#din: perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again

[amban-rifle]

...a girl can dream.

Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore

#din: perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again #me: say no more #don't worry babe I got u :* #I'm on a mission now #why is this show so dark #why is this show about bo-katan now #this wasn't part of the deal #give us the hot dad & green baby adventures #the mandalorian #themandalorianedit #themandaloriandaily #star wars #starwarsblr #starwarsedit #starwarsdaily #din djarin #my:gifs

[netherfeildren]

The Cassandra Complex : Interlude : Tartarus

Series Masterlist

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence; Torture; Murder; Blood and gore; Self harm; Suicidal ideations; Depression; Unreliable narrator; Alcohol and drug use; Overall very dark themes

A/N: The chapter is what the tags warn. Please, heed them carefully.  Short because it's only an interlude, but the next chapter is almost done!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 3.5K

Read on AO3

INTERLUDE : TARTARUS

Can you eat winter? […] Can you live six months inside a frozen pear? […] Can you punctuate yourself in silence?

Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

You are captured at the start of the cold season. 

The first man you ever killed had been old. Weathered and beaten down by the galaxy and life, and forgotten or absconded to a decrepit and abandoned planet. Once thriving and rich, it had been bled dry and starved by the Empire, and now remained to stand only as a reminder to others as what not to be, a warning of how you’d end up if you did not submit. 

Your master had hunted him for months, a mania about the search that was mouth slicked ravenous and vicious. Something sick about the way he’d obsessed about the man, murmuring his name over and over again at all hours until you were sure you knew the vowels and consonants of it better than your own. You’d never discovered the root of the obsession, the reason for the killing, and when you’d finally found him, he was not at all what you’d expected; brittle boned, white of hair, skin soft and folded over so that it sagged and drooped around his frame, seeming to hang around him out of mere sheer habit. 

You’d swept into his mind, pilfered and pillaged and violated it; his past, his whole life, his family, cradled in the blink of your eye. You’d pulled his joints from their sockets, his fingernails from their beds, and his eyes from their cavities. You’d taken him apart piece by little piece, a slow going saturation of pain until little remained of the creature. Until the final piece you’d pulled from him was his breath, his very life, swallowed and settled heavy into your own soul. 

You had been very young when you’d killed him, a girl of only seven years old. 

You’d once heard that stars are made of a different matter than the four worldly elements – a quintessence – that also happens to be what the human psyche is made of. Which is why man’s spirit corresponds to the stars. You’d swallowed so many souls thinking they might be stars during that time. Perhaps, in an attempt to take some light within you, infuse yourself in the goodness of another’s quintessence. Young and naive and untried. You’d learned eventually how wrong you were. The damage you’d unknowingly wrought upon yourself. And when you remember it all now, the unending reaping, you think: I was young once, and you wish you could cling to that child, beg her to forgive you, beg her to run earlier. 

Perhaps, that had been the beginning of the end, and everything after that had been nothing more than one eternally futile battle towards inevitable failure.

-

For some idiotic reason, you return to Corellia after you part ways with him. Idiotic or desperate, who can really tell, but without a doubt, bitter and angry and devastated. Filled with a keen missing and a fury and an outrage that he’d left you, that you’d allowed yourself to be left. That you’d pushed him away. That really, the destruction of everything was your fault. The day it had suddenly hit you that you’d destroyed everything for nothing, that you’d destroyed the two of you for no real reason at all except for petty and inconsequential fear, had been a monumental sort of devastation. You’d not been able to make it out of your dingy rented bed for days afterwards. And so you’d chosen to believe that this was the end of destiny, rather than the beginning of what had always been fated to you. For choosing to believe that you’d destroyed it yourself was better than the truth, that he had never really been meant to be yours in the first place. And if it were anything else, you’d finish it, destroy it to completion. It if was something less, you’d smash it like a rock, tear it as if it were a piece of parchment, but it is not, for it is your heart, your very heart, your memory.

The only thing left. 

While you’d been with him you’d thought that you were healing, that you were healed. That you’d been made whole in his image. That after everything, after so much darkness, one single silver flame to illuminate the night would shine a light on your newfound completeness. But you’d realized, later, when it was too late, how wrong you’d been to think so. Love does not mend the torn seams back into rightness – it fractures the whole thing wide open, splits you down the middle.

And you’re so full of the most poisoned sort of regrets, a living, breathing, fire filled thing that seemed to exhume you from your own misery and would not let you exist peacefully in the deathlessness you’d have chosen for yourself. But it was impossible to go backwards now. Like any unloved thing, you’d not been sure if you really existed until he’d put his hands on you, and now, to have been forced to return to that half life, to be forced to exist in the purgatory of his aftermath – it was fury inducing, rage awakening. 

All my hurts hurt worse now, and there is no escape and no reprieve, and it always feels as if the sky seems to peer down on me in a strange and pitiful way. How did that feel? It asks. I’m sorry I caused harm, I reply. 

Time no longer exists, and so all you know is that it’s been an unknowable amount of nothing since you’d last seen him. 

You ache all the time, try and forget, can’t help but remember

You’d always known exactly how it would play out. Step by step the course your life would take – the Force guided you, and yet, you were still lost. You were still confused. You’d known that he would leave, you’d always known. Just as you’d known you would be the reason he left. You’d waited for it, and yet, when the moment arrived for him to go, you were shocked. And hurt. You were hurt that he would leave you even though you had pushed him away, even though you had always expected it to happen, even though you were the perpetrator of your own abandoning and had always known that you would be. 

And so, perhaps, you’d continued to return to Corellia despite knowing it was dangerous for you there, that there were whispers of a dark creature scurrying along the planet’s underbelly, that they’d seen your face all that time ago and rumors still abounded. But it had been the last place you’d found each other, and so some idealistic, stupidly desperate part of you thought that, perhaps, fate would look upon you kindly once again. That dark red thread of fate woven into action one more time, ringing taut with purpose and destiny. 

Perhaps, you return looking for a fight or a beating or some form of punishment, certain that you’d find it in that cesspool of vice and crime and corruption. In that place that knows what sort of creature you pretend not to be. 

Eventually, however, you get more than you’d bargained for. Or maybe, precisely what you’d wanted.

You’re betrayed by a slippery little Twi’lek. One who’d pretended at being interested in some easy, fun drinking and debauchery. One who you were not aware had awaited the return of a prize such as you for a long, long time. One who’d held the image of your face and your power in the cradle of her mind, ravenous for the moment when she’d finally be afforded a taste and a pay out.

 If you could not lose yourself in anything else, him, or even something worse – the dark called to you again so often now, it frightened you – then you’d lose yourself in a bottle, a game of Sabacc, even, on occasion, or when things were particularly dire, a little bit of Spice, just to take the edge off. To make you forget. The smell of the past is everywhere, the smell of too many illusions, too many truths, and you try and resist all the time, you feel yourself actively resisting. But you lie in the awareness of it so often, in the miserable hold of rented beds where no comfort and no warmth is ever to be found on so many nights, that at any moment something terrible could happen. It’s not gone, that coldness inside of you. It’s not gone, the dark side, and it calls to you louder now that he is absent. 

You consider yourself in new and strange lights now. A miasma of girl and power and tragedy and myth, always, always the myth of you. You are aware of yourself, of that myth, in so many lights. 

Violence has changed me; my body has grown cold. Now there is only mind, cautious and dim, with the sense it is being twisted. I have never loved being alive, and it is difficult to remember that I should. 

Din has changed me; my heart is half stone, half devoured. The sun has gone away, tucked inside of him, and I am always cold now, and even though I can't see it anymore, him, it’s comforting to know he’s still out there, somewhere. That the sun still exists. 

And so, in need of credits, the Twi’lek finds it easier to sell you off to the highest bidder when she first captures you – that being a league of fanatics who had, at the height of the Empire, venerated the Sith as lords – Gods even – who bent the knee to the dark side in hopes of a power greater than they even really knew the truth of. 

Drugged and cuffed after you’d been too stupid or uncaring to even try and defend yourself, you let them take you. You let them take you. You remember that first night in the hole in the ground you’d sentenced yourself to, before she’d left you to your fate with your captors, arm broken, bone jutting grotesquely from your skin, she’d looked down at you from her great height as you lay limp and ready for more breaking on the dirty ground of the cell deep in that Tartarean pit, brow split open and drooling crimson, glassy eyes wide and unseeing, filled only with the memories of gleaming metal, she’d called you a monster with the greatest of contempt and hatred in her eyes. And you’d laughed and laughed and laughed at the reality of you now, sanity gone away, only a little bit, only a little bit; after all, there had always been more madness than goodness anyways. 

And you’d wanted to cry: I am not a monster! I am not a monster! But you knew she would not believe you. 

This is only what you deserve, creature. Spit from her mouth like venom. You think of the Thalassian crone, all that time ago, or only yesterday: How does it feel to be nothing? She was kinder to you than you know this will be, and for a brief moment you pretend to miss her, fantasize with the idea of him coming to save you once again. 

You’d wanted to lie and say that you were not a monster any longer, that you’d changed, that you were better, different, but that would have been a lie, for at your core you knew there would always live within you something of a slightly monstrous countenance, no matter what you did or made of yourself. And what you wanted to say, even more than that, was that perhaps a monster was not such a terrible thing to be. Perhaps, if you’d ever been given the chance, you could have served as a shelter and a warning, all at once, for a family you’d never been allowed to have. Perhaps, if you’d ever been given the opportunity to have been that, nothing much else would have really mattered. 

You want to tell her his name. To let it serve as proof of the only goodness that has ever lived inside of you. But you do not. And you let them keep you for far too long, lying in that dark, damp hell, letting them hurt you. 

She returns often, the pretty, purple Twi’lek with the sharp teeth. She takes Din’s earrings from you, that first day, and if you’d still had tongue and teeth and voice to thank her for the chance to look upon them, you would have. 

They pull your skin from your bones and your bones from your skin, over and over again, and you try and lie that you don’t know what you did to deserve this, but you do. You do know. You remember the old man, the very first one, you think of all the countless others after him, the flash of shrieking beskar. You remember every single crime and sin and face and scream. Every scream, but loudest of all, your own. 

You exist only in thousands of agonies. 

And they’re creative in their torture and punishment, caring in the imagination of it. They burn the flesh from your bones only so that the Force can heal you back to strength. Slowly, excruciatingly, keeping you drugged and chained, diminishing your connection to yourself. Beaten and flogged and savaged over and over again. You think, or you tell yourself, that you feel little of it, or none at all. 

More than anything, you feel so acutely how little it all matters. 

Why have you done this to yourself? You’re sure you should ask. I don’t know. What is this all about? Be honest. Anger. Are you angry? Yes. You already knew this. 

Perhaps, your mind has finally broken and fragmented in a real and irrevocable way. Perhaps, this is finally destiny finding itself. 

You lie in the dark and let it hold you as it did when you were a child, alone and enslaved. You watch the water snake through the cracks of the stone walls, and you are so small, and suddenly, there’s a hole in your cheek and you heal and heal and tear apart again; taste the outside air with your newly grown tongue, and the blood that pools in your mouth reminds you that you’re still alive and made of nothing but regret. 

You hold one single comfort like a newly blooming flower in your mind, the only thing that remains: We were together once. I forget the rest, before, now, it no longer matters. We were together once. 

For an interminable age, you allow yourself to be poked and prodded, cut and flayed, experimented on – the silly notion these cultists hold that perhaps they could harness your power for themselves, bottle it.   Hurt, you allow yourself to be hurt for too long. They never break you beyond repair, but they get very close, many times, and sometimes, you hope it’ll be too much, it needs to be too much just once, and then it could, perhaps, all end. 

Your bones ache and wounds open where the too sharp edges of you abrade against the too hard stone, and you relish in the healing and reopening, relish in the suffering. You remind yourself that you chose this, that you continue to actively choose this, that all your choices are yours now, even the losses, and you caress that secret piece of you in the furthest, darkest recess of your mind, your lifeline, and it feels so good to finally be in control of the things that hurt you. Even if it is a false sense of control, even if it’s all only a reality of your mind's own making. 

And sometimes, when the delirium has sunk its fangs in you entirely, and you almost don’t know who you are, you think: surely he’ll come to get me. He doesn’t know you’re here. Surely I didn’t fall in love with him just for this. He doesn’t know you’re here. If he knew, he’d come, he would, he would.

Two years is a very long time to be away from a thing you need so much.

I no longer care what sound it makes when I am silenced. 

Two years is a very long time to forget.

If I die, it is not this life I will miss, it is him I will miss. 

But an even longer time to remember. 

How to forget? How to forget? How to forget?

Eventually, you lose yourself, and the brightness of torture becomes the brightness of night, and you’re gone within it.

You consider yourself: the myth, the archetype, the soul, me, me, the Cassandra, the Cassandra.

[Scream] [Scream] [Scream] [Scream] 

Din.

You cling to him through the night, through the brightness, through the nothing. You dream of his hands and his hair and the vividness of him. You dream of that pure, golden heart. You dream of beskar and space and being loved.

You dream of being loved. 

You do not choose the way you live. You do not live; you are not allowed to die. 

You don’t know how long you allow yourself to be held within this womb of punishment, but you know that it is a very long time. 

And then one day, unbidden and unexpected: one moment, you’re hungry, a strange and cold and gnawing hunger like something you’ve never felt before. A hunger of the soul. Your mind, so hazy that sometimes you don’t know if you remember your own name, that at certain instances the only image you can recall is the gleam of beskar – you smell vetiver and sweat and blaster smoke and the leather oil of his gloves. You hear his voice. The feeling of his hand in yours the second before you wake, and for a single moment before your eyes open, you’re somewhere else besides this damp Tartarus you’ve condemned yourself to, somewhere green and alive with him. 

The third time you meet: You blink, and it’s all darkness and steel bars, and then, a dim light far in the distance? No. A blade of silver beskar. 

He’s here. Near. 

She had said to you once, your now made sweet Twi’lek: You’re going to die here. Surely, not soon. But one day, we’ll pull your life from you. Once we’ve pulled everything else, taken all we can, we’ll take your life too. And then you’ll be nothing, erased from memory, erased from myth. Nothing at all forever.

You’d taken her words with consideration. You felt strongly that you could not die any longer in any way that truly mattered. If nothing more, than for the memory of him, the memory of that togetherness could never be taken from you, it would always exist and could never be killed, and so what more mattered after that? Nothing really. They could take your life, your power, but they could not take Din, they could not take the myth of what the two of you had created together. 

And always the myth, always the myth. You understand now, after an age in something worse than darkness, that you are yourself the creation of myth, and myth is indestructible. 

She is made sweet and venerating in the end, and she dies so beautifully, your Twi’lek, and in the singular instant before you pull her heart from her chest, you recall her words from before, how like the Thalassian she’d seemed, nothing at all forever, and you tell her the second truth you’ve now come to understand more surely than anything else: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes, and I am no longer a Sith.”

You free yourself from the cruel and unforgiving hands of the dark for the second time in your life. 

You’d thought once that you’d never again let yourself be captured, never again enslaved, and to have let yourself end up here like this of your own volition, your own wanton stupidity and miserable desire for punishment, this is the lowest a creature has fallen in a millenia, surely, and he’s on the same planet as you now, and you’re filled with the sudden blinding terror that he’d somehow know you’re here. That he’d find you. And that he should see you like this, brought so low and so broken, it would be worse than anything, any pain or suffering or torture you could have ever endured. 

And so you call to that dormant tether you’d held this entire time, to the Force, to yourself, and you kill your captors. All of them. In one fell swoop. Without much of even a single thought on your part. And you thank her, when you pull his stolen, blood splattered earrings from her ears, for teaching you so much, for reminding you that power without conscience is a terrible thing, and that you know this better than anyone. And you walk out into the cold and dark night, silent and obscure as a shadow can be, even more so, if possible, prepared to make your unnoticed escape from him.

But of course, he finds you anyway.

Chapter IX

Netherfieldren's Masterlist

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#vic fic #TCC fic #din djarin #din djarin x reader #din djarin imagine #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian fanfiction #din djarin smut #pedro pascal characters #the mandalorian AU #star wars fanfiction #Star Wars au

[dindjarindiaries]

Remember when Din Djarin said "Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome, so our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight."

#i personally have not forgotten and never will #he was a father in that moment yes he was #din djarin #the mandalorian

[endlessnightlock]

Here's a prompt if you're up for it: post mockingjay, before so after, Katniss hears Peeta Scream in the middle of the night, and goes to his house and slips inside the bed with him. He only notices it the morning after. If something happens in the morning is up to you

Peeta is screaming again. His moans are deep and guttural and wake me with whip-snap suddenness, sooner than I'm ready, but the groggy wakefulness is a relief.

Peeta is always saving me, this time from my nightmares.

Will either of us ever want to sleep again? I wonder, pulling myself up, unsteady and swaying. Before standing, I hesitate on the edge of the bed.

Should I go to him? Does he want me there at all? Things are still strained between Peeta and me. Maybe it's my fault. I haven't made much effort to get closer to him. I don't know how anymore. It's like there's no room left in my head for answers to those questions. Maybe the distance between us is because of Peeta. He could have returned feeling there was nowhere else for him to go for healing. Perhaps he doesn't want more than a surface relationship between us.

Shaking my head at the indecision, I get up. I'm always going to go to Peeta. I can't ignore his screams while I'm alone, save Buttercup and all the ghosts. Now the sound of his voice is in my head, my skin tight enough to burst, and my heart is racing; sick fear something could be really wrong bangs around inside my head.

I can't listen to Peeta scream. I can't know that he's terrified and do nothing to help him. I need to know he's okay, that he's safe, that no one is taking him away from me again. I need him.

I make my way downstairs and pause at the door to slide on a light pair of house shoes before trotting down the steps and running to his house. Being late summer, the air is hot and thick, lying across my body like a wet blanket.

The tree frogs, cicadas, and crickets creak loudly, and I finally notice and give thought to their presence as I reach Peeta's house. Insects out in the woods where the Capitol's firebombs didn't reach. I used to find their din maddening this time of year. Now there's something so wonderfully normal about their songs, reminding me I'm back in Twelve when I have trouble recalling that.

In a blur, I'm letting myself in at Peeta's house. His screams have fallen to a pitiful, shuddering whimper. I think the worst of it must be over, but he's curled up in the fetal position, trying to make himself smaller. Fat droplets trickle down his cheeks.

It breaks my heart that he's been alone. I know what it's like; it's been the same for me. Because I don't know how to live yet, not really, not after spending so much time wishing I wasn't here. It's been better since Peeta came back. Making sure he stays alive is enough to keep me going. We take care of each other.

"Peeta," I murmur his name as what, a warning? before kicking off my houseshoes and climbing into his bed behind him. Gingerly I let my weight settle on the mattress, positioning myself so that my head is higher than his. My arm slides around his chest from behind, and I press my body against his back, my cheek resting on his head, keeping my hold loose. Peeta told me once that they used to restrain him when he was being tortured, and that feeling of helplessness was sometimes worse than the pain.

His body stiffens a little but relaxes again, the shudders that wracked him dissipating, lessening until it's over and he's worn out and loose-limbed in my arms. His breathing evens out, and instead of waking up, he remains asleep.

I bury my face in his sweaty hair and press my lips against the crown. My body is shaking, and my lips trembling. Peeta smells like salt and damp skin and life, his unique scent.

What happened then and what's happening now overwhelm me. Tears slip from my nearly closed eyes and roll haphazardly down my face. I'm glad Peeta's asleep, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm because I don't know why I'm crying, so I couldn't explain it to him. If he were awake, I'd feel I had to leave. I don't understand anything except the enormous relief from being with him.

KPKPKPKPKP

Peeta's awake before me, his cheek resting on his pillow, one bloodshot blue eye solemnly fixed on my face. He looks exhausted. I feel like I should say something and try to explain myself, but I've never been good at starting our conversations.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, voice cracking like dry parchment paper.

"You were screaming last night," I say, propping my upper half on my elbows and peering across the mattress at him. "I couldn't just listen to that."

"Sorry, I'll try to keep the noise to a minimum after dark," he says after a moment. The frown hasn't fully formed on my face before he grins at me.

"You can't do that anymore than I can. The two of us are probably bringing down the neighborhood property values," I say as if most of Twelve weren't returning refugees and transplants from Thirteen.

"No more than Haymitch already is," Peeta shifts onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, away from me. "Things are quite cozy in Victor's Village, aren't they? All the crazies grouped together in one convenient spot. Just you, me, and Haymitch."

I sigh and flop face-first on the bed. Peeta turns back onto his side, reaching for my hand. I glance at our hands once our fingers are linked together, specifically the tracks of scars that connect him and me as a matching set. Crazy or not, I'm glad he's here.

"Thank you for coming last night. I feel like I'm losing my mind all over again when it gets as bad as it was."

I think about the way Peeta told me once that all his nightmares were about losing me. I wonder if any of his fears revolve around that now. It doesn't matter either way. My heart is inexplicably tied to his.

I turn my head and peek across the pillows at him. "Welcome," I say.

"If you want, I can come whenever I hear you scream" he adds. "If you want me to."

A lump forms in my throat, making it difficult to speak or swallow. I try to clear it away, but my voice is still husky when I answer him. "Of course, but only if you want to."

#endlessnightlock writes #katniss everdeen/peeta mellark #thg fanfiction #post-mockingjay growing back together #everlark fanfiction #everlark drabble

[sandrasaid]

Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again … and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

i know we joke about it but to those who still dont know why the mandos decided to live in such as a dangerous planet, it’s because it is dangerous. the goal was to hide and not be found and the planet is perfect for that. who in the right mind would venture in a seemingly desolate jurassic park?

and their desperation to hide is enough to risk their own foundlings which gives so much weight to din’s quote above.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian season 3 #mando #din djarin #grogu #din djarin and grogu #paz vizsla #bo katan kryze #the armorer #star wars

[garden-bug]

Let's fix Star Wars!!

(I said at the start of the summer and wrote nearly 100k.) (It needed a lot of fixing ok.)

Here is a fix-it fanfic but it's for three series and the entire sequel trilogy. I will be posting about this more because I am determined to finish it soon (and then redraft it wooo!).

Description:

Somehow, Darth Maul returns. (As a force ghost.) (Somewhere Ahsoka thinks is probably the living Force.)

This changes everything.

In other words: The Mandalorian S3 but make it Din/Luke; the Ahsoka series but make it EZRA AND THRAWN SPACE ADVENTURES; and ‘somehow Palpatine returns’ is ripped to shreds because I connect plot points and add new characters.

Chapter excerpts below!

Chapter 1 excerpt:

“Not as far as I remember. Oh, wait! I wanted to rule the galaxy… shame.” He rolls his shoulders again. “Can’t do much about that now. Being dead is quite demotivating.” “I’m sorry for your lack of motivation.” “Don’t make fun, Lady Tano. Have sympathy for this poor, dead, ex-Sith.” “I guess 'dead' is your only personality trait now.” “You preferred me before?” Ahsoka grimaces. She can’t argue with that. “No, sorry." “I will be honest,” Maul says, “I haven’t felt this peaceful since before I lost the lower half of my body.” Ahsoka fixes him with a reproving look. "You were Palpatine's apprentice then." “Yes.” Maul sighs wistfully, chin sinking into his hand. Ahsoka rubs her eyes. Maul has already given her a headache and they've only been talking for a minute. There is still nothing but darkness and flickering light, and Maul’s steady, yellow eyes. “Do you know where you are?” Ahsoka asks. “Why should I help you figure this out? You didn’t help me once. Also, in case I haven’t made it abundantly clear, I’m dead, so I don’t care what happens to you or anyone else who is still alive. Some of us aren’t so lucky, you know?” "If we figure this out, maybe I'll get peace. I really don't want you as a voice in my head." Maul grimaces. “B’ahor,” he mutters. “In the Al'har system?” "There is a dark power on that planet… I sense evil, but also… something else." His eyes burn. "Perhaps you will go there and die. That would solve this problem quickly."

Chapter 2 excerpt:

“What was that?” Mayan asks as they hurry towards the mountain. “That feeling… the…” “The Force,” says Ahsoka. “The Force exists all around us. It is created by all living things, it moves through them, and it binds the whole galaxy together.” “How do you know about it?” “I was trained as a Jedi.” Ahsoka is surprised when her face remains impassive. There is no flicker of recognition, no spark of awe in her eyes. She just nods. “In my village, people like that are called world breakers.” “There are more of you?” “There were.” Mayan looks away. “The legends say that world breakers can take a planet in their hand and shatter it.” “That's... impossible,” Ahsoka says. She wonders why she had never considered that remote planets may have different legends about the Force. “According to the stories, we are children of the Great Universe. If we follow its will, it will guide us... That's how it used to be.” Ahsoka means to ask if there is more to these legends, but Mayan comes to a halt suddenly and points to the rock face in front of them. “This is where the curse is,” says the girl. “Yes.” Ahsoka can sense it too. This is where the Force has been leading them. It reeks of Sith and of evil. Something terrible must have happened here.

Chapter 4 excerpt:

Fleeing vehicles kick up a cloud of dust, and Luke jumps up onto the roof of the adjacent building, crouching close in preparation to drop down. Sweat licks the back of his neck. For a stupid moment he thinks how this is the complete wrong time of day to be out, when both suns are high in the sky. Then he leaps. There isn’t even time to be annoyed as the roller-wheeler careers around the corner. “Peli, I told you to keep him inside!” “He wanted to see his dad!” Peli screams. Luke sends Grogu a withering look. The little guy sticks his tongue out from where he is held securely in the Mandalorian’s arms. “I am so sorry,” says the Mandalorian. Luke doesn’t even know where to start. “It’s alright, can you hang on to him?” The roller-wheeler jolts suddenly, and Grogu squeals in what’s probably excitement. “Yeah, but you can’t get through their shield with your lightsaber. I tried with mine.” “Ok.” Luke tugs the vehicle slightly to adjust its course. “We’re gonna have to talk about why you have a lightsaber later.” He senses annoyance from the helmet. “Did you kill a Jedi?” “Won it from Moff Gideon.” “You defeated Moff Gideon?” “Watch it.” The Mandalorian blasts a Pyke who was aiming for Luke from the top of a building. “Good shot.” The Mandalorian nods. Next thing they know, a Pyke has taken out the droid, and Luke somersaults off the roller-wheeler before it flips. He plants his feet in the ground and catches the vehicles momentum that everyone lands relatively unscathed. The Mandalorian caught Grogu immediately, so Luke draws them towards him, until his hand meets bescar. “Nice catch,” says the Mandalorian. Luke grins. “Is Grogu ok?” Grogu pops up over the Mandalorian’s shoulder. He’s a little shaken, but a smile breaks across his face when he sees Luke. Peli spits out a tooth from where she’s lying.

