#and i do think that he thinks of all the foundlings on his searches as a bit of his children as well | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maybege · 7 months ago

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What If - Part Two

Summary: Your alpha invites you to spend the night with him.

Pairing: alpha!Paz Vizsla x omega!fem!Reader

Wordcount: 6.5k | Rating: E (18+ only!)

Warnings: A/B/O dynamics, explicit sexual content, size kink (Paz is big-big), finger sucking (again lol), oral fixation maybe, oral sex (f receiving), use of a blindfold, crying during sex (the good kind!), overstimulation (a little?), unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk and loving verbal humiliation,

Happy Weekend! If you follow me on tumblr, you might already know that I had to split Part 2 into two due to its size (pun intended), so this is technically Part 2.1 and basically just porn, so beware. I really enjoyed reading your comments both on Tumblr and AO3 and I am looking forward to seeing your reactions to this part, too! (Also I promise the comment reblogs on tumblr are coming, I just need to recover from TTPD).

Again: Just a little reminder, that this is not strictly adhering to canon and I am just roughly imagining what actually happened during these episodes.

masterlist | crossposted on AO3

Considering how intimately you had gotten to know Paz Vizsla, you were surprised by how nervous you were about the thought of seeing him again.

The next day had you feeling skittish, even feeling a little uneasy. You knew that the clans were going into negotiations. Though they called it strategy meetings, everybody who could think two steps ahead knew that this was the first hurdle when it came to the clans working together.

Briggs had been tense at the first meal of the day, already suspecting that it would end in a debacle and now here you were, helping to take an inter-clan inventory of supplies for when worst came to worst.

Until a giant shadow fell over you.

“Calm me.”

“What?” you looked up at the armoured alpha, the one you had not seen at all this morning.

“Calm me,” he repeated and you saw how his gloved hands had clenched into fists, “I am this close to bashing that di’kut’s head in and I am not sure how beneficial that would be for our inter-clan relations.“

You smiled, somehow doubting that he was truly considering violence against Axe Woves (because there was no question he was talking about him) but, as his calmer, it was your duty to take all hints seriously. And if this wasn’t a hint, then you did not know what was.

“I can’t just,” you paused, searching for the proper words since the foundlings were not too far away, “calm you out here in the open.”

Paz tilted his head. “Calming isn’t about the sex, love, it's about the scent,” he grunted before tugging his scarf down. “I am asking you to scent me.”

Somehow that kind of request made you even more nervous. You had not seen his skin the day before but now the sliver of tan that was revealed to you made your heart skip a beat. You stepped against him, ignoring your shaking hands as you stood on your tiptoes and ran your nose over his neck.

Breathing in his scent, you found he smelled just as good as he did last night, of spice and smoke and something woodsy that made you want to close your eyes and think of spending a day between the trees. You repeated the movement, your nose brushing against the spot just under his ear and he groaned. The sound, low and deep, made you tremble.

Faintly, you could feel him shift until his hand landed on your lower back and pulled you closer. His skin was hot, heated by the fabric and you closed your eyes. You stood so close to him you felt engulfed by his presence, by his scent. Forgotten was the inventory, forgotten were the meetings you were supposed to attend today. All you wanted to do was to scent him, to coax his scarf down just a little more, to see if you could feel any stubble on his jaw or maybe even a beard.

“Stars, ‘mega,” you heard him growl, his voice so close to your ear it sent a rush of need through you.

When you pulled away you felt intoxicated, a little less inhibited. Paz smelled so much better now that he had a hint of you on him, you found, and you made a mental note to keep up this scenting practice for as long as he would let you.

“So … no sex then,” you concluded, trying to keep your sadness out of your voice. But of course, the man in front of you caught it like he seemed to catch everything about you.

“Disappointed?”

You avoided his visor, hoping that he could not see the way you tried to squeeze your thighs together.

“I keep thinking about last night,” he revealed, “Keep thinking about how tight you gripped me, how you opened up for me, how you looked sitting on my cock. Did you think about it?”

You nodded. “I did.”

“Hm,” he replied, “And what did you like about it, omega? What do you like about me?”

“I like how much bigger you are,” you confessed in a whisper, “I wondered …”

“Wondered what?” he asked, his hand pulling you closer, “Tell me, omega.”

“I wondered what it would be like to be underneath you,” you continued, your cheeks burning in embarrassment.

His thumb rubbed over the inside of your wrist, scenting you, “Did anyone ever take you from behind?”

Your silence was answer enough.

“Here is what we are going to do,” he rumbled, then, “You are coming to my bunk tonight. You will bring nothing but your softest robe, your favourite snack. I want you naked when I arrive, understand? Naked and waiting for me. I will put a blindfold on you, and then I am going to put my mouth on that little pussy of yours. How's that sound?”

“Good.”

“That is what I like to hear. And after I made you come on my tongue, I am going to position you just like this.” He turned you around, your back to his chest, “You will be flat on your belly, little one, I will spread your legs and then I am going to fuck you from behind until all you can say is my name.”

Your breathing picked up, heart rate as well. Felt your pussy weep at his words and even though he wore his helmet, your head lolled to the side, enabling him to scent you if he could.

“Will you …”

“Will I what?”

“Will you come inside me again?”

“Do you want me to?”

Nodded, embarrassed but nodded. He chuckled, low and dark, his finger tipping your chin up, “Then I will, sweet omega. I will come inside you. If you stay the night, I might just put you on my cock and come inside you again sometime during the night, fill you up real good. Would you like that?”

“Stars yes.”

You could not focus the rest of the day, your thoughts plagued by a large blue figure.

You were so flustered, in fact, that Chants kept asking you what was wrong and you were not brave enough to tell him. Until you looked at Paz one too many times and your best friend put two and two together.

“I didn’t see you last night after the fire,” he noted, his voice way too innocent for your liking, “How was it? Do you like the alpha you are paired with? What was his name again – Wizz… Wizz-something?”

“Vizsla,” you corrected him before you knew better, “Paz Vizsla.”

By now, you knew your friend long enough to know when he was teasing you. And the twinkle in his eyes told you that Chants was in teasing mode. “He is quite big, isn’t he?”

You swallowed, trying to focus on the bandages you were rolling up. “Yeah, he is.”

“Is he big … everywhere?”

“Chants!”

“What?” he laughed, avoiding the bundled-up wool that flew his way, “A friend can ask. “

“How about you tell me how it is going with Djarin?”

“Oh we are doing just fine,” he chirped, winking at you, “Though I spend my night in my own bunk.”

“I was in my own bunk, too,” you protested, hoping he did not notice how flustered you were.

“Yeah, after your alpha brought you home,” he replied easily, counting a stack of jars, “And left his cape for you.”

“He smells good …”

“Oh no doubt,” he smirked, “And what was this morning about, then? Him having you scent him out in the open?”

You did not have an answer to that.

“I’m just saying,” he shrugged, “I don’t think any of the other alphas left their capes for their calmers. Maybe something is different about you two?”

And though you had to force yourself not to answer, you could not help but spend the rest of the day daydreaming about what it could be like to be Paz Vizsla’s omega.

Paz did not have one of the tents that were attributed to the warriors. Instead, he had his own little room in one of the ships. You knew it spoke to his high position in the clan that he got these private quarters and it felt strangely intimate that he allowed you in here on his own.

Just like he had promised, a blindfold was waiting for you. And next to it, a hastily scribbled note. Get comfortable, it said, and by that I mean get naked.

With a grin, you let your eyes roam around the room and land on a bowl of fruit on the table. Had he gotten them for you? Your chest felt strangely warm at the thought and your heart raced as you popped one of the sweet berries into your mouth. Outside, the sun was lowering in the sky, you knew he would be here soon. And you had been up a long time already, too, you could feel the ache in your limbs as you sat down on the mattress.

You squeaked in surprise when you sank in way more than you had expected. Testing the softness, you found that not only was his bedding incredibly soft, no, but the mattress was much softer than the standard issue as well. Inevitably you smiled at the realization that Paz Vizsla just kept on surprising you. Your big warrior was a big teddy bear.

You took a deep breath and then slipped out of your dress, the cool air brushing over your bare skin. Standing completely naked in a strange room made you feel a little uneasy. After all, you were not familiar with your surroundings and what if you accidentally had walked into someone else's room who had the same arrangement with their calmer?

Noticing how ridiculous your panic got, you rushed onto the bed before you could change your mind. You pulled the soft covers over your legs and relished in how they smelled just like him. Then you took the blindfold – it just as soft to the touch and you wondered if it was made from the same material as his bedding – and tied it around your head. Darkness immediately enveloped you, making you feel more nervous and, at the same time, calm.

Lying down slowly, you curled up under the heaps of blankets that soon warmed from your presence.

And before you knew it, you had drifted off to sleep-

The rush of cold air through the open door barely woke you up. You felt disoriented and it took you a moment to remember that you had a blindfold on and that you were in Paz’s room, not your own. But if the door opened that meant someone was here and you were no longer alone. Every muscle in your body was tense as you debated with bated breath whether you should rip off the blindfold now or wait. Under no circumstances did you want to risk offending Paz but you also did not want to risk being subjected to someone who had no business being here.

“It is me, omega, you are safe.”

His deep voice had you relaxed immediately.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, his voice coming closer, “Are you comfortable?”

Stretching your arms above you, you did your best to suppress a yawn. “Your bed is softer than I expected, alpha,” you teased, “I half thought I might be in the wrong room.”

“Nah,” his chuckle got overshadowed by the metallic clink of his armour landing on … the floor? The table? You were not quite sure but your main takeaway was that he was getting rid of said armour. Paz Vizsla was undressing for you. “Believe it or not I actually like soft things, too.”

“They would be great to build a nest with,” you mumbled as you ran your hands over the fabric. But when you realized what you said, you froze. Had you really said that? Out loud? You hated that you could not see his reaction, whether his body tensed or he was trying to hide a grimace behind his helmet. All you could hear were his quiet breaths until the mattress dipped and he was sitting right next to you.

His scent was stronger, and unfiltered, making his proximity to you that much more exciting because he did not smell displeased. On the contrary.

“I bet,” he replied quietly, his voice a low growl. Warm, big hands found your calves under the blanket, slowly making their way up, “I bet you make the loveliest nests, omega.”

The odd (not odd, your brain provided, intimate) compliment still made your skin flush. Because all it made you think about was what it would be like to share your nest with him. Glorious, was the answer. It would be glorious.

“They aren’t too bad,” you admitted with a shrug, shivering when his fingers dug into your thighs for a brief moment, “I always get the really nice blankets from the market.”

You gasped when the blankets were pulled away, the cool air on your skin immediately replaced with his warm body. He hummed, his body weight settling over you. With so much naked skin against yours, you could hardly focus. He felt just as huge as he had looked yesterday and when he rested half-hard against your thigh, you squirmed.

“Maybe I can see your nests, one day,” he suggested lowly, his mouth brushing over your jaw and down your neck. His mouth brushing over your scent gland had your entire body jolt at the sensation, your blood thrumming with need. “When we have reclaimed Mandalore.”

You were so nervous, you did not know what to say. So your brain came up with the next best thing: Small talk. “I have never been to Mandalore before. Have you?”

“Grew up there,” he explained, nipping at your neck, “Until the – until then.”

You nodded, the pain in his voice enough to tell you that he had lived it all. It made you wonder how old he was – not old enough to have fought in there, surely, but maybe … clearly old enough to have vivid memories of that night. Your heart ached for him and you tilted your head up, a happy sigh escaping you when you got to brush your nose along the entirety of his throat.

Paz relaxed into you, his woody scent enveloping you both.

“That’s not what we are here for now, though, are we?”

His grip was tight on your jaw, strong enough to make sure you could not turn away from him and you could feel his eyes burning into you. You shook your head, nervously swallowing as your body already reacted to his words.

“Remind me again,” he whispered, his lips barely brushing over yours, “What are we here for, sweet omega?”

“You, uh, you …”

“Yes?”

You squirmed, embarrassed.

“Someone too shy to say it?” he teased you, the slight mocking undertone making you wetter than you wanted to admit. How did this man have this effect on you?

“That’s alright,” he said after a beat, “I can say it for you.”

“I am going to eat you out,” he whispered as if it were a secret between you, “I am going to feast on this pussy and then I am going to take you from behind and fill you up like you asked me to, omega. You will wake up tomorrow with so much come between your legs, there is no doubt who filled you up.”

You pressed your thighs together, trying to satiate the pulsing need in your core. “Alpha,” you whispered, unsure of what to say other than just beg him to take you.

“I am going to kiss you now, okay?”

He chuckled at your eager nod before fully pressing his lips to yours.

You were overwhelmed by the sensation. It had been so long since you had been kissed and Paz was a good kisser. The best kisser, actually, who seemed to know just what you needed. His stubble scratched your chin when his teeth dug into your bottom lip, pulling on it until you whimpered. The sting was quickly soothed by his tongue slipping into your mouth and dancing with yours. Your hands found the back of his head, too, playing with the short hairs there and his chest rumbled.

He dominated the kiss effortlessly and you let him, relaxing into the bed and wrapping your legs around him. The unmistakable shape of his cock twitched against your folds and could not resist the urge to grind against him.

Moans escaped both of you. “Fuck,” he hissed when he pulled away. Heavy breaths washed over your face and he rested his forehead against you, “Omega, you have no idea how much I needed you today. I was this close just calling you for the talks …”

“Why didn’t you, then?” you asked, surprised to find yourself disappointed, “I am your calmer after all.”

Paz was silent for a moment as he dropped kisses along your neck and further down. Big hands were on your chest, cupping your tits and wasting no time to pinch your nipples. Just lightly at first, plucking at them before his fingers grew a little rougher. You gasped, arching your back off the bed and towards his mouth. Paz’s body vibrated.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered, his tongue darting out to lick over your nipple, “The thought that all these other alphas get to see you look so pretty when I make you feel good …” he trailed off, his fingers tightening their pinch on your nipple and the pleasure mixed with a delicious level of pain. “I wanted you all for myself before we see Mandalore.”

“Now be a good girl for me and play with your tits,” he instructed, his tone leaving no room for questions and you followed. For a moment, you mourned his absence but that did not last long when you felt his hands on your ankles, untangling your legs from his back and folding them to your chest.

Your breath stuttered. With your knees by your ears, you could feel the cool air on your most intimate part and not only that.

You felt exposed and vulnerable but also more turned on than ever. The knowledge that Paz could and probably was looking at you like this, his eyes on your glistening folds, sent another wave of heat through you. Your pussy pulsed and he must have seen it because he let out the lowest groan, causing your walls to clench again.

The sudden presence of his finger made you flinch in surprise and he pauses, the pad of his finger resting just above your clit. “This okay, omega?” he asked.

The smell of his arousal was already in the air but something in his tone still reassured you that he would stop, no questions asked, if you needed him to. And this sense of safety just added to your excitement.

“Yes, alpha,” you breathed, leaning your head back against the pillows.

“Good,” he rumbled, a second and third finger following before you could feel him slowly push inside you. The bed dipped and shifted underneath you as you both adjusted.

“What a beautiful pussy,” he mused, his thumb coming up to rub a circle over your clit and you whimpered, “Could stare at her all night long.”

“P-Paz, please.”

“What is it, little one?” he asked, his thumb steadily running over your clit, sending pulses through your entire body. But with how he had folded you in – “Use your words.”

“You just love to embarrass me, don’t you?” you blurted out, positively surprised at how put together you still sounded. Though you could not deny the breathlessness in your voice, either from excitement or arousal or both you could not say, but who could blame you when you had this massive man above you, playing with your pussy like it was his favourite meal?

“I do,” he agreed and could feel his breath on your folds, the breadth of his shoulder between your legs as he slowly thrust his fingers in you, “Something about corrupting a sweet innocent omega like you makes my cock so hard.”

He licked a broad stripe up your pussy, from your entrance to your clit. Your eyes widened and your body bowed off the bed, your legs trying to close on him but the massive size of his body did a good job preventing it.

“You have no idea the things I want to do to you,” he growled, before pressing a chaste kiss to your clit. “You better keep your legs right where I put ‘em, omega, or at the next meeting I am gonna keep you on your knees and have you cockwarm me with that pretty mouth of yours, understood?”

You forced your trembling hands behind your knees, pulling them to your chest and opening yourself up for him. “Sorry alpha,” you stuttered out. The image his words had conjured up in your head made you clench and you were sure he had seen it.

His hands tightened their grip on your body and his thumbs spread your folds for him as he went down on you like a man dying of thirst. You would have felt oddly exposed to him if it had not been for his tongue and his lips being everywhere, driving you absolutely crazy.

He expertly sucked on your clit until you were sure that not only had you ruined his sheets but that it would only be one more second before you came. But then, he switched back to your entrance, running his tongue along your folds, pressing kisses everywhere until your arousal was at a steady thrum – still pleasant but nowhere near the edge where you had been before. Then returned to your clit, making you see stars before switching back to the rest of you.

Only when you could feel him smiling against your thighs did you realize he was doing it on purpose.

Tears collected in the corners of your eyes, you were that desperate to come. “P-please, alpha,” you gasped out, gripping your knees hard so as to keep to his instructions. Surely, if you did everything he told you to he would reward you. You had been good for him after all …

“Please what?” he mocked you, “What do you need, sweetheart, tell me?”

“Please let me come,” you mumbled, a little flustered.

“Look at that,” he marvelled, “Yesterday you weren’t sure whether you could come on my fat cock, and now you are begging me to let you come on my tongue.” Another well-placed opened-mouthed kiss against your clit and you broke apart.

“Please!” You sobbed, tears now soaking the blindfold, “Please alpha, I will be so good, I promise, you – I will let you do anything just p-please …”

His ministrations paused and the lack of touch almost broke you.

“Are you crying, omega?” he asked, his voice strangely rough. The movement made his stubble brush over the sensitive skin of your hips.

Your cheeks flared with heat in embarrassment but you nodded nonetheless. “It just feels o good,” you admitted in a whisper.

Paz let out a long breath, even that stimulated your clit until you were squirming in his hands. “Fuck,” he murmured, his warm forehead falling onto your lower belly, “that shouldn’t turn me on as much as it does.”

