#Baar Bal Runi

[hdlynn]

Fanfic This or That

Tagged by no one I just saw it from my likes while cleaning up and wanted to do it X’D

Bold what you prefer.

slow burn or love at first sight

fake dating or secret dating

enemies to lovers or best friends to lovers

oh no there’s only one bed or long-distance with correspondence

hurt/comfort or amnesia

fantasy au or modern au

mutual pining or domestic bliss

smut or fluff

canon-compliant (missing scenes) or fix-it fic

alternate universe or future fic

one-shot or multi-chapter

kid fic or road trip fic

reincarnation or character death

arranged marriage or accidental marriage

high school romance or middle-aged romance

time travel or isolated together

neighbors or roommates

sci-fi au or magic au

bodyswap or genderbend

angst or crack

No Pressure tags: @aerynwrites @pikemoreno @maybege @princessbatears @foreversfangirl @huliabitch @anxiety-riddled-mando @bunnyart-blog and anyone else who wants to do it <3

[ssuperficialspacecadett]

The Calm Before the Storm

Chapter Fifteen of The One Condition Series | Chapter Sixteen

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5.4k

Summary: Pretty Thing and Din spend some time together on The Crest as they head to Daiyu

Notes: I'm back from my little break !! Sorry this was posted way later than I usually do ): This is finals week for me at my university and its safe to say I'm getting my ass beat. Anywayyyy I'm happy to be back and I hope everyone enjoys this chapter (: Feel free to comment !! Happy reading <3

Gar ganar haar haal, baar, bal runi akay haar oyu’baat hettir dayn: [gahr] [GAN-ar] [har] [hahl] [BAR-oor] [bahl] [roo-NEE] [ah-KAY] [har] [oy-YOO-baht] [HAYt-eer] [dain]

Mesh'la: [MAYSH`lah]

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

You almost missed it. A small puff of air causes your hair to flutter. You stop crying and hold your breath. You could have imagined it. It could have just been the wind, but you wait for it again. You feel tiny strands of your hair dance around as another puff of air, accompanied by a heaving chest, makes itself known. 

“I’m stronger than I look, Sweetheart.”

“D-dad?”

“That’s what I’m t-told.”

Even at a time like this your father finds a way to crack a joke. He does his best to smile at you even though you are sure he is in indescribable pain. 

“I’m so sorry, baby.” You can see tears spilling from his eyes. “I should have done more to prevent this from happening. I just never thought-”

“This wasn’t something anyone could have predicted he would do.”

He closes his eyes and slowly nods his head; words getting progressively harder to articulate due to his loss of blood.

“T-the money. I hid it.”

“You what?”

“Under that tree that you two used to climb? It’s all there.”

You don’t know what to say. All you can do is stare blankly at him.

“Take it, baby…please…get far away from here.”

The clouds gathering in the night sky above the two of you finally break open. Rain begins to pour down all around. You place your forehead against your fathers and feel his last breath roll across your damp skin. You aren’t sure if it's the rain or your tears wetting your face at this point. You hold him close as you finally hear the inevitable blaster shot ring out from inside your house. You thank The Maker that your father isn’t alive to hear his wife's death be audibly confirmed. The front door slams open and shut again and you know you are the only living being in the house. Alden has fled the scene of his own horrific crime; his empty hands dripping with blood. 

When the rain threatens to drown you, you find the strength to push yourself to your feet. Your stomach still burns from where Alden rammed his foot into you. Enough logic remains in your body to know that your wound isn’t fatal, but you need to stop the bleeding. The rain makes your shirt sleeve harder to rip off, but the old fabric eventually gives to your will. You fashion it around your neck and hope that it has enough pressure to quell the bleeding for now. 

If you hadn’t lived here your whole life, finding the tree your father spoke of in this torrential downpour would have been impossible. You locate it and kneel before its protruding roots. You don’t even realize you have started digging until your fingers make contact with a wooden box. You numbly remove it from the muddy crevice it has been placed in, barely registering how raw your hands have become from clawing at the earth. 

When you open it you almost feel like laughing. Your body and brain are so exhausted from what has just transpired that nothing feels real. Staring back at you is the cause of your parents death, a.k.a. 50,000 credits. This small box is the reason you have no home to go back to, no family left, and no idea what to do next. 

You wake up feeling a bit relieved. The nightmare sequence is over…at least until it starts again. You are currently living in the next chapter of it you reckon. You made the choice to do something about the memories that plague you. You hired a bounty hunter, you traveled through space, you confronted Thuban, and now you are on your way to Alden. This is going to end. It has too. Din had set the nav for Daiyu, the second time now, late last night. You remember laughing as he hurried out of bed to get to the cockpit. He was muttering something about you ‘keeping the bed warm’ and him not needing another thruster blown out ‘on account of a simple disagreement’. 

He is sound asleep next to you now. His arms wrap around your body snuggly like ivy to a brick wall. You like being the first one awake. It gives you time to soak in this feeling; to live in the now. It also gives you time to reflect on what he said last night.

“Being with what is mine always makes me feel better.”

He called you his. Then he fucked you like you were his. He said it first with words and then with his body. A shiver of excitement rolls through you. You were his. His girl. His Cyar’ika. His sweet thing. You lift the arm that's around your waist up to your lips.

“Mine.”

You whisper and kiss his arm over and over again. Each kiss pressing the word deeper into his skin so it becomes ingrained there. All care for sounding insane and childish has flown out the window into hyperspace. You have never had anyone call you theirs before. You had never mattered that much to anyone in this way before. You were going to take full advantage of the feeling. If that means whispering your truth into his skin in the early hours of the morning, then so be it. 

“Wha’s tha’, pretty thing?” A groggy voice interrupts your personal incantation.

“It’s nothing,” you laugh nervously like a child who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “I was just talking to myself.”

“You’re not getting off that easy.” His arms work in unison to bring you flush with his own body. A chin comes to rest on the top of your head and while you can’t see you know he is smiling. “I’m curious to know what was being said as my arm got kissed so ardently.”

“I was saying … ‘mine’.”

“Mine?”

“Yes.” 

“And what would you be calling yours, Cyar’ika?” His voice sounds so sultry when he asks.

“More like who would I be calling mine.”

“I’m listening.”

“You. I was calling you mine. Is that okay?”

He answers your timid question by placing his hand on your chin and tilting your face up to his. His lips engulf yours quickly. Your two bodies melt together easily as he moves his hand to cup the side of your face; as if he is afraid you will slip away. You can’t help but let a moan slip at his sudden action. You didn’t see it coming, in more ways than one. Your lips are always so pliant for him. They part like a biblical sea for his tongue. Each of you paw and pant as you drink your fill of each other.

“Gar ganar haar haal, baar, bal runi akay haar oyu’baat hettir dayn.” He says after pulling away to let you catch your breath.

“The last part of the sentence I understood, but the first part is new.”

“It roughly translates to ‘you have the breath, body, and soul until the universe burns out’.”

“Breath, body, and soul.” You whisper to yourself.

“Breath, body, and soul,” he repeats. “I want to be yours in every way possible. I never thought I would want to …give myself… to someone like this in my life. I was completely fine with it being just me and the kid. Then you decided to come along and turn everything upside down.”

“I want you in any and every way you will allow me too, Din.” 

“As long as I can have you in the same way, you’ve got a deal.”

“Until the universe burns out.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

In an attempt to keep the child entertained, you had started turning anything that wasn’t tied down to The Crest into a toy. First there was a piece of scrap metal. You figured that placing him in the middle of it and trying to spin him would be fun. You were wrong. He might still have been laughing when you stopped spinning, but you certainly weren’t. His breakfast must have decided that you were going too fast because it came back up to say ‘hi’ to you and to the hull floor. After that you found a small strip of rope. You pretended to make it move in a serpentine pattern. You both laughed as you made the faux creature slither all around his little body. You must have been doing too good of a job at mimicking the movements of a real animal because the kid decided to try to eat it. You spend a good five minutes trying to pry the rope out of his little teeth. Who knew he would have such strong jaws?

You decide to bring him over to your bed to play an invigorating game of peek-a-boo. You sit down with your back against the crate that acts as your headboard and place him in front of you. As you adjust yourself, your tote, that's propped up on your right, slouches against your body. The child coos as you move it back to an upright position. 

“I don’t think I have anything in there that would interest you, little one.”

Unphased by your statement, he reaches out his hands and makes a grabbing motion. You figure that if rummaging through your bag of clothes would keep him occupied, you should let him do it. You grab the tote and place it down in between the two of you. You flick open the clasp and lift the flap. He pushes himself up and waddles over to the wondrous new world you have just revealed to him. While you should be annoyed as he flings your clothes out left and right, you just smile down at him. With all the trouble that he is, and he definitely is, he’s worth it. 

When you spent all that time alone on Eadu, you longed for something interesting to happen. Something that would pull you from the monotony of your self induced isolation. Who knew that The Maker would finally answer your desperate pleading in the form of a tiny, green child. You obviously haven’t had the time to have your own children yet. It wasn’t even something that had entered your mind until you were face to face with those beautiful, big, brown eyes. Trust was something that was important to you when it came to family and there was clearly a lack of that in your life. Things are different now, but having one child is more than enough for you. 

The deeper into the bag he digs, the more sounds of excitement he emits. Your clothes now litter the bed. When he inevitably reaches the bottom of your bag he looks up at you in confusion. 

“I told you there wouldn’t be anything interesting.” You laugh.

He looks into the empty tote again and pulls it forward to lay it down. You watch curiously as he crawls halfway inside. The tote, from your point of view, looks alive. It is wriggling around and the spots where his ears are making the fabric protrude outward. You hear a zipping noise coming from inside and see him crawl his way back out again. Your body goes rigid when you see what he found. A small bag, the same worn leather as your tote, filled with credits. Their deceivingly joyful jingle rings out as he shakes it in his hands. A wave of guilt rolls over you. Something as pure as he is shouldn’t be playing with blood money. 

“Baby, are you sure that is what you want to play with?” 

The money itself isn’t inherently bad, it's what it stands for that is. Blood was shed to find it, and blood being shed will earn it. 

“Maybe we can find something else for you-” 

As you reach for the credits bag he pulls it away from you and shakes his head. He is clearly determined to play with it. While you are less than happy to let him play with this bag versus the first one, you know when to pick your battles. You lean back against the crate, subconsciously trying to get your body as far away from the bag as you can, while he tries to open it. He pulls at it with his claws first and when that fails he tries his teeth. Your sympathy for him overpowers your own complicated feelings and you take it from him. The knot you tied around it is absolutely covered in drool and saliva at this point. It takes you a few seconds, but you finally release the knot. You hand it back to him and return to your previous position. He wiggles his fingers inside to fully open it up and again squeals in excitement at what he finds. He mirrors his previous actions and starts pulling credits out one by one. You know that there are fifty in there, so this should keep him busy for a while.  

Soon your clothes covered bed becomes gilded. Once the last credit had been removed from the bag, the baby just looked around at all the havoc he wreaked. You think he looks quite pleased with himself. He picks up a credit and examines it closely. He tries to put it in his mouth and he even manages to get a laugh out of you with the disgruntled face he makes. 

“Well,” you sigh. “Are you going to help me clean all of this up?”

He just smiles at you and shakes around the credit he has in his hand. You manage to collect all the coins and get them in a haphazard pile in front of the kid. You teach him how to place each one in the bag they belong in before starting on your own task of refolding your clothes. It takes you all of ten minutes to get the clothes folded and sorted back into your tote. Unsurprisingly, the credit that you had placed in the bag to show the child how to do it has somehow found its way out of the bag again. 

“Alright, new plan.”

You remove the now empty bag from in front of him and place it in front of you. 

“You are going to hand me a credit and then I’m going to put it in the bag, okay?”

He nods and hands one over. You gingerly take it from him and begin what you can only assume will be a long cleaning up process. After you take the second credit from him and drop it in the bag, the coins clink together. His ears perk up at the sound and he hurriedly gives you another. Each time you drop a coin in the bag and the sound rings out, his ears twitch. It has got to be the single cutest thing you have ever seen. You try not to make a sound just in case that will cause him to stop. You can feel your heart overflowing with love for this curious little creature. 

The two of you aren’t even half way through when he decides that you aren’t moving fast enough for him. Instead of handing you the next credit, he uses the force to bypass your hand. Right above the bag he makes it fall in. It jangles as it makes contact with the others. You sit back and watch in awe of him. Even after all these months you are still amazed that something so tiny could contain something so powerful. All that power and he decides to use it to make sounds with coins.

He has maybe five more credits left to do when his father comes down the ladder from the cockpit. You look over the crate at him and give him a soft smile as he comes up behind you. The heavy pressure of his hands resting on each of your shoulders feels so relaxing that you almost forget to tell him.

“Din, watch this,” you gesture to the child. “Come on, baby. Do the magic hand thing.”

The kid looks up at the two of you and waves happily.

“Oh come on! You were just doing it to pick up the credits! Remember?” 

You pick up two coins that were previously in the bag and ding them together. The baby only laughs as you make the noise he has grown so fond of over the last half hour. 

“Using my kid for manual labor, huh?”

“Oh shut up. He was just doing it! I swear!”

“Sure.” 

“No, no really! He would use the force to lift the credits up and place them in the bag.”

The child is no help while you attempt to plead your case. He only laughs and claps his hands while you try to convince him to move a coin again. You can feel Din’s hands on your shoulders shake as he silently laughs above you. When it becomes clear that no amount of coaxing will get him to do it, you wave the white flag and scoop up the last few credits. Din has moved around to the entrance of your bed now. He picks up the child as you safely return the bagged credits to your tote. As always, a gloved hand is extended to help you up when you finish your task. 

The three of you make lunch together. It is a bit crowded with so many bodies, but you don’t mind. Not even when your ingredients seem to go missing and the only evidence of their existence are crumbs on the child’s clothes. 

“You know you're going to ruin his appetite if you keep slipping him chunks of meat.” You playfully chide to the man next to you without looking up.

“He can eat a lot more than what we think,” he bumps your shoulder. “Plus I have been meaning to give him an extra portion.”

“Oh? What did he do to deserve that?”

“For being a good judge of character.”

Eventually you manage to get the meal into bowls and disperse them to their owners. You take the baby and get him settled down to eat in your bed. Then you make your way back to the pantry to pick up your bowl. Din hasn’t moved from his spot since you handed him his food. You can feel the conflict inside him. You had felt his eyes trailing your body through the beskar as you walked away with the kid. He wants to eat with the two of you, but can’t due to the creed.

“The kid and I are going to eat in my room. We would both like you to stay down here for lunch with us if you’re comfortable. If you decide you want to, just let me know when you are done. No rush.” 

Before you go you squeeze his hand that isn’t holding his food. You don’t want to pressure him, but you want him to know that you are more than willing to accommodate his needs. As you move to release him, he squeezes your hand back and his helmet moves slightly to the side. 

“Thank you.” He says your name before letting you go back to the child. 

The kid has devoured more than half of his meal by the time you get back. Din was right, he sure can put food away. You dig into yours after getting settled in. Not long after, you hear Din making himself comfortable against the opposite side of the crates. You smile to yourself as you chew. Meal time may be unorthodox for the three of you, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Naturally, the baby finishes eating first. When he realizes that you still have some left, he crawls into your lap. He is looking up at you with such pleading eyes. You almost give in and let him have the last bit of your food. 

“Nice try, but you already had a second helping.”

From behind the crate you can hear an unmodulated laugh. 

“You better be quiet over there,” you warn with mirth. “It’s a struggle to say ‘no’ to these big brown eyes.”

“I guess it’s best that you can’t see mine then.”

And just like that, the mental image you have been secretly working on in your mind is complete. You feel like you just got the wind knocked out of you. One tiny detail has completely thrown you off your axis. Brown. He has brown eyes. You had assumed they were brown, but now that you really knew you feel like you are one of the stars you have seen zipping by the window while traveling at light speed. You don’t know where you are going, but you don’t care. Even without seeing them, you can picture them so clearly in your mind's eye. His thick brows would sit above them just so. You think that his eye shape would slope down at the ends. Maybe from the weight of all of his years or maybe from the weight of his job. They wouldn’t be stern, no, they would be soft and caring. Perhaps even a little bit sad? They would be deep pools of mahogany. Showcasing his independence, his innate caring nature, and his confidence.

“Y-your eyes are brown?”

“Unless they have changed since the last time I looked in the mirror.”

His voice is soft. He doesn’t sound nonchalant as he talks. He just sounds…comfortable. You feel your chest swell with your newfound knowledge. You didn’t think your feelings for him could grow anymore, yet here you are. Falling a little deeper than you thought possible and not even worrying about if the ground under you will provide a soft landing or be unforgiving.

A voice, modulated, cuts through your proverbial swan dive. “I’m all covered up. Send the kid out and I’ll put him down for a nap. Lunch was delicious.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“You know that I was just messing around earlier, right?”

Strong arms circle your waist from behind and pull you into cool beskar. Your mind immediately goes to his eyes. Was he just kidding? Was it just a joke? 

“About what?”

“The kid using his powers to pick up the credits. I was just messing around. He did stuff like that before you came along too. I’m sure he just got shy.”

You feel yourself relax at his explanation and wrap your arms around his.

“So you just like making me feel crazy, is that it?”

“No, but I like watching you get all worked up.”

“How would you like to see me all worked up in the shower then?”

He pulls a deep breath in through his modulator at your words. You feel a welcoming pulsing between your legs as you let your mind start to wander. 

“Lead the way, pretty thing.”

He watches you undress from outside the fresher. Your body burns as the helmet dips down and up as you remove each article of clothing. Neither of you say a word as they drop to the ground. You can feel your own need radiating off your body as you finally kick off your underwear and move them to the side. The sound of the water running drowns out your shallow breathing. You mindlessly take your band off your neck and move to cover your eyes with it. 

“Stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The band. Don’t wear it.”

“Din, it’s just water. It won’t hurt it.”

He lets your statement hang in the air for a minute before he corrects himself.

“I don’t want you to wear it. I don’t give a damn about the water.”

You let it fall from your hands, discarded, just like the rest of your clothes. You turn and slip into the shower before he can change his mind. As the water warms your body up and wets your hair, you hear him removing his armor. Each time a piece of beskar makes contact with the hull floor your body vibrates with anticipation. When you hear the door of the fresher close behind him, your body feels as if it's floating. 

“Just close your eyes for me.”

You had them closed the moment you stepped under the water.

“You really trust me, Din?”

You jump slightly as his hands come up to cup your face. His lips come down to meet yours. Water trickles down in between the two of you as you swallow each other. 

“If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone.”

He moves behind your body so that his back is blocking the water’s spray. You shut your eyes tighter at the movement; determined to keep them glued shut. You feel his hand move your wet hair to your left side and kiss his way down your neck. He lingers only to leave sweet bruises that you know you will see tomorrow. Your head falls back as his tongue greets your skin like a lost lover. Even with the lack of hot water touching you, you have never felt warmer. 

He can’t believe he has you in his arms right now. He is flirting with excommunication. He watches as you extend your neck so he has more room to lick and suck on you. He can feel himself already hardening as your neck starts to look like a field of poppies. He wants to mark you all over. Make sure people know that you are his. He knows you would let him do anything to you; putty in his hands. That power scares him because he doesn’t know if you know that he would let you do anything to him as well. 

He keeps his eyes trained on your face as his hand moves down to your burning center. Your plush lips part slightly as he starts to rub tight circles on you. The meek whimpering sounds that spill out of your mouth threaten to make his knees buckle. This fear is made worse when you start to whisper his name out to him. 

“You sound so pretty when you say my name. Do you want this?” He makes need known to you as he pushes himself up against your ass. 

“Maker, please. I have been waiting for it all day.”

“If you want it, you have to earn it.”

He knows you know that that means. Two of his fingers slide easily into your slick folds. Your left hand comes up to dig your nails into his shoulder. He works the hand he has inside of you faster as you claw at him like an animal. Your body quickly adapts to the rhythm he has set for the two of you. You’re so beautiful, he thinks. Your brows are furrowed in concentration and the way your teeth bite your lower lip does nothing to silence your wanton moans.

“That’s it, Mesh'la. Cum for me.”

Your legs shake underneath him as he holds you steady. He whispers sweet nothings in your ear as you succumb to your climax. He carefully watches your eyes. He can see them darting around manically behind your tightly shut lids. 

“Such a good girl.” He croons. “Now you can have what you want.”

He moves the hand he was keeping you steady with up to your throat. He waits for you to say ‘no’ or ‘stop’, but you just smile as his grip tightens ever so slightly around it. He brings the fingers you soaked up to your lips. 

“Suck.”

Your mouth greedily takes them in. He has to grind into you to relieve the pressure building within himself as your tongue takes care of each finger. You don’t shy away. As you continue cleaning him off, he feels you arch your back and push up against him. When he can’t take it anymore he pops his fingers out of your mouth and uses your saliva to pump himself. He brings himself up to your entrance and chokes on a groan as you slide your way down unprompted. 

“You’re always so fucking tight, pretty thing. So tight around my cock.” 

He keeps his hand on your throat and moves the other back down to your clit. The two of you move together in unison. With each thrust into you he wills himself to hold on. You need to cum a second time. He keeps a steady pace with his hips, but his hand speeds up. 

“Y-you make me feel so good, Din.”

As the air around the two of you gets thick with steam, he feels you come undone for him a second time. The way your breath hitches and your body shakes is the strongest drug in the universe. It’s completely intoxicating to watch you fall apart for him. 

He gives you no time to recover as he keeps pounding into you. Your body is already drained from giving you two orgasms and your legs are wobbly from standing so long. You have never felt better in your life. When he wrapped his hand around your neck you expected to flinch or not feel comfortable, but all you felt was safety. You knew he would never hurt you and the pressure he applied and was still applying is thrilling. More so than you thought. You scratch your nails down from his shoulder to his bicep and feel him stutter inside you. He cums only a few pumps later. You feel what doesn’t stay inside you run down your legs and mingle with the water droplets on your skin.

When the two of you finish he turns your body back to where the water can fully reach you. He lathers you up with his soap and makes sure you’re all clean. Then he washes your hair. He’s gentle and makes sure not to pull on any knots you might have. You know your hair is past the point of completely soaped up, but you let him take as long as he wants. When it’s his turn to be washed clean, you try your best. He helps your blind self find his head and massage the soap into it. You make sure to take just as long as he did. While you scrub he periodically leans down to kiss your lips and your arms. The shudder your body makes when he touches you isn’t lost to him. 

When the water threatens to give each of you hypothermia, he shuts it off and wraps you in a towel. He dries you off completely before using the same one on himself. When he scoops you up you feel the towel securely fastened around his waist. You wish you could see the way his V tapers into the garment. He gently places you down on the edge of the bed while you hear him rummaging around in a drawer. He tells you to lift your arms up and slides one of his thick undershirts over your shivering body. 

“Do you want me to put my band on or…?”

“No.”

You leave it at that and crawl back under the covers. He follows rights after you and to your delight he has dropped the towel somewhere on the floor. He tells you that you should nap while the child does and when you insist that you aren’t tired a yawn breaks free. 

“That’s what I thought.” 

If you could roll your eyes you absolutely would. Maker, it’s so annoying when he’s right. As you huddle close to him you feel early signs of sleep creeping into your brain. You don’t want to let it take you before you can talk with him.

“Din? Do you ever have nightmares?” 

“Where is this coming from?”

“I don’t know. I guess sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who gets haunted by my past while I’m in the present.”

“I figured that’s what you dreamt about.”

“Yeah,” you scoot closer to him in the dark. “I replay what happened that night with Alden and my parents over and over again.”

“I used to get them. A lot actually.”

“What…what were they about?”

“My parents. I can see them so clearly protecting me before they die. They set me in this bunker and when they closed it an explosion went off. A droid opened the hatch and raised its blaster at me, but right before it fired a Mandalorian shot it.”

“Really?”

“The next thing I remember was being helped out and flown away by them.”

“What do you dream about now?”

“You.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

[absurdthirst]

Hi! New follower here, love your content🤍

I know you also help people find fics and you recommend a lot, which is absolutely awesome, so I hope its okay that I ask for recs myself. Lately I've been trying to find good plot compliant slow burn Mando fics, do you know any you can recommend? Can be all kinds of fics, reader, oc or gen canon divergence, I'm just in the mood for reading something longer than one shots. Thank you so much!🤍😊

Oh, there so many great Mando fics out there for those that like a longer story. Here are a few that come to mind!!!!

Stay Safe by @concussed-to-pieces

Losing My Religion by @oonajaeadira

Vencuyanir by @oolorea

Kair'ta by @bee-dameron

Baar Bal Runi by @di-kut (Bodyswap AU)

Take Me to Church by @frannyzooey (Western AU) (This one isn't slow burn due to the nature but I love it.)

The Lovely Moons by @vercopaanir

Resol'nare by @the-blind-assassin-12

Of Constellations and Creeds by @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa

There are like four by @dindjarindiaries

[remmysbounty]

congratulations on 200, love! 🤍 could i get a 🪐 drabble where they’re both bounty hunters that compete for the same bounties a lot? and din acts like reader annoys him but surprise surprise he has feelings for them?

Hi boo! Thank you so much for this request, I changed it up a tiny bit but I hope you like it 💛

riduur? riduur. // din djarin x fett!reader

As you sat across from Greef Karga you wondered if you’d have the chance to kill him or the Mandalorian who sat next to you without any of the bounty hunters in the cantina noticing, but you knew it wouldn’t be possible. You could have been partnered with anyone but of course you ended up with the one person you couldn’t stand- then again, you always worked alone. But still why did he have to pair you with the one person that you inevitably fought with at least once a month for a bounty.

Din watched as your eyes told him everything he needed to know about how you felt. To put it lightly, you were pissed, but unlike most of the hunters in this room who would act on their anger, you did nothing. You just sat there, nodding along as Greef told you more about the bounty.

Even when the two of you made it to the Razor Crest you kept your rage brewing, and all Din could do was watch. He wasn’t even sure what to say to you, the only thought running through his mind was how mesh’la you looked- even with all that anger.

The only time you spoke was when you saw some of the bounty’s friends try to sneak up on Din- and even then you surprised him, “Aru’e! Nor’be gar!”

Din was quick to defend himself but the fact that you can speak his people’s language only made him fall for you more. Now you were mesh’la o’r baar bal runi.

Once the two of you were in hyperspace he decided to find his courage and actually speak to you. He headed down to the hull where you had decided to wait out the flight and watched you, and you knew he was doing exactly that. He was still trying to find the right words when you turned to him and practically growled, “What do you want Mando?”

“Do you want to be partners?”

You dropped the piece of armor you were holding in your hand and it hit the floor with a resounding clang. When he came down here you were expecting him to say something snarky or criticize you, much like all the other bounty hunters had done, but as you watched him- his body language- you felt the only thing coming off of him was respect.

“Ok,” you stood up and walked over to him, holding your hand out to him, “Riduur.”

The teasing smile on your face told Din everything he needed to know as he shook your hand and said in response, “Riduur.”

––

translations:

mesh’la: beautiful

Aru’e! Nor’be gar!: Enemy! Behind you!

mesh’la o’r baar bal runi: beautiful in body and soul

riduur: partner (in this context)

––

Tin Man:  @captn-andor  @thewayofthemandalorian   @magpie-to-the-morning  @magicrowiswritingstuff  @booksmusicteaandanimals  @dinthisisthe-wayson  @littlemisspascal  @din-damn-djarin  @elysiansith  @dincrypt  @ohwaitimthewriter  @poesflygirl  @dindjarindiaries  @dindja  @dindjarinsghost  @reluctant-mandalore  @lathyrusodorxtus  @maybege @princessxkenobi

[mikeisthricedeceased]

Mike’s Fic Rec

Here are some of the fics that I’ve really enjoyed and/or am currently following! Each title is a link to the first part of that series.

One day, I’ll try to organize this a little better.

If you’re interested in anything I’ve written, here’s my Masterlist!

--

On Tumblr ~*~*~*~

Asterism (Paz Vizla x Reader) and Force Majeure (Pax Vizla x Jack Daniels x Ezra x Din Djarin x Reader) by @plexflexico

A Proper Mandalorian Courtship (Paz Vizla x Reader) and Urgency (Paz Vizla x Reader) by @anxiety-riddled-mando 

Coruscations (Obi-Wan Kenobi x OFC) and Unholy (Sith!Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader) by @beskars

Baar Bal Runi Series (Din Djarin x Reader / Body Swap AU) by @di-kut 

Back to You (Poe Dameron x Reader / Modern AU) by @twomoonstwosuns 

Whiskey & Gin (Agent Whiskey x Reader / 1970s AU) and Futile Devices (Javier Peña x Reader / Call Me By Your Name AU) by @zeldasayer

Room 205 (Javier Peña x OC) by @honeybeeespeaks

Of Princes & Berries (Oberyn Martell x Reader) and Honey & Velvet (Maxwell Lord x Reader) by @forever-rogue

The Woodmere Estate Series (Ezra x Reader / 1930s AU) by @hdlynnslibrary

A Gilded Lie (Maxwell Lord x Reader) by @maxlordd

Footprints in the Sand (Oberyn Martell x Ellaria Sand x Reader) and With Cherries On Top (Max Phillips x Reader / The Proposal AU) by @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa 

Anything and Everything Ezra Related and Sanctuary (Tovar x Reader) by @rzrcrst (Currently Unavailable)

Woman Series (Javier Peña x Reader) and Amas Veritas (Javier Peña x Reader / Practical Magic AU) by @stevieharrrr (Currently Unavailable)

On AO3 ~*~*~*~

Our Bodies Safe to Shore (Obi-Wan Kenobi x Rex / Selkie AU) by dharmaavocado (@dharmaavocado)

Sightless Bird (Alexsandr Kallus x Garazeb Orrelios) by WoodlandGoddess1

The Diva and Her Bodyguard (Paz Vizsla x Loysia [OC]) by Primarybufferpanel

Brute Force (Alexsandr Kallus x Garazeb Orrelios) by mistr3ssquickly

Maybe Today, Maybe Forever Universe (Javier Peña x Reader) and Moonbeams (Ezra x Reader / Werewolf AU) by freedomatsea (@hopelikethesun)

Cabin in the Woods (Alexsandr Kallus x Garazeb Orrelios / Human!Zeb - Modern AU) by sempaiko (@sempaiko)

Under-Covers (Alexsandr Kallus x Garazeb Orrelios) by mudkipwrites

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I’ll try my best to keep this updated!

~ Mike

[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi: Chapter Fifteen

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: 6.1K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) Din has to kill the bounty hunter who has been chasing you through space. 

Rating: MA (Extreme descriptions of violence, explicit descriptions of sex)

Warnings: Blood, gore, violence, death, murder, sex (m/f), fingering (female receiving) 

A/N: HELLO! I’m sorry I was gone so long!! My operation went well, thank you to every single one of you. And especially for all the lovely messages and kind words I got while I was healing. My brain has been foggy since then but babey we are back in business. AND WE ARE HERE TO ABSOLUTELY COMMIT MURDER. As you can see this chapter we have some pretty intense warnings and a high rating so please read with caution. The read more will be at the top so anyone who wishes to avoid these can do so. 

The first time Din Djarin took a life he used his hands.

The man was bigger than him. Stronger than him too, thick, meaty arms and body. Din was glad for his helmet, so that man could not see his face. Could not see his scared eyes beneath. But Din could see his eyes, the slaver’s eyes. His cargo ship had been packed so full of children they could barely fit to sit next to each other in the hull. Scared and bound. Some of them were older, Din’s age, their faces streaked with dirt and blood and sweat. The Mandalorians had found them on an almost uninhabited planet making a stopover before a jump to hyperspace, some of the children left out in the hot sun, their hands tied in front of them and squinting. One of them sobbing. And Din was ready to complete his passage, and so while the Mandalorians helped the children from the hull onto their ship they took Din’s blaster and shoved the captured slaver at him, encased on all sides by helmeted warriors, just like the spars in the covert. But this was no spar. And Din had no blaster. His ears were ringing and making him dizzy. His blood was pumping so hard in his hands he had to ball them into fists to keep them from shaking. The slaver was watching him still, spat at his feet some taunt.

Din does not remember what the man said anymore.

Din remembers thinking that he took too long. Remembers being scared enough that he made mistakes he never would in the covert. So that the man was able to grab him by his swinging arm and pull him close enough to beat his fist against the side of Din’s helmet. The sound of the ringing made it hard to think, hard to see. Misstepped again and the slaver’s boot connected with the side of his knee. Grabbed his arm agains and wrapped both his meaty fists around Din’s wrist, got the spot between his glove and his Beskar. Snapped it with a sound which made Din sick, felt like his arm is being crushed from his broken wrist to his shoulder. Felt it in the backs of his teeth. He heard the same chanting in his head, over and over. At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cyriror at ijaat cyay. At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cyriror at ijaat cyay. At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cyriror at ijaat cyay. The voices of the Mandalorians speaking for his passage. He must kill a man with his hands and understand what it is to take a life. He must be able to look a person in their eye before he kills him. To feel the power he holds over them. All people. All things. And then they will give him his blaster again.

The slaver hit him against the side of his helmet again, slapped it with an open palm. Din’s wrist burned. He stumbled and almost hit the ground. Swiped at the slaver and it made the huge man laugh, cruel and mean and ugly. His teeth were two perfect straight lines. Din caught his arm on another swipe and pulled him forward, managed to throw the man off balance. Tripped him and pushes him to the ground. The slaver was big, and he hit the ground hard. Din felt it move the earth beneath him in a tremor. Clambered on top of him before the man could move again, get the upper hand again. His fist glanced off the man’s ear.

The slaver rolled and Din’s back hit the dirt. Sent a cloud of dry dust into the air around him. His Beskar still made him heavy and awkward then. Reduced his reach and made him slow. He was not yet used to accounting for it. The slaver smacked him again. Mean again. Laughed at the sound of his palm against the metal. Taunted him. Din thought he would die then. Saw the helmets of his brothers watching him, hovering just out of reach. They did not move to help him when the slaver tried to wrap both his fists around Din’s neck. There were no children anymore, all of them carried away. The sky was blue and blazing. The sun was hot. The slaver had spittle between his lips that hit the visor of the helmet when he laughed. Din thinks the man said something to him then as well, but he cannot remember the words anymore. Only the sound of the man’s voice. The shadow of him looming over him in the dirt on some planet far away from home. A dark shape against a bright sky, his death the same as his last memory of his parents, and death was laughing at him. All around them the Mandalorians are silent.

Din doesn’t know how he managed to kick his leg out, to loop his knee high enough that he could roll them, sudden and sharp. Forced the slaver on his back into the dust. His right hand still burned, his right arm, the limb pulsing, but while the man was surprised Din grabbed him by his hair and beat his head into the ground. Over and over and over again. The dull thudding became wet. The blood leaked out over the grey dust and turned it to mud. Splattered over his pants and his boots and his gloves. Over his Beskar.

When Din finally stumbled to his feet the back of the slaver’s head was shattered. His hair and flesh and bone mixed in with the mud beneath him. His eyes don’t see anything anymore. Stare into nothing. The man was not scared, he did not have time to be scared. The Mandalorians around them disperse, all murmuring the same thing under their breath. At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cyriror at ijaat cyay. The sigils on their pauldrons caught the bright light on the desert planet, glinting in the sun. The Death Watch. The Mandalorian who raised him, who took him from his dead parents stepped forward and rested a hand on Din’s arm again, nodded grimly. He handed him back his blaster. Din was still glad for his helmet so that the warriors could not see the tears on his face.