Chapter 5 excerpt:

“We’re even,” Boba decides. He makes a hand gesture for the blue liquor, which Fennec tosses to him with a roll of her eyes. Boba places his helmet beside him on the seat and takes a swing, acid-scarred face regarding him cooly. Luke bows respectfully. “Thanks a bunch.” Boba waves an arm dismissively. “Go see the little green guy.” He turns to leave, but Boba isn’t done. He comments, offhandedly, “I thought you would’ve gotten a few more scars since the last time I saw you.” Luke turns, puzzled. “Why?” “Haven’t you been Jedi-ing?” “Jedi-ing...” “Saving the galaxy.” “We... I did that.” “What about Tatooine?” Luke’s smile falters. “Tch. ∂ι’кυтℓα נєтιιѕє.” “What's that s'posed to mean?” “It means I don’t like you.” “He called the Jedi useless,” says Ahsoka. Luke meets her eyes, trying to stifle the burn in his skin. Ahsoka clears her throat. “We’ve been gone a long time.” “That’s why I want to rebuild what was lost.” Ahsoka looks at him for a long moment. “I know.”

Chapter 6 excerpt:

“σяιтѕιя!” Koska yells. “Bo-Katan Kryze!” Bo-Katan’s eyes widen, she drops her gaze and breathes softly. “Stop yelling.” “You… you…” Koska clenches her fists. “иιвяαℓ! αяυєт!” She kicks the metal desk, exclaiming incoherencies. Bo-Katan shakes her head. “What do you want me to do?” She sits back, hands out. “I don’t have any way to unite our people, and Mandalore is inhabited by a clan of psychos.” Koska’s lip trembles, but she bites it down. “We were going to follow you. We were going to get our home back,” her voice cracks. “Don’t tell me it’s all over now. After everything we’ve been through to get here.” “Mandalore, and my legacy, is dead,” Bo-Katan seethes. “Even with the darksaber, would we be able to subdue, or, live alongside that… Clan куяαу¢, knowing what they did to Mandalore?” “Just get the darksaber from him!” Koska says. “If you get it our clan will stop kriffing falling apart and we can take them down.” Bo-Katan slumps into her hand. “This is why we fell apart in the first place. We fought each other instead of the Empire. It’s not a path I am willing to go down.” “The others are,” Koska states. Bo-Katan looks up. “And they will,” Koska continues, eyes hard. “That’s why you need to decide what to do now before they decide for you, and we end up going down a path of self-destruction. While they’ll still listen to you, choose.”

Chapter 8 excerpt:

Ahsoka clenches her jaw. “Maul,” she grits out, “what did you do?” “Em, an… indoctrination ceremony? It was mostly just for fun,” he assures her. “Ezra thought it would be fun.” “You indoctrinated him into your clan?” “That’s…” Maul blinks. “Yes. He could be considered a son of Dathomir.” “And that’s why the night sister magic took him to Dathomir.” Ahsoka groans. “Well, this was a complete waste of time! Now I have to deal with Thrawn and get out of here somehow.” Maul nods, as though that had been his plan all along. “How long has it been since they returned from the unknown regions?” he asks. “I don’t know.” “Find out,” insists Maul. “Spending too long on Dathomir with the spirits of the night sisters… would not be advisable.” Ahsoka narrows her eyes. “How so?” “They will attempt to resurrect, using whatever means they can get their hands on. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sacrifice his mortal body to gain strength to cross back over into the physical world.” “Are they immortal?” “They are… like Force ghosts that can absorb energy. With enough energy, they can reconstruct themselves, piece by piece, until all they are lacking is a physical body. They will need many sacrifices to resurrect fully.” “Hold on… could you resurrect?” “I would prefer not to,” Maul says simply. Ahsoka’s eyes widen. “Okay… why?” “Haven’t you asked enough personal questions?” he snaps. “Leave. I’m busy trying to wallow in misery.” “Sure, okay.” Ahsoka shrugs. “But if you want to talk about it—” “I said go,” Maul hisses.

Chapter 9 excerpt:

The smaller tunnel winds further down, deeper into the centre of the planet. There’s the slightest movement in the air, vibration, and Luke recognises the energy of life forces and stops walking suddenly. “There are… people down here,” he says. Din casts him a dubious helmet tilt, and they continue until it is unmistakable. Voices echo through the tunnels, many, it seems, perhaps a covert worth. “Do you wanna go say hello?” Luke asks. “Perhaps they can help us find the living waters.” The tunnel breaks off into several other small passageways. This close, Luke can pick out the soft glow of light, and he gestures for Din to switch his torch off. When he does, they are plunged into darkness, but gradually, Luke’s eyes adjust to the light, and he leads Din by the arm towards the light and the voices. The voices hush suddenly. Luke pauses, he wonders if they should stop, go back, maybe confront these people somewhere they have more of an advantage. But Din steps past him, leaving Grogu in Luke’s arms. “тισи’¢υу?” “иι αℓιιт мαи∂σ.” “иυ тισи’αℓιιт ѕσℓυѕ?” “иαу¢… αѕн’α∂.” “к’σℓαя.” Din steps into the room. Luke follows after him. Inside the large cave, is a group of Mandalorians. One of them stands abruptly, blaster raised. “тισи’ѕσℓєт?” he barks. “єни,” Din responds. “тισи’ναιι?” Din reaches for Grogu, and takes him into his arms. “иєя ιк’αα∂. иι куя'тαуℓ gαι ѕα’α∂,” he says. The Mandalorian stares at them for a moment, then sighs raggedly, and sinks back onto the rock. The others in his group relax, but keep their eyes fixed on the newcomers. Their armour is in a state of disrepair, some of it clearly salvaged from the ruins. Some wear their helmets while others do not. The faces that Luke can see are pale and gaunt, as though they haven’t seen the sunlight in a long time and their torn clothes hang off their body in a way that makes Luke think of skeletons. “Do you speak basic?” Din asks. “We haven’t,” the Mandalorian says harshly, “since a long time.” His eyes are dark, hooded, his hair matted and entirely grey. “We are looking for the living waters,” Din explains. “Do you know how to get there?”

Chapter 10 excerpt:

Mayan has gotten better at interpreting binary speech, but she’s not quite there yet. It takes her a moment to figure out what the little beeps mean as she stuffs some out-of-date rations into a makeshift pack. “Um… we’re going to rescue Ahsoka.” R2 spins excitedly. Then he stops and says, “…. --- .--?" “I don’t know how.” Mayan ties her boots. “By now, the blue man will think we’ve gone, so we can surprise him, right?” R2 whistles uncertainly. “Well… there’s no other choice.” Mayan grips the lightsaber in her hand. “You said Luke can’t come… so…” R2 bumps into her as she walks towards the ladder. “Ow, that was my toe.” Mayan groans. “What is it?” “-.. .- -. --. . .-. --- ..- …!” “I know it’s dangerous. You didn’t want Luke to come because he’s an important Jedi, right?” Mayan squeezes past him. “If the blue man finds him it’d be bad, so it’s better if I rescue her.” R2 whistles a sad note again. Mayan clambers up the ladder one-armed, her other arm tucked into a sling under her cloak. It’s completely useless. She doesn’t know how bad the break was, but since it happened, the skin has gone from red to purple — the edges faintly green. If she tries to use it, a sharp pain stabs through her. The town is quiet this early — even the fruit vendors haven’t opened their stalls yet. Mayan sneaks around the side of the blown-up house, pulling her cloak over her feathered hair. She gestures for R2 to follow. She thinks if she can get to the mountain again, she can… well, she doesn’t really know. Mayan has always been good at getting out of dangerous situations, not getting into them. Maybe R2 can come up with a plan. “This is hopeless,” Mayan decides. They sit within viewing distance of the tall mountain base, hidden in a valley of rocks. “--. --- ……. -… .- -.-. -.-?” R2 suggests. Mayan rubs the wrinkly skin of her fingers. “I don’t want to give up, but I don’t know how to get in, or where she is. I’ve never even seen a prison before.” She pulls her knees up to her chest. “I don’t know why Ahsoka even believes in me at all.” “… -.- -.-- ……. .. … ……. .- -- .- --.. .. -. —.!” Mayan smiles a little. 'Sky is amazing,' R2 said. It’s nice that he gave her a nickname after she said she wanted one like Ahsoka had as a padawan.

Chapter 11 excerpt:

Their arrival must have caused a minor uproar. A dozen Mandalorians watch from every hallway Luke glances down. They are all blue, presumably Bo-Katan’s people, and they don’t seem happy. They are brought into a large hall, where spear-shaped windows bite into the ceiling, and white crystal casts a steady light over the room. A long carpet leads to a throne that resembles a hardened splash of lava, and on it, sits Bo-Katan. She’s really got the throne thing down, maybe even as much as Boba Fett. Luke would not mess with either of them unless absolutely necessary purely based on their throne demeanour. “What the kirff are you doing,” Bo-Katan says. She doesn’t yell, just sounds exasperated, maybe even exhausted. “I’m taking you up on the offer to join you.” Bo-Katan looks at him. Her amber eyes narrow, and she gets up, and makes her way towards them. “You’re too late now,” she says. Her expression touches on cold rage. “I’m barely holding this together as it is. With the arrival of your covert, things have only gotten worse.” “Mandalore is habitable,” Din says. “There are other Mandalorians already living there.” “The clans on Mandalore are belligerent and mad,” Bo-Katan snaps. “And the Empire has eyes on the planet. With the numbers we have, staging anything with only attract attention and get us all killed.”

Chapter 12 excerpt:

“You have redeemed yourself?” asks the Armourer. “I have,” says Din. The intense blue of the forge reflects off both of their helmets and the heat dusts Luke’s cheeks with warmth. “And you have acquired another foundling…” The Armourer’s tone shifts to something decidedly less serious and more akin to amusement. “What is the name of this child?” “Kymir,” Din says. “Kymir, do you wish to join our covert?” the Armourer asks the boy. Kymir looks from Din to the Armourer, brows furrowing. “He doesn’t speak basic,” Din says. “Kymir, тιαи’¢σρααиιя тσ αℓιιт?” he translates. Kymir bites his lip. “иαу¢,” he says. Luke infers that his answer is no. Din looks at the Armourer. “He has had a bad experience with his covert. He will not trust easily.” “Without a covert, he will have no protection.” “I will watch over him.” “At this time, you are also in need of protection,” says the Armourer, lightly. “You were almost killed this morning.”

Chapter 13 excerpt:

“Ahsoka? Ahsoka!” Mayan shakes Ahsoka’s shoulders, but her master doesn’t stir. She holds her face and tries to somehow will her awake with the force, but nothing seems to work. Her eyes remain closed, eyelids twitching minutely every few seconds. “Is she alright?” Leia asks, crouching by the broken tree Ahsoka rests against. “I think so… she goes into deep sleeps sometimes. I don’t really know what…” Mayan hugs her arms. “Um, is the Falcon okay?” “Ships fine,” Han says, an edge of annoyance in his tone, as he walks over to them. “But Ahsoka better wake up soon so I can ask her what in the hell just happened.” “We went through a portal,” Mayan says. Han squints. “How d’you know that?” “I’m a Jedi padawan…” Han throws his hands in the air. “Not another one! Come on, Chewy,” he says, “let’s go help Sabine get the engine started like normal people. Damn Jedi…force portals…” he mutters. R2 beeps in a pattern that Mayan recognises as a laugh as Han stalks off. “I hope Ahsoka wakes up soon…” Mayan says, mostly to herself, though Leia is still beside her. “Yes, well,” Leia starts, “we need to get back home. This was meant to be a drop-off, not another adventure.”

Chapter 16 excerpt:

“Come with me to Mandalore,” Din says. “But I don’t think I’m supposed to do that.” “Do you want to?” “Yes.” Luke glances at him from over his shoulder. “But I can’t,” he says. “I’m a Jedi, I have to follow the will of the force.” Din is silent for a long time, and Luke wonders if the conversation is over. But finally, he speaks. “I understand.” Luke huffs dubiously. “Really?” “Yes,” Din says. “I know what it’s like to be told that something that feels right is somehow wrong.” Luke’s stomach twists. Nothing feels right. Nothing. He let the force guide him here and now the force is telling him it’s time to leave. What if Din and Grogu still need him? He’s almost certain they do. But the galaxy needs him too. Perhaps his responsibilities lie elsewhere, maybe he got caught up in his emotions and mistook this for being the right thing. The problem is, Luke doesn’t know. The uncertainty makes him afraid. (Jedi should not be afraid.) He remembers his vision in the mythosaur lair and his throat tightens until he can barely speak. (Fear clouds one’s judgement.) “I can’t choose you,” Luke whispers, and a laugh catches in his through. “I can never choose you. Can you really tell me you understand that?” Din brings a hand up to his helmet. “I don’t know.” Luke stands up and catches his wrist. “Don’t,” he says. “I can’t let you give up your creed for me when I wouldn’t do the same for you.” Din’s hand falls. Luke stares into the dark visor, feeling further from his eyes than ever. The words of Obi-Wan’s Force-ghost echo in his head. “Had she said the word, I would have left the Jedi Order to be by her side.” “I’m sorry,” Luke says and lets go of his wrist. He steps back, gaze falling to the floor. If he wasn’t among the last Jedi… if the fate of the galaxy didn’t rest on his shoulders… But the Jedi are gone. Palpatine and Vader made sure of that. And now Luke has to spend his life paying for his father’s mistakes.

Chapter 18 excerpt:

“Leia, I don’t like this.” Luke tries not to squirm in his seat. If he had no appetite for the fancy Coruscant food before he certainly doesn’t now. “A Moff, after a force-sensitive child, working with a cloner? What the kriff were they doing?” “He might just have been after him because he was force sensitive and you know how the Empire felt about the Jedi.” “I wish I’d asked Din about this! I’m such an idiot.” “Who’s Din?” “Never mind. Okay, I’ve got to find out what Pershing was doing for Moff Gideon. I have a seriously bad feeling —” “Okay,” Leia says. “I trust your judgement. Are you finished? Let’s go speak to them.” Luke’s stomach swoops. “What?” “Sorry, farm-boy. Sneaking around isn’t how we learn things on Coruscant. You’ve got to play the game.” “What game?” “Politics, Luke.” “Oh great.”

Chapter 19 excerpt

“Good. I’m going down. Kymir and I can reach them fastest. Once we know where the creature lives we can go with a small group and rescue Ragnar.” Bo-Katan narrows her eyes, searching his visor for something to reassure herself. Din’s stomach drops when he realises that she’s desperately searching for his eyes. He touches her shoulder instead. “Keep them together,” he says, nodding in the direction of the others who are still reeling from the shock of the attack, some badly wounded. Bo-Katan sighs. “That’s what I’ve been doing for years, Din.” She shakes her head. “Let me wrap your arm. Take some more painkillers or you won’t be able to think when you’re down there. You might still lose the arm the way it is now.” Din stares at her. “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Okay?” Bo-Katan squints, winding the bandage around his arm which is thoroughly smothered in bacta. “I think you mean fuck.” “Fuck,” Din says. “It’s fine. I still have another arm.”

“∂ιи ∂נαяιи נσя иєя’вυιя נιι.” Din Djarin is… my… Din grabs a wall to steady himself. The words bounce around his helmet and his ears ache. He shuts his eyes, tries to focus on the words through the pain. They’re the important thing. “σяι’νσ∂ вυяк’у¢. ναιι’уαιм ∂яαgσи?” My friend is in danger. Where is the dragon’s home? “куяαмℓα.” He’s dead. “иυ ∂яααя!” Not never! “кумιя, уαιм’σℓ.” Kymir, come home. Din steps out to stand beside him. He tries to stand straight. He pulls out the darksaber with his good hand. “gαα’тαуℓιя,” he says, and ignites the blade. Help me. For a moment, nobody moves. Then, somebody asks, “ιвι¢… иι ¢єтα?” Will this… redeem us? Din looks at Kymir. Understanding wells in his eyes. "Do you forgive them?" “иααѕα∂ мι’ѕυя’нααι,” says Kymir. Not in my eyes. Din nods. Good. “мєн’gαα’тαуℓιя, нιвιяαя gαя иι ¢єтα.” If you help us, you may learn to forgive yourselves.

Grogu frowns in concentration. He peers out of the window, ignoring the computer completely, but his hand shifts on the stick and suddenly his eyes widen and he presses the button down. It hits the dragon and the creature screeches in agony, twisting up into the sky to escape from the onslaught. “Mu?” Grogu turns to Din. “Uh, lucky shot,” Din says. “I wouldn’t shoot without aiming first, kid. Wait, actually… can you use your Jedi stuff to aim? Is that what you’re doing?” Okay. What would Luke say? Something like… “In that case, just focus, and… listen to the — is it called the Force? Yeah, listen to the Force.” Grogu snorts. “What? Wouldn’t I make a good Jedi?” Din smiles, but Grogu can’t see it.

The guns bombard the remaining dragons with enough firepower to essentially obliterate them, and litter their scaly corpses across the ground. Boba-Fett lands his ship with a whoosh of hot air. Din stares as he lowers the landing ramp and marches towards him, Fennec following closely. “Thought you could use a hand,” says the gruff voice. Din tries to speak but his legs decide to give out. “Woah, there.” Boba keeps him upright with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you inside, Manda’lor,” he says. “Someone oughta throw you in a bacta tank,” says Fennec. “We don’t have a bacta tank.” Bo-Katan scowls from the cave entrance. “What are you doing here, Fett?” “I heard there was a get-together on Mandalore. Someone must’ve missed my invitation.”

Chapter 20 excerpt:

The magic tethering her to Dathomir tugs sharply on her wrist as she falls again into the familiar darkness. And then stops. Ahsoka can hear her breaths this time, sharp and cutting, and she scrambles to her feet, searching for — “You…” “Get away from him,” Ahsoka snarls. Leia’s lightsaber ignites with a burst of blue. Palpatine, or whatever’s left of him, has found them. His dark cloak drowns his physical form, making him almost impossible to discern from the flickering darkness, if it wasn’t for the ghastly, misshapen white of his face. Yellow eyes melt through the darkness, and grey lips stretch in a triumphant gleam. “He is of no more importance,” Palpatine snarls. Maul’s body twitches in the air, hands grasping desperately at his throat. “Let him go,” Ahsoka says. “S-sever our dyad,” Maul gasps. “Don’t let… don’t let him…” Ahsoka rips her arm free of the green string. “No!” Maul cries. Now there is no going back. “I will not leave you with him.”

“Grand Admiral, Sir, permission to speak freely?” “Permission granted, commodore Faro. You know I always value your input.” “Well, Sir, we’re kriffed.”

Chapter 25 excerpt:

“Thrawn,” Eli starts, looking into his red eyes, “y’know I—” The security feed beeps. Eli’s eyes widen when he sees Ezra waving up at the camera from the supply room. Eli clicks the comms. “Um, Ezra, wha’d’ya think you’re doing there? Actually, how’d you even get on board?” “Space portals!” “Right. I see.” Eli rubs his forehead. This is going to be a long day. “You need anythin’?” “You won’t believe what happened down there,” Ezra practically yells. “Anyway, I need the key now because we’re locking Dathomir so this doesn’t ever happen again, then we’re all jumping through a space portal to you guys. Is that alright?” “Sure. See ya in a bit.” “Excellent,” says Thrawn. He turns to Eli. “What were you going to say?” Eli sighs. “Moment’s gone. Alright, let’s get this data ready for Ezra-kid to look at.”

#star wars #fanficion #ao3 fanfic #ahsoka #ahsoka series #thrawn #star wars fanfiction #grand admiral thrawn #eli vanto #ezra bridger #luke skywalker #din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfiction #star wars fix it #star wars au #star wars oc #jedi oc #thrawn ascendancy #thrawn trilogy #the mandalorian critical #dinluke #thranto

[trashcora]

I just know there’ll be people who will say “Oh, Din is back to where he started. On Nevarro and working as a bounty hunter 🙄.” To that I say, he’s got a new perspective. He’s found a purpose. He’s helping fight the Empire. He’s got stability. He’s got a home. He’s got a family. Most importantly, I hope, he’s content and happy.

nonnie i COMPLETELY agree with you! I has his found family - he is content!!! din never really wanted to be the main character of the story just bring in his bounties & now he's planning to do just that with his SON😭😭 he's finally happy & he's doing what's best for grogu.

Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

#asks #nonnie #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers

[hudders-and-hiddles]

i'm having a lot of feelings about din choosing to go back and settle on nevarro. like, yes, they retook mandalore, but he has no true connection to the planet, he hadn't set foot there before this season, he tells us repeatedly that he knows little of wider mandalorian culture—the darksaber, pog soup, those who do not walk the way—and throughout the seasons other mandalorians have continued to look down on him and his way of life. so yes he helped them retake their home planet because it was the right thing to do but also ultimately said that is not what home is for me.

because what he actually said is, "perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome, so our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight," and the place he spoke of wasn't mandalore, it was nevarro. because for him, home looks like a place where he'd once only lived in the cover of shadow, in comings and going, but now can live—can stay—in the light and the relative safety, security, and peace that it offers. a place where they can flourish. a place where he's wholly welcomed, with friends and allies who respect him and the life he's chosen to live and where he can indeed watch his son feel what it is to play in the sunlight

#i think there was undoubtedly a much more focused way to have gotten to this ending #but it at least is an ending that i appreciate #and now has set them up for a much more s1 & s2-esque s4 which would be very welcome #and also since he now only has the ss mid-life crisis to pilot around which does not have room for them to do anything but fly #they really did need to give them an actual home #anyway it was not a great season but i do think it manages to end on mostly the right note #the mandalorian #the mandalorian s3 #the mandalorian spoilers #star wars

[novelaltee-blog]

An Excerpt of "Not By Blood" by AlTonya Washington ✒️

Yaz woke around 3 am after a fretful sleep. Surprising, given the busy day she’d had. She tried to fight her way back to slumber but eventually counted it a useless task and was out of bed just after 4 am.

It was customary for her and Candace to have breakfast together on work mornings. Since her work morning was getting started about 4 hours ahead of schedule, Yaz prepared a light meal of toast, mixed fruit, and coffee.

Treat yourself to delights beyond the business, Candace had said. 

Before yesterday, Yaz hadn’t realized that she hadn’t been doing that. Before yesterday… she thought, as her coffee transitioned from black to creamy beige. How had so much been turned on its ear in the span of a brief, supposedly run-of-the-mill meeting?

There was that weirdness with the picture, compounded by the weirdness of Lakia Volley, but that was all relegated to sideline positioning next to Noah Volley. She’d indeed had tunnel vision where her business was concerned. Yes, she’d heard of the Volleys, though her interest was only in bringing them on as clients.

She had completely overlooked the brown-eyed and ‘super gorgeous’ Noah Volley. Still, she told herself to dismiss the train of thought. Delights beyond business were a whole other thing next to delights connected to the business. She’d met Noah Volley for business reasons and business was the area where he should remain. Besides that, her meeting had given rise to even more beyond the business. 

Why had her parents never mentioned knowing the Volleys? They were well known in Manchester. The fact that their child lived there- the place where they began their lives as a married couple- should’ve generated some conversation on that score, right?

Maybe it was as Lakia Volley had said- the responsibilities of life had drawn them apart. Perhaps it was as simple and sensible as that. Only…God…why couldn’t she stop thinking there was more to it?

And so what if it was? If drama was involved, it had probably happened long before Yaz and her brothers were born. What was the saying? Stay out of grown folks' business.

That advice had never sounded more excellent. She certainly had enough on her plate. She’d just landed her biggest event to date. A bonafide success with the Volley party could post her to a level she’d been working toward from the start. That left little time for delving into family drama. Correction- it left no time for delving into family drama.

Yaz left her apartment just before 9am. That would give her and Candace plenty of time to talk business before she had to leave to be in time for the 11am meeting with Noah. It would also give them time to discuss Candace’s big date.

At least, Yaz hoped it would. She’d texted just to make sure her friend hadn’t decided to spend the night out after all. Candace hadn’t texted her back which was no surprise. Yaz had sent the text before 6am. Candace would’ve probably been turning over for another few minutes of shut-eye.

Yaz opted for the elevator instead of the stairs and used the wait time to reflect on Candace’s contagious excitement from the night before. That early relationship glee…it was a sensation few others could match. Yaz hadn’t experienced that in a long time. In her case, however, the glee stage had left a lot to be desired. Was that really why the ‘super gorgeous’ hadn’t been registering on her radar?

She smirked as another old saying came to mind- ‘once bitten, twice shy’.

“Come on,” Yaz muttered, pressing the elevator’s down button again. She let ten more seconds drift by before reminding herself that this was why she usually took the stairs.

Decided, she moved down the hall to the door leading to the stairwell. The din of mixed voices met her ears as she rounded the landing to the last flight down. 

Yaz pulled open the stairwell door and froze in place at the sight meeting her eyes. The 2nd floor hallway teemed with people. It wasn’t the crowded corridor that had her heart pounding, though. It was the fact that they were all in uniform- police-issued uniform.

Yaz tore from the doorway, stumbling in a walk/run that took her closer to the end of the hall. She was halfway there when one of the uniforms called out for her to wait. Someone tried to grab her arm. She shook them off.

Her heart was in her throat. She barely registered dropping her purse and tote bag as she neared the end of the hall and the door to Candace Barnes’ apartment.

She stopped short of crossing the threshold. She didn’t need to in order to see the woman in the chair she’d tumbled into the night before as she’d laughed.

There would be no more laughter.

Yaz looked on in horror at her friend’s head lolling to one side of the chair. The bodice of her lilac pantsuit was caked in blood around a hole in the center of her chest.

Yazmine screamed.