And then he let you come. He made you come.

His lips closed around your clit and all the tricks he pulled out before, he let them play out fully. With your hips grinding against his face, seeking to get closer to him, Paz had his hands holding you still, steadily spreading you for him until you were crying into the cool air.

Even after the first waves of pleasure had rolled over you, the alpha between your thighs did not cease his movements. His mouth got gentler as he licked all that you gave him and sometimes you swore you could feel him hum in satisfaction.

“Good girl,” he praised you quietly and despite everything, you felt yourself flush in arousal at his praise, “You did so good for me.”

Completely out of breath, you felt like you had just experienced one of those training sessions Chants did in the warrior section and that you usually admired from afar.

“Stars,” you breathed, your hands letting go from their grip on your knees. Your legs ached from how you held them for so long and you winced at the movement. Paz was there though, his hands running over your skin and gently helping your legs down before pressing kisses to your thighs.

“You did so good for me,” he repeated affectionately, “’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Using your words, following my instructions.”

“I want a kiss,” was all you could say and he chuckled, leaning in to give you a kiss that had you sighing against him, melting even more into the sheets.

“Thank you,” he whispered against you, his forehead touching yours, “For wearing a blindfold, for allowing me to pleasure you.”

Upon his soft-spoken, honest words, all you could say was, “I can’t speak.”

For a moment, you wondered whether he would misunderstand your lack of response as a lack of reciprocity. But he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t. Paz helped you wrap your arms around his neck, his large hand pressing yours to his nape for a moment before letting you go. Without wasting a moment, you buried your head in his neck, scenting him for all you were worth. You wanted to tell how you felt like you were gloating, how happy you were right now right here.

And despite the lack of words, it seemed to work. His big hand slipped to your back, holding you to him as he leaned back, pulling both of you into a sitting position on the bed.

“Then I did a good job,” he joked. Playfully you slapped him on the chest or at least you planned to but his hand caught yours, gripping your wrist and pinning it to your back. None of it was painful, none of it strict. More … slow and deliberate and loving when his fingers brushed over your wrist gently. This was how he was, it occurred to you, that Paz Vizsla did not need to secure his dominance in any sudden way because he was secure in his dominance. It was never even a question for him whether he would be able to pleasure you. The realization made you even wetter and within moments, it had you forgetting the way he had made you come so undone you did not want to think about being touched again.

“You tasted even sweeter than I imagined,” he revealed with his lips brushing over your cheek.

The whispered compliment made you shift in his lap, causing his hard cock to rub against your folds. A flush went through your body and you tried to shift again, this time getting his shaft to burhs over your clit and you gasped.

“Already?” he teased you, “What a needy little slut I got for myself.”

His fingers returned and you opened your mouth willingly. Just like they did the day before, his fingers moved in and out of your mouth at a slow and deliberate pace, and just like you had done yesterday, you sucked them into your mouth with an eagerness that you were no longer ashamed to showcase for him.

“I promised you I would fuck from behind, didn’t I?” his voice was rough from arousal, his pointer finger pushing down on your tongue.

“Uh-huh”, you swirled your tongue around his fingers, hoping to convey just how much you wanted that.

“Can't wait to work my cock in you again,” he revealed, burying his face in your neck as his fingers slipped so deep in your mouth you gagged. You were clenching around nothing immediately, imagining what his cock would feel inside you. Whether it would feel different now that you knew what was coming.

He pulled his fingers free from your mouth only to put them on your pussy. As if you weren’t wet enough from your orgasm of the century. Carefully, he ran them over your clit and while you felt sensitive still, it was nothing compared to the waves of arousal that returned upon his touch. One thing you knew now: If Paz Vizsla called, your body would answer.

“Tell me if it is too much,” he murmured, kissing the side of your neck as he detangled himself from you. With gentle sounds and strong hands, he directed you to lie on your front and you sunk into the wonderfully soft blankets with a sigh. Then, he straddled you from above, his cock resting heavily on the small of your back.

Even now, he felt massive. So massive that you imagined you could feel him reach the middle of your back, his precome pooling on your skin. But then you had your arms pinned over your head, one of his hands encompassing both of your wrists. And that was just the sexiest thing ever.

He made you feel small, helpless and hornier than ever and it just got better when he pushed inside you for the first time.

“Stars,” you breathed out, clenching your hands into fists. The stretch was just as big as yesterday and in the new position, it took more of an effort to breathe. But he was big inside you, his mushroom tip breaching your entrance.

“You good, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice strained when he pulled out a little just to push back in. And then his thighs shifted, his knees pinning your leg together which made it an even tighter fit and you gasped, feeling him in your belly.

“Wish you could see it,” he commented, “Wish you could see just how good you take my fat cock. How good you are at opening up for me.”

At his words, you tried to lift your ass against him, to get him deeper but his free hand moved to your lower back, pushing you to the bed. “Nu-uh,” he scolded you, “I am the one in charge, little one.”

Oh fuck, why did that turn you on so much?

Your teeth sank into your lip and you whimpered. You would let this man do anything to you. Especially now that, with your back arched, he hit that spot inside you that made you see stars and he seemed to be determined to use it to his advantage.

Paz’s thrusts were slow but deep. Deliberate. His body caged you in, completely covering you as he worked you open on his cock like he had never done anything else in his life. You could feel his breath on your skin, could feel where he gripped your hands, where the muscles in his legs worked to keep him moving, where his belly brushed against your ass.

Paz Vizsla had taken you over completely.

“How do you feel?” he asked, “Happy now you finally have that greedy pussy filled?”

You nodded eagerly, unable to keep the whine down your throat. “F-feels o full, alpha,” you gasped, trying once again to rock against him, “Almost – oh.”

“Almost what?”

“Almost too full.”

He hummed and you noticed how his thrust seemed more urgent. His legs caged your thighs in and you hoped he would squeeze, hoped the movement would put pressure on your clit.

“And yet here you are weeping for me,“ he mused, “You love my too-big-for-you cock, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Say it.”

“Huh?” your hands clenched and you tried your best to listen to him, you really did. But maybe you were also just trying to pretend like you were not too cockdumb to realize what he was asking of you.

“Say you love my big cock,” he murmured, sounding way too controlled for your liking. His thrust and you cried out when it hit a spot inside you that made your whole body shiver in the best way.

“Say it or I won't let you come, sweet omega,” he teased you, his free hand gently running over your back, “Don’t you want to come again, sweetheart? Don’t you want to be filled with my come?”

His words cause something to spiral inside you and all you managed was to nod. You did not know where this need had come from to be so close to him. It felt like you had discovered a part of yourself that you had hidden from everyone – including you. But the thought of finally feeling his come inside you the same way it happened yesterday made your nipples tingle and your pussy weep. And from the way he growled, you knew he felt it.

“Love your cock,” you mumbled into the pillow, your cheek smushed against the soft fabric that smelled like him and that made you distractedly think of what it would be like to spend all your nights in his beds, building your nest and cuddling with him.

“What was that?” he asked, the thumb that kept your hands together brushing over the sensitive spots on your wrist, “Couldn’t hear you, sweetheart.”

“I love your cock!” you cried out, embarrassment in your voice, “L-love it, alpha, makes me feel so good.”

His groan was deep and guttural and you could feel him twitch inside you as his thrusts got even harder. Whimpering into the pillow, you relaxed into the sheet once you realised you could not do it anymore. You felt like you had lost control of your limbs and Paz, in your stead, had gained them.

“Good girl,” he praised you, his arm sneaking to your front and circling your clit as he buried himself as deep into you as he could. It took only the barest of touches for you to fall apart in his arms. And this one was even stronger than the one before. You felt completely weightless, bodyless, too, as your brain registered only pleasure. From your toes to your hairline, all you could feel was him. Him pulsing inside you, him filling you with his come and the thought made you clench around him.

“Stars,” he groaned above you, his weight settling on you. The effect this had on him made you smile, your fingers twitching as you tried to reach for him. Because clearly, having him inside you was not close enough.

“Is this okay?” he asked, his voice all mumbly and you tried to nod. His body resting on yours made you feel secure in a way you could not describe so you focussed on your breathing first, smiling when his hands intertwined with yours.

“Thank you, alpha,” you whispered

“What for?”

“For making me come,” you murmured, “And, uh, for coming inside me.”

Paz made a sound like a grunt and you could feel him twitch at your words. “You say that like it is a chore,” he replied, his lips running over the back of your neck and you shivered when he brushed over your scent gland, “When all I could think about all day was what you might taste like on my tongue. And how pretty you look on my cock.”

“You didn’t take me to the negotiations this morning,” you stated, unable to help the insecurity that scratched at your heart.

“No, I did not,” he answered and, after a slight pause, added, “And I won't take you to the ones tomorrow morning either.”

Hurt cracked at your heart and you shifted. But Paz misunderstood your restlessness and took it as a sign to get up. The warmth of his body left you and you both whimpered when he slipped out of you.

“This is the prettiest sight,” he commented, his large hands spreading your cheeks apart. You felt puffy and slick and the feeling of his come trickling out of you paired with his fingers digging into your soft flesh made you clench again.

The bed dipped and swayed as he moved and soon, you could feel the weight of his body next to yours and gingerly turned around. His arms found you instantly, pulling you into his chest and you sighed as you settled your cheek on his warm skin.

But no matter how comfortable he was, you could not shake your curiosity. “Why?”

“Hm?”

“Why won't you take me to the negotiations here?”

“What I said is true,” he whispered, “I want to keep you for myself until Mandalore. I want to get to know you, to make sure you …”

You frowned, “Make sure I what?”

“Make sure you are okay being seen with a Mandalorian like me.”

It took you a moment to realise what he was saying. And when you did, you were surprised that a confident warrior like him had worries such as these.

“Paz,” you started, your hand splaying over his chest and feeling his heartbeat, “Are – do you think that because you are from a different tribe I would not want to be seen with you?”

“I know what other Mandalorians think of us,” he grumbled, pulling you closer, “I know that my way of life may not seem … normal to you.”

“Paz,” you started, tracing your fingers in makeshift patterns over his skin, “It may not be my way of life but that does not mean I would ever be … be embarrassed or ashamed of being out there with you. I am you calmer and I am,” you took a deep breath, “I am proud to be your calmer, alpha. I would not want it any other way.”

For a long time, Paz did not say anything and you had the sudden fear that what you had said, what you had implied, was too much, that you had crossed some invisible boundary that kept you at a (professional? Diplomatic?) distance. But you could not help it. Could not help the warm feeling in your chest whenever he was near and the need to make him feel … good. And cherished. And wanted.

Stars, you wanted this man.

“Can I kiss you again?”

His big hand covered the side of your face and even though he could not see it, you closed your eyes and nodded. And then his mouth descended on yours. The kiss was soft and slow, his tongue brushing over your lower lip. You could feel his stubble against your chin and it did not take long before you cupped his cheek as well, feeling the growing beard under his thumb.

Before you could ask him how he kept his facial hair most of the time, a yawn forced its way out of your body. Paz moved his mouth away and you whimpered, trying to get him to kiss you again.

“Sleep, my love,” he whispered against your ear, “We will see each other tomorrow.”

#maybege writes #paz vizsla x reader #paz vizsla x fem!reader #smut

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ak-vintage · 7 months ago

Text

Quarry - Chapter 11

Pairing: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) x f!reader

Summary: Din Djarin is on what he expects to be his last bounty hunt for Greef Karga. After all, Nevarro is swiftly moving away from its previous reputation as a Guild member’s paradise, and Din has more important concerns now, like finding a Jedi to train his mysterious foundling. However, after capturing a wanted starship engineer who would rather go anywhere other than “home,” the Mandalorian is forced to reassess his priorities.

Your taste of freedom had been brief but glorious. Now you are a prisoner of the most infamous bounty hunter in the Outer Rim – it’s only a matter of time before he turns you in. There isn’t much you would not do to keep from being sent home, but as you find yourself growing closer to your captor and his strange little companion, you start to wonder whether escape is really what you want.

Set after Chapter 13: The Jedi but before Chapter 14: The Tragedy.

Chapter Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Reader is Mando's live-in starship engineer, second-person POV, Din Djarin POV, no use of Y/N, minimal descriptors of reader character, unresolved sexual tension, pining, angst, Din speaks Mando'a

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3

True to his word, Mando returned to the ship – a scrawy Human male wearing a shattered pair of glasses, dirt-scuffed robes, and an impressive black eye in tow – just after midday the following day. Though the impassive visor of his helmet gave little away, you had spent enough time with him to be able to read his body language. The bounty hunter was exhausted.

He spared you only a brief nod of greeting when he spotted you waiting for him at the rear exit of the hold. His gait was slow and stiff as he ascended the gangplank, his limbs heavy as he wordlessly pressed the smaller man back into the carbonite freezer and slammed the control panel under his palm. When the gasses dissipated and revealed the matte gray carbonite outline of the unlucky quarry, you watched as he wrestled the slab out of the recessed wall unit and onto the storage rack, a task that normally wouldn’t even cause him to break a sweat now leaving him panting through his vocoder.

He took a moment then to wordlessly lean against a stack of cargo bins, catching his breath, and you offered him a small, close-lipped smile. “Rough one?” you asked, sympathetic.

Mando inclined his head in a gesture reminiscent of a nod. “Tired.” His voice crackled through his helmet dryly as though from disuse. Pointing vaguely in the direction of the newest addition to the carbonite rack, he added, “Finally found the son of a mudscuffer hiding out in some smuggling tunnels under the shipping district, right on the water. Barely put up a fight once I did, but I lost count of the number of smuggling parties I ran into while I was searching. Didn’t want to let me go after I’d seen their faces. Feel like I’ve been in one fight after another since I left.” He let his head drop back on his neck, rolling it from side to side, the low light of the cargo hold arcing across the dome of his helmet. “I’d almost have to call it clever, letting them wear me out like that. If he weren’t such a hu’tuun.”

“Are you hurt? Want me to get the med pack?” you offered, feeling your eyebrows drawing up in concern.

He shook his head minutely. In your mind, you pictured eyes falling closed behind the visor screen, muscles finally loosening, jaw finally unclenching, safe again within the durasteel hull of his ship. “I’m all right, gotabor’ika. Just need to rest,” he replied, and a now-familiar warmth settled in your stomach and bloomed in your cheeks at the sound of that word in his soft, gruff tone.

Buoyed by that warmth and before you could think better of it, you closed the narrow distance between you, reaching out and wrapping your fingers gently, carefully around the strap of his satchel.

You felt the bounty hunter’s body tense immediately beneath your touch. His helmet snapped forward to meet your gaze, his hand flying up to wrap firmly around the delicate joint of your wrist. The heat of him on your bare skin felt like a brand even through the well-worn leather. “What are you doing?” he rasped.

You swallowed thickly, pinned down by his stare. “Helping you rest,” you replied. Your voice was soft, no more than a thready whisper even to your own ears. “Relax. Let me take this for you.”

Mando simply stared for a moment with his hand still gripping your wrist, and as clearly as you felt you could see what was happening behind that helmet mere seconds ago, it now felt completely impenetrable. He held you there for a moment, then another, silent, seemingly studying you, but just as you were about to let go and pull back, he released his hold on you and nodded once.

The faintest smile tugged at the corners of your lips at his acquiescence. “Thank you,” you murmured, slipping the strap of his bag up and over his head. You set it off to the side, hanging the strap from the handle on the weapons locker, then crossed to the chiller and pulled a frosty canteen of fresh water and a ration bar out of its depths. “Here,” you added, passing them both into the bounty hunter’s hands. “Drink. Eat. ‘Fresher’s all yours if you want to clean up. I’ll go get us in the air, let you have some privacy.”

“The kid?” he asked. “What happened yesterday – ”

You shook your head. “Don’t worry, he’s fine. Napping.” You gestured over your shoulder toward the bunk, the sliding door shut across its entrance. “He woke up about an hour after we talked last night, starving but otherwise okay. He about cleaned out our stock of bantha jerky, but then it was like it…never happened.”

Mando nodded slowly, more to himself than to you. However, as you went to excuse yourself to the cockpit, certain that the conversation was over, he extended a hand toward you once more.

Catching his pointer and middle fingers in the pocket of your cargo pants, he tugged you toward him.

Heat slammed into you at the contact, the back of your neck abruptly damp with sweat, the apex of your thighs pulsing at the graceful ease with which he dragged you into his space. He said nothing, simply continued to stare at you, and you gasped and stammered helplessly in an attempt to fill the suddenly tense silence. It was…intimate, the way he held you in place, the way your knees knocked gently against his as he lounged back against the cargo bins, the way you could feel his eyes on your face even without being able to see them. The feeling made it difficult to breathe.

Before you could manage to utter a full sentence, the Mandalorian dropped his grip on your pocket and instead brought his fingers up to caress the loose tails of the embroidered scarf tied around your head.

He rubbed the cloth between his thumb and forefinger pensively. “You like it?” His voice was rough, gravelly, and warm, feeling almost private in the close atmosphere of the cargo hold. Your imagination immediately supplied the sensation of what that voice might sound like in the dark, hot and moist on your neck, behind your ear. You shivered at the thought.

You nodded, the motion causing your jaw to brush against the leather of his palm. “Very much,” you replied, trying desperately to keep your voice even, to keep from turning your cheek into his hand.

“I’m glad,” he confessed. “It suits you.”

You drew your lips between your teeth, embarrassed but biting back a pleased smile at the compliment. “Thank you.”

You stayed like that for a moment, keenly aware of the negligible gap between your bodies, the way Mando’s touch lingered on the fabric. If you didn’t know better, you would have said he seemed reluctant to release you, like he was prolonging the contact.

Perhaps he was, you considered. Surely it couldn’t all be in your head anymore, could it? The frequent, extended eye contact, the gentle affection in his voice when he spoke to you, the way he continued to defy any sense of your personal space… The kriffing scarf – sturdy and soft, delicate and durable, beautiful and immensely practical. Perfectly suited to your tastes even though you knew you had never shared them with him, now a permanent fixture in your daily wardrobe. You couldn’t be imagining all of that.

Could you?