Din has no blaster now.

And the bounty hunter cannot see the smile on his face. Even leaned in towards him, head tilted. The same cruel smile on his face that the slaver had. That men who like to hurt people get. A twisted sort of smile. He’s tapping Din’s blaster against the helmet in mock thought. Clicks his tongue and laughs. Din tries to remember what the slaver said to him, leaned over him in the desert, ready to kill him. Behind the bounty hunter, lightning flashes on Barab I. The light dances over the helmet and reflects in the man’s dark eyes, plays over his skin, bright and silver. Makes the man look empty and white and pale. Like a corpse. Din does not move, even when the bounty hunter holsters the gun and reaches both hands towards the edges of the helmet.

“You even awake in there, huh Mando?” He asks.

Din waits until he’s leaned in close enough that he can hit him. Snaps his head forward, slams the top of the helmet against the bounty hunter’s nose with a thick, wet sound. Breaks it. Makes the man scream. Din shifts his weight onto his braced leg, pushes to stand. Feels weak and heavy in the armour after months, feels the burn in his legs. The man stumbles away but Din is faster, and his foot hits him over where his forearms are cradling his broken nose. Again in the middle of his chest when the man swings his arms to try and catch his balance. When the bounty hunter falls into the water the splash covers him completely. Tries to push away through it until Din’s boot connects hard with his temple. The bounty hunter slumps forward, face down, bubbles streaming into the shallow water around him. Din’s hands still bound behind his back. He steps on one of the man’s shoulders and stomps, right in the middle of the man’s neck, on his spine. And the bounty hunter goes still.

Din pants, sways for a second, the water around his ankles lapping against his boots like little waves. Feels too big, too heavy, like he might sink into the water and drown. The Crest is open like a cavern, dark and silent. A sight which used to be so familiar, and it fills him with dread. There should be your gentle voice, talking to the child, the loud coos in return. The lights on. The tinkering sound of your tools – always working. Always fixing. It takes him too long to remember how to move, and when he does his legs feel wrong beneath him. Like they are not a part of the rest of him. Bends over the dead bounty and has to try to find the release for the cuffs backwards, his hands behind him. Takes too long. Everything takes too long. But then he finds the small control, in a pocket of the man’s belt, and he releases the cuffs. Drops them into the water with the dead man. He flexes his hands, clenches them into fists, over and over as he walks towards the open ramp. Replays everything he can remember – the Barabels, your hand in his, the glint of the red clay on the Beskar, the dark smudges like blood on the metal. The tunnels. The rush of adrenaline when he’d realised too late the bounty hunter was already behind him.

And then nothing.

He stumbles up the ramp. The world spinning beneath him, all around him. Din has to lean a hand against the door when he gets close enough to try and find his feet beneath him. The hull is upturned completely. Crates shoved and fallen, open and spilling their contents over the floor. Strapping half pulled away. The cot in the corner without its mattress is overturned and shoved against the far wall beneath the ladder. Inside he can see it now, the flashing green light of the chryofreezer blinking in the dark. His heart fills his mouth. Catches his boot in the grating to get to it, visions of your face frozen, screaming, staring out at him. But before he reaches the ‘freezer he sees the slumped shape on the ground. Still and unmoving. A smaller shape, the shape of long ears peaking over it.

“No.” The word feels like its torn out. Doesn’t mean to say it. Doesn’t choose to start moving but he is halfway there, every flash of green illuminating more. “No, no. No.”

He doesn’t feel the impact of the floor against his knees, or the way the grating digs through the leather of his gloves. His hands shake. Your head is twisted against the floor and facing away from him. The braid pulled away and hair covering you. Your arm is bent badly beneath you and legs twisted. You don’t move even when his hand gently grips your shoulder and begins to turn you. He sees faces before he sees yours – his parents. Silhouetted against bright, white light. He doesn’t remember what they look like anymore. Not really. But he sees the doors closing over him and the creeping darkness at the edges of him, under the Beskar, under the helmet. Cold and dark and airless. Unescapable. Sees a pile of sightless helmets staring at him from the ground. He can’t breathe. Hears the rings of a mallet against metal like a gong and it hurts. Rings in his ears even though it is not real.

He rolls you back, one shoulder cradles against his knees. Your face is thin and grey. He rips the gloves off, fumbles with them with his shaking hands. He can see the child now too, resting in the crook of your bent legs. See the little rise and fall of his chest and he knows his son changed you back. Reaches over you to rest a bare hand against the child’s belly to feel the life in him. Sighs in relief then the child is warm and snoring. And then he turns back to you, keeps rolling you as gentle as he can. Pulls your twisted arm from beneath you and wraps his hand around it. There is no glove to reach beneath, just the cold, damp skin of your wrist. Half your body wet, your hair wet. Like you were dragged through the water. He doesn’t know if it happened to you or to him.

“Please,” Din whispers.

And the jagged sound of his voice catching breaks through the vodocor like a rip through the air. Digs his fingers in hard against the skin of your wrist. Begins to count the seconds of nothing, of just cold. And then finally a beat. He cries out. Something which isn’t quite Mando’a or anything else.

He can’t take it. The helmet feels too tight. He feels like a child again, like he had for the first few lonely years when the helmet suffocated him and hid him from the world. Din yanks it away and gasps in the cold, wet air in the hull. Filled with the taste of the rain outside. Smells sharp and damp. The side of his head hurts, and his back and legs. The familiar hurt of a fight and he wonders how long he was unconscious in your body before the child had changed you. How much you had to do without him. He gathers you up, your body rolling and limp, both arms around your chest and shoulders and he thinks he will collapse into you. Your head falls back and he tucks a hand beneath it. Buries his face into the skin of your neck to feel the pulse there against his cheek. Realises he can smell the warmth of your skin.

“Ni ceta,” he says against your collar. Tries to hold you tighter. “Ni ceta, ner Karta.”

.

There is so much light everywhere. Hurting against the backs of your eyelids. And noise, distant voices and machines and droids. Everything feels like it is swimming before you, just out of reach. You think that maybe you are dreaming, but the world slowly becomes more solid. More tangible. You can smell the sourness of stale air and alcohol. And the beeping is unbearable. High and constant and too fast. You try to close your eyes again, to drift, but once the world starts to focus it does not relent. Reels you back into it. And memories follow – thoughts. Realise you are in a medcenter, the white walls and sterile smell. The Barabels and the bounty hunter. And Din. The child. The worry does not come yet but you know it will.

“How are you?”

You struggle to turn your head. The woman is blurred and watery and your eyes won’t focus. She steps closer and you see the shape of a smile on her face.

“You’re in the medcenter on Gamorr. I’m just checking your vitals, okay?” Her voice is even and calm. You feel her hand against your arm and its warm and soft. Makes you jolt. The armour. The helmet. “I’m not going to hurt you. Won’t be a minute.”

The rooms begins to spin. Panic tastes like bile in the back of your throat. When you try to speak your throat burns. “Where – ”

“He had to go run an errand, he said.” The nurse wraps something tight around your arm. Smiles again and waits. And then she unwraps it and sets it aside. “He’ll be back any minute I’m sure, left early this morning. We weren’t expecting you up so soon.”

She lifts your hand in hers and it is too small. Your arm is too small. She squeezes it once and lays it back on the bed next to you, limp and useless. You twitch your fingers. The nurse smiles at you, she says something else but you don’t hear it. Too busy staring at your hand on the sheets. Trying to place why it looks so wrong. Trying to stop the wave of panic that you are without the helmet, and the armour, and that Din is gone. That you are stuck on some distant planet without him. But before it mounts, chokes you, the door hisses open behind the nurse and there is a glint of silver in the light, and the familiar sound of the soft kiss of metal on metal, and the darkness of the visor finds you quickly. The Mandalorian. Din. Your small hand suddenly makes sense, the lightness around your head, around your chest. The nurse squeezes your arm with a smile and slips from the room behind him. And Din doesn’t move even when the door closes, or in the heavy moments which follow. The room thick and tense and filled with something you can’t name.

“Gotabor’ika?”

The vodocor makes his voice chip and shimmer in the static. But it is him, and your eyes well with tears. A harsh sound of relief torn from the back of your throat. And then he’s moving, so fast it makes your spin, the armour slipping and unreal in the bright lights. His hands around your jaw, in your hair, and the helmet pressing lightly against your forehead. You feel yourself roll as his weight dips the bed. Wrap your weak arms between you and around his shoulders. Hear the soft sigh slip from beneath the helmet – too quiet for the modulator to register, warm without the distortion.

“Ner Karta,” he murmurs. Rocks the helmet slightly against your forehead, the cool of the metal pressing against your brow. “Ner Karta.”

“Din.” You don’t know what else to say to him, so you say his name again. And again and again and he holds you tighter. Until the Beskar against your forehead warms to match you. Until the warmth of his fingers seeps through the leather gloves against your cheeks and jaw and neck.

You spend a week in the medcenter, the nurses are diligent and kind. And Din stays with you most of the time. At nights he leaves to be with the child, left in the care of the mechanic who manned the dock. The days move slow and fast all at once, time measured between check-ups. You sleep for much of it, drifting in and out of consciousness. And when you are awake you can feel always the dim throbbing of the blow at the back of your head, feel the raised ugly shape of the skin peeled away from the force of it. But even that starts to get better. You expect Din to be skittish, eager to move on as he always is, but he seems at ease. He sleeps as well, with his legs stretched out before him in the medcenter chair beside your bed, his arms folded over his stomach. You smile at the tilt of his helmet. The lip of it resting against his chest plate.

You move around as much as you are able, walk in circles around your small room. Think it must have cost Din a small fortune in credits to pay for a private one. But you don’t say it to him, don’t dare to bring up the cost, or ask him how you got there. A conversation you are not ready to have yet, even when he gives you his arm to help you when you are unsteady, or his gloved hand hovers at your waist when you stand shakily from the bed. Instead you think about what his voice sounds like when you know he is smiling, or the dry twist in it when he is joking. Distracts you from the nightmares of him lying, limp and cold and wet in your body, dragged and dumped against the floor of the Crest. Nightmares where he has no pulse. Nightmares of the poison in your side slowly killing you as you sleep.

And then it is time to leave. Din is quiet as you gather your small bag. Passes you your spare shirts from where he had folded them while you slept, and you smile and thank him. The Beskar seems to slip in and out of focus, reflections of the white walls and ceilings and floors make him seem only half there. A ghost. You are worried if you lose sight of him he will be gone forever. But he holds your bag for you and leads you from the medcenter. Through the streets of planet and back to the dock. He stops for you, several times, to check you are okay. And you always are. Close at his heels. The walk feels longer than you know it must be, still recovering from the blow to the back of your head, and the week of barely moving. Din slows his pace to match yours, and he doesn’t say anything but his body speaks of patience. His hand hovering at your elbow when you need to pause, and as you walk up the ramp.

There’s a loud coo and a thump against your boot. The child screams with delight, slapping his hands against your leg and climbing, slipping and climbing again over the laces to try and reach for you. Din stops you from leaning down and scoops the child into his arm, holds him close enough that as soon as you are close enough the baby grabs at your hair and then your jaw. Presses his forehead into your cheek and giggles.

Laughter had never felt so good, so light. You nuzzle back against the child, and feel Din’s glove clad hand brush your shoulder. Feel, for the first time since waking in the medcenter, like the world isn’t about to slip away between your fingers. Din passes you the child and moves away, sets your small pack down in the hull. And it is then that you notice it – the bunk which had been overturned, the mattress ruined from blood is upright again, and covered in new bedding. A thicker blanket and a fluffy, full looking pillow. A new mattress. You had not realised that you thought you would go on sleeping with Din in his quarters until you see your own space set out for you. And you know you should be grateful that he had gone to the trouble to make it so accommodating for you, the bedding nicer than his own.

He sees you staring. And you feel the buzzing all around him of things he wants to say. Wonder if his face pinches the same way it had in your body beneath the helmet when he was struggling with words. But he says nothing.

“Thank you,” you murmur quietly, nod at the bunk so he knows what you mean.

Din nods once, slowly. You wait for him to say something but he does not. And you don’t know how to tell him you don’t want to be alone. You clutch the cooing child tighter to your chest and nod back. Din helps you to settle in and then he disappears to pay for docking and to prepare the Crest to leave. The child stays with you, clambering over you and over the new bed, cuddling himself in under the blankets and squealing when you play at hide and seek with him. Din finds you in the middle of the game and rests his hand on your shoulder, asks if you’re ready to leave. And you nod at him, stare into the darkness of the visor. Feel adrift without knowing what expression moves him beneath. And then he is gone again, his cape hitting against the wall as he disappears up the ladder.

The child sleeps in your bed, curled beside you on your pillow. And even though you feel the weight of the day in all your limbs and in the cloud filling your head you cannot sleep. Lay awake in the darkness, time stretching all around you and warping and making seconds feel like hours, and watch the way the child’s belly rises and falls beneath the covers. You force yourself not to move, to try to sleep, until suddenly you can’t bear it anymore. Until you feel like you are going to come out of your skin if you do not move.  

Climbing the ladder is hard, but you relish the feeling of using your limbs again. And the burn in your muscles from being stagnant so long distracts you from your nightmares, haunting you now while you are awake. Don’t hesitate outside the door, press it open and look up, find him immediately in the pilot’s chair. You stop in the doorway and stare. Watch the glint of light of the Beskar as the Mandalorian turns to look at you. Feel the lifting feeling along your back and shoulders and neck. His gaze, the same feeling and the old feeling, melting into one.

“How are you?” His voice is deep, calm and steady. You see him here, in front of you. On the shop on Batuu. In the tunnel, his blaster pointed at the kid. “Gotabor’ika?”

You can’t stop the well of tears at the familiar name. Feel like everything is rising up in the back of your throat and forming a lump. The Mandalorian moves to stand but you wave him down. Sniffle and step into the door to allow it to hiss softly closed behind you. Have to stare at a spot on the ground to centre yourself.

“Are you okay?” He is so gentle when he asks. So warm. You nod slowly and wipe a tear which spills. He shifts in his spot. “You don’t have to be okay,” he says. “You don’t have to be.”

“I – ” You have to stop, or you will begin to cry in earnest. You take a shaking breath. “I thought he killed you. I thought – I thought – ” You glance at the helmet, staring back at you. And it is more comforting than anything you have ever seen before. A sob lodges itself in your throat and traps the words before they can be said.

“He didn’t.”

You shudder. “I know. I know, but – ”

But you don’t know what. You feel the ghost ache of a loss which is not real. But it still hurts, still makes your chest shudder with every breath because you had thought he was dead when the bounty hunter had dragged his unconscious body back into the Crest. Felt like everything inside you had been taken and ripped out when he’d dropped to the floor. And even though he is here now and he is him and you can see your reflection wobble in the Beskar. And he is just staring at you, making the hair along your arms and the back of your neck stand on end.

You stare at him as well, both your chests heaving, the space around you bouncing with the sounds of your breathing. Your hands are shaking. You move together, lock the door behind you while he pushes out of the pilots chair and meet in the middle. Slam into each other so hard it almost hurts. His hands pushing your hair back from your face, gloves snagging in your braid. You feel over the chest plate, the pauldrons. Grabbing at him and pulling his body towards yours. Move his hands to the buttons at the top of your shirt while you yank and your belt. He can’t get at the buttons, growls, yanks his gloves off and then has them. Pops them open with practised ease. You remember he has worn this shirt as well. Your shirt and belt hit the ground at the same time, the echo against the metal flooring makes you shiver. Stare down at Din’s bare hands gripping your waist so tight the skin beneath is turning white. His knuckles are white.

“Is this - ?”

“ – Yes. Please, Din.” Put your mouth on the fabric over his throat and breathe hot against it. Know he can feel it beneath, feel the breath against his skin.

His hands tighten to bruise, pulls you against him, feel the burn of the cold Beskar on your arms. Your vest is enough to stop the worst of it against your breasts and stomach but it makes you tremble a sigh. Then Din pushes you away, only slightly, enough that he can let you go and work at his own belt, only managing to undo the buckle and leaving its length looped around his waist. Your whole body throbs when he grunts.

Then he’s holding you again, yanking you forward and walking backwards. Lifting. He sits down hard and pulls you with him, a tangle of legs and arms falling back into the pilot chair again. You have nowhere else to go, to put the burning feeling, so you press your mouth up his neck, over the helmet. Everywhere you can reach you kiss him. Scrabble aimlessly over his clothes for purchase, for anything. Burning at the Beskar, burning that you could have lost each other. You realise you are saying his name between each kiss, with every kiss, over and over and over. Don’t realise until he is saying your name, hands moving from your waist over your thighs, resting either side of his, shoved against the chair, back up over your sides to hold your face. Holding you steady to watch him.

“I’m here,” he says. Voice crackles through the vodocor. “I’m here, Kar’ta. We’re safe. The kid is safe.”

You are panting. Shaking all over. You want to ask him what the new name means, but not now. Feel like the heat of him under you and against your jaw is the only thing holding you together. “The bounty hunter – ”

“Dead. He’s dead.”

“I know but – ”

His fingers dig into your scalp, along your cheekbones and over your ears. “I will never let anyone hurt you. I promised. I promised I wouldn’t leave you.”

You choke and can’t say anything, so you let yourself sink into him. Mouth at the fabric over his neck again and writhe in his lap, push your hips over his until he pushes up and back and one of his hands cups the back of your head closer to him and the other falls to the curve of your ass and rolls your hips forward, sets his pace to match yours. Keep going until your legs are shaking and trying to reach him through the fabric at his neck isn’t enough. Until you could cry that you can’t be close to him anymore.