"Not By Blood" is now available 📚✒️📚

#book excerpt #writing life #book preview #black characters

[dsneybuf91]

The Mandalorian Chapter 21 Review/Another Spotlight on Carson Teva

I privately swore not to review The Mandalorian Season 3 unless I found an episode that both met the standards described here, and could earn stronger praise from me than Chapter 16.625 did. This took quite a while, partially due to my sense of Lucasfilm repeating some of my biggest frustrations with that series. Similar to when Boba Fett decided to become a Daimyo, Din Djarin embarked on a quest that I thought* seemed inconsistent with his characterization at the end of The Mandalorian Season 2, and often became overshadowed by other characters. If I compare Chapters 17-21 to the state of The Book of Boba Fett before Din's hijacking, Mando's advantages sound so simple, that writing down would condemn Boba Fett's basic failures - including some I've already spent plenty of time describing - more effectively than they would praise The Mandalorian. Fortunately, Din does play a major role in this chapter, my favorite of the season so far. Paul Sun-Hyung Lee also earned higher billing than in his first three Star Wars appearances, which means I should detail whether or not I found his role in this story intriguing.

*past tense regarding Din Djarin.

Thoughts on Chapters 17-20

17. The Apostate: This fizzling third season premiere delivers a rudimentary re-introduction to Din Djarin and Grogu, disjointed setup for Din’s latest problems, and an inadequate replacement for the Book of Boba Fett chapters his clan hijacked.

18. The Mines of Mandalore: Despite my concerns that Din’s journey of atonement regresses too much of his character development, his group executes a fascinating and creepy exploration of Star Wars locales and lore previously overlooked by live-action media.

19. The Convert: A strong showcase for an Oscar-nominated director and some previously-minor actors shares several planets’ worth of intriguing plot elements, but relies too strongly on other chapters to effectively tie them together. (Click here for a longer review.)

20. The Foundling: Despite a thrilling and cathartic look at Grogu's past, some serious cases of sidelining Din help prevent me from enjoying the main plot.

The Pirate

Airdate: March 29, 2023

Director: Peter Ramsey

Writer: Jon Favreau

Perhaps it is time for us to live in the light once again on a planet where we are welcome. So our culture may flourish and our children can feel what it is to play in the sunlight.

-Din Djarin

Din Djarin and the other Children of the Watch receive a visit from Captain Carson Teva, who forwards a distress message from Nevarro to the tribe. Pirates led by King Gorian Shard (Nonso Anozie) have begun attacking the capital, but the New Republic can't help High Magistrate Greef Karga fight them. Din convinces the rest of the tribe to help free Nevarro from the pirates by offering the Mandalorians some land that Greef had previously attempted to sell to Din.

This chapter reinforces evolution that Din and the Children of the Watch have undergone since The Mandalorian Chapter 1.  While Din initially concentrated only on his bounty-hunting, his respect towards various foundlings has forged tighter connections to the rest of the tribe.  Additionally, his proposal to relocate the covert to a less secluded area reflects how helping out a wide array of the Galaxy's denizens, for reasons beyond earning credits, has helped him understand the importance of widening his impact.  Even if he could easily convince the other Mandalorians to obey him by pulling out the Darksaber, it remains admirable that he continues to earn others' respect and compliance through altruism and determination, rather than weaponry alone.  Din and Grogu could have easily formed their own Mandalorian tribe after the former's banishment from the Children of the Watch, but considering all they did to bring up the orphaned Din, it would have looked uncharacteristically dishonorable of him to abandon them in a state of disarray.

Compared to The Mandalorian's previous attempt at exploring the faults of the New Republic, this chapter boasts an inverted structure. Chapter 19: "The Convert" relegated the Mandalorians to the bookends, focusing the entire middle on the Galactic Empire's successor. "The Pirate" relegates the New Republic to the near-beginning and the very end, focusing the entire middle on the Mandalorians' efforts to save Nevarro's people.  Everything that happens by the time Teva receives Greef's message remains engaging due to how emotionally attached the viewer has become to Greef and the city that once provided Din with income, while seeing them evolve beyond a disgrace and a scumhole across The Mandalorian Chapters 1-17.  Some might think it takes too long for any Mandalorians to appear, but I can't complain; it makes sense for Teva to seek help on Coruscant first, and I appreciate another appearance from Elia Kane.

Peter Ramsey had previously won an Academy Award for helping direct Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an action-packed, emotionally-charged demonstration of how embracing both similarities and differences with potential allies can help accomplish a common good. (And a movie I feel more fondly of than any other I've seen from a future Mandalorian Season 1-3 director, except maybe Jon Favreau's Elf.) This makes Ramsey a fitting choice to helm a team-up between a Mandalorian who has begun rediscovering the importance of traditions she abandoned, a Mandalorian who holds onto his old beliefs while acting courteous to those who disagree with their worth, and Mandalorians who insist upon the superiority of their ancient Way above all others.  Of course, they all provide thrilling contributions to this chapter's action scenes; unique when centered around any of the four central Mandalorians.  Even though Ramsey specializes in animation, this episode proves that he can direct compelling performances from live-action actors as well.

Among the Mandalorian fan circles I frequent, Carson Teva became a popular choice to replace Cara Dune as Disney+'s most prominent Ranger of the New Republic. He promotes inclusivity not only through his casting, but also through his varied, yet logical, choices on who deserves a chance to prove their worth.  His absence from the climax fortifies how strongly he believes in Din's capability of contributing to society, and allows him to keep his word not to find out where the Children of the Watch will settle next.  Most of these qualities seemed apparent ever since Din first met him, but his open mind becomes especially admirable after Chapter 19's demonstration of other New Republic officers' difficulties accepting intellectual non-conformists.  Paul Sun-Hyung Lee also pulls off material more serious and urgent than in his earlier, fleeting Star Wars appearances - or in the typical Kim's Convenience episode - including an unsettling teaser for the return of a foe from Din's clan's past.

While the Children of the Watch begin settling on Nevarro, the Armorer assigns Bo-Katan with uniting Mandalorians on other planets. This conflicts earlier impressions that since Din twice won ownership of the Darksaber, he would have to unite them alone. Bo-Katan has indeed proven more capable than him of adjusting to Mandalorians' conflicting beliefs - we haven't canonically seen his face since December 2020, after all - but her assignment creates more opportunities for her to steal Din's spotlight. He badly needs more focus before this season ends, but since I'm writing this review before watching Chapter 22, I don't know exactly how much focus the latter gives to him. "The Pirate" overall both triumphantly and ominously heralds future-reshaping developments for the Galaxy's Mandalorians.

#my posts #tv show review #the mandalorian #the mandalorian s3 #the mandalorian spoilers #star wars #din djarin #pedro pascal #carson teva #paul sun hyung lee #the apostate #the mines of mandalore #the convert #the foundling #the pirate #stop asian hate

[no-droids]

Kar’taylir

gif credit @sersi​

Part Thirteen of the Rough Day Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 11.8K

Warnings: language, angst and fluff, descriptions of a dead body, no real smut in this one but there is some nudity and touching, uhhh i think thats it tbh

A/N: Omg hi hi hello this was written in a week and a half so please be gentle, also I’m back on my linguistics bullshit and I can absolutely guarantee a vast majority of it is inaccurate

***

Everybody is asleep and you’re just a complete mess.

Truly.  And it fucking sucks, because this should be enjoyable.  This is home.  You’re in hyperspace, the hull is pitch black, the baby is asleep, and Din’s breathing is slow and quiet through the darkness.  Your cheek presses to his chest as it rises and falls hypnotically, you’re comfortable and safe and this would normally be a dream.  But your eyes are wide open right now and you are just going through it.  Spiraling in the midst of the most stable surroundings you could possibly conceive.

You suppose that this is partially your fault.  You don’t know why literally any part of you expected Din would explain himself without prompting from you, but you still couldn’t work up nearly the nerve necessary to ask.  Every potential question you came up with contradicted your intent, every way you tried to mentally phrase it gave off the wrong impression.  How do you ask somebody if they were being serious about something without revealing anything about your own intentions?  You can’t—that’s a downside of staying silent.

Din hasn’t said a single word since he urged you to leave the shooting range earlier, and he didn’t really seem like the quiet didn’t suit him, if that makes sense.  Yours was awkward, it fit you wrong.  You struggled for words while he easily ignored their existence altogether, able to navigate the Crest into hyperspace and exist comfortably around you without ever addressing the giant bantha in the room.  Maybe that’s part of the reason you floundered so hard—he didn’t avoid you, he held the kid while you took a shower in the small fresher, and even though he was quieter around you than he’d been in awhile, he gave no indication that anything was wrong at all.

You spent that time getting clean but also formulating some sort of plan.  As you bathed in actual water for the first time in a week and scrubbed your body clean, you tried to figure out at least why you were having so much trouble coming up with something to say, but even then, words evaded you.  You spent the entire time staring blankly at the metal wall, at a complete fucking loss.

When you came out of the fresher with wet hair and comfortable clothing to sleep in, Din was armorless and resting in your makeshift bed on the floor, the baby tucked soundly in his crib next to him.  You turned off the lights and carefully found your way under the blankets next to him in the pitch blackness, feeling him lazily reach around you and pull you to rest against his chest.  His fingers gently drew circles along your arm for maybe the first few minutes while you worked up the nerve to speak.  You needed to say something, this was your chance—

But then his hand soon fell to rest in one place on your shoulder and he passed out.  Helmet on, not even a few minutes of your quiet breathing next to him.

So now, you’re here, just… a little ball of stress in the middle of paradise.  Hours have passed, you need sleep after such a physically exhausting week but it’s like you haven’t even processed the fucking proposition he presented to you yet.  You’re having trouble even thinking the words, that’s how much he’s got you fucked up.

He said… hit the target and I’ll ma…. hit the target and I’ll marrrrr…

Fuck.  You stay on that loop for ages until your eyes begin to grow heavy, until you just settle on thinking about it with them closed.  Slow breaths from Din under one ear, the silence of hyperspace all around you—how are you supposed to contemplate when his body is so warm?  No, you can ask tomorrow, you’ll ask him tomorrow.

Eventually, you’re able to drift off into a troubled slumber, dreaming of bells made of beskar that deafen anyone who rings them.

***

You wake up what feels like two minutes later.

It’s not, but you don’t know that.  You’re so warm and the second your eyes open, they start stinging and burning and tearing up like your body just wants to cry for even being awake right now.  You finally got to sleep—you moan pitifully and start to turn your head further into the warm blankets, but then a gloved hand smooths your hair back and a voice whispers quiet through the darkness.

“I have to go.”

And oh, his touch is just the gentlest thing, but what he says makes your already fragile mental state want to shatter.  The first words he gives you in hours and they’re the ones you loathe to hear the most.

“W-Wha?  No,” you whimper and automatically reach for him, your throat starting to close up.  Maker, you’re so tired, you’re so tired, you feel so fucking emotional and vulnerable right now and you’re not even awake enough to realize it.  “Why?”

Din just catches your hands and brings both of them together in front of him, slowly pressing your knuckles to the cold beskar on the face of his helmet.

“I meet with Karga in three days,” he murmurs back, voice pillow-soft and barely loud enough to come through the steel under your fingers.  It’s gentle and lulling and it makes you want to sleep again, but you can’t and you feel like you could burst into tears for that reason alone.  “He gave me four pucks, I need four bodies.”

You can’t argue with it, the logic is perfectly sound.  But you still want to, and everything inside you revolts at the thought of allowing him leave like this without fighting for more.  Which means you have absolutely nothing reasonable or compelling to say to appeal to him; all you’re left with the glaring truth.

“But I don’t want you to leave,” you whisper, tightening your fingers.

And, perhaps if you were even half-conscious, you’d wince.  You’d cringe at the shake in your voice, you’d remind yourself that he has to make a living, he’s said it over and over again.  If you were completely awake, you’d scold yourself for being such a needy mess, but right now, all you can think about is how much you want him to stay, just this once.

After a moment, you feel the gloves carefully collect both of your hands into just one of his, and then he slowly reaches out with his free hand to cradle your jaw.

“I won’t be gone long,” Din murmurs.  “I can’t be.”

Your head turns slowly in his palm, and you’re just so, so sleepy.  Your voice is small and your words slur.  “Stay with me.”

Quiet, and though you can’t see him, the leather continues to press so warm to your cheek.  Your eyes slowly drift shut, needing him to stay exactly like this, stay right here just like this.  Karga can wait, the quarry can wait, the galaxy can wait—everything else can wait when things are like this, when he’s looking down at you breathing slow into his palm.

You’re almost asleep again when you hear him say something.

But… you have no idea what he says.  You hear it.  You hear his voice come through the pitch black, quiet enough to sit just on top of the silence and let the mysterious words simply become a part of it, but it’s strange.  Like his cadence lilts in a different way, the vowels are longer than what you’re used to, and your comprehension abruptly falters like it would if he was speaking another language altogether.

Maybe it’s just because it’s the first thing to pull you back from the edges of sleep, that has to be right.  It doesn’t sound like Basic because your mind is stupid and slow right now.  You need to ask him to repeat himself, but all that you can muster is the soft sound of confusion, not even able to open your eyes anymore.

His hands pull away from you and once again, you suddenly can’t decide between sleep and crying, quickly lifting and trying to reach out for him in the darkness.  You can’t feel anything, it’s like he’s completely disappeared from where you assumed he’d be, except then something tiny is placed into your hands instead and it makes an unhappy little sound at being disturbed.  You automatically hold the baby close to your chest and strong hands touch your shoulders, urging you to lay back down again.

“Leave the engine running, you’ll freeze if you don’t,” he mutters, quickly tucking the blankets up under your body while you close your eyes and feel the tears wet your lashes.  Fuck, you’re so exhausted, you just need to sleep.  “If I’m not back in sixteen hours, I’ll use my e-comm and you’ll have to fly out to me.”

He steps away from you, walks quickly and with purpose to the side of the hull, and a blast of frigid air fills the room before the door is slammed shut behind him.

***

Your head hurts.

Sparks and wires give your fingers mean, zapping reminders to pay attention every time your focus slips, but you still feel like you’re in a daze.

“Come on,” you drone, trying to use your voice to snap yourself back into the present, but the sound of it isn’t even interesting enough to pull you away.  “Come on.”

Maker, you’re going fucking crazy.  Is this just all an elaborate scheme to make you experience the same kind of insanity he told you he struggles with in your absence?  Because you don’t like this—you hate feeling like this, you can’t concentrate on anything and even if he hadn’t instructed you to do so, you’d likely still be counting the hours of his absence.

Fourteen have passed so far, not the sixteen you’re waiting for but getting close.  It’s one thing you’ve been able to accomplish.  Counting.  You can still count right now, so at least there’s that.

Oh, and another hoop you’ve jumped through.  Understanding words.  You can listen and repeat, even if you still can’t fully comprehend, but you’re getting there.

Din said… hit the target and I’ll marry you.

He said that.  Yep.  You’ve accepted it, you’ve accepted the words that were said.  Indeed.

Okay, but now… like…

What did he mean by that?  Why did he say that?

No matter how much you tell yourself he was just messing around—no matter how many times you offer up that perfectly logical answer to the burning question you’ve been sitting on, you still aren’t satisfied with it.  Something keeps tugging your mind back to it, a tether constantly pulling you away from the work that’s designed to be your distraction.

You frown down at the box of machinery.  Whelp, if he was serious, he’d probably immediately take the offer back after witnessing your behavior this morning.  You embarrassed yourself terribly, you acted like a clingy baby in the looming shadow of unconsciousness and what’s worse, you can’t even remember what he said after you begged him to stay.  It could’ve been a quiet, “Stars, pull yourself together,” for all you know.

And honestly, just… fuck these electronics.  You’re at the point where you’d probably cheer on whatever brutal impact damaged them so atrociously if you weren’t also well aware that this box was very likely attached to Din’s chest when it was crushed.  The magnetics are a complete mess, and you’re mostly just attempting to see how the individual components of each piece are supposed to communicate.  Turning the switch on doesn’t do much at all besides make the capacitors put out heat.  Not enough to shut it down or be a hazard to the housing when you close it, but enough to know that it’s going to present a problem for you at some point.

What’s more, you’re so lost in your own thoughts and busywork that you don’t see two green ears poking out over the top of the pile of armor on your temporary workstation (literally just the floor) until one of the thigh braces comes clattering down and the whole thing collapses with a ruckus.

You suddenly shove the metal box away from you in frustration and you reach for the little troublemaker with a sigh, scooping him up and getting to your feet.

“This isn’t going to work,” you grunt to him, hearing your words better for some reason when you direct them at the baby instead of talking to yourself, and his eh? allows the thoughts to come clearer and easier.  No, you can’t be distracted when your distraction is just another part of your status quo, you can’t use fixing mechanics to occupy yourself because it’s what you’ve done to occupy yourself your entire life, it’s worn off at this point.  You need something newer.  Something that takes your entire focus to do.

Eventually, your eyes drift over to the one metal panel on the wall that you’ve rarely ever opened.  One that takes up a comparatively enormous amount of space in the hull considering what you know it holds.  You eye the kid in your arm, who suddenly has sneaky painted all over his expression.  “You thinking what I’m thinking, demon?”

He squeaks his affirmative and you move over to the armory, pressing a few buttons before the doors slide open by themselves.  Because of course Mando invested in hydraulics for the gun closet but not for the hidden cot he used to sleep on, of course.

“Maker above,” you groan as the metal slides open, needing to lift your chin to eye the enormous collection.  How many fucking…?  All this for just one person?  What does that big one in the middle do that the others stacked strategically around it don’t?  They all kill whatever you point and shoot at, you’re assuming?  Are you missing something?

The baby makes a tiny sound of awe as you carefully look over your choices, not expecting nearly this many to be offered, before settling on one that looks the simplest.  A sleek silver one that’s still too big for your hand but smaller than anything else on the rack.

Grabby fingers reach out for the shiny metal as soon as you remove it from the shelf and you very purposefully set it down out of his pitiful wingspan.  “Nope.  Now come on, gotta bundle up.”

You make your way back over to the bed and pull one of the thickest blankets up, settling it over the open shield and then situating your partner in crime in his usual spot inside.  You strategically stuff and stack the fabric around him to make sure he’ll be warm enough in what you know has to be far below freezing temperatures, lifting it up over his ears and wrapping it around his neck in a loose hood.  He blinks up at you with gigantic eyes and an open mouth, clearly thrilled about your willingness to go on an adventure with him this time instead of being the tall nuisance that consistently holds him back from one, and you scoff down at him as you partially close the lid on his levitating nest of blankets for extra protection.  He should be warm enough, you’re not going to be outside long.

And then you pull out nearly half the amount of clothes you own and suit up in what feels like ten layers before grabbing the blaster.  The swirling wind nearly shoves the heavy hull door into you as soon as you open it and—Maker.

You look back at the kid behind you for a second, wondering if it’s too late to change your mind.  His expression narrows and he makes a triumphant ha! while pointing three fingers at the grey blizzard through the small open space in his crib.  Try as you might, you can’t ignore a call to arms when delivered with such ferocity.

Both of you step outside and take in the view after you wrestle with the door to haul it shut.  You don’t know the name of this planet but from what you can see, it’s one giant ice ball, mountainous and cold as fuck.  Though, to be honest, your only indication that it’s truly cold as fuck is the continuously accumulating snow blanketing the landscape and the flurries dancing in the whipping wind.  You’re too warm-blooded for climates like these—anything below room temperature and you’re freezing, you have absolutely no tolerance for cold whatsoever.

Keeping that in mind, you don’t travel far at all.  Just a few steps beyond the entrance to your shelter before eyeing what appears to be a large white boulder in the distance.  There’s a solid target, you figure—you’ll be able to see chunks splintering off when you hit it and the ice isn’t strong enough to bounce plasma back, you won’t have any ricochets.

Okay.  Okay—safety, where’s the safety on this one?  Ah, yes, okay—safety, off.  Stance, find your stance.  There it is.  Alright, now lift.  Lift, get that stupid frozen ball right in your sights, line it up.  Hold.  Hold.  Hold.

Inhale, exhale.  Inhale, exhale—

Fire.

You watch with bated breath as the bright red bolt launches from the end of the barrel and travels across the distance before melting a hole in the snow just to the right of your target.

“Mother fucker!”  You yell into the frigid landscape without warning, suddenly infuriated.  What’s the point of even having a sight if every gun is just gonna say fuck you no matter what?  Could there be some sort of mathematical reason why you seem to be fucking atrocious at this, you wonder?  Are you fucking up the angle somehow while trying to read the scope?  Should you just ignore it and try to aim without thinking too hard?

Admittedly, you spend the next five minutes shooting at that stupid fucking thing, not making a single shot.  It’s not been long at all, but your entire body is already trembling uncontrollably and it is just too fucking cold out here.  Freezing your fucking ass off isn’t going to help your aim of course, but it’s almost just tragic at this point.  Either you’ve got to accept that you’re just absolutely hopeless at this, or you’ve got to… blame the little womprat behind you for messing up your shots, yeah.  It wouldn't surprise you.

As a last ditch effort, you consider trying something a bit ridiculous to see if he really is fucking with you.

“I’m firing one last shot,” you call out loudly over the sound of the bristling wind and flurries, making sure he can hear your narration from his little blanket cave behind you.  “If I hit the target… I will present our demon overlord with a chunk of raw meat later for dinner.”

You give the offer a moment to sink in before raising the blaster, and then you jerk it up at the very last second while pulling the trigger.  The arc of plasma quickly disappears into the gloomy skies over the top of the ice boulder, completely straight.

You switch the safety on and turn around to say something smart to him, but… well.  Uh.  That’s an empty crib.

Sudden panic rips through you at the sight of the wide open shield, the blanket left abandoned inside.  Your head whips around in horror, wondering where the fuck he could’ve gone—but then you’re able to spot tiny footprints in the snow.  Your eyes quickly follow them up and see the baby wading his way up a large hill, slow against the terrain and trying in vain to get to something at the very top.

You drop the blaster and bolt through the blizzard to get to him while calling out through the freezing air and wishing, not for the first time, that you had a name to roar and strike fear into his tiny little heart.  In this case, you prefer a middle name as well.

Finally reaching him and yanking him up from the snow, you tuck him under the warmest part of your arm and open your mouth to start venting the terror from your body, but he makes a distressed noise and starts climbing.  You fumble with him on your way back down, not expecting that response, but he’s so distraught and preoccupied that he’s unable to stay still, trying to find different ways of escaping your grasp and making more and more sounds to indicate something is wrong.

“What the fuck are you—” you stuff him into the shield and at least get the blankets wrapped around him before looking back and trying to spot whatever he’s still wiggling and attempting to get to.  Frustrated cries start filling the icy air and… okay.  “Okay,” you tell him, your breath puffing like smoke in front of you, “okay okay, we can go look, but you need to stay warm.”

You clutch the edge of his metal shield and urge it to follow you back up the snowy hill, feeling the crunch of your feet disappear further and further into it as you climb.  Your outer two layers are probably soaked by now—stars, it’s so fucking cold.  You know you’re not exactly the best judge, but you’ve been outside less than five minutes and you’re already worried about getting sick or frostbite, already jumpy and wanting to go back to the warmth of the hull.

But as you reach the top and look out in the distance, you can just barely make out a familiar metallic glint on the horizon.  

Your heart picks up, but the baby makes another distressed sound.  Not… happy, not thrilled that his dad is coming back.  Some strange sort of dread begins to fill you, carefully holding the kid in his shield with one hand and looking at the bright reflection of light a little ways away just to make sure it’s…

No, it’s not moving.  Not disappearing and reappearing, not catching the sunlight differently.  Completely stationary in this absolutely horrendous weather.

You immediately make your way in that direction, your body deciding to outright abandon its trembling in the wake of this newfound worry.  You’re suddenly sweating, way too warm.  That’s Din, you recognize the glint of his armor anywhere, but why isn’t he moving?

The closer you get, the faster you move and the more you’re able to see.  He’s laying facedown in the snow.  There’s quite a bit of it covering the back of his cape, maybe a few inches, and… there’s also someone laying equally as lifeless behind him.  Your heart is slamming now, you’re doing your best to run in the unforgiving terrain, and you finally see that it’s… a corpse, a frozen corpse is behind him with a rope tied around its ankles, clutched tight in Din’s unmoving fist as it lays against the pure white backdrop.

“Mando?”  You call out, dropping to your knees as soon as you reach him.  “Hey—hey, can you hear me?”

The beskar strapped to him is frozen over and feels colder than ice when you try to shake him.  He doesn’t respond.  He’s dead weight; you do your best to turn him over on his back, but you still get nothing from him.  You shove your trembling fingers up under the helmet, and the only reassurance you have that he’s even alive comes from the petrifyingly slow pulse beating underneath.  His skin is ice cold.

Shit, he’s still breathing but he’s hypothermic, you have to get him back to the Crest right fucking now.

You fumble to get in position above his head while hooking both your arms under his, before leaning everything you have into it—but fuck, he’s so heavy.  You can barely lift him even just a few inches off the ground—the snow is deep, his armor makes him weigh a ton and the fabric wrapped around him is sopping wet.  You try again, making a tight sound in your throat while you haul, but it’s no use.

“Fuck,” you curse, starting to panic even fucking harder.  You’re gasping and breathless and getting dizzy and scared, continuing to try and find different angles to heave—

—until suddenly the burden is lifted.

You nearly fall backwards on your ass at the abrupt removal of tension, playing tug-of-war with a team that decided to give up with no warning.  But it’s like it almost doesn’t even phase you; you don’t even look behind you to see the baby’s eyes closed tight in concentration, you just recover and pull with both arms, feeling Din’s body gliding easily along the snow now and leading him all the way back down the hill.

Once you get inside the Crest and shut the door to the raging blizzard behind the three of you, there’s an extended moment where you just… you don’t know what to do.  You know all about how to deal with heatstroke, but this is the opposite—he either spent too long in the cold, or he exhausted himself trying to get back too quickly and then spent too long in the cold.  He said he’d use his e-comm if he wasn’t back in sixteen hours—was that the cutoff?  The point where the temperature outside would shut his body down and he’d need you to come get him?

Regardless, you need to warm him up.  Yes, that’s your priority, and you figure the quickest and safest way to accomplish it has to be the shower in slow increments.  The kid helps you move Din into the tiny fresher in the hull and then you sit on the floor with him, holding his limp body to your chest while reaching up to turn the faucet on.

