“I’ll have you know, cannocks are VERY terrifying when you’re only three feet tall and you’ve never been out in the wilderness before!” she scowled, lunging for him and missing as he leapt backwards to avoid the attack. Raising an eyebrow at him, she responded teasingly: “Okay, sure...but what for?” he was, however, already waving her off and hurrying away before she could get another word in edgewise and so the Champion had no choice but to call back their beastly companions and do as her lover had instructed, all the while trying to deduce what exactly he had in mind as a ‘surprise’. The hounds were just as perplexed as Aria was to find Yerbol missing when they returned. She tried to usher them back towards their accomodation but Chwuq and Taral insisted upon scouting the area for five minutes first as they attempted to discover where their missing pack member had disappeared to (thankfully, the Champion’s scent was easily lost in the muddle of various other smells in the area and they lost any ability to track him just as quickly).
“Yerbol?” Taral gave a flummoxed snort and headbutted Aria in the ribs, his tail drooping to show his distress.
“Bol’s busy with...something, buddy.” Aria told him, patting the hound on the head as they walked back. 
“Alone?” 
“Yeah, I know. Weird isn’t it?” Aria mumbled in agreement as she nudged the door shut behind them and headed into the bedroom to rummage in the backpack she had packed to find the dress in question. She would go along with Yerbol’s suggestion of course, but she couldn’t help but feel he was acting somewhat suspicious...although one conclusion she could draw from this was that they were definitely NOT going to be somewhere out in the middle of the jungle plains (if he thought she was going out there in this dress, then he WAS mad!)
_____________

As Yerbol arrived to collect her an hour and a half later, Aria’s suspicions were only heightened further as she took in his chosen attire. “...You’re awfully smartly dressed for somebody who was complaining of a stomach ache earlier.” she teased as she slipped past him into the transport (which was definitely more swish than usual...he was up to something or she was a Wampa). Yerbol made no comment, simply smiling at her and complimenting her own outfit. She shrugged it off and followed along with his directions, settling into the chair he drew out for her after they arrived at their table.
“It’s beautiful.” Aria smiled, the corners of her mouth curling upwards into a playful smirk. “Is this what you’ve been trying to hide from me all day?” Yerbol flashed her that adorably dorky smile as he took a seat opposite her. “What’s the occasion, or is this just because we didn’t get a chance to do the whole ‘dinner date’ thing on account of lots of people trying to kill us?” 

At least, that’s what her best guess was. It wasn’t like they hadn’t earned the chance to go a little overboard, and The Cliffside Manor was certainly one of the best places on Onderon for doing just that. She’d never been up to this part of the city before when she was younger, although her mother had attended more than a few meetings here since she had been what the people on the HoloNet liked to call “the most talented senatorial representative Onderon has seen in a long time” (but of course, reporters always exaggerated. At least, that’s what her mother always told her, she had always been modest...or tried to be, as much as the rest of her colleagues would allow her to be), although her mother had talked about bringing her here when she was older, before everything had happened. It was nice to finally have the experience nonetheless. They talked, laughed and ate some of the best food they'd had in a long time; Aria shared a few more stories such as how she'd met Sho while her mother had been having some sort of diplomatic meeting with Clan Ordo’s leader, and the two had hit it off like a house on fire.Aria had been easily persuaded by the wayward Mandalorian to venture out of the city and explore while “the grown ups did boring stuff”. This had been a great idea until Sho had taken a wrong turn on one of the pathways and led them deeper into the jungle (“My mother was furious. She swore blind that was “the last time she'd let me hang around with that Mandalorian hooligan!”). From the balcony they were on they had a fantastic view of the entire plains, Aria pointing out an area a mile or so out from the settlement where the more adventurous kids had built a “den” of sorts, which they used to have mock reenactments of the civil war battles they learned about at school. 
“Sho insisted that they showed me “how to play properly because I'd clearly never had fun in my life”.” she chuckled softly, shaking her head. “I'd never horsed around like that till then and most of them laughed at me. Only Sho and a boy named Nils. The other kids wandered off and they helped me practice till I was good enough to join in with everyone else.” a soft blush coloured her cheeks as she went on to explain how she'd developed a schoolgirl crush on the older boy, although it hadn't lasted long; because apparently once you started pulling pebbles out of the cliffside or deflecting oncoming projectiles without even touching them the other kids thought you were a “freak”. It was oddly therapeutic to share some of her fonder memories with him, just laughing together and enjoying life for what it was.
“Thank you. This was unexpected, but very nice.” she smiled, placing a hand gently over his. “Definitely a good surprise.”