“Pants,” he says to you, begins unbuttoning them for you.

You stand, shaking, only for as long as it takes to kick them off and then he is yanking you back into his lap again, hands harsh. Still not enough. You hold him beneath his pauldrons, digs your fingers into the lip of the metal so hard it bites against your nails. His fingers find your centre, your clit, and begin to work against it. Rough and almost mean with how hard he rubs at you, until you are crying out and bucking into his hand. Leaking over the crotch of his pants and smearing yourself over the tent of his dick beneath. Your hands move to his belt, begin to pull it from him. Try to pull his trousers down.

“Not yet,” he grunts.

“Yes. Yes, Din. Ready.” So worked up you are worried if he doesn’t stop you won’t be able to feel him before you finish. Need to feel him.

The hand at your hip is gone, is smacking your hand away from his trousers. And then shoves beneath you and cups your whole centre, rocks you up and forward so you fall against his chest with a sob. You feel every ridge and knuckle of his finger as he pushes it into you. Feel them over and over as he pumps in and out of you, rubs his thumb over your clit. And then another finger is inside you. Takes his time in feeling, in stretching you.

You press your mouth to where you think his must be on the other side of the helmet. Desperately hold your lips there like maybe he might be able to feel it. Don’t know whether it makes you feel better or worse. You hear him groaning through the vodocor and you are close enough to hear it slipping out from the helmet, pure and unfiltered, like gravel. Feel the helmet tip up, another open-mouthed sound coming from beneath it, push back against your mouth like Din is reaching for you as well.

And then his hand slips from inside you and you feel the pause of him stilling your hips, the bluntness of him pushing up and into you, slowly, so achingly slowly. And you squeeze your eyes so tightly shut it makes white bursts of stars dance behind your lids. Galaxies everywhere when you are with him. His hands steady you to sink down over him, and you feel now why he had taken so long to work you open with his fingers because the stretch is painful. Your mouth dips against the helmet, your lip catches where the Beskar meets the visor and you pant in time with his low grunts. Can’t think anything, can’t feel anything except the push of him between you, inside you, and the Beskar under your mouth. You aren’t kissing at it anymore, have fallen your weight against it, mouth lolled open. Let out a pitiful noise, a high-pitched whine when your hips sink finally against his and jolt. His hand squeezes the flesh of your hip.

“Din,” you gasp. “Din, please.”

You begin to pull off him again and then sink. And the sound he makes is almost feral. You push up and sink down again, just to hear it. Keep moving until his hand on your hip holds you still and he is thrusting out of the pilot’s chair into you. Forcing you to allow him to drill into you so quickly your eyes roll back. He is everywhere, everything. And you finally feel the last of the fear slip away at the snap of his hips into yours. Feel yourself melt away into it. Only the sounds of you together filling the cockpit, drowning out even the endless hum of the engine. The burn which started cold turns hot, turns liquid. One of his hands find its way back to you, between your legs, works at your clit while he pushes at a relentless pace. The other hand grabs your jaw tight enough to bruise, to hurt. Holds your head still and presses your forehead to the front of his helmet. Hear the vodocor making his grunts echo and bounce and crackle, hear just the edges of Din beneath the helmet.

You don’t have the presence of mind to tell him before your orgasm turns the bursts of white stars behind your lids to black. Everything in you so tight and pulsing, and then more because you feel him begin to thrust into you so hard you would fall if his arms weren’t holding you up. Fucks you through your orgasm until he groans and his thrusts stutter and fall, filling you. You slump into his chest plate, let him push his hips up into you over and over until he is done as well.

You feel the chest plate of the armour heaving with his breath, moving you as well. Feel like you will melt into it, into him. And the weight of his hand gentle against your back, and you realise he is gently undoing your braid. Feel too tired to even turn your head. So you sink further against him, around him. And you feel yourself begin to drift, the exhaustion creeping over you now that you are safe and you can feel Din’s breath against you, and know he is alive. Can hear him whispering quietly in Mando’a above you, and his hand pulling knots from your hair. Think you should fight it, that you should talk to him finally about everything which has been left unsaid between you for months, slowly growing even before you swapped into his body. But sleep makes your eyelids heavy as well as your limbs and you don’t feel Din move you, don’t feel him gently lift you both from the chair, keep your arms and legs wrapped around his waist.

You wake when you feel the pillows touch beneath you, and Din tug the covers of his bed over you. And you must say something because he turns around again and touches his helmet to your bare shoulder and then to your forehead.

“Sleep,” he murmurs.

And you do.

. 

At kyr’amur ures suvarirar cuyiror at ijaat oyay: To kill without understanding is not to respect life. There is honour in fighting but not in mindless murder.

Ni ceta: I’m sorry (lit: I kneel) This is the strongest way a Mandalorian has to apologise. Extremely rare.

Ner Karta: My Heart

. 

Tags: @btillys​​​​​​​ @vercopaanir​​​​​​​ @absurdthirst​​​​​​​ @sistasarah-sallysaidso​​​​​​​ @adikaofmandalore​​​​​​​ @babyomen​​​​​​​ @purpleeeslurpppp​​​​​​​ @fleurdemiel145​​​​​​​ @hdlynn​​​​​​​ @starwarsiscooliguess​​​​​​​ @thedarkwitchling​​​​​​​ @no-droids-allowed​​​​​​​ @dartheldur​​​​​​ @toilet-keeper @sinnamon-bunn​​​​​​ @br0ther-s​​​​​​ @that-one-weird-one​​​​​​ @oloreaa​​​​​​ @nellyneko​​​​​​ @damndamer0n​​​​​​ @space-floozy @hopplessdreamer​​​​​​ @buckysalefty​​​​​ @arianawills​​​​​ @roxypeanut​​​​​ @crazyworldofsiani @scarlettvonsass​​​​ @mrsparknuts​​​​​ @lackofhonor​​​​ @lola-wolf​​​ @coonflix​​ @datmando​ @datmando​ @katialvi​ @teaofpeach @heatherbel​ @buckstaposition​ @motleymoose​

[wille-zarr]

A for IFOW, G and I if you don't mind?? :) And sorry if I'm being too forward but I just read that you don't like body-swap AU but have you read Baar Bal Runi from @di-kut? It's a Mandalorian body-swap AU and I don't usually like body-swap either and I wasn't going to read it but in the end I decided to just take a look and I totally loved it! (Of course you don't have to read it, just a recommendation, I hope I didnt offend)

Thanks for the ask!!!

No, of course that’s not too forward!!! :D One reason I never have liked the body swap AU before is because I’ve never found one that was well-written! But if you liked that particular fic, I’m sure it’s absolutely amazing!!! I’m SO EXCITED to start reading it! Adding it to my list! Thank you so much, lil anon! I’m thrilled to have the recommendation!

Here’s the masterlist, if anyone’s curious!! Found at @di-kut

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?

Answered here!

G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Oh, goodness, I’ve tried writing out of order before....

Didn’t end well.

I have to “experience” the events the same way the characters do, in the same order, if that makes sense? Otherwise their emotional journey comes out all clunky... 

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

I love big, sad, grumpy men falling for bright, clumsy, and sassy characters. (Um, now that I’ve just written that out.... I realize that’s exactly Din and Ka’r’ika..... I’ve been writing my own guilty pleasure shsjsdhhdhs)

I also have a soft spot for platonic, funny fics! @adrieunor has a lovely fic here that I highly recommend!!!

Send me a fanfic ask!

[concussed-to-pieces]

Oh and also I want to shout out @stubbychaos Saviin'ika series because it is beautifully written and @di-kut Baar Bal Runi series because it's such a good and serious take on a trope that is normally pure crack. Both are exceptional works and some of my favourite ones I've read in this fandom

More things to enjoy, everyone! We have @stubbychaos (and a link to the first chapter of Saviin’ika: https://stubbychaos.tumblr.com/post/620860602871611392/saviinika )

and @di-kut again! You social butterfly you! (and here is the link to the masterlist for Baar Bal Runi: https://di-kut.tumblr.com/post/617054869756559360/baar-bal-runi-masterlist-mandalorian-x-reader )

For your exceptional works in your respective fields, we salute you! 💚

[pikemoreno]

(1/2) ) Man there are so many amazing authors! I limit myself to two for now. I love the Baar Bal Runi series by di-kut. Perhaps a crack fic idea with it being a body swap AU however it been handled so well (including but not limited to) issues of bodily autonomy, consent, and trust. *flails*

i’ll add it to my list! that’s so cool and unique

@di-kut some love for you!

writer appreciation

[absurdthirst]

Do you know of any good bodyswap fics? Thank you :)

Baar Bal Runi by @di-kut is a masterpiece!!!

[littlemisspascal]

Hey dude, I was wondering if you knew of any bodyswap fics?

Hi! Hmm...to be honest I'm horrible about remembering titles 🤔 But I do remember this Din series Baar Bal Runi by @di-kut

Hey my lovely followers! Please lemme know if you've written a bodyswap fic or know of one!

[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi Masterlist

Mandalorian x Reader 

Summary: BODY SWAP AU. While travelling with the Mandalorian and assisting in the search for his foundling child’s planet, you swap bodies with the armoured warrior. (Complete) 

Chapter One

Chapter Two 

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Some Backstory for Gotabor and Mando

Mando and Gotabor Drabble

[di-kut]

Would you maybe write a alternate body swap blurb where when din suggests cutting the long hair, the mechainic agrees and lets him cut it short? because they would do anything to make him feel comfortable?

Hi there anon baby!!

Sorry this took me a while to answer. Work and life and birthdays and such have kept me away from writing.

It would be my pleasure. This was actually lovely to write, and a nice break from the BOHEMOTH Boba Fett I am writing atm. I hope I got the part you’re talking about right.

This takes place during Chapter Eight of Baar Bal Runi. I hope you like it 💗

.

You chuckle at his struggle. He gives you a look of dry frustration. “It would be much more practical short,” he says.

He tugs at it without much purpose, and you see the comment is said with as much meaning. Just another fact in his mind, not even really a suggestion. And you look at the neat stack of his clothing at the end of his bed, and the orderly way he had packed his bag. The way he had folded his bed sheets back at the corner. Like a soldier. Is a soldier, you remind yourself. Or he had been. Wonder, briefly, if he has ever had hair much longer than you know it has grown on you now, soft and fluffy and drying and brushing the tops of your ears.

You open your mouth. Close it again. Open it once more. Din is too distracted by trying to arrange your hair away from his face and his neck, and you think it much irritate him there often from the way he rubs at the back of his neck. You think you should suggest he could braid it, to keep it out of his way, and quickly realise that of course he doesn’t braid it. That he has been tucking it into the collar of your shirt every day since the swap because he hadn’t known how else to deal with it. That his own short hair and the helmets of his people would make it impossible for him to know how to braid it. But he has not complained. He has not demanded change from you, or asked for you help. And although you know it is part from his stubbornness, you know as well that it is from consideration. That he does not wish to hurt you by asking change of you. Convinced, the more you think of it, that despite this being the first time he has ever mentioned it, that Din Djarin has thought many times of cutting your hair.

You wonder if you will miss it. If you can ever change back.

It does not seem to matter.

“Why don’t we cut it?” You ask. Din stops, and looks over at you with a wide, open face. Full of surprise. “If it’ll make it easier for you.”

“Gotaborika,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Cut your hair?” He repeats to you. And when you nod he just continues to stare at you. He opens his mouth and closes it again. His hand lifts to grab at your hair. Seems to without much thought. “Are - Are you sure?”

You shrug. “It’ll grow.”

He starts to speak and cuts himself off. Shakes his head. And even hours ago, when you had fought so fiercely with him, you have never seen him struggle to know what to think of something. Not as he struggles now. You had expected him to jump at the opportunity. To be grateful to be rid of it. But he wraps his hand through your hair now and tightly, like it means more to him than you had thought.

“Din,” you call gently. You smile at him when he meets your eyes. Small and slow. “I don’t mind. It’s just hair.”

“It’s your hair.”

You laugh. “It’s on your head. And it will make things easier for you. It might make you feel more...” You try to find the words you mean, and come up short. Can only find, “More at home.”

He stares at you.

“I want you to be happy, Din.”

He stares at you more. And then finally he manages to speak. “I would never ask you to change.”

You feel the pulse of warmth in your chest at his words. At how heartfelt they are. Feel the heat lift to your neck and face and fill you to your toes as well. And your smile turns to something wobbling and aching, and you have to look away.

“I don’t want you to change.” He says.

You have to take a deep breath. And steady yourself. Find your voice again to speak. “This change I can do.”

You look to him again, and find his eyes on yours. As intense as they always are. And filled, full, of something so strong it makes your hands shake. And you realise that you would do anything to see Din Djarin smile. The realization is so profound and so gentle that you cannot believe yourself. Cannot believe the strength of your own feelings. That you had not placed them until now. Din is still looking at you as if you have given him something he cannot comprehend. Something fragile and breakable. And you know that for now, for tonight, giving him this is enough. So you give a light laugh, and know that maybe one day soon you can tell him everything else which fills your head and your heart.

“I think I’d look good with short hair, anyway.” You tilt your head and pretend to consider. “Don’t you?”

[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi: Chapter Fourteen

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: A WHOOPING 7.5K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) You finally meet with the Old Ones, and they shed light on why you are stuck in the body of the Mandalorian. The meeting is cut short by an intruder. 

Rating: M (Violence) 

A/N: Oh boy. Okay. Oh god. Here it is fellas. I am a wreck. An absolute wreck. But it is done and we are about to get craaaaaazzzyyyyy. I feel like getting to this point has been just me slowly losing my mind. Do I have any sense of perspective anymore? No! I do not! Thank you as always to you lovely, beautiful, amazingly supportive people. Y’all really give me the energy and the motivation to get anything done. 

The abandoned space port seems to hang behind you, grey and suspended in darkness, swallowed by the mouth of the tunnel. The great pillars tower into the darkness, shifting and colossal in the light of the storm beyond. The floor ripples like a pulse and in the warping of the water the puddle becomes a river. In its reflection you see the shape of the clouds above warm, swirl and mass, and go still again. Become a flat mirror of the distant, misty ceiling above. Behind you the echo of Din’s footsteps begins to sound like something else, something stuttered and slow and creeping. You turn and find his back disappearing into the dimness ahead. You jog to catch him before he vanishes around the next corner. Feel the heaviness of the cape hitting at the back of your legs as you do, like something following you. You think of the shadow. Rest your hand over the blaster at your hip and check over your shoulder. Think you see a flash of light glint, but you turn the corner after Din and there is only darkness and the stream of your torches.

The tunnel is dark, turns in sharp corners and winds, a maze. Din has the radar in his palm, follows the blipping cluster of dots through the winding space. The metallic clang of your footsteps begins to scuff, roll, and you point your torch at the ground. A fine layer of dirt and small rocks covering the floor like carpet. Just ahead of you the structure of metal ends and gives way to burrowed dirt.

The tunnel begins to close all around you, a great mouth, swallowing you into the darkness. You see Din move, soft and silent ahead of you, and the whisper of the hovering crib in the darkness. Shifting in the torchlight. The walls around you are rippled with the marks of tools, of digging. Rough and uneven and dark. And even in the dim you can see the earth around you has changed, not caked and dry and brown anymore, but a rich, dark red. Slabs of clay, slick and molten. The ceiling is low enough that if you were to reach up you would catch the Mandalorian’s glove along the crevices in the ceiling. . You swallow hard and keep your hand close to your blaster, something dark and unsettling pressing along your lungs, along your heart. Makes your mouth taste bitter. You remember suddenly how big the Barabel on Garel was, a full head and shoulders over you even in Din’s body, even in his boots and helmet. How close he had come to pulling the helmet away from you, from exposing Din’s face. The crib hovers ahead. The darkness gets so complete you feel it is choking you, creeping into the space around your eyes and into your mouth and nose and ears, leaves a ringing behind.

And then you see a dim glow of orange ahead.

The caves begin to open, and the darkness lifts, and you see the movement of shadows flicker against the walls like ripples across the puddles in the abandoned space port. And you come around a corner suddenly and there is a massive shadow looming over Din, head ducked against brushing the dirt ceiling. Din’s torch bounces off its massive shoulders, its yellow glinting eyes and hissing tongue clear in the dim. You jerk backwards, pull your blaster from your holster, reach a hand out to protect the child, sealed in his crib. Din has done the same, has spread his body between the Barabel and the crib, his blaster pointed between the Barabels eyes.

“Strangers,” the huge Barabel hisses, its tongue warping the shape of the ‘s’ into something slithered and harsh. “What do the strangers want?”

You try to push forward, Din so small against the huge bulk of the Barabel, but you hear the click of a blaster, and you see the Barabel raise its arm towards you. You stop moving, keep your blaster aimed at the alien’s chest. Din lifts his arm slowly and waves his hand back towards you. A silent call to step back. So you do.

“We’re looking for information,” Din says clearly, calmly.

The Barabel swings its massive head back to Din. Blinks reptilian eyes, two skins closing over the yellow pupils. “Strangers looking for information?”

“We met one of your brothers, on Garel. He told us to look for the Old Ones.”

The Barabel makes a noise like a bark.  “You have a Mandalorian.”

You see Din turn from the corner of your eye to look at you, but you stay still, shoulders back and tall as you can manage to feel before the huge alien. Stare straight into its eyes. Its tongue slithers out between pointed teeth, makes a soft hiss. You flex your hand around the butt of your blaster, the leather creaking around your fingers.

“Mandalorians are gone now,” The Barabel says. Din stiffens, flinches towards his blaster. You feel the ripple of fury in the air, sudden and all encompassing. Feel it snake down your spine and take hold. Struggle to separate yourself from the strength of it. You see Din starting to move, not sure if you recognise the movement or feel it hidden in Din’s warped anger, settling into your bones, into your blood. But before he can move, before he can pull his blaster from its holster, the Barabel nods slowly. “Just like the Barabels.”