Cold water sprays down and then suddenly—oof, he’s heavier than fuck again.  Air leaves your lungs and your neck cranes back under the unexpected increase in pressure on top of you to see the kid climbing down from his shield, no longer focused on mentally bearing most of his father’s weight or directing his own hovering form of transportation along behind you.  The baby disappears out of sight and you huff, completely trapped under Din as freezing water rains down on you.

Fuck, it’s so cold.  It’s way too fucking cold for you, but your core body temperature is also mostly normal right now.  Din’s isn’t, you’ll probably shock his system if you try to warm him up too quickly.  So you reach up and twist the knob, keeping it at a temperature he’d probably find just the slightest bit warm while inspiring violent shudders from you.

“H-Hey, I’m gonna t-t-take this off, o-okay—” you stutter down at him, knowing damn well he isn’t conscious to hear you but giving him that reassurance on the small chance he is, and then reach with trembling fingers to work at his armor.  You worry that the beskar is keeping the cold trapped the same way his clothes are, like having solid pieces of ice strapped to his body and nothing to protect him besides a few layers of soaking wet fabric.

The chestpiece comes off and you throw it blindly over your shoulder into the hull with a clang—admittedly, without thinking about where the baby is at all anymore.  The pauldrons come off next, but not before you reach up and turn the heat up just the slightest bit.  Your jerky limbs just want to blast it and remove the rest of his clothes in steamy hot water, but you can’t.  Even though your mind is hurtling at a thousand lightyears an hour, whatever reason you have left reminds you that you have to be patient or risk losing him entirely.

Eventually you’re able to get all the armor off but you hate the way he’s breathing right now.  Slow and shallow, like he just doesn’t really need the air at all but his body is still fighting for it on instinct.  His chest barely moves with it even when it’s got nothing weighing it down.

“You’ll b-be okay,” you say aloud, talking to the both of you even though only one is capable of responding.  “Y-Y-You’ll be o-okay—”

You reach up to inch the temperature a little higher, shivering terribly now.  His body feels slightly warmer under the shower than it did with the beskar, but you know you need to keep going and take the fabric off now.  Maker, it’s nearly impossible—the black clothing clings to his skin and its such a small space to maneuver, but it gives your mind and hands a clear goal to focus on while the water incrementally heats up.

Strangely, your adrenaline has been rocketing for so long that you almost lose track of time.  You just keep deadly focused on your task of undressing him and slowly heating the shower, trying not to think, trying not to get in your head and bring about disaster in such a crucial set of moments.

At some point, the water is warm.  Comfortably warm, and Din’s body isn’t ice cold anymore.  It’s warm, too, laying back into your chest and naked besides the helmet, but he’s still not moving.  No response, no matter how much mindless drabble you supply, no matter how steamy and hot the shower has become, no matter how much your own body has heated up.  Your fingers have found their home under his jaw, pressed right to his pulse point and feeling it continue to beat slow and faint, but you’re starting to feel the terror set in.  Real terror, the kind that makes you stupid and emotional, the kind that turns you back into a child again.

“I don’t know if it’s working,” you suddenly choke out, close to tears.  He’s warm, what else can you do for him?  Why is he not waking up?  “I-I don’t know what to do, Din, I…”

No—no, you cannot lose your shit, not yet.  You will exhaust every fucking option before you let that fear set in.  He’s not waking up because he needs to recover, his body needs time to work things out in a warm, comfortable environment.  He’s breathing, his heart is beating, he’s warm, and he’s still with you, so… you need to still be with him.

You turn the water off and clumsily get up, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him back into the hull.  He’s still heavy but it’s so much easier than before to move him; there’s no armor weighing him down anymore besides the helmet, no cape or snow or friction to catch him, no cold to lock your muscles up.  It’s slow going but you’re finally able to settle him in the warmth of your shared bed and then cover his body in the collection of blankets you’ve amassed.  You stand up and peel off all your wet layers of clothing, letting them plop to the metal floor while glancing around for the kid—

—who is currently swinging from the ladder to the cockpit with one hand.

It startles you for just a moment, just long enough for you to wonder what the fuck he thinks he’s doing up there, but then you figure that if he found some way to get up there then he can surely find his way back down again.

As you quickly drop to the bed and scoot up next to Din’s limp body under the blankets, the Crest’s engine suddenly gives a low rumble below the floor and heat starts blowing through the hull vents.  Again, you’re too preoccupied to even notice the gift much.  You’re tugging and tucking blankets around him and up under the metallic edge of his helmet when...

Maker, you need to take this off.  If the inside is wet, it’s probably keeping his head cold while the rest of him is warm from the shower.  You know it’s not a light thing—you know… you know at least a fraction of what this means.  You won’t look, you won’t look unless something absolutely drastic happens and it’s completely unavoidable, but you need to take his helmet off.

You catch the shoulder furthest from you and tug at his heavy body until he’s on his side, facing you on the bed.

“Din, I have to take your helmet off,” you warn him, saying it slowly and clearly.  Again, just in case.  “I’m not gonna look.  Nobody is gonna look—” your gaze flicks behind him to eye the baby, who is now somehow on the metal ground and waddling up to you both.  He blinks enormous black eyes at you, looking between you and his father huddled together under the blankets.

“Close your eyes,” you tell him very seriously, no room for negotiating.  “I know you understand me.”

It takes just a few seconds before he lifts his hands up and does exactly what you say, placing his fingers over his closed eyelids and then even so much as toddling around to face the wall.  You gasp in relief, clenching your eyes firmly shut and then pulling the helmet up, making sure you catch his head before it falls with one hand while tossing the beskar somewhere in the hull with the other.

Cold.  His hair is soaking wet and so cold, and his head rolls slightly as you guide it to rest in the warmest part of your neck.  Your hand stays attached to the back of it, wanting to transfer every single bit of warmth from your palm to him, and your eyes open to the kid’s back as your other arm wraps around Din’s bare spine.

And then all at once, you just feel… helpless.  He’s in your arms but Maker, you don’t know what else you can do.  The heat is blasting, you’re warm and pressed against him under multiple blankets, the engine is slowly heating the metal floor, but his breathing.  Slow.  Shallow.  Barely able to be felt against your neck.  He’s here but he’s not.  And you have no way of knowing if he’s getting closer or further away from you.

Tears start coming before you even realize.  But you have nothing to say.  After spending the entire time talking out loud, providing reassurances, narrating, distracting yourself—you don’t have anything anymore.  The silence twists you tighter, the nothing becomes inescapable, and the sudden sob that leaves you echoes hauntingly throughout the hull.  You pull his limp body as close to you as possible for comfort.  Wake up.  Wake up.

Your vision is watery—you don’t see it.  You don’t see the kid slowly turn around and take a few steps forward.  You only notice he’s there when green catches in the abstract blur, but you sniff and blink quickly to clear it.  It only takes a second to see the baby’s hand, extending and pressing against the blanket covering Din’s back, and you watch with wide eyes as he closes his.

And then there’s a second.  A second where you dare to hope.  Where you wonder if it’s even something that can be done.

The kid lowers his hand just a moment later and stumbles back a few steps, before plopping down on the ground and slowly falling backwards.  You have just enough time to see his little body inhale and exhale a few times as he sleeps, and then—

—and then Din suddenly jolts in your arms, bursting with too much life after spending too many heart wrenching moments without it.

“Shhh,” you breathe, instantly tightening your grip on the back of his head so he doesn’t pull away from you in a panic and keeping it tucked into the warmest part of your neck, right where your pulse thrums fast and present.  Your eyes clench tightly shut just in case and your heart bursts with pure, blinding, heavenly relief.  “Shhh sh sh, stay right here, just stay right here…”

As soon as he seems to recognize your voice and figure out that he’s not dead, his body immediately starts wreaking with shivers.  You squeeze him tight to you, feeling his large, quaking frame curl inwards into you for warmth, burying his own face into your neck even further and breathing shallow but quickly now, like his body actually wants the air again.  You do your best to will your blood to pump faster and provide him that relief, stretching and opening your body as much as possible to give him warmth.

And then you spend the next few hours like that.  Holding him, murmuring gently to him, providing him with your body heat and stars, he fucking clings to you.  He presses tight to you and trembles, and you don’t even know if he’s listening, but you keep talking.  Finding words for hours, and while some of them are just different ways of saying the same thing, you say them anyway.

He’s okay.  The kid is okay.  Everyone is okay.

Eventually, the shivering dies down until it stops altogether.  Din stays in one place and goes completely limp again, but this time he continues to breathe you in, slow and deep into the crook of your neck.  Fast asleep in your arms, and you thank the good fucking Maker above for the little angel passed out on the floor behind him.

***

He has to meet with Karga in two days.

After a few more hours of holding him and making absolutely sure he’s going to be alright, that’s all you can stupidly think about.

A deadline.  A very quickly approaching one.

You don’t know why.  But it might have something to do with the fact that you want nothing more than to climb up into the cockpit and navigate the ship off this horrid planet, and you can’t.  You’re confident that the hull and blankets are warm enough by themselves to keep Din comfortable as he recovers, and you’ve also had quite a while to regroup and get your mind thinking logically again, so you’re not worried about getting up and leaving him right now, no.  That’s not the problem.

The problem is that there’s a corpse outside.  You know this.  You know it’s there, and you know he needs it.  Nobody’s gonna take his word for just saying they’re dead, much less pay him for his services; no body, no bounty.  You also know it’s probably being covered with fresh snow right now, or maybe some sort of wild animal has already gotten their teeth into it, if anything can even survive out there.  And you’re the only one awake.  The only one capable of going to get it.

You’ve been arguing with yourself.  For about an hour, you’ve been struggling with the thought.  Din is soft and warm and every breath makes you focus less on the terrifying moments that occurred and more on the need to step up once again.

In the end, it’s the kid who gives you the final push.  You’re not going to leave him laying on the floor like that for any longer.  Not after what he did.

You take a second, grabbing the blanket and pulling it up all the way over Din’s head as it rests warm and comfortable in your neck.  You’re incredibly careful to cover his face, and even while climbing out of the warm cocoon of the bed, you keep your eyes firmly shut and continue to pull the fabric even higher, making absolutely sure you’re not going to see his face on accident.  You shouldn’t, you don’t think, as long as he doesn’t jerk awake and pull it down himself, but you want to take extra precaution regardless.

After quickly yanking on some clothes, you immediately make your way over to the kid and pick him up, seeing his little mouth open as he snores—and oh, you just have to.  You pull him to your chest and give him the most heartfelt, thankful embrace you can while not squishing him, before setting him down in his much more comfortable hovering blanket palace and closing the lid on it.

You know you have a very clear task now, but for just a few moments longer, you do your best to stall despite the ticking clock.  You start to pick up the mess in the hull—you close the fresher door, pick up Din’s discarded armor and set it in a neat pile close to the bed, place the helmet under the vent to encourage the padding inside to dry faster, and then you collect his old armor and stuff it back into one of the storage cubbies with your toolbox.

Only, an idea suddenly occurs to you as you’re putting away the chestpiece.  When you open the door to the hull, you know that a blast of cold air is going to flood the ship.  The engine is still heating everything inside and making sure you don’t get trapped in the snow by continuously melting it on the outside, but you don’t want Din to start shivering again.

So you grab the dented piece of electronics you were working on and flip the power switch, feeling the capacitors slowly start to heat up inside the housing.  You go back over and lift the blanket near his feet just enough to tuck the metal under it, close enough to Din that he’ll feel the same amount of warmth your body was providing him but not enough to overheat.

And then you make your way over to your bag and pull on the rest of your clothes, now exhausting almost every single clean thing you own just to make another trek through the snow.  You’re in the middle of pulling on your fifth pair of pants when the thought truly sinks in.

A corpse.  A dead body.  That you’re actually considering going out into the worst fucking weather in the galaxy to search for, haul back to the ship, and put into carbonite.  Because of a fucking deadline for an occupation very much not your own, very much not chosen by you.

You quickly walk over and leave through the door on the side of the hull before you can change your mind, slamming it shut behind you.

***

Well, it’s…  It’s not too terrible, you guess.

It’s been frozen out here for hours, that’s why.  It’s not bloody, not gory, not demented or malformed in any way.  Tranquil almost, like the creature died in its sleep in this nightmarish landscape, perfectly at peace.

You still don’t want to get anywhere close to it, but you have to.  You pull a face and slowly reach out, absolutely not thinking about the literal impossibility of it playing dead and just waiting for the moment to strike, but even still…  Even if there was nothing more sinister hiding underneath the surface of this scene, it’s still… existentially fucked up.  The last time you were confronted with a dead body, Din had to be the one to dispose of it—you couldn’t even think about it without threatening another wave of shock to your system.

And now you’re voluntarily grabbing the rope around one’s ankles and dragging it back down the pure white slope to the Razor Crest.

It doesn’t weigh that much and its icy exterior seems to work in your favor; it slides easily along the snow as soon as you get it moving.  As the ship comes back into view, you hurry to the door and you’re just about to open it when you suddenly get the feeling that you’re forgetting something…

Oh—

It takes a few moments of searching around in the freshly fallen snow, but eventually your fingers brush metal underneath and you stand, reaching behind you to tuck the blaster into your waistband.  When you’re positive you’re not going to accidentally shoot a chunk of your ass off on accident, you shove open the door and pull the body inside, before locking it tight behind you and keeping the frigid winter from touching this warm, quiet safe-haven.

There.  Halfway done.  You almost don’t want to look in case he wakes up unexpectedly, but then you find yourself peeking over your shoulder at the silhouette of Din’s body still passed out under the blankets and you’re thankful the squeaks and slams didn’t disturb him.

And then you take just a second to wonder if this is what it must be like for him.  Minus your obvious discomfort and ickiness at beginning to haul the corpse over to the carbonite chamber, it seems like it’d be reminiscent of any other time he’s brought back a dead quarry while you and the baby slept soundly.  Trying to be quiet, wanting it done and over with just to get back in bed that much faster, doing everything you can to prevent anything out there from so much as breathing on anything in here.

You do your best to hold on to the loveliness of the thought, because this part is the part you’re most anxious about.

The body needs to go into this slanted upright space so you can freeze it in carbonite.  And in order to do that, you have to grab it and put it there.  With your hands, you have to grab it.  With your hands.

You look down at its face, calm and at peace, frozen and forever etched into that expression, and something twists in your heart.  If it weren’t for the kid, that could’ve been Din.  If it weren’t for the kid walking barefoot through snow, fighting an uphill battle to make sure you get to him, helping you drag him back here and then overexerting himself to make sure he’d be okay, that could’ve been Din.  He drives you crazy on a consistent basis, but he came through today.

Know what?  If that little squirt can save a grown man’s life twice in a few hours, then the least you can do is finish this job for all three of you and fly your asses out of here.

Weirdly enough, being frozen solid allows for way better handling than the alternative.  It means you don’t actually have to touch it too much; you don’t have to deal with the limpness of death, it doesn’t seem as much like a person as it does a rigid board you’re simply moving from one place to another.  You can just grab the shoulders and yank and the entire fucking thing goes with it, solid and upright, naturally wanting to lean back into the chamber so you don’t even have to hold it in place.  The perfect quarry for you basically, day one stuff, as easy as it could get.

Almost done, almost done—you study the key panel on the upper-right frame before eventually pressing a few buttons, and then you step back as gas freezes and solidifies the corpse in its carbonite prison.

Yes.  You’re done.  You already want to take another shower just from touching it for a few seconds, but that can wait.  Quickly making your way up the ladder and into the cockpit, you fire up the thrusters and then navigate the ship through and beyond the swirling white atmosphere of this dreadful fucking planet, before punching in familiar coordinates to Nevarro.

***

“Din,” you murmur, making sure you have your eyes completely covered with one hand before gently easing the blanket down from his face with the other.  “Din, I want you to drink some wat—”

He jerks awake so suddenly that you hear the metal canteen fall over on the floor next to you, thank the Maker its lid is on tight.  You automatically reach out to steady him, pressing your free hand to his bare chest and continuing to speak calmly and gently to reassure him, but he still scrambles to take in his surroundings after sleeping longer than he probably has in weeks.  

You know what he’s seeing, even though you’re blind right now.  You took time to make sure everything was settled before waking him.  The hull is clean with only a single light to illuminate it, the baby is still snoozing in his closed crib, his armor is stacked in a neat pile, the blaster is put away, and you retired your makeshift blanket heater box so the only thing left is you.  Freshly showered, hair dripping, offering him water, and dressed in just a thin shirt with nothing else (you ran out of things to wear).

“Wh-Where’s my h-h-helmet—” is the first thing he asks, voice broken and raspy.  Stars, he needs water.

“The padding inside is wet,” you quickly supply, keeping your hand tight over the bridge of your eyes to make sure his freshly conscious mind immediately understands that you have no bad intentions.  “I swear I didn’t look, and I made sure the kid didn’t either.  He’s sleeping now, it’s just me—I swear nobody looked, I swear.”

You might just be saying the exact same thing over and over again and admittedly, that might be putting some weird kind of suspicion on you, but you just want to make sure he knows.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.  It’s important that he knows he’s safe and that everything is okay now, even if he collapsed and spent an unknown amount of time in a purgatory where nothing was.

His body trembles under your palm, waves of shudders attacking him even after hours of keeping him as warm as possible.  “Are—Are we st-still on H-Ho—H-Hoth—”

“No,” you answer.  “We’re in hyperspace.  Everything’s okay now, I took care of it.  We’ll get to Nevarro on time.”

It’s like he takes just a few extra moments, as if he’s trying extra hard to remember before responding.  “But—I d-didn’t—”

“You have four bodies for Karga,” you tell him, not letting him get too lost trying to recall something that no longer poses an issue.  “I took care of it.  You need rest, I only woke you up to make sure you drink some water, so please—” you blindly reach your hand out for the canteen you know has to be around here somewhere, but all you feel is…

His.  Catching yours.

“Y-You took c-c-care of…”  His hands are trembling harder than his voice.  “Sh-shit, I’m freezing, I—”

“Drink some water,” you tell him, squeezing his fingers.  “I’ll go turn off the light so you can sleep more, but you need water.”

His hand feels like it doesn’t quite want to let go of yours yet, but eventually it does and you hear the sloshing of water as the metal flask is picked up with an unsteady grip.  Purposefully turning your back to him and making sure he’s not in your line of sight whatsoever, you finally let your hand drop and blink your eyes open at the wall across the hull.  You hear Din shakily unscrew the lid while you stand up and find the light switch, before turning around in the pitch blackness and using his loud gulps as your guide back.

Your hands and knees are barely on the blanket when you hear him toss the empty canteen to the side and grab you, pulling you down to him.  

Fuck, you’re not expecting it.  You fumble in the dark but he doesn’t really give your clumsiness much of a choice—Din pulls you under the blankets like he needs you, his body craving that warmth even though his skin doesn’t feel cold at all.  He hooks a strong forearm around your tummy, keeping your back pressed tight to his chest while the rest of him curls to fit every part of you, and you have to adjust the blankets yourself.

It’s not even a few seconds after you settle into position when his trembling hands jerk down to grab your shirt and yank it up.  You quickly scramble to help him get you as naked as he is, feeling his palms drag greedily across the heat of your tummy and breasts before you’ve even finished wiggling the fabric over your head.  The shirt lands somewhere in the darkness and you’re squeezed back against him, your hands landing on his forearms as they wrap around your waist and he clings shamelessly to you.

“You…”  Din’s body still shivers every once in a while but the heat and closeness allows his voice to even out just a bit.  He clears his throat and swallows, tucking his head and burying his face in your hair before trying again.  “You brought back the qu-quarry?”

“Yes,” you confirm, confident in your reassurance but gentle at the same time.  “It’s in carbonite.”

All you can feel or hear in response is his breathing.  His heart beating steady and strong against your back.

And then Din’s arms suddenly squeeze you tight—tight.  He lets out a low shaky exhale against the back of your shoulder and presses his lips to your skin.  “Sweet girl.”

And he says just… so much with those two words.  Slow and purposeful, the steadiest thing you’ve heard from him in hours.  But the two biggest competing emotions you hear tugging at his vocal cords are gratitude and apprehension.  Like he already knows that it couldn’t have been easy for you.  Like he’s not taking it lightly.

You don’t want to talk about it.  You don’t want to talk about anything that happened in the past few hours, not right now.  “It’s okay.  Please.”

This time his silence seems to be on the brink, as if he wants to say more but the extra plea you put on the end makes him hold onto his words, at least for now.  

“How d-did you find me?”  He asks instead, scooting his legs up enough that yours actually go with him.  Cradled in his naked body, radiating heat so he can recover, pressed so close to him that you feel like gravity itself would be pushing you into his lap if the world weren’t sideways.

“The kid,” you tell him.  “We were goofing around outside and he dragged me ov—”

It’s like he’s still so cold that even just the surprise of hearing you say that makes his whole body lock down and convulse a few times against your back.  “You were wh-what?”

“I was practicing,” you openly admit to him, feeling like the earlier events already occurred a lifetime ago and you have no reason for being shy about it anymore.  In fact, you’re glad you were there, being terrible at shooting.  The alternative is unthinkable.  Though, something tells you also improbable, having a little supernatural sidekick who cares so deeply for him.  “I raided your armory.  We weren’t outside for more than five minutes before I wanted to go back in, but then he found you.”

And you think he’s going to get after you, for some reason.  Seems about on par, you figure—going outside for even just a few minutes on a planet whose name you now remember is colloquial slang for hell, even if it’s the only reason he’s not an icicle right now.

But he’s just quiet.  Breathing.  So you just relax into him, thinking that’s the end of it.  You take a few deep breaths in through your nose and just… rest.  In the near perfect silence of hyperspace you used to find haunting, but now only find comfort in.  It reminds you of him.

“Did you hit the target?”  He asks you quietly, and at first you scoff, about to ask if he’s kidding.  No, of course you didn’t hit the…

Only, after a remarkable delay, hearing him phrase it that way suddenly makes your stomach decide to drop and do a fucking somersault on the ground out of absolutely nowhere.

Everything comes flooding back.  The conflict you used to think was the most pressing thing, the one that kept you awake and your thoughts scrambled for hours.  It feels like it was ages ago.  An entire lifetime has passed since that happened, you might’ve forgotten it altogether if he didn’t decide to ask that very simple question in a very specific way.

“I…” you mumble in response, your heart suddenly pounding.  “Not… not yet.”

Okay, that’s a good answer.  It’s the truth and you’re giving nothing away by saying that.  So now what is he going to say?  What is he going to say?  You spoke your piece, it’s his turn now, that’s how conversations work.  Well typically, that’s how conversations work—but with Din… you probably should’ve known.

He falls back into silence almost immediately, appearing to accept your answer just the way it is without anything else to add.  You feel his heart continue to beat strong against your back, but there’s something too tense about his stillness that doesn’t imply he’s relaxing anymore.  His body goes slightly taut, but not from the lingering chill in his bones.

He’s going to make you ask him, you realize.  He’s waiting until you confront him about his choice in words at the shooting range.  Which means he wasn’t just joking around.  He wasn’t just messing with you.

“Din…” you whisper uncertainly, and his face suddenly finds its way into the crook of your neck as soon as the word leaves your mouth, arms tightening up around you.  You spent forever trying to find the words to even bring this up, and here he is, already knowing exactly what you’re asking just by the tone of your voice.  Still, you ask anyway, sounding small and so unsure of yourself in the darkness.  “Why did you say that?  On Tatooine, why did you…”

Din’s chest expands against your back with a long, slow breath, and then he lets it out against your neck, hot enough to raise goosebumps all over your body.

“I… don’t know,” he admits, voice muffled and quiet, but it’s not… casual.  Not like he’s brushing you off or indicating he doesn’t want to talk about it, but like it’s actually a complete fucking mystery to him, just as much as it is to you.  “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know…” you repeat slowly.

“You had said something,” he mutters, shifting just a bit behind you.  His palm slides up your bare tummy, stopping in the warm spot just under the swell of your breast.  “Earlier that day.  I thought about it, and then I just… s-said it.”

You?  Said something that made him ask that?

“What?”  You blurt out, genuinely startled and having no fucking clue.  “What did I say?”

“Something about…”  He gives the smallest shudder from behind you, and you don’t actually know if this one is from the cold.  “Not wanting anyone else to know me the way you do.”

Your heart rapidly kicks up and you flush, hating how unbelievably possessive your own words sound coming out of his mouth.  “Oh shit, I… I didn’t mean for that to be… that sounds so bad, Din, I swear I didn’t mean for it to—”

He cuts you off by clutching you tighter, burying his face deeper into your neck and breathing out shakily.  “Tell me you meant every word.”

You blink a couple of times in the pitch black before sighing, letting go of any charade or front you think about putting up for him to save some dignity.  “I meant it.”

Because it’s the truth.  You said it when you were caught off guard, throwing it out to him along with other mindless drabble that came from a place that was very real.  You don’t like the way you phrased it, but you meant it.  You do mean it.  Every word.

If there weren't so many things still left unsaid right now, you might actually worry he fell asleep on you.  Din loosens up considerably after you admit it, letting go of more tightness you didn’t even know was inside him.  His head slowly drops from the crook of your neck to the back of it and he breathes hot air on your nape, quiet for a long time.

And, you suppose you’d actually be okay with it if that was the end of the conversation.  There are, of course, millions of things left to ask.  But he doesn’t know the answers, just as much as you’re left clueless about the questions.  You’re not expecting him to elaborate anymore, and if he’s waiting for you to ask, he’ll be waiting a long time.  Soon your eyes close and you almost feel yourself beginning to drift.  It’s been such a rough day today and to just be here in his arms, it’s more than enough for you.  

But then his low baritone comes through the darkness.

“In Mando’a,” Din’s voice suddenly whispers against your skin, “the verb, kar’taylir… it means to know.  Su kar’tayli, you know, kaysh kar’tayli, they know.  Ni ke kar’tayl nu… I don’t know.”

Your eyes pop open and you immediately forget all about sleep, wide awake and suddenly hanging onto every word as it rolls so gently off his tongue.  You’ve never heard the language spoken aloud, you’ve never heard anything about the Mandalorians directly from one before.  All of the stories seem sensationalized, passed down by word of mouth and chipping away at the kernel of truth until it disappears completely.

