#and the mandalore thing is the second most annoying of these

[stairset]

The Ahsoka show might be great. It might suck. It might just be mid. Either way I’m glad Rebels is gonna be essential viewing (I mean more than it already is) and the normies will no longer have any excuse to blatantly ignore it just cause they assume it’s Too Kiddy because of the art style. I had to deal with people saying Solo was the first time the Imperial March was established as the Empire’s in-universe national anthem. I had to deal with people saying Fallen Order was the first time a Jedi knighting ceremony was shown in canon. I had to deal with people watching Clone Wars season 7 and thinking Ursa was the Armorer cause they didn’t take five seconds to read the end credits. I had to deal with people who didn’t watch Clone Wars OR Rebels talking about Mandalore stuff and thinking they know more than me cause they skimmed a Wookieepedia article. I had to deal with people saying the Obi-Wan show should’ve been about Maul hunting down Obi-Wan as if it wasn’t a story that had already been told 5 years prior. No more. At long last I shall be free.

[grippingbeskar]

unearthed

chapter eight - tested

warnings: canon typical violence, mentions of death, a few heated moments, swearing

a/n: let’s ride let’s ride. sorry for last chapter, i’m trying to build tension as best i can. but, alas, a lady can only be edged so much, so. enjoy this lil hint at what’s to come. also a few people have messaged me, YES WE ARE GOING TO FUCK MANDO OKAY look who you’re talking to. but my God You heathens 🤺 GET BACK 🤺 we must first have our plot before we have our spice. WE MUST 🤺 just trust me okay. i love y’all. I WILL NOT LET YOU STARVE. lots of smut planned for this fic hehehehehehehehehe.

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This planet didn’t even have a name in the system it was crammed in. Just a bunch of numbers based on its jumbled coordinates. That’s how abandoned it was. As soon as you stepped out of the Crests hull, there was just… nothing. As far as you could squint and see, there was just broken-down ships and old junkyards covered in dust. Your arm covers the bright suns from your eyes, and you hear Dins’ heavy steps coming up behind you.

The holo-pad beeping in your hand is the perfect distraction from the quiet that settles between the two of you. You don’t look up when he comes next to you, grinding your teeth to stop from saying something stupid.

“Lead the way.” He says cooly, tucking the baby into his pod and pressing it closed before shutting Grogu safely into the Razor Crest.

“We’re leaving him here?” You ask, still squinting into the horizon. Din nods.

“A planet like this isn’t safe for him.” You feel his eyes on you, then his helmet tilts further to the holo-pad in your hands. “And the location isn’t too far out. We made good time.”

“Thanks to my flying?” You try, the tension following the two of you out of the Crest and hovering in the planet’s heated atmosphere. To your relief, he puffs out a breath a bit quicker than normal— he laughed. Thank the stars.

“Sure.” You smile at his reply, and then look away quickly back to the blinking holo-pad. He was right— it wasn’t too far away, maybe a twenty minute walk from where you’d landed. You’d have to leave the ship behind because the planets surface was too full of debris to land any closer, and it looked like there’d be a bit of climbing to do.

“It says it’s up three elevations. Look.” You hand him the pad, full of grids and flashing numbers displaying the exact coordinates, including levels above and below sea level. According to the increasingly annoying beeping, the closer you got, the higher the droids you were tracking.

Din nods, and continues to follow the blinking in silence. You swallow hard, and will yourself to keep up a steady front, not willing to let a little awkward moment phase your entire trip. You were doing something good— tracking this tech could lead you to your parents killers, and in turn prevent another attack on Mandalore, or your own planet. You needed focus, which is exactly what you didn’t have when you were fucking around and letting Dins hands wander your skin like a kid at a candy store.

It was just… a nice feeling. For a second there, you thought he might have enjoyed it, too. It had been longer than you were willing to admit since someone had touched you like…that. Your body practically sung to him the second he laid a finger on you. He made you feel things that no one, not even ex-partners, had made you feel. He was exciting. Exhilarating. He was the thing you shouldn’t have, but at the same time the thing you wanted the most. It would only complicate things to get… involved with someone like him, especially considering your unique situation.

But then again, it would make perfect sense. You were married to the man. What’s a few stolen touches between business partners, when you were also one day expected to have the man’s children?

As soon as the thought popped into your mind, Din froze, and you had the ridiculous thought that he might be reading your mind.

“It’s says the dump site is up there.” Din gestures to the towering form of a broken down cruiser.

This entire planet seems full of broken parts. Half ships, piles of service droids and random parts litter the ashy red surface, ruble expanding far out along the horizon. There were few planets like this anymore, but with the catastrophic consequences of the Clone Wars, all those remains had to end up somewhere. The Empire stashed them on uninhabited planets until they could figure out what to do with them, but when the New Republic took over, they had bigger fish to fry.

Therefore, now there were ‘junket’ planets, and if you could navigate to them, it was a free-for-all for parts.

You stand in front of what would have been a control cruiser— something used to deploy large squadrons of battle droids, maybe even move AT’s around back in the day. It was massive, even if it was in half. It looked like it had been dumped right on its nose, the giant expanse of it stretching up into the frosted clouds, making you squint again.

Your heart sinks a little at the thought. The entire ship was full of tiny piles of droids and broken down mechanics… and your fathers life work was just lumped in here. Like it meant nothing. All his free time was spend pulling apart these droids and learning them inside out, and now they were just a drop in the ocean of fading memories.

“We’ll have to fly up.” He says, and you laugh until you see him ready the jet pack on his back.

“You can’t be serious.” You dead pan, but he’s better at it. “We can’t just…”

“You see a ladder around here?” You stare back up at the massive cruiser— even if there was a manual way up, it’s a hell of a climb. This thing was huge. “If you don’t want to, I can go myself—“

“No. I want to.” You cut in. He takes a step towards you, and even though you burn with the earlier rejection, you don't move away.

He says nothing, but when he wraps his solid arm around you, he doesn’t need to.

He pulls you close— so close that every part of you presses and aches against him. Instead of looking where he’s supposed to be taking you, the black visor tilts down, and he looks just at you. You think about what he would be like under there. If his eyes would be on yours, or if they’d look lower, to where your skin touches his armour. He must like that, the way you look against him. You… you hope he doesn’t mind it.

“Hold on.” He says lowly, and you ever so slowly wrap your arms around his neck. He dips down to let you reach, and as soon as you have a grip, he takes off.

Your feet leave the ground and suddenly you’re flying— like, really flying, drifting higher and higher along the ruins of the transporter ship. You try not to squeak and fail when he picks up speed and turns slightly, your legs wrapping around him and head burying into his neck. You weren’t afraid— but shit, this was higher than it looked.

“It’s okay.” He soothes, and your head shakes from its sealed position. “Hey, look up.”

“No!” You scream almost in his ear, and he laughs.

“It’s okay… do you trust me?” He asks it so smoothly, as if he wasn’t holding you a hundred meters in the air on nothing but a jet back the size of a baby. But— you do. You do trust him.

So, you look.

By the time you open your eyes, he’s slowing down, dropping the two of you onto a jagged platform that looks like an old control room. In the broken centre, there are several piles of droids stacked and discarded, some still in their full form, others pulled apart. It was clear you weren’t the first ones here.

Din doesn’t let go of you right away. His arm remains tightly wrapped behind the small of your back, and he takes three or four steps away from the edge to pull you further into the wreckage. You can feel every step, every twist of his muscles against you, and your eyes finally look back up to him, watching as he inhales deeply. You feel it too, how hard his chest is against yours, almost like he’s taking you in to his lungs.

Then he quickly lets go, stepping back away from you.

The holo pad beeps wildy, a sound you hadn’t picked up on when Din had been holding you. You manage to look at it, seeing the bright red dots point you somewhere deeper into the cavern of ruins. Din looks at you, then down the darkened hallway, and clearly makes a decision as he takes a few calculated steps in the right direction. You follow close behind, but when you go to reach down into the pile and investigate, a gloved hand catches yours.

“Careful.” He says, and guides your hand back to your side. “There’s all kinds of junk in here. I’ll do it.”

Speechless, you just nod, and watch as he digs with none of the care he guided your hands with. It’s embarrassing how mesmerised you get watching him do just about anything, but you also feel a twinge of guilt at the earlier events.

Who did he think he was, leading you on with that fake ‘pilot lesson’, letting you get all close and personal only to pull away when you made a move? It wasn’t even a move, really. You’d just— grabbed him.

Okay, yeah, maybe it was a move.

But he’d started it. With those longing stares, poetic words and fucking hands— the same hands now yanking on the end of a familiar looking droid. Very familiar.

“Oh, shit. That’s— that’s it!” You say, your eyes wide as the Mandalorian pulls free a dull silver battle droid with red crosses over where it’s ‘eyes’ would be. “That’s the lazer one!”

Din promptly dropped it, angling it’s face away from you and toward him.

You feel your heart soar. A real lead— a tangible piece of your fathers history, however crushed and mangled it was, is really here. You were on the right track. You were on a track! You couldn’t help but sprint faster, mind already firing at a mile a minute.

“Okay— so we’re here. It’s here. Now what?” You say, bending down to look closer at the lifeless droid. It was bent out of shape now, clearly moved with zero care when it was taken from your planet. Or maybe in a rush. “You know anything about the rest of this stuff? Who would have dropped it here?”

Din carefully walks around the edge of the wreckage, keeping his back to you as he examines the rest of the stuff. To your knowledge, it’s all from the years just before the fall of the Empire. A lot of it is unfinished, made in a rush, and he’s right— it would all be extremely temperamental. Your dad used to keep it well away from the main part of the castle, knowing how fast it could turn into a mess.

Just like it did.

“Look at this.” He calls you over, still keeping his back to you and eyes over the top of the wreck. He’s standing a little too close to the edge for your liking, so you take to standing behind him, attempting to peak over his shoulder.

“It’s… a tank.” You say, looking up at him, slightly confused why this would be a noteworthy discovery. There’s crashed ships and tanks all over this planet. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“Look behind it. A clear line, nothing for miles. The entire planet is covered in junk— but it’s clear behind it. Enough room for it to turn around and back out.” You… hadn’t put that together, actually. He’s right again. The tank is pretty big, but there’s tracks in the sand, and you can only see them because, conveniently, nothing is in its path. It’s moved. Recently. “They’ve been using it to haul their loot in and out.”

“Who’s they?” Din looks back at you, and you hadn’t realised how close you’d gotten to him. It always seemed to happen like that— an unconscious magnetic force drawing you closer to him when you needed to feel safe. You step back, now that you think about it.

“Those used to be Imperial Assault hover tanks. Before your time.”

“You are not old enough to say ‘before my time’.” He laughs, and you feel drawn closer.

“It looks like the back of them have been cleaned out for storage. The hollow dip at the back—“ He points, shuffling back so your eye-line is in line with his hand. You were tracking him anyways. “None of that would be open. It’s all closed in, full of weapons or extra troopers. They needed at least three to drive the thing— now, it’d only fit the commander. The driver. The only people who know those tanks well enough to cut out the wiring and hollow them out would be—“

“Yeah.” You breathe out. Of course the Empire was involved, but this looked like a far bigger operation than just your fathers old projects. “So, we know the Empire, or a smaller force of what used to be them, is gathering old, experimental technology and tossing it on an abandoned planet. But, we don’t know who’s running that operation, or why.”

Din wraps his arm around your back and pulls you to him again, knocking the wind out of you. Before you can say anything, process the tightness of his body against yours, your feet leave the panel and you’re airborne again.

“Shit—“ You nearly shout, words muffled into the crook of Dins neck, and you feel him laugh as you bury your face further into the warmth of him. He doesn’t take off particularly fast, and you are pretty sure he’s flying you back down at half the pace he took you up, but your stomach still drops, and your arms pull his head so close your surprised he can see where he’s going. “Warning next time, please.”

“It’s better this way.” He says, the smile in his voice trilling through you, the slow descent nearing a close. As much as you aren’t a fan of flying in the air like this, having him this close is something you’d sacrifice pretty much anything for. “Stop thinking about it.”

“The jetpack is tiny. I don’t know how it holds you up, let alone me.” His other arm wraps around you now, fingers splayed along your ribcage, pressing hard against your skin.

“It’s okay. You’re fine. I promise.” It’s strange, how his words manage to calm you so easily, even with the tension between you.

Before you know it, there’s sand under your feet, and Din is stepping away again.

“We’ll move the ship up, find a place to stake out here for the night. The tracks were fresh, so they probably make regular rounds. If we stay hidden, we should have them by the time the sun rises.” Your eyes widen.

“Have them?”

“You’ll stay on the ship, and I’ll bring them in.” You roll your eyes, walking behind him as you both head back towards the ship. “We need to be quiet, in and out before the notice us. I’ll pick someone off for questioning.”

“I’m not helpless. I can come with you.”

“I didn’t say you were. But you’re staying in the ship anyways.” He slows his pace so you can catch up, his large frame brushing against your arm with every step. “If I need a quick exit, I’ll call you. You’ll have to fly to me.”

You burst out in a short, truncated laugh. You. Fly the Razor Crest. Unattended. In an emergency situation.

“That is hilarious. When they said Mandalorians’ don’t joke, Your voice flattens, and he… wait. He isn’t kidding. “Din. You’re joking, right?”

He laughs when you shove him, still staring straight out towards the horizon. This feels better— this is… better.

You berate him all the way back to the ship, and he keeps laughing.

She was ethereal, almost. Din had seen a thousand skies, watched a million suns set on planets that never etched into his mind— but this was memorable. He would remember this until the end of his days.

You, face nearly pressed to the cold glass of the Crest, watching in wonder as the fourteen suns all set in a simultaneous, almost domino effect behind the horizon. Din admitted it was a sight to watch, but if he were anywhere else, if he were with anyone else who didn’t capture his attention so fully like you did, he doubted he would have noticed.

You haven’t turned back to him in a while. Not since you walked quietly through the hatch, settling yourself pointedly into the co pilots chair. He doesn’t know why you doubt your ability— he hardly had to help you fly through one of the most complicated asteroid belts in the galaxy. You could fly to him with your eyes closed.

He trusts you.

He finds himself waiting for it. Waiting for you to turn back around, focus your steeled eyes on him and smile or make fun of him. He hangs on every word— only managing to hide the way you wrap him in conversation because he was hidden from you. He nearly wishes he wasn’t— that he was more transparent. Maybe then he wouldn’t send so many of the wrong signals.