There’s a tense moment, where the air sparks and fizzles, heats the small space of the tunnel. The Barabel blinks again, tilts its head. “We used to be great warriors too. But now we hide under the ground. Come.”

You count the seconds where everything feels like it is suspended in the air around you. Where Din’s anger lingers through your blood and bones. And then it fades, leaving you cold. And Din eases, steps back, and you slowly lower your blaster. He looks back to catch your eyes and you share something between you. Another moment. And the Barabel waves for you to follow. Din stares at you still, his eyes tracing the shape of the helmet, and finally finding your eyes beneath. You feel the weight of his stare, something familiar. And he nods, leans towards you.

“There’s another behind as well.”

You turn slowly to look, twist the helmet to see over your shoulder. But there is only the darkness of the cave. You want to ask Din how he knows, how he can see, but the Barabel ahead of you begins to turn a corner and you must follow. Further into the tunnels, into the wavering orange light.

It does not take long before the tunnels begin to widen, and grow taller. Opens abruptly into a cavern, the ceiling feeling like it is plummeting away from you through thick soil and stone. There are pillars, warped and twisting through the air like plumes of smoke, holding up the stone above you. There are doors tunnelled into the walls around you and half tents pitched through the space, a ramshackle town deep in the ground. And everywhere – Barabels. Huge scaly bodies pushing and shoving and roaming through the cave, shades of green and brown and some almost yellow. Their scaled skin like armour in the dim firelight colouring the world beneath the planet’s surface. There must be hundreds of them. Behind you another Barabel steps from the darkness of the cave, holding a glinting spear in the light of the cavern. You watch as it steps silently to the side.

The Barabel who leads you turns. “This is all that is left of us.”

It looks directly into your visor. Blinks sideways again. And you nod slowly, just slightly. The Barabel nods back. And then it turns and begins to push through the crowd. Behind you, you see two more slip into the tunnel you leave behind, both holding blasters.

The crowd parts to let you through, huge heads turning to watch the procession. Din stays ahead, and you behind, the child’s crib hovering between you. The wind through the underground settlement is slow and painful, a thousand yellow eyes watching from the darkness. But the feeling of unease which had gripped you in the tunnel, the memories of the green planet, they have faded. And your nerves are not from a phantom of a threat, not settling inside you. Just the regular singing of your blood and pounding of your heart in your ears, surrounded by unfamiliar lifeforms. But none of them move to stop you, and when you pass, they turn again to what they were doing. The crowd closing in behind you in a wave of swishing tails and snapping teeth.

The Old Ones live at the back of the cave, where the floor slopes up and away and is carved into deep steps along the hard earth. The crowd is thinner here, and the Old Ones sit on woven mats along the ground, underneath sparsely hung cloth. Their tails swish lazily, swatting and beating against the ground. The Barabel who leads you holds out a clawed hand at the bottom of the stairs, turns its great head to make sure you stop. Under the ground and deep into the earth there is less water, and the dirt beneath your feet is a crunch of gravel and kick of dry dust. Coating your boots and pants in a fine layer of orange. Din is silent and dusty at your side, his face set firm and tense. His hand still at his blaster. You keep yours at your hip as well. Watch as the Barabel before you turns back to the rising hill of platforms before you and lets out a sharp holler. A stuttering sound, like something moving deep in the back of its throat. Makes its thin tongue slit between its teeth and into the air.

The echo around the walls cuts through the air and turns the chatter to silence.

At the front of the hill one of the Barabels lifts its clawed hand. It is a darker colour than the Barabel you saw on Garel, than the one which leads you now, and its front a pale almost-yellow. The scales along it skin are dense and thick and scored with scars like tallies. The yellow of its eyes is pale, milky almost. And when it clambers to stand it moves slow and rocking. The Barabel before you waits until the elder sways to its feet and lets out a long, loud hiss.

Their speech is harsh, hissing and almost barks of sound. Clashing of teeth against teeth. The Barabels all around you have stopped to listen. Stare at the elder, and at the Barabel before you who speaks, and at you. You feel the heaviness of their stares along your back, glancing off the helmet. You try not to move, not to even flex your hand over the butt of your blaster. You try to imagine how Din looks in his armour – easy and terrifying. Moves like it is a part of him. You sit back into your hip, the way you know he does, roll your shoulders back. You see Din look over at you, see him frown slightly. You don’t turn your head to see him but you feel the shift of everyone in the room when you ease your shoulders back. See the Barabels around you stand a little straighter.

The Barabel in front of you hisses loudly, and steps to the side. The older Barabel on the step looks down at you, eyes flickering from the crib to Din to you. It’s tongue snaps against its lips. “Speak now. What do you want to know?”

Din steps forward. “Our clan is looking for information. We have a foundling, and we want to find his people.”

“Little clan,” the elder says. Eyes the crib. “What foundling?”

You reach for the crib without thinking, and at your flinch the Barabel who led you hisses. Din holds his hands out, palms forward, and you mirror him. Show you have no blaster. Slowly the Barabels relax again and the elder on the hill is still watching, and waiting. Din turns to look at you, tilts his head in question, and you realising he is waiting for you to decide. That he is asking whether you agree it is safe. The trust sends a wash of warmth down your spine, over your fingertips. You hold Din’s eyes. And then you step away from the closed crib.

The sigh of the metal opening is loud in the silent cavern. All around you Barabels shift and jostle to see inside. Din steps to the side so that the elder can see the child clearly. The child’s ears twitch, his huge eyes blinking at the sudden light. The elder on the hill narrows its pale yellow eyes, tale swishing along the dusty ground behind it. Kicks up clouds of pale red into the air. Slowly it steps down from its perch and walks forward, leans heavily to one side, the leg not favoured covered with gashes so deep they must have exposed the muscle beneath when they were cut. You shudder to think of a creature which had claws sharp enough to penetrate the thick hide of the Barabel before you. The elder hobbles closer, closer, until it stops before your small group. Stares down at the tiny child in his crib and then to Din, and finally to you.

“A Mandalorian.”

Your eyes slide sideways, to Din. And then back to the elder. Slowly nod.

“Where did you find it?” The elder pokes a finger towards the child, who coos loudly and tried to grab at the claw. The Barabel barks, maybe a laugh, and moves his huge hand away. “Brave foundling.”

“He was taken.” Din says. “The Empire.”

The elder barks again, and says something in Barab. Around you the aliens all murmur something and the elder nods at Din. “A human, a Mandalorian and a little foundling. We do not have visitors like this.”

“We met a Barabel, on Garel. He told us to look for the Old Ones.”

“Why did the Barabel tell you this?”

Din hesitates, only slightly, but you feel it. A slight peak, something like nerves. Sets your teeth on edge. And then he sighs.

“We’re looking for Jedi.” Din’s words a quiet, but in the silence of the cave they carry. And as they reach the crowd gathered around you they send a ripple back through it, a wave of murmuring and beating of tails and hissing through teeth. “Can you help us?”

The crowd is restless and shifting. Pushing at each other. The elder’s eyes blink, the skin folding sideways over its eyes. And then it nods its great head. “Come.”

The climb is slow, winding through the old Barabels lounging on the steps of the cave. They turn their heads as you pass. All of them darker, dirtier colours of mottled greens and brown, hides covered in scores of blaster fire or terrible claw marks. Chunks of flesh and scales missing. Limbs and eyes missing. Great warriors, the Barabel who led you from the tunnel had said. The hill of writhing limbs rolls to watch you pass, the scars of their people dug deep into their skin. And at the bottom of the hill the younger Barabels begin to disperse, to slip back into the rhythm of their lives. The call of barking and hissing of their language filling the cavern again. The ringing of tools, and heavy beating footfalls against the clay. You continue to climb behind the elder, up and up and up the stairs.

The top of the hill is flattened into a plateau, covered over with a roughly woven cloth like a tent. The Barabels twitch their tails as you climb up, dark hides almost black in patches on their skin. Patches of deep and old scars as well. The elder stops before them with a loud hiss and steps to the side. Points to an empty spot on the woven mat. You move there, stand still while the elder begins to speak. Points to the child, to you – in the Beskar – and to Din. The Barabels here look ancient, their heads swaying, their eyes clouded with time.

“The foundling is Jedi.” The Barabel sits in the centre of the group. And even though its eyes do not see you feel when it swings its massive head to you that it can see beneath the armour. Can see beneath your skin.

“We don’t know,” Din says. “But we think he might be.”

“The Jedi can be many things. They do not look one way.”

Din nods slowly. “He can move things with willpower alone. Heal people – he’s healed me.”

The great Barabel in the centre hisses like a sigh and leans back against the mat. You see, when it shifts, that it misses the end of its tail. The stump twisted and twitching at its back. “Barabel used to know the Jedi. But the Jedi are old, like us. They left us a long time ago. We have just our stories.”

“Do you know where we can find them?” Din asks.

The great Barabel in the centre shakes its head, mirrored all around by the others. And the flood of disappointment from Din is so powerful it drowns out your own, tinged with something else. Some spark of something light. And guilt. You glance at him, at the back of your own head, but he is unmoving. And if not for the strength of his emotion you would not have known. The ancient Barabel before you rocks forward slightly.

“You try the planets beyond the stars,” it says. “You ask there. The memory of those planets is old. They hid their temples there. The Jedi and the Bad Ones, you watch out for the Bad Ones. They lure and they trick.”

“The Barabel we met on Garel,” you say. The ancient Barabel turns its milky eyes back to you. “He said there were others. Like the Jedi. He called them The Bad Ones.”

Another hissing sigh, and the Barabels all around you begin to beat their tails against the ground. The child begins to coo in the crib, bouncing inside his blankets. His ears twitching at the noise around you and his tiny hands reaching out for yours. You step close enough to let him grab your pinky finger and tug at the glove, and he quiets. Din is still watching the Barabel in the centre. Quiet and still. The elder behind you lets out a sharp bark.

“The ssssssith,” the ancient one says. It’s tongue darting out between its teeth and twisting the word into something ugly. “They do not heal. They only destroy. Be careful when you look for Jedi. The Sith are there in the shadows. They will lead you away from the Good Ones and into the dark. They set traps. Whole planets and temples which can change your soul.”

Din turns sharply to look to you. And you feel your heart drop into your stomach. Know from the way his skin has turned bloodless, and his eyes – filled with dread – that he is thinking the same as you. You think of the cave, the green planet. The green planet which you had found while looking for the Jedi. Of the things Din had told you of a Mandalorian soul – the one which was now in your body. You see his soul as he stares at you, looking out at you through your own eyes. And you realise you had found the Bad Ones. The Sith. That you are hearing the warning of the Barabel too late. You feel the air around you shimmer and pulse and you look down to find the child staring up at you. Huge, dark eyes blinking. He lets out a coo.

There’s a loud yell from below, and at the bottom of the stairs two Barabels with blasters are barking something in their native tongue. All around you there is a sudden surge as the huge aliens begin to move, begin to yell back. The elder who had led you to the Old Ones turns.

“Another ship has landed in the port.” The elder says.  Din seals the crib and steps in front of it. Your hand finds the butt of your blaster. “You have someone with you?”

“No.” Din has his blaster out now.

“Another stranger in a different tunnel.” The elder waves at you, down the hill in the direction you’d come. “Time to leave. Too many strangers means they find us.”

Din grabs you by your arm and tugs. You step close enough that he can murmur to you quietly. Around you the Old Ones are speaking in Barab, their barking and hissing filling the cavern with strange sounds, echoing from the red clay walls. Only the ancient one in the middle is silent, still watching you. Din leans his head to the helmet.

“Take the kid and get back to the Crest. Get somewhere safe.”

“What about you?”

His hand drops from your elbow to your wrist, slips his fingers between the edge of the glove and the sleeve. And the warmth of his fingers calms you, the familiar action against the calamity of the world around you. Presses his fingertips to your pulse.

“I’ll take a different tunnel and meet you at the Crest.”

“Just come with us.”

“If they’re a threat I don’t want them near you or the kid. I’ll make sure they don’t find you.”

You catch yourself before you call him by his name. “Mando – ”

“Be careful looking for the Jedi.” The ancient one sits forward. It has a scar running along the side of its face, a split from the corner of its sharp mouth up almost grazing its eye and fading into the scales at the back of its head. The scar warps and twists as it speaks. You turn to it, and so does Din. His hand still pressed against the inside of your wrist. His fingers dig in deeper against your skin, until you feel the thundering of your own pulse, of his pulse in his thumb. The Barabel’s tongue appears between its teeth, forked and quick. “Keep the foundling close. The Jedi and the Sith are enemies. They will undo the work of each other.”

And then the elder jostles your arm and begins to move you down the stairs. Faster going downhill even with its limp. At the bottom the Barabel which had found you in the caves is waiting, blaster out. Around you the Barabels are still moving about their day but you see the blasters everywhere, and spears. Long and thick and topped with glinting metal heads. Sharp and deadly. Din follows behind you, the crib between you again. You wind through the crowds and this time no one turns to watch you move. The path is crowded with the giant aliens, barely parting to make room for you to pass. The Barabel leads you to the mouth of the tunnel and you see there are dozens of others, black mouths swallowing the light dotted around the edges of the cavern. Some large, some small enough that even in your body Din would have to duck to fit within them.

“Which tunnel is the stranger in?” Din asks.

The Barabel tilts its head towards him.

“I need to protect my clan. I can lead them away from the caves.”

Slowly the Barabel nods and waves for Din to follow. You reach for him once more before he turns and Din grabs your arm so you hold each other. Think of a million things you could say to him, of the one thing you want to tell him. But the Barabel is already moving away, leading Din to another tunnel further away from you and Din squeezes your arm. And you feel him, suddenly, powerfully. The emotion is too warped for you to identify it. Some mix of fear and trepidation and yet peacefulness. The same feeling you get from looking at him now, even on a strange planet, surrounded by strangers. Like being tethered in a storm. And suddenly you need to tell him. The feeling which has been settling in your skin and singing in your blood. Settling into the space around you in the captain’s quarters on the Crest, the small private world you share with Din. He lets you go.

“I’ll see you at the Crest.”

And then he’s gone.

The path through the tunnel is long and dark. The walls closing in around you, narrower and narrower and shorter and shorter until the helmet brushes against it, until your elbows either side of you hit against the rough walls. Know that if you could see they would come away red, stained with the blood coloured clay. Behind you the crib hovers silently. And it is only the echo of your own footsteps against the earth. Alone. The twists are sudden and sharp and lead you through the ground, feel the weight of the earth on all sides of you pressing down and in. Struggle to breathe in the tiny space. The last of the orange flickering light of the cavern fades into complete blackness and even in the helmet you can see only the fuzzing suggestions of the walls around you. Like floating in static.

And then finally the tunnel begins to clear, and feint grey light filters through the helmet. The shapes of the walls becoming clearer. The shape of your boots as they push into the soft ground beneath your feet. And then the ground is hard, and the walls are straight and solid. The crib still behind you, trailing like a ghost.

And then you are out. Back in the abandoned space port. And even though the ceiling is so distant it is a fog of pale grey you still cannot breathe. Outside the storm is still raging, sheets of rain hammering into the earth, dripping into the mouth of the port. The puddles along the ground make it so the ceiling looks back at you from below as well. A giant rippling mirror. You feel dizzy, feel a spinning in your stomach and behind your eyes. Just like the green planet again, dark and uneasy, climbing up everything inside you and beneath the armour and beneath your skin. Strangling and complete. You turn back for the kid again and he is still there in his sealed crib. And in the distance, another ship. Far enough from the Crest that it is only a dark shape at the edge of the port. Smaller than the Crest, and newer too. The sight of it fills you with dread.

You move, splashing through the shallow ocean to the Crest. The water splattering over the coarseweave and against the bottom of the child’s crib. Feel like you may step wrong and fall into water so deep you will drown. The tips of your fingers shaking. The dark feeling tightening around you. The Crest is further than you think possible, your footsteps slowed by the water beneath you. Soaking through your boots as well. Freezing against your toes. You think you hear shouting but when you turn there is only emptiness, and darkness, and the dripping of the rainwater leaking into the abandoned port.

The ramp takes too long to lower. The sound of the echoing dripping all around you sends your heart racing too fast. Feel it at the back of your throat. You should not be so scared, you think. The ship at the opposite end of the port could be a coincidence. But the feeling which had told you the green planet was bad is pressing in all around you. And you need to hide the child and start the ship. Ready to leave as soon as Din appears. Even as you try to tell yourself you need to calm.

Finally you clamber inside, bring the child with you. And once you are inside you turn, set your blaster down on the nearest crate. The blinking orange light the only thing lighting the hull of the Crest. The crates stacked around the room like the pillars in the space port. Their shadows flashing against the walls with the orange light. In and out of existence they blink, warped and terrible. You open the crib and inside the child is whimpering, his ears pushed back flat against his head. His eyes watery when they find yours. You lift him out and hug him to your chest, murmur words of empty comfort to him. But you can know the child can feel the same uneasiness as you. He shakes in your arms and you press the top of the helmet against his little nubbed forehead. Feel his little hands grip either side of your head, where your temples would be.

“It’s gonna’ be okay, little guy.” You rub a hand down his back. “We’ll be okay.”

And then you hear the splashing. Too close. Someone wadding through the puddles outside. You move quickly, duck to the medical bunk sealed at the back of the hull and punch the pad to unlock it. The door slides open with a loud hiss and you wince. Listen to the sound of the splashing getting closer. Too loud to just be one person. But Din has not called out, and you know it is not him. Feel it sitting heavy in your stomach. You set the child down in the medical bunk and pinch the tip of his ear one more time.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper to him. “Please, ad’ika, please stay here.”