“The language is dying,” Din continues, murmuring soft and gentle along your nape.  “By the time I learned it, too many words had been lost.  The ones left were the ones that were needed.”

“What do you mean?”  You whisper, almost afraid of breaking the quiet.  Not wanting him to feel distracted or pressed, but needing to express your curiosity lest you somehow overflow with it.

“There are only three pronouns,” he answers slowly, and you’re already fucking fascinated.  “Ni, for I or we.  Su is you or you all, and kaysh is third person.  Subjective, objective, possessive, singular, plural—doesn’t matter.  Three words, for every individual or collective in the entire galaxy.”

You blink in the darkness, your logic telling you that it sounds so simple it’d become confusing and then your logic also telling you that doesn’t actually make any fucking sense at all.  If that’s true, it’s unbelievable.  How do they differentiate?  Just context?

“How do you distinguish?”  You ask him.  Admittedly, you don’t know much about linguistics—not anywhere near the extent he does, but it seems so counterintuitive.  I can’t be the same word for we, the amount of misunderstandings would be a nightmare.

“We… don’t need to,” he explains to you, slowly, like nobody has ever asked him these things before and so he’s unsure how to phrase it.  “Individuality isn’t valued, it’s not a concept.”

And… you almost can’t wrap your head around it.  “What do you mean?”  You ask again, knowing you’re sounding like a broken record without specifying more, but trying with your whole heart to understand.

“I mean… we swear oaths to never reveal our faces,” Din tells you, something you shouldn’t need to be reminded of.  “We abandon our names.  We become… whispers, of the same voice.  There’s not many words in Mando’a with a unique meaning, almost all of them are homonyms.  Interchangeable.  Transient.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, suddenly blown away by the implication.  Almost all of them are homonyms?  How in Maker’s name are you even supposed to communicate at that point?  That’s… unthinkable.

“Most words have two meanings?”  You clarify, wanting to be absolutely sure you’re getting it right.

“Most have five or six,” he returns, and you’re downright shocked now.  “Everything just depends.”

“Stars…”  You breathe, moving a palm up the length of his forearm and holding the back of his hand with it.  Fuck, you hope this is the direction he’s intending instead of veering him off course, but you’re incredibly invested.  “What else does, uh… kay—er, kar… kar’taylir mean?”

Din lets out a slow breath from behind you, and you can… you can feel his own heart beating faster when it presses up against your spine at the apex of his inhale.  “It’s… a rare word, it only has two meanings.”

You bite your lip and start to feel butterflies in your stomach for some reason.  Slowly, his hand begins to travel up your breast and then to your sternum before heading just the slightest bit left, and your own hand moves with him.

“To know,” Din says quietly, “but also… to care very deeply for.”  He doesn’t stop until his palm presses right above the rapidly pounding organ in your chest.  “To hold in the heart.”

“To know,” you swallow thickly, curling your fingers around his hand and praying he’s saying what you think he is, “or… to love?”

“When Mandalorian’s take vows, there’s no ceremony,” he whispers into the back of your neck.  “No witnesses, no celebrations.  We just take our helmets off in front of the other and look.  It doesn’t sound like much, but… our secrecy is our survival.  Letting someone see our face and swearing lifelong devotion to them, it’s the same thing.  To know is to love.”

Your eyes close tight and your lungs empty themselves, too full of emotion to even fit oxygen inside you anymore.  Din’s lips press feather soft behind your neck, and now you’re the one shivering uncontrollably.  The move up and trail along your neck in the darkness.

“Ni kar'tayl su,” he murmurs, shifting back just slightly and pulling at your shoulder.  “I know you.”

You go with him, facing the ceiling as he fits his head under your throat and places slow, open mouth kisses down the curve of it.

“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum,” he goes on quietly, his voice starting to sound raspy again, dragging his hand down your torso while his lips brush your collarbone.  “For an eternity, I’ll know you.”

Water wets the corners of your lashes and you inhale three or four times before exhaling, shallow hiccups and desperate for air.

“Ni ke vaabi nu kaysh ke kar’taylir su te ni kar’tayl su.”  Din says, slowly moving his mouth back up when your fingers tangle in his hair and beg him to come that way.  The words dance along your skin as he whispers them, forever searing themselves into your memory.  You can’t see them, you’ll never have a visual to reminisce upon, but you’ll know how they felt.  Right under your ear, brimming with quiet devotion.  “I don’t want anyone else to know you… the way I know you.”

Your face goes blazing hot at the sound of him translating your own rushed and half-assed sentence into something gorgeous and flowing, something that sounds so much more beautiful than when you blurted it out earlier.  You told him you loved him in that hangar, right to his face.  Unashamed and stupid about it, but meaning it with every part of your body.

“I knew you’d say no,” he finally admits, staying in this one spot.  Unmoving.  Telling you the truth, allowing you to know it.  “I just wanted to… say it.”

That… that makes sense to you.  The last part does, at least, it makes so much sense to you.  The first time you said you loved him, you said it just to say it.  You wanted to feel the words, sound them out even if neither one of you could hear them.  It felt freeing, like coming to accept a universal truth.

The first part, though.  You’re still behind.  “You knew I’d say no?”  You ask him, feeling him ease back just slightly.  Staring down at you through the pitch black, even if he can’t see either.  Keeping his palm over your heart as the ship hurdles through nowhere and everywhere at once.

“You wouldn’t take my first name without convincing,” he reasons quietly, and then moves back to lay in the blankets once more, leaving the rest unspoken.

But he’s… oh stars, he’s so right.  If he’s going to take his helmet off and let you see his face—if he’s going to commit to you that way, it is not going to be because you shoot a blaster correctly.  Not after today, not after what he’s told you.

So you move up to your elbow and turn to face him, trying to let him know why even if he’s already guessed the what correctly.

“I want it to mean something,” you say after a moment.  “I want it to… have the meaning it’s supposed to have.”

Your palm finds its way to his chest in the silence following.  Right over the beating of his heart, feeling it thrum hard and rhythmic while he considers his response.

“This is The Way,” Din finally murmurs, settling his hand over yours, and you repeat the words back to him.  Respecting them.  Feeling like, for the very first time, they now apply to you in some way instead of belonging to some mysterious creed you’ll never know anything about.

But when a shudder subtly rockets up and down his body, you realize the blankets have been pulled down with the changing positions and his whole torso is bare and exposed to the hull.  So you pull them up until you’re both covered again, before you lean down and press a soft kiss to his shoulder.

Din shudders again when your mouth opens and the hot glide of your tongue catches his skin, but you know it’s not from the cold this time.  His breathing deepens while you slowly move over him.  You ease him further on his back and let him keep feeling the warmth of your mouth on his body, alleviate the lingering chill by sucking gentle hickeys into his skin and feeling the goosebumps raise under your tongue.  He moves with you; he stretches his neck when you want to nibble his collarbone, arches when you mouth down his chest, shifts his elbow to let you drag your tongue along his ribcage.

And… and it’s as if all the stars and systems hold even more still for you than the relative physics of faster-than-light travel can explain away by themselves.  You’ve always felt timeless in here, living from one fleeting eternity to the next, suspended in perpetuity while the rest of the galaxy ages without you.  But when you’re with him and it’s pitch black and there’s no light to streak across your vision, no evidence that time and space have all but disconnected from each other just to let your insignificant little bodies through… it’s like you’re meant to be here.  In some strange, unexplainable way, you feel like you could’ve died out there with him in the frozen wasteland today and this is exactly where you’d still end up, no matter what.

To know is to love.

“Do you have brown eyes?”  You hear yourself whisper under his jaw, and you feel Din’s fingers thread in your hair and ease you up enough to brush his lips against your chin.

“Yes,” he whispers back, and then his mouth is on yours.

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x reader #fanfic #star wars fanfic #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin #no-droids #reader insert

[flightlessangelwings]

Can’t Deny You

Din Djarin x afab!reader (smut with no pronoun use, no y/n)

Word count: 3.7k

Warnings: smut (18+ ONLY), oral (m receiving), unprotected sex, sex with feelings, blindfolds, slight cockwarming, mechanic!reader, the child being adorable, soft!Din

Thank you to @ollypopp​ and @we-can-be-himbos​ for beta reading for me!

~

The hull of the razor crest was quiet save for the soft clatter of the damaged blaster that you were repairing. The Mandalorian and the child were seated up in the cockpit together while you tended to your duties on the ship. A chance meeting months ago brought the two of you together, and the armored bounty hunter allowed you to travel with him to put your skills as a mechanic to use. Not long after, the little green child entered your lives and everything seemed to change overnight. A pair of unlikely companions became an unconventional family, even if neither you nor Mando ever spoke the sentiment out loud.

It also didn’t help calm your growing feelings for the Mandalorian to see him with the child. To watch someone who could easily kill anyone and anything handle the small creature with such care and tenderness was a sight that you wouldn’t trade for all the credits in the galaxy. He was always kind to you, of course, but to see him with the baby set something ablaze within you. You swallowed hard as you buried your emotions and focused on repairing the blaster in your hands until it was better than new.

Mando would be happy with this, you thought with a grin on your face as you thought about the man who unknowingly had your heart.

Satisfied, you set it on the weapon rack and cleaned off your hands before you made your way up to the cockpit. Your heart pounded harder in your chest with every step you took, and it wasn’t just because of how you felt about the Mandalorian.

The two of you had hardly spoken to each other in the past week after you and the child were almost taken by bounty hunters. You were a decent fighter, but you were no match for four big men, and they knew that. Somehow, they separated you from Mando and had you cornered in a dark alley, the child tightly in your arms. You were ready to protect him with everything, but fear still ran through your veins. Luckily for you, the Mandalorian got to you just in time.

The near brush with death was something you could live with, it was part of life with the Mandalorian. However, what happened on the ship afterwards was something that was on your mind ever since. And the Mandalorian seemed to not want to acknowledge what happened.

Quietly, you opened the door to the cockpit and you nearly teared up at the sight that greeted you. Mando sat in his pilot’s chair and the child lay curled up in his lap, sound asleep. He either didn’t hear you come in at first, or he didn’t bother to move as he stayed still to not disturb the sleeping baby. One hand stayed on the controls while the other cradled the child, and you noticed the way his thumb rubbed comforting circles on his side.

You stayed still in the doorway for several moments and just took in the sight before you. You wanted to commit every little detail to memory to look back on whenever you were in need of warmth or a reason to smile. A soft smile lit up your face and you felt your heart skip a beat. But, you decided you lingered long enough and you cleared your throat to get Mando’s attention, “Comfortable there?”

He turned his head slightly and you heard a short, soft laugh from through the modulator of his helmet, “The kid fell asleep,” he replied, not knowing what else to say. He couldn’t hold eye contact with you for long, or else the emotions he tried so hard to keep down would come bubbling to the surface again. Though you couldn’t see his face, he fought to keep his expression neutral around you; Mando knew his body language would give himself away regardless.

“I’ll take him down and get him settled,” you offered.

With a nod, he handed the child over to you and watched as you cradled him so carefully. His breath hitched in his throat as his gloved hands made contact with your bare ones for a brief moment, but luckily you didn’t hear it. Mando watched with tender affection as you turned and disappeared back into the shadows of the ship and he let out a deep sigh when he was alone.

Mando knew he couldn’t keep you at arms length forever, but he also had no idea what to actually say to you. The day from a week ago constantly played over and over in his mind, and although he was afraid for yours and the child’s lives, the events that happened on the ship afterwards were what dwelled in his mind.

It had started when you took the child to his bunk to rest after Mando saved you both from the bounty hunters. Though you seemed shaken, neither of you were hurt and for that he was very grateful. He didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to either of you. But as he watched you set the child down and tuck him in, Mando couldn’t keep the rush of emotions in check anymore. As soon as you closed the door to the bunk where the child slept soundly, his hands were on you. 

Mando knew from the look in your eyes that your thoughts matched his and before you realized it, he had you pinned to the hull of the crest. It was as if the balloon finally burst and all the tension between the two of you bubbled over and spilled over the surface. It was heated and heavy and desperate and everything you both needed. Neither of you had the time to fully remove your clothes, both too lost in your emotions and the heat of the moment to even care. You just needed to feel each other as you both came together.

Since then however, the Mandalorian barely spoke more than a few words to you. Perhaps he didn’t know how to face and deal with his feelings towards you. Perhaps you had the same difficulty too. 

But you couldn’t take it anymore. You thought about that night again as you tucked the child securely in the bunk and closed the door. As you turned back around, you resolved that once you got back up to the cockpit you would confront Mando about what happened. If it was a one time thing, you could deal with it and just keep your true feelings to yourself. It would just break you if Mando shut you out entirely.

This time when you reentered the cockpit, the Mandalorian turned around to face you. The two of you stood in a tense silence for several minutes before you finally let out a deep breath and broke it, “Din listen,” you used his real name, which you reserved for private and important moments and he sat up straighter at that, “I know you’ve been on edge since…” you shrugged your shoulder as you nodded to your side. Even as you confronted him, you couldn’t bring yourself to say the words out loud. The melancholy in your face was tangible as you continued, “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it and if it was a one time thing then so be it but I just…”

Din cut you off with your name, “Don’t,” he sighed as he already knew where you were going with the thought, “Don’t blame yourself. I’m...” his gaze dropped down to the ground, “I do care about you,” Din finally admitted.

Your eyes went wide as you gasped softly, “Din,” your voice was just above a whisper as you took a step closer to him. He stayed still as you reached out and tentatively caressed his arms just below the pauldrons on his shoulders. You felt him tense for a moment before he relaxed into your touch. As he welcomed your gentle embrace, your eyes stayed fixed on the visor of his helmet, “I care about you too. So much.”

With that, you carefully pushed him back so that his legs bumped the pilot’s chair. Most times, Din liked to be in control of the situation, but with you he felt comfortable enough to give that up and let you lead. Your hands slid up his arms and once they reached his shoulders, you gently guided him down to sit. Din looked up at you and saw the fire in your eyes, and the same feelings from that night a week ago flooded back. 

“Is this ok?” you asked in a hushed tone as you knelt down in front of him and placed your hands on his thighs.

“Yes,” he answered right away in just as soft a voice as he watched your hands slowly move up his inner thighs over his pants. Din’s breath caught in the back of his throat and his hands tightened into fists as he felt himself harden at just the thought of what you had planned.

And you definitely noticed the twitch in Din’s pants as your gaze drifted to between his legs. You carefully unzipped and freed his length and involuntarily licked your lips when it sprang free. As much as you wanted to kiss and lick his cock, you wanted to make sure this was what he wanted still and you glanced up at him with a pleading look in your eyes. Din tilted his helmet down to meet your eyes and he cupped the side of your face as he nodded once. Neither of you needed words to know what the other thought, and you communicated so well without a single word needed.

With Din’s permission, you closed your eyes and leaned your head into his touch for a moment before you bent forward and placed a feather-light kiss to the tip of his cock. A shiver ran up his spine at just the simple touch and he couldn’t help the low moan that escaped his lips. Where the first time you were together it was rushed and heated, this time it was slow and sensual, and neither of you complained about it at all. You wanted to take your time with Din, and you knew that he needed the relief from all the tension that had built up within him over the past week.

You started by licking a long, slow stripe up his length before you wrapped your lips around the tip of his cock. You knew from before that he was well endowed, but to have his cock in your mouth was a sensation that you were not prepared for. It was as if you felt pleasure yourself from the pleasure you gave him.

Din’s low groans filled the cockpit as you bobbed your head up and down his length, and every time you moved you took just a little bit more of him in your mouth. When you pulled back so that just the tip was in your mouth, you swirled your tongue around the head a few times before you engulfed him completely again. Every time, the action pulled a moan from deep in his chest, and Din couldn’t help but move one hand to grip at your scalp as you worked him.

To be in your mouth was a pleasure unlike anything else Din had ever experienced in his life. From under the helmet, his eyes rolled back into his head as he gave in to the moment and surrendered himself completely to you. He whispered your name in pure bliss as he felt a warmth spread throughout his body the longer you sucked at his cock. Din knew that he wouldn’t last much longer if you kept going, but there was something else he wanted too before he came.

The Mandalorian used his grip on your scalp to hold you taut, and made you stop in your movements. Your eyes went wide with surprise as you pulled away from his length with a loud pop. Din froze for a moment at the sight of you on your knees in front of him with drool on the corners of your mouth from how eager you were to take him into your mouth. 

“Din?” your voice was hoarse from having his cock down your throat, “Is everything ok?”

“Ride me,” his words were blunt and the tone was soft, but just commanding enough to make your thighs clench.

You let out a soft gasp, but a smile soon graced your face as you nodded and shuffled to your feet. Suddenly overcome with embarrassment, your eyes darted down to the floor as you shimmied your pants down. You could feel his gaze on you, and your skin burned as you felt so vulnerable in front of him. When this happened the first time, you barely saw any part of each other. But this time you both took in as much of each other as you could. 

A thunk on the floor made you look up, and you realized that Din took off the chestplate of his armor so that you would be more comfortable against him. He held his arm out to you in a silent invitation, one that you eagerly accepted. 

Din held onto your hips as he guided you down onto his lap. Immediately, you felt his erection against your pussy and you whimpered at the sensation. You felt his fingers tighten against you as you rocked slightly against his cock, and you heard the soft groan through the modulator of his helmet. You shivered and moaned as his length rubbed against your wet folds. As much as you wanted to close your eyes, you fought to keep them open. You locked your eyes onto the visor of his helmet where you could feel his gaze on you, even if you couldn’t see it.

He said your name like it was a prayer and it ignited the fire within you. You shifted yourself so that you lifted your hips off his Din’s lap and you reached down and pushed your underwear aside. Din took the opportunity and glanced down at your pussy and he nearly choked on air when he saw how wet you were.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. Din couldn’t tear his eyes away from your pussy as he watched you line his cock up with your entrance. And he didn’t just mean your pussy when he said that, Din found every inch of you beautiful, and he wanted to take his time this time and savor every bit of you that he could.

Any words that you had in response were strangled when you started to lower yourself into his cock. Both of you let out low growls and murmurs of praise as Din’s cock slowly disappeared inside you. His head fell back against the chair as he exhaled heavily, but his grip never faltered.

“Fuck,” Din groaned.

Once you were fully seated on his lap, you rolled forward and collapsed against Din’s chest. The way he slowly stretched you out burned so good, and you never felt fuller. Without the armor, you felt the softness of his chest and you even felt his heartbeat against your head. You closed your eyes and smiled as Din wrapped his arms around you and just held you tight for several long moments.

You started slow and lifted your hips up just enough to hover over Din’s lap before you lowered yourself again. Both of you let out louder moans, and you soon picked up your pace. At first, you stayed against his chest and savored the way his heart pounded for you, but soon you lifted yourself up to meet his helmeted gaze once again. You looked at Din with half lidded eyes as you bounced on his cock.

Din savored the sight before him, but he found that he felt greedy for wanting more. He wanted to see more of you while he was buried deep inside you. After you pushed yourself upright, he moved his arms down to your hips once more and tugged at the hem of your shirt. 

Tentatively, Din lifted your shirt up just a few inches and paused to make sure you were ok with it. Even while he stayed buried inside you, he still asked for your permission before he removed your shirt entirely. You smirked and gave him a single nod as you leaned back and allowed him to remove it completely. 

In just your bra and your panties that were pushed aside, you never felt more exposed, and yet you felt safe and secure in the Mandalorian’s embrace. You stilled yourself as he ran his hands across your bare skin, as if he wanted to memorize every inch of your body. A whimper escaped your lips whenever he found a more sensitive spot and you arched your back when his hands cupped your breasts.

As Din kneaded your mounds, you rocked your hips again and watched with lustful eyes when you heard a low growl from deep within him. As you moved, you felt his hips meet yours and together you created this new dance of pleasure. You ran your hands across his chest again and you flattened your palm over his heart; you couldn’t get enough of how wonderful his heartbeat felt under your touch.

You were lost in the feeling of Din’s cock inside you, and it felt even more wonderful now that you took it slow with him. But, there was something else that you wanted still. Your brows furrowed as a look of sorrow flashed in your eyes.

“What is it?” of course Din noticed the brief look.

You sighed, but you couldn’t lie to him, “I want to kiss you. More than anything else, I want to kiss you, Din,” you couldn’t help the vulnerability in your voice as you confessed to him. You did not want him to break his creed for you; you would never ask that of him. But yet you wanted to feel his lips on yours and taste him more than anything in the galaxy.

Din couldn’t deny you, especially when he was buried in your warm cunt. He wouldn’t dream of denying your request, and if he was honest with himself, he wanted it just as badly. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” you replied without hesitation as you gently grabbed onto his shirt.

The Mandalorian leaned down to his side and tore off a long strip of his cape. The whine you let out at the shift made his cock twitch inside you. He would have liked to use something nicer and cleaner for you, because that’s what you deserved, but this would do for now. Besides, he didn’t want to lose his connection to you just yet.

You waited in silence as Din brought the strip of fabric up to your face. As he brought it closer, you closed your eyes and allowed him to fasten the makeshift blindfold around your head. Your breath caught in your throat as your sight was taken from you, but you didn’t have any fear. This was the one person you trusted more than anything, and you would lose any of your senses for him in a heartbeat.

As you clung to his shirt, you felt him shift as he reached up and slowly removed his helmet. Din lifted it halfway and paused as he waited for a reaction from you. When you were still, he took it the rest of the way off and set it on the control panel with a soft thud. That got a reaction from you, and you gasped but remained still.

Din reached for you again, and you sighed when you noticed that his hands were bare as well. The feeling of his skin against yours was an intimacy that was unlike any other, even with his cock buried in your pussy. You knew how much it meant to him to be this bare in front of you, even with the blindfold.

Slowly, he pulled your face to his and placed a soft kiss to your lips. Din lingered like that for a moment and just savored the softness of your lips on his before he deepened the kiss. You moaned into his mouth as your lips parted for his tongue and he wrapped his arms around you once more.

This time it was Din who started the rhythm of pumping into you. You met his hips with your own and between the way your bodies rocked together and your tongues danced with each other’s, both of your climaxes were not far away. He sped up his thrusts when he felt you start to clench around him. As he kept one arm securely around your waist to keep you in place, his other hand snaked between your bodies to rub at your clit.

You broke away for air and your moans echoed within the cockpit as Din worked your body like he had been with you a hundred times before. His thrusts became more feverish like they were the first time you were together and you could tell that he was close. With your forehead pressed against his, you came with a loud scream, and you heard him moan your name as his own climax was right behind yours.

Din kept up his pace until you were both completely spent and with an exasperated sigh, you collapsed forward into his chest. You heard the low rumble of his laughter as you nuzzled against him. Din held you tightly against his body, as if he was afraid you would disappear if he let you go. Perhaps the memory of how he almost did lose you was too fresh in his mind. But you weren’t going anywhere. You had him and the child to look after. The ones you cared about more than life itself. Your family. 

“You alright?” he broke the comfortable silence as he rubbed your back in a soothing manner.

You chuckled against his chest, “I’m more than alright.”

It was quiet again as you both stayed connected. “Next time,” Din started hesitantly, “I want to taste you.”

A big smile lit up your face, “I’d like that, Din.” Who were you to deny him anything? 

~

Notes: So this idea randomly popped into my head and wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote it. And as I wrote it, more and more feelings got poured into it lol. I love writing soft!Din so much too. I hope you all enjoyed this! Taglists are open as always, so let me know if you’d like to be added!

#the mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x you #the mandalorian imagine #din djarin imagine #the mandalorian #din djarin #mando x reader #mando

[bokettochild]

Sisters, Scoldings and Seaside Memories

My excuse? I wanted to write the Oracles meeting the heroes and it spiraled into some Legend angst, because, well- this is me.

I do have a prompt I blame for this though, so go yell at the folks at @linkeduniverse-prompts for inspiring me with this idea.

The heroes had landed in Legend’s world again, jolted across time and space by yet another sudden switch, one that had left them more shaken and out of sorts than normal, and which, quite to everyone’s panic, had nearly made Four pass out. As was, the smithy had clutched ahold of the nearest hero at the moment, Legend, and refused to let go, resulting in his getting picked up and carried by the vet after they had figured out where they were.

The fact that they had been dumped so close to Legend’s house (they were only just a half an hour’s walk away) had unnerved the vet, and a few others, but there was no sign of monsters as far as their scouting crew could tell, even with the heavy rainfall, and if Hyrule, Wild and Twilight all agreed that the path was safe, then no one else was going to be the one to question them. After all, if you can’t trust the two best survivors and the best tracker on their team, who could they trust?

Ravio had greeted the group with open arms and cheerful welcomes, pulling the sopping smithy out of Legend’s hold and cooing when the multi-colored hero hadn’t even protested. Legend didn’t appear too very put out about it either, just shaking his head with a smile that he hid behind dripping bangs as he’d removed his shoes and barked orders at the rest of them to do the same.

While Legend stoked the fire and grabbed a blanket for Four, who Ravio was settling in his own favorite overstuffed arm-chair (if Ravio hated Legend's rocker, then Legend had already condemned that chair to the furthest corners of the dark world), the rest of the heroes stood about toweling themselves off and looking around. Ravio had reorganized again, although he’d left a few things, like the strange mask on the wall and a few other decorations, alone. It looked nice, cozier, although a bit less like a shop. When asked why, the merchant had waved off the curious looks from both the heroes and his housemate.

“I figured with all y’all visiting so much I’d probably better work out of the shed. It took a bit of tidying up- now Mr. Hero, don’t look at me like that, it was a mess! Anyways, I tidied it up, moved most of the things into the basement where you can get at them easier, Mr. Hero, and set up shop! Now y’all won’t have to worry about my things getting in the way.” Ravio smiled brightly as he finished, patting Four’s head and ignoring the smithy’s irritated look and looking pointedly at Warriors instead.

It was clear that Ravio’s adoption of Legend and Twilight’s use of the word ‘y’all’ was bothering the poor captain immensely.

The evening progressed as usual, with Ravio humming off key as he bustled about the house making ready the bedrooms for the heroes’ use. Wild, perhaps in wake of the pie incident, had finally been granted access to the kitchen, which allowed him to make dinner while the others offered Ravio their aid.