The truth was he wanted you. He let some other part of him take over during the flight here— spending so much time caring for you, locked away in closed rooms, watching you take slow, shallow breaths, unsure if you’d wake up or not. It did something to him. And then, your hand in his, driving his ship through open space… there was something old and nearly primal in that feeling in his chest. That all of the rest of this was his— and that you could be.

If you could see his face, you’d know.

Instead, you looked crushed when he pulled away. He knew what you’d said before— that you wanted this to be business. You probably had someone waiting for you back home, someone kind and warm, someone who could share moments like this morning with you and not have to pull away. Someone who could kiss you when they wanted, show you how bad they needed you whenever they wanted.

Most of all, someone else could have you tied to them in a way you chose— not by some contract.

Still, it always comes back to your eyes. That look you got, how disappointed you were when he pulled away. It gave him a horrible feeling in his gut, but also hope. There was a spark there, and he couldn’t stifle it any longer.

If you gave him the chance, he was going to let it burn him to the ground.

“Hey.” Din calls to you, voice as soft as melted butter. “We should get set up. It’ll be a long night.”

Your eyes draw away from the fading blasts of orange across the sky, settling on his ink black visor. Sometimes, if he stood in direct sunlight like right now, and he looked up just a little, you swore you could see his eyes. Maybe just an outline, but there was something under there. Maybe it was bad to try and look, but you couldn’t help it. There was a flutter of eyelashes, a glint of the whites of his eyes. One time you think he was smiling, because you swore the hardly-there outline crinkled together.

You, instead of sharing any of these findings, just nod and follow him. When he turns, the light goes with him, and it’s nearly pitch black in the locked down Crest. The baby is hidden away, tucked tightly into his crib after a long day of wandering around and stuffing his face, and now that the Crest is hidden behind a large pile of garbage, it gives you the perfect vantage point on the tank. If it so much as creaks, you and Din will have eyes on it.

When the two of you go back upstairs to the cockpit, Din locks the doors behind you.

“So, who’s taking the first shift?” You hang your legs over the armrest and lean your back against the other side of the chair. “I vote me. I think I’ve slept more in the past two days than I have since I was coronated.”

“We both should stay awake. You watch the south.” He nods to the far side of where the Crest is parked. It’s dark, and you have to lean forward to make out the shapes. If anything moves, hopefully the calm of the sandy surface will be disturbed and make it obvious. “Okay?”

“Sounds good.” You reply, and shift in your seat. For the first time since you’ve met him, the silence is somewhat unpleasant. What happened only a few hours before— that short but intense moment of… intimacy? Something like that. Whatever it was, it still hangs in the air, draping heavily over your shoulders making you want to sink into the floor.

The hum of the ship ceases, and holy stars— it’s so silent. He was quiet by design, by trade, but you were used to filling the gaps. Finding topics that even the advisors and rulers you were least interested in could chat about, but filling this silence right now with Din? You have nothing. Nothing. Maybe you should of taken those talking points Correll offered you before you left—

Being honest with yourself, you could have all the talking points in the world and you’d still only want to ask him one thing.

“Can I ask you a question?” You blurt out, and he turns to you slowly, nodding and then return to watching his side of the planet. “What was that? This morning?”

“What was… what.” His voice is so calculated and calm. It’s… fuck, it’s hot. You shouldn’t think about it at all— but you analysed every word out of his mouth.

“That whole thing. Was that— I know we’ve been stuck together for while, and maybe we’re getting stir crazy or whatever. Was it just a… blip?”

“A blip?”

“Yeah. Like— when you lock two people in a storage closet, somethings bound to happen if they’re stuck there long enough.” Your heart was in your throat, and this was probably the most uncomfortable moment you’ve had in your entire life. Ever. “I know a lot has happened in the past few weeks, and you saved my life, and we’re on this really important trip right now— it’s a lot. I just… I’ve never been good at leaving things how they are—“

“I can tell.”

“And I don’t want anything uncomfortable between us. We’re partners. Good ones. I don’t want to mess that up.” He’s now staring at you, the steady rise and fall of the beskar across his chest giving you nothing. You finally manage to stop rambling when you watch his hands tighten around the armrests. The leather strains under the pull.

“You were uncomfortable?” Your eyes go wide, and a scoff-like laugh bubbles out before you can stop it.

“No. Stars, no, I wasn’t saying that—“ Okay, you tell yourself. Dial it back. “I just know that you are… you know, you. And you don’t want— that. And we’re married, but we aren’t. Married. Really. Plus the whole ‘only business!’ thing we— I said. Well, I said it, but you— you kind of agreed but then there was the whole ‘oh, let me teach you to fly’ as if that wasn’t some kind of move—“

“Hey. It’s okay.” He manages to get in between your insufferable rambling. You were clambering to try and get a lid on your fucking mouth but all it took was three words from him and your mind went blank. Fuzzy, even. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“What? No. I’m not—“ You swallow hard. Twelve years of training as a Queen, and you’re fumbling the minute he looks at you different. Fucking perfect. “You’re just… a lot to handle right now. And it’s late and I’m confused and a little terrified that I’m actually going to have to fly this ship without guidance and crash, stranding us on an abandoned planet no one knows about.”

You look back out to the completely silent planet, and suddenly have the urge to stand up. You get as close to the glass as possible, no longer able to bear the thought of looking at him.

“What are you trying to say?” He tries, the modulator making you shiver at the low, rough tone.

“I’m saying you’re hard to read. I thought I had it down, had you figured out but it’s… more confusing than I thought.” Words are less rambled— you’re more put together when you aren’t staring at him. Yeah, he definitely makes your brain fuzzy.

“I think you have me figured out.” Dins’ boots are loud as they take two steps, telling you he’s stood up. The cockpit is small, and two more will mean he’d be right behind you.

You keep staring out at the desolate planet, ignoring his looming figure over your shoulder.

You laugh dryly at his comment. “You think?”

“I do.” Your eyes shut for a moment, eyelashes fluttering.

“How do you figure that?” You’re out of breath, tired from everything that’s happened today and your rambling outburst, but then he does something that wakes up everything in your body.

You feel his hand, just the tips of his gloved fingers, graze along the back of your forearm.

“You read right through me. I wouldn’t let just anyone bang up my ship like that.” You let out a soft laugh.

“That’s your move, huh? Nearly killing us in the middle of nowhere?” The ship is so quiet, his soft little ‘mhmm’ nearly lost in the still cockpit. It’s gotten darker, too. The suns fully settled for the night on the opposite side of the planet, shrouding the ship so dark that you can only see the outlines of the little red and green buttons on the control pads. “I guess it worked.”

“Did it?” His fingers on your forearm get bolder, leaving goosebumps where they drift a little higher. “Because it seems like I’ve only made you more confused.”

“We can’t— you said it yourself. This… we can’t afford to be distracted.” Your words are hard, but your tone is so, so unconvincing.

“You’re right.” You go to spin around, but his hand wraps around your arm. You’re so shocked by the move that you freeze. “I said that.”

“Yeah…” The air in your lungs evaporates when his hand loosens and travels higher. His fingers trail up past your shoulder, slowly tracing your outline until he brushes past your collarbone.

“This is a business transaction. We signed a contract.” You nod, and he hooks his fingers into the few locks of hair that hang over your face, tucking them behind your ear. “You said you wanted nothing but that.”

“I…did.” Your eyes flutter shut, and you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears. He brushes past your ear and down, letting it drift through the strands and down the back of your neck.

“Why?”

“It’s better if it’s not— complicated.”

“Yeah?” His voice is impossible to ignore, all soft and pillowy like a velvet blanket. You clear your throat, and he steps just a little bit closer. You’re warm all over, feeling him so close. “Is that what you want now?”

“I…”

“Is it what you want?” His hand is still on you, warm through the layer of leather and your clothes— his clothes. “Or have you changed your mind?”

You suck in a sharp breath when you feel his cold helmet against your shoulder, telling you he’s leant down even further. You try your hardest to keep and eye on your post, but the blackened desert is an impossible target compared to what’s behind you. He lets the edge of his helmet drag lightly over your shoulder, like he’s leaving the kiss of metal in place of his mouth.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” You can hear his smile. “You don’t want that anymore?”

“No. I want— complicated.” All in one breath, you blur the lines of your carefully set relationship. Although, the only one who was drawing that line was you.

Your planet. Your rule. That was what was most important to you. It had to be. Out here, all this open space and chasing leads would come to an end, and all this simplicity would stay out here, between the stars. You didn’t have a choice but to shut yourself to the warmth creeping up your back, the soft hand brushing your cheek. You… you had to draw that line.

But a toe across it wouldn’t hurt, right?

A small, tiny step over that stupid line in the sand. Blurring it for a night. That couldn’t hurt anyone. In fact, it might be more painful to turn him away right now.

“Turn around.” He orders softly, and your eyes leave your post as you spin slowly to face him. You tilt your chin up, feeling his fingers catch on your jaw. He lets them slip along the soft skin, as if he’s exploring a part of you he’s never seen before. You wondered how he’d look at the rest of you— if this divine curiosity would follow him all over you. “There you are, cyar’ika.”

It sounds beautiful, whatever that word is, rolling off his tongue in that signature purr he does so well. You smile, letting your lashes flutter under the attention. He lets out a long breath, one that would kiss your cheeks and warm your face if he let it. You have no idea what he has planned for you, but you lean up on your toes and let him do it.

“As pretty as your eyes are, I want you to close them.” You do it so fast it makes him laugh, a soft, nearly gentle sound that breaks the quiet of the ship. “You take orders well— where was that eagerness before?”

“I’m more interested in this.” You say and pout, keeping your eyes shut tightly. He hums, and then moves away.

“Stay like that.” He says, but it sounds… different. Maybe he’s walked too far, but it was almost like his voice was lighter. Not backed with the same kind of cooling confidence he naturally exuded.

Something fell on the ground near you, and you flinched.

“Keep your eyes closed.” He says again, and something else drops. It falls softly, like a piece of material hitting the hull.

“They are closed.” You huff, impatient and a little nervous. What the hell was he doing…

“Good. Keep them like that.” He teases. Your heart manages to calm its rapid beating for a second or two until you hear the unmistakable hiss of a seal being opened.

Leather pulls under the weight of the helmet as he places it down on the chair.

You didn’t have to open your eyes. You could tell— the weight of it, the hiss and sound of his hands against the beskar. You knew he was now standing in front of you, while his helmet was on the pilots seat.

You didn’t so much as breathe.

“I was… I was going to do this on—“ He stutters, thinking for a second. “before. But I think I like you better like this.”

“Sweaty and in the dark?” His soft laugh is unobstructed, and it’s one of your new favourite things.

“The best things for a Mandalorian happen in the dark, cyar’ika.” You’re pretty sure you gasp at the double edged words, your heart skipping several and all too important beats.

“Oh?” You hear him take another step, and your back arches on instinct. “And… what are those things?”

“Let me show you one of them.” You sigh at the sound of his voice. It’s him, but smoother. Warmer. It feels like a gentle brush of warm wind, curving over your chest and settling deep inside of you. When he speaks to you, he only uses the softest murmur, and it makes you weak in the knees.

Then, your face floods with heat as two bare hands take your cheeks in their palms.

His hands were rough. Even through the gloves, you have no doubt they are worn on every day from the relentless hard labour he puts in. The gloves would be more for covering reasons than protection— you think it would actually be easier for him to pull a trigger without them. Maker knows you’ve spent enough time staring at his hands to know their details— every stitch and cross is known to you, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing.

They’re big, too. They match the rest of him, the tips of his fingers gently nudging your hairline as his thumbs drag softly along your slightly agape lower lip. You have no doubt you gasped or sighed when he put his hands on you, but you couldn’t help it. It felt good— better than it should. Just having his hands on you, flesh on flesh, was exhilarating in a whole new way. Feeling him like no one else had… or at least you think no one else had.

It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered when he touched you. Then, he leant closer, and all hope was lost.

“Is this okay?” He asks, voice hardly above a whisper. His face is so close that his nose bumps against yours, a move that makes you giggle in surprise. You nod rapidly, trying not to wriggle too much and give the impressing that you want him to let go. It’s the last thing you want.

He sucks in a breath, going to say something else, but he must decide against it. Because he leans in then, and your mind fizzles to nothing but the Mandalorian, and the soft, sweet kiss he presses to your lips.

Everything moves in slow motion. The gentle move of his hands threading through your hair, the way he presses just slightly closer, giving you a little more pressure in the kiss. The way he smiles against you when you make a small noise. Everything swirls and flips in your stomach, it’s as if someone has set off a real firework in your stomach.

You take a step in, pressing your body to his. You feel him hard everywhere else— beskar lined along you, and the feeling is comfortable now that his lips are soft and warm and against yours. A reminder of flesh under the steel. You don’t move your hands to his face, afraid to see him that way, and instead settle them on his waist.

You tug on him, his hips stumbling forward after a clumsy step, and then collide with yours. He pulls away for a moment and you nearly whine.

“Din—“

“Mm?”

“Don’t fucking stop now.” You pull him again, and you feel him smile against your mouth.

He takes another step, pressing you between him at the side of the ship as he kisses you again, harder. He’s not as soft— still sweet and gentle but a little more desperate now, the show of hunger making you return it in earnest. He tastes good, so much better than the depths of your imagination could of thought up.

He hooks his hands under your thighs, the small squeak you make muffled into his mouth when you’re suddenly hauled upwards and your legs lock around his waist. It eases the ache in your chest, the closer confines of how he holds you. One arm stays underneath you, effortlessly keeping you suspended while the other holds the back of your neck. He keeps you sealed to him, tongue dancing with your own, and a small groan escapes him at the feeling, sounding low and nearly distant.

You couldn’t think. You couldn’t breathe— he was dissipating the rest of the world from you with nothing but warm bare hands and a talented mouth. You fist your hands in his hair and pull a little, not missing the way the soft strands curl around your fingers. You committed every small part he gave you to memory. His hand somehow felt bigger than they looked, and his hair was… long. And soft. Unfairly soft. You tug on it again, and he smiles a little and nips at your bottom lip.

“Don’t be cruel, cyar’ika.” His mouth trails away, leaving warm, wet kisses along your jaw, teeth trailing behind in a soft drag. For someone with their head in a tin can, he certainly knows what to do with his mouth.

“M’not. Y-you…” Breathless, you listen to him chuckle at the state he’s rendered you to. “You have nice hair. Long. Good to pull.”