The child starts to cry and you feel your heart splinter. Start to break. But you step back and you seal the door between you. The last thing you see of the child – his desperate, wet eyes. Huge and glistening in the dim. The splashing so close now they are almost at the ramp. See the shadow of the intruder against the rippling water outside. And you have to throw yourself to crouch behind a crate. Sink your back against it and try to conceal yourself.

There is a heavy sound, a thumping, echoing all around the Crest. You duck behind the crates, stare at the wall. So hard your eyes hurt, without moving, without blinking. Heavy footsteps against the grating. Your heart kicks, fills the back of your throat and your fingertips. Pulsing. There is no other sound, not of the child, not of Din. Only the heaviness of uneven steps, and then something else. A scraping sound. Dragging. Something heavy being moved. You think it is a crate but it cannot be, there is no bite of metallic ringing, and the sound is lighter against the floor than a crate. You inch, slowly, so slowly forward. Gloves indented with the shape of the grating against the leather. Until finally – finally – you see around the edge of the crates in front of you and into the hull.

The man fiddles with the controls for the chryofreezer, one arm limp at his side and tied harshly around the bicep with a scrap piece of cloth. Suspect it would be red with blood if it weren’t black already. Your blaster near him, close enough for him to reach without moving. But you can’t think about moving for your blaster, or for the weapons compartment. Because you realise now that the scraping against the floor was a body, slumped face down, one arm pressed beneath it. Your body.

Your bounty being collected.

Din.

You can’t see him breathe. Or move. Or flinch when the heel of the man’s boot clips against his shoulder. He just rolls slightly, head lolling badly against the ground, his neck twisted. His arm twisted. You can see a sliver of his face, deathly pale and still.

The man at the chryofreezer turns, and the light in the hull catches against the pale scar cutting through the strands of his dark hair, greasy with sweat and grime. He has the same ugly sneer you remember from the bar in Garel, the same greedy look in his eyes when he crouches in front of Din and begins to lift his shirt. Yanks it up by the bottom hem until all of his stomach is exposed. The horror of the scar left from the attack on Oseon is clear even from a distance. The man scoffs and shoves the shirt back down.

“How in the Kriff did you heal that, huh?” The man nudges your body, nudges Din, with a sharp elbow to the side. “Poison should’ve killed you, stupid schutta.”

You feel your hands shaking against the ground. Inside the armour. Feel the hardness of the Beskar against how hard your heart beats against it. The bounty hunter pulls a fob from his pocket and holds it up, the flashing light so bright in the dimness of the hull that you have to turn your head, the visor of the helmet lighting up like the storm outside. Blinding you. You blink desperately to clear the haze, feel the world begin to spin.

“Where’s the Mandalorian, huh?” You don’t see the man move, but you hear it. Hear his feet as they echo around the hull. “You in here Mando?”

You blink desperately to try and make sense of anything around you, but the flare from the fob has filled your vision with stars like the warp of hyperspace. And the footsteps, heels of heavy boots against the floor. The man walks, and you see the blinking of the orange light everywhere. See his shadow spin with it, flickering around the walls like ghosts, like there are hundreds of him, slipping through the hull of the Crest. And the footsteps, closer and closer and closer. Stop just on the other side of the crate. The light blinks and he flashes above you, dark and terrible against the wall. And then he moves away, the clanging of his footsteps shifting in the quiet. He calls again, taunting and mean, and you see him pull a blaster up in the shadows on the wall before he disappears.

The ladder.

You wait until you see his boot slip above deck to move. As quietly as you can, barely resting your weight into your steps, out from around the crate. Stay close to the wall as you can until you must move. Din is still in the middle of the floor. And standing you can see more of his face. Your face. Like after the poison, but worse, because it is slack and empty. Like death. You move to him, slip a glove off, and press your fingertips into the cold, clammy skin at his neck. Have to dig beneath the bone of his jaw to find the spot where his blood should beat against his skin. And there is nothing. Just the cold. The blinking orange light fills the room with light once, twice, three times.

And then there is a pulse. Feint beneath your hand.

But there is no time for relief. The footsteps echo back into the hull, returned from the invasion of the cockpit. The thought of the bounty hunter in Din’s quarters, in the place where you had slept with him, helped him to heal from the cut and the poison makes your mouth fill with bile. But he is coming back, the footsteps getting louder. You pull the glove back on.

You turn for your blaster, but it is gone. And a boot appears beneath the lip of the ceiling, in the hole for the ladder. The static of the helmet has readjusted to the dark again, picks out the clumps of mud stuck over it, smears of red from the clay earth in the tunnels. Smeared up his pants where he climbs back down. A few feet from you. You think you should move, should hide, but you cannot leave Din. Think of the child, only an arm’s length away, hidden behind you in the small medical bed. And the chryofreezer begins to beep lowly, and the orange light above your head turns to green. Blips faster now, and every flash fills the hull with bright light. But the helmet has adjusted to that as well now, and you see hips of the bounty hunter as they appear at the ladder.

You push forward, before you can think, before you can second guess. Use your whole weight to grab the bounty hunter by his belt and yank. He screams as he falls and he lands hard. Your hands shake, knock the blaster to the side and the shot he fires is like a siren, screeching in your ear and ringing. The bounty hunter is swearing, kicks at you and clips your knee. Sends you sideways. You catch your weight against the ground, move just before he can get further away from you, scrabbling along the ground on his back. Manage to surge and catch your hand in the dark hair at the side of his head and pull him towards you, the back of his head along the ground, his jacket catching in the grating. You lift once and slam him back and the crack of his skull against the metal is awful. You taste the metallic clang in the backs of your teeth and between your eyes. And you release him.

You turn, push yourself up from where you are fallen on one knee. You slip once, almost topple, but you right yourself. Your boots firm against the ground. You move towards Din, know you need to move him, need to get him away.

A hand around your ankle. Yanks. The world shifts and moves and you fall, hit the ground all along your side. Burns like laser fire. Digs into your skin where the plates of the armour meet at your ribs. You kick wildly, yelling, without thinking, until you feel the thud against skin and hear the swearing of the man behind you. You roll onto your front, push up, but the hand grabs again, wraps around the ammunition band at your calf. And this time when he yanks you feel the tear of the fabric at your knees ripping against the grate beneath you. You rock, try to kick again, but you fall instead. Hip hits the ground hard. And before you make sense of the world again an arm knocks hard against the side of the helmet. Again. Three times. Smashes your head back against the floor so the clang of metal is everywhere, is echoing, makes everything blur.

Then he is gone, just a shadow again over you. His boot hits the Beskar, hard enough you feel the bruise of it beneath. And then against your thigh. You scream and kick and you hit hard enough that he stumbles. Gives you enough room to roll again and push onto your arms, then your knees. Crawl and stumble away from the bounty hunter. Eyes blurred. Head still ringing.

“Enough!” The man yells. “I’ll shoot the girl, on the Maker, Mando. I’ll kriffing shoot her.”

You stumble and turn. Have to lean your weight against the wall. And through the blur of tears and confusion you see him, half kneeling, one arm wrapped around Din’s neck. His elbow beneath his chin. The braid Din had proudly done only a few hours ago almost completely undone, catching in the man’s arm, in his fingers.

“Don’t move.”

You watch, still. The man waves your blaster – Din’s blaster – to get your attention. Presses the barrel of it so hard against Din’s temple that it clicks. “Don’t – ”

“Shut up!”

You still again, don’t dare to breath. To move. Stare at the man, at the flashing green on the chryofreezer, ready to use. At the mess of upturned crates in the hull. And then you see behind him, the medical bunk, the space cavernous and black. Open. The child.

“Don’t move, Mando.”

The blaster clicks again against Din’s temple. His head rocks. You try to look without moving the helmet, try to see into the open compartment behind the bounty hunter. But it is only darkness in the flashing green, and all around you is unmoving. Not even the feint shuffle of the child. You don’t feel the pulse of his energy in the air. Can’t feel Din either. The ship is swaying around you, or you are swaying inside it. The hits against the helmet still ringing in your ears.

And then a movement, a tiny slip behind Din. The tip of a green ear pointing out.

“I said stop moving!”

You see the shape of the child move in and out of focus. The dizziness worry as well as the ringing. Clouding your thoughts and your vision. You see his ear again, and then one of his eyes, huge and blinking in the darkness. Looking beyond Din’s slumped body, close enough that the bounty hunter could reach out and grab him. You heart hurts, burns. Your throat burns. Want to scream. The wave of warmth ripples through the air, through your skin. The child smiles at you and reaches out. Closes his eyes and begins to shake.

The pulse is immediate. The ship tunnels away from you, into darkness, and slams back into place. You tilt, try to breathe. But there is no air. There is nothing.

Drip.

The world begins to fray and ripple and come apart. Swarms and buzzes and fills up the inside of the helmet like water. Turns the world grey.

Drip.

You try to call for Din, but the word becomes twisted on your tongue, blocks your throat, fills up your chest and stomach. The ringing in your ears getting worse. The flashing of the green light getting faster and faster through the swirling grey of nothing. The inside of the Crest slips from beneath you again.

Drip.

You see yourself, smiling. You have a smear of grease along the top of your cheek. You recognise the dock, some planet you’d stopped at months before. Not long before you’d heard of the green planet. The image of yourself is bright, glowing. Shimmers in your memory in a space which is not yours. Some piece of the life you’ve lived with Din, hovering between you. You hear your voice, hear your own laughter. Hear the cooing of the child. The last thing you see before the world fades.

Drip.

.

Drip.

.

Drip.

The helmet hits the ground and sounds like something final. The bounty hunter stares at it, at the Beskar armour. The body of a Mandalorian. Hulking and still against the metal floor. The visor of the helmet looks up at him as he drops the girl and stumbles forward. Reflects the shape of the barrel pointed at it. Gets close enough to see his own reflection in the shining metal, glinting, flashing. The girl doesn’t move, still unconscious from the blow to the back of her head. Barely breathing behind him. And the armour of the Mandalorian could be empty it is so still. He leans down, close enough that his nose almost brushes the helmet. Tries to see through the tinted shape of the visor. The bounty hunter pulls the cuffs from his belt and tugs the Mandalorians hands behind him. Snaps the cuffs tight around them.

Drip.

.

Drip.

.

Drip.

Din jerks against the ground hard.

And then the ground is gone. Yanked away from him. There are hands at his shoulders, arms, back. His boots stumble and catch and he almost falls. He moves away, sways. His knees hit the ground. His hands. The hands yank him by the back of his collar and pull him from the ground. It’s dark, blurs of light. A flashing green. And then the light is gone, turns grey and blurred. Din tips slightly, gets pulled upright again. The floor slopes beneath his feet, thinks he’s falling, the realises it’s the ramp of the ship. The Crest. He doesn’t remember entering the ship again. And now he is leaving it. His head is throbbing. His boots splash into water, cold against his leg where it soaks through the coarseweave, from the boots of the man behind him. The digging in his back is a gun. His breathing is heavy, echoing so loudly, warm air cooling against his mouth.

“Get on your knees.” The voice is familiar. Terse. Din struggles to place it. Then the man’s foot connects with the side of his knee and he stumbles, drops onto one leg. “I said get on your knees.”

The world starts to shift into place. The bounty hunter. The Barabels. It’s like being shot, the terrible plummeting of remembering. Tries to remember what happened in the tunnel. The dark hair, the scar, the face of the man from Oseon who stabbed him. He tries to remember if you got to safety, but there is nothing. There’s a soft whirring noise in his ears, His vision returning. A dim, blue light everywhere. A flash of lightning. He can’t feel the cold air on his face but he knows it must be cold. Still on Barab I. The constant storm still raging outside. He waits for his vision to clear all the way, for the fuzziness and the dimness at his peripheries to abate.

The bounty hunter crouches, his crooked mean face hovering in view. “I thought you were meant to be some kind of legend, Mando. The great Mandalorian. Greatest warriors in the galaxy.”

The man’s laugh is grating. Terrible. Everything sounds too far away. Din tries to guess at how long he’d been out. He’s dizzy. Everything keeps scrambling, every thought he chases becomes lost. Just feelings, sounds. The clamour of the market. His armour gleaming in the dim light of the ship, knowing you are staring down at him from inside the Beskar. Thinking of you makes the churning of his stomach worse. You were gone, and the bounty hunter was still here. Logic is blipping in and out of focus.

“Maybe you’re getting old, hmm? Under there.” The hunter taps his gun against the side of Din’s head with a clear ding. It rings around Din’s ears. “Barely even put up a fight.”

Something important is swimming right at the edge of his thoughts. Din stares down at his leg still holding him up, and the red marks over the coarseweave. He feels so heavy. His vision is clearing, cleared mostly, but it remains speckled, like looking at static. He can feel the cuffs digging in through thick fabric around his wrists. Arms pulled behind his back. His holster is empty. The gun being waved in his face is his own.

“I’m gonna kill you,” the bounty hunter leans in to whisper it near his ear. The sound of his voice is crackles slightly through the speaker. “I’m gonna kill you and leave you to rot in this hellhole. And then I’m gonna take your ship and hand your little girlfriend over for the reward. It’s not even much of a reward. Is that why you didn’t hand her in, huh, Mando?” The man hits his gun against the side of his helmet, harder this time. “Thought you’d keep her around for yourself, huh?”

Finally, everything slots into place. Din flexes his hands in the cuffs, feels the stretch of the leather gloves around him. Feels the pressing of where his armour is strapped to his underclothes. He shifts his foot still planted on the ground, feels the soles of his boots rub into the earth beneath it. The splashing of the water around him.

“What would you do if I took off the helmet, hey Mando?”

Din lifts his head. Stares into the man’s eyes. The visor picks up the sign of the bruising around his eye, the broken nose. And scars, old ones.

“Couldn’t even stop me, could you? Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Pull that stupid kriffing helmet off you and leave you here without a ship.”

Din rolls his shoulders back. Beneath the helmet, the Mandalorian smiles.

. 

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[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi Chapter Thirteen

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: 5K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) The journey to Barab I through hyperspace gives Din and the child time to heal from the attack on Oseon, and time for you to talk. 

Rating: T

A/N: We’re getting so close to the end now I can’t believe it. Thank you again to everyone who has been sending messages, or responding to any of the other chapters! I see you and I love you! And if I haven’t gotten around to responding to your lovely messages yet know I have seen them and I am getting there! I hope you are all happy and safe wherever you are in the world. 💕

At light speed Barab I is three weeks from the Oseon cluster. There is enough reward money for you to pay the woman who runs the dock on the small moon, and to restock with food and fuel and water. You leave quickly, and Din forces himself to rise and sit with you in the cockpit while you steer the Crest into the hyperlane. Sits pale faced and swaying in the co-pilot chair, bloodless knuckles gripping the console as you manoeuvre. You have to help him back the short distance to the captain’s quarters for him to rest next to the sleeping child. He moves more and more every day, but you feel the pulsing of his frustration in the air all around you – unable to stand without growing pale, unable to climb the ladder without growing breathless and weak. You change the bandages with him every day and the bacta helps the pinkness of the skin around the mangled scar to fade to a mottled white and purple, but it does not seem to help with much more.

You sit up in the cockpit at night with the child nestled in your lap, only the sound of his soft, sweet breathing against your stomach and his tiny weight. You flick through article after article on your holopad, away from Din so the light from the screen doesn’t disturb his sleep, looking for anything – any mention of green planets, of the child and his people, of souls. But there is nothing, nothing more solid than the Barabel and his stories. Beside you the ship computer shows the distance to Barab I and on the screen next to it the glowing light of the green planet, its coordinates getting further and further away. You watch the measure as it ticks over, eyes glassed and unseeing, until you reach out and snap the screen off. Turn back to your articles. But you can’t make yourself focus on that either, on anything. You are thinking about the endless blackness inside the barrel of Din’s blaster, pointed between your eyes. At the murky dust in the cave room on the green planet. Feel the panic begin to rise in your chest and fill your throat like bile, taste it on the back of your tongue.

And then it ends.

The lingering of the panic makes your hands shake, and the movement in your lap is so small you think it might be nerves. But the child coos and you feel the little hand which has slipped under your light undershirt curl against your warm skin. Two dark eyes blink up at you, reflect the rippling of hyperspace like molten silver. You almost miss the console when you push your holopad aside, nearly send it clattering to the floor. Bundle the child tightly in his blanket and lift him beneath your uncovered chin. Feel his hand find a grip in the scratching beard along your jaw. Feel the panic still there in that tiny touch, and the relief.

“Oh, my poor boy,” you murmur to his head. Close your eyes and breath in the familiar smell of him. Feel more things settle and begin to make sense. “It’s you. It’s you dreaming about that awful place.”

The child makes a little cry, and his feet kick against your arm. His hand tries to pull closer at your face and you lift him higher, so you can look at his eyes. So he can see you. The child’s chin is wobbling, his ears quivering. Even in the dim light you can see he’s pale, that his cheeks have none of their usual heat, and your heart breaks for him. His hands reach out, grabbing and imploring, and the emotion he shares with you is so needing and sore that you obey without thinking, lean your forehead against his and sigh when his little hands rest against either of your temples. Fill with bubbling, gentle warmth. You stay with him, hunched in your chair, feel the nubs of his forehead pressed against yours. Let everything finally fall into a place of contentment. Din is alive, and healing, and the child is awake. The thickness at the back of your throat now only from some overwhelming happiness, the press of the child against your forehead not lost on you. An acceptance which you had never thought to get.

The child coos quietly, eventually, and you lift your head from his. Know without him having to ask what he wants. You wrap him again in his warm blanket and let him curl against your chest and the crook of your elbow. Leave the cockpit and the rippling of hyperspace behind and slip quietly into the dark room where Din sleeps. Wait until the door is closed again and settle at the edge of the cot, stare at the faded shape of him beneath the covers, rolled onto his good side.