As “host” Legend had been assigned the task of sitting with Four until the smithy felt a bit better. The vet had at first protested leaving all the work to the others, but Ravio had finally persuaded him by pointing out that Mr. Smithy shouldn’t be left alone to stew too much in his thoughts, and wouldn’t Mr. Hero like to make sure the Hero of the Four Sword was quite alright in this particular Hyrule? Why that worked, or why Ravio had used that specific wording was unknown to the others, but Legend caved quickly after that, changing into a horridly oversized tunic and joining Four on the couch, the smithy leaning against him while the two talked over mundane things like metal imbalances in weapons and other such matters.

Time hadn’t been able to hide a snort of laughter as he caught wind of Four very casually explaining proper cooling methods to use on newly forged swords to a flushed veteran, and Legend had looked one instant away from snapping back about a recent mishap involving such a task, only stopped the smith’s continued softness of voice and weary eyes.

The knock on the door only sounded however, once most of the others had already bustled into the kitchen, leaving Legend and Four to eat their dinner together where the smith would be most comfortable and Legend couldn’t scold Twilight for his ‘wolfish’ manners at the dinner table.

Considering the vet had trouble keeping himself clean, Warriors had quietly commented that maybe the other boy didn’t exactly have room to be complaining about table manners.

The sound at the door was lost to those in the kitchen as they chattered and laughed, but to the two heroes in the living room it was clear as day, and startled them both so much that they both fumbled with their bowls, violet clashing with brown as sheepish smiles marred both their faces, light laughter on their lips at their shared startle.

The knock sounded again, this time urgent, repetitive and with a desperate air.

Amusement flickered to worry as Legend had risen from the couch, the line of his shoulders tight with worry as he’d reached for the sword he’d left at the door before even daring to lay his fingers on the door handle. Four’s own hand had scrabbled for his blade, but he’d remained sitting, tense and alert with his ears pricked forwards and eyes sharp against whatever might be outside.

There were a few things Legend was expecting to see when he’d opened the door; royal guards coming for the bounty that the king had still failed to lift from him, despite most all of Hyrule knowing by now of his innocence of the crimes attributed to him, or maybe it would be a villager desperately reporting a monster attack down in Kakariko, he had thought it strange they had been dumped so conveniently close to home with no danger immediately evident.

What was on the other side however was not any of the things on his mental list.

Three cloaked figures stood outside the door, two of them nearly looming over him as a pair of sharp blue eyes stared at him from beneath the shade of a hood, stern and wary, but not entirely devoid of concern. “Link! Oh, thank heavens you’re here!”

“Nayru?” The vet blinked in surprise, gaze falling first on the Oracle in front of him and then to her sisters, standing behind her and wrapped tightly against the rain. And for lack of anything better to say, or even think, he opened the door a bit wider, motioning vaguely with the sword still in his other hand. “Come in.”

Four’s eyes followed the three girls as green, red and blue had brightened the dimming room, the bright hair and clothes of the three Oracles strangely out of place in the muted tones of Legend and Ravio’s house. Legend stashed his sword back against the wall, taking the cloaks from the three ladies and hanging them on hooks with everyone else’s as Nayru turned to him with her face drawn and eyes flickering sternly.

“Link.” Nayru began, frowning down at the vet, who stared up at her with similar seriousness. “It has come to my attention that there has been a temporal and chronological anomaly that seems to have been following you, I’ve come to ask-”

“Four!” Farore’s trill broke through the tense atmosphere as the Oracle of Secrets rushed over to bundle the Hero of Four Swords into a hug. “How? Oh, my stars! It’s been so long! You look so much older!” The girl exclaimed, holding the sheepish smithy at arm's length and inspecting him. “I haven’t seen you in forever! Although, I suppose it seems like less time for you. Linky! How on earth did you rescue him?” That stopped the smithy silent, and he stared up at the greenette before him curiously as she chattered on, worry in her eyes. “Is that why he looks ill? Did you-”

“Farore.” For maybe the first time in his life, Legend actually managed a half decent growl. Sure, he still squeaked a bit, but it was low and harsh enough to nearly count.

“How-” Nayru frowned, blinking slowly at the smithy seated on the couch while Din waved to him quietly.

“Boys, is everything-” Time’s voice was cut off as the three Oracles spun to stare at him, color draining from their faces as Din buried her face in her hands, Farore tensed and Nayru stiffened, sharp blue eyes turning to Legend with a glare.

“I told you to never play with the Harp of Ages!”

“I didn’t!” Legend snapped back, glaring up at the older girl with something similar to a pout. For the other two heroes, had it not been for the painful tension of the situation, they may have smiled at how much the interaction looked like a pair of siblings arguing over a valued toy.

“Then how is he-” Nayru flung a hand out to point at Time, who stood awkwardly in the doorway. “-here?” The Oracle faltered, gaze turning back to Time in confusion before settling on Legend again. “Wait, which hero is that again?”

“Ouch.” Time deadpanned, completely on instinct.

“Hero of Time.” Legend returned with a scowl.

“Wait.” Farore stared from one hero to another in confusion. “Isn’t he dead? Linky, are you- have you been rescuing-”

“This one didn’t die.” Legend returned, looking increasingly done with the situation while Time and Four both winced.

“Split timelines, remember, Fare?” Din offered with a pained smile.

Nayru scowled, pinching the bridge of her nose as her other hand settled on her hip. “Link, I swear, the Harp of Ages isn’t even supposed to be able to cross realities! Do you know what you’ve done? Link, I know you miss her, but searching across time and space for her just doesn’t work! You’re going to-”

“I didn’t use the freaking harp!” Legend shouted, and to the surprise of both of the others, tears were gathering in his eyes. “So could you just not-” The vet’s voice broke as teary indigo glared up into startled ocean blue. “Could you just not bring that up? I know better, Nayru! Besides, which one of us is it that broke the timeline last time, huh?”

“That wasn’t me.” The blue-haired maiden sighed. “We both know I had no control over any of what happened. But your point stands, I’m- I’m sorry for accusing you.”

“Good.” Legend wrapped his arms around himself, a single tear trickling down his scowling face as Din flew over and wrapped him in a hug. “Oh, Sunshine, she didn’t mean it! We’re just worried is all, you know that, right?” The vet didn’t answer, but he did melt into the hold of the young woman as she patted his back gently.

The others chose that moment to make their respective appearances, peeking around Time to see Nayru standing awkwardly beside the embracing Oracle and Hero while Farore and Four exchanged a Look.

“Legend, who is this?” Hyrule frowned, instant regret flooding over his face as he saw Legend swipe the end of his over-long sleeve over his face with a violent sniffle and a huff, releasing Din as the red-head sighed sadly.

“The Golden Goddesses.” Time answered instead, nodding politely to the three ladies, who all offered him awkward smiles in return.

“The Oracles actually.” Nayru corrected with a strained smile. “Apologies, Forest Hero.” She inclined her head respectfully. “I meant no disrespect, it’s only that you are quite similar in appearance to another hero from this world, one that is near and dear-” The woman’s voice stuttered to a halt as she stared at the others peeking out from behind the eldest hero.

The room fell to silence for a brief moment as Nayru’s face fell, eyes widening dramatically as her shoulders slumped. “Is that- Link, how many Heroes of Courage are in your home?”

“Nine.” Legend huffed, crossing his arms and looking anywhere else but at the girl. “Counting me anyway.”

“Nine Heroes of Courage.” The Oracle repeated, dumbstruck, before rubbing her hands over her face. “That’s like half of all of Hylia’s Heroes in all! Why? Why would so many be gathered in one place? How did you even meet them?”

The vet shrugged, still not meeting the baby-blue eyes that turned his way in desperation. “A lizard. Also, portals.”

From where she was now sitting next to Four, Farore nodded. “That sounds just bizarre enough to be true.”

At Nayru’s nod of agreement, Din reached out to ruffle Legend’s pink hair. “Just like you to get pulled along in something like that, isn’t it, Link?”

The soft chuckle earned a hesitant smile from the vet as the others pushed further into the room, only to freeze again as Nayru’s startled again, staring across the room at Warriors, eyes full of horror. “Oh no. Not you!”

The captain blinked in surprise, offense taking over as he stared at the young woman. “Excuse me?”

Nayru shook her head, no long paying attention as she cupped her cheeks. “No, not the blasted Hero of Warriors! Oh, why me!”

“Okay, now that’s just offensive.” The captain huffed, crossing his arms indignantly as Legend chuckled softly.

Sharp blue eyes made the captain still again as the Oracle of Ages whimpered softly. “Of all the people in your home, Link, you had to have the one Hylian that my daughters obsess over? Why?”

All eyes turned to the vet, who now looked similarly dumbfounded and horrified, blinking slowly at nothing as one hand buried itself in his long bangs. “My niece has a crush on-” the vet viably gagged, face screwing up as he looked up to meet the confused stare of the captain, “-Oh my gross!”

“Seriously?” Warriors huffed with a glare before throwing his hands up, voice raising slightly as he spoke. “Could someone kindly explain why all of you suddenly find me disgusting?”

“Not you.” Din laughed. “My nieces just have something of an obsession with you, and Nayru’s sick of it. Add to that that-”

“Of all the people,” Legend interrupted with a horror filled mumble. “For my nieces to have a crush on, it had to be my brother? Just- oh that is just so incredibly gross!” Violet met twinkling red as the vet leaned back to stare at Din. “Why do the ladies in my family always have such weird taste in men?”

“Says the guy who had a crush on his now sister.” Farore sniggered, now fully wrapped up in the blankets with Four, despite no one having noticed either of them move. The smithy didn’t appear to mind either, his smile matching that of the Oracle of Secrets’, even if he didn’t appear to know exactly what was going on any more than the rest of them.

“It wasn’t a crush!” Legend near shrieked, stiffening as his face turned nearly as red as the long hair that shimmered in the firelight behind him. “You get asked to dance by a girl you don’t know and see how you act!”

Nayru, now somewhat recovered, grinned impishly at the blushing hero. “That’s right, besides, I’m pretty sure our little brother had a crush on a certain farm girl.”

“I didn’t like Ropely like that!” The vet huffed, brightening further. “Or Malon, if that’s what you’re implying. She’s my freaking cousin and that would just be gross.”

“Malon is your what now?” Time blinked, confused.

“I have a Malon in my time too.” Four offered, very unhelpfully, as the eldest hero looked like he was descending into mental acrobatics. “She works near castle town and even lives on a ranch. I think Malons are a constant in our worlds, just like Zeldas.”

“I don’t have a Malon...” Wind mused quietly while Time began to look increadibly distressed.

“It’s a family name.” Legend huffed, rolling his eyes as his blush began to fade. “Mine was named after our great-something-gramma. The same is probably true of Mamalon, Time. She’s probably named after an ancestor from Four’s time or something.”

“Great!” The smallest Oracle exclaimed with a clap of her hands. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, can I please make you recognize that my babies are in one place for once?”

Her sisters stared at her, blinking slowly. “Um, Fare, that’s sort of why Nayru just had a freak out?” Legend snorted but his...sister? Ignored it.

“Yes but,” Farore nodded at Four, who she’d once more wrapped in her arms. “Look!”

And they did. Four was cuddled up with a resigned smile, looking positively tiny in the Oracle’s hold and, admittedly, rather cute. There was not one person in the room left unaffected, and several actually cooed when Farore hugged him tightly, burying her face in the smithy’s hair. “All of my babies, I love you all so very much!”

Warriors laughed at that, shaking his head. “What, do the Golden Goddesses have favorite heroes too? I thought that was just Hylia!”

“Unfortunately, that is the case.” Nayru shrugged. “We can’t help getting attached, just like any other Hylian.”

“Who are who’s favorites?” Wind chirped; eyes eager as he stared from one Oracle to another.

It was Din who answered, wrapping her arms around Legend’s shoulders as she stood behind him, smile warm even in the chill of the evening as she stared at the sailor hero. “Sunshine here’s mine, he’s my baby brother after all!”

“Adopted, as all of our other siblings are.” The Oracle of Ages interjected, earning her a pout from her sister and a laugh from the heroes.

“Nayru’s favorite is the Hero of Time, it’s why she calls him by a nickname, and Farore, well...” The red-head grinned to where the youngest of the three Oracles was cooing and fussing over Four. “I think you can guess.”

“Do any of you have second favorites?” Wind pressed, curiosity flickering in ocean blue and silver.

“I haven’t had enough experience with most of the other heroes to really say, although the Hero of Wild’s never fails to make me laugh when I watch him through Nayru’s mirrors.” The Saesonal Oracle laughed, making the hero in question flush lightly. “Both for his pranks and clever antics, and, of course, having a horse named after you means you simply have to adore the owner!”

“Farore has several favorites, she’s just only ever interacted with Link and Four.” Nayru chuckled. “She’s quite fond of those who had to strive for Courage though, so I suppose the Hero of Hyrule and the Hero of Winds likely tie for her second favorite.” The two boys in question grinned brightly at each other. “As for myself, I find that as the Keeper of Time, I have quite the fondness for its hero. Although, my baby brother and brother-in-law are also dear to me.” Twinkling blue settled on Sky’s flushed face as the Oracle winked. “Hylia could have chosen no one better to be her lover, and I approve the match wholeheartedly.”

Sky proceeded to flush a color o one had known existed and quickly lower himself to the floor, smiling madly and covering hisface with his hands, earning tender laughter from the blue-haired maiden as she turned her attention back towards the other heroes.

“And for some reason, I’m the only hero left unfavorited.” The captain sulked.

“If it’s any consolation.” Farore called out. “Our other baby sister thinks you’re cute! She says she’s glad you married her daughter!” The Captain Hero choked, and it was only due to Twilight thumping the others back that the poor man didn’t choke right then and there. “The same goes for the Twilight Hero, Lolia absolutely adores him!”

“How did the same goddess choose us both? We are nothing alike?”

Warriors coughed in what might have been agreement.

Farore only shrugged. “I suppose it’s the same reason she adores Ravio so much, it’s the hero who makes an impression on her world that earns her favor.”

The heroes in question took their time processing that, and in the meantime, Legend darted off toe retrieve dry things for his elder sisters, only to come back to Ravio chattering to the three, who’d now gathered on the same couch as Legend and Four had been on earlier, all answering his questions fondly and politely while Farore continued to suffocate Four with hugs. The smithy didn’t seem to mind though, resting easily, eyes glimmering reddish-brown in the fire-light as the Oracle of Secrets toyed with his ong hair.

“I brought warm clothes.” Legend called, offering the things with a brief shuffle of his feet. “They’re Fable’s, but I don’t think shell mind.”

Ravio frowned, looking up at the offered garments with furrowed brows. “Are you sure that will warm them enough, Mr. Hero? It would be horrible if your poor sisters caught cold!” Grenn flickered knowingly, and Legend huffed as he met the expectant gaze.

“Fine, I’ll brew some cider, since I expect that’s what you suggest?”

“Oh! Mr. Hero, how kind of you! I didn’t mean to ask, but since you’ve offered I’m sure your lovely sisters will love to have some!”

Din straightened in her seat, eyes sparkling brightly. “Cider? Oh, Link! I haven’t had your cider in ages! Please make some! I’d actually kill for a cup about now!”

And really, who was the veteran hero to argue with the will of the Oracle of Seasons?

“He’s made you cider before?” The Oracle of Ages frowned.

“Oh, all the time! The whole circus troupe loved it! Auntie Impa always used to beg him for the recipe, but it was that one thing she could never convince him about. It’s absolute heaven, Nay! You’re going to love it!”

The bluette huffed, crossing her arms and faking a put. “He never made me any cider.”

“Because you tried to kill me!” Legend’s voice called back from the kitchen, making the three girls startle slightly. “If you hadn’t, maybe you could have tried some along with Ralph and Raven.”

“I wasn’t- I was- Link!” Nayru spluttered as a cackle arose from the kitchen. “I was under mind control!”

“Still tried to kill me!” The vet chirped back with far too much cheer considering what he was saying. And really, none of the others could argue his point, either because they didn’t understand what was being discussed or because it was true.

Cider was passed around after a brief wait, during which the others had made idle small talk and Farore had finally agreed to release Four from her grasp. The short hero still sat at her side, trading smiles with the three Oracles as he chatted amiably with them, clearly familiar with all three and quite happy to see them again, even with the drama from before.

No one brought up what Farore had meant about ‘rescuing’ him.

When Legend finally emerged from the kitchen, Ravio’s tray stacked high with mugs of steaming cider, silence had quickly fallen save for the quiet sips and louder slurps of the three as Legend handed out the mugs, finishing with the three Oracles and promptly plopping himself down in their midst, entirely uncaring of the looks they exchanged over his head while Four shifted a bit closer to his brother.

“Link,” Nayru settled her mug in her lap and stared over at the pink-haired hero, unfortunately gaining the attention of the rest of the chain in the process. “About earlier, I really am sorry for accusing you. It was wrong of me to assume-”

“You already apologized, it’s fine.” Legend cut her off, yawning softly as he sipped his cider.

“No, it’s not. But I’d like to make it up to you.” The mug was set aside as long fingers had begun to glow with a soft blue, catching the vet’s eyes and making him stare as the Orale of Ages waved her fingers gently, a blue orb appearing in her grasp as a soft smile graced her delicate features. “Anything you’d like to see, baby brother?”

Violet eyes stared fixed on the orb, glistening slightly with wonder as the vet floundered, nearly spilling his cider only to be rescued by Four’s quick thinking as the smithy removed the mug from his grasp. “A-anything?”

“Anything.” The Oracle reaffirmed.

Legend stammered softly for a moment. “C-Could I see Raven? Where he is now?”

There was some murmuring from the others, curiosity and confusion in their tones as Nayru frowned. “Raven lived four-hundred years ago, Songbird, he’s dead now.”

“Oh- uh- I knew that.”

“I can show you what he was doing today four-hundred year ago though.” She laughed softly, spinning the orb in her hands slowly before turning it to face Legend. The veteran hero stared intently, brows furrowing slightly before his eyes widened and he was pushing back into the couch and away from the viewing orb.

“Oh yuck! Nayru! That- ew!” At the girls’ laugher he shot them all a glare. “I did not need to see a woman eating my mentor’s face!”

“That would be kissing.” Time smirked. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“That’s my ancestor though!”

“And I knew that would happen.” Nayru giggled. “That was a prank, here’s the actual thing.” A small child and a man looking suspiciously like Time appeared on the surface of the orb, both lying on the floor of what might have been a farm-house as the little one played with a few small toys, the man watching with a fond gaze as he relaxed, looking as if he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.

“They look happy.” Legend hummed, gaze softening as he watched the duo a moment more before smiling up at his sister. “Thanks.”

The bluette smiled in return. “I accused yo twice though, so you may have a second. What else would you like?”

Anyone who was watching could see the conflicted emotions flying through Legend’s eyes as he stared at the now blank orb, the vet fidgeting with his rings and long sleeves as he gnawed his lower lip, torn about something that remained unknown to the others but clearly was tearing him up inside. At long last however, the vet’s voice, small and vulnerable, more so than they’d heard even when he was half asleep, spoke his request. “I’d like to see her.”

Ocean blue eyes softened as the Oracle nodded, spinning her orb slowly before handing it over to the vet as the scene of a beach crossed the surface of the ball.

A girl with curly red hair and sparkling eyes sat on the beach, voice rich and lovely as she sang ou a tune that had the vet’s eyes watering as he smiled as the vision, his brothers crowding close curiously as several of them muffled soft gasps.

“Marin?” The voice of a boy rang from the orb, gentle, uncertain and young, but resemblant of Legend’s own in an odd, gentle way.

“Link! Don’t startle me like that!” The girl laughed, shaking her head and making her curls bounce as she smiled over at a boy maybe a bit older than Wind.  The lad was dark haired, but pink showed through at his roots and while he carried a sword on his back, he looked relaxed and at peace with the world around him, face gentle and unmarred by worries or fears as he walked across the sand to where the girl sat. A dopey smile and light blush touched the kid’s face as the girl, Marin, gently patted the sand at her side. “Join me, you’re done running errands for everyone now, right?”

“For today.”

“Good.” The girl reached up, tugging ‘Link’ down next to her firmly. “Lay down.”

“What?”

“Lay down.” Marin ordered. “You need a break. You’re always running everywhere and helping eveyone else, you need a bit of time to yourself.”

A smile pulled at the boy’s features. “Yes ma’am.”

The girl snorted, but patted her lap and tugged at the green tunic of the other, resulting in him at last laying on the sand, head in her lap as she smiled down at him. “You’re going to rest now, because tomorrow is a busy day for us.”

“Oh?” Already there was a dreamy quality to the boy’s voice as he relaxed into the hold of the girl, her fingers tugging gently through tangled black hair as she nodded.

“Yes. We have to sleep in until nine, and then eat a big breakfast before taking a long walk on the shore. Then, you’re going to help me conquer a huge basket lunch before you can then defeat being awake for an hour. After that, we have to chase the tide until it tires, and then dance in victory over the ground that it’s lost.” The boy laughed softly, lashes already fluttering softly across rosy cheeks as the girl continued. “Then, you and I are going to sit here and watch the sun go down, and we will sing it to sleep along with the island until the sun comes up.”

“And what then?”

“And then we do as we please!”

“We build a fire.” The boy hummed. “And I’m going to make you cider so good you’ll be ruined for any of your silly teas.”

“Hey!” The girl huffed, purposefully jostling the lad’s head as she huffed down at him. “My teas are good!”

“Not as good as my cider.” The boy replied, opening one eyes to grin up at her, a cheeky smile on his face. “Just you wait, you’ll see.”

Marin shook her head, eyes glistening gently as she ran her fingers through Link’s hair again. “I suppose I will.”

The orb shattered as it hit the floor, dissipating instantly as the heroes collectively startled.

“Legend?” Four rested a hand on the vet’s shoulder, staring in concern at the other boy, who hid behind his bangs with a faint sniffle.

“Thanks , Nayru.”

“Do you want me to fix it? I can give you another-”

“No, I know what happens.” Legend waved her off, sighing heavily and offering a teary smile. “I just wanted to see her again.”

“Well then you should have said something!” Warriors exclaimed, catching the attention of all gathered as he stared at the vet, caught between a grin and a scowl “Had I known you were Marin’s prince charming I would have said something by now! For pities sakes, the girls have been trying to hunt down her world since the war ended!”

Legend blinked.

“She’s still not home?” Wind frowned. “But, it’s been months!”

“No one knew where she belonged, she didn’t even know, said she knew nothing of Hyrule’s history, only that there was a hero.” The captain shook his head. “Hard to believe the sweet hero she described is this here ass, but who am I to judge?”

“She’s alive?” Legend stared.

“Yes,” The captain smiled slightly, gaze warming as he met the vet’s. “But between Cia, Lana and Midna, we never-”

“Midna too!” Twilight exclaimed, pushing into Warriors’ line of vision with a shocked face and watching the captain immediately fly through every shade of shock imaginable.

“Love of the goddess...” Warriors breathed. “Both of you? The two famed sweethearts of my team are the biggest asses I know? You have got to be kidding me!”

The Oracles laughed, or in Farore’s case, cackled, at the plight of the captain, and the other heroes joined in.

“Wars, I’m not even mad.” legend chuckled, shaking his head, and Twilight nodded in agreement.  “But I will say this, we can’t get to your Hyrule soon enough, and when we get there, Time, know for a fact that I don’t need to wait till I’m older to understand that thing earlier.”

“Okay, that's just gross!” Wind exclaimed. “I do not want to see Legend kissing someone! That’s just- oh yuck!”

The vet threw his head back and laughed, and no one could really help but join in. Except Wind, who scrunched up his nose in disgust while Wild and Hyrule shared a confused look.

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu legend #lu four #lu time #lu warriors #lu nayru #lu farore #lu din #din #farore #nayru #the golden goddesses #the boys are all there #but I didn't do a lot with them all #farore loves four very much #I prjected onto all three of the girls way too much #seriously though #farore treats Four like I treat Legend #she just doesn't hurt him as much #nayru is tired and worried #she's not a bad big sister #she's just overwhelmed and worried #din played less of a role in this than I intended #the oracles adopted fable and legend as their baby siblings #and four #four is their baby brother too #time is... in a weird place #but they love him as well #nayru can't stand warriors

[the-scandalorian]

Tempered Glass: Chapter 1

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Reader (no use of Y/N) Rating: M (will become explicit in later chapters) Word Count: 5.5k Warnings: slow burn, canon-typical violence, cursing, sexy thoughts, pining, non-graphic description of wounds Summary: With the ghosts of your own mysterious past close on your heels, you can’t afford to get in the middle of someone else’s fight; however, attraction drives you to make a reckless decision, and you end up swept up in the Mandalorian’s story. Notes: (1) Reader is bisexual. It will probably only come up peripherally, but I wanted to make a note of that. (2) I did my best to keep physical descriptions of the reader out of my writing, but please let me know if something slipped in that isn’t as inclusive as it could be!  

Masterlist | Next Chapter

Image from The Art of Star Wars: The Mandalorian

You felt the weight of the Mandalorian’s gaze before you saw him.

Sitting in the cantina on Nevarro, you were alone in a corner booth—a seat close to the back exit that had a clear view of the front door.

You were halfway through your drink when the hairs on the back of your neck prickled, and you had the overwhelming feeling that you were being watched.

You scanned the cantina and, in your periphery, registered the Mandalorian’s head snap back from your direction to face the man sitting across from him. You hadn’t noticed him enter, but it must have been just moments ago because you surveyed your surroundings every few minutes.

The two men were seated a few tables away. You observed the Mandalorian for a moment, noting his stiff-backed posture and the tension in his shoulders under his battle-worn armor. He could tell you’d caught him staring and that you were watching him.

The man sitting across from the Mandalorian was gesticulating as he spoke. You’d been on Nevarro long enough to recognize him as Greef Karga, local leader of the Guild. You could only see his back, but he was boisterous—a stark contrast to the Mandalorian’s silent stillness—and his voice carried.

Karga was saying something about bounties and currency—no surprise there. Mandalorians were the most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy. You didn’t know much about them besides the legends you’d heard as a child, though it was very unclear what was true and what was myth. You’d only ever seen one in person before, and that Mandalorian had been terrifying, threatening.

This Mandalorian, however, was... intriguing? He was, of course, intimidating—in his head-to-toe armor with a long rifle leaned against the table, he was the very picture of a warrior. Any person with sense would be scared of him, and judging by the sidelong glances he was getting from the other patrons, most were.