“Mm. Really…” Mumbled against your neck, you shiver at the playful tone now drifting warmly over your neck.

You manage a small “Yeah. It’s pretty.”

“You can’t see it.” His nose drags up higher, and as he shifts, the hardness of his armour moves between your legs. You squeeze your eyes shut tighter.

“Shut up, smart-ass.” You grumble and he laughs, but obliges you. It’s slow again, and he licks into your mouth like he’s never tasted something so sweet in his life. He lets out an uninhibited groan, forehead pressing heavily into yours. He moves the arm underneath you, grinding your hips against his armour again, and your eyes roll back underneath your eyelids. “Fuck, Din.”

“You like that, don’t you?” He covers your mouth with his again so you lose your answer. “Sh—shit You’re so soft against me. So perfect.”

You nod as his teeth tug on your lips. “Yeah— yes. Not… not enough, though—“

“I know, I know cyar’ika. Let me—“ He cuts himself off, and with your eyes shut you have no idea what’s happened. It isn’t until he groans and swears under his breath that you know it isn’t good.

“Din?”

“They’re here.” Your back nearly misses the cool press of the side of the ship when Din pulls you off it, taking two or three steps backwards. You yelp in surprise, clinging to him for only a second, and then he leans down and you’re sat in a chair. “Stay.”

“Din—“ You go to stand but he’s too bulky in front of you, pressing a hand to your shoulder, and then he leans forward and kisses you on the forehead.

It’s so stupidly simple, but your heart flutters into a million little butterflies.

“Don’t go alone. Let me come with you.” You whisper into the darkness, your eyes still shut tightly.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t care. Let me go with you.”

“Stay.” He leans forward again, kissing your cheek. “Please.”

You don’t think you’ve ever heard him say that before. It makes your heart stutter in your chest, and your stomach swirl with uncertainty.

“If you don’t come back, I will destroy this ship coming to get you.” Your eyebrows furrow together, and he laughs. This time, the warmth of it graces your cheeks, and it has you arching off the chair to get closer to him.

“I’ll be back with your enemies, my Queen. Before you know it.” You hear the click of his helmet go back on, and the feeling of him kneeling in front of you leaves too fast to register.

By the time you open your eyes, he’s gone, and the only trace of him left behind is the burn his lips left behind on your now too cold skin.

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[padawansuggest]

Hey so if you’re new here and haven’t been around longer than ten minutes you might not know that my fave fave fave tropes ever are 1: time travel and 2: Obi-Wan getting adopted by Mandos, so whenever I find a time travel fic where Obi goes back in time and is promptly adopted by Mandos I get so excited trust me there are a lot but rn what I really really really want is a fic where I combine one of my fave headcanon type things that I like to put in fics with my second fave trope being Force Sensitive Jaster Mereel and then combined with Obi-Wan and Anakin (and probably Shmi too lmao let’s have a force sensitive babies party here) as force ghosts with Jaster and suddenly one of them comes back all ‘YALL I KNOW HOW TO GO BACK IN TIME I FIGURED IT OUT’ and so they all go back in time with the pure goal of saving their peoples (Mandos, Jedi AND slaves okay we makin a trifecta of people who got the worst bullshit in Star Wars two of which got all the blame when literally all of it was Sith and slavers faults) and Jaster goes back in time to Korda 6 and looks around for Jango so they could retreat only for little grunts of ouchies I fell to happen and he looks over to see a small pile of toddlers Obi-Wan, Anakin, Shmi, (Boba and like six other clones you know I have to) and is all ‘oh shit. Please be potty trained please be potty trained please be potty trained’ and now he has to go find Jango to call them back to their ships and tell Jango he in fact has a bunch of new vod’ika all of whom still have adult memories and also can you hold Boba please he’s a crying mess he just wants Jango nvm you can be that one’s Buir he bites lmao NO DONT HOLD HIM LIKE THAT JANIKA I RAISED YOU BETTER and now they’re back to Mandalore and Jaster is all ‘shit. We made this plan to save ALL our peoples. Well fuck.’ And now he’s all wait a sec and calls up the Jedi (yes they had him on hold for 3 hours and he kept bouncing between departments it was very annoying with Obi-Wan’s little fangies teething on his vambraces making the most annoying sound ever the whole time) and now he’s able to sorta blank for a solid 30 seconds before blurting out that they have force sensitive babies and the Jedi can’t have them and then Anakin HANGS UP ON THEM YOU LIL SHIT THAT DIDNT SOUND GOOD and the Jedi sorta like text him back all ‘??? Good for you???’ And now Jaster has to call them again and explain that he needs help with these lil shits teething on his armor and throwing people into walls when they sneeze and the temple is all ‘listen we can send out a master with docs but we’re a lil busy looking for a Stewjoni initiate that disappeared from the nursery’ ‘oh you mean this one?’ *holds up Obi by an ankle who’s chewing furiously on a vambrace’ and says they can’t have him back the kara gave him that baby!!!!! So now they have to send out a team whereupon Plo and Dooku are suckered into a -three way with Jaster- a deal upon which the Mandos will help the Jedi leave the Republic who use them like attack dogs and then they can stop slavery together and raise babies!

Anyways. I just think that would be neat.

[impossibleprincess35]

Asphodel | ch 23

[Excerpt:]

Satine: _HELLO, EMISSARY. YOUR GRACIOUS HOST REQUESTS TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING._

He thought for a second as he considered being truthful, but then he decided it was best if Satine Kryze did not know he was standing over an explosive as it was being disarmed.

Obi-Wan: _OBSERVING THE TECHNICIANS IN KELDABI. YOURSELF?_

Her response came through quickly and made him grin.

S: _DON’T DO SOMETHING FOOLISH LIKE STAND OVER THEM WHILE THEY WORK, PLEASE._

He glanced up and saw the technician finishing the process, having successfully disabled the device, and Obi-Wan gave a signal to indicate that he would be only a moment more.

O: _YOU HAVE MY WORD. I WON’T DO IT AGAIN. DID YOU SLEEP WELL?_

She ignored his question:

S: _WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH ME TONIGHT?_

O: _OF COURSE. WHAT TIME?_

S: _WHENEVER YOU RETURN. I WILL WAIT._

O: _DINING ROOM OR YOUR QUARTERS?_

S: _WHICH WOULD YOU PREFER?_

O: _SHALL THERE BE A DESSERT COURSE OFFERED IN YOUR QUARTERS? MIGHT I REQUEST SOMETHING OTHER THAN CAKE AND SPICE ROLLS? PERHAPS SOMETHING BLONDE WITH THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BLUE EYES I’VE EVER SEEN._

He grinned as her response did not come swiftly as her previous transmissions, and he knew he had annoyed her. Or made her blush. Either was fine with him.

S: _MIGHT I REMIND YOU, EMISSARY, THAT YOU ARE HERE AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE REPUBLIC?_

O: _YES, AND RELATIONS BETWEEN THE REPUBLIC AND MANDALORE REACHED A FEVER PITCH LAST NIGHT, IF YOU’LL RECALL, YOUR GRACE._

S: _MANDALORE REMAINS NEUTRAL TO THE WHIMS OF THE REPUBLIC._

O: _THE REPUBLIC SHALL CONTINUE TO BE PERSISTENT._

S: _YOU ARE WEARING OUT YOUR WELCOME._

O: _IT WON’T BE THE ONLY THING I WEAR OUT ON THIS TRIP._

S: _YOU ARE SHAMELESS. DINING ROOM IT IS._

O: _I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU._

S: _I MISSED YOU THIS MORNING._

O: _I KNEW YOU WOULD._

S: _SHUT UP._

--

Chapter 23 is up.

Also, the dress she wears for dinner with him is described like this Elie Saab autumn/winter 2017 gown because I'm obsessed:

[vvitchering]

lmao ok last review of the season

That was the most mediocre thing I've ever seen. THAT was their finale?? LAST week's episode felt more like a finale than whatever milk toast this was.

And don't come for me with that "oh Hannah you'd be upset if they actually did something too weh weh" crap. YEAH I PROBABLY WOULD BE. Cause every single episode of this entire season has been one of two models:

Lets do Absolutely Nothing

Lets do The Worst Possible Thing But Make It Stupid, Too

So I guess in the grand scheme of things it's better to have gone the do Absolutely Nothing route for the finale. But also what a disappointing end to the most disappointing and shit season yet.

Aight let's talk specifics.

Why the fuck was that so easy to do. Din didn't even have to be there for any of that. They could have sent him a postcard later on like "ay whats up we retook mandalore" and it would have had the same impact. Nothing anyone did mattered because Axe just ended up dropping an entire ship on top of Gideon, negating any actual struggle.

Oh he broke the darksaber, are we going to explore the ramifications of that? Will this affect Bo-Katan who has done nothing but lust after that stupid sword for two entire seasons? Will we finally get some thought about what leadership means? Absolutely not!!!! It means nothing!! Toss it away and never speak of it again!!!!! SURE OK!!!!! GREAT.

We didn't actually physically see Gideon die and and you know how that goes so maybe he'll be back. Can't say I like that the clones he was making were clones of himself, I still think evil little grogus would have been more disturbing and fun.

oh so Paz dying didn't actually matter either, good to know we did that for shits and giggles Only.

No helmet off scene, either. Bleh. Whatever, I guess.

None of this had any actual teeth. No drama, no emotion, just a bunch of (kinda shitty actually??) CGI explosions and whoop looks like we won yay great

I'm actually very annoyed they they didn't follow up on any of the suspicious shit the armorer has been doing all season. I was SURE she was going to be one of the spies last week's episode referenced. We never did get an explanation about that, did we? lol

Okay let's look at the very limited list of things I actually did like:

Din finally adopts Grogu!!! But nope we're not doing the Mandalorian adoption rites and Din is going to act as unenthusiastic as physically possible about it. Cool cool.

Din Grogu? What. Is that how Mandalorian names work???? You know what would have helped with this? Some actual Mando lore at all at any point in this entire season about Mandalorians. Wow.

This isn't really a list of things I liked huh

sorry lol

Uhhhh IG is back? I think? Maybe? Hard to tell if its actually him or just a reset IG-11 model. So was IG-12 a totally different droid??? (Also if it was literally as easy as stopping by any random bar and finding a head why didn't we do that in the first place. What the fuck.)

uhhhh they have a very tiny little house now? With a froggie pond! That's cute.

Din still refuses to actually call Grogu his child in any capacity, despite just literally adopting him as his own. Din get over your issues, that kid has been yours since the second you made eye contact with him. I wouldn't be as annoyed by this if they'd given me any reason why Din would be so hesitant to call Grogu family.

Everything about this just felt too easy and too neat. It's an entire episode of "blink and you miss it because it took 5 seconds and no work to do" events that have zero emotional payoff because they wasted the entire season on stupid shit that was never followed up on or made any sense.

My only decent takeaway is Din and Grogu both survived, nothing that happened this season apparently matters AT ALL to ANYTHING, so maybe things can get back to normal next season.

I hope we get some kind of official explanation for this at some point. I maintain that something must have happened internally for the writing to suddenly take such a drastic and obvious nosedive. All I can hope is that this was a temporary fluke and I don't have more seasons of this kind of boring nonsensical bullshit to look forward to.

Season overall gets a .5/10. And that's being generous. Disney, you should be ashamed of yourselves. "Best season yet" my entire ass.

I wash my hands of this season.

[leiaslightsaber]

Chapter 3 posted!!!!!

***

“We’re here” she heard the man in Mandalorian armor say as she was pulled out from her thoughts.

“I hope you have something more than a pretty face… I don’t know… like a plan or something” Solo whispered at her.

“Trust the ways of the force” she couldn’t help herself saying the most standard Jedi thing ever to mess with him. She remembered how annoying she found it as a young Padawan and how she had sworn not to say anything like that in the future.

“I don’t believe in space wizardry, thank you very much” she could feel the slight stress starting to radiate from him.

Before she could answer the two large men were pushing them towards a huge whole in the sand. That’s when she saw it.

A huge worm was opening its mouth, ready to devour them both. Tentacle looking things all around it ready to catch them. Her thoughts travelled to the old ship and the Wookiee.

***

They walked through Luke’s quarters into the garden. The blond man felt the cool breeze through his hair and looked at the dark night sky above the capital of Mandalore.

He closed his eyes for a second, enjoying the balance in the force of the moment, letting his heavy colorful robes fall, revealing a bit of his shoulder. “Are you an angel?” He thought he heard from behind him.

“Sorry?”

“I… I proposed that we should sit in one of the benches, Senator Skywalker” Mando said, embarrassed. Luke really hoped he wasn’t making him uncomfortable.

“Yes, yes of course.” Luke nodded as he walked towards the steel bench looking at the city. “You have quite a beautiful planet, Mando. And please it’s Luke, Senator Skywalker sounds too much like either of my parents.” He laughed awkwardly.

Of course Luke understands who his parents are, a powerful Jedi Knight, who many see as the chosen one (whatever that means) and the inspiring advisor of the Chancellor, ex-senator-and-queen-of-Naboo. He understands the pressure of being their son. He understands that he has to prove himself ten times more than anyone else, anyone more normal.

He knew that from a young age, that’s why he walked away from the Order, his sister, his father, Obi-Wan. His mother helped him and he will be forever grateful for her guidance, but many times he looks back to that day almost 15 years ago when he finally got the guts to leave.

The taller man paused for a moment. His emotionless helmet standing before Luke as frustratingly unreadable as ever. “I… yes, sorry… Luke.” He corrected himself as he sat beside the blond.

He could feel a blush covering his face in the sound of his name is such a distinct way by the one sitting next to him.

[willowcrowned]

Okay but has anyone considered Obi-wan/Cody/Satien (is that how its spelled?) Regardless, hes got two hands for his two mandalorians, the au where this happend is gotta be top notch ridiculous ye?

Okay thank you so much for giving me a reason to think about this, because this AU contains three things I adore: polyamory, ships where everyone is frighteningly competent, and Obi-Wan

In this AU, Ventress is somehow even less well-adjusted (bear with me). What this means is that, instead of taking a gap year and finding herself after her family is brutally murdered, she decides she needs to get revenge even more now. What does this mean? In the short term, she still becomes a bounty hunter, but in the long run? She’s looking for a Sith lord team up so she can punch Dooku (with a lit lighstaber) in his stupid, elitist, backstabbing face.