You felt trapped, dragged in by the gravitational pull of the expanse of his shoulders, the breadth of his hands, the muscle of his thighs, and you weren’t sure how much longer you could continue to fight it. One day soon, you were going to succumb to the magnetism of his orbit. It was going to draw you down and strip you bare, leaving you open and vulnerable before him. On that day, when you finally collided with the irrepressible force of him, you wouldn’t be able to pretend you were just his nanny, just his engineer anymore.

The thought scared you more than you liked to admit.

“I-I should get up to the cockpit, let you settle back in,” you stuttered, your voice thin and breathless. “I don’t want to intrude.”

A soft, rasping huff, an almost-chuckle, crackled through the Mandalorian’s vocoder, and with one last, gentle tug on the tails of your scarf, he released you. You took the gesture for what it was and stepped back, suddenly in desperate need of some air.

“Always so sweet to me, gotabor’ika,” he replied. “Go ahead then. I’ll join you in a bit.”

Reaching for you one final time, he gently chuffed the backs of his knuckles against your chin, the gesture affectionate and almost…flirtatious? Your knees weakened at the touch, something not unlike hunger throbbing in your core.

Before you could do something truly foolish, you reached for the cold, steady durasteel of the ladder and practically threw yourself up it, taking the rungs two at a time. You had known Mando was dangerous from the moment you met him, but this kind of danger – a danger to your dignity, a danger to your sanity – you never expected.

___

Stars, but you were dangerous.

Every time Din thought he had finally managed to develop some semblance of control where you were concerned, all it took was a look, a smile, a gently-spoken word, and all that beskar-clad self-discipline went out the airlock. He had hoped that a few days away would be enough to reestablish a bit of space, a bit of restraint, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. He had no idea what to make of his own behavior, no idea who he thought he was touching you like that.

All he knew was that he had spent the last several days getting his ass kicked over and over and over again. He knew that he was tired, a bone-deep kind of tired that would normally have him staggering to his bunk and passing out the second his head hit the pillow. And he knew that he was weak – too weak to keep from basking in the ease and the calm of your presence, from languishing in the softness of the way you cared for him.

To say that Din was unaccustomed to such comfort would be an understatement, and yet you gave it so freely. He glanced down at the ration bar and the canteen in his hands, frosted on the edges from the cooler locker and dampening his gloves in rivulets of condensation. It was the smallest of gestures – greeting him at the door, relieving him of his bag, offering medical aid, food, water. Reassuring him of his foundling’s safety, easing his worries. You expected nothing from him in return, he knew. You simply knew what he needed, and you were happy to give it.

The trouble with that, of course, was that it never failed to make him want more. More of your time, more of your attention, more of your care. More of your sparkling laughter echoing through the hull of his ship, your tools scattered across the floor, your silhouette in his copilot chair with his child on your lap. More of your scent – warm and spiced like him, soft and feminine like you – clinging to his pillow like it was yours, like he was yours. Like you belonged there right next to him, tangled in his arms, Grogu in his little hammock right above you both.

Like you were a family, a clan of three.

Perilous things for a man like him to want.

As the number of tracking fobs in his pocket dwindled by the day, the bounty hunter grew painfully aware that the moment he had been putting off for so many months was quickly closing in. He only had a few quarries remaining, and when those dried up, Din knew that he would be out of excuses. It would finally be time to take Ahsoka’s recommendation seriously – it would be time to take Grogu to Tython. There, he would reach out with the Force and search for another Jedi to train him, to care for him. And then, if all went according to plan, it would be time to say good-bye.

With Grogu gone, would you leave, too?

His time playacting as a father was almost at an end. Why should he get to continue playacting as a riduur?

Din shook his head then as though to banish the sobering thought. Regardless of the ticking clock that was his time with his foundling, after these many months, you had more than earned his trust, and the story of Grogu’s past and how he came to be here was long overdue. You had seen it now – the things he could do, how special and powerful he was. You needed to understand what that meant and how important it was that he be kept safe until he could be reunited with his people.

He would share it all with you, and when you understood how finite your time was with him, Din could only hope that you would decide to stay.

___

The galaxy streaked past, arcing paths of white starlight and inky blackness illuminating the dim cockpit and backlighting the silhouette of the Mandalorian. In your favorite copilot’s chair, you sat with your legs crossed and folded up under you like a child, and in the weighted silence that stretched between you and the bounty hunter, you could have sworn you could hear your own mind racing, whirring and spinning and trying desperately to keep up with everything you had just learned.

Grogu was a Jedi. A Jedi.

When Mando had said it, you thought at first you had misunderstood. You hadn’t heard that word since you were a child, when your father had told you bedtime stories of an ancient order of magic-wielders who bore weapons made of light and kept peace across the cosmos. Like Mandalorians, they had existed to you only as legends, something far from your small, monotonous existence on Chardaan, more myth than reality. To know for certain now that not only were they as real as the man sitting in front of you, but that your sweet boy was one of the few that had survived their slaughter made your heart ache in your chest. You couldn’t begin to imagine how lonely it must have been for him – spending nearly 30 years in hiding, always on the run, everyone he had ever known and loved long gone. And then, of course, the hunting had begun.

Bile burned in your gut at the thought of it, caught somewhere between terror and rage. You pictured him with his wide, dark eyes, so small and frightened, tracked across the galaxy like a prey animal on the run. Even in the relatively short time since Mando had been in his life, Grogu had been chased, kidnapped, assaulted, and subjected to who-knows-what varieties of experiments and medical procedures.

How could I ever hurt him? You had asked Mando that question your very first day on the Crest, the first time you had held Grogu in your arms. You understood now what the bounty hunter had meant when he said that others had tried. It all made sense now. The Mandalorian’s hypervigilance when it came to the child’s safety when they were in port, his insistence on repairing the carbonite freezer, the way he had come to so deeply value the way you cared the foundling… You knew intimately what it felt like to live always looking over your shoulder, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, always anticipating the next threat. You wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone.

You wondered if perhaps Grogu had sensed that in you when you first met. Maybe that kinship had been one of the reasons why the two of you bonded as quickly as you did.

And now he was leaving.

Not now, you knew, but soon, and just the thought of it was enough to make your throat swell shut. You felt choked by it, the grief of his inevitable departure like a looming specter you hadn’t known was there until moments ago but now couldn’t ignore if you tried. You had nearly lost him once before, when you had thought you were being returned to Chardaan, but at least then, you had known that he would be safe with Mando. You could picture them in the Razor Crest, hurtling through deep space with Grogu on the bounty hunter’s lap, secure and cared for – each of them the guardian of the other. If all went according to plan, this time, he would be in the care of a stranger in some unknown corner of the galaxy, perhaps not alone but not with you and certainly not with the man who had become like his father.

Your heart was breaking already – for Grogu, for yourself, but also for Mando.

“I know that was a lot to take in,” the bounty hunter said, dragging you out of your thoughts. “I assume you have questions.”

You hesitantly drew your lower lip between your teeth. “Just one,” you admitted. Silent, he inclined his helmet in your direction, urging you to continue. “This temple you’re going to take him to, on Tython… How do you know it will work?”

If you didn’t know better, you would say there was something almost defensive in the way Mando folded his arms across his chest at that, but you couldn’t allow it to deter you. Perhaps he had already made up his mind, but if he thought that you were just going to step aside and allow Grogu to leave with some mysterious person you had never met without a fight, he had clearly underestimated you.

“You and I both know that the Jedi were wiped out decades ago,” you continued. “The fact that you were able to find even one of them left alive is a miracle, and it sounds to me like she is sending you on a wild bantha chase on nothing but a hunch. Let’s say you get him there, you find these ancient temple ruins, Grogu sends out his little Force message…then what? How do you know there’s anyone on the other end to hear him? And for that matter, who’s to say that the person who hears him is someone you’d even want to train him?”

The Mandalorian appeared to consider you for a moment, his head cocked to the side in thought. “Ahsoka seemed to believe that she wasn’t the only surviving Jedi. I don’t think she would have suggested this if it wasn’t at least possible that there could be someone, somewhere, who is in tune enough with the Force to be able to sense Grogu reaching out.”

“But could you trust them?” you pushed back. “He might not be completely helpless, but he is just a child. How could you know that he would be safe with them?”

The bounty hunter shook his head dismissively. “You haven’t seen what the Jedi can do. Fully trained, they make Grogu’s abilities look like child’s play. I…” He trailed off then, the low rasp of his voice sounding as though it was fighting past a lump in his throat. “I can’t imagine him being any safer than he would be with one of them.”

“Then why do you sound like you’re trying to convince yourself?” You were starting to get heated now – you could feel it swelling in your chest, flushing your face, raising your voice. You had never fought with him before, not since the sass of your first day on board, but you were feeling dangerously close to it now. “Don’t bullshit me, you don’t believe that for a second.”

Rather than match your energy, however, he instead spun his chair back around to face the ship’s controls, seemingly determined to disengage entirely. “It doesn’t matter, my decision is made. I will find a Jedi, and Grogu will be reunited with his own kind.”

“His own kind?” you echoed, incredulous. “Who cares about his own kind? Mando, you’re like this – ”

“I’m not! I’m not his father,” Mando snapped. Your eyes widened at the sharp sound, his voice barking through his helmet modulator and crackling with the volume. It was the closest the stoic man had ever come to shouting at you, and to say it was disquieting would be an understatement.

You watched as his grip on the flight controls tightened. The leather of his gloves stretched taut and thin over his flexed knuckles, and he paused for a moment then, seeming to gather himself. When he spoke again, his words were careful and deliberate. “When I took him in, I swore that I would protect him, keep him safe from the people that hunted him, until I could bring him back to the Jedi. He isn’t… He’s not mine to keep.”

Your heart beat thickly in your chest, heavy against the inside of your ribcage. For once, it didn’t matter that you couldn’t see the Mandalorian’s face. In this moment, his measured words and his impassive visor might as well have been transparent. The idea of giving Grogu up was hurting him just as much as it was hurting you. He was fighting it, but you could see it in the tension in his broad shoulders, the strangling clutch of his hands.

“Why not?” you asked, your voice softening. “Why couldn’t you keep him? Anyone with eyes can see how much you love him.”

“It’s not enough.”

You scoffed a laugh, but there was nothing mirthful about it. “What are you talking about? It’s not enough that you love him? What more could you need? What more is there?”

You watched as his head dropped forward on his neck, as he stared into his lap. “You wouldn’t understand,” he growled, his jaw tight, grumbling through his teeth.

You couldn’t stop yourself from recoiling at that. Had the man slapped you across the face, it might have hurt less than those words. You had thought that by now you might have earned his trust, that he might have come to value your perspective. How many months had it been now that you had been sharing his ship, sharing his home? Not to mention your relationship with Grogu or the sweat and the labor and the love you had poured into the Crest.

Did he truly think so little of you, that you wouldn’t at least try to understand what was going on inside his head? He had to know you better than that.

“Oh, really? Try me.”

The venom of your words hung in the air for a moment, unchallenged. However, before long, Mando sighed through his vocoder, the sound sputtering and staticky, and spun back around in his chair to look at you once again. Something in him seemed to gentle and ease in the face of your biting challenge, and rather than severity, the way he leaned toward you read more like a plea.

“In my culture…” he began haltingly, “if I were to adopt Grogu, if I recognized him as my son, I would be responsible for his training.”

“Okay. And what does that mean, exactly?”

“It means that, by Creed, I would be the one tasked with teaching him how to be a warrior. I would be the duty-bound to guide him in how to use his skills for his own survival and for the betterment of the Tribe.” Mando watched as you nodded, encouraging him to continue. “And sure, there are things I could teach him – I could teach him navigation, survival skills, how to wield weapons. I could teach him our histories, our songs, what it means to walk the Way of the Mandalore. But Grogu…”

The Mandalorian trailed off, shaking his head. His masked face fell into shadow as he broke your gaze and instead stared into his palms, flipped up against his thighs as though reaching for something.

“He possesses powers I could never hope to understand. The things he can do… they’re closer to magic to me than they are teachable skills. And he deserves more than that. He deserves the opportunity to live up to his potential and grow into everything he’s meant to be. Only a Jedi can give him that. I would just be…holding him back.” The deep, warm baritone of his voice grew thick with emotion, and you swore you could feel that voice scraping the depths of your soul, tugging at your heart. “How could I keep him, when I know that I could never give him what he needs?

You released a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding and felt it tremble on its way out. A part of you felt somewhat vindicated that you had been right, he was grieving just as much as you were over this, but the rest of you just…hurt. “I suppose I never thought of it like that,” you confessed, voice small and tinged with remorse.

Mando glanced back up at you at that and replied, “If I were his buir, it would be my duty to think like that.” He allowed that statement to linger between you for an instant, allowing you to feel just a touch of shame at your assumptions, your vitriol. “You’re right, there’s no way to know if this will work. There’s no way to know if anyone will sense him or if they will even be able to train him if they do. But I have to try. I have to do right by him. I’m honor-bound by Creed to see this through. And it’s what he deserves.”

The Mandalorian perhaps had underestimated you, but you realized then that you had done the same to him. Mando was a man of honor, of principle. He loved Grogu deeply – no one who spent any time with the two of them could dispute that – but you felt a bit naïve now that you understood what that love meant.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in contrition, you found yourself nodding. “I understand. I just…I don’t want to lose him.”

Wordlessly, he rose to his feet, hovering over you in your copilot’s chair in a way that ought to have felt intimidating in the confined space but instead felt almost comforting. You liked being close to him, you realized; his proximity made you feel safe, looked after, even after having just argued. It was bittersweet then when he reached down and rested his palm on your shoulder, thick, warm, and heavy.

“This is the Way,” he said, a note of finality in his voice that made your chest ache.

He ran his thumb softly over the ball of your shoulder just once, and then he opened the cockpit blast doors, slipped out, and disappeared into the cargo hold.

___

Mando'a Translations:

hu'tuun - coward, the worst possible insult in Mando'a riduur - spouse, a gender-neutral term buir - parent, a gender-neutral term

#din djarin #the mandalorian #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #din djarin x f!reader #din djarin fanfiction #the mandalorian fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal characters fanfiction

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valandhirwriter · 6 months ago

Note

Favorite side characters, any media. Go!

Thanks for the ask, @do-androids-dream-ao3acc, but you are aware, how dangerous it is, to ask me such big things?

Tam al'Thor from Wheel of time

Who is this: In WoT Tam is the father (or rather foster-father) of Rand al'Thor the Dragon reborn. Tam raised the baby that he found on the battlefield after the Blood Snow so well amd with such love, that the revelation that he isn't Rand's father comes as a shock, and even after knowing the truth, Rand still considers Tam as his father. Tam has his own role to play during the series and proves an important balancing factor for Rand in the days before Tarmon Gai'don. With Tam the author broke the trope that heroes slated for death (which the Dragon is) will either have no family any more, or be estranged in some fashion. While Rand's biological parents are dead, he still has a family in Tam, who will be deeply impacted by the loss of his son, and bears that knowledge with such a quiet strength, makes the fact that the Dragon will die at Tarmon Gai'don all the more poignant. Late in the books Rand is asked, what is different between his last incarnation as the Dragon (Lews Therin) and now, and Rand replies: "I was raised better." Showing that Tam's down-to-Earth upbringing did a world of good for the man who is supposed to save the world but also maybe break it again.

Quote: "All we can do is the best we can with the life that's given to us. And take comfort from it. But no matter what happens, what pain we face, what heartbreak, even death, the Wheel keeps turning. Always. And we try again. Maybe do a little better than the last time."

Pet Headcanons I have:

1. I cannot see how Tam could find a baby, freshly born on the slopes of Dragonmount and not guess something. Moraine in New Spring thinks that no one will admit to a child born on the slopes of Dragonmount because that detail of the prophecy is too well known. Tam also evades the initial Aes Sedai search, in spite of the offered money to all children born during the days of the Siege. So, I believe he saw something or at least believed that the baby boy could be believed to be the Dragon Reborn.

We know that Tam had an interessting military career, from the Whitecloak War to the Blood Snow, and I honestly still think that there were more adventures he had than we ever get to know.

Tam's family: We know Tam left the Two Rivers as a young man and came back years later with a wife and child. The child obviously Rand. But Rand never remembers grandparents, and after the death of Kari al'Thor Tam raises his son alone, much as the women of Emond's field strongly think he should remarry. We do not see any other female relative helping, nor get any mentions of the wider al'Thor family. So I have this headcanon that Tam's choice to leave had something to do with the loss of his family. His role in the pattern necessitated him leaving, living outside the Two Rivers, finding the child, and bringing it back, everyone thinking that it was Tam's son. If Manetheren had to fall and be forgotten, so it might shelter the Dragon Reborn in it's youth, Tam needed to be propelled out of his home. And by not having a family to ask questions later, there were no chances anyone could learn that Rand was indeed a foundling. So I think that something happened to the entire al'Thor clan, leaving Tam to carry on alone.

Fanfic I would love to read/write about him: Tam fought in the Blood Snow, much as my other favourite Wot character did: Lan al'Madragoran. We know in canon they did not meet, as Lan wonders how Tam came by a heron-marked blade, and whether he had a right to it. An answer that is only given in the Last Battle itself, when Lan sees Tam fight. Meaning Lan's Malkieri and the Illianer Companions did not interact. Now, I would love to see a story, where those two actually meet in the days of the Siege of Tar Valon, maybe fighting Aiel together. A small story would be great, but a story where their meeting propels them both on a different path - that would be great. A Tam/Lan pairing even better. But that would be ta'veren levels of AU, and writing in WoT might still be way beyond my skill level.

Eskel from he Witcher

Who is this: Eskel is another Wolf Witcher, that readers first encounter when Geralt brings Ciri to Kaer Morhen, and Ciri gets frightened when she sees his face, because of his scars. Eskel is one of the Witchers who trains Ciri in Kaer Morhen, and Ciri has a vision about his death during her time there (among other pyromantic visions). In the games Eskel is a supporting character, trying to help Geralt with his memories and ultimately fighting in the battle of Kaer Morhen.

