All Aibians were of course aware of the… power disparity. Even if it somehow escaped you that you were flying to a planet occupied by towering gods, the hour-long safety lecture and demonstration you sat through beforehand made it abundantly clear.

…though perhaps ‘safety lecture’ wasn’t the most accurate. Given all advice pretty much boiled down to: ‘be within vision and awareness of titans at all time otherwise your odds of survival are incredibly low’, it might be more honest to call it a scare video to drill into each of the visiting specks how much danger they were in.

In the end though, it was all for naught. After all, Aibians could go out of their way to follow every safety rule, stick to their designated zones, observe proper distance from titans and keep their frequencies ready to get help… but all it took was a single titan to forgo one of those regulations, and it was the Aibians that would pay the price. In this case, a small Aibian shuttle taking a scenic route through the Coruscant Gardens when a passing Zabrak Senator visiting from his home-planet and not yet having sat through the customary ‘Aibian Briefing’ walked past and spotted a little pest flying past his face.

SWAT.

One of the most advanced, highly engineered vessels built on Aibos… and even it still couldn’t withstand the idle slap of a titan’s hand. In a matter of seconds, the shuttle began plummeting down, as its attacker simply walked away, ignorant to the tiny people he had just condemned to a crash landing. All the poor Aibian pilot could do was make a panicked distress call before yanking at his controls and trying to stick as best a landing as possible—

CRASH!

That had been… twelve hours ago. Miraculously, most had survived the crash, though then the next issue had arisen. The beautiful gardens of Coruscant looked inviting and pleasant to most… but not so much when you weren’t even half an inch tall. Dangers from larger insect life, and of course other roaming titans were a constant threat – perhaps best shown by the gigantic cigarette butt still dropping down the rare lit ember situated above the Aibian’s hastily assembled shelter.

While the falling bits of ash and flame had nearly claimed one poor Aibian soul before the tiny survivors scrambled further back – they still had no choice but to take cover under it. At such a miniscule size, the slight, ambient chill of the ground could very well freeze them to death… and the faint heat given off by the discarded cigarette was their only source of warmth.

All Aibian vessels came with shelter kits. After all, being forced to make an unexpected landing was a lot more common when everyone else on the planet was many miles tall to you. Though it was also common knowledge that once you got to the point of needing to use them, your survival rates weren’t… great. When the familiar RUMBLES of a titan approaching shook each of them, there was a shared despair as the specks all looked up, expecting to see some idly pacing alien giant ready to stamp them out… but instead…

“I-It’s one of those clones!”

Despair turned to desperate hope, while clones were just as dangerous and towering as the rest of the titans, they were also the designated… helpers for Aibians. If clones were on the scene then…!

“YOU SURE THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE?”

“THIS IS… ROUGHLY WHERE THEIR LAST SIGNAL ORIGINATED FROM, SO…”

“IT’S AIBIANS – IF THEY HAVEN’T BEEN BLOWN AWAY OR GOTTEN STUCK IN SOMEONE’S TREADS, THEY’RE PROBABLY ALREADY BEEN KIDNAPPED AND TAKEN TO THE NEAREST ANTHILL.”

“WE STILL HAVE TO CHECK—“

“WHY DID YOU EVEN DRAG US OUT HERE? YOU KNOW ‘AIBIAN DISTRESS CALLS’ ARE BASICALLY GONERS.”

“…SENATOR BRALLAR ASKED ME TO—“

“OF COURSE HE ASKED YOU… SAGA, IF THAT SPECK TOLD YOU TO LIE DOWN AND LET HIM CLIMB YOU, WOULD YOU DO IT? ACTUALLY, DON’T ANSWER THAT…”

“ZIP IT, VOD. JUST KEEP AN EYE OUT – YOU KNOW THE RULE ABOUT-“

“ASSUME EVERY STEP YOU’RE ABOUT TO TAKE COULD BE OVER AN AIBIAN, YEAH, YEAH…”

CT-Dirge frowned behind his helmet as he took another step forward. Typical that Saga would drag him to run chores for the Aibian senator he was so blatantly soft for. Far be it from him to tell his vod where and who to shack it up with, but did the guy really have to go and pick someone who wasn’t even sand-sized?

Whatever – Dirge just wanted to either find some miraculously alive Aibians or find an abandoned tiny vessel that he could point to and tell Saga than there were obviously no survivors and let the both of them enjoy the rest of their day… though how in the hell he was supposed to find something that small was beyond him.

But as the soft *crunch* of something collapsing underfoot was muffled by crispy grass, Dirge’s wish would not be granted. Seconds later, the unnoticed impact of a tiny, desperate red flare hitting the front of his boot would only confirm it. The bored clone would sigh and walk ahead, being secretly glad that the groundskeeper wouldn’t let them close off a section of the famous gardens for longer than an hour. When that came, he’d drag Saga off to trudge back to the barracks.

Saga would be cleaning out all the trampled mud and debris lodged into his boots for this…

________________________________________________

An incredible fucking gift-piece by  Xenoscape with a short lore excerpt kindly written by  Nesciens to accompany it. Featuring a little more of the misadventures of clone troopers Saga and Dirge.

I actually ha d a different scenario in mind when discussing the specifics of this pic with Xenoscape, but after watching the latest episodes of Andor and discovering that Coruscant does indeed have gardens to visit, Nesciens was inspired to tie this in a lot firmer with our established canon. And I love it! It really juxtaposes the extreme survival situation the tiny visitors from Aibos face, right against the simple, plain reality of a fairly well-maintained garden… The world looks very different when you are that small after all.

Kind thank yous and much praise to  Xenoscape yet again, it really ended up being a fantastic piece~