So when Maul invades Mandalore, what happens? Ventress comes right along, ready to give her ‘I know we hate each other, but consider teaming up to kill someone we both hate even MORE’ space TED talk. And though Maul may be terribly annoying, a closet theater kid, always in a tits out kind of mood, and denying his gay awakening, he’s not stupid. He knows Sidious is coming for him, sooner rather than later, and he knows he needs more people on his side than his (impressively beefy) brother. He and Savage agree to the team-up.

Cue Obi-Wan showing up, ready to save his sort-of girlfriend, and finding Pre Vizsla, who got REAL sus the second ANOTHER lunatic with a red lightsaber showed up, occupied by capturing Maul, Savage, and Ventress. 

Obi-Wan saves Satie, who convinces him to call Cody for a quick evac, and they’re running away, flirting, and arguing over shooting things (as usual), when they spot Ventress, Maul, and Savage, about to be executed.

Oh, they both think, hell no. And then, because they have a stupid moral code that makes them do stupid moral things, they go save them.

A little background on Obi-Wan at this point: He has been fighting in a war for over two years. He is exhausted, close to a breakdown, and seriously questioning his place as a General. Next to him at all times, supporting him, helping him, and saving him, is Cody, who is clever, kinder than he has any right to be, and is, of course, devastatingly handsome when he does his special, unique-to-Cody half-smirk.

Obi-Wan, to put it mildly, is totally gone on him. Obi-Wan also, to put it less mildly, is his commanding officer in an army that Cody can’t leave on pain of death. To do anything— make any advance beyond the flirting that he engages in with most people— would put Cody in a very uncomfortable position, whether or not he returns Obi-Wan’s feelings. So Obi-Wan watches him from afar, hoping against hope that his affections are returned, and that one day, after the end of the war, there will be a future for both of them.

A little more background on Obi-Wan at this point: He has always respected Satine. Their correspondence fell apart just a few months after the end of his mission with Qui-Gon, but he’s been keeping up with her professional accomplishments for years. Over time, the love he bore for her faded, leaving him with good memories and an enduring appreciation for her courage, her cleverness, and her ability to deliver devastating blows to someone’s confidence with a few well-placed words.

Until he sees her again. And yes, alright, he might be angry that she’s choosing to stay out of the war— he knows what good she could do— but he understands her fears, understands the very real possibility that if Mandalore gets embroiled in yet another war, they may never recover. The thing is... well, she’s still very beautiful, especially when he’s yelling at him, and as slowly as his feelings had faded then, they come back in a rush now.

He has very much fallen in love with Cody, and he is very much still in love with Satine.

Cut back to the present— Obi-Wan and Satine rescue the three most annoying Sith in the galaxy and get the heck out of dodge. Cody, because he’s Cody, comes swooping in with a last-minute rescue.

At this point, two things are occurring.

The first: Obi-Wan is stuck in a room with four people he’s periodically flirted with over the past few years, two of whom he’s desperately in love with, one of whom he had a weird encounter with that he can never tell Anakin about when she and him got trapped in a middle school auditorium, and one of whom is definitely wearing no shirt and all that jewelry for a reason. It is Supremely awkward for him.

The second: Every single person in that room, each of which is (barring Savage) deeply attracted to Obi-Wan, is realizing that Obi-Wan is dressed in Mandalorian armor, and while Obi-Wan in three layers of tunics and a cloak is an absolute knockout, Obi-Wan in Mandalorian armor may very well kill them (and he won’t even have to touch his lightsaber to do it).

For one single moment, everything is absolutely still as they all stare at each other.

...And then Maul starts on the ‘I will rend your flesh from your bones, feel my wrath, Kenobarrgh’ spiel, and Satine stuns him. Oh, and Savage. Ventress agrees to watch the two of them if they don’t stun her, and Obi-Wan agrees.

Which then leaves him, Cody, and Satine in a room alone.

A word on Cody at this point: He has been bred from birth to be the perfect soldier— loyal, clever (but not too clever), and rigourously adherent to protocol. Yet, within three months of knowing Obi-Wan, he’s, well, calling him Obi-Wan in his head. Even just that is a gross breach of protocol, but he’s compromised in more ways than one. He talks to Obi-Wan, now, not just as a subordinate, or secondary advisor, but as a friend, as a councilor. Every time Obi-Wan touches him— never for longer than a brief second— his skin lights up under his armor. One time, Obi-Wan fell asleep on him for half an hour, and Cody’s was sure everyone would hear his heartbeat. 

What he’s doing— how he feels— he knows it’s putting Obi-Wan in danger, knows that if the Kaminoans had wanted to the clones to be equals to the Jedi, they would have told them so. And look, he knows what the natborns would call the way he’s feeling, but he can’t feel that way. He’s a clone— he’s expendable by definition. Even if, on some off-chance, he makes it out of this war alive, there’s nothing for him. Obi-Wan couldn’t care for him like that, couldn’t care for a man with the same face as millions of others, born and bred only for war. So it doesn’t matter how he feels.

A word on Satine at this point: Obi-Wan, when he left, was a gawkish, bumbling thing of red hair and freckles and the sweetest smile. Obi-Wan, when he came back, was graceful, eloquent, and very, very handsome. He is also infuriating. (This does not change how attracted she is to him in the least.)

She’s not a romantic, really, but she is a realist, and she knows she’s loved him in some form or another for over twenty years. She knows she can’t ask him to return it— knows that asking him to leave the order for her wouldn’t just be for her, it would be for Mandalore, and while the politician in her cries for her to claim him, the person in her who loves Obi-Wan could not abide tearing him away from his culture for her own purposes. She still loves him, deeply and irrevocably, and she knows he still loves her. (Maybe, she thinks, after the war... But she can’t afford to be sentimental).

What do Cody and Satine have in common? They’re both extremely competent, both instinctively ruthless, and they both love Obi-Wan. Oh, and they’re also both immediately jealous of their counterpart.

They know they shouldn’t be. They know it’s not fair, not when Obi-Wan isn’t theirs anyways, but it doesn’t change the surge of envy and dislike that happens when they see Obi-Wan use the soft voice he only uses for the people he likes best on the person across from them.

Cody knows he can never compare to the Duchess, who is beautiful and well-spoken and has held Obi-Wan’s heart since they were fifteen. Satine knows she can never compare to Cody, who has been at Obi-Wan’s side every second since the war’s beginning, who is so much closer in ideals to Obi-Wan than she is, however it might appear on the surface.

Fortunately, they don’t have to deal with it for long, because Ventress comes in with Maul and Savage and proposes a team up, at which point Maul reveals the identity of the Sith Master.

Obi-Wan swears a string of words that Cody and Satine are both very impressed by, and agrees to the team up. Cody and Satine, who are both going to Coruscant anyways, agree to it too.

What ensues is a good deal of scheming, during which Cody and Satine avoid each other like the plague, Obi-Wan is repeatedly told to get some sleep, and Ventress cuffs Maul to a door on multiple nonconsecutive occasions. When they get to Coruscant, Satine has already told Padmé, who has in turn told her group of anti-war (and anti-Palpatine) senators, Cody has given Rex a heads up, and Ventress, Maul, and Savage have been metaphorically sharpening their lightsabers for ages.

(It occurs to Obi-Wan, at one point, after he’s woken up from his enforced 25-hour nap, that Palpatine must have created the clone army for a reason— must have a failsafe in place— and he asks Ahsoka to pull all the data the Kaminoans have on the clones. They find out about the chips, and Ahsoka immediately immediately holds the Kaminoans at laser sword point until they reprogram every order into a command that dissolves the chip.)

The thing about organizing a coup together is that it makes it very hard to avoid each other. Cody and Satine are forced to work together, and, what do you know, it turns out that even with seething jealousy at work, they end up respecting each other. (Note: Obi-Wan comes into a room at one point to see them both bent over a commlink, heads together and hands nearly touching. He short circuits.)

In any case, coup, Palps dies, Republic fixed, whatever.

What’s important is that Obi-Wan gets really, really injured— so much so that he might die. Cody and Satine have dealt with him being dead before (Deception arc anyone?), but this? Watching him slowly fade, knowing there’s nothing they can do about it? That’s worse.

One night, when Anakin has fallen asleep, they have a long conversation in low voices about Obi-Wan, darting from fond to furious to devastated over and over again. If he wakes up— if, not when— they agree to say something to Obi-Wan, to let him know that they love him. It’s a meager consolation after all they’ve been through, but this is the end, in one way or another, and they deserve to be honest with him.

(Cody thinks, privately, that he will be— well, not tossed aside, because Obi-Wan isn’t the sort of person who does that, but there won’t be a place for him by Obi-Wan’s side anymore. Obi-Wan is a Jedi, a negotiator, a peacekeeper, and Cody is a soldier for a now-ended war. He is already steeling himself to accept Obi-Wan’s polite rejection with equanimity, to not cause more pain to the man. (It will be easy, he knows, to wish him every peace, every happiness. Cody has only ever wanted to see Obi-Wan happy. This does not mean it will not be painful.) Obi-Wan said once that he would have left the Order for Satine if she’d asked— she will ask, now, and Cody knows Obi-Wan will leave, can see the love written in his face, in his spine, in his hands, whenever he is around her. Satine will ask, and Obi-Wan will leave, and Cody will be left to look for a place in this new galaxy.)

(Satine thinks, privately, that Obi-Wan’s feelings for her must be long faded, replaced by his obvious ones for Cody. Obi-Wan is a warrior, a Knight, and Satine is a diplomat who foreswore violence long ago. She is already steeling herself to accept his rejection with grace. (It will be easy, she knows, to wish him well. She has only ever wanted good things for him. This does not mean it will not be painful.) He said once that he would have left the Order for her if she’d asked, and whatever he’d felt then for her pales to what he feels now for Cody. Cody will ask, and Obi-Wan will leave, and Satine will rule as she always has.)

And then Obi-Wan wakes up.

Cody and Satine let him have his long talk with Anakin first, partially because they know how important it is to him, partially because Anakin wouldn’t let them if they wanted to, and partially because they are dreading their own coming conversation. When Anakin has finished, and Obi-Wan is asleep again, they go in, hand-in-hand, and wait for him to wake up.

When he does wake up, he sees them holding hands and immediately comes to several wrong conclusions. Wrong Conclusion A: Cody and Satine are in love. Wrong Conclusion B: Cody and Satine are going to try to break the news that they’re in love to him gently. Wrong Conclusion C: This conversation is about to break his heart.

Then they speak.

At the end of it, Obi-Wan has some Thoughts. Thought One: alkdfjhskhsgjljlbhkgkjbjvnab,gkjvn;qlerghjsv?????!!!!fwbfwlkrehwogwhuwrijvhfdbhkf!!!! Thought Two: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Thought Three: Oh, we’re all idiots. Fantastic. 

He then passes out, because being on the edge of death for days and then having a shock to your system this big tends to do that to you.

When he wakes up, he is mildly more coherent. Then he sees that Satine and Cody are asleep on each other, and the coherence is lost, but he does manage to wake them up and get across three things:

Thing One: He is desperately in love with them both.

Thing Two: He’s leaving the Order for a multitude of reasons, but they are a Significant Bonus.

Thing Three: He would very much like if they both held his hand while he falls back asleep.

Cody takes Obi-Wan’s right hand, Satine takes Obi-Wan’s left hand, and the three of them stay like that, fingers intertwined, for a long, long, while.

[pedro-pascal-love]

Officer Brown Eyes

One Shots ❖ Main Masterlist ❖ Join My Taglist

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 3k+

Summary: During the events on Morak, Reader sees Din’s face for the first time, and isn’t sure how to handle it.

Warnings: Language, angst, SO MUCH FLUFF

⟸ Raise Warriors ❖ Moving On ⟹

They had to get the child back. By any means necessary. Which meant having to pick up Migs fucking Mayfeld to help them out.

“Dank farrik, I do not like this idea,” you said dramatically. “I don’t like the fact that we have to team up with Mayfeld yet again, especially after what happened last time!”

“If we want to get the kid back, we don’t have a choice,” Din replied as you all waited for Cara to get back with Mayfeld. You’d traveled with him since before the Child entered the picture and had learned to pick up how Din was feeling based on the way he spoke and his body language.  Din Djarin was a man of few words but fewer facial expressions, so having to gauge how he felt through his modulated helmet was hard for most people, but not for you. You could tell that Din was worried. He was afraid that The Child was hurt or worse. You knew that Din would do anything in his power to get the Child back, even if it meant busting out an ex-Imperial sharpshooter who’d double-crossed you both the last time you ran into each other.

You watched from the shadows as Boba and Fennec went out to greet Mayfeld. You smirked as you saw Mayfled stop in his tracks and look at Boba, having to do a double-take.

“You know, for a second, I thought you were this other guy,” Mayfled stated in relief with a smile. You watched as Din took that opportunity to descend the ship's ramp to greet Mayfeld and saw the color drain from his face.

“Mayfeld,” Din greeted coolly.

“Hey, Mando. Long time,” Mayfled greeted nervously, not sure if Din would blast time where he stood or something else.

“What, you came here to kill me?” He joked.

“All you need to know is that I bent a lot of rules to bring you along,” Cara replied begrudgingly.

“Why am I so lucky?” Mayfeld retorted.

“Because you’re Imperial,” Cara glared.

“Hey, that was a long time ago, all right?” he defended.

“You still know your Imperial clearances and protocols, don’t you?” Din asked, cutting right to the chase. Mayfeld looked worried and watched as Cara and the others walked up the ramp before he finally sighed and glanced back at the prison planet he’d been assigned to. He wasn’t sure if he preferred to be going with them or if he should just stay, but he chose to leave with them anyways. As he boarded the ship, he saw you looking at him with a look that would kill anyone in an instant, and he gulped as he sat down.

“We need coordinates to Moff Gideon’s cruiser,” Din stated as he took his seat next to you.

“Moff Gideon?” Mayfeld scoffed. “Yeah, forget it. Just take me back to the scrapyard. I’m not doin’ that.”

“They have his kid,” Cara explained with annoyance. Mayfeld looked at Cara, then to you and Din, actually looking a little concerned.

“The little green guy?” he asked.

“Yeah, the ‘little green guy,” Cara replied, annoyed with Mayfeld’s attitude already.

“So…..I help you guys get him back, you guy let me go?” Mayfeld asked hopefully. Cara rolled her eyes.

“That’s not how this works,” she replied

“Well, then what’s in it for me?” Mayfeld retorted. You were ready to gouge his eyes out at that statement. You tensed and straightened your posture, looking Mayfeld dead in the eye.