The very relatable experience of having someone catch you in the act of watching them—as you’d just done to him—however, humanized this Mandalorian. Noting his broad shoulders, you couldn’t help wondering what he looked like under all that heavy metal. You’d heard rumors that some Mandalorians never took off their armor in front of another person. That would be a real shame.

Though you’d have preferred to continue thinking about the man under the armor (and the things you wanted to do with him), a small voice in your head reminded you of the potentially dangerous reality of your situation.

Why was he watching me? He can’t possibly recognize me.

No one had come after you in years. There was likely still a steep bounty on your head, but many of the people who wanted to find you were dead, imprisoned, or deep in hiding. Some were convinced you’d been taken out in a star cruiser explosion (because you almost had been). And, you no longer looked like the photo that was attached to your bounty puck. Your hair was a radically different shade and length. You wore contacts to obscure the real color of your eyes. You always chose high-necked clothing to conceal the identifying scar that slashed an angry line beneath your clavicle.  

You kept a low profile, moved often, and assumed a fake identity, but you felt safe enough in your anonymity to come to a planet like Nevarro, a place that was swarming with hunters.

Plus, you reasoned that if the Mandalorian was looking for you for a job, this is probably not how it would have happened. It would have been stealthy and quick, potentially bloody and violent.

No, you didn’t think he was looking for you, which meant he had been looking at you. Out of interest. And that was so, so much better.

You turned your body towards him pointedly to make it more obvious that you were watching him. The slight forward lean of his shoulders told you he registered your movement in his periphery. His helmet stayed trained on Karga, but it was impossible to know exactly where he was looking through the black t-shape of his visor. You would have bet he was looking back at you.

The Mandalorian responded to Karga, pushing some credits back across the table. You could hear the low undercurrent of his modulated voice, but you couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. It looked like they were arguing about the currency of the credits on the table.

As Karga dug in his pocket for something, the Mandalorian turned his helmet slowly back towards you. Throwing caution to the wind, you smiled at him and winked, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement. You watched him expectantly, figuring this was when he’d walk over to your table.

Instead, he turned his head back to Karga, responded to something he said, and grabbed the credits off the table. They were clearly finishing up their deal. The Mandalorian slid out of the booth and strapped the long rifle to his back. He started toward the front door.

Maybe you’d read the whole situation wrong. Like you, he was trained to be aware of everyone, everything around him. Perhaps, he’d just been surveying the cantina, not necessarily you.

Feeling slightly disappointed, you finished your drink, dropped some credits on the table, and got up to leave. You were pulling on your jacket when a familiar feeling made you flick your head up. The Mandalorian was standing at the front of the cantina, his dark silhouette framed in the light of the open doorway, visor trained on you.

From where he was standing, he looked you up and down, lowering and raising his helmet to survey your body from top to bottom and back up again—a gesture that could have easily been achieved without moving his entire head in such an obvious way. His penetrating gaze and brazen attention made you shiver. 

He waited to see what you would do.

You were tempted to go to him, to see what would happen, but the stubborn part of you wanted him to come to you—and, more importantly, the sensible part of you was worried this was somehow a trap. You made an impulsive choice and decided to prolong the chase...whether that chase would prove to be literal or figurative, you weren’t totally sure.

You smiled slyly at him and turned, slipping out the back door.

***

The second time you crossed paths with the Mandalorian, you saw him before he saw you.

You were walking down Nevarro’s main thoroughfare, a busy street lined with vendors, pushing through the crowd, when you spotted the back of his reflective helmet. A couple weeks had passed since you had seen him in the cantina, and you’d been hoping to see him again, always keeping an eye out for his distinctive profile.

These past two weeks, you’d found your thoughts straying to his image—strong, mysterious, intimidating. He was sexy. There was no getting around it. You’d spent enough time around people in masks and full-body armor to know that it wasn’t just the mystery of the helmet that attracted you to him. There was something about him you couldn’t shake.

It didn’t help that you were bored and lonely here on Nevarro. It was not your favorite planet. It was dry and hot, the surface a mosaic of cracked flows of hardened lava and loose tephra—unwelcoming terrain. It was volcanically active, too, steam pouring from fractures in the hard, black ground. A river of molten lava ran under the city itself. Who would choose to live here?

For you, Nevarro was no more than a stopover—a place to stay for a few months before moving on to the next planet. You could leave any time, easily book passage to a bigger city on a prettier planet, but that shameless part of you that imagined the Mandalorian fucking you in his full armor was bold enough to convince yourself to stick around for a little longer and see if you could run into him again. Why not?

You’d been running for years, denying yourself comfort, companionship, consistency. Couldn’t you indulge just this once?

You had no reason to think the Mandalorian had thought of you for one second after seeing you in the cantina, but you let yourself hope. He didn’t hide the way he looked at you, and he hadn’t pursued you as a quarry when you left the cantina (and what a relief that was), so that meant...he’d flirted with you...right? That was probably how a Mandalorian flirted? Maybe you were stuck in his head the way he was stuck in yours? A girl could dream.

You watched his helmet disappear and reappear as you both weaved through the throngs of people. The Mandalorian had a purposeful gait and an immediate effect on everyone around him: the crowd parted for him as people avoided his path and his gaze. No one wanted to be noticed by a Mandalorian. 

Well, almost no one.

The Mandalorian clearly relied on his menacing appearance and the notorious lore associated with his armor to ensure that he was left alone. You, on the other hand, depended on stealth and the ability to disappear in a swarm of people to stay hidden. This meant that while the crowd parted easily for him, you struggled to wend your way through it.

He turned down a side street. 

The fact that he’d hounded your thoughts since you first saw him spurred you into recklessness, and you followed. As you turned down the same side street, you saw the edge of his cape disappear into an alley. The further away you moved from the main street, the more you began to question yourself.

This is potentially a bad idea.

This is definitely a bad idea.

Your existence hinged on your ability to stay lost, to be anonymous, to change your appearance, to never be sought out. And here you were, seeking out a bounty hunter.

You’d been slipping into a dangerous false sense of security these past few months—spending more time in each place, neglecting to change your chaincode as often as you should. Just because no one had come for you in a couple years, didn’t mean you were safe. You needed to snap yourself out of this delusional thinking. 

But maybe... not yet?

You picked up your pace.

It was just the two of you in a long alleyway, and you were sure he could sense you behind him by the slight turn of his head, but he didn’t stop or turn around. You weren’t being stealthy, only a few long strides behind him. He had to know you were there.

He walked surprisingly quietly, considering his heavy armor and determined stride. The loudest sound he made was his cape whipping around his calves. His long rifle was strapped to his back, and he was carrying a camtono in his left hand.

He quickly slipped down another shadowy passageway that you hadn’t noticed. You turned to follow, about to say something, but the passage was deserted. You walked to the end and back, checking to see if he’d turned again, but there was no trace of him. No doorways led off the passage. The only things in the alley were a stack of abandoned wooden pallets and a grate that emitted hot steam. He must have given you the slip on purpose, taken some secret route to evade the stranger on his tail.

Understandable. It’s what you would have done too. I probably should have come up with a better plan than just pursuing him.

Well, fuck.

You were more disappointed than you cared to admit, but you turned and headed back to the apartment you were renting a few blocks away. You were slightly embarrassed by how impulsive you’d just been. You wouldn’t have felt so abashed if it had paid off, but it hadn’t. 

You’d overstayed your time on Nevarro. Your self-imposed limit was two months per location, and you’d been here two and a half. You couldn’t push it any more, especially for such a ridiculous reason. It was time to go.

***

The third time you encountered the Mandalorian, neither of you saw the other coming.

You packed up your things, fitting everything you needed in one backpack. You purchased more food and let the hours of the afternoon drag on, waiting for the sun to sink low in the sky before heading out. 

When it was evening, you slipped your blaster into the holster at the small of your back. You slid a vibroblade into the sheath at your hip and strapped a much smaller one to your calf where it was concealed under your pants. As you slung your bag over your shoulder and scanned your small space to make sure you hadn’t forgotten anything, noise erupted outside—an explosion, not far away.

There were enough ex-Imperials and bounty hunters on Nevarro that street fights and loud commotions were commonplace. You slipped out your front door, figuring you could avoid the action by slinking through the alleyways. You knew the layout of the city fairly well by now.

You crept through the dim streets. You guessed that the fighting was a couple blocks to your left based on the muffled sounds of intermittent blaster fire. You made your way toward the cantina where you knew a few regulars who would have transpo connections, but you only made it a couple blocks from your apartment before you ran into trouble.

Suddenly, shouts echoed down the street behind you. You made a hasty left turn, looking back to see if anyone was following as you broke into a run. With your head turned, you didn’t see the Mandalorian backing his way down the street toward you. You collided painfully with his back and crumpled to the ground next to him. He, mostly unfazed, made a grunting sound and snapped his head to the side to see who’d hit him. He kept his body and his blaster trained forward at two shadowy figures that were stalking towards him, but he pointed his left vambrace down at you, prepared to neutralize you if needed.

He cocked his head at you as if trying to assess whether or not you were a threat. Before you could think of anything to say, blaster fire screamed down the alley toward both of you. You grabbed your own blaster and sprang to your feet.

Noting the way you trained your blaster away from him, the Mandalorian redirected his attention back to the oncoming assailants. As more blaster fire streaked toward you, he jumped in front of you to shield your body with his and fired back down the alley.

I guess he decided I’m not a threat.

The figures drew nearer—one, a hulking man, and the other, a wiry woman with blue hair... both bounty hunters. They slunk around stray crates and garbage bins, making it difficult for either of you to land a direct hit.

The Mandalorian’s beskar armor lived up to the crazy stories you’d heard. Blaster fire pinged off of it without leaving a mark. Standing so close behind him, you noticed that his armor was different than what he’d worn just earlier that day. His old armor, painted a rusty reddish-brown, had been mismatched and battered. This was new, pristine, unpainted—a stunning reflective silver.

It was the same Mandalorian though. That you were sure of.

You kept most of your body behind his protective stance, just peaking your head and arm out periodically to take a shot. You leaned around him again to fire, and you hit the woman in the thigh while she was momentarily exposed. She grunted in pain and paused her advance.

You ducked back behind the Mandalorian. You were surprised and confused by the way the he was treating you like a partner, protecting you instinctually. You hadn’t exchanged so much as a word yet.

Weren’t Mandalorians supposed to be merciless, violent bounty hunters? Why was he trusting you? For that matter, why were you trusting him? It sounded absurd to think that he just felt trustworthy.

The next time you poked your head out, you noticed that the man had stopped shooting and was watching you intently from where he was hiding behind a stack of boxes. He made eye contact with you and held it, and you saw recognition dawn on his face. He pointed at you, turning to the woman to yell something in a language you didn’t recognize, and then charged forward, blaster drawn. His mouth formed your name, your real name, as he thundered towards you. You froze where you stood, partially exposed.

Fuck. He recognized me so easily. How?

Hot blaster fire zinged past your ear. The Mandalorian lurched forward and fell to one knee in a controlled movement as fire erupted from his vambrace. His quick thinking snapped you out of your panic, but your heart thundered as you processed how close you’d come to getting shot.

As the man’s clothes caught fire and he began to flail in panic, you came back to your senses and shot him in the chest.

The female bounty hunter, who was still several paces behind the man, disappeared down an alley behind her, just as you resumed shooting in her direction.

It won’t be long before word spreads that I’m alive on Nevarro. FUCK.

The footfalls of the woman faded quickly, and you knew she was too far ahead to catch.

You and the Mandalorian were left alone in the alley. Things were quiet for a moment. 

You turned to look at each other. It was then that you noticed the bundle tucked tightly in the crook of his right arm, the same arm that held his blaster. He shuffled the bundle to his left arm carefully... tenderly?

He tilted his helmet slightly, starting to say something just as you did the same. Before either of you could form a sentence, several more figures rounded the corner behind you.

“Come on,” you yelled, grabbing his arm to drag him forward. For the moment, the two of you were in this together. It was better than being caught in this fray alone. You figured you’d be able to slip away from the action soon enough.

As you ran through the streets, you both noted the echoing footsteps picking up behind you at each juncture. More and more people—bounty hunters—were joining the pursuit. It seemed like every bounty hunter in Nevarro was being drawn to the Mandalorian.

What did he do to bring this much heat down on himself? I need to lose him.

You considered turning down every street or alley you passed, but at least one hunter blocked each one. Every doorway was shut tight. The hunters were right on your heels. You kept running, the Mandalorian pounding along behind you, until you reached the main street, emerging near the archway that marked the entrance to town. Beyond the archway, the flat expanse of Nevarro stretched out before you; a silver ship, not far ahead, was the only thing that broke up the uniform landscape.

You both stopped abruptly in the middle of the street, as at least twenty bounty hunters closed in around you, each with a blinking fob in their hand. You were trapped. The pinging chorus of the fobs was enough to rip you back to a not-so-distant time when that sound was a constant refrain in your nightmares. But even at the height of the Empire’s search for you, you’d never had this many people on your tail.

Up until this moment, you hadn’t been too worried about making a getaway. You knew you would get out of this. You’d been in worse situations. But now? Blood rushed in your ears, and your adrenaline spiked. You were cornered, outnumbered, and somehow in the middle of a fight that had nothing to do with you. You were surrounded by bounty hunters, and one had already recognized you. You’d spent years disappearing and here you were, back in the thick of it because you turned down the wrong alley at the wrong time.

You glanced at the Mandalorian and tried to formulate an escape plan—or at least a way put some distance between you and him.

He surveyed the scene, seemingly calm in his blank mask of beskar, and began to walk towards the archway, as even more bounty hunters appeared. Not having come up with any better alternatives yet, you followed him.

The Mandalorian stopped short when Greef Karga sauntered out from the shadows to block your path forward through the archway.

“Welcome back, Mando!” Karga’s voice, the voice that had seemed jovial in the cantina weeks ago, sounded threatening as it rang through the street. “Now, put the package down.” He rested a hand on his hip, pushing back his cape to expose his blaster.

The bundle must be valuable. You wondered briefly what the Mandalorian had wrapped so carefully under his arm. A rare material like kyber? Something unstable like rhydonium? A set of holodisks with important intel?

The Mandalorian mirrored Karga’s movement, hovering his hand over his own blaster. “Step aside. I’m going to my ship,” he replied calmly. He sounded awfully certain considering the circumstances. Your eyes flicked back to the silver ship, an old Razor Crest, that sat just beyond the archway.

Karga chuckled. “You put the bounty down and perhaps I’ll let you pass.”

“The kid’s coming with me.”

KID?

“If you truly care about the kid, then you’ll put it on the speeder,” Karga said, pointing to a speeder parked in front of the building on your right, where a droid sat in the pilot’s seat. The droid let out a series of cheerful beeps, indicating its readiness.

“How do I know I can trust you?” asked the Mandalorian.

How did he know he could trust me? This guy seems to play fast and loose with trust.

Karga scoffed, “Because I’m your only hope.”

Shit.

Any second, this fight was going to turn into an every-person-for-themself situation. You and the Mandalorian had helped each other thus far because it had been convenient, but now that you were trapped, you knew this precarious alliance you’d formed out of necessity was about to fracture. You hadn’t missed the way he said I and me, not we and us. You weren’t part of his equation, and you couldn’t blame him—of course, you were also going to prioritize your own safety over that of a literal stranger.

You surveyed the street, looking for the least obstructed escape route. You hoped you could run fast enough once this tense moment passed and the fight started in earnest.

The Mandalorian stepped back into you suddenly, taking the opportunity to whisper urgently, “Jump in when I say go.”

You were stunned—so stunned that you followed him without thinking as he walked over to the speeder.

For the first time, the Mandalorian looked down at the bundle in his arms. You gasped when you saw that it was in fact a sleeping child—a tiny green infant. He took a moment to watch the baby before glancing at you briefly. He looked back down at the child and without any warning, he breathed, “NOW.”

You dove head first onto the speeder as he raised his blaster and shot a hunter who was right behind where you had just been standing. From the outside, you imagined that it looked like the two of you were partners—the way you moved together, coordinated and seamless.

You scrambled back and pushed crates out of the way, staying down on your stomach, as the Mandalorian flung himself over the side of the speeder and landed next to you. Blaster fire screeched all around you as the hunters reacted in unison.

You both stayed prone on the floor of the speeder, reaching only your blasters up to return the fire that was raining down on you. The Mandalorian rolled over to carefully place the kid down before yelling at the droid at the front of the speeder.

“DRIVE!”

When the droid shook its head in refusal, the Mandalorian demanded again, holding up his blaster threateningly. The droid acquiesced, and the speeder lurched forward. You grabbed the child and hugged them to your chest as the crates shifted around you.

You made it almost all the way to the archway—you and the Mandalorian taking out several of the bounty hunters as you went—before someone had the sense to shoot the pilot droid. The speeder crashed to a halt in a rain of sparks. Fire ceased and a tense quiet fell.

The Mandalorian edged toward you on his elbows. You could hear the bounty hunters closing in around you, the crunch of their boots ominous. You curled your body protectively over the child.

“Fuck,” you whispered. “What now?” You looked into the black t of his visor, wishing you could see his eyes.

He nodded as if that was a sufficient answer to your question and worked his way toward the edge of the speeder. Slowly, silently, he pulled his long rifle from his side and eased it between two crates, pointing it at a hunter on the roof of the closest building. You heard the sound of the rifle powering up and its screeching discharge as it vaporized the hunter. And then another. And another. The Mandalorian’s reload was lightening fast. You took the chance during the ensuing chaos to scoot to the edge of the speeder and take aim at a hunter with your blaster. The remaining hunters scurried away, taking shelter behind walls, doorways, whatever they could find.

The Mandalorian paused, and for a tense moment, nothing happened. The threat of the Amban Rifle was enough to create another temporary ceasefire.

“That’s one impressive weapon,” bellowed Karga. You couldn’t see him from where you lay.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna walk to my ship with the kid, and you’re gonna let that happen,” the Mandalorian stated authoritatively.

We.

“No, how about this? We take the kid, and if you try and stop us, we kill you both and then strip your body for parts,” Karga spat back.

You could feel the hunters starting to come out of hiding all around you. The subtle rasp of tephra under foot gave them away again. You looked behind you and saw that one hooded hunter was edging closer to the speeder. The Mandalorian had his back to the hunter, as he faced Karga. You trained your blaster on the approaching hunter, ready to fire. Before you could pull the trigger, the Mandalorian kicked the canister at his feet, knocking the hunter over, and sat up to stun him with the rifle.

Apparently, he had been aware of the man the whole time. His peripheral vision must be largely obstructed in his helmet. How is he so acutely aware of everything around him?

Everyone opened fire once again.

Over the sound of blaster fire, you heard Karga yell, “Don’t hit the target!”

The Mandalorian rose to his knees, leaned over some crates, and activated his vambrace so a sudden burst of flames cleared out the hunters that were closest to the speeder. You took out two more with your blaster while they were distracted by the flames.

The Mandalorian grunted in frustration as the fire streaming from his wrist sputtered out. Then, he grunted and doubled over in pain when blaster fire hit him in the side, where he wasn’t protected by his armor.

He clutched his side and ducked back down to crawl his way over to you, gently pulling on your arm until you released the child, so he could look at their face. The child cooed and opened two huge, watery eyes.

You looked away, feeling like you were encroaching on a private moment.

Is this his kid? Who is after a child? What is the story here?

You leaned away and fired several more shots, injuring another hunter.

Then you heard it. A streaming projectile took out one of the hunters on a nearby roof. As the hunter screamed and fell to the ground, several figures in Mandalorian armor, powered by jetpacks with blasters in hand, rose up from behind the row of buildings lining the street. There had to be at least a dozen of them—maybe more. It was hard to tell in the chaos. They seemed to be everywhere. They took out hunter after hunter as they slowly lowered themselves to the ground and sparks rained down around you.

You both sat up to watch.

A particularly huge Mandalorian in blue armor with a large repeating blaster touched down next to the speeder and bellowed, “Get out of here! We’ll hold them off!”

“You’re going to have to relocate the covert,” responded the Mandalorian, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

“This is the way,” replied the huge blue Mandalorian, as he continued to fire at the bounty hunters.

“This is the way,” agreed the Mandalorian next to you. 

In one fluid movement, he strapped his rifle to his back. You sheathed your blaster as he thrust the kid back into your arms, and he grabbed your free hand, hauling you to your feet as he stood. You jumped from the speeder together. He pulled you along behind him, continuing to shield your body with his as much as possible. The juxtaposition of the way he held your hand and how he was brutally taking out hunter after hunter with his blaster was jarring.

A blaster shot grazed your thigh as you ran, and you swore at the stinging pain, doubling over slightly without loosening your grip on the child. The Mandalorian turned his head but didn’t stop pulling you forward. You faltered for a moment but gritted your teeth and sped up to sprint behind him, leaving the chaos in your wake as you crossed under the archway. You made it the short distance to his ship, where the ramp was already lowered.

You followed him up the ramp. He shoved his blaster into the holster on his belt and started forward into the ship.

The idea of being trapped with this strange Mandalorian was absurd, but you didn’t have much of a choice. If you stayed on Nevarro, the remaining bounty hunters would tear the city apart to find you. This was the fastest way to get off world: a calculated risk.

You sensed movement behind you before you heard Karga’s voice.

“Hold it, Mando.”

You both spun around to face him. Karga had a blaster trained on you and the kid in your arms.

“I didn’t want it to come to this. But then you broke the code,” he spat.

The Mandalorian was silent as he assessed his options. Silent was clearly his default state. He was used to hiding behind the intimidating mask of his armor.

You were trying to guess how good Karga’s reflexes were and if you could grab your blaster from where you’d resheathed it at your back fast enough. As you thought it out, the Mandalorian tipped his head subtly to his left at what looked like a carbonite chamber. Before you or Karga could register his plan, he shot a metal cord from his vambrace, hitting the button to activate the chamber and filling the hull with freezing mist.

In the gloom, the Mandalorian grabbed you roughly and pushed you out of the way. Karga shot blindly. You whipped out your blaster and fired back, knowing exactly where he had been standing. You heard him grunt and fall backwards off the ship with a thud.

The Mandalorian made quick work of shutting the ramp, deactivating the hissing carbonite chamber, and initiating the takeoff protocol from a control panel on the wall.

You slumped onto a nearby crate, exhausted, as the ship lifted off the ground. You let your backpack slide off your shoulders onto the floor next to you. Still holding the baby to your chest protectively, you loosened your arms to study their sweet sleeping face.

His face? Her face? Who is this child?

Wordlessly, the Mandalorian stomped forward and snatched the kid from your arms. You looked up in surprise as he disappeared up the ladder next to you. He was gone for a few moments before the ship jolted as it left Nevarro’s atmosphere and jumped into hyperspace.

You rested your head on the cool wall behind you, trying to catch your breath. You let your eyelids slip shut for a minute—until you opened your eyes at the loud thud of the Mandalorian jumping back down into the hull, ignoring the ladder all together. He walked purposefully towards what looked like a storage bay, set the sleeping child down inside, and closed the door with a snap. He turned slowly to face you.

***

Chapter 2

#my writing #din djarin x female reader #din djarin x f!reader #mandalorian fanfic #mature #din djarin x you #the mandalorian x you #the mandalorian x female reader #mandalorian reader insert #tempered glass

[suitetarts]

pockets full of stone

A mer-may collab with @miranhas-art 💙 See below the cut for another gorgeous Mari illustration! ... and my fic

Din Djarin nearly dies (again) and meets someone from the stories he heard as a child. He didn’t expect them to be so sassy, though.

Rating: General Word Count: 2.8k Warning: Description of drowning, thoughts of death, vomiting (water) AO3 Link

A push, grunt, then a large splash into the lake’s dark and chilled waters. 

This was the last time Din was going to talk business on a pier without his jetpack. He knew the bounty was desperate, and for Maker’s sake, the Quarren had thrown his body weight around earlier on the Crest trying to piss Din off by scaring the kid. He should have known better.

Din pulls himself back to the present and away from any blame. He could worry about that later. Or never, and he supposes he’ll find that out soon. His whole body feels incredibly heavy, much more than what he has grown used to over the years. Where metal meets man, he is dragged down; the weight of his padding and armor applying an inescapable pressure as the moonlight fades to black above him. He tries pulling at the water with his arms while kicking with his legs, grasping for anything, but still he feels himself sinking deeper. 

Wait, the… Who would take care of the baby if Din can’t....

His breaths are coming fast as he tries and fails to calm himself. Keeping his body upright means that the water still hasn’t crept into his helmet, which is something he can work with. But only for a short few moments. Din realizes he’s probably going to run out of breathable air before he reaches the bottom of this icy lake, much less walk out of it, as he continues to sink.

Din’s mind begins to fog as he figures he might be able to save himself if he loses some of the beskar. He doesn’t have the luxury to dwell on this, as close to his heart and soul the beskar may be. The armor will be at the bottom of the lake whether he succeeds or fails, so he gets going. His normally nimble fingers are cold and difficult, and they fail to find purchase on the slippery latches of his pauldrons. The cape wrapped around his chestplate in such a way to make it nearly impossible to remove without being able to look down and see it. His head lolls forward, allowing water to rush into his helmet and the dwindling air pocket. Din’s mouth and nose are full of water, his throat contracts, his chest stutters, his lungs burn. He can’t focus on the latches to his armor or removing his belts, all he can feel is the cold depths rushing all around and within.

Fuck.

Fuck.

The Mandalorian reflects for a moment. He’s done his best, but his best wasn’t good enough. This is it. He’s flirted with this for years, and it's finally here. Is it honorable? Probably not. Is it what he deserves? Most likely. What’s his legacy? A lifetime spent trying to be worthy of being saved, only to waste it. Figures.

Before Din lost consciousness, two glowing blue lights rushed towards him, but he was too far gone to care. He was finally warm.

Death is a funny thing. No one really knows what happens in the instant before it actually happens. Everyone says they know, but obviously they don’t. There’s no certainty in death, just like in life. What happens to someone when they cross the veil, from one world to the next? If it's anything like traveling at lightspeed, Din knew that like the back of his hand. A shudder felt through the hull, a pause, and then that’s it. Silence and flashes of stars, except perhaps these would fade to black before long. What would he see in those stars? A story?