“Din,” you whisper.

The child begins to wriggle in your grasp, so you set him down on the cot. You rest a hand on Din’s leg and shake him very gently, mindful of his scar, mindful of how tired he is. Know he would not want to miss the child waking again. You say his name again when he doesn’t rouse, and this time he shifts, burrows himself deeper into the covers. Reaches for you – still half asleep. His hand grasping blindly at your fingers against his leg until he manages to tangle them together. Mutters your name and tugs at you. Tries to pull you with him into the bed as he begins to drift again. The child bounces himself along the mattress, slaps both of his hands down against your thigh impatiently when Din’s breathing becomes slow and heavy with sleep again.

“Din.” You tug at his hand, shuffle along the covers to sit closer. “The baby is awake.”

Din mumbles something into the pillow.

You smile, lift the child up from where he is climbing back into your lap to press a soft kiss to the top of his head and let his hands grip the collar of your shirt. Listen to the baby babble as the child squirms in your grip. And then you set him down again on the bed next to Din. He rolls and kicks and clambers to his feet. Waddles the distance to Din’s shoulder and sinks against it, catching the blanket in his fingers and tugging, kicking, trying to climb higher and only succeeding in slipping along his belly.

It’s the child’s giggling which finally wakes him. Din moves, his head turning and then slowly his shoulders, so he doesn’t roll onto the child. Chuckles weakly when the child finally hauls himself up and squirms up higher onto Din’s chest. You lift him a little from below his feet to help him, and to keep him away from the scar at Din’s side. But the child only giggles again and squeals as he slips down towards Din’s face, reaches for his hair and his jaw. Cooing louder when Din laughs with him and babbling more, turning back to look at you as well. Bounces in excitement when you tweak the end of his ear playfully and pat his back.

“Ad’ika,” Din sighs. Brushes his finger down the child’s round little cheek.

The child bounces again when Din speaks. You tighten your hold at his back. “Careful, little guy.”

“He’s okay.” Din lets out a watery laugh and lifts the child up, lifts his head from the pillow to press his forehead to the child’s as you had. He rests one hand heavy on the child’s back and the other seeks yours. Din holds your hand so tightly that your knuckles crack in his grip. “He’s not hurting me.”

You settle down against the bed with them when Din pulls your hand again, and you stretch yourself against his side. Tuck your head to his shoulder and listen to the babble of the child speaking. Feel Din unwind his fingers from yours only to brush them through your hair, along your scalp. Soothing and absent. Din murmurs back to the child sometimes when he pauses, sometimes in basic and sometimes in Mando’a, sometimes asking you what you think as well, laughing when you mumble against his shoulder.

“He let me do it, Din.” You fiddle with the edge of his shirt, yours eyes closed as his finger’s work gently at the crown of your head. “Kov’nynir.”

“Of course he did.”

You sigh. “He never used to.”

Din hums quietly and his hand stills behind your ear, resting against the nape of your neck. Wraps the hair there around his fingers and makes your skin rise in goosebumps over your back. “You’re his family,” he says quietly.

You say nothing, can’t think of anything. Only nod slowly and burrow closer against them both. Fist your hand into Din’s shirt as he starts to move his fingers against your scalp again. The thrum of the engine and the warmth of Din makes it easy to drift, listening to the nonsensical conversation between father and son. Heart full and warm and easy in your chest.

There is a peace in hyperspace. Everything moves a little strangely, a little sideways, but Din begins to heal. You roll away the ruined bedcovers and mattress in the hull, stained black with Din’s poisoned blood, and shove them into the bottom of an empty crate. But you do not try to find replacements, at the end of each day crawl in beside Din to sleep. In the darkness of the captain’s quarters there is an easiness that happens between you, in each other’s arms. An almost which hovers in the air and presses into the space around you, outside of you. Rises in the feeling which sinks from his skin into yours in the quiet moments before sleep, before properly waking, while his fingers trail the skin of your arm, from your wrist to your elbow. You ask him as his fingertips catch against the old scars, what they are, when they are from. And he tells you the ones he can remember, although there are many he can’t. And it begins to bleed through the walls into the rest of the ship. Easier to laugh, easier to talk. Even in Din’s body you start to feel more comfortable, find yourself lounging. Notice him lean against you, shove at your leg playfully if you stretch it too close to him, his eyes shining with laughter.

And Din begins to heal. Every day which passes he moves around the Crest with more ease and soon you stop bandaging his side. The scar is still pink and puckered but the bacta doesn’t seem to have much effect. He climbs the ladder without having to sit down as well, keeps out of his tiny quarters as much as he can, sick of the four walls caging him in. And the child shadows him everywhere, toddling behind his feet, and sitting in your lap when he tires, making games of clambering up your chest and tugging at your shirt. Barab I getting closer every day, a dark murky planet in the distance.

The planet is under constant rain, covering the surface in black clouds, and the surface of the planet crawling with a species deadly enough to snatch the Barabels and force them into underground caves, tunnelled beneath the surface. Din is well enough to walk, to stand and to fly when you are ready to drop out of hyperspace. He steers the ship through the space around Barab I and despite the spaceport hidden in a large cave system beneath the ground it is almost empty. Cavernous and echoing it must once have looked spectacular, shining and new. But the technology has long since been outdated, and there is no Barabel waiting to greet you, no droid scuttling the floors. The corners are filled with dark, murky water, creating a reflection of the decaying ceiling above. Din glances back at you as he lets the ship down to land. The thud of it echoes around and back like the sound of an Empire Freighter landing on Coruscant, impossibly loud.

“Where is everyone?” You lean forward over the console, peer out into the empty spaceport. Somewhere in the shadowed distance, a light flickers.

“I don’t know,” Din mutters. Flicks switches in the ship and the lights around you go out. There’s a moment of darkness and he switches on the ship’s external lights, flooding the port around you with bright, white light. “I can see lifeforms on the radar. Not far. They must be hiding in the tunnels.”

You stare up at the blackened ceiling, eroded with mould and dripping water. The floor, a grim reflection. Great pillars, easily ten times the Crest in height, seem to shift in the thickness of the air. Your stomach rolls, clenches. Something in the air, tight and familiar about the place. Din flicks the lights off again before you can place it and the sudden brightness inside the cockpit makes you squint. Flinch away from it.

“We should stay here tonight. We’ll have to trek through the tunnels.” He begins to lock the ship down, moves sharp and efficient. You notice he favours his left arm, sometimes pressing his right arm against the scar at his side. “We should rest tonight.”

“You need more rest before we go anywhere.”

He finishes, sits back low and deep in his chair and turns it to look at you. “It’s healed, Gotabor’ika.” You must look sceptical, untrusting, because his face softens, and he pushes out of the chair. Crosses the tiny space between you and crouches at your feet. Rests his hands against your knees, right before the dozing child in your lap. “I’m going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I promise, ner kar’ta.” You feel his thumbs dig in against the insides of your thighs.

You scratch at the hair along your jaw in irritation, and again the feeling. Something unsettling and familiar. But it slides before you can catch it, slips and tilts and scrambles when Din taps against you knee. His eyes burning when you focus on them again, and his thumb lifts, pinches lightly against your jaw. Laughs when you make a light grunt.

“You were meant to remind me.”

.

“This is weird, isn’t it?”

Din wipes the razor off, rinses it in the sink. His hand stays on your jaw steadying you. He looks back to the task of grooming your facial hair. He is crouched in the narrow space of the ‘fresher of the Crest and you sit on the closed lid of the toilet, waiting as he readies himself.  

“Everything about this is weird,” he says.

“Yeah, but this is…”

He breaks and you finally meet his eyes. You’re getting used to looking back at yourself in moments like these, almost able to separate yourself from your own body. You can almost see Din behind them. You can certainly feel him in there, you think. More now than ever. Every day a little clearer.

“Weird,” you say together, neither of you barely above a whisper.

He sighs and his hold on your jaw tightens ever so slightly. A slight warning. “Don’t move,” he mutters. “No talking.”

“I think the real reason you suggested this was to get me to shut up.” That almost coaxes a smile out of him. You start to laugh, and he squeezes you. “Okay, okay! Being quiet now.”

He holds the razor up but you can see the glint in his eye which tells you it’s all play. You’re tempted to tease him again but he’s already resting the razor against the hollow of your cheek and scrape down the length of it. The feeling is alien and strange, one of many to adjust to. The coolness of the blade almost makes you jump. Din finishes his stroke, wipes, rinses, lifts the razor back to the spot next to it and repeats. You find yourself watching him as he works. His face contorts with each stroke, lifting his eyebrows, scrunching his nose as he follows his work. Sometimes pulling his top lip back slightly as he curves around a tighter spot on your jaw. You must make a face back at him because –

“What?” He looks up into your eyes.

You smile. “Nothing.”

“Then stop smiling.”

“Okay.”

He waits. “You’re still smiling.”

You try wrangling your expression into something neutral and the effort only makes you giggle. Din makes a face in response which just sets you off further until you are letting out full, hearty laughs straight from your belly. The deep sound of it shocks you into silence. You stare at him, crouched in front of you in the cramped room of the ‘fresher, almost accusingly because it was his deep full laugh which had just erupted from you. His laugh which you realise you’d never heard. He stares at you blankly and then his lip twitches. And he’s laughing too. And then you’re both laughing together. You have to lean a hand on his shoulder you’re laughing so hard. He’s barely making any noise he’s laughing so hard and drops his head down into your lap to hide the redness colouring his cheeks. You can feel tears pooling in your eyes, can feel the puffs of his laughter hitting your hand. You have to lay forward, press your forehead into the space between his shoulder blades, because you feel as if you can barely hold yourself up.

“I’m never going to finish shaving your stupid face.” Din’s voice is muffled against your thigh.

Your stomach hurts. Your cheeks hurt. “It’s your stupid face.”

“Shut up.” He chuckles again.

You untangle yourselves slowly. He nudges at you until your lift your head off his back and you have to extract your hand which is caught under his shoulder. You both giggle every time you catch eyes. He shoves at you gently with an elbow, but he’s still trying to fight off a smile. You wipe a track left from tears off your face.

“You better hurry up or the kid is gonna’ start crying.” It’s almost breathless. “And you’ll end up with half a beard.”

He mutters something under his breath in Mando’a.

“What was that?”

“Just let me work.”

He has to spread more shaving cream over the side of your face he hasn’t done. It takes some time, and his face stays just as expressive. You don’t have the heart to tell him, worried if you bring it to his attention, he’ll make some effort to stop. You think under the helmet he must make faces all the time. He seems so stoic and his tone is so even you always assumed he must look the same underneath it. Something subtle about the way you understand him shifts slightly, infinitesimally small and indescribably huge all at once. You feel a pulse in your chest, and you try to catch his eye. Calmness. Peace. His gentleness seeps through the air around you and fills you up until your fingers tingle.

“Din,” you whisper.

He finishes his final stroke and drops the razor onto the rag he’d been using to wipe it. Looks up and you can see it there in his eyes too. It shifts into curiosity, and you feel it in your chest too. You almost tell him, but at the last second drop your eyes to your hands folded in your lap.

“What?” He grabs your hand lightly. Squeezes once.

You look up at his eyes, look at the razor, at his hand on yours. Lick your lip. Feel the tickle of facial hair there, and you lose your nerve. “You have a moustache?”

He laughs softly and shakes his head. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

You go to touch it with your free hand but stop halfway there. “Oh, I – “

“It’s okay,” he’s whispering too now. “I… I-If you… want. Wanted to.”

Your eyes widen. “Really?”

He can’t look at you. His head drops to his chest but you can see the movement of a nod. You aren’t sure if you should, at first. Whether he really wants you to, whether he’s just let you because he feels obliged. You wait for him to change his mind. But he just keeps holding your hand in your lap and staring at a spot on the ground in front of his feet. So slowly you lift your hand, still suspended in the air until you reach your face. Din’s face.

It tingles slightly when your fingers meet your cheek, the skin sensitive from the shaving. You let your hand flatten out against his cheek, feeling the cheekbones and the firmness into the jaw. You drift back until you reach his hairline, and then forward, first over his cheekbones and nose and over his other cheekbone. Your breath catches. You trace his jaw, his browbone, the shape of his eyebrows. His moustache makes your grin and your fingertip slips against his tooth. You close your eyes and try to add the shape of them to the hazy map of his face you create of him in your mind. You find yourself trying to translate the pieces of him you’ve known outside of his body into this. The expressions you’d learned are his. How his face would move when he’s concentrating; following a razor; cleaning his Beskar; comforting his son. Laughing. Smiling. Sleeping. You must have wrapped your hand around his too. He’s holding it so tightly they’re shaking, clasped between your bodies. You squeeze him back.

“Din.” You aren’t embarrassed by the way your voice breaks. “It’s okay, Din. It’s okay.”

He nods, but he doesn’t lift his head to look at you, just continues to stare at the same spot on the ground, somewhere between your feet. “When we – If we… change back,” he starts. Haltingly, abruptly. The unfinished thought hangs between you, makes your heart thump hard against your chest.

“When we change back?” You ask. Soft. Squeeze his hand in yours again.

His swallow is so grating you hear it. “When we change back would you – ”

There’s a light thump from the hull, echoes into the ‘fresher through the open door. You both turn to look and see the child, woken from his nap and somehow made it from inside Din’s quarters upstairs to the hull. He has a wrench in his hand and it bangs against the grating of the floor as he walks, the rhythmic thunk thunk thunk breaking the rising feeling between you in the ‘fresher. And before Din sighs you feel for a brief moment some bright, shining thing from him, an emotion you have felt a few times before – on the dead desert planet, in your hotel room on Garel. Aches in your chest and lingers, but then he begins to pull his hands from yours and it starts to fade.

“Ad’ika, put the wrench down.” He pushes himself up and goes to the child, takes the heavy tool from his little hands and scoops him up. Sets the wrench back in the open tool box only a few feet away. “Gar ganar jate ca’nara.”

You stare at them both, feel the almost in the question Din hadn’t asked, feel it settle along the back of your shoulders and you sigh. Begin to pack away the razor and the cannister of shaving cream. Din bounces the child in his arms to distract him from his demanding cooing and reaching for the wrench again, and you feel the wave of impatience from the child, sense the temper tantrum starting and you call to Din to warn him. The Mandalorian only rolls his eyes and turns away from the tool box, ignoring the petulant cries of his son. You chuckle as you move things to clear the ‘fresher before you sleep. The next day you will travel into the settlement on Barab to search for the Old Ones. To ask them stories of the Jedi and of the Sith, and the child. But it seems far away from you now, wrapped in something soft and warm with Din in the Crest.

You clamber the ladder after Din, follow him to the bed you share. The child takes time to settle, clambering around and around in the room. Over your legs and between you both, restless and playful, but eventually he tires and crawls beneath the blankets under your arm, nestles against your chest. It’s easy to pretend there is nothing waiting for you when you wake, almost a month of empty space with Din and the child and no looming threat has made you easy against the covers, against the feeling of the rise and fall of Din’s chest near to yours. The occasional mumbled sounds from the child as he rolls in his sleep between you. But the morning does come, the same cold and dark and damp as it had been the night before. You dress in silence, don the armour grimly. Din settles the child into his crib, fills your packs with enough for three days, unsure of what waits outside. You hand him your warmest jacket as you stand with him in the hull and he slips it on, nods his thanks. And then there is no more reason to delay. Din lowers the ramp and you set out. Not as cold as you expect, but you see the way Din flinches back into his hood and you think outside of the amour the air must have a bite. At the bottom your feet splash through puddles, disturb a coating of dark matter resting on the surface of the puddle.

It’s not until you step into the tunnel, swing your torch around to check the ship behind you that you recognise the feeling. The pillars, and the dripping water. The thick smog of moisture hanging and clinging to the back of your throat.

It reminds you of the green planet.

. 

Kov’nynir: A Keldabe kiss, the action of pressing foreheads together in a headbutt action.

Gotabor’ika: lit: little engineer (’ika is used as a term of affection or endearment, and this is used as an intimate nickname)

Ad’ika: daughter, son, child. Used by parents to their children. 

Gar ganar jate ca’nara: You have good timing 

. 

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[di-kut]

Baar Bal Runi Chapter Eleven

Series Masterlist

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Force Sensitive!Reader

Words: 4.5K

Summary: (Body Swap AU) You are stuck alone on a strange planet in the Crest waiting for Din to return from a hunt. 

Rating: A violent M. It’s not extreme but this chapter has some strong descriptions of blood and body wounds. 

A/N: Please don’t kill me.

The night is heavy and dark, well past midnight. You stare at the blinking light above your cot and wonder why you are suddenly awake. Feel the deep breathing of the child next to you where he is curled against your side beneath the covers. Count the seconds between each flash of the orange light until your eyes start to slip closed again. But then you hear it. Distant metallic banging, and scraping, the sounds of heavy things being shifted against a hard floor. And you are wide awake, sit up in the cot, an arm out over the child as you search the darkness beyond the open ramp. Slip as quiet as you can from the bed. The helmet is sitting next to you, at the edge of the nearest crate. You pull it on as you move and crouch. Keep your body and head as low as you can to the floor. Move along the walls.

You press yourself against the space next to the lowered ramp, feel the coolness of the air beyond against your uncovered hands. Turn the helmet just enough that you can see the dock. The shadows of machinery and storage crates are like looming creatures in the dark, bulking and strange. Catch the dim light and look like things they are not. The noise quiets, and then starts again. Echoes around the dock and into the ship. Sounds like it is coming from beneath the nose of the ship, but you cannot be sure. The way the sound bounces makes it feel like it is coming from everywhere all at once. But you can see no movement. Count the three droids which had stayed powered down in the corner of the dock since your arrival. Not a droid then. Your heart is pounding in your ears, in the tips of your uncovered hands. You are not wearing any Beskar, any of the armour. Not even your boots. Only the helmet.