“A better view,” Cara responded.

“You get to live,” you replied heatedly. “You either help, or you somehow end up blown to oblivion, and Cara writes it off as if you tried to escape custody.” Mayfeld gulped and took a moment to ponder his choices.

“All right, but here’s the thing. I can’t get those coordinates unless I have access to an internal Imperial terminal. I believe there’s one on Morak,” Mayfeld finally stated.

“Morak? There’s nothing on Morak,” Din replied, not trusting what Mayfeld had to say.

“It’s a secret Imperial mining hub, okay?” Mayfeld replied. “If you can get me in there, I can get you the coordinates.” You looked at Din skeptically but nodded.

“Fett, punch in the coordinates to Morak,” Din instructed Boba through the commlink.

“Copy that,” you heard Boba reply and felt the ship take off towards Morak.

“If you’re lying to us, Mayfeld, I just want you to know that you will suffer an excruciating and prolonged end by my hands,” you threatened as you pointed a knife at him before going to sharpen it. Mayfeld visibly gulped as you felt a hand on your knee.

“Whatever it takes to get the kid back,” Din said softly to you in an attempt to quell your fears. You nodded and went back to sharpening your blade.

Due to Boba’s initial scan, you all decided that a full frontal assault would be too risky, considering the refinery was crawling with Imperial troopers, so you decided to go in quietly. After some debate on how to get into the refinery undetected, you chose to have Mayfeld and one other disguise themselves as stormtroopers to get into the refinery. Din had insisted on going with Mayfeld while you stayed with Fennec and Cara.

“No, I’m coming with you both,” you insisted, leaving no room for argument. Din sighed.

“Fine, but you have to promise me that you’ll be careful,” he said, looking down at you through the visor. You nodded, feeling the worry in his tone but knowing he wouldn’t convey it any other way due to present company.

“I promise. I’ll make sure that things go according to plan,” you said with a shrug.

Once you, Din, and Mayfeld had successfully hijacked and disguised yourselves as stormtroopers, you began to make your way to the refinery. Things have been going smoothly so far until you came across a village on route to the refinery. The villagers watched as you slowly drove by, and the air was tense.

“Yeah, Empire, New Republic, it’s all the same to these people,” Mayfeld said as you gazed out the window at the haggard villagers. “Invaders on their land is all we are. I’m just sayin’ somewhere someone in this galaxy is ruling, an others are being ruled. I mean, look at your race. Do you think all those people that died in wars fought by Mandalorians actually had a choice? So how are they any different than the Empire?” Mayfeld questioned. You rolled your eyes and could feel Din doing the same thing.

“Watch it, Mayfeld,” you warmed.

“If you were born on Mandalore, you believe one thing, if you’re born on Alderaan, you believe something else,” Mayfeld continued. “But guess what? Neither of them exist anymore,” he said with a shrug. You growled, getting annoyed the more he spoke.

“Hey, I’m just a realist. I’m a survivor, just like you,” he defended.

“Let’s get one thing straight.” Din replied, “You and I are nothing alike.”

“I don’t know. Seems to me like your rules start to change when you get desperate,” Mayfeld said with a glance. “I mean, look at ya. You said you couldn’t take your helmet off, but now you got a stormtrooper one on, so what’s the rule? Is it that you can’t take off your Mando helmet, or can’t show your face? ‘Cause there’s a difference. Look, I’m just sayin’ we’re all the same. Everybody’s got their lines they don’t cross until things get messy. As far as I’m concerned, if you can make it through your day and still sleep at night, you’re doin’ better than most.”

At his words, you glanced over at Din, not being able to tell how he felt since you sat behind him but sensing the thoughts coursing through his mind. The Creed forbade him from removing his helmet in front of any living being, but lately, you’d witnessed differently from other Mandalorians. Boba Fett and Bo Katan were evidence of there being a different way that Mandalorians lived, and you’d hoped that maybe one day Din would take up their way of life instead of the stricter way that the Tribe lived, hiding in the shadows and never showing their face. You hoped that maybe one day Din would see it fit to remove his helmet unless going into battle, and you’d be able to gaze into the eyes of the man that you were hopelessly and secretly in love with. But that was a spice dream at this point. Mayfeld’s other words rang through your ears. You and Din had become desperate in more ways than one to get the Child back. At this point, you’d do anything, and everything to ensure the safe retrieval of the Child and knew that Din was very much on the same boat.

As you made your way to the refinery, things took an unexpected turn that neither of you foresaw. It seemed that on Morak pirates wanting to blow up the rhydonium, and you were getting very annoyed with having to do things the hard way just to get some information on Moff Gideon. Luckily, the three of you had made it safely to the refinery after some excitement and with a bit of assistance from the Empire.

“Dank farrik,” you muttered as you saw the stormtroopers line up and salute the transport. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

The three of you finally disembarked from the transport and were greeted warmly by other stormtroopers, thinking you were a colleague of theirs. Oh, were they wrong. Mayfeld guided you and Din to the officer’s mess hall where he suspected the terminal would be, and low and behold; it was there. You watched through the visor of your helmet as Mayfeld began to walk into the mess hall, abruptly stop, then turn back around and made his way back to you and Din.

“I can’t go in there,” Mayfeld stated

“Why not?” Din asked.

“That’s Valin Hess,” Mayfeld replied.

“Who?”

“That’s Valin Hess. I used to serve under him,” Mayfeld stated nervously.

“Will he recognize you?”

“I don’t know,” Mayfeld said. “I was just a field operative, but I’m not takin’ the chance. It’s over.” You held your arm out to stop Mayfeld from walking away.

“Let’s just do this quick, and we can get out of here,” Din said sternly, also blocking the way.

“I can’t do it, okay? We have to abort. I’m sorry.”

“No, I can’t,” Din said. “If we don’t get those coordinates, I’ll lose the kid forever. Your heart broke at his words. You know that Grogu meant a lot to Din; he meant a lot to you too, but you knew that Din would do anything to get him back.

“Give me the data stick,” Din said.

“It’s not gonna work,” Mayfeld replied. “In order to access the network, the terminal has to scan your face,” he explained.

Well fuck, you thought

“Give it to me,” you heard Din say, and before you could respond and go in yourself, you watched as Din walked into the mess hall himself with the stick. You grew anxious watching the officers watch him awkwardly salute and then make his way to the terminal. Your anxiety rose once you saw him get to the terminal and then turn to glance at the officers and you. Your heart nearly stopped as you watched Din remove his helmet as he faced the terminal and place the data stick into it. You watched with bated breath as Valin Hess approached Din at the terminal and faced him. You looked at Mayfeld, hoping he’d have some sort of solution but saw he was just as fearful as you were. You heard the officer ask Din for a TK number and knew it was over. The mission was blown.

“This is my Commanding Officer, TK-593, sir,” Mayfeld interjected as he walked up to Din and Valin Hess, you following close behind him, your helmet removed as well at this point. “I’m Imperial Combat Assault Transport Lieutenant TK-111, sir.”

“TK-660, sir,” you added as you stood next to the two of them, watching as Din awkwardly looked at you and Mayfeld and back at the officer, his body rigid.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to speak up to him a little bit since his vessel lost pressure in Taanab,” Mayfeld smoothly said. Valin looked over at Din.

“What’s your name, Officer?” Valin loudly said. Din pretended not to hear and raised his eyebrows.

“We just call him Brown Eyes. Isn’t that right, Officer?” Mayfeld covered as Din looked at him and nodded with a slight smile.

“Sir, we should go fill out those TPS reports so we can go recharge the power coils,” you interjected. The three of you proceeded to walk away but were stopped when Valin said you weren’t dismissed.

DANK FARRIK, you thought. Valin proceeded to praise the three of you for being the only transport that successfully delivered the rhydonium that day and insisted on a drink.

You were on edge the entire time Valin and Mafeld were speaking. Mayfeld just had to bring up his history with the Empire and Operation Cinder, and you instantly knew that this was going to end badly. Very very badly. You saw Din glance at Mayfeld at one point and slightly shake his head as if warning Mayfeld not to start anything, but Mayfeld paid him no mind. Things ended up going astray yet again that day, and the three of you ended up in a firefight to get out. You were getting tired of this. You managed to kick open part of the window and climb up to the roof, where Boba swiftly rescued you, and he was able to swiftly release a seismic charge to stop the two tie fighters that were on your tail. You let out a breath as you finally were clear of any dangers and got up to take off the stormtrooper uniform, ready to get out of the blasted thing and never speak of what happened again today.

You walked over to the bag that held your clothes and Din’s armor when you felt a presence behind you. Closing your eyes and sighing, you turned around to look at him as he stood before you in the cursed stormtrooper uniform.

“Din, I….I’m so sorry that you had to go through that,” you started, as tears well in your eyes. Knowing just how much the Creed meant to him and knowing that you were part of the reason why he broke it tore you to pieces. You looked down at the ground as he approached you and placed his hand under your chin, tilting your face up to look at him.

“It…..It had to be done,” Din said softly. You looked at him bewildered. “Whatever it takes to get the kid back, remember?” You nodded.

“Yeah, but no living being can see your face. That’s part of who you are,” you pleaded, tears now fully streaming down your face. “I don’t want to be the reason that you’ll no longer be able to wear the helmet or armor.” Din shook his head, taking his hand away from your face.

“You could do nothing to control what happened, cyar’ika,” Din reassured you. You shook your head and shut your eyes.

“….Mando…Din….I just…I can’t unsee what I saw. You have to fix it. I’ll leave if you want, or if you have to do what must be done, then do be it,” you urged. Din shook his head.

“I already lost the kid; I can’t lose you too,” he stated as he took your hands in his. Your eyes widened at the revelation. You watched as Din brought your hands up to his helmet and placed them on the bottom, with his hands resting gently on your forearms.

“It’s ok. I’d been thinking about this for a while now, and I want this,” Din softly said, gazing down at you, his voice quivering slightly from nervousness.

“……Din, you…You don’t know what you’re asking,” you tried to reason as you tried to remove your hands from his helmet, but his hands held firmly onto your arms and kept them in place.

“I do, cyar’ika,” he said as he moved your hands up, lifting the helmet slightly. “I’d rather it be you to remove my helmet by your own terms than by anyone else.” You still couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You respected him too much; even seeing part of his neck and chin made you avert your gaze.

“I….I can’t….” You spoke softly.

“You can. I want you to see my face,” he said as he guided your hands to lift his helmet once more.

“You…..You’ll have to do it,” you pleaded. “I can’t do it.” Din chuckled and nodded. You watched as he guided your hands to lift the helmet more. First, you saw the rest of his chins. Then his lips. Followed by his nose and then his eyes, until finally, the helmet had been completely removed, and he stood before you. You averted your eyes again, but he swiftly stopped you and tilted your face until you were yet again looking into his eyes. His beautiful brown eyes. Eyes that seemed to stare into the depths of your soul and know everything that you were thinking. You chuckled, and Din looked at you puzzled.

“Mayfeld called you Officer Brown Eyes while we were at the refinery,” you stated. “I think it’s very fitting; I might just call you that from now on.” Din chuckled and shook his head.

“If you want, but only you’re allowed to call me that,” Din stated as he stepped closer to you until you were pressed up against his chest. “But on one condition.”

“Oh? And what’s that?” you questioned, feeling the heat radiating from him as your gaze shifted between his eyes and his lips. You licked your lips and gave him a small smile. “Name your terms, Mando.”

“Say you’ll be mine,” he replied as he licked his lips as well and brought his face closer to yours.

“I think that can be arranged,” you said softly before closing the gap, and your lips met.

As your lips met, you felt a fire ignite within you, and electricity pulse through your body. It rippled down your arms and legs, and you brought your hands up to rest on his neck and play with his brown curls, deepening the kiss. Din brought his hands to rest on your hips and pull you closer as he slipped his tongue between your lips, further deepening it. After a moment, you both pulled away and rested your foreheads together.

“I’m yours, Din Djarin, now let’s go get our child,” you lovingly said. All he did was nod and close the gap between you yet again with a smile.

.fin

⟸ Raise Warriors ❖ Moving On ⟹

[starksvixen]

Part 3 - Never Lose Me

Masterlist

Summary: You and Mando have begun to grow closer as your time with the Child drew out. No longer were you “just partners”. Something had begun to spring within you, a feeling dead for so long erupting within your heart. Or was it just you?

Warnings: Angst, angst, angst, and more angst. Sprinkles of fluff. Possible unrequited feelings. 

A/N - Sorry for the late update! It’s been a hectic few weeks for me, but I promise to try and upload more. 

Let’s get one thing straight, you were never one for adventure. All your life, adventure meant trouble for you and it had definitely left it’s scars. So when you joined Mando, you were bracing for more craziness, more marks upon your skin. It was nothing but a means to an end, a debt you needed to pay off. However, through your years together, that swiftly changed. 

You began to crave adventure. 

With your new addition of the Child to your crew, you weren’t lacking, that’s for sure. But it sent these horses through your veins, adrenaline left in their trail, and it was your addiction. Running from bounty hunters, keeping the kid safe, all of it. However, after you latest encounter with weird alien birds on the sands of Navarro, it all began to connect.

He had taught you to love it, showed you how to enjoy it. You loved adventure because you weren’t alone, you had a partner. It was all thanks to him. It was him. 

Your ice encrusted heart had been melted by the Mandalorian. 

When he lunged in front of those nasty looking birds to save your life, it was as if your heart leapt to meet your brain. He had risked his life for you. And you knew that the beat in your heart that spelled your love in Morse code would be dangerous. So you quickly shut yourself up, shut him out. You couldn’t be the reason he got hurt, he couldn’t get hurt on behalf of your one-sided puppy love. He was just keeping you alive to pay off your dues. 

Right?

Tuning back into the scene in front of you, the tight cuffs around your wrists, you repeated the plan in your head over and over again like a prayer. You were on your way to a deal that was supposed to be about the Kid, but in reality it was an ambush, with you and Mando in the lead. 

“Dar’manda, wanna explain the silence?” Mando says as quiet as he can so that it can be translated with static. 

“It’s nothing, Mando...” you mumble in return, keeping your eyes averted. 

“Cya-” 

“Don’t.” 

“(Y/N), what did I do?” it comes like a mumble from beneath his mask, too quiet to be picked up by machine. 

‘I fell in love with you.’ you think.

“Nothing, just focus on the mission.” 

