#cw animal violence
IMPORTANT: This was not a good time in TKT Ezra’s life. This timeline’s gonna be pretty rough. Mind the tags. If you want a happier version I have posted a Lost in Wild Space but Nothing Bad Ever Happens Timeline on my @laelish-afriend blog that may be more your speed. It has all the same art, but everything is much happier there.
There will probably be logistics issues in this thing. It’s a lot to account for. So if you’re like “wait, that’s doesn’t make sense” you’re almost certainly correct.
Also this is a pretty long post.
The First Year
-First couple weeks were rough. We’re not going to go into it, but it was a bad time.
-After two weeks Ezra manages to 1. smash the IT-0 droid against a wall 2. cause considerable harm to a few people that very much deserved it 3. escape and disappear into the vents
-He learns the entire layout and ventilation system of the ship over the next few months.
-He steals small amounts from supplies, including armor, weapons, clothes, food and water.
-He learns rotations and uses bathrooms, showers, etc. when everyone has other places to be.
-Sometimes uses trooper armor to be able to walk around like a normal person.
-Mostly sleeps in places where he knows there either aren’t cameras or they’re blocked and no one’s likely to go. (Storage rooms, mechanical compartments, in the vents, whatever.)
-Finds two loth rats on the ship. Makes friends with them. Names them Ratmorigan and Jabba the Ratt.
-THRAWN HAS PROBE DROIDS PATROL THE VENTS?!
-RATMORIGAN DIES IN A TRAGIC PROBE DROID INCIDENT?!
-Tiny funeral for Ratmorigan.
-Ezra steals and reprograms the probe droids to go after the officers instead. Serves them right. Jerks.
-Probe droids stop patrolling the vents.
-Ezra gets caught again. Bad times. Thrawn tries to get him to Navigate them out of the Unknown Regions. Ezra refuses. More very bad times.
-He escapes with help from Jabba the Ratt after a few days. Easier this time. Luckily, they still haven’t fixed the IT-0.
-Ezra sabotages the communications system so that everyone’s call signs get randomized. Listens in on comm frequencies to hear all the mishaps. Many scandals. Lots of drama.
-Puts an intermittent frequency jammer under a table in the middle of the mess hall. It only turns on for one minute every few hours. Takes them a month to find it.
-Ezra teaches Jabba the Ratt how to do a high-five.
-Hammerly unknowingly befriends Jabba the Ratt. She makes him tiny hats that he immediately chews to shreds because he likes them so much.
-No capture for six months. “Dammit Bridger” becomes a running joke on the Chimaera every time a machine breaks or someone forgets where they put their comm. (Like 30% of the time it actually is Bridger, so…)
-Finally find an inhabited planet at nine months! But it’s like… one small community of aliens and only Thrawn knows their language. But they trade with the Chimaera for food, water, and a small amount of fuel, then point the ship in the general direction of other inhabited worlds.
-The Chimaera travels by doing hyperspace jumps to the edge of the range of the sensors. These are like… five minute jumps, but then they have to wait for a little while between each because if they do too many in a row the crew considers mutiny and they risk breaking the hyperdrive.
-Jabba the Ratt dies of old age. It is the worst day. There is no joy left in the far, far away galaxy.
-Two months later they finally make it to a planet with actual towns.
-Ezra tries to steal a TIE Defender and gets caught again.
-Manages to escape within a day and launches every single escape pod at once, including one that he’s in. (Turns on small portable heaters in other pods so they all read like there’s life forms in them.)
-Once he’s on the ground he actually does manage to steal a TIE Defender. He tries out navigating hyperspace with the Force and it goes decently well. He can find his way to other planets in the region, but can’t find his way all the way back home.
-The Chimaera follows his trajectory and ends up at the same planets he does, but usually a week or two later.
Year Two
-Ezra sees one of Sabine’s Phoenix symbols on a wall in a city. He’s very excited that he has finally been found after over a year without his family and looks everywhere trying to find her.
-The next night he finds a person in a cloak actively painting the symbol, but when he approaches it’s Thrawn and there’s a whole ambush set up.
-When he comes to again and finds himself in the Chimaera’s brig he is furious. He uses the techniques he learned from the Sith holocron to immediately get out and starts causing problems. Major systems start going out all over the ship – lights, heat, guns, shields… As soon as one’s back up another goes dark.
-In the middle of the chaos, Ezra breaks into Thrawn’s office and takes art from off the wall, a loth-wolf, only to realize that it’s dyed cloth, not painted canvas. He ties it over one shoulder like a shawl and wears it from then on.