If Din was to see a story before he died, he knew plenty of them. He had once been fond of the stories that came from strangers. He would beg his father to take him to the cantina, to let him sit in the dirty booths and eavesdrop on the travelers talking about their recent journeys to Coruscant or to any number of exotic planets in the outer rim. The idea of being totally free to do whatever Din wanted in the whole entire galaxy was so thrilling, especially compared to his reality of being tied down to his father’s shop in the bazaar forever. What kind of story would that make for, compared to what was out there in the stars? There were dashing pilots, gunners and soldiers, merchants, bounty hunters, peacekeepers, missionaries. Stories of war in far off places, of mysterious species unlike anything he’d ever dreamed, of personal loss, of unexpected love. Whenever he asked to go -- before, that is -- his mother would give his father a look, one that was always angled so that Din couldn’t see, and then his father would relent and take the young boy out for the afternoon. But eventually, both of them would shush him when he asked. They stayed inside, ‘it’s not a good day’ his mother said, and kept the store closed. There were whispers of war, a real war. The whispers were exciting to Din at first, they reminded him of the stories. The heroes were going to swoop in to stop the bad guys and put everything back to normal. But then the whispers grew into screams, explosions, shooting. Where were the heroes? All the thrilling things he had heard in the cantina, but terrifying and happening to him with no one here to--

Stop. Din’s dead, and yet he continues to torture himself. If he gets one last laugh, it should be at himself.

Din didn’t want a story, or to relive his life. What about something he never got to do? He had always hoped that he could live in a fantasy, if only for a moment, where he could have a simple life. A moisture farmer on some backwater planet, or a working class mechanic for a Mid Rim starport. Although that was never a life he would actually want for himself, a simple life was always a nice thought for a different Din. One who wasn’t so…. damaged.

So here he is, a man on the brink of death. Is he seeing his life flash painfully before him again, is he living in a dream, is he nowhere at all?

A kiss. He’s being kissed.

Now, Din had never kissed anyone on the lips in life. He knew the steps, the basic mechanics, but he imagined that it was a much different experience to be kissing an actual active participant and not just the skin on the back of his own hand. There was a certain give and take that he was looking forward to -- a dance, a battle of will fought with plush lips and soft tongues. Even beyond the direct battlefield, there was the periphery of where one’s hands would be, knees intertwined, legs weak and swaying. His arm wrapped around their waist and his fingers brushing tenderly over their cheek, while they pull him in by the shoulders until they melt together.

He would have much rather died in a kiss like that.

In this brief moment of purgatory, however, he can settle for this one chaste kiss. This ‘kiss’ he is having now, if it’s to be called that, is… Hmm. It isn’t what Din imagined. Everything is dark, and it's not anything like a dance. This person seems to be gasping into him with their mouth wide open, like a fish out of water. Whoever he’s kissing has clearly never done this before either, otherwise why in Maker’s name would anyone want to kiss again? He strains his arms to reach forward at whatever is capturing his lips, but he can’t find his strength. He had never known that kissing would need to be so rushed, or involve so much blowing of air? He --

Oh.

Din grunts around a cough, finding himself on his back and in quite a bit of pain. His insides feel like they are saturated and about to burst. He rolls over onto his hands and knees on the muddy banks of the far side of the lake so that he can proceed to throw up an obscene amount of water, which only makes the burning in his lungs more and more painful with each heave.

A sigh of relief, a soft voice breaking through the silt caked in his ears which seems to speak only above a whisper. “I-I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Din freezes. The discomfort and pained heat in his chest is nothing compared to the inferno under the bare skin of his face. He continues to stare at the ground, but shifts his eyes up so that he is looking in the direction of his savior.

A human, scantily-clad with only a dark cloth wrapped around their chest and some sort of leather skirt, sits in front of him on the rocks, their legs still partially submerged in the murky lake water. They thumb at their wet lips as they smile at him, and he feels a blush creep from his face all the way down his chest. Those glistening, smiling lips had been on his lips.

His lips.

His face.

The Creed.

Despite a sensible voice in Din’s head trying to remind him that they had saved his life, despite the weakness that pervaded every inch of his body, a flare of anger rises in him. He is dar’manda now, because of them.

He pulls himself up into a seated position on the lakeside and puffs out his chest, only to find the pain evaporating his anger. “What did you do….” he asks himself.

Their smile fades as their brows furrow. “I think that’s pretty obvious. I saved your life.”

“I didn’t mean-- My life?” Din sighs around a laugh. He’s done this before, hasn’t he? Why’s this different from the cantina? Because this person isn’t made of metal? He knew going along with anything less than what the Creed requires of him would become a slippery slope. The tears come easily and he does nothing to stop them. “No, my life is over.”

They set one of their hands on the rock beside them, leaning their weight onto it and towards him. They open their mouth around a smirk, then pause. They start again, but with a blank sincere expression. “Why’s that?”

It’s probably the adrenaline from nearly dying and being unmasked again, but for a moment Din considers grabbing their arm and pulling them in for a real kiss. What does it matter now? His body shows no signs of his thoughts, not a single twitch of muscle, but his face must be betraying him as he watches their eyes train in on his as they purse their lips and smile with their dark, shimmering eyes. Whatever blush he still had on his face grew a shade darker.

“You’re a bold one.” They say around a smile, their long fingers twisting through their hair.

Din squeezes his eyes shut and turns away from them, towards the dark sky full of stars. His voice cracks as he gives weight to the words running through his mind, to the feeling of emptiness inside. “I’m dar’manda.”

They snort, and Din can’t help but whip his head at them. 

“Can’t be that big of a deal if I’ve never heard of it.”

Din expected them to not know, but not for them to be so arrogant about it. He had an explanation ready, but since he was caught off guard and doesn’t want to get lost in the weeds with this person, he summarizes the summary as, “It means I’m done. I can’t wear the armor anymore.”

“Because I saved you?”

“Because you’ve seen me,” Din explains, finding the familiar words of his Creed. “No living thing can see me without the helmet. That’s… that’s the one rule. And I broke it.”

“But I’m the one who broke it.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

They blow a raspberry and wave at the air with their free hand. “You humans really can be so dramatic.”

Din pauses, squinting up at the twinkling stars as he absorbs their words. Well. Now he’s curious. He brings his gaze back down at his savior. It's dark and he’d just drowned, but he didn’t see anything… off.

“You seem human to me,” he says as he turns over and sits back on his haunches.

“You seem duller than I hoped.” They bite their lips around a smile as they laugh softly. They pull their legs out of the water; the skirt seems to shine iridescent in the moonlight, like facets of a precious gemstone. Their feet were…. Hm. Their skirt, their legs, are covered in leather? No, scales…. 

Din finds his mouth gaping as he stares at a tail, the fin slapping wetly against the rocks in step with the drum of their fingers against their thighs -- singular, thigh?

As he struggles to think of a good first question, they purse their lips in thought. “Let me go get your hat,” they say before quickly slipping back into the lake.

“W-wait, it’s not a...,” Din calls out stupidly, launching himself slowly and awkwardly from his haunches and reaching out in the empty air where they once were. 

This can’t be real. Mystical, intelligent beings with the head and upper body of a human, but the fins and tail of a fish. He was more than familiar with the stories, but such creatures were just children’s tales. Although, what was fiction now that he is taking care of a fifty year old infant with telekinetic powers? The galaxy was a big place, he supposed.

The mer-person seems to come back just as fast as they’d left, setting Din’s helmet on the shore at his feet before pulling themselves back up to sit their colorfully-scaled behind on the rocks.

Din reaches down and fumbles for a moment with the beskar, checking the inside before placing it back on his head. The pads are damp and uncomfortable, but not any more uncomfortable than feeling so exposed. “Thank you.” 

“It's no problem, hat boy,” they prod as they casually clean their fingernails. Din bristles.

“It’s not a hat.”

“And I’m not alive,” they say seriously, looking at Din’s eyes through the visor somehow. The jovial tone fades to a comfortable yet tense silence. He tilts his head, waiting for them to continue their thought.

“Why get yourself all worked up? No one would believe you if you told them about me anyway.”

“I would know,” Din states softly. The tension dissipates but the two stay motionless. Din contemplates and shrugs minutely in defeat. He would know, yes, but he already knows. This isn’t the first time he’s failed when his Creed has been tested. Yet, who would argue whether droids or mer-people are ‘living beings’? The line is blurry, so it's up to Din to decide when the line is crossed. Considering his responsibility to his foundling’s care, he pushes the thoughts of being dar’manda far from his focus, into hiding in the recess.

Ripples from the lake, bouncing moonlight off of its surface, catches his attention. Save for a brief fading view of two blue lights in the dark water, nothing. They are gone, and Din is alone. His wet lungs wheeze as he reaches down, patting along the areas where they had been, searching for any remnants of their existence. An imprint, a misplaced item, a loose scale. Not a trace.

After a moment, Din pulls himself to his feet and trudges up through the pocket of trees surrounding the lake to a small path leading back to the pier. It had only been ten minutes or so since he had been pushed into the lake, but the bounty and his client were gone. Din assumed they both left giddily, since the bounty could think he was dead and the client didn’t have to pay the back half of his premium. Wasn’t the first time, after all.

The Razor Crest’s security lights flickered to life as her prodigal son returned, the side bay ramp welcoming him inside with a flick of the wrist. As Din walked up the ramp, he was faced with an empty carbonite rack -- and more accurately, what amounted to an empty coffer. He wondered if he still had some of the murky lake water swimming through his brain because he couldn’t bring himself to care.

The beskar helmet quickly pivoted away from the carbonite chamber as he heard a grumble and the shuffling of blankets. The baby stirred from their shared cot, chirping and cooing to be held. Din crossed the hold with long, swift strides and obliged, removing his damp and filthy gloves to thumb over the baby’s warm cheeks.

Din sucked in a breath to speak, but paused. No one would believe you if you told them about me anyway. He would always know, but… He had nothing to hide from his sweet little foundling.

Din sat on the floor below the cot, leaning against the wall as he cradled the sleepy babe in the crook of his legs. The lake water dripped off of him slowly, glinting in the safe yellow glow of home as Din told a story.

#the mandalorian #mando #din djarin #original gender-neutral character #mermay #mando mermay #the mandalorian fanfic #mando fanfic #fic and art collab #gen fic #no romance or smut #pov din djarin #din centric #mando may

[robininthelabyrinth]

Nie Huaisang's reaction to the events in quiet room-verse

Chapter 3 of The Quiet Room (ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2)

-

Nie Huaisang’s day began, as always, with noise.

The Unclean Realm was like that – there wasn’t a single shichen of the day when there wasn’t at least some racket going on in the background, whether the sound of sabers whistling through the air and the grunting of men at the thrice-daily trainings on the fields, the din of hammering rising up from the forges alongside the smoke, the squeals and squawks of the various types of animals being harried to and fro, the shouting and haggling and people sounds that filled the bustling markets (both day and night) that had sprung up within the Unclean Realm’s fortress as a wartime tradition some generations back and which had never gone out of fashion.

Guests sometimes complained about it, saying that people walked through the halls at night (what did they think halls were for) or that there were too many birds outside (that didn’t sound like a problem) or the cats were yowling again (okay, the feral cat thing was a bit of a problem but at least they didn’t have a rat problem) or about all the loud noises of living people. Those who were born and raised there scarcely noticed it, and those that stayed acclimated eventually.

Those who really couldn’t handle it built themselves thicker walls.

Nie Huaisang was woken up that day with an especially loud bang that he suspected was something important tipping over somewhere, never a fortuitous start, but the day itself went pleasantly enough after that. He lazed around in the morning, snuck in a belated breakfast from an indulgent kitchen, begged out of saber training in the middle of the day with an excuse so transparent that Nie Zonghui looked like he was considering constructing a window with it, and finally settled quite happily on the balcony with a few of his favorite birds to paint.

It was not, strictly speaking, his balcony – it connected to the sect leader’s suite of rooms, not his own, and his brother used it fairly often when he was flying in and out of the Unclean Realm on business.

Nie Mingjue was currently away at the Cloud Recesses, not on business. Visiting his handsome lover again, and Nie Huaisang found it amusing all over again that his misanthrope of a brother, of all people, had somehow managed to snag the most eligible young master of their generation – that he had what everyone else wanted and couldn’t get.

His brother. Good for him!

Still, his brother being gone meant that the balcony was free, and it was one of Nie Huaisang’s favorite places to lurk: he had an excellent view of so many parts of the Unclean Realm, wonderful light, and no one would dare to intrude on his brother’s domain just to bother him.

It was a good day, bright and noisy in the best of ways, right up until it wasn’t.

Nie Huaisang felt more than saw Baxia approaching, the thrum of his own saber – casually propping up his easel – immediately recognizable, and he couldn’t help but smile in delight at the thought of seeing his brother even if it meant he was probably not getting out of saber practice today.

It was only odd, he thought, that the smear on the horizon that would be his brother approaching seemed larger than usual –

And then, all of a sudden, it was very much not a good day.

His brother was covered in blood, clearly his own, and his eyes were vacant and dull – shock, perhaps? – and he was leaning on Lan Wangji, who looked equally awful. There was fresh blood staining the back of his neck and creeping up his shoulders, ugly shadows on white robes, and his face was stricken, savaged by pain that was not merely external.

Nie Huaisang was frozen for a moment, watching them come, unable to believe it, and yet –

“Doctor!” he screamed, his voice dropping into a register he’d never used before, loud and bellowing and straight from the belly. A battlefield voice, like his brother’s, and he could see out of the corner of his eye all the disciples in the training field jumping, startled, as if they’d been shocked by lightning. “Someone get a doctor!”

The next bit was chaos, of course: the thunder of dozens of feet on stone, servants running to get anyone with medical skill, running to get water and bandages and acupuncture needles, anything that would help, and everyone talking all at the same time even as a dozen hands reached out to pluck the two tired cultivators down from the sky.

Not two, Nie Huaisang corrected himself as he took the small child out of his brother’s arms – said child was yawning and frowning, clearly displeased at being taken away from Nie Mingjue’s arms, and Nie Huaisang couldn’t blame him one bit; it was undoubtedly the best place in the world to be. There was another child in Lan Wangji’s trembling hands as well.

“Any more you’ve got hidden away?” he asked Lan Wangji, drawing him away from the disciples who had eyes only for their sect leader. “Under your clothing, maybe?”

Nie Huaisang would rather be there, with them, with his brother, but he’d studied medicine with about as much fervor as he’d studied any other serious subject – which was to say, none at all – and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything to help. For the first time he bitterly regretted his laziness.

Not even during the war had his brother ended up – like this.

“No,” Lan Wangji said. His voice was small and sad, and he was shaking. “Just…just them.”

“Good to know,” Nie Huaisang said. “How badly are you injured? You’re still standing, but I don’t like your color…”

“I want to report,” Lan Wangji said. His lips were pressed tightly together, and he was looking at something in the distance; it was as if he’d lost his soul.

“You’re hurt,” Nie Huaisang said patiently. “Is it anything that can’t wait…?”

“I want to report,” Lan Wangji said again, more insistently, and – well, he was Lan sect. They thrived on rules; it was their baseline, the foundation of their mental world, and whatever had happened to the two of them, Lan Wangji was clearly fragile right now.

“You can report to me,” Nie Huaisang said, a snap decision. “I’m the heir; in my brother’s absence, I have authority to take whatever actions are necessary once I understand the situation.”

And his brother was absent, or as good as: he’d collapsed the second they’d landed, eyes rolling up into his skull – he’d clearly been clinging to consciousness by the barest thread of willpower by the end of it.

“Before anything else, though, is there anything we need to know about my brother’s condition?” he asked. “Anything that will help, or hurt –”

Is it a qi deviation, he wanted to ask but didn’t, couldn’t. It couldn’t be that, it couldn’t, not his brother – not his father, not again –

(His brother’s fingers were bloody, nails broken, as if he’d been tearing at something with them, and Nie Huaisang didn’t like the way they matched up in size to some of the marks on his brother’s face.)

“He needs sound,” Lan Wangji said. “He can’t be left alone…he was in the jingshi.”

“The – wait, the quiet room?” Nie Huaisang gaped at Lan Wangji. “That horrible, awful pit of hell that you crazy people threw into your décor – that jingshi?”

He paused, grimaced. “Uh, no offense –”

“You’re right,” Lan Wangji said, and buried his face into his hands. “You’re right.”

Nie Huaisang did a quick calculation, handed the children off to some servants, and then dragged the other man out of the room and towards his brother’s study.

“Sit,” he commanded, and seated himself in the sect leader’s place unconsciously. “Don’t worry about quiet; after he showed up like that, there’s no way anyone will leave him alone – he’ll be begging for some peace soon enough. Now report.”

Lan Wangji straightened his back – with a wince, Nie Huaisang noted, and that meant whatever injury he had was on his back – and reported.

Nie Huaisang took notes at the beginning, but then stopped after he broke the brush between his fingers, something that had never happened to him before.

“Keep going,” he said when Lan Wangji paused. “Don’t stop.”

Lan Wangji continued his recitation, his voice dull and monotone, but the words…

“Thank you for telling me,” Nie Huaisang squeezed out, feeling strangely light-headed. He stood up and went to the door, catching the first servant he saw. “I want the defensive arrays closed to all visiting cultivators, and all visitor tokens revoked until I say otherwise – especially any from the Jin or Lan sects. Go tell whoever needs to be told to accomplish that.”

The servant stared at him. “Second Young Master –”

“That was not,” Nie Huaisang said, “a request.”

The servant saluted.

“You’re bleeding,” Lan Wangji said.

Nie Huaisang turned his head and frowned at him. “I think you’ll find that you’re the one that’s bleeding.”

“No, you –” He touched his nose.

Nie Huaisang didn’t understand until he echoed the action on his own face and realized his nose was bleeding. A bit strange; he hadn’t suffered from nosebleeds since the time his father died.

He pressed a handkerchief to his face and went back to his brother’s desk. “All right,” he said. “That will get us a bit more time, I think, though they’ll probably waste forever going to get Zonghui’s sign-off on the orders –”

But no, he was wrong – wrong again – because he could see the distant shimmer that was the Unclean Realm’s shielding array flickering into existence in the distance, could hear the sound of drums alerting the common people that they should withdraw back to their homes to avoid the possibility of interfering with a battle.

Perhaps alone of the Great Sects, Qinghe still held regular drills on what to do in the event of an invasion, and even through the thick walls of the study he could hear the casual grumbles of all the people forced to cut their day short – not too much grumbling, of course, since they knew that the Nie sect would send money to each household to compensate them for their trouble as long as they cleared the way fast enough. Doing something like that meant that they would always move, and quickly, too; it was ridiculously expensive, of course, but it meant that the streets would be clear and that no spy or troublemaker would be able to make their way into the Unclean Realm by blending in with the crowd.

It meant that they would be able to see their enemies coming.

“Was that necessary?” Lan Wangji asked. “They will not invade.”

“No?” Nie Huaisang said, and laughed. It hurt his throat. “You’re surer of that than I am. After all, you just told me that my er-ge and san-ge just conspired to murder my da-ge.”

Lan Wangji flinched. “I do not think it was…”

“It might not have been intentional on your brother’s part,” Nie Huaisang conceded. “Meng Yao, though? He was my brother’s deputy; there is no way he didn’t know what my brother thinks about that place. Piece of shit.”

They’d grown distant, Nie Huaisang remembered; his brother, who never abandoned anyone and guarded his people closer than gold, had turned his back on Meng Yao, and had needed to be coaxed back into accepting him. He’d assumed his brother was being petty over something or another, but that was petty of him, short-sighted, thinking only of himself and how much he’d missed his friend.

He resolved to find out exactly what had happened between them as soon as his brother was capable of telling him. He thought that it might be important.

“Your brother, though,” he added. “I always thought he was sincere towards my brother. That he really loved him.”

“He does. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, sincerity doesn’t mean shit,” Nie Huaisang said. “If he didn’t intend on murder, he did something that would have ended up that way. Even accidental killings call for justice, and this is – this isn’t okay, Lan-xiong.”

“I agree.” Lan Wangji closed his eyes. “I have asked Chifeng-zun for permission to stay.”

At first Nie Huaisang was confused – why would Lan Wangji need permission to hang out in the Unclean Realm? – and then he realized Lan Wangji meant for good.

The first thing he thought was oh, wow, that’s going to have some serious political implications and the next thing, somewhat more reasonably, was, I’m really angry about this and so is he.

“You are correct. Even if my brother’s feelings are sincere, it is no excuse,” Lan Wangji said. “In his desire to help your brother, in his refusal to listen to him and trust him, he nearly killed him. He is sect leader; no matter the reason, in the end, all things that happen within the Cloud Recesses are his decision.”

Just like what happend to me.

“We’ll deal with it,” Nie Huaisang promised. Even if his brother might be inclined to forgive after a while, overly generous as he always was with those he loved, he himself would not; Lan Wangji nodded, looking relieved. “Now can we please get you some medical assistance? Thirty-three hits with the discipline whip – I’d be dead. If I were you, I’d be dead. I can’t believe your brother agreed to it.”

Mine never would.

Nie Huaisang had never gotten along with Lan Wangji before, their personalities too distant, but their eyes met and there was a moment of perfect understanding.

He helped Lan Wangji up and let him lean on him as they went towards to the medical room.

When they were most of the way there, Lan Wangji spoke again. “Nie-gongzi…”

“Huaisang, please. Nie Huaisang if you must. If you’re going to be staying here, we can’t be formal with each other. Unclean Realm rule!”

“…Nie Huaisang.”

“Yes?”

“Your brother…”

Nie Huaisang stopped and looked at Lan Wangji, who was struggling for words more than he struggled to step forward. “What about him?”

“He was…once lovers with Lianfeng-zun?”

“What?” Nie Huaisang asked, surprised into a laugh. “No, of course not. He’d never betray er-ge like that; he’s been mad for him ever since they were children. Even if he was the sort of person who would do something like that, which he’s most assuredly not, he’s also not the sort of person who would ever enter into a relationship with a subordinate, and Meng Yao was his subordinate for most of the time they knew each other. They were friends at best.”

He paused, then, the laughter fading quickly. “Why do you ask?”

“Lianfeng-zun told my brother they were.” Lan Wangji was staring dully ahead again, and swallowed hard. “That they’d been lovers before.”

“And what, that their fight was some lover’s tiff?” Lan Wangji’s silence was eloquent. “That’s ridiculous. Why in the world would he concoct such an absurd and pointless lie, so easily disproven? What does it even get him?”

Lan Wangji averted his eyes.

A moment of thought later, and Nie Huaisang had his answer, his spine growing cold.

“Your brother wanted to have them both,” he said, and felt his nails drive into the center of his palms. “He wanted it so much that he didn’t bother questioning it when Meng Yao told him that he was also lovers with my brother, because if my brother was with him, then it wouldn’t be a betrayal for him to be with him, too. He thought…what? That they were some happy triad?”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“My brother doesn’t know.”

Lan Wangji hesitated, but shook his head. “I do not think so.”

“Fuck.”

Nie Huaisang did not want to have to break his brother’s heart all over again.

“Okay,” he said, and closed his eyes tightly for a moment before opening them again. “Okay. Fine. This is – terrible, yes, absolutely but at least it tells us that whatever your brother’s motives, Meng Yao, at minimum, must be malicious.”

Lan Wangji frowned, then followed his thought and nodded. “He deliberately utilized a falsehood to convince my brother to enter into a relationship with him. He may have used others to convince him to trap your brother in the jingshi.”

“Assuming your brother isn’t in on the plan to kill da-ge, and I’m sorry, we really do have to keep that option open. Even Meng Yao…it’s a surprise, you know? He was my brother’s deputy, they got on really well – even though they had their differences, that big fight, it seemed like they were getting over it. They swore brotherhood, and you know how seriously my brother takes that sort of thing.”

Lan Wangji nodded again.

“Also, it’s just – mystifying,” Nie Huaisang continued, slipping easily into the tone of complaint as he shouldered Lan Wangji’s weight again and continued on their way to the doctors’ wing. “Meng Yao’s so smart! Even if he wanted to kill my brother to get your brother all to himself, which he very well might, he’s also been breaking his back to come here on a weekly basis to help my brother, playing him that Clarity song that your brother found –”

“I thought he had stopped that?”

“Well, yes, temporarily, but that’s just because da-ge was getting worried about how bad things were getting and wanted to get things in order…” Nie Huaisang came to a sudden halt once again. “Lan-xiong, I’ve been assuming – we’ve all been assuming – all the while that my brother’s deteriorating health is because of the war, and that the songs er-ge and san-ge were playing for him were helping slow it down. But what if…”

He didn’t want to say it.

“If there was one murder attempt, there may be another,” Lan Wangji said, his voice heavy. “Musical cultivation can harm as well as heal – it is possible.”

Nie Huaisang scrubbed his face with his sleeve. “But…doesn’t that mean your brother has to be part of it? He’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place.”

“He may have originated it, and Lianfeng-zun alterted it without his knowing. Your brother…might not have noticed such a substitution.”

“He’s very nearly tone-deaf,” Nie Huaisang agreed, not without fondness. “It’s amazing he understands human speech, really. It’s possible, I guess.”

“Brother’s involvement is…also possible,” Lan Wangji said, and closed his eyes. “I do not wish to believe it, but – if there truly have been two attempts, and he has not only failed to notice, but is in each one a key part…”

“We’ll work it out,” Nie Huaisang said. “Now come along. We need to get you back into something resembling mobility and health and fast.”

Lan Wangji hesitated, and Nie Huaisang knew why: do you need me better in order to fight against my brother?

“We have disciples for that,” he reminded him. “No, it’s just, you see, I’m terrible with children, and someone is going to need to chase after the two you brought with you – they’ll be laughing and screaming and crying and snotting all over the place before you know it, mark my words, and there goes any chance of getting a decent night’s sleep for the next few years. I’m telling you, Lan-xiong, you have no idea about how children are – they’re going to make so much noise!”

Lan Wangji smiled.

It was such an unusual sight that Nie Huaisang almost forgot to take his next step.

“Yes,” he said, and his words had the feeling of a vow. “They will.”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #lan wangji #my fic #my fics #the quiet room #okay technically this is me jumping ahead into the next round of prompts in advance #but I wanted to write more of this #breadlovinggay