With a harsh sigh, you set your jaw tight and aim your view ahead as you walk the barren streets of Navarro. Soon enough, both you and Mando are sitting down, facing the disgusting Imp in front of you that was obviously undressing you with his eyes. 

Little did you know that beneath the helmet, Mando’s jaw clenched. 

With swift yet quiet movements, Greef (who was still petrified of you) had unlocked you from your restraints. As the Imp continues on and on about his annoying propaganda, a leather hand slipped into yours. Your forced to suppress a gasp as he gently squeezes your hand, a silent sign of trust between you two. You cannot feed into the comfortable feeling, right now...

All you see is red. 

Literally. Before you and Mando had a chance to take down your Imperial crowd, a rain of blasters bursts through the windows. All four of you, including Greef and Cara, barely made it down in time to dodge them. Somehow, the two of you made it towards the other edge of the window, a semi clear view of the pack of Stormtroopers surrounding you. 

Grabbing your blaster and blade from Mando’s back, you load them both, getting ready for the fight ahead of you. You go quiet as you hear a ship land. Your blood runs cold at the sound of his voice. 

Moff Gideon.

The Seige of Mandalore flashes before your eyes, making your eyes flood with uncontrollable tears. The start of it all. You smack Mando’s hand away as he obviously saw your weakness. With a quiet sniffle, you cock your gun, listening to the twisted words Gideon spewed. 

But once he stopped, the rushed footsteps and clanking of metal grew your suspicion. 

“They’re setting up an EWEB, aren’t they?” you say to Cara. 

She only nods in response. 

“It’s over.” Karga says from his corner. 

“Yeah, cause that’s really helpful right now!” you spit. 

“I found the sewer vent.” Mando says.

He gently tugs you over to him by your arm, keeping you under cover as you, Cara, and him try to open the vent. You tried your hot blade, nothing. Mando was out of charges. Not even Cara’s blaster worked. 

Of course, Moff Gideon decided to add more stress to the situation with another speech. But when he started listing off the names of your crew, you knew you were screwed. 

“Maybe the traitorous Mandalorian, (Y/N) (L/N), the woman who never had a chance to take the Creed but still broke it, can regail her many tales of murder using the same weapon that killed her people. She seems like a great ally compared to the weak Dar’manda you knew, hmm?” 

All eyes turn to you, your hood still covering your face but at this point you knew it was of no use. Slowly, you take off your hood, revealing the scar starting from the edge of your right eye, leaving a long scar that trailed through a place where there was once hair. 

“Or perhaps the decommissioned Mandalorian, Din Djarin, has heard the songs of the Siege of Mandalore, when gunships of similar ordinance laid waste to fields of Mandalorian recruits in The Night of A Thousand Tears.” 

Din Djarin. 

You look to Din with wide eyes, wondering if the boy that you had hidden in the bunker with all those years ago was still in that metal mask. The one you trained with, laughed with. Your Din...

And now you were going to die together. How poetic. 

The world seemed to spin, everything around you turned to static. As Din retells the tail of how he was rescued, how you two met, your body shivers from the memories buried so deep inside you. Your grip tightens on your blaster, pain, frustration, betrayal. 

“Why didn’t you tell me? Tell me that you recognized me?” you mumble.

“I had to protect you, from everything that I’ve done,” he says as he crouches in front of you. 

“I don’t need your protection...” you swiftly stand up, keeping your space. “I need your trust...” 

“Alright! Can you save the lovers quarrel for when, oh, I don’t know, we survive this!” Cara says quickly. 

You nod, bending down to grab one of the sniper rifles the Stormtrooper had and reloading it fast. Everything around you goes quiet, blocking out your teammates, only focused on the threat at hand. 

Well, until you saw your little green fuzzball in view, strapped to a droid unit’s chest. 

“Cover me!” you yell to Cara, quickly making your way outside and helping the droid keep the baby safe.

More gunshots joined you and as you turn you see the Mandalorian covering your six. You only nod as a sign of gratitude. As you get back to the fight, and Karga decides to join you, a hard grunt from behind you quickly makes you turn around. One of the stormtroopers had flipped Din to the ground, ready to fire. 

Without a second thought, you throw your gun away for a moment and pull your knife out, the exposure to the air sending the cool grey into a heated red. With one arm, you pull the trooper against your chest and with the other, you slowly drag the hot blade against his throat. A slow and painful death. Once his body was on the ground, you picked up your rifle again and continued to shoot at the rest. 

Moff Gideon soon stepped in front of you, his eyes targeted towards your head, most likely imagining your death. You drop your gun, and feign surrender, only to grab your smaller blaster and take a quick shot. Unfortunately you missed, and so did he. But he was still standing, giving him the chance to shoot at a fuel canister, one right in front of Mando. 

“Din!” you screamed, as you watched his metal body flail to the ground. 

Cara and Greef dragged him inside as you slowly but surely made it back towards the building. Once inside, you quickly helped Cara lay him down, rolling him onto his side to check for wounds. 

Your worst fear had happened. The unrequited feelings you had to deal with had injured the one you love most. For the first time in what had felt like forever, you were panicked.

It was obvious he had sustained a pretty nasty head wound. So, naturally, you refused to leave his side while the others tried to escape. Without the others noticing, you moved the fabric of his shirt up above his wrist to keep two fingers on his pulse. With every beat, you were reminded that he was still there.

You kept an eye on your surroundings, with each passing minute your dread filling you up to the brim.

“Cyar’ika,” you hear a pained voice from beside you.

Turning your head, your met with the familiar visor you had grown to love. He was speaking, that was good. 

“I’m not going to make it. You need to go,”

Now you wish he hadn’t. 

“Are you insane? You just smacked yourself, you’ll be fine.” you say with a soft chuckle, moving your hand away from his exposed wrist. 

“Leave me,”

His breathing picked up, he was in pain. Knowing that this was all your fault, that Din laid before you thinking he was going to die, it killed you. Tears sprung into your eyes without notice. 

“No, I’m not leaving you again.”

Gently, you caress where his helmet meets his neck, only to feel the sticky, metallic substance you knew to be blood. Tears fell from your eyes like rain now. 

“Din...” you whisper tearfully. 

“Don’t you dare think about taking this helmet off. You leave me.” he reaches shakily into his shirt, pulling out the mythosaur skull charm and placing it in your hands. “Take this and you make sure the child is safe.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m not leaving you,”

Before he could speak again, you waved Cara over, placing the necklace in her palm. 

“You need to take the Child and get him to the Mandalorian covert. When you find them, you tell them it’s from Din Djarin. Got it?”

With a nod, she takes it, and the Child, preparing for their escape.

“Cyare, please...”

You gave him silence to his pleas, opting to hold his hand tightly instead as you watched the scene outside. You saw the fire gun, and you quickly shielded him with your own body, taking most of the burns instead of him.

With your back singed, you let out the tiniest whimper as you sit back up straight.

“(Y/N)-” Cara starts. 

“I can hold him off long enough to let you guys get out of here. I’ll follow behind with Din,”

“And if you don’t make it?”

“We’ll die a warriors death,”

Another blast of fire erupts from the cannon it is held in. You launch yourself over Din once more, bracing for the pain that never comes. Looking over your shoulder, you see the Child, holding back the flames from harming you. With a pained but proud smile, you inch your way over to him before he collapses and give him a hug. 

“Good job, kid,” you whisper. 

One final bang alerts you to the newly made escape route. With a soft kiss to his fuzzy head, you whisper once more:

“You be good, okay? I love you, kiddo.”

The IG unit takes him from you quickly, placing it in Cara’s arms. You crawl back towards Din, gently taking his hand again to try and distract yourself from the pain. Despite the overwhelming sensation of singed flesh, you could feel blood trickling down your back, making you shiver. But you refused to be weak. You refused to let Din die. 

Looking around once more, you see only the IG unit left. He’s a droid...

“Hey, droid!” 

He turns his head to you.

“Got any bacta spray?” 

“As a matter of fact, I do,” 

“Good.” 

Pulling out your blade, you cut off a long strip of Din’s cape, wrapping it tightly around your eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Din weakly asks. 

“I’m taking off your helmet, and the droid will heal you. He’s not living,” you tie the last knot even tighter. “And I can’t see you.”

A weak chuckle reverberates from him.

“You’re still as crazy as the day I met you,”

“Well, love makes you do crazy things,”

Gently, you guide your hands up his chest and to his helmet. You expect his hands to come flying towards your wrists, to stop you. But surprisingly, he doesn’t do so. With a click and a hiss, his helmet comes sliding off, and you lay it in your lap for safe keeping. 

“There is damage to your central processing unit.” the driod says as he does his work.

“You mean my brain?” 

“That was meant to be a joke.”

Din’s soft chuckle puts your mind at ease as you stared into the black space. Once you hear the spray no longer being applied, you blindly reached out and helped Din sit up. Before you get a chance to reach down and put his helmet on again, something unexpected happens. 

His lips were on yours. 

Despite being caged in a helmet all the time, they were soft against yours. The metallic taste of blood danced along your tongue but it was no match to the adrenaline running through your veins at the sensation at your love’s lips against yours. You played an intricate and slow dance, one that you wished you could never get enough of. With a shaking hand, you reached into the uninjured side of his head, running it through the matted curls. The feeling of it all made you smile, the kiss ending way too soon. 

“I love you too,” he whispers. 

With a smile you couldn’t control, you ever so gently place the helmet back onto his head. Taking the blindfold off, you stared into his visor. Brown, you knew that had to be the color of his hair. 

His hand snakes it’s way behind your head, pushing it towards his metal clad one in a Keldabe kiss. With a tearful smile, your hand moves over the metal with ease, mimicking the same gesture. 

“You can only say that if you promise I’ll never lose you again,” you mumble.

“You’ll never lose me, cyar’ika,” 

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[kestrelmando]

Group Therapy - Oneshot

Inspired by this post by thecyndimistuff (@thecyndimistuff ), apollonkondric , and  floatingearth about Peli Motto taking Din to a support group for empty nesters post S2. 

Warnings/Notes: None, possible a single swear word slipped by. Angsty, introspective Din and space mom Peli Motto taking charge. No romantic pairings, not beta’d please excuse any mistakes until I find them. Couldn’t help to slip a nod my other Mando fic Bird of Prey, Way of War in at the end. 

---

He’s tried being useful around – what were they calling it now? Fett’s Palace? – the palace; taking stock of weapons and resources left behind by Jabba and Fortuna. Weapons he’s familiar with; taking them apart, servicing them, and testing them gives him something to keep him busy and keep his mind occupied.  

He even took to sometimes mirroring Fennec’s imposing, protective place – on the left on Fett, never the right that was Fennec’s earned spot – on the dais when Fett had meetings because no, you should not fuck with the legendary bounty hunter but especially when he’s got a sharp shooting assassin on one shoulder and another infamous bounty hunter clad head to toe in beskar on the other.

He’s done perimeter sweeps with Fennec, who chooses to humor his morose silence, and with Fett, who also allows the silence but is far less indulgent about it. Oh, Fett never calls him out on it. Quite the contrary, bounty hunter to bounty hunter he can read Din like a book and knew from the moment he returned to the Slave that he was not ok. Still wasn’t ok but that doesn’t stop the occasional long drawn sigh from the older man.

All in all, it took a week for Din to be sent to Mos Eisley to ‘pick up supplies’. He wasn’t stupid; he knew Fett could’ve sent anyone working for him to go on a supply run. He initially welcomed the change of scenery before remembering he’d have to travel hours around the Great Mesra Plateau and his only options of landscape were either endless sand or the red rock formations and canyons.

So Din dutifully took a land speeder and set off to Mos Eisley, trying to ignore the repetitive backdrop that allowed him far too much time to think about his foundling and his accidental acquisition of the darksaber with Fett’s warning still ringing in his ears ‘make sure you take that thing with you’.

 ---

 The supplies, or rather supply, in question was a tiny compressor part for the climate control unit that could fit in his pocket.  The vendor had taken one long look at his beskar and held up a bin of the teeny components after Din asked about it and he was done within half an hour.

…Now what?

He found himself following the by now well-known path to Peli Motto’s hanger. She was familiar territory, she was easy to talk to and almost painfully transparent. Perhaps most importantly in this moment; she wanted nothing from him.

The door to Peli’s outbuilding slid open for him and he wandered in, hands painfully empty, and let the pit droids fuss over him. Tatooine’s hot suns greeted him as he stepped into the hanger bay, eyes scanning for the mechanic. The hanger was empty, no parked ship in sight, and the mechanic was elbow deep in a pile of scrap muttering to herself and passing parts and pieces to a pit droid.

Din smiled under his helmet when she tossed a piece of scrap away from her with a huff and it landed near his feet. She turned her head briefly to see where it landed and then whipped it back towards him, hand flying to her heart.

“Stars Mando!” She sat back on her heels and blew out a breath. The mechanic frowned, “Where’s your ship?” Peli stood, dusting her knees and palms off, and took a few steps towards him with a hand pressed above her eyes to block the suns. She looked him over and then stopped dead in her tracks, “Where’s…where is the baby?”

He felt his throat close around any words he was going to say. Peli’s eyes darted around his body; around his hips for the bag, his feet for the little one to pop out around him at any second. She opened her mouth to say something, her face drawn tight, when he simply couldn’t keep up his stoic façade any longer.

A short hiccup, somewhat garbled by the vocoder of the helmet, slipped out followed by a low keen he couldn’t bear to swallow. Din shut his mouth with a snap, a flush creeping up his neck while his hands closed opened and closed around nothing – empty. Peli’s eyebrows rose in concern momentarily before she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth before slowly extending her hand towards him. Her fingers closed around his elbow, shoulders losing their tense line when he didn’t protest, and guided him back towards the outbuilding.

Din let her steer him to a small table in the corner and ease him into a chair. She disappeared around the corner momentarily and was back with a bottle of boga noga and two small cups. Peli sank into the chair opposite him and poured a couple fingers the Hutt ale. She curled her hands around her drink and looked up at him, face pinched.

“Just tell me first; is he ok?”

He took a deep breath that sounded strained through the beskar, “Yes.”

Peli visibly deflated as her shoulders sagged in relief, “Oh thank the Force.” She muttered before taking a sip of her ale, wincing a bit.

Despite the lump in his throat, he felt the corners of his mouth quirk upwards in the beginnings of a fond grin. Din swallowed, “His name is Grogu.”

