We'll see. They have to get back first… and there's the transmission." Hera smiled as she pushed the button to open up communications with the Phantom, Kanan letting them know they were coming in to dock.

"Come on, kit. You can show off how good you are at singing those wookie drinking songs while they unload. I'm sure they'll love it." Sabine stood up to start herding Ezra out of the cockpit.

"Drinking songs? I thought this was about teaching useful skills." Hera chuckled.

"Entertaining everyone else is a useful skill." Sabine shot back, amused.

"You say entertaining…. I say…" Hera trailed off, not sure how to best say 'annoying'.

"Exactly."