Quote: I'm a simple witcher, Wolf. Don't fight dragons, don't fraternize with kings and don't sleep with sorceresses…

Pet Headcanons I have: 1. In the games there is a throwaway line about Eskel coming from the Mountains, something that grew into my headcanon about Eskel's background and people.

Eskel's scars - I feel that the explanation we get in the games is rather sloppy storytelling and doesn't make sense of several levels. So I still hold onto my own stories about the scars, that I had long before the games came out.

Big Brother: in my head canon Eskel is the older and more reliable brother of Geralt, sensible, steady and less given to temper. A bit of a big teddy-bear in some aspects, but also a grounding anchor for his younger brothers.

Fanfic I would love to write about him: Ummm… already wrote a bunch.

General Bel Riose from Foundation

Who is this: In the books we get to know Bel Riose as "The last of the Imperials", an Imperial General of immense skill, born in the waning days of the Galactic Empire. He ultimately gets executed by Emperor Clean for treason. In the TV series we get more time with him, see the consequences of his earlier fallout with Cleon, and see how Bel Riose takes on the Foundation. We also get to see him as a loving husband, and get torn apart when he is forced to fire on the planet where his husband has crash-landed, and having nothing left to lose, turning on Cleon, and damn, if he doesn't give Cleon a long deserved beating. Of course Bel dies, in the explosion of the ships, thanks to the chain reaction his spaces navigator caused.

Quotes: "To those who fight and ask why."

Pet Headcanons: 1. His reasons for not refusing to fire on Terminus. It is heavy implied in the series that Bel Riose does not rebel, because he has seen the anarchy outside the Empire, and is convinced that even a bad Emperor is better than none. And I think most of us watching expected him to rise up, when Cleon orders him to fire on Terminus with Glawen still grounded down there. I believe that at this point Rios knew that he was doomed, and most likely Glawen with him, if one considers Cleon's nature. So actually firing that shot, knowing that it will Glawen a swift and clean death, was an act of love, sparing Glawen the suffering that would await otherwise. And I think Glawen thought the same when he told Bel to do it. Glawen knew, with his own death, Bel would be free to act against the Emperor.

He saw the space plan coming. I am utterly convinced of this. Bel had a respectful friendship with his spacer navigator and I think he knew her well. He'd have seen something coming, and maybe he let it happen, because while he himself wasn't a man to rebel, he saw why others would. I also cannot see the spacer, who has a really good connection to her General, and respects him, would quite betray him like that.

I think he studied some illegal things about Seldon and his theories.

Fanfic I would love to write about him: I would love to write an AU where things go differently, simply because Bel didn't deserve to go down like this. Full Stop. This would be the one where both he and Glawen survive. I'd also be intrigued by one where only Bel survived, though heck - that man would become a total problem for the Empire. Or an AU where Glawen was drawn more on Cleon's side and they both are seperated, even as Cleon still sends Bel against the Foundation, while keeping Glawen for himself. Very chaotic ideas on that one.

General John Dixter from "Star of the Guardians"

Who is this: General John Dixter is the youngest roxal General in the book series, and in love with Guardian Maigrey Morianna, though he knows she only sees him as a friend. During the Revolution he helps Maigrey escape, and find medical help, though she later ditches him and escapes on her own. John becomes a mercenary, trying to forget and rising to a respected mercenary leader. Even his rival, Lord Derek Sagan respects his military skills. John is drawn into that fight again, by encountering young Dion Starfire, and recognizing that this is the child, that Maigrey talked about in the night of the revolution. He finds and loses Maigrey again, in the following events, and ultimately becomes Lord Admiral in service of young King Dion, to rebuild the Royal Military in an honourable fashion. One thing that stands about John, outside his military skills, is that even as his love for Maigrey will never go anywhere, he never gets bitter or jealous about it. He knows she will never love him back, and he is a reliable friend to her, no matter what. Even including walking into the jaws of one Derek Sagan again, or facing torture at that man's hands. John shows an incredible strength of character during all of this, and in between all the blood Royal he often is the person with the best common sense.

Quotes:

Pet Headcanons: 1. In spite of Maigrey professing her hope that John found someone else in the intervening years, I don't believe she'd really have been all that happy with it.

It would have made one hell of a friendship had Derek and John each other, before John met Maigrey.

John sensed/felt/knew that Maigrey was not dead, which is why he never got over her.

John's incurable space sickness, is (as Dr. Giesk, the old creep rightly assumed) psychological not physiological and it links back to a trauma from his youth that he's surpressing in his mind (or that was taken from him by a Guardian).

Fanfic I would love to write about him: One story I would like to write, is about his life after the book events, maybe set during or after the MagForce7 books. A story where now that Maigrey is truly gone, John finds a new life, one not defined by his grief. I also would love some deeper story about John's work rebuilding the Royal Military. I would also like that story to adress a few inconsistencies about the Revolution, and maybe the source of John's space-sickness. But definitely a story of him finding love, when he did not expect that to happen any more.

tagging @do-androids-dream-ao3acc, @regis-favorite-raven, @tigerlyla-of-metinna, @andordean, and @ginstermoff to answer the same question.

#fanfiction #side characters #nice asks #ask game

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dindjarindiaries · 2 years ago

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I am thoroughly enjoying this season of The Mandalorian. And I think the criticism I've seen toward it is completely unfounded. This story is about Grogu as much as about Din from the start, so there's always been 2 titular characters. And Grogu chose The Way, so the title of the show is about him too now. He is getting pieces of armor and all that, why can't he one day wield the dark saber... As for Din, character development doesn't mean constant or quick change. He can't jump from who he was in season 2 to wanting to sit on a throne in season 3, that's just ridiculous. Working with others and letting others lead at what they do better than him is very in-character for Din, he's been doing that since chapter 1. Finally, given how important Mandalorian identity is for Din, Bo and other Mandalorian leaders plus the larger Mandalore storyline were bound to become a big part of the show at some point. Because for Din, the focus is on identity and culture, not power. That's the only way his people can reunite and rebuild their home - through identity and culture, The Way. Din accepts different walks of life of other Mandalorians and remains true to his own principles, which inspires others to do the same and believe that it is possible. Whether this takes Din to a bigger leadership position or not is really not important at this point.

That's my opinion. What do you think?

You make so many good points!

It’s true. Din can’t be expected to be a leader when he’s still trying to find his identity. That’s what the creators have said this season is all about. It’s clear that Din’s felt lost searching for who he is and, because we see the story through his eyes, it’s made him feel lost amidst the story. It all makes sense. It would’ve been a very extreme jump to go from the man who tearfully watched his foundling get taken away from him to ruling an entire planet within just a year or so.

#din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #you have spoken

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fictionadventurer · 6 months ago

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The more I think about it, the more upset I get that people kept mentioning Vanity Fair as a classic Victorian novel and making it sound all depressing, and not a single person mentioned it contained passages like this:

All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half-pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words "foolish, twaddling," &c., and adding to them his own remark of "quite true." Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

Or this:

I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one, (although there are some terrific chapters coming presently) and must beg the good-natured reader to remember, that we are only discoursing at present, about a stock-broker's family in Russell-square, who are taking walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful incident to mark the progress of their loves. The argument stands thus—Osborne in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to dinner and to Vauxhall—Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca. Will he marry her? That is the great subject now in hand. We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the romantic, or in the facetious manner. Suppose we had laid the scene in Grosvenor-square, with the very same adventures—would not some people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father: or instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley's kitchen;—how black Sambo was in love with the cook, (as indeed he was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf; how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which the reader should hurry, panting. Fancy this chapter having been headed THE NIGHT ATTACK. The night was dark and wild—the clouds black—black—ink-black. The wild wind tore the chimney-pots from the roofs of the old houses and sent the tiles whirling and crashing through the desolate streets. No soul braved that tempest—the watchmen shrank into their boxes, whither the searching rain followed them—where the crashing thunderbolt fell and destroyed them—one had so been slain opposite the Foundling.

And then he proceeds to write in the style of three alternate genres for half the chapter before getting back to the story!

There is zero fourth wall here! So much meta-commentary! So much sarcasm! Not since Jules Verne have I encountered an author who was so obviously having this much fun writing his story.

And no one had the decency to tell me that it might be fun to read!

#books #vanity fair #this is like austen meets wodehouse turned up to like 100 #the sarcasm does get a bit overwhelming at times (no one is safe from mockery)#so i might have to pace it #but he's clearly having so much fun that it doesn't seem mean-spirited so much as lively #like he's a friend making jokes or maybe a stand-up comedian #and i can't begrudge him the fun he's having

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attackfish · 2 years ago

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Part two of that post where Nonny asked:

I think I might have an au you don't have yet — what if Zuko or Azula had been sent back to Aang's time when they were young because of spirit non-sense, and had ended up in the iceberg with him?

This time it's Zuko's turn. Part One: [Link]

Let's say Zuko is a toddler. Azula isn't even born yet when her brother disappears. The shock of the disappearence sends Ursa into labor. The child, Azula, is full term, but it makes her birthday a day of pain and rememberence for her parents. Both her parents are relentlessly protective of her, even smothering. It's the only thing they ever agreed on. Without another child to soak up all his displeasure, Ozai is always unpredictable. Is his daughter the perfect child, a demonstration of his greatness as a father, or an unworthy child, who should be doing more?

Ursa tries to shield her daughter from the worst of her husband's capriciousness, but even though her mother is safer, and kinder, sometimes Azula just needs some time on her own, and neither of her parents will ever give her that. Lonely and isolated, constantly with her parents, she has an imaginary friend, her older brother, her parents' missing child. Sometimes he's two years older, and sometimes he's frozen at the age he was when he vanished.

Let's say Aang is lost in a storm, when suddenly he hears a child crying. There's a little boy, all dressed in royal Fire Nation red, sobbing his eyes out in Appa's saddle. Is this real? Is he sleeping? he tries to stear out of the storm, but the winds and waves drag them both down.

Or let's say Zuko grows up in the Southern Air Temple, one of several foundling children. He grows up an anxious young man, who tries to take responsibility for everyone, so when he spots the young Avatar running away, he slips out after him.

Le's say instead that Zuko is ten, and his grandfather ordered his death mere days earlier. His mother vanished, and now he is whisked away to this strange place, full of people who claim to be Air Nomads. He knows that's not true. He has to have been kidnapped by enemies of the Fire Nation. But surely his father will rescue him or ransom him right? Won't he? That gnawing, ever-present fear that his father won't, that his father just doesn't care enough, is proven right when the Air Nomads contact the Fire Nation government, and they get back word that nobody has ever heard of a Prince Zuko.

Azula is no dummy, and more important for this, though she doesn't understand that, she's around her father, and he doesn't shut her out, so she has the context for her mother's disappearance, so just like her father, she assumes her mother kidnapped her brother. He always was her favorite.

As Ozai sends search her after searcher, assassin after assassin, to find his wayward wife, and as they each come up empty-handed, as if the person they were hunting didn't exist, Azula lies in her bed at night afraid her mother will come for her next, to steal her away from her father, to steal her away from being the Fire Nation princess. But she's even more afraid, although she'll never admit it to herself, that her mother will never come, that her mother only ever cared about Zuko, that she really does think Azula is a monster.

Let's say Zuko is thirteen and newly banished when he vanishes without a trace. Nobody notices. Except Iroh. After weeks of fruitless searching, he is forced to contact Ozai, to let him know and ask him to look for his son. But Ozai's only, all too predictable response to his own child's disappearance is, "good." And Iroh can't help but think his brother made Zuko disappear, that he might have banished his own son so that nobody would notice when he did.

In the air temples, Zuko is a menace, convinced they are a secret group of Air Nomads hiding the Avatar, who he will find, and capture, and bring home to his father. He is difficult, and dangerous, and his psyche is a bleeding wound. The Air Nomads care for him as best they can. In return, he accidentally lets slip enough for the Air Nomads to know what's coming, to plan for Sozin's Comet. And when Aang runs, Zuko runs after him, convinced this is his great chance to capture the Avatar.

Let's say Zuko is sixteen and has just seen a light burst forth into the sky. As he stares at it, the world dissolves around him, and he is in the Southern Air Temple. He has found the Avatar in a way he never imagined. And when the Avatar runs, he gives chase. Hunted and hunter are lost in a storm together and dragged down to the depths.

Iroh barely has time to start looking for his nephew before he's out of the ice and causing him heartache again.

Let's say Zuko is an old man. One morning he wakes up at the Southern Air Temple over a hundred and eighty ears ago. Enough extremely strange things have happened to him over the years, first hunting in avatar, then becoming his friend, then traveling the world to help another Avatar, and along the way tangling with a whole bunch of spirit related shenaniganery, that this might as well happen too. He doesn't know if he has time traveled, or if this is the afterlife, but either way, this might as well happen too.

He tells the Air Nomads what to expect from Sozin's Comet, and after, the tactics the Fire Nation plans to use against any survivors. He claims he's a defector, that he heard the plans, and couldn't go through with them. And he graciously accepts a place to stay for the night. That night, unrelated to the news he brought because the boy knows nothing of it, the young Avatar runs. Zuko follows. He gets to Appa first, hides under a blanket, and it's not until they're in the air that Zuko pops out to scare Aang half to death.

He talks to Aang, asks him what's bothering him, tries to help navigate him to the Southern Water Tribe to find a waterbender, but Aang understandably doesn't trust him, and steers them straight into a storm. As the wind in the waves drag them under, Zuko thinks he might have miscalculated.

But then the two of them saw out together, and teenage Zuko shows up, and now as far as the gaang is concerned, there's cool old man Zuko, and annoying teenage Zuko both running around at the same time.

#avatar the last airbender #zuko #aang #azula #uncle iroh #posts i created #do you want to ask a question it doesn't have to be a question #zuko is a dweeby little turtleduck #azula needs her own warning #i ship iroh/tea #noodle lord ozai #aang d'awww

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astralisbelle · 2 years ago

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Silk For Armor 1 - The Crime Lord and the Dancer

Silk For Armor Masterlist tags: dancer!reader, singer!reader, reader has backstory, s3 not canon, diverges around TBOBF, half fix-it fic, half super self-indulgence, original locations and lore, eventual reveal of reader backstory, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, eventual smut

chapter summary: In search of a replacement for his beloved ship, the Mandalorian ends up on an Outer Rim planet. WARNINGS: language, sex work, drug mentions

note: Hi y'all! I'm having a teeny bit of Writer's Block for Snow White atm so I thought I'd upload the first chapter of this one. I hope to get back to the other one soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy the first installment of this fic!

Once again, Din Djarin finds himself all alone in the galaxy.

Then you are no longer a Mandalorian.

He replays the words in his head over and over, unable to protect himself from the sting against his chest and head. What a fool he was for thinking that he could come back and pretend that nothing happened, that he wasn’t automatically an apostate for removing his helmet.

But he did it for Grogu. He did it for his foundling, for the one most precious to him in the entire galaxy, and in that, he cannot say he regrets it.

As he stumbles away from the covert, underneath the darkness of the night sky, he hears a beep from his belt signaling an incoming transmission. Din hesitates in answering, unsure if he is in the right head-space for anything of the sort, but he decides that he could use the distraction; it beats spiraling into despair when he thinks too hard about what he wants to do next. He retrieves the device from his belt and holds it in his palm, clicking a button. From the small screen, a hologram of Peli sits on his hand, her hands on her hips and a grin on her face.

“Hey, Mando!” she calls, waving. “I’m so glad you picked up! Boy, I’ve got great news for you.”

He doubts it. “What is it?”

“Remember how you asked me about finding you a replacement for the Razor Crest? Well, I found one!”

“You did?” This could be good — finding a new ship might just be the perfect distraction right now. If he dwells on the looming realization of his solitude, he might descend down the wrong path. Yes, this can work. “Should I come to Tatooine?”

“No, no.” Peli waves her hand. “No need. I just received word from a contact on the planet Tebin Ramm.” Din’s fist clenches. Tebin Ramm is a wretched hive that made the old Nevarro seem like Coruscant. “Told me his boss-man would be willing to negotiate with you on a fair price for a Razor Crest.”

“I doubt I’d get anywhere near a fair price on Tebin Ramm. They’re more likely to rob me than speak to me.”

“Yeah, I knew you’d say that. Well, that’s the price of a Razor Crest.” She points back with her thumb. “Of course, if you just need a ship, I do have something right here that I can fix up for you. She’ll make any dusty old Razor Crest look like a bantha cart!”

Din sighs, taking a moment to think. “You trust this contact?”

“Never steered me wrong in the past. But hey, I get it, no one likes to go to Tebin Ramm. Which is why, if you want a guaranteed deal, I can fix that baby I’ve got–”

“I’ll go meet this contact.” Peli slumps over. “Where can I find them?”

“Really? That didn’t work? Pssh.” She rolls her eyes. “You and your Razor Crest. Okay, fine, I’ll send you the information and let him know you’re on your way.”

“Thanks.” The transmission ends and he pockets his device, standing in place to think. Tebin Ramm is the last place he wants to go, but since he doesn’t have to worry about escorting anyone else, he should be fine. As long as he keeps to himself and spends the least amount of time there as possible, he can walk — or fly, rather — away from this with a Razor Crest.

Finding passage to Tebin Ramm is something of a challenge for him. No commercial flights dare venture close to that section of the Outer Rim, meaning he has to bargain with some smugglers to let him hitch a ride back to their base there.

It is a lawless planet if he’s ever seen one, and he has seen plenty. Nearly every hunter in the guild refuses to take jobs in Tebin Ramm and the ones that do are rarely ever seen again. All he knows is that the planet is a hive for gangsters and criminals, with different dons and lords running their sectors how they please. As soon as he steps off the smugglers’ ship, a chill runs up his spine.

The streets are dimly lit only by the gaudy neon signs of the tall buildings and a sort of fog permeates throughout the area. Rough-looking people of all races and genders walk around with blasters openly placed on their hips. They yell at each other from across the street, harass others that pass them by, and overall cause ruckus. He sees people spilling drinks from bottles underneath the hazy signs. Bracing himself and adopting his usual intimidating walk, the Mandalorian ventures forth into the streets.