She cocked her head, thinking on the name, and smiled. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes and watched the pit droids scurry about the hanger through the viewport. Eventually, she flicked her eyes back up the Mandalorian and asked, “What happened?”

He paused and wondered if it was safe to tell her more than sparse nonspecific details. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; quite the opposite she’d shown herself to be a loyal friend and Din had already entrusted Fett and Shand with the whole story. But Peli was different – she wasn’t a fighter. Still, Moff Gideon was in the custody of the New Republic and Grogu was safe with Skywalker. He supposed it was safe enough.

So he laid it all out for her and once he started he found that he couldn’t stop. He talked about the bounty from the remnant Imperials on Grogu and how the kid had saved his life with the Mudhorn, how he took on the task of keeping him safe as his foundling and out of the hands of those who would hurt him and use him. To their short time on Sorgan and how Grogu terrorized the local wildlife, how he was tasked by his alor to reunite him with other Jedi.  Din told her of his meetings with the Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan, interspersed with a quick and bastardized history of the Mandalore.

He had to pause when he got to Tython. His voice was caught in a steel trap in his throat.

Din considered the shot of ale and tipped the helmet back just enough to not spill it all over himself before downing it. He immediately understood Peli’s grimace when she sipped on hers; it was sweeter and fruiter than he was used to but it was unbearably strong. His eyes watered at the burn. Her gaze flicked to his exposed chin momentarily before darting away and she finished hers too, coughing a little.

She rose her eyebrows at him and he knew what she was thinking; I didn’t think you were allowed to do that.

He continued quietly – Tython, Grogu’s capture, and the Razor Crest getting destroyed. Din covered Morak as clinically as he could and felt the need to explain a bit more about his creed to the mechanic. She watched him carefully and frowned when he began to get hung up. Din gestured uselessly next to her, “I – it should have been a bigger deal. It should have meant everything but I – the kid –“

Peli gently laid her hand on his forearm. His helmet slowly turned to look back at her but she held her ground and patted his arm. Din pressed on and spoke of Gideon’s cruiser, the rescue, and his accidental acquisition of the darksaber. He haltingly recounted his goodbye to his foundling and slumped back in his chair when it was over.

The mechanic was silent next to him, her hand light on his arm, before she turned to him thoughtfully. “Mando—“

Why the hell not. “Din. My name is Din.”

“Din, you did what you had to do for the little one.” She looked nostalgic, “Parent’s sacrifice for their kids. You can’t understand it, can’t know what you are willing to do until you have one. He needed you and you stepped up. I don’t claim to know to know much about your people but it sounds like you fulfilled your mission.”

Peli stood then, collecting the empty glasses. “You say you’re out near the Northern Dune Sea? How long will you be here?”

He nodded absently, “No more than a few days. I’m returning to the palace soon—“

She whirled back around horrified, one of the glasses slipping from her fingers, “Jabba’s Palace?”

Din caught it quickly, “Fett’s Palace.”

Peli wasn’t appeased. “Fett? Boba Fett?”

“Yes—“

“That bantha brain owes me money!”

Din chuckled, realizing she more annoyed than afraid. Fett owed her money? That sounded like a story. Peli headed back towards the kitchenette with a huff and Din dutifully followed with the other glass. Peli sighed exasperatedly, “I was the only one willing to work on that ship of his for years! No one else would touch it, it sat in that hanger for years and no mechanic was willing to do any maintenance on it – oh Peli what if he comes back – well, what’s he gonna be more mad about? That someone was poking around keeping it running or that we just let it sit and get taken by the sands?’

She took the glass from him and deposited it in the sink, “I spent five years taking care of that rust bucket! He comes back looking like hell with no credits and says he’ll pay me ‘soon’. When is ‘soon’?”

He didn’t give it a second thought; Fett had given him way more credits than he’d needed to pay for the part and he knew that she would be a good resource for Fett – she wasn’t afraid of him. He reached into his pocket and held the bag of credits out to her. Peli slowly stretched out her hand and took it, inhaling at the weight of it.

“If that doesn’t cover it let me know. I can pass along that you are willing to work on the Slave, it’d be a regular job.”

Peli passed the heavy bag of credits back and forth between her hands, smiling, and then said, “You know…he can wait a little longer.”

 ---

 Why did he agree to this?

Peli turned from the small table housing drinks and snacks and held out a cup of chilled caf to him. Din slowly turned his head and shoulders towards her and, despite not seeing his face, she read his tone.

She frowned, “Oh right.”

The mechanic turned away for a moment, fiddling with something he couldn’t see, and twisted back with a triumphant grin. Peli brandished a long straw and poked him in the shoulder with it when he didn’t move.

“Come on Mando, just take it.”

With a sigh, Din took the straw and caf before reluctantly following Peli into the other room. All the chatter immediately ceased and six pairs of eyes snapped to him as he rounded the corner with her. He didn’t know what he expected, it was the normal reaction to beskar – still his insides felt hollowed out after his talk and something about it stung a little.

Peli, however, paid it no mind and all but dragged him to a seat next to her. The other occupants, some human and some not, stared and waited for an explanation. The mechanic took a bite of her snack, a large cookie, and chewed slowly. She met the confused and frankly frightened looks of the group and took her time to chew and swallow, all the while rolling her eyes at the over the top reaction.

She was never given a reason to be afraid of her Mandalorian, or even Fett despite his reputation, and he’d always been fair and polite. Oh, she knew their reputation – bloodthirsty, ruthless, and unfeeling. But after seeing Mando with the baby, she had done some digging. Tatooine might be in the backwaters of the galaxy but it had a long history and many colorful inhabitants; between the HoloNet and asking around she’d learned a bit.

That child was never in any danger from the Mandalorian, in fact there was scarcely a safer place to be. Mando – Din – had taken him in and done right be him. Still, she knew he had to be uncomfortable in a place like this. She picked a spot facing the door and had already decided on the way in that she’d do the talking.

She brushed the crumbs off her hands, “Sorry we’re late. This is my friend, Mando.” The silence was deafening but she continued, “He doesn’t say much.”

His helmet turned almost unnoticeably towards her and she met his visor. Peli shrugged and rose her eyebrows; am I wrong? The Mandalorian cocked his head in agreement and leaned back into his seat. She sipped her chilled caf and settled in as a human across from them began to speak. She hadn’t brought him here to talk, she brought him here to listen.

He stiffened when she mentioned it back at the hanger, thinking it was a support group for parents whose children had passed on. But when she clarified that it was for parents without their children with them, whether it be they had simply grown up or were temporarily away, he hadn’t seemed any less rigid.

“I – I’m not his father.”

It was the softest she’d ever heard him and she felt her heart clench at the melancholy tone. His fingers twitched anxiously at his sides, opening and closing.

She countered, “You are in all the ways that matter.”

In the end, Mando tentatively agreed to go with her. The pair listened as the group went around with updates or things they did to alleviate the ache of missing their loved ones; some were grown with families of their own, others had moved off-planet, and some were off training at various academies. They talked about how they kept in contact and how they kept busy. Some tended hydroponic gardens, others kept meticulous journals, and still others traveled. He snorted; one sent his alien foundling with a Jedi across the galaxy and took up being a menacing beskar statue behind an infamous bounty hunter who may or may not be the ruler of Mandalore.

Din retreated into his own thoughts, wondering how Grogu was doing with his training. He could almost picture it in his mind; Grogu’s little brow wrinkled in concentration, maybe with his eyes closed if he was really trying, and the Jedi directing him. He imagined the little womp rat chasing – terrorizing – the local fauna and pouting about not being able to eat all the time. Would he still have his mythosaur pendant? Was he happy?

He blinked back to attention when Peli plucked the straw from his fingers and slid it into his caf with a small clink. People were looking at him expectantly, he swallowed nervously before realizing it was actually Peli there were waiting on.

She stood to get another cookie and Mando took the groups distraction to slip the long straw under his helmet. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but a cold drink was too tempting to pass up. Peli settled back in next to him and began to speak, “Well I have some updates,”

Peli broke the cookie in half and continued, “Corjul still hasn’t left Endor. After all that time on Hoth, he just decided that Endor was ‘perfect’ and he volunteered to monitor the shields. I’m not sure there’s much of anything out there but the natives…but he seems happy.”

Din stared under his helmet – Peli Motto had a kid. He supposed it made sense now he thought about it; why else would she be coming to these meetings? The mechanic finished a bite and folded her arms, “I am glad he’s just an analyst, not running around after Empire remnants. “

He sipped at his now lukewarm caf and wondered what her son looked like. Her voice flitted over his head, "Now Briell—“ Din inhaled sharply and his caf slurped loudly through the straw. Two children? Peli glanced at him, amused, “Briell has been settled nicely on Ord Mantell for a while now with her husband. I’m heading there in a couple weeks, my granddaughter is turning two.”

There was a murmur of appreciation from the group, some congratulating and some asking for a holo. He smiled, happy for her. It seemed the meeting was winding down and he took a long drink of his caf to finish it. “And as for Savi—“ Din choked on his caf, coughing and yanking the straw out from under his helmet to press an ineffectual hand against his chest.

Three. Three children Peli Motto had and Din knew nothing about it. Sure, it hadn’t come up in casual conversation, not that he was much of a conversationalist anyway, but certainly it would have come up? Grogu took to her so quickly and he hadn’t really questioned it but now he could see the pieces fitting together. The way she’d fussed over how to hold Grogu, was he getting enough to eat.

“Anyway, Savi is still planet hopping. He sends a holo when he remembers to. Last I heard he was heading to Coruscant to stay with a friend who’s a lobbyist. Still trying to ‘find himself’.” Peli patted his shoulder, “I’ve got this one to keep me busy and he just hooked me up with a steady new client.”

He took Peli’s cup and his own, following her nodded direction, and went to clean them. It was a simple kitchenette and he used as little of the moisture farmed water as he could to wash them out. His mind wandered again and he palmed the metal knob in his pocket; Fett, in between gasping peals of laughter, telling him that he knew exactly who the Jedi was and that Grogu would be safe with him. He wondered if the kid was pulling all kinds of things out of the air by now – Din smiled – he was going to be a menace once he could grab whatever he wanted regardless of where it was.

Peli’s head poked around the corner, “Hey Mando, you ready to head back?”

The Mandalorian nodded and followed his friend back onto the dusty streets of Mos Eisley. They walked in companionable silence, Din’s head on a swivel watching the road as the twin suns began to set. He fingered the comm unit in his pocket, wondering for the umpteenth time when Skywalker was going to contact him about Grogu’s progress. The man said he’d be allowed to visit, that he wasn’t a believer in separating families but still Din wondered.

“You know, Mando, you’re allowed to miss him and be proud of him.” Peli said next to him.

He looked down to her, “Am I?”

She sighed and stuffed her hands into her pockets, “Yeah. My kids all left Tatooine to do bigger, better things. Of course I miss them, sometimes I miss them more than I can stand but I’m so proud of them. I couldn’t hold onto them forever but it doesn’t mean they are gone for good.”

Din sighed, “I understand that. But he’s – he’s so young what if he doesn’t remember me? What if he’d rather stay with his teacher forever? What if—“

Peli grabbed his elbow, stopping them just outside of her hanger. “He adores you, Din. Anyone can see it, he won’t forget you. He’ll do what he needs to and then you and him will decide what’s next. It isn’t forever.”

He blew out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and swallowed the lump in his throat. It isn’t forever, we will decide what to do next. Din followed her into the outbuilding and stopped when he caught the mischievous look on her face. He slowly tilted his head at her, almost afraid to ask.

“You’ve done me a favor with Fett, Mando. I might have a ship you’d be interested in.”

[legobiwan]

Obi-wan, Ahsoka & Maul’s Grand Plan

Now that we’re all emotionally compromised, it’s time to really dig into the Obi-wan-Maul-Ahsoka (and by extension, Ezra) narrative.

After Phantom Apprentice, we learned that Maul orchestrated the war on Mandalore (the second one, at least) to lure Obi-wan and Anakin back to Mandalore, so Maul could kill Anakin, and ruin Sidious’s plans. 

Now that we know Maul might have also had a double objective when he took Mandalore the first time, it is instructive to go back to “The Lawless” and read THAT scene and that episode in a new light.

Maul wants to lure Obi-wan to Mandalore, presumptively to take revenge on him for a whole litany of sins, including the whole cutting-Maul-in-half-and-ending-his-career-as-Sidious’s-apprentice thing. We know this is a premeditated move, that Maul is banking on Obi-wan coming to save Satine: 

It’s a fascinating (and risky) gambit, but if Maul has learned one thing about Obi-wan, it’s that the man suffers greatly from attachment (even if he hides it), and through those attachments, he can be manipulated. Maul goads Obi-wan into a sloppy, dangerous, rage-fueled duel in Revenge by invoking his murder of Qui-gon Jinn.

And then again with Adi Gallia where Obi-wan nearly bisects Savage in half the long immediately after she is killed by Savage:

Now, with the knowledge we have after Phantom Apprentice, Maul *may* have been expecting Anakin to show up with Obi-wan in the Jedi shuttle and not Adi Gallia. His ultimate plan seemed to be to find a way to lure Anakin and to lure Anakin, Maul needed Obi-wan. 

This unforeseen development is probably what prompted this cryptic commentary from Maul:

I would argue that Maul’s plan was to consolidate a power base as he did on Mandalore with the crime syndicates, so he would be an advantageous position after Maul presumably killed Anakin and thwarted part of Sidious’s plans. It was too early on Florrum, the Jedi (and possibly Sidious himself, sensing the threat) making a point of going after Maul, perhaps Sidious not getting in their way for once in order to snuff out this annoying relic of history. (It’s instructive to note that in a deleted scene (9:45) of Revival, Sidious intervenes so that Anakin will not go on that mission. He also seems unbothered in The Lawless (23:40) that Obi-wan has flouted Republic law to render aid to Mandalore, likely because he wants intelligence on Maul, wants Kenobi out of his hair, and wants Anakin faaaaar away from Maul, because he’s cottoned on to Maul’s plan.)

And what a plan it is. Maul’s learned through his sources that Kenobi and Skywalker are essentially inseparable and that Obi-wan is clinically attached to his former student (very much in opposition to the Jedi Code, it would seem). Now, this is interesting because Maul has been gathering information. Not just the usual strategic information, but information for psychological warfare. He already knows Kenobi suffers from attachment - he witnessed this firsthand on Naboo. He just exploits that crack in Obi-wan’s facade.