-The tractor beam is offline when Ezra takes back his stolen TIE Defender and flies off.
-The damage sends a very clear message: Damage to oxygen systems, but not enough to keep it from going right back online. Damage to heat, but reparable before it goes from uncomfortable to dangerous. Loading hatches left just a few inches open in major storage areas filled with crates of food and medicine. No major losses, just half a dozen harmless, shallow cuts to the Chimaera’s vitals.
-It’s not the last time Ezra gets caught by the Chimaera’s crew, but it’s the last time that Thrawn goes hunting for him.
-Ezra paints his TIE Defender. He tries to do something like Sabine would do, but it’s kind of just a mess. But at least it’s a colorful mess.
-Thrawn manages to get holo-photos of the finished ship and establishes an entire art-profile based on Ezra’s crude attempts at painting loth-cats.
Years 3-6
-Ezra and the Chimaera fall into a routine. They end up on the same planets, but for the most part they stay out of each other’s way.
-Ezra keeps tabs on the Empire and if they start making trouble for locals he intervenes. It doesn’t usually go well for him, he’s out-gunned by a lot. But it gives them someone else to pick on.
-Every time they take him on board the Chimaera, Ezra makes sure to leave with a piece of art.
-The pieces he takes are very specific: Kanan’s mask, Hera’s family portrait, a Lassat wall scroll, the helmet Sabine painted.
-Whenever Ezra arrives on a new planet he covers the TIE fighter in a little lean-to shelter to keep it out of view and make himself a temporary home. The art gets put up where he can see it and remember home.
Year 7
-Thrawn’s friends find him? Thrawn has friends apparently???
-One of Thrawn’s friends isn’t terrible actually? Like he’s for sure Empire, but he isn’t The Worst?
-The other friend has a cape and is endlessly fun to cause problems for. Bonus – everyone enjoys it when he causes problems for this person, even the Chimaera’s crew.
-Ezra is definitely not friends with Vanto. Absolutely not. It is at most a begrudging respect.
-He does however say loudly and openly that he is best friends with his bestie, Ronan. It is Ronan’s least favorite thing.
-Ezra figures out Vanto’s comm frequency and starts telling him whenever any of the Chimaera’s stormtroopers are being terrible and corrupt.
-It actually gets better?! The corrupt ones either get straightened out or they stop going planet-side.
-Vanto starts making Ezra learn Math against his will whenever he gets caught.
-Vanto also starts finding ways to get him packages with food, water, and basic toiletries whenever Ezra is not stuck on the Chimaera.
-Not every call to Vanto’s comm is about corrupt stormtroopers anymore. Sometimes it’s just. Talking to somebody who doesn’t seem to actively hate him.
Year 8
-It is becoming way less fun to attack the Imps and also there are fewer problems than there used to be. So there’s less need to attack the Imps.
-Ezra’s getting frustrated and bored and also how come Thrawn’s friends found him first?! HOW?!
-Ezra finds out that Thrawn and Vanto are together. Traumatized. Cannot unknow this now.
-Ronan realizes that it bothers Ezra and starts bringing it up around him. Ezra does not throw him out the closest airlock, but it’s a near thing.
-Ezra steals Ronan’s cape. Ronan is full of rage. Nobody helps him get it back.
-Vanto tries to convince Ezra that Thrawn isn’t the worst person to ever exist. Arguments are not compelling. Seems highly unlikely.
-Ezra now has multiple people’s comm frequency on the Chimaera. He can no longer count the number of people he doesn’t hate on the Chimaera on just one hand.
-THRAWN SOMEHOW GOT EZRA’S COMM FREQUENCY?!
-Ezra switches his comm frequency and Thrawn finds it AGAIN
-He keeps getting relevant status updates? Inclement weather warnings? Random facts about local customs and science trivia that always seems to come up later somehow, as if Thrawn magically knew it would?!
-Ezra never responds to any of these, but they keep on showing up regardless.
-Nothing makes sense anymore.
Year 9
-Ahsoka and Sabine find the Chimaera!
-But then they get caught, which is not ideal.
-Everybody finds out that the Empire doesn’t exist anymore and the Rebellion won and became the New Republic while they were gone. So that’s fun news for exactly one person on the ship.
-Ezra helps Sabine and Ahsoka escape, but gets knocked out in the process. When he comes to they are back in the Outer Rim heading towards Lothal.
-When Ezra finds out that they took him directly back to the Outer Rim he realizes that they just gave the Chimaera the trajectory to get out. It will take Thrawn’s ship longer without their own Navigator, but they have the key to return now.