He gets looks and stares, which is to be expected. Many of the thugs he passes give him a once-over, as if sizing up how many credits they can swim in if they took his beskar. Others turn alluring eyes towards him, one woman even licking her bottom lip in plain view. Just keep going, he tells himself. Unfortunately, he knows it’s about to get worse. Peli’s information tells him he has to turn the corner and step into the sleazy alleys of a red-light district. Women leaning against the buildings instantly turn their attention towards him, bending over to show off their cleavages, pulling up their dresses to tempt him with their thighs. They call him, beg him, reach for him but never make contact. On the balconies of the buildings he walks in between, even more half-naked women dance and beckon the patrons on the street.

In one instance, he can clearly see one of them pressing her hands against the window while a customer uses her from the back while she keeps her lips firmly shut. Din shivers, keeping his face forward. Now, he almost wishes that there is no Razor Crest.

Tucked away in the red-light district is a small theater, marked only by the neon. From the outside, it doesn’t seem impressive, but Din clocks the two bouncers at the front that suggest otherwise. Din approaches them, keeping his hands clear.

“I’m here to see Kaslur Vandor.”

The two bouncers exchange glances before they nod and step aside, granting him entrance. Din braces himself once more and crosses the threshold. The theater isn’t as grand as some of the other ones he knows are in this place, having only a few round tables around the stage. It’s more intimate that way, he supposes. One of the bouncers points him towards the table right at the end of the stage’s catwalk, the one surrounded by thugs with a very prominent man sitting at its center. A thin layer of sweat forms on Din’s brow — Peli’s contact was a big shot? He supposes it has to make sense, considering who is likely to have Razor Crests in this day and age. Steeling himself, he saunters over. Immediately, every man at that table stands up and forms a wall between him and Kaslur, staring him down.

Without looking at Din, the large man still sitting waves his hand, his fat fingers sporting multiple rings. “Let him sit.” The man closest to Din shoves him in a rickety chair next to Kaslur, who ignores him for now in favor of scooping clams and sucking on their meat. “So, you’re the Mandalorian? I gotta say, it takes a lot of balls to walk in here wearing as much beskar as you do.”

Din lets silence fill the air for a few uncomfortable seconds. “I hear you have a Razor Crest.”

Kaslur laughs. “Business already?” He turns to Din, letting him get a good look at his greasy over-comb and scarred face. “You need to slow down, Mando. The show’s about to start.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Ohoho.” Kaslur’s grin is anything but welcoming. “You don’t gotta be. But I’m warning you: you keep quiet during her performance.” He points a dinner knife towards him. “If you talk to me or even dare to clear your throat, you’ll leave here without one, got it?”

Din glares at him, his eye twitching but thankfully masked by the helmet. “...Got it.” The lights dim and the spotlight shines against the red curtains. Immediately, the rest of the audience, including Kaslur, applaud until the sounds of a single drum quiets them down. Din crosses his arms and expects some ill-dressed girl to come out and disrobe even more… not his idea of a great performance.

The curtain parts and the first thing he sees is a foot coming forward. A woman steps forward in time with the drum, golden jewelry adorning her ankles and wrists. Her legs peek through a slit-skirt with coins around her hips that jingle with each step. The small top that wraps around her bosom exposes her midriff. And finally, her face is covered with a veil, showing only her piercing, hypnotic eyes.

She lifts her hands and assumes a dancing position, feet pointed, wrists crossed. Then, when an exotic sounding horn and more percussion begin, she sings. Din’s eyes widen when he hears her voice, so pure and strong. The woman is mystifying as she dances, twirling around and removing pieces of scarf and tulle from her skirt. She uses them in her routine, her moves sensual, but not raunchy. His vision tunnels as he focuses on her, hearing her beautiful voice, watching her take off pieces until her legs are completely bare. Strutting down the catwalk, she baits the men that sit near her feet, blowing kisses and swiping herself away from their reaching hands. When she reaches the end where they sit, she falls to her knees.

Din stares right in her eyes as she focuses entirely on Kaslur, singing right to him. She reaches for him, cupping his cheek as a giddy and hungry look overtakes him. It’s in this moment that she briefly breaks eye contact with Kaslur and her striking eyes meet the dark T of the Mandalorian’s visor.

And time stands still. He cannot see her mouth, but her eye makeup betrays how wide they go. She stares for a moment as she holds her note, and Din cannot help but keep her gaze.

Then it ends. She turns back to Kaslur and slides back, her touch fleeting. Standing back up, she twirls again during the music’s swelling finale. As the horns and drums play together, she falls to her knees again with a dramatic flourish, the song ending with a large strike from the instruments. The theater is dead quiet for just a second before it erupts into a standing ovation. The men whistle and rave, pounding their tables and spilling their drinks.

She elegantly stands back up and turns on her heel to walk back down towards the curtain. Before she disappears behind it, she glances over her shoulder and Din swears she looks right at him. As soon as she is gone Kaslur sits back down with a thud and chuckles.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” he asks Din. “That’s my girl.”

“Your…?” Normally, Din doesn’t give a womp rat’s ass about anyone personal relationships, but something about this one strikes him as odd. Though he could not see her face, he knows that she has to be beautiful, especially from her eyes. A singer and dancer as talented as she is somehow with this mobster? It would make sense if she were a common escort or dancer, but she is neither of those things.

“That’s right. So don’t go making googly-eyes at her, got it?”

“I wasn’t planning to,” he says. “Now, about the Razor Crest.”

“Alright, alright.” Kaslur sighs. “Yeah, I’ve got a Razor Crest.”

“When can I see it?”

“You can see it when you’ve paid up.” Din tilts his head in a way that shows his disapproval. “Trust me, Mando. I wouldn’t drag you to this shithole if it wasn’t legit. Besides, scamming is a poor con man’s job.” He leans back in his chair.

“So… credits?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m not a poor man. While I would appreciate your credits, you’ve got something more valuable.” Din’s ready to hear him ask for the beskar. “You’re a Mandalorian. I wouldn’t need five fucking bodyguards if I had a Mandalorian.”

“...You want me to work for you?”

Kaslur waves his hand. “I want you to do one job for me. One measly little job and the Razor Crest is yours.”

Din knows better than anyone that one measly little job is never as temporary as it seems. One job lead him to Grogu. One job upended his life and catapulted it into a completely different trajectory. But, to get a Razor Crest for doing one errand is a bargain; he knows it and Kaslur knows it too. “What’s the job?”

“Need you to find a guy for me.” Kaslur takes out a puck and slides it over. “You can bring him in dead or alive, doesn’t matter to me. What does matter is this.” He leans in. “He stole something from me. A precious necklace made of the finest jewels money can buy.”

“A… necklace?”

“I know.” Kaslur puts a hand over his heart. “I’m a sentimental guy. What can I say?” Somehow, Din doubts that. “That little weasel has it. Or, maybe he sold it already. Bring me him and the necklace and the Razor Crest is all yours.”

The Mandalorian taps his finger on the table, weighing the options in his head. Guy would be easy to find. Necklace less so. If the guy was smart, he would have separated it and sold the jewels, so Din has to pray that he’s stupid.

Finally, he nods and takes the puck. “Deal.”

Din leaves the theater, his footsteps slower and his eyes heavy. He needs to find someplace to rest for the night… that isn’t one of these regular hotels. In this planet, he may be better off sleeping in his armor wherever he chooses to stay. He keeps his eyes forward, not inviting any of the escorts on the boulevard to call him.

Just before he turns the corner, a woman’s voice yanks his attention. “Congratulations!” A Twi’lek woman with purple skin jumps in front of him. “You’ve won a free night with one of our most popular girls. C’mon!” She pulls on his hand, but he doesn’t move, his feet planted firmly in the ground.

“Not interested,” he says, pulling his hand back. When he takes a step forward, she blocks him again.

“Uh. Please, sir? W-We’d really appreciate it—”

“No thank you.”

Her jubilant expression falls into one of worry. “Please, wait.” Her voice drops low. “Sir, she really, really needs to talk to you. And this is the only way.”

“Who does?”

“I…” She glances around. “I can’t say it here. He has eyes everywhere.” The Twi’lek pleads with her eyes. After dropping the act, Din has a hard time saying no to her. Something is strange and though he knows that he should move on and focus on his job, he caves.

“Fine,” he sighs. “This better be just a conversation.”

Instantly, the Twi’lek smiles. “Of course.” When she pulls his hand again, her voice is louder. “Oooh, we’ve got ourselves a lucky, lucky man!” Stars, he hopes that this is just a cover. If it’s not, then he’s leaving immediately.

She leads him into a den with lighting even worse than the theater. People around him wore exotic clothes, some bound in leather, other hidden behind feathered masks. The smell of drugs wafts through the air, accompanied by light chatter in the dark corners. They stare at him as the Twi’lek weaves him through the crowd towards the back where there are various rooms. Din hears screams and moans, he hears whips and slaps. What the hell has he gotten himself into?

He follows her up a few flights of stairs that are considerably quieter. Some of the doors are open, showing parlor rooms where patrons and escorts talk and flirt. Finally, in the back, she gestures for him to enter. Din gives her a lengthy pause before he steels himself and opens the door.

The room is small, having only a plush, purple love seat and a decorative chandelier above. There is someone there: a woman, but she isn’t dressed in the way he would expect the women here to dress. She wears a cloak over her shoulders and plain clothes of earthy tones underneath it, her hair tied back. The door closes behind him.

“You came!” she says. “Oh, thank the Stars. Please, sit.”

“I’ll stand.”

“O...kay.” She nods, taking a step back.

“Who are you?”

“Who… oh, you don’t recognize me?” She smiles at him. “We… well, we didn’t meet, but you saw me dance earlier.” Din’s brows lift. This was the dancer? When he looks further into her eyes, he recognizes them now without the makeup. He sees the rest of her face and his chest tightens. What a transformation between the sensual dancer — and amazing singer — he witnessed earlier and the humble woman that stands before him. She bows her head and tells him her name, just her given one. “I apologize for the choice of venue, but I had little options.” She crosses her arms and turns her head. ��Kaslur has eyes and ears nearly everywhere.”

Din steps back towards the wall, leaning against it with one shoulder. “You don’t want to be seen talking to me?”

“He’s rather… possessive, let’s say.”

“Sounds like you need a new boyfriend.”

The dancer laughs. “Boyfriend? Is that what he told you?” She sighs. “Trust me when I say that I would rather have my throat slit than even kiss that man.” Her brows furrow together in disgust. “Why are you here on this awful planet, Mandalorian?”

He crosses his arms. “I could ask the same thing of you.”

She chuckles and takes a seat on the couch. “You could. But unfortunately, we only have so much time.”

Din purses his lips. “I’m going to do a job for Kaslur. In exchange, he’s going to give me the Razor Crest.”

“The Razor Crest? Oh, that old thing. I haven’t the faintest clue why you’d want it, but to his their own.” To Din, it’s extraordinary that her voice is melodic, even as she talks. At least he can confirm that there is a ship to begin with. “But in any case, that’s good. Great, even.” She stands and takes a step towards him. “And then I assume that you’d be planning to leave, correct?”

“I would.” Where is this going?

She stops in front of him, a hopeful glimmer in her eyes. Biting on her bottom lip, she holds her hands and twiddles her fingers. “If that’s the case, then I… I must ask you of something. When you get the Razor Crest...” She drops her hands on his arms and he flinches, pushing himself off the wall. “Please.” The desperation from her voice gives him pause. The dancer squeezes his forearms and locks in on the darkness of his visor, as if she can see past the black and right into his dark eyes. “Kidnap me.”

#the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x you #din djarin x reader #din djarin #the mandalorian fanfic #work: silk for armor

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choccy-zefirka · 1 year ago

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Niamh and her sad husband are back babey!!

Cleaned up and updated this old fic now that I am on the Zevlor train again!

Summary:

A Githyanki raised on Toril by druids that found her as a hatchling, Niamh often appears too soft to her companions, while the people that she meets on her travels have a pre-conceived notion that her kind are Evil-aligned monsters. As far as she is concerned, though, the dark lure of the Ilithid infection makes her potentially more evil than an average Githyanki. At least Lae'Zel's traditional upbringing grants her the discipline to resist; what does Niamh have, with a childhood spent in idyllic groves cuddling woodland creatures? Thus, riddled with self-doubt, she has a heart-to-heart conversation with Zevlor.

(Spoilery side note: Niamh sure has a lot of thoughts about the lady looking to obtain a Githyanki egg so that the Society of Brilliance can raise it "in civilization" — because she herself was taken in as a homeless foundling, not stolen from her people for a social experiment to decide whether she is an inherently violent savage).

And now for the fic itself!

"Once again," Niamh says. "I apologize."

Her voice crawls, half-smothered, from the innermost depths of her narrow, bony chest. Her pale-blue eyes are wide, and her needle pupils swim in splashing brine. Like she is gazing out of twin salty lakes.

At the bottom of one of these lakes, something dark lurks. Twitching. Undulating. Agitated.

"For my companion's... forcefulness."

Lae'Zel is well out of earshot now, very skeptically appraising the wares of the local blacksmith — but Niamh's shoulders still rise tensely, and she shudders like she is being turned into a cone of cold.

"And for what it's worth... I deeply regret that my kin killed your friend on the road. I think you may have startled them. They may have thought they needed to act in self-defense. They are not used to this realm; it confuses them — and confusion makes you act out on pure reflex. Not that —"

She swallows forcefully.

"Not that it excuses what they did — but please, please understand that they are not..."

Her shoulder relax somewhat, and her lanky bright-yellow arms, all awkward angles, churn the air in frustration, as she searches for an appropriate metaphor. "Not walking clots of evil. Not like —"

The shadow in her eye coils, almost threatening to burst out to the surface, and then retreats. She exhales, defeated.

"I truly mean you no harm, Zorru. None of my companions do. We just want you to help us, like we helped your people at the gate. If you could just... show me on the map where — "

The young Tiefling's broad face drips with sweat, just like the cave walls drip with trickling water. He attempts to backtrack, but he has nowhere left to go. Lae'Zel backed him in a corner, and Niamh's attempts to butter him up afterwards have not exactly left him with an escape route.

As he stumbles, not seeing, not looking anywhere except at Niamh's unfamiliar, alien face — yellow as a toad, he'd told his fellow refugees, and twice as ugly — he trips over an open trunk that someone must have dragged out for packing. With an awkward flop, he loses balance, and falls right in.

His behind gets firmly lodged into the trunk's wooden frame. But even in this ridiculous position — which draws a sympathetic tongue click from Gale, a long, exasperated sigh from Shadowheart, and a snort from Astarion — he continues pointing at Niamh with a shaking, accusatory finger.

"You didn't fight those goblins to help us! You just thirsted for blood!"

Niamh freezes. Her pupils shrink to barely visible scratches, and her yellow fists clench, a bird curling up its feet.

Behind her back, Astarion perks up, with a spark of curiosity in his bruised ruby eyes. But if he expects Niamh to let Zorru know... from experience that yes, yes she does thirst for blood — the way Lae'Zel would have done — he is in for a disappointment.

Niamh does not lay a finger on Zorru. Just as she never did on anyone else who spat insults at her (which has to be about the entire population of Faerun). Instead, she turns sharply on her heels, with her long sleek ponytail — dyed a cheerful pink that Lae'Zel often wrinkles her nose at — whipping after her.

"I'll be right back," she says, before vanishing deeper into the cave.

"She has gone to cry again, hasn't she," Shadowheart flat-tones wearily. 'I am astonished that she has managed to survive this long. How it is even possible for someone to be both this brave and this... mushy?"

"Ah, but she is brave, isn't she," Gale points out, after he pulls Zorru back to his feet with a flourish of his wrist and a spark of magic. "Remember how she rushed in to save that boy from the harpies? Or faced off Kagha and those dubious friends of hers!"

Astarion pouts.

"I am still waiting for the moment when we all find out it was all a cunning ruse, and our little —" He waggles his hand dismissively. "Little squirrel-taming, brat-coddling forest princess shows us how pretty her teeth are... By ripping out someone's throat."

"You'll have to wait a really long time, then," Shadowheart says, quirking an eyebrow.

She is not wrong.

When Niamh vanishes out of sight, ducking under the carved stone panel that separates the larger cave from the more secluded quarters of the Tieflings' leader, her mushiness increases tenfold.

Her eyes are not just watering now. They are streaming.

The sobs envelop her, unrestrained and overpowering. But she pushes through them, forcing herself to stride across the makeshift study on the panel's other side.

The Tiefling within is busy poring over scout reports, with his forehead creased in concentration. When he finally looks up at her approach, his brows fly up in concern.

"Is anything the matter?" he asks, swerving around his desk to come closer to Niamh. "Is it Kagha again?"

"No, I just —"

Niamh takes a hiccuping breath and wipes her face with the back of her hand.

"I suddenly realized I never thanked you."

He clears his throat, looking rather sheepish.

"Well, there is not really much to thank me for. I wish I had been more hospitable to you and your companions. But in order to share a home, one needs to have a home, and well. You can see for yourself."

"No, it's not that."

Niamh's voice cracks again, while the Tiefling watches her in silence.

He does extend one hand to her... Uncertainly. As if he might have embraced her, but does not quite recall how it is done.

"When Aradin spat at me, back when we'd just met, you told him to show me some respect. It's not... Not the usual treatment that I've gotten used to since leaving home."

She dips her head and casts her lake-blue eyes down at her fingers, which pick relentlessly at the fraying padding of her gilded green robes.

"You would think I am a devotee of Ilmater, from how often my tears overwhelm me. And while I have always been... emotional, I am actually sworn to Sylvanus. Like the druids here, and like my... my adoptive parents. They found me in the wilderness when I was but a hatchling. Lost and confused, the cracked shell still stuck to my back. Too young to explain where I came from or how I got separated from..."

She lowers her voice in gentle reverence.

"From my creche."

Her fingers lock into fists again, and she looks up.

"I have never been to the Astral Plane, to my kind's home... I have never even met another like me, before Lae'Zel. I was raised in a Circle not unlike this one. The druids encouraged me to read, to try any skills I was curious about, to... to express myself. And they were not really afraid of me — because they were used to having me around since I was a toddler. But ever since I ventured a little bit further from home, my attempts to... to interact with anyone other than animals have become rather..."