But what does Maul want *after* Anakin is dead? The thing about Maul is that he spends his entire post-TPM existence looking for a partner. It’s most obvious with Savage, who he takes as a literal apprentice, but Maul also famously offers to work other Jedi, including (infamously) Ezra Bridger, Ahsoka Tano, and yes, Obi-wan Kenobi.

In fact, Maul’s recruitment strategy with Obi-wan and Ahsoka is a fascinating mirror (and is a lot of what happens with Obi-wan and Ahsoka in Phantom Apprentice). Maul, once again, uses Obi-wan’s attachment to lure him to Mandalore, as he’s learned about Obi-wan’s past with Satine (most likely through Death Watch and Almec. No one in this Lineage is good at keeping their secret, forbidden relationships much of a secret, let’s be honest.)

This is the most instructive line of their exchange before Satine’s death:

 Why not, Maul? You’ve been grumbling this man’s name for ages. And I think the answer lies both in an unspoken invitation to Obi-wan to join Maul and in one of Maul’s 5,000 plans to entrap Anakin Skywalker. I’ll address the latter idea first.

After Satine is killed, Obi-wan just...gives up. He doesn’t fight, he doesn’t try and break, he just allows Death Watch to carry him off to prison. I wonder if Maul - disappointed that Skywalker didn’t show - was going to try and use Obi-wan as bait to lure Anakin, just as he had used Satine to lure Obi-wan. 

Which begs the question - let’s Maul is successful in killing Anakin. Then what? Does he just kill Obi-wan outright? While it might be more than tempting, this dialogue below makes me wonder if Maul wasn’t trying to low-key recruit Obi-wan bu ruining his life and than enticing him to the dark.

He’s actually pulling a Sidious on Obi-wan here, trying to get him to crack that Jedi facade which Maul knows is not as unbreakable as Obi-wan would like to make it seem. (If we take the novelization of TPM as a guide, Obi-wan does touch the dark during that duel on Naboo, after Qui-gon is killed, so he’s more than capable of turning, as is anyone in the right - or wrong - circumstance.) 

Obi-wan rejects this, of course, and tries to reason with Maul, by introducing the fact that Obi-wan has been to Iridonia, and knows the awful conditions Maul must have grown-up in until Sidious whisked him away. 

This, of course, does not work.

It’s funny, because a handful of lines from Maul in the earlier season which made sense on a larger level but seemed a little odd in context - all the pieces have come together. Like his comment on Florrum, him saying the Dark Side is more powerful than Obi-wan knows is a direct reference to Sidious, and oddly (and tragically) enough, it’s Obi-wan who is told by two different sources, however obliquely, that there’s something terrible happening in the heart of the Republic, and the Jedi are toast.

Maul’s gambit backfires, however, when Bo-Katan arrives, releasing Obi-wan, followed by Sidious having had enough of these games (and possibly realizing that Maul is the most dangerous foe of all because it he ever managed to make his recruitment speeches work and to Anakin - he, or at least the Grand Plan - was going to be in trouble). 

Fast-forward to Mandalore II: Now with Extra Sadness. As stated above, Maul admits to starting this second war with the express reason to lure Obi-wan, and by extension, Anakin to Mandalore so he can finally kill Skywalker and maybe even get Obi-wan on his side. 

Of course, he meets with Ahsoka and Maul nows nothing about her. What’s the first thing he does? He kidnaps Jesse not to torture him, but gain information. He wants to find Ahsoka’s weak spots to exploit, just as he had done with Kenobi. 

And with that information, he hammers at her cracks - namely, her disillusion with the Jedi after her trial.

And like Obi-wan, Ahsoka tries to reason with Maul, this time playing on the idea that if he only came back to Coruscant, he could help the Jedi destroy Sidious. 

Of course, it’s too late for the Jedi, too late for Maul, who has sensed that Sidious is close to executing the final part of his plan. Maybe, just maybe, if this Ahsoka Tano will team up with Maul, together they can take down Sidious (or more likely, take down Anakin). And unlike with Kenobi, Maul can ask her outright. 

Which almost works. Until Maul drops the bomb that his plan the entire time was to kill Anakin, and Ahsoka, still believing in Anakin, cannot let that pass. 

Chalk another one up for a failed Maul recruitment strategy. 

Of course, twenty years later, he tries the exact same thing with Ezra Bridger, using Ezra’s insecurities against him to promise a brighter destiny and more power. 

And then, Maul tries to get Ezra to run off with him to Tatooine to confront Obi-wan, which is...such a curious statement. 

Does Maul want Ezra to kill Obi-wan? Unlikely. But Maul might want to use Obi-wan as a way of gaining information on Anakin, or even this supposed Chosen One and Maul’s madness about Kenobi’s continued existence may be as much disbelief that the actual architect of his downfall (according to him) still lives and it might be some oddly misplaced hope that Kenobi can help Maul defeat Sidious. At the very least, Maul can extract information out of Kenobi before killing him, and isn’t that what Maul’s always done? Get information, then strike at your enemy? 

But with one final (heartbreaking) flourish on Tatooine, Maul ultimately fails in recruiting anybody to his side, never avenging Sidious, his plans failing again and again, and his life forgotten on a dusty, backwater planet to everyone except for the man holding him in his arms at his death (the man who was there at the beginning, middle, and end), the promise of a final retribution lulling Maul into the afterlife. 

[thebountyfucker]

Royal AU Info

Here's more info about my royal!AU just because. It's nothing too intense, but the post is rather long so I put it under the readmore.

Cad Bane: Cad Bane is the eldest child of his parents. He's roughly thirty (yes, I de-aged him a bit but I kind of want them all to be closer in age). His sister is thirty years younger than him. He feels very weird about this.

His personality is similar to the show, though he is more laid back. Does he like money? Yes. Does he like power? Yes. But in this AU, he already has these things. There's no need to stress about it. He's the next in line. He's set for life. He is a bit of a player, and absolutely will not allow his parents to marry him off.

Jango Fett: Jango is an orphan at this point. Mandalore is ruled the same way in this AU as it is in canon - the ruler wins by ritual combat and wields the darksaber. Jango is also about thirty years old. Boba is alive, and he is still a clone.

Jango is very fatherly, and is also a bit of a novice to this whole 'royal' thing. He will not indulge in the same things that many other royals will engage in. He's also probably one of the more moral rulers. He will entertain lovers, but he's much more picky about it than Cad is.

Embo: Embo is the fifth child of his parents, and is the last legitimate child of his father's. He is third in line (because two of his other siblings forfeited rights to the throne). I'd say he's late twenties - 28 or 29.

Embo is still quite quiet, but he's much more ambitious, calculating, and power-hungry. His position is not secure, and he has to work that much harder to get recognized. He is a Class-A whore in this AU lol.

Dengar: Dengar is the second child of his parents, and is second in line for his throne. His father is actually royal, and his mother is the heir of an important crime syndicate. He is also late twenties - I'd say 27.

Dengar retains a lot of his Clone Wars canon personality. He's annoying and jokey and doesn't take things too seriously. Until he needs to. When he gets serious, it can get a bit scary.

Bossk: Bossk is the only child of his father's. Clan Sessek isn't as much royal as they are the dominant clan of Trandosha. They still hold quite a bit of authority, just in a different way. Bossk would also be in his late twenties - 29 or so.

Bossk, like Jango, doesn't quite understand the frivolities of the other royal families. He feels like an outcast amongst them, and as such is cold and judgmental. He does have a soft spot for Boba, for some inexplicable reason.

Aurra Sing: Aurra is the orphan child of a crime lord, and as such, inherited his criminal syndicate (which extends over much of Nar Shaddaa). She would be late twenties as well - 28 or 29.

Aurra's personality is not much different than it is in canon. She is a stone-cold bitch and her favorite pass-time is torture. She has no interest in romance of any kind, and thinks most relationships are frivolous nonsense.

Latts Razzi: Latts is a half of a set of twins. She and her sister are their mothers' only children. Her mothers' are peaceful for the most part, with a focus on religion and the arts. She would be mid-to-late twenties - 26 or so.

Latts carries with her much of her mothers' attitudes. She's classically trained in ballet, and doesn't understand the cut-throat attitudes of some of her peers. She's easy to get along with and an overall decent person.

Sugi: Sugi is the second child of her parents, who rule over Iridonia. Her parents are kind of scumbags for many reasons, but mostly because they have a hand in the galactic slave-trade. Sugi would be late-ish twenties - 27.

Sugi is different from canon in that her morals are not as good. She's used to being used as a pawn by her parents, so she is not trusting at all and will not allow anyone to 'own' her. She will cut a bitch's throat, and she will bathe in their blood.

-

Feel free to send asks if you have any questions!

[purplesauris]

Fool Me Once (Fool Me Twice)

With the King of Mandalore rising to power and the Empire in shambles, the New Republic reaches out to build a relationship- using Luke Skywalker as their proxy.

Read it on AO3 here!

Yavin was muggy. The thought had stuck with Luke ever since he'd set foot on the planet again, this time to search the ruins of what was left of the Great Temple. It had been used as a base of operations during the Rebellion and decimated soon after, and despite Luke's attempts to get information while he was a pilot, he'd come up short.

Like he was now.

Luke had hoped that he could remember his way, but Artoo couldn't fight through the brush and so Luke had gone it alone, tramping through the underbrush and ducking under branches. the temple, despite being nothing more than a pile of rubble for the most part still called to him, and Luke followed the faint ache and tug in his chest that only grew worse the closer he got. His robes stuck uncomfortably to his lower back, damp with sweat, and Luke cursed himself for not wearing something lighter. He’s still begrudging his poor foresight when he breaks through the purple treeline, stopping short at the sight of the carnage in front of him. Stones are strewn about, ten times his height and just as wide, jagged and scorched by whatever explosive wreaked havoc on the structure.

Luke feels the agony of the people who died here, the resounding sadness and confusion that clings to the stones as Luke carefully picks his way through the ruins in the hope of finding something left. A book, a scroll, even a holo recording or merely a painting would suffice. Anything that Luke could use, could draw inspiration from for his own idea of what his Jedi Order might be like. Luke shivers in the afternoon heat when something in the force cries out for him, drawing his attention to a hole in the ground that when Luke walks up, peering inside, shows the lower levels of the temple. Luke knew it ran deep into the ground, but he was hesitant to drop down into an unstable hole with no way out other than the hole which would surely collapse on him if he so much as sneezed wrong.  

"Well, can't go too wrong, can it?" Luke's voice echoes far louder than he means, but nothing stirs around him, not even the predators that had trailed him since he'd landed the x-wing.

Luke takes a deep breath, steadying himself before slowly picking his way down, slipping down the collapsed floor that made a somewhat decent ramp. If Luke didn't know better he'd have thought someone made it themselves. Which, upon a second glance, someone definitely did. Luke draws his lightsaber, using the green blade as an uneasy light source as he pads through the room, careful of each step but curious nonetheless. There isn't much- these look like what were once living quarters; all of the valuables were on the higher levels, including the library, but Luke can hope and the force hasn't steered him wrong yet.

Luke takes his time searching the room, avoiding the dank stairway descending further into the ground in favor of shuffling smaller bits of rubble around. Searching this temple, after all it's been through is a long shot, one that Luke knows won't pay off, but seeing the rows and rows of beds, picking up an old tattered blanket and sweeping a finger over the stitching on the edge makes him feel closer to a heritage he was only given a crash course in. Luke keeps the blanket with him, as old and moth eaten as the one edge is, and Luke is nearly finished with his slow search of the great room when he spots a stack of books bound together and tucked neatly under a rotted bed frame.

He thinks he’s hallucinating for a minute, but when he crouches down, reaching out to slide them closer the leather bound books are as real as anything else. The leather strap binding them together disintegrates when Luke slips a finger underneath them, so he opts to use the blanket, wrapping them up tightly to keep the moisture from ruining the already delicate books. Luke presses the books close to his chest, scaling the ramp that led him down into the room and breaking out into the hazy light of mid afternoon. Now that he’s gotten the books the temple is silent, only the whispers of what happened singing to Luke as he makes his way back to the ship.

He wonders if leaving the temple behind to fade into obscurity is cruel.

Much like the Jedi of old, the temple is from a time when things were wildly different, and Luke knows that even if he were to come back, to rebuild, the memories and dreams of those who inhabited it before would only haunt him and whatever students he found. No, it was better this way, to finally let the temple rest, after all it had been through to bring Luke to this moment.

His walk through the jungle back to his x-wing is just as sweaty and annoying as the trek in, but Luke’s irritation is tempered by the books pressed to his chest, the chance at something more hidden within the crumbling pages. He wants nothing more than to plop himself down in the cockpit, to crack open the first one and read until the light of the day leaves him fumbling. Luke is sweating all over again by the time he catches sight of the faded red splashed along the hull of his ship, and the ladder lowers automatically, Artoo beeping a greeting as Luke hauls himself up into the open cockpit.

He leaves the blanket and the books in his seat while he shrugs out of his heavy robe, folding it and tucking it in the space behind his chair. It leaves him in only the black fatigues underneath, but the faint breeze that rustles through the clearing he landed in is blissful and Luke sinks down into the seat with a lazy sigh.

“I found books, Artoo! Not sure what they hold yet, but I’m going to-”

Artoo whistles, makes a whirring sound, and Luke scowls.

“What do you mean there’s a communication for me?”

Sure enough the small holo relay on his dash is blinking slowly with an incoming recording and Luke groans, leaning back in his seat and staring up at the stars. He’d requested one thing from them when he’d agreed to help. One thing, something that was easily given should they choose to do so. Luke sits there a moment more, debating on if he should ignore it when Artoo beeps inquisitively, offering to turn it on for him. Luke waves a hand dismissively, sitting up with a grunt and slapping the play button. Leia’s face shimmers into view immediately, kind but pinched with annoyance, and Luke squints. The slope of her shoulders hold an undeniable tension, a worry that betrays her calm demeanor.

“Luke, the Senate has a new task for you. Please rendezvous on Coruscant at your earliest convenience.” Leia pauses, glancing at something to her left before her shoulders slump as she turns back to face the camera. “You aren’t going to like it. I’ll hold them off as long as I can- take your time coming home.”

Luke sits there mulling over the words as the holo with his sister’s face fades out. He isn’t going to like it? The thought brings with a strange pang of anxiety, curling in his gut and making his heart kick up a notch. If he’s not going to like it and Leia is willing to hold the Senate off then Luke is going to take his damