When they'd entered this mine with their lightsabers and blasters, Ezra had made sure he and Kanan were well equipped with supplies packed into a backpack. It was just in case, because he "had a feeling"—a phrase Hera just shrugged at, allowing them to go on their way down. The master and padawan had hardly expected what Hera had mentioned to be "random seismic activity" to bring the mine down onto their heads.

He vaguely remembered being thrown away from his master before the torchlight could no longer cut through falling rocks and wet dirt. It had felt like he was going to be buried alive.

They'd been ten feet from a solid structure, too.

He came-to with a harsh ringing in his ear and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ezra gasped, choking on the taste of rock. His gag reflex kicked in as he turned his head and tried desperately not to throw up, but to cough out whatever dirt was in his mouth. He couldn't get a full breath of air in—he was well pinned underneath what he could only describe as a large chunk of solid earth that had once belonged to the lining walls of the mine, and it was now crushing the lower part of his torso. He was lucky he was breathing at all.

"... Kan-... Kanan!?"

He had to push down a bubbling panic when he didn't get a response. He needed to get out, to breathe properly, and to check the extent of his injuries. It felt like he could move his toes, so that was good, right?

Calm.

He could do that. He wasn't in immediate danger. He slowed his breathing, focusing and recognizing his connection to everything around him, feeling what he could manipulate to ease the pressure on the bottom of his lungs. Quite the feat when it felt like he could only get half-breaths in.

Upon his first attempt to lift the rock, the rush of pain from his ribs to his knees almost had him dropping it back onto himself, and there was no telling how bad that could have been.

Up. Away.

He was free. Thank the Force.

"Kanan!"

Despite the pain in his ribcage, he hauled himself upwards, cradling himself as his eyes searched desperately. He felt the wet rocks radiate from caverns walls and wheezed against the cold and dusty air. His lungs felt unnaturally heavy and coated. It was pitch black in here.

Ezra closed his eyes, hand outstretched as he called to his lightsaber. A rattling noise from underneath the rubble to his right could be heard before it shook itself free from its own captivity. To his relief, the weapon was now safely back in his hand.

Ezra ignited the green blade, wincing against the new light, now acutely aware just how blurry his vision was. "Kanan, can you hear me?!"

Looking upwards at what had once been the ceiling of the mine, Ezra realised exactly how lucky they had been. Only sections of the chain mesh that held it together had ruptured, allowing the rock through and almost crushing him instantly. The rest of it had remained relatively intact, but another quake would change that in an instant.

A cough (separate to his own) drew his attention to what had once been a wall of the mine. Ezra shone the lightsaber ahead of him, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach again returning as he cautiously stepped forward, watching where he put his feet.

"Kanan?"

Another cough. There was no way that wasn't Kanan. Ezra slipped on an incline of rocks in a desperate race to his master's position, catching himself before his whole body hit the ground again.

"Kanan, where are you!?"

That was a dumb question, he thought bitterly. Even if Kanan had been conscious enough to answer that, there was no way the Jedi could provide an accurate description where he was or what he was pinned under—he was blind. He could describe how large it was, maybe, but not where it was regarding Ezra's current location.

He waved his lightsaber over to the left, seeing a large chunk on an angle. That was the origin of his sick feeling—suggesting that maybe, it wasn't his own to begin with. Cautiously, watching his every step and making sure he was as calm as possible, he crept to the edge of the chunk of rock.

Underneath, illuminated in a green hue from Ezra's lightsaber, was his master.

There was a fair amount of room for someone Ezra's size to squeeze in between Kanan and the rock. The chunk was resting on an incline and Kanan was lying awkwardly on uneven rubble in the remaining space, unconscious—but that wasn't the young man's concern. One of the sturdy metal pins that had helped hold the mesh and hard chunks of rock in their positions overhead had pierced through Kanan's left side.

Panic bubbled in Ezra's chest as he crouched down, hand outstretched. As much as he didn't want to submit Kanan to the pain he'd inevitably feel (what with being impaled on a long pin), he needed his master, needed him awake for guidance. To know the extent of the damage done to him. He could feel Kanan on the edge of consciousness, could pull him back to a waking state. Despite his worry, despite his panic, his connection to the Force was strong, and so was his connection to Kanan.

There was a moment of nothing while he tugged on Kanan's psyche, the process unbearably slow. His master's body shuddered, before finally he spluttered and coughed, chest heaving as his blind eyes helplessly slipped open. Ezra almost fell forward in relief. "You're okay."

As if only just now feeling the condition he was in, Kanan hunched forward slightly, trying (and failing) to suppress a groan of pain through his teeth. His eyes and nose scrunched and releasing a tense breath. "I don't feel okay." The Jedi's head leaned back against the rock, breathing quickly at first, trying to find a pace that would bring the least amount of pain.

Ezra swallowed, taking as many of his own deep breaths as he could muster. "Hera mentioned earthquakes. Before she dropped us off."