She reaches for him, as tentatively as he for her. For a moment, their fingertips meet.

Then she withdraws, her serrated ear tips turning a shade of peach.

"My little group has been brought together by a certain... shared hardship. Aside from my companions, you were the first person who did not try to flee, or to attack me, the moment I drew breath in their presence. It's just... It has been exhausting. Stopping to persuade any stranger that I am not about to eat them. Especially since I am more like them than they realize."

She shakes her head, her hair flying in a pink whirlwind around her again.

"No, that's not right. I know I am not better than other Githyanki for having ventured beyond my creche. If anything, I am more lost, more unsure. Lae'Zel is much worthier of this than I ever will be, but I — I also want to know more about my people. To travel among the stars like they do. Maybe... Ride a dragon some day? Do dragons respond to Speak with Animals?"

She chuckles awkwardly at this clumsy levity, and the corners of the Tiefling's mouth readily move upwards... With the least effort he has made so far.

The peachy tint now slowly spreads to Niamh's cheeks.

"Anyway. I swear there was a point to all of this. I — I refuse to believe that the Githyanki are — that we are — as evil as people think, just from looking at us."

The Tiefling exhales the tiniest of "Oh"s, and finally bridges the remaining distance between the two of them. He does not embrace Niamh, not quite; but he does squeeze her shoulder.

"I understand. And if any of my people made you feel unwelcome, I will talk to them. Sternly. They ought to know better than this."

Niamh clasps her own hand, lightly, around his wrist, and her large, low-set mouth stretches into a smile.

"Thank you —"

She her tongue stumbles, heavy and clumsy, over his name. Even though he introduced himself the moment he had breath enough in his lungs, after fighting off goblins and screaming at Aradin — she is still too awkward to address him as... As a friend.

"Zevlor. Perhaps... Perhaps your people will understand after we put an end to the goblins once and for all, and return with Halsin. My companions think that I am dallying too much; putting our own journey on pause to slay every monster. But when you yourself toe the line of… of monsterhood, you have to go that extra mile to prove yourself."

Still not letting her go, Zevlor fixes his eyes on hers.

They stand like this for a few moments longer, as the world slowly fades back, and neither flinches under the other's gaze. Not even when golden flames — shimmering, scorching fragments of Avernus — dance within his eyes. Not when the slithering shadow coils and uncoils in hers.

"If between the two of us, someone has to be a monster," he says softly, "That is certainly not you."

And when she finally steps away, her eyes are dry and bright, and her posture is firm and assured.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanfiction #zevlor #bg3 tav #original things

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cienie-isengardu · 2 years ago

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After watching Chapter 20: The Foundling (s03e04), I think I finally figured out why Children of the Watch bugs me so much. Ironically this is not just about the helmet rule even though at this point in the story I find it hysterically hilarious how the show doesn’t follow its own worldbuilding. Like Din got kicked out from the Tribe because he took off his helmet and Armorer - who usually is fair and act as the voice of reason - didn’t even bother to ask for the reason behind it (and at least one time was about Din getting medical help and the other, if I remember correctly, was done to save Grogu) with moment before Paz Vizsla claiming he has never took off his helmet because this is the way but now Children of the Watch take off the helmets to eat like no big deal, when we already saw Din eating while not revealing fully his face? Like, sorry, either you are not allowed to take that blasted thing (about what we have two seasons and a bit Book of Boba Fett) or you are allowed to do so in certain situations but if the letter is true, then not asking Din for reason behind his action and just kicking him out on spot is so… jerk move. Double so, when Armorer claims that saving a Foundling is the “highest honor of the Creed '' and isn’t it what all Din’s actions are about through the last two seasons?

I sidetracked.

Anyway, the mentioned scene of Mandalorians scattering around to eat alone so other people don't see their faces (the act of removing the helmet) is what frustrated me so much about this group. Children of the Watch are recognized as a Mandalorian community but they don’t feel much to be one?

On one hand, the show established that members of the Children of the Watch:

support each other in various ways. Like coming to aid a fellow Mandalorian in fight whatever said members are on good terms or not (Paz and Din in the first season) or providing material goods, as we are both shown (with Din) and told (by Armorer) that “It is a tradition [...] for each to donate a small portion of what they earn to the foundlings”. So those who earn money or get their hands on anything special like beskar, support the most vulnerable ones (orphans) of their Tribe. Which is definitely a positive aspect of their community (even if so far we see only(?) Din to wander through the galaxy and actually earn money and share them with his people).

celebrate (witness) together an important moments of individual members like the ceremonial accepting Creed by Ragnar or Din’s official return after Armorer confirmed his proof about Living Waters

train together and the older (more experienced) members act as mentors

organize a searching (war) party for a child abducted by predator animal

So it can’t be denied that Children of the Watch is a community in which all members take part in the social life of the Tribe, and all play some specific roles. The adults mentor the less experienced people and act as protectors in times of danger, Armorer is providing knowledge and guidance but also (alongside Paz Vizsla?) guards tradition and “punishes” for breaking the rules - and it is important to note she is usually presented as fair judge, as it was seen with Din and Paz’s rocky relationship through the all seasons.

On another hand we don’t see Children of the Watch (beside Armorer and Paz) interact with Din or Bo in any meaningful way that builds the feeling of truly belonging to this little society or even between each other in background? And here comes my realization with the rescue group sitting around the fireplace. The food was distributed, Bo’s position as leader acknowledged by Paz and then… everyone went on their own to eat in solitude. Which is so anticlimactic in regard to building any personal connection between Tribe and newcomer. They were a rescue group, on “enemy” territory (with some dangerous local fauna, there could be more hungry predators lurking in the night) and instead of sharing the warmth of firework, the sitting (eating) by the fire is treated as privilege.

Eating together and sharing food with your community is a universal bonding experience and it is no wonder that Bo-Katan is out of her depth so much in that scene, when one remembers she was for years part of Death Watch. And we know thanks to The Clone Wars (a tie-in material from the same New Canon) that Death Watch feasted together (A Friend in Need)

or even during Pre and Maul talk about alliance - a pretty important moment for both involved parties - there was one warrior who apparently chose to eat/drink between his folks rather than sitting (alone) somewhere else.

Hell, even when Din and Boba Fett seek her in the previous season, she and Koska also ate a meal together.

Of course, those little scenes are just glimpses at life of other mandalorian groups, but there is drastic contrast between Children of the Watch (eat alone so no one see you removing helmet/showing face) and what Bo-Katan experienced within two separate communities (Death Watch and her clan/followers). And I think this is the reason why Children of the Watch doesn’t feel like a true community to me. Sure, they train together and take part in ceremonies and aid each other in fight, but there is little of actual personal relationship? Little of normal things the community do together like exactly eating and sharing a place by the fire?

And there is something really bothering how the morally dubious Death Watch act as a community, not only with the training, but also eating a meal together or talking with each other - what could be observed in various scenes between the unnamed members.

In general I think TCW provided a better feeling of Death Watch’s daily life outside of combat than The Mandalorian show did for the Children of the Watch. It is doubly weird that Pre Vizsla of all people bothered to offer Maul a tea when they were making alliance as a gesture of goodwill and/or playing the good host role

while Bo-Katan (a newcomer) is left to eat alone because no one is allowed to remove the helmet in company thus can’t eat together. Come to think about it, Bo-Katan too offered to share her food with Grogu and Din in the “Mines of Mandalore” which adds to the feeling how food - as bonding / belonging to community - means a lot to her or Mandalorian in general.

Additional feeling of the not-so-good community sense comes from the same episode and is about how Ragnar could walk away from the group unnoticed when apparently Children of the Watch are perfectly aware of dangerous predators lurking around. And the kid walked to the edge of the water from which Tribe was already attacked by a beast and for some reason no one noticed it? Like Din was there when Ragnar just walked away but he was too busy praising Grogu even though, as the adult and part of the community he was responsible for other (especially less experienced) members. He however could have zero knowledge of the flying predator that may snatch the kid but the Tribe living there knew but did not bother to guard their children better? As was shown, they didn’t put anyone on guard duty to make sure those training together were safe or to keep an eye on kids wandering away from the group? You know, to not repeat the tragedy that already befall on their community in the recent past? It is especially weird to me, because the whole episode put so much pressure on how saving a foundling (or child in general) is the most honorable part of the Creed yet the Children of the Watch, as a collective, did not provide the safety to the most vulnerable members as they could despite the knowledge about danger and already experienced tragedy.

And sure, we could argue hey this kid is a sworn Mandalorian and maybe the Mando doesn’t fret about children safety as we, the no-warrior people, do. But the thing is, none of the monsters the Tribe faced was something a single adulr warrior could beat alone. It was always a community effort to beat them - and mind you, the “water beast” ultimately was killed by fire from Din’s spaceship so it is not something that a lonely kid could achieve on his own. The flying monster also was defeated because of cooperation of several warriors (though they maybe could kill it faster if the animal didn’t hold the kid). Which is why I find the execution of the plot weak from the in-universe perspective, as this tragedy was easy to avoid if only the Tribe bothered a bit more with common sense and security (something they were much more focused on in the first season?)

Of course, the show is an ongoing project so maybe the future episodes will change my mind about Children of the Watch, but for now I have very mixed feelings about them as the Mandalorian community. They are built as one for sure but they don’t really feel like a real community so far to me. Especially not compared to Death Watch, as was presented by the same New Canon.

#star wars #children of the watch #death watch #the mandalorian #the mandalorian critical #the mandalorian spoilers #i know i'm looking and judging the children of the watch through real life experiences when it comes to what community is #and especially the importance of sharing food / eating together with family or friends #so i know it is not universal experience and dunno maybe this kind of mando community is meant to represent something else #not sure from where creators take their inspirations for this religious-like tribe #but i'm really bothered by their take on them #especially when we can compare this group to death watch (from the new canon)#and when bastards like TCW!DW feel more like tigh knitted community than the supposed honorable mando i'm a bit concerned #when from DW it was mainly pre and bo who we truly knew about while other mandos were the background #but they still interacted with each other and eat together and have fun?#while children of the watch are mainly seen in regard to ceremony / creed / fight #and the one scene when bo could learn something about her companions ya'know to bond with someone outside din and armorer #she is left to eat alone?#dunno if this is just me or the show #my analyze

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ariainstars · 2 years ago

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The Mandalorian Season 3 Isn’t That Bad

Yes, sigh, I know, this Season was not what we Mando fans were expecting. The pacing is slow for an action show and there are too many fillers; also, most of us were expecting Din (or Djarin, now we have learned it’s actually his first name) to become the new Mand’alor and we were let down. But thinking back about it, the Season is actually quite acceptable considering the direction the characters take.

Let me elaborate.

From the very first, Mando is always shown as someone fiercely loyal, both to his covert and to Grogu but mostly to his fellow Mandalorians. He would do anything for them, including killing on his bounty hunting to earn money for their survival: the first words we hear him say literally are “I can bring you in warm or I can bring you in cold.”

Mando has adhered to the code „This is the Way“ his entire teenage and adult life. Everything he does is by order of the Armorer, whose judgement and decisions are never remotely questioned neither by him nor by the other Mandalorians. At the end of Season 1 he accepts the role of the adopted father for Grogu and the search for “one of his kind” (a Jedi) because she tells him to do so. The first thing he does in Season 3 is to seek for atonement for his „sin“ of removing the helmet. He hardly shows a personal agenda, it is all for “the Way”; and he is not the one who decides what the Way is.

After his redemption he steps back, gets sidelined, gives Bo-Katan the Darksaber and swears loyalty to her. Why? Because he already was an apostate once. Until then he never would have dared to do anything that opposes the Armorer, even less so now that he is redeemed and after he almost drowned while seeking redemption.

The Armorer is not the most dependable narrator or leader. She does not question why Mando he removed his helmet (which was fully justified since he did it to save his foundling), but later on she says that „Bo-Katan walks both Ways“ after having known her for two weeks. Bo-Katan has blackmailed Mando twice since he met her, and knowing her past, she already proved that she is not a good leader. Mando would have every right to shout “This is not fair”, and many fans are doing it for him. But he doesn’t: he accepts everything the Armorer tells him in good faith, never questioning it. He would never do anything to challenge her and risk becoming an apostate again. (At least, not yet.)

As viewers, we immediately saw that the father-son dynamic between Mando and Grogu is heart and soul of the story and that they are meant to be together. It is different for Djarin: this fact is only slowly sinking in. In Season 1 he bonded with Grogu after their adventure with the mudhorn, which is why he rescued him instead of leaving him with the Client; and all the adventures they lived through during the first two seasons only brought them closer together. It is only at the penultimate episode of Season 2 that he removes his helmet in front of others to save the child and this is the first time ever that we see how Grogu matters more to him than the Way.

Season 3 culminates with Mando finally making a choice of his own, by adopting Grogu and living with him on his own. This time, it was his own and not the Armorer’s decision, although she did give them her blessing.

The destruction of the Darksaber, also much criticized, fits to this development. Mandalorians were until now ready to follow blindly the person who owned it: that it no longer exists could mean that the time of conflict for the planet Mandalore is over, since the object they were arguing about does no longer exist. In future, hopefully the ruler of Mandalore will be who is most worthy, not who happens to possess a particular weapon, whether it was given to them or they won it in combat.

As viewers, this development may be difficult to stomach; but we are not in Djarin’s shoes. We were not raised from childhood in an absolutist cult that would leave us to die on our own for an understandable transgression. Let’s face it: “This is the Way” is brainwashing. Rules are good and well but when you realize that you can never question or break them, even if by all logic you have good reason to do so, something is wrong. But if your very survival depends on your belonging to the sect that raised you and taught you everything you know, you will not dare to think outside of the box.

I am not happy with Bo-Katan governing Mandalore instead of Djarin: the way we got to know him I daresay he would be an excellent leader. He puts foundlings first, he is fiercely loyal, he is selfless, he is protective, he is a good negotiator. Bo-Katan is way less mature and strong than he is. On the other hand, she already did wrong to her people, which we also learn in this Season: she dealt with Gideon believing he would spare her people, which was naïve at best. I don’t dislike the idea that she gets a chance to amend for what she did and maybe to grow and mature into a better ruler.

I agree that much about this season was disappointing and that the plot could probably have been told in half the time, but I disagree that it makes no sense. Not only Grogu is growing and maturing, so is his father. I don’t know where they mean to lead this to, but I think it’s interesting to watch.

Besides, I was very happy to see Ahmed Best again and to see him play the Jedi who had rescued Grogu from the Jedi temple, all of those years earlier.

#the mandalorian #star wars #sw #mando #bo katan kryze #grogu #mandalore #darksaber #this is the way #ahmed best

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sinvulkt · 2 years ago

Text

Dream Child by muchadoloo ( @muchadoloo ) for AsunaChinaDoll

It is an old Mandalorian proverb that a child is born in one's dreams.

For over twenty years, Din has dreamed of fire and smoke, bloodshed, and bloodcurdling screams. They say it’s a bad omen. They say he's fated to be childless. They say he has no dream child.

What he does have, however, is a persistent green creature who sneaks into his ship, eats all his food, and refuses to leave him alone.

(In which, all Mandalorians receive recurring dreams of their intended foundlings and Din just so happens to be the exception to that rule). Completed, 100k words.

*** ** * ** ***

Chapter 2:

Din makes the choice between gritted teeth and swallowed pride. “Give me the ball.”

“I’m not finished—”

“I answered your questions.”

“Yet, I remain dissatisfied.”

Red flashes before Din’s eyes. “What do you want from me?”

“Everything,” Gavit growls.

A chill cuts through Din, so abrupt and startling that his heart almost stops. Gavit is many things, but cold he is not. His anger is like the heat waves on Nevarro — suffocating, consuming, and demanding to be felt. But this… This is icier. Different.

“On second thought…” Gavit steps back, surveying the ball and the waste chute behind him. Din’s stomach drops. “I don’t think you need this trinket.”

“No.” The word catches in Din’s throat.

“What was that?” Gavit asks, relishing in the power shift. Din grits his teeth, refusing to acknowledge it, but the shift’s already begun. “You want it back? Then, confess.”

Din can feel himself shaking. He can’t just attack him, they both know that. Not without an outright provocation. He forfeited his chance before.

“Confess!”

“I told you. I haven’t—” Din’s voice cracks. He struggles to find the words, different words, but there aren’t any. “I haven’t…done anything.”

“Well…” Gavit says. “You leave me no choice then.”

Din chokes. “No—”

He hurls the ball into the waste chute. It clinks against the rock as it falls, sending echoes ringing through the room. Din can barely hear himself breathing.

It’s…gone.

Gavit approaches, leaning in. “You know why your dreams are fucked, Djarin?” He whispers so no one but Din can hear. “It’s because you’re an ori'vhekad.”

Din jerks, throat closing up. He doesn’t hear Gavit back away. Doesn’t register him addressing the watching crowd. Doesn’t hear anything beyond that slur, ringing dully in his ears like the ball in the chute.

Ori'vhekad.

A word easily translated in Basic to mean: desert. But Mando’a isn’t like Standard; it thrives off of legend, imagery, and story. Their homeworld was decimated, reduced to a wasteland. Incapable of sustaining life. The slur speaks to that history; it speaks of one who depletes life and is as desolate and barren as the desert. One in whom no life exists.

Gold armor turns to him and the white noise drops out. Din returns to himself, numb.

[...]

There’s a sense of finality and satisfaction in the air. Of jobs well done.

It’s all quite normal, ordinary, almost boring. Yet, Din feels a strange stab of envy as he stands apart from the activity. He could never fit in here — not with the way it is now. The feeling brings with it an old taunt.

You don’t belong here.

You’re weak.

A coward.

Din thins his lips together, trying to stop the swell of emotion from crashing over him, but it is already clawing its way out of his throat. Sorrow always shows up for him like a game of hide-and-seek. It goes in search of his voice first (because that’s the first thing he hides), pushing out an inhuman sound (something brittle, strained, and taunt like a cord finally snapping). He won’t let it. He can’t.

Din digs his fingers into his palm, trying to find his way back to solid ground, but he’s so tired. His rifle is broken and he smells terrible and he’s standing on sinking...

Sand.

Desert.

Ori’vhekad.

A choked sound catches in his throat and Din bites his tongue, forcing it back down.

Not here, he pleads. Not now.

Chapter 5:

When Din was young, time was his closest ally. There was so much of it then. He was only twenty-three; dreams could change, predictions could be false and, more importantly, people could be proven wrong.

He had time.

It only took getting older for him to finally learn the truth — that time is not a friend, but a thief that steals from you every chance it gets. Give it time, many in the Covert said when he begged for the dream to change. Give it time, and Din did. He gave it time, and time only stole years off his life.

He won’t waste another moment entertaining notions of “what could have been” and “what should have been” when what is stands in front of him, asking him to be a man about it. If there’s anything life has taught him, it’s that everything creeps steadily towards death and decay (that, is the “gift” of time). People are born only to die, and life is a gift that everyone has to return eventually.

He knows that.

At least, he knew that once.

It was foolish of him to forget something so elementary.

#fragments of imagination #ao3 #fic rec #fanfic snippet #even stars burn out #star wars #sw #incorrect star wars quotes #star wars incorrect quotes #din djarin #grogu #the mandalorian #baby yoda #the mandalorian incorrect quotes

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comm-caribou · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter Eleven: Bedtime Stories:

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: violence, torture, blood, death, suggestive content (let me know if I missed any!)

————

“Ad’ika? Where are you little one?”

The heavy boots entered his bedroom. She could see the soles of his black, metal boots walk around his room. His toe kicking a plushie that poked out from under the bed.

His gloved hand picked up the toy, “well, hello Tibby. Have you seen a little girl? Blonde hair, eyes like mine?”

Covering her mouth, she giggled.

Her father made an amused humming noise.

Then, he got down on his knees, and laid on his stomach. He folded his arms, and rested his head on his arm, smiling at his little daughter.

“Hello, ad’ika,” he cooed, “what are you doing?”

“Waiting for you,” she crawled to him, “I want another story.”

“Another one?” He laughed, “I just put you to bed.”

Juliette balled her fists under her chin, pouting her bottom lip, “please?”

He exaggerated a sigh, then held out his arms, “come here, little baby. What story do you want?”

She crawled into his arms, “when you met mom.”

“That one?” Her father got up, “again?”

“It’s my favorite one,” she snuggled into him. “Pretty please?”

He handed her Tibby, and kissed her forehead.

“Let’s see…” he pretended to think, even though he told it a million times already.

It was the first story he ever told her.

****

Little tiny hands, wrapped around his finger.

A little button nose, a pouty lip, and swollen cheeks from her hard day of sleeping and looking too cute for words.

Jaller couldn’t get enough of that little bundle in her bassinet next to the bed. It didn’t matter what his daughter did, she was precious in every moment.

“Would you leave her be?” Almyra rubbed his shoulders, “a girl needs some privacy.”

“But she’s holding me,” Jaller pouted at his wife, “she doesn’t want her buir to go.”

“It’s just a reflex,” Almyra tapped his nose, “sorry to burst your bubble.”

Jaller sighed, and slipped away from her grip.

He got up, ready to head down to the kitchenette and prepare dinner with his doting, killer wife.

As his foot touched the first rail, Juliette’s little cry began. Her tiny hands stretched out of the bassinet, looking for him.

He looked down at Almyra, pleading with just his eyes.

She sighed, “go get her.”

Jaller went back to bassinet, and picked up his bundle.

“Don’t cry, ad’ika.” He kissed her forehead, “your buir is here. Your buir is not going to leave you, little one.”

Her cry subsided, and she laid quietly in his arms.

“Such a daddy’s girl,” he sat down on the bed, “do you want a story, my baby?”

****

“Jaller, get off of my lap.”

Almyra shoved her husband away from her pregnant stomach. She did find it cute though, this Mandalorian foundling always took jobs guarding the helpless, including kids. Now that she was carrying his own flesh and blood, he was all over her. Soaking up every moment he could, like a moth drawn to a flame.

Jaller looked up at her with big, golden eyes.

Almyra groaned, “you can tell her a story, if you rub my feet.”

Jaller smiled, “anything for you, cyar’ika.”

He sat on the floor, taking one of her swollen feet in his rough hands.

“Let’s see… once, there was a Mandalorian on a job,” he began, “he stepped out into the bright sun, searching for danger. He thought he was safe, but little did he know there was an assassin watching.”

Almyra laughed, “is this how we met?”

Jaller was blushing, “it’s my favorite story.”

“I was going to shoot you in the head.” Almyra leaned down as far as her nine month belly would allow her to bend.

“But you didn’t,” he sat up on his knees, and caressed her face, “you chose me over the job.”

“I couldn’t get over how dopey you were,” she kissed his lips, “such a threat, yet so oblivious.”

“That’s why you’re the brains,” he brushed his nose against her’s.

Almyra smiled, then relaxed into the couch, “so, tell your girls your version of this tale.”

Jaller sat back down, smiling, “as I was saying…”

****

“Gotcha.”

Almyra laid on her stomach, with a black armored Mandalorian in her crosshairs. She watched through her scope, steadying her rifle.

The Mando looked slowly from side-to-side.

What’s so special about this guy? Almyra wondered, he’s short and all beskar. I doubt there’s really any muscle under that gear.

She placed her finger on the trigger, lining his head up. It’d be a hard hit, but she was sure she’d get him through the T-slit of his helmet.

He’d be worth more alive, but if he was as dangerous as they say, he’d be easier to bring in dead.

Her finger hovered, feeling old wounds replay in her mended bones and healed bruises. Recovery was always the worst part of these easier options.

He waved his hand, and out ran a small child to the balcony. It was a little boy, smiling as he beckoned the Mando over.

Her finger stayed on the trigger, but the tension left.

The Mando walked closer, and scooped up the kid. He placed him on his shoulder, and began pointing to the clouds in the sky.

Almyra moved her rifle away.

Great, I can’t shoot him if he’s got a kid with him. I’m not a monster. She packed up her gun, now I have to wait. This guy better not be some big marshmallow.

****

Jaller walked the kid to his school, holding his hand as he excitedly rambled about trains.

Although he processed every word, he was keeping an eye on his shadow following after them in all black.

Definitely an assassin.

He walked the Senator’s son to the door, and held it open until all the kids ran into the building.

Many hugged his leg, and held up their hands for high-fives. He kept the assassin sighted, as he tapped each hand with his own and pat their their little heads.

Yes, yes. All of you are very cute. I want ten just like you.

The last child was always the same. A little girl who always gave him a flower with half its petals already fallen off.

“Thank you, little princess,” he took the flower, “have a wonderful day.”

She curtsied, and ran through the door as he shut it behind her.

Especially you. I want a kid just like you.

Next, he turned back to where his assassin was hiding.

She’s gone! Osik!

Before he could consider running into the school, something tapped his helmet. Their knocking echoed in his ears as he lifted his head up.

The assassin hung off the ledge behind him, green eyes piecing through his soul.

“Be honest with me, tiny,” she jutted her chin up, “is your head actually worth a million credits?”

“A million?” Jaller chuckled, “I’m surprised it’s worth one single credit.”

Her eyes crinkled into a smile, “maybe I’ll get you later then.”

“Only if you’re lucky,” he stood on his toes, my job is over once I deliver the kid from school.

She crawled off, and disappeared again.

Note to self, avoid her.

****

Sonuvagun!

Almyra ran and jumped from building to building, chasing after the Mando as he ran through the uncrowded alleys.

He took a sharp turn, almost slipping.

Perfect!

She took aim, shooting him with her rifle set to stun.

It hit his leg, and he stumbled forward a few steps before his legs gave up completely. Then he began crawling using his arms to drag him.

He’s determined, she hopped down, I like that.

He lifted his head up, “here to collect your million credits?”

“If you knew I wanted to kill you, why didn’t you kill me first?” Almyra knelt down. “You stupid or something?”

“Or something,” he lowered his helmet. “Let’s just get this ov-“

She gripped his wrist, and dragged him.

“Excuse you!” He scoffed, “you’re ruining my armor!”

“Shut up,” she dragged him into an abandoned building, “you’re my prisoner.”

****

Jaller pulled on his binds, very uncomfortable with the situation he was in. Of all the times he was captured and held prisoner, strapped to a rundown motel’s bed was not one he liked.

“Madam,” Jaller felt his cheeks burning under his helmet, “I request to be released now. This isn’t funny!”

She appeared over him, green eyes gleaming mischievously as she twirled a knife in her hands.

“At least give me some dignity,” he tried, “this is a little too vulnerable for my liking.”

She smiled, leaning over the headboard, “are you not comfortable?”

He swallowed, “you’re her, aren’t you? The Living Weapon.”

“What gave me away?” She removed her mask, “was it the toying? I do love to play with my prey before I gut them.”

The scar that ran from her corner lip to her ear was all the confirmation he needed. This was the one that everyone whispered about, the one who was indestructible. If she wanted him, his head was already being served on a silver platter to her bosses.

Jaller pulled on the binds, breathing hard as he struggled to get loose.

“I’m just a bodyguard,” he protested, “I’m not like the other Mandos. I was just raised by them.”

She lifted up his helmet, holding the knife over his eye.

He was trembling now, “I’m just trying to find my way. I’m not my mother.”

“And where is Julietta Trix?” She placed a hand to his throat, “I’m sure she’d pay a big bounty for her baby back. Even if he’s a dumb, whiny, grown man.”

He kept pulling on his binds, “I’m not whiny.”

“But you are dumb,” she dragged the flat edge of the knife along his cheek.

He pulled harder, “are you trying to kill me, or seduce me?”

“You’re not my type,” she squeezed his throat. “Maybe if you were taller I’d give you a chance.”

He gritted his teeth, and gave one hard pull. Luck was on his side when he broke the bedpost and freed his hand. Without a second to lose, he brought his fist back and straight into the side of her head.

With no time to react, her head bounced into the wall, and down she went to the floor unconscious.

Still pumping with adrenaline, Jaller fumbled with his other binds, and freed himself. He got up, and stumbled out of the bed, looming over her.

A part of him wanted to leave her. This assassin was sent to kill him or capture him, he had no reason to pity her. Yet, he knelt down, brushing her hair back and moving the collar down.

As he suspected, there was a brand on the back of her neck.

She was a slave, he traced the mark, she could still be one.

He thought for a moment, then sighed.

I’m going to regret this.

****

Almyra’s head throbbed, and despite being in a nice dark space, it still felt too bright for her eyes.

She snuggled into the pillow under her head, curling into the blanket more. It was warm and soft, and the scent was comforting.

It smelled like soap trying to mimic the smell of tress and gun polish.

Like the Mando.

Her eyes shot open, and she sat up.

She was in a loft, consisting only of the bed she was in, a side table, a closed closet, and a refresher with its light on.

She lifted her wrists up, finding them bounded by cuffs. She lifted the expensive blanket, seeing her boots were taken off and her ankles were tied.

He actually got me.

“Good, you’re awake,” he came out of the refresher.

His hair was wet, and his face freshly shaved. What really had her attention was his skintight shirt hugging every muscle.

Okay… he’s kind of handsome…

He picked something off the floor, and set it on the side table.

A shopping bag?

“If you’re nice, I’ll untie you,” he said, “then you can take a shower.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?” She rolled her eyes, “you’re not getting a free show, pervert.”

“I’m not going to watch,” he blushed.

Almyra turned away, “look, the only reason I didn’t kill your right away was because you were with those kids. Now that you’re no longer their bodyguard, I have no reason to hold back.”

“Well,” he moved closer, “thank you for not scarring my little clients for life.”

She turned to him, studying his soft face, “I guess you’re welcome.”

He took her wrists, and unlocked her cuffs.

“You’re going to regret letting me loose,” she stated.

“I might,” he agreed. “If you need me, I’ll be piloting my ship.”

****

Scrolling through the jobs, Jaller found his name.

So, I am a target. Lovely.

He rubbed his chin, reading the information. He was worth more alive than dead, but from his reading it seemed he was going to be used as bait to get to his mother.

Poor idiots. She’s already dead.

He rolled a blue stone in his hand, sighing as he stared off into hyperspace.

When she found him, he was just a little kid. Both parents dead, no family, living on the streets off of table scraps and garbage.

He was sick when the gray armored warrior appeared. From her large frame and towering height, he thought she was a man.

When she wrapped him in a blanket, cuddling him close to her armored bosom, he realized the soft humming was coming from her and he was safe.

Julietta Trix was already in her fifties, with no husband and no children of her own. She was a black sheep in her family.

A successfully wealthy black sheep.

This ship and her fortune was her final gift to him before she died just entering her eighties still fighting.

The chair across from him shifted, and his new friend sat down. Her blonde hair wet smelling of florals, dressed in clean new clothes that were a little too baggy for her.

“I figured bigger would be better,” Jaller said quietly, “I will purchase you better clothes when we get to-“

“It’s fine,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to be nice to me before you let your mother slaughter me.”

“Julietta Trix is dead,” he stated. “I just haven’t spread the word yet, so there’s no reward for your employer.”

She stayed quiet, then smiled, “but there is still an award for delivering you.”

Jaller studied her, “if money is so important to you, I’ll give you the credits you’d get from capturing me alive.”

“No,” her eyes gleamed with mischief, “I’m turning you in, collecting the award, and breaking you out.”

“What a crazy idea,” Jaller smiled, “you better come get me then.”

****

“Excellent,” her boss pulled Jaller up by his dark, brown hair, “you did well, my weapon.”

She still felt bad about the bruises on his face, but he wanted it to look like a real struggle occurred.

“I brought him alive,” Almyra placed a hand on her hip, “you said that’s worth three million.”

Flicking his tongue, her wormlike boss snapped his fingers and some men dragged Jaller off, while another stepped forward with a case.

He opened it, showing her the glittering award.

Goodbye hand-me-downs and second-hand finds, hello easy life.

He closed the case, and handed it to her.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she said, now comes the hard part.

****

They stripped him of his armor, and suspended him from the ceiling by his arms. His shoulders screamed in pain from how they chose to bind his wrists.

At least the bed was comfortable. I’d take that humiliation over this kind.

A slimy looking creature slithered in, flicking his tongue as he circled Jaller.

Almyra, you better not leave me hanging. Literally.

“So, this is the son of the clan Gales? Quite small if you ask me,” he chuckled to himself, “we’ve sent word out to your mother. If you’re lucky, she’ll respond soon. Otherwise, you’ll be quite unrecognizable when she gets here.”

Jaller groaned, “of course, I’m going to be tortured. How original.”

As soon he said it, electricity pulsed through his body, enough to make him scream.

****

Almyra threw the case on the copilot seat.

Technically I didn’t really promise I’d come for him.

She moved to the pilot’s chair.

Why should I care? He’s just a dumb bounty hunter or bodyguard. Just because he did a few small favors for me doesn’t mean I owe him a rescue.

She sat down.

Mandalorians are a clan. Just because his mother is dead doesn’t mean others won’t come for him. He’s not alone like me.

Her hand hovered the startup, when a pinging caught her ear. All her life, Almyra had excellent hearing, and this noise echoed within the ship.

She stood, closing her eyes as she pinpointed the sound, blindly walking across the hull.

She opened her eyes to a closet, and opened it.

Her heart dropped as helmets rolled out at her feet, enough for a whole small clan.

The beeping continued, and she was drawn to a box that contained the sound.

Opening it, she found gray armor neatly piled inside.

Oh my stars…

****

Blood dripped to the floor.

It felt like hours past, and Jaller’s hope was beginning to dwindle as he hung from the ceiling barely able to touch the floor.

“Still no answer?” A henchman asked.

“No,” his partner growled, “I’m getting bored. Let’s do something more drastic.”

“Like what?”

“Cut off an ear perhaps?”

“Don’t we need the boss’s okay?”

Jaller tiredly lifted his head, “don’t you even-“

They electrocuted him again, laughing as his body violently jerked and shook.

Then, they cried out as he also dropped to the ground.

He laid there, feeling sick and exhausted.

“Jaller!” Almyra crotched down beside him, “I’m so sorry.”

“You should’ve just let me give you the money,” he grunted.

Her hand traced the unhealed burn scar on his back, “my stars…”

Groaning, he got up on his forearms, “where’s my armor?”

She snapped out of her daze, then began handing the pieces to him, “what happened to your back?”

“Not important,” Jaller pulled on his bodysuit, “we got to move.”

She kept looking at him, with pity.

He sighed, “you saw the skeletons in my closet.”

“You’re the last of your clan,” Almyra said, “aren’t you?”

Snapping all his armor in place, Jaller weakly got up, “my clan is dead, I am what’s left of it. So what?”

He slipped on his helmet, and sorely stood up.

Almyra got up, and hurried along.

She gets her money, I drop her off, and then it’s over.

****

Jeez, how much were they planning to get for this guy?

Plasma bolts whizzed past her head as she ducked behind the wall. She looked around, before settling on the vents.

Jaller covered her, “reminder I won’t fit in there.”

“Which is why I’m going to get behind them and meet you in the middle,” Almyra crawled in, “don’t die!”

“No promises!” Jaller called back.

She hurried through, and jumped out behind the crowd. She began blasting her way back to Jaller, relieved when he body slammed his way through the crowd to be back-to-back with her.

I got to say, she smiled under her mask, he is growing on me.

Right across her face, a fist collided with knocking her mask right off her jaw.

As she went down, she saw Jaller aim his gun and blow her attacker’s head off, then the door panel.

With them now locked in, it was calm again.

He then held out his hand, “are you alright, my dear?”

My dear?!

She slid her hand into his, “I think so?”

“Let’s get out of here then,” Jaller pulled her up, then collected her mask, “before they blow my ship up.”

There was a pause, and he just stared at her.

“You can let go of my hand now,” he said softly, “I’m not the type to leave people behind.”

She quickly released his hand like it had burned her, and hurried along behind him.

Darn it! What’s wrong with me?

****

Jaller started his ship, panting and heaving.

That was not worth three million credits!

Almyra sat in the chair beside him, sinking into the chair exhausted with a bruised cheek. She helped powered up the ship, and they both got away before the money hungry worms could make it outside.

Jaller then turned to her, taking off his helmet, “there. You got three million credits, it’s all yours. Now, where am I bringing you?”

Almyra stayed quiet.

“Almyra, where am I taking you?”

Does she have any place?

She turned to him cooly, “your bed.”

He felt his face flare up, “m-my bed?”

“I’m tired,” Almyra blushed, “I want a nap.”

He relaxed, exhaling.

“Also, the fact that you’re a gentleman and wear a metal suit makes you really attractive despite your height,” Almyra continued, “and I kind of want to tie you to the bed again.”

He gripped the controls, biting his bottom lip as his face burned with all his blood.

“Too strong an approach?”

“Just a smidge, my dear.”

****

“I did not ask you to bed that day,” Almyra corrected as Jaller kissed her stomach.

“Yes, you did,” Jaller smiled, “I know because I was terrified of you.”

She rolled her eyes smiling, “listen, little baby of mine, your father is lying.”

She felt her kick inside her stomach.

I can’t wait to meet you, little girl.

****

He held tiny Juliette in his arms, pacing around the ship.

“Your mother tried to kill me,” Jaller smiled, “and it was the best day of my life, even if I got this scar on my face now.”

Almyra came over, kissing Juliette’s chubby cheek.

“Your daddy will have more scars if he tells you I dragged him to bed that night.”

Jaller smirked, “what about the fact you made fun of me for being short and dumb.”

“Which you still are,” she kissed his cheek, “but you’re also hot.”

Jaller turned to Juliette, “hear that? Your mom thinks I’m hot.”

“And dumb and short,” Almyra reminded.

“She loves me,” Jaller said softly, as Juliette slept.

****

Her eyelids felt heavy as her buir tucked her in bed again. He placed Tibby in her arms, and a kiss on top of her head.

“I love you, Juliette,” her father softly whispered, “and I promise I’ll always protect you.”

#caribou stories #caribou ocs #star wars #star wars the clone wars #juliette trix #jaller trix #almyra suun #952nd

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writerlyhabits · 2 years ago

Text

Bed Rest

Pairing: Din Djarin x reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Request: “Reader takes care of a sick Din send tweet ”

Warnings: mild language, pre-established relationship, helmetless Din but it's dark and technically no creed is broken, its just fluff. I did spell a Mando'a word funky, but that's cause he says it weird, just trust me on this one, kay?

AN: Okay.... this request has been sitting in my inbox for a hot minute and I'm so sorry, but every time I opened the doc all thoughts just left my brain and I couldn't make anything I liked. I know it's short, but I think keeping it short and sweet made this a lil easier. @deceiverofgodss you're wonderful as always ty 💛 Thanks for requesting, I hope you all enjoy!

Din Djarin is a complicated man.

There are many layers to him, both on the surface and buried behind the layers of his beskar armor. He’s clever, his brain moving faster than you could even comprehend to get your party through high-tension situations. He’s kind, offering his genuine thanks wherever he could, and – as you’d noticed on more than one occasion – tips generously where it is deserved. He has his hard edges, but there is a softness to him in his lingering touches at the small of your back, and when he cradles his foundling to his chest.

But he’s also one of the most stubborn men you have ever met.

As of late, he’d been sleeping for far longer than normal, had been partial to cranking the heat up at the inns, and you could hear his stuffy nose affecting his ability to speak – even through the helmet. Din was very clearly sick, or at the very least under the weather, but would he admit to it? Of course not. He powered through, acting like nothing was wrong.

It was getting on your nerves.

So you took matters into your own hands.

“Love,” he whined, having traded your preferred mesh’la for one he could pronounce without hindrance from the blockage of his sinuses, which you kept commenting on and he kept ignoring. “Where did you put the tracker?” He was searching the front table – where he most definitely set it down beside his vambraces the night before – not looking over at you.

“I haven’t seen it,” you feigned innocence, and you admittedly could have been a better actress, but in his state that was the last thing he would notice. Which was exactly why you had taken to hiding the fob in your hands behind your back.

He couldn’t go on this hunt. If he didn’t run himself into the ground and make his symptoms worse, he would get himself killed trying to function despite of them.

For a moment you thought you were going to get away with it, until the traitorous device beeped in your hands to remind you it was still working. Dank farrik. Your Mandalorian turned around steadily to face you, the intimidation of his dark visor lost on you because you knew he was avoiding making himself dizzy by moving his head too fast.

Usually, this would become an unfair game. You would try to keep it close to your body, using every defense you had to fend him off, Din’s large strong frame being able to overpower you with little effort as you both laughed. Sick Din, however, simply sagged his shoulders in disappointment.

“Please don’t make me take it from you, I can’t.”

Sometimes it was so hard remembering just how human Din was underneath all of the beskar. Seeing him act just like any other man with a cold was refreshing. You just wished it also came with the usual desire to sit around and do nothing.

“You can’t?” You repeated, eyebrows shot up on your forehead as you waited for him to hear what he was saying. “Din, if you can’t overpower me, how the hell do you think you’re going to be able to hunt down a bounty?”

“It’s different, I won’t have to-”

“Din.” Your firm tone had taken to sounding similar to his, even causing Grogu to look up at the two of you from his spot on the chair in the corner, and Din halted his argument. “You’re sick, you need to rest. If you don’t stop and take care of yourself, it’s only going to take longer before you can get back out there.”

You let him sit with that reality for a second, watching as his visor turned to look at his green child across the room. You knew where his thoughts were going; the longer he couldn’t hunt, the longer it would take for him to provide for you all. The longer you kept Grogu cooped up in the shabby inn, and it was only a matter of time before you went out and took the bounty out yourself.

You were not incapable by any means. In fact, he loved having you by his side in battle, the two of you being able to read the other as if by some ancient jedi mind trick. But he was fiercely protective, and you knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the idea of sitting on the sidelines while you were on the hunt, unable to come to your rescue should you need it.

All of this, you knew, went through his head as he turned back to you. You knew each other too well for his thoughts to be any kind of mystery to you, just as yours were second nature to him. Which meant that he knew you were prepared to fight him on this.

So he sighed in defeat.

“Fine.”

“Good choice. Now take your armor off and get in bed.”

“Mbesh’la, I don't think that’s-“

“Mbesh’la,” you taunted back, making fun of the way his congestion morphed the usually elegant word. You could practically hear his eye roll. “C’mon, I’m gonna get you soup from the shop downstairs. When I come back, I’ll help you out of the rest of it,” you finished sweetly.

Din nodded in reply – a slow movement to avoid a headache – and you slipped the tracker into your pocket. Just to be safe. He made an attempt to start discarding his gear, gloved fingers fumbling with the clasps of his cloak now that they were free of his weapons.

Before he struggled for long, you walked up and gingerly took his hands in yours, removing his leather gloves with a tenderness you rarely got to share with your Mandalorian. As you got the material over his large hands, you kissed his knuckles before reaching up to unfsaten the clasps he’d been struggling with, folding it across your arms when it released. You gave him a sweet smile, and placed one hand on the side of his helmet to bring it down towards you, leaving him with a keldabe kiss before you made your way out of the room.

When you came back with the soup in hand – a large bowl for Din, and a small one for the foundling who never stopped eating – the room was dark, save for the oranges of the sunset outside peeking in through the cracks of the drapes. On the sizable bed in the middle of the room were your boys, Din cast in the shadows of the room as he laid on his side, and Grogu playing happily with his father’s helmet from his spot on top of the covers. Din’s hand was resting against the child’s back, and you just about melted at the sight.

And then Din sneezed.

At the very least, it amused the child, a laugh gurgling out of him at the ridiculous sound. It reminded you to keep moving, delivering the steaming bowls to a grateful Mandalorian, smiling at his quiet thanks. Only leaving them for a moment, you went into the fresher to run a cloth under hot water, bringing it back out to the shadow of a man tilting the edge of the bowl to his lips.

Success.

You made your way back to the side of the bed and began your usual dance, moving around him comfortably while never focusing on the patch of shadows where his face would be, trusting you not to find the features that may slip into the light while he was without his helmet. Your gaze landed on his dark curls, brushing them away from your peripherals to place the warm towel to his forehead, pleased with the quiet groan that left his body.

“Keep this here until it gets cold. It’ll help you keep warm,” you instructed, pressing a kiss to his temple before you turned to walk away. The hand not supporting his soup reached for yours before you could get far, squeezing your hand as he found his words.

“Could be warmer… There’s room for you to join us,” he offered, as close to a formal request as you would be getting out of him in this state. It brought a soft smile to your face as you looked down at your hands, woven together in his attempt to keep you close.

You squeezed his hand with a promise to be right back, following his lead and changing into softer clothes more suitable for the sauna that was waiting for you under the covers. While you were up you tidied up the small space a little, stalling to let the other two finish their soups, smiling to yourself when you watched Grogu climb up into his fathers arms as the empty bowls were placed to the side.

Coming back to them, you crawled into bed behind Din, wrapping your arms around his chest as you nuzzled into the muscular planes of his back. You listened to his breathing, his strong and steady breaths unaffected by his condition, and his heartbeat thumping in his chest. When his breathing relaxed, the tension in his limbs went right along with it, and only then were you able to follow him to sleep. Your Mandalorian could rest, giving his body the time it needed to recover. And you would enjoy every quiet, laidback moment it brought you and your little family.

Thanks for reading!! If you’d like to be notified when I post a new fic, be sure to follow @writerlyhabits-library + turn on post notifications! 💛

#thanks for being patient #din djarin x reader #din djarin #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian #din djarin x you #request #anonymous request #thanks for requesting shit from me #my writing

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dindjarindiaries · 2 years ago

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The Mandalorian Season 3 Teaser Trailer: Breakdown

This is my scene-by-scene breakdown of the exclusive teaser trailer for The Mandalorian season 3. Each idea/theory is my own and nothing has yet been confirmed! Please take everything with a grain of salt, as I have no definitive knowledge. I hope it inspires you to create some awesome theories of your own!

SCENE #1

Din walks towards a large rock structure with lots of jagged edges. This could be on Mandalore, or it could be where the Armorer and Paz have moved her workshop to. The darkened sky is rather reminiscent of the S3 logo.

SCENE #2

The Armorer is seen with Din and Grogu as she discusses her dismay with his "free will" choice to remove his helmet, along with yet another statement that he's no longer a Mandalorian. Grogu tries to speak and comes the closest he has yet to actually saying a word. This takes place in the Armorer’s new workshop, which is no longer on Glavis and is now somewhere else. It could be Mandalore, it could be another planet. This will likely be the moment where Din decides he must seek atonement.

SCENE #3

A ship flies through the atmosphere of the planet. It could be Din’s starfighter descending towards Mandalore, or it could be a shot of a whole different ship on another planet. It’s hard to tell. However, it’s very reminiscent of Chapter 10 and Maldo Kreis’ atmosphere.

SCENE #4

Din pulls a blaster as he and Grogu, in his brand new pram, walk through a cave. This is presumably the mines of Mandalore, where the living waters are supposed to be. My best guess is that Din and Grogu go looking for them, perhaps with Bo-Katan close behind. The other scenes will explain why I think this.

SCENE #5

The Armorer is crafting something that I believe to be Grogu’s new pram. She may be dismayed with Din, but that’s no reason for her to take it out on Grogu. Plus, if Din is going to seek his atonement, of course the Armorer would help supply him and his foundling with what they need for the journey.

SCENE #6

The starfighter travels through hyperspace. There’s not much else to say here, except that it’s wizard!

SCENE #7

Din and Grogu (in his new pram; must be after seeing the Armorer) approach Bo-Katan on her makeshift throne. We don’t know where this is, presumably a planet we haven’t heard of yet. She looks to be bothered by something, which I guess is the thoughts of her failures as Mand’alor and her conflict over whether or not she challenges Din for the Darksaber.

Bo-Katan goes on to ask where Din and his “cult” were even before the Purge. Hopefully, this is the moment where Bo-Katan realizes just how cut off Din was from all this knowledge, and that he’s quite innocent in this matter—or, it’s when the viewers learn Din isn’t as oblivious to those events as we might think he is. Either way, truths will likely be shared here that will cause enough trust between them for Bo-Katan to join Din on his journey.

SCENE #8

Another shot of Din and Grogu in the cave/mine. There’s water dripping; the living waters? Perhaps. It almost looks as if there’s a fallen Star Destroyer behind them, but that could just be the low-quality nature of the video. I think i could be the ruins of the Great Purge left behind as Din looks for the living waters he’s searching for.

SCENE #9

A bunch of Salicious B. Crumb species in a tree on Nevarro! I love this shot not only because it’s lighthearted, but because it’s a perfect thread back to the very first episode of The Mandalorian when these creatures were being roasted in the marketplace. It’s a sign of how far Nevarro’s come!

SCENE #10

I think Grogu wants to eat those creatures.

SCENE #11

Din stands in front of the IG-11 statue as Greef approaches him. He didn’t think Din would return, but also expected he would one day. I expect a quick explanation about Cara’s absence and then for Greef and Din to team up in some way. It seems as if Greef’s gonna have some troubles of his own, and if he’s providing shelter for Din for a bit as he figures out what he’s gonna do about his atonement, Din will probably help him with that.

SCENE #12

There’s a quick sequence of various shots which show new characters, as well as Carson Teva in a much nicer uniform at Peli’s hangar. He may be working with Greef now, or maybe investigating something in regards to Din or Imperial remnants as a whole.

SCENE #13

There’s a shot of Grogu in the starfighter, but it’s cut off, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening. My guess is Grogu is reacting to something not so great outside the ship.

SCENE #14

There’s a droid seated with someone in what looks to be a New Republic facility. I wonder if this facility is being housed on Nevarro or somewhere else. More on this soon! This, however, looks something like an interrogation of prisoners, and New Republic prisoners means... yes, Moff Gideon.

SCENE #15

A line of blue-and-red armorered Mandalorians cross their armored chests with their arm and fist. They look battle-ready. They may be the same Mandalorians who are seen sneaking around a planet that looks very much like Nevarro or perhaps even the planet Bo-Katan’s living on. Who they’re related to, Mandalorians like Din’s covert or a different clan/sect/tribe, I’m not sure of yet. It’s hard to tell.

SCENE #16

Greef has a standoff with some Niktos and perhaps some other species. Niktos where the species who first had Grogu in Chapter 1, but from where, we don’t know yet. Maybe this will explain why the Niktos had Grogu on Arvala-7.

SCENE #17

Grogu looks like he’s narrowing his eyes at Bo-Katan in her “palace” before Din starts telling her about his plan to go to Mandalore and seek atonement for his “transgressions.” Din is doing the honorable thing as always by upholding his previous semi-deal with Bo-Katan from Chapter 16: going to Mandalore should he complete his quest. That quest is done, Grogu is with him now. Of course he would approach Bo-Katan rather than leave her behind.

SCENE #18

Din’s starfighter sets out from a planet that looks kinda like Earth. I’m wondering if that’s where Bo-Katan’s been staying.

SCENE #19

Din’s blurred in the background as Greef turns to face someone. This looks related to Greef’s standoff moment, though I’m not sure how. It could also be a random conversational moment, but Greef’s expression looks displeased and quite wary—and Din’s helmet tilt seems to support that.

SCENE #20

This one’s hard to see, but a ship is flying through the dark and it looks as if there’s some trouble brewing. I can’t offer much more, a lot of the screen is cut off in this view.

SCENE #21

Bo-Katan, like Din, has the flashlight on her helmet activated in what looks to be a cave. This is why I think Bo-Katan’s there with him and Grogu. Maybe they made some kind of deal—again, more on this later!

SCENE #22

Dr. Pershing is back, and he’s had a wardrobe update! He’s walking through a New Republic facility, though he doesn’t look like a prisoner—or, at least, people don’t know he’s supposed to be. He seems nervous, and the appearance of the Imperial officer from Chapters 12, 14, 15, and 16 seem to infer that there’s something more going on. Maybe Pershing and her are going undercover to free Gideon. That would also explain the skeptical look from the one New Republic officer.

SCENE #23

There’s a rather large ship battle occurring, but where, I’m not sure. Din seems pretty outnumbered, though. If I had to guess, it’s Mandalorian civil war, or a secret fleet Gideon or the like had waiting for him. Din does look pretty stressed, so this might be when he calls for the help of other Mandalorians, which was teased in some scoops from insiders a while ago.

SCENE #24

This quick clip is spliced between the above sequence, with Bo-Katan watching what seems to be Din’s starfighter landing outside her “palace.” This is likely right when he arrives before he walks inside to her throne.

SCENE #25

Those Mandalorians from before are surrounded by smoke as they tiptoe through some town/village. I think it’s either Nevarro or maybe even a flashback to the destruction of Aq Vetina, but it’s hard to tell with the blurriness. I think it’s some hostile Mandalorians who aren’t happy with either Din or Bo-Katan and are tracking them down on some planet, perhaps even the one where Bo-Katan is from. This is a total shot in the dark!

SCENE #26

Bo-Katan flies in her ship, and turns her helmet as if she’s seeing something shocking. I’m not sure where she is; it’s too green to be the destroyed Mandalore.

SCENE #27

Bo-Katan shoots at the roof of a cave, most likely the aforementioned one, and brings some rubble down. I think she may be trapping Din or someone/something else there. If she separates Din from Grogu, she would be able to barter for something. This could be a turning point for her and for Din, if this is how it all plays out.

SCENE #28

The last one. Bo-Katan speaks to Grogu directly, refers to Din as “your dad,” and insists that he isn’t the only Mandalorian. Personally, I think this is while she’s discussing the history of the Mandalorians to either Din or Grogu or both of them. They could also be seeing carvings on the cave walls that depict this history, something that was teased in Star Wars Rebels when Fenn Rau was telling the story of the Darksaber.

And that’s all I have on this teaser trailer! I may make some edits if we ever get a higher quality version of it. I hope this inspired you and that this helped to explain some things!

#din djarin #the mandalorian #the mandalorian season 3 #grogu djarin #bo katan kryze #star wars #the mandalorian meta

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