You move quickly back to the bed, scoop the child out from beneath the covers and press along the walls to the ladder. Stay covered in the shadows. The climb is easier to keep quiet in bare feet and you slip up easily even with one hand clutching the child to your chest. You shush him quietly when you can, see his eyes beginning to open. You move left at the top of the ladder and are grateful the ship is so small and the trip to the captain’s quarters is a short one. Open the door and carefully set the half-asleep child down on Din’s bed. Pat his head only once, just to soothe him, and step back again. Already out the door, the room barely bigger than some of the compartments on the ship. You seal the door from the outside.

Din has taken his rifle, and two blasters. Had one strapped to either hip. But there is no shortage of weapons on the Crest. You open the weapons compartment when you are back in the hull and grab one, a large blaster, the weight of it in your hands doesn’t make you feel any better. But it gives you enough confidence to toe your way back to the open ramp. To crouch in the dark and the quiet and listen to the sounds still echoing around the space beyond. And you can see a shadow now, now that your eyes have adjusted in the helmet. The dark top of someone moving beneath the belly of the ship. Watch as it moves back and forward, closer and closer, and then disappears behind the lowered ramp. Strain your ears to something, anything. The sound of scraping metal against metal or footsteps. Think the intruder must be directly beneath you. You wait there, crouched against the wall of the ship, until your back locks and your knees ache. But there are no more sounds. No more shadows moving in the darkness.

You step out slowly, blaster raised in front of you, and you are glad your arm does not shake. The grating of the ramp digs in against the soles of your feet, so cold it almost hurts. The helmet makes your breath echo back to you strangely – disconnected. Like someone else is breathing in your ear and down your neck. Like you are floating strangely out of your own body. A feeling which you now know well.

It feels as if it takes too long to reach the solid ground at the end of the ramp. The duracrete is covered in a layer of fine grit, you feel it beneath your toes. Take a deep breath. You duck beneath the ramp, blaster ready, finger tensed over the trigger. But beneath the ship is quiet and empty. You turn the helmet slowly, strain your ears to listen, and you wish you had asked Din to show you how to work the controls for it. Can’t see anything from your peripheral vision. The whole world narrowed to the slit of your visor and dotted with static. Ragged breathing bouncing all around you.

You close the ramp to the ship and wait, blaster up. But there is no sound other than the whirring of it closing, and no movement. You lap the dock, open every crate and every box. Check every storage unit you have access to. There is nothing. Nothing but tools and spare parts and the droids which have not been turned on in two days. You move around the dock, over and over and over, thinking each time you will find something. That there will be some person waiting for you in the shadows. You think of the shadow under the door on Garel and you cannot breathe. Lap the space until the first light of the morning begins to colour the sky above you, and the looming shadows in the dark become just boxes and machinery again. And you think you are so gripped with fear and panic that you cannot think straight. That you must be hallucinating. Months of tension finally beginning to crack and splinter and tear you apart.

You open the ramp again. Your toes are red from the cold, and your fingers. Hurt from holding the blaster so tight. Have made small crescent moons of blood in your palm from clenching your fist.

You do not put the blaster away, not even when the ramp is closed. And before you climb the ladder of the ship you put on the Mandalorian’s undersuit and his Beskar. Check each strap and plate is tight. Bring the blaster with you up into the captain’s quarters on the upper deck.

The kid wakes when the door opens again, blinks up at you with clouded eyes. Yawns and rolls towards the door and puts his arms up, reaching for you from the covers. You step inside, the space small enough that you can sit easily onto the cot already. The door hisses as it closes and the hum of silence fills up everything around you. Blocks out the world beyond. It is dark in the closed space and you pat against the wall for the control panel. Flick on a dim light which buzzes as it brightens. Flickers occasionally. Lift the child from the cot and cradle him against your chest, over your thundering heart. Feel him begin to coo softly against you, reach his hand up to touch at your neck. Tug at the covering you had pulled over your jaw. You have to hold the child with one hand so you can pull the helmet off. Feel like you are suffocating inside it. Place the heavy weight away and move to place it on a little metal ledge at the end of the room. Pull your hand back before you can put it down.

The ledge has a set of clothes folded neatly on it already. A pale tunic and set of light woollen trousers. The front of the shirt is facing up, crisp and neat, buttons fastened all the way to the top. You are frozen. Hand shaking slightly. Helmet hovering just above it. The child coos again and the moment breaks all around you. You place the helmet so softly against the metal it makes no sound as it touches. The shirt seems to look back up at you, and you brush just the tips of your fingers over it. The tunic does not belong to Din. It is yours.

The bed is made as neatly as the shirt is folded. The covers made and turned up at the top and tucked beneath the thin mattress. Reminds you of the barracks of the storm troopers you visited on Coruscant as a girl. The bed of a soldier. The walls are bare here as they are everywhere else.

You set the kid down on the made bed and watch him burrow straight into the covers. Know the little cot is familiar to him, barely larger than the narrow one which belongs to you in the hull. You sit gingerly at the end of it and begin unlacing your boots. Toe out of them and push yourself back over the covers. Keep the Beskar strapped sturdy around you. Don’t think. For once, don’t think about whether or not you should be there. Don’t think that you should leave this one space for him. The child scrabbles up over your chest and lays himself down over your chest plate. His little belly sitting over your heart. He makes a quiet, happy little noise and settles against the armour. Presses his cheek to the cool metal and closes his eyes. You wrap your arm up so you can hold a hand over the child, keep him to your chest. You turn your head into the pillow, and you realise you smell like him. Like Din. That your hair and your skin smells like softly of lemon. And you finally sleep.

You wake in the late afternoon to the sounds of speeders overhead. Dull through the thickness of the walls of the ship. It is still dark in Din’s quarters, and the child is still curled against your chest. His huge eyes bright even in the dim. You smile at him, had forgotten to turn the light out again the night before. You feel the tickle of thick facial hair against your upper lip. Rub the tip of the child’s ear. Your back is stiff and aching from the Beskar and after weeks of sleeping without it, you don’t know how you ever managed to sleep in it at all.

The day passes somehow too quickly and too slowly all at once. You keep yourself busy checking the ship. Run your gaze over and over the belly of it and the external access to the engine. Scared you will find signs of meddling. Scared you won’t. Think you must have been dreaming the noises last night because the ship is just as it ever was. You check the time like a bad habit. You hope for nightfall, hope for it so that Din can come back safe, and hope that time moves slowly, so that every minute he isn’t back doesn’t mean he isn’t returning at all. That something has gone terribly wrong. You haven’t dared to think about what will happen if Din doesn’t return. What you will do with the ship – have it impounded or sold or try your luck getting to a nearby planet where you may be able to find work in the docking yards to work off the debt. Whether you go to look for him. You wouldn’t even know where to start. You know the child senses your unrest, and it makes him temperamental. You feed him, little torn up pieces of a rich, spiced dough you had bought the day before. You are too nervous to eat yourself. You think you can hear time ticking away all around you. A deadline ringing in your ears.

Night is sudden when it comes. And the shadows in the docking yard turn long and cover the ship. You hover at the edge of the ramp, but you do not want to close it. Din could return soon. You think you imagined the noises the night. So you keep the ramp lowered and a blaster by the side of your cot. The child clambers up with you and curls against your side between the plates of Beskar. He dozes there but does not sleep, moves restlessly through the night. Hours slipping away.

You must sleep because you wake to the sound of someone calling out and you jolt upright. Have the blaster in your hand before you are aware of where you are. Think someone has returned in the night. And you can hear the echo of shuffling footsteps against the duracrete floor. The voice calls again, and you are out of bed, dropping the blaster back to its spot on the crate nearest your cot and pulling on the helmet as you move, get to the edge of the ramp. Had left even your boots on the night before, too scared you would be roused by strange intruders you cannot see. But the voice is familiar.

Din.

You stumble in your run towards him, glad of the armour and the helmet that you can go straight to him. He is only just inside the door of the dock and is edging around the wall furthest from you. You move quickly down the ramp, across the floor. Your heart sings in your chest. Relief that he is back. Until his leg buckles and he falls to one knee. Grunts and throws a hand out to try and steady himself against the wall nearest to him. You break into a sprint. Realise, as you get closer, that he is too pale. There is a beaded line of sweat along his forehead and upper lip. That the braid in his hair is pulled badly and his jacket falling at one side. His rifle crooked at his back.

You reach him as he tips sideways, get your arms beneath his and catch him against your chest plate. He groans as he slumps, winces when you try to move him. You are saying his name, over and over, trying to get his attention. Hoping his eyes will focus. Instead they are glassy and unseeing, half closed. You shift behind him, holding him up with an arm under either of his, tilt his body back against yours so you can try to lift him. He is slack, falls back and his head lolls. Tears of panic well in your eyes, block your throat, and when he is no longer hunched forward you see the stain of blood along his side. So dark it is almost black. Bleeding through the three layers of his clothes and onto the sleeve of the jacket where his arm had been clutched over the wound.

You try to move him without jostling him, without doing anything which would cause the fresh wound to rip and tear, but your arms are shaking. You move without thought, without a plan, just know you have to get him somewhere safe. The door to the dock hisses shut behind you both, sealing out the outside world. You stumble, almost drop him, somehow manage to pull him against your chest and get up the ramp onto the ship. Hit the control pad over and over with your elbow when you are inside until the ramp finally begins to close. He is so heavy in your arms, is head tilting alarmingly, mumbling something under his breath in Mando’a and slurred Basic. You are still saying his name. He doesn’t respond to it at all. His arm is limp and hanging down, swaying as you walk. And you think you are going to be sick because he needs a medcenter and you have no credits to pay for one. And you don’t know how you will move him without hurting him more.

You set him down on your cot as gently as you can. He still lets out a low, pained sound when you slide your arms from beneath him and it cuts through your chest like a blade. His stream of babbling is cut off while he winces, grips his side, and then his eyes roll backwards and he goes quiet. And you can hear desperate whining from at your feet. The child is clambering on your boot, his tiny hands scrambling and pulling at the laces in his panic, his huge eyes wet and red rimmed.

“No, little guy.” Your voice is thick with your own fear. “Not now. I need to help him.”

And the child lets out a cry, an awful pained noise. And the force of his emotions hit you without any skin to skin contact, a fierce protective panic which almost cripples you. And as well as your own emotions, the strength of the child’s are too much and you cannot breathe. Have to brace both hands against the cot next to Din and try to focus on something solid. The child does not stop, squeezes his eyes closed and holds a tiny hand up towards you, shaking slightly.

“No,” you whisper, your voice is strangled. “Stop. I need to help him.” And when he does not stop you try again, the name his father calls him. “Ad’ika, please.”

The child makes a low cry. Lowers his hand. And the feeling begins to fade. You think you are going to be sick inside the helmet from the force of the child’s fear coupled with your own. But you have no time, no time to think about what you might do, because you lift the child off your boot with shaking hands and are running towards the compartment next to the one where the Mandalorian stores his weapons, and yanking it open, and pulling it apart to get to the medkit. Thank every star in the galaxy that you had restocked them fully on Garel. Grab the spare as well. Don’t know – don’t care how much bacta you have to use to fix him. Know that you will fix him because there is no other option. Spare cloth falls from the cupboard as well, a tin full of liquid drops and spills onto the ground and you do not stop. Almost trip back to his side.

You pull his jacket to the side, roll up the shirt beneath and the undershirt beneath that. Feel dizzy as you have to keep pushing the shirt up – higher and higher, to see the full length of the cut. Long and deep and seeping black blood from his hip up over his stomach and to his ribs. As long as the Mandalorian’s forearm. So deep that every ragged breath makes the torn flesh quiver. Can see the redness of muscle beneath. The skin is grated, as if the blade was serrated, or the hand which held it shook. You pull a strip of cloth from the medkit and press it over the cut, your eyes fill with tears when Din cries out dimly at the pressure, but you hold steady. Watch as the black which bleeds from the wound soaks through the cloth. Makes it sloppy and heavy with it. Stains the leather of the gloves. You pull them away and throw them to the ground with the bloody cloth.

The edges of the wound are visible at last, only briefly. More blood seeps from within it and covers the skin again. But you have seen the space around it, shake your head to clear it. Had thought at first that the blood had stained the skin black around the cut as well but now you see it. The edges of the wound do not stop, and the black is not from blood at all, but is dark with infection. Can see it spreading up through the veins away from the cut. Black and awful, like lace beneath his skin. And you realise your whole body is shaking, not just your hands, and the lump in your throat has spread and strangled your heat so tightly you are sure it must not be beating at all.

Poison.

He is poisoned. You can see it even as you watch, climbing away from the cut at his side. You pull the shirt up in the middle, see the faded ends of black in his veins as they climb towards his heart. His stomach is damp – smeared with blood and beaded with sweat. The skin pale all around the black map of lines beneath. Ribcage shuddering with each breath. You pull more cloth from the medkit and press it over his side.

The bed dips with a small weight and you whip your head around so fast it should hurt. Would hurt if you could feel anything at all. The child crawls up the length of the cot from Din’s feet. His tiny face set in determination. You think, dimly, that you should try to protect him from this. From seeing his father like this. But you do nothing to stop him. Somewhere know that you can’t rob the child of his chance to be with Din in these moments, and that this tiny creature, this child has seen the worst of the world already. You sink to your knees and begin to pull apart the medkit. A bacta patch and spray for the cut. You almost drop them both, but you don’t. Turn back when Din utters a quiet moan.

The child has both his hands out, either side of the long, jagged cut, his eyes squeezed closed. You yell. Try to grab the child before he can further the damage. But your hands are thrown, thrown so hard your knees scrape across the metal flooring, some invisible force gripping them as tossing them to the side as easy as if you were a rag doll. The child tilts his head back, ears twitching, and when you get close enough again you think you are dreaming. Think it cannot be real because the climbing edges of the poison have stopped, are no longer reaching for Din’s heart. Retreat back down his ribs and towards the cut. You watch as the black edges of the poisoned skin begin to lift and lighten beneath the smears of blood, as the skin begins to knit itself back together. Din lets out a watery gasp, his eyes darting wildly around the room as he is pulled forcefully back into consciousness. The child grunts quietly, and without thinking you reach for him, rest your hand against his tiny head.

The ship pulses. Warps in and out of reality. And you can’t breathe. Open your mouth to desperately try to suck in a breath. But there is no air, no relief. Everything is rippling, and the edges of your vision are becoming grey. There’s an awful sound, a screeching noise, so loud you think the Crest must be sliding along the floor of the docking yard. You look down at Din and the child, but the grey is swirling and shifting and clouding and you cannot see. Realise suddenly the swarming mass in your eyes is like dust. Shimmering like Din’s viroblade. And you think you are choking on something but you cannot move, cannot feel your arms or your legs or your lungs to even know how you would be choking.

Darkness. Total and complete.

Drip.

The sensation is like falling. Just the darkness and the screeching of metal. The ringing in your ears won’t stop. Is getting louder and louder. Then your back hits hard against something firm and the dust clears, and you suck in a breath that burns like laser fire all along your side. A different kind of blindness, tinged red at the edges. But you can see. See your own reflection staring back at you in the Beskar. The Mandalorian stares down at you through the visor.

“Din?” You rasp. High and light and strangled with pain. So much pain.

The Mandalorian jerks and moves. Tilts sideways. Or maybe it is your vision swimming again. Drip. You breathe again but it is like something is crushing you, an impossible weight against your side. Your whole stomach tearing apart. The Mandalorian’s hand are moving, warp into your sight and then you feel them against your face. Bare and hot and harsh. Holding either side of your cheeks, so big that they press at your temples and into your hairline and under your jaw all at once.

“Kar’ta, nir cuy’ olar.” His voice is so deep. So much. And you cry at the sound of it wrapping around the sound of his language. Din. He brushes at the tears with his thumbs. “Cuyir ibac gar?”

The pressure at your side is worse, grows worse. And the words you are trying to say to him are swallowed by it. By the scream of pain, which is tearing its way from your side, up through your chest and out your mouth. Burning you all the way out. A full sob following it. Collapse against the covers, contorted by your pain. You don’t know how Din got back to the dock it is so bad. Think it is going to kill you.

“No. No. No, no, no.”

Din grips your face and you feel the press of the helmet against your forehead. Can’t bear to open your eyes again. The cool of the Beskar is familiar and soothing. You think you smell lemons.

“No,” Din says it. Over and over and over. The helmet lifts away right as there is another wave of pain. You shudder. Hear his voice catch. “No, don’t. Don’t. Change us back, please. Please, don’t let this happen to her – ”

“Din – ”

Your throat is in a strangle hold and the rest of the words are stuck just before your tongue. Linger there. Your blood pounding in your ears. Drowning out everything else. Drip. Except that. The awful sound. And the distant sound of Din’s deep voice, speaking in Mando’a.

“Nir kelir hiibir bic. Nu jii, nu am mhi jii. Gedet’ye.”

Drip. And then you feel a throb, a terrible pulsing all around you. And you think at first it is still the awful pain in your side, but your vision feels full of dust, clouding and swarming down your throat. Drip. You try to move your arms, to claw at it and stop it, but your hands don’t move. Feel yourself begin to float again between realities. And you see your own warped panic in the reflection of the Beskar. There’s another pulse of the world and more dust and when it clears you feel the weight around your temples and neck of the helmet. Hear Din begin to scream in your voice before everything fades.

Drip.

. 

Kar’ta, nir cuy’ olar: Heart, is that you?

Cuyir ibac gar?: Is that you

Nir kelir hiibir bic. Nu jii, nu am mhi jii. Gedet’ye: I will take it. Not now, don’t change us now. Please.

. 

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