The Knight's hands stretched forward, meeting the fallen rock's smooth surface until he tapped against the pin and followed it to its newfound position in his body. "That didn't feel like any quake I've ever been through," He huffed, shaking his head. A single hand left the pin to explore the empty space beside him, reaching to find nothing but air. "Are you injured?"

"It hurts too much to breathe, but I think I'm okay." He didn't notice how badly he was shaking until Kanan had asked. "I'm sorry, I just- I don't know how-"

"It's okay. Let's work a way out of this. How big is this thing on top of me?"

"You can't tell?"

Kanan head tilted, maybe in concentration. "It's a little hard to concentrate right now. I need your eyes."

"Uh..." He rubbed at his eyes, trying to focus them in the green lighting. "It's big. I doubt I could lift it myself."

Kanan nodded. "Alright—we need to get me out from under here." With his right hand still carefully resting around the pin, his left felt for his lightsaber, thankfully still attached to his belt. They didn't expect any reason for them to use it, so it remained firmly at his side. Small mercies.

There was a quiet hiss from the Jedi, likely having shifted too much around the pin when angling his lightsaber away from anything the blade would impact. His other hand went to the hilt of the blade, adjusting the length—it was now less than a foot long, surprising given that Ezra hadn't thought it capable of being so short.

"I need you to make sure this rock doesn't break into pieces on top of me."

Ezra nodded, as if Kanan could tell. "W-what are you going to do?"

"I'm not keen on pulling this thing out of me just yet, and I don't plan on staying here. I need you to keep the rock steady so I can cut through this thing."

"You think it'll break?"

"Just in case," He took shallow breaths, one of his hands again clasped around the pin. Ever so slowly he brought the lightsaber to the metal, Ezra doing his best to ignore the shaking in his master's hand. "Ready?"

"Uh..." No he wasn't. He had no idea if he could hold this thing in a worst-case scenario—he could barely move the rock off of him earlier, let alone this thing. But he didn't say any of that to Kanan. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm ready."

Not that it mattered. With a surprisingly steady hand, the Jedi put the pin into contact with the blade of his lightsaber, the pin melting down as he pushed through it at a snail's pace. He emitted a whimper during the last few millimetres, pin that was currently embedded who knows how deep inside his torso inevitably angling into a new direction.

Finally, he was free. The blue lightsaber was switched off as Kanan got a good grip of his bearings. He'd cut the pin only a few inches above where it disappeared into his body. The rock above him hadn't budged. To be honest, Ezra didn't know if he'd have been capable of holding it in place if it had.

"You have to get out of there."

Kanan nodded. "Yeah. Just... working out how I'm gonna do that."

"Can you move your legs?"

The response he got was a huff as the older man tested one of his feet, clipping his lightsaber back to his belt and bracing his arms against the rock he was, for the moment, rested upon. "My legs are fine. You're still going to have to help me—give me a hand?"

Ezra grasped Kanan's hand without a second thought, bracing himself for some of the man's weight. "Ready?"

"Yeah."

"On three?"

"Don't bother," He said, using Ezra's hand as leverage to pull himself back on. The Jedi shifted himself to the side, teeth grit and breathing hard but quick. "Definitely not like ripping off a soaked bandage."

Not exactly an image Ezra really needed but he didn't falter when Kanan moved again, this time pushing back towards his padawan a little further. He gave a proper cry of pain this time, but with help, he made it a good two feet out from where he was.

"You're almost clear," Ezra coughed.

This time, with a good grasp of Kanan's arm, Ezra dragged his master the rest of the way out from under the rock, cringing against the sounds coming from the older Jedi. Finally, Kanan was (relatively) free from danger.

Ezra was waiting for anything wrong to hit them—maybe an after-shock, or an explosion on the surface shaking more rocks from their precarious positions to crush them where they momentarily rested. But they were safe.

Or as safe as Kanan's heavy eyelids indicated they were.

"Hey, no," The padawan put an arm around his master, leaning him upwards. "You stay awake. I need you awake—you said we'd get out of this!"

Kanan's eyes scrunched. "M'awake. I just need a minute. Or an eternity. Your choice."

Ezra sighed in relief. "I think we can hang around for a minute."

He hummed in agreement. "You remember the bunker?"

"Yeah."

"That's our next move. Safer in there, probably has communication equipment, maybe even an exit if we're lucky," Kanan heaved himself upwards, wrapping an arm over Ezra's shoulders. Together they moved upright, the sharp intake of breath denoting Kanan's pain. His eyes remained closed. "Can you see the entrance?"

The green wasn't doing a lot to light the way, mainly just the green hues around shadows cast up against the walls of mesh and rock. Ezra coughed again, an ache in his lungs as he straightened properly with Kanan hooked up against him. When he shifted the lightsaber up a bit, he could see what might have been a door.

"Two o'clock. You think that's it?"

The knight's head tilted in concentration, a hand raised in that direction. "Better than staying here."

"Okay," Ezra huffed. "Can you walk?"

Kanan cracked a wry smile. "I'm standing, aren't I?"

"Just keep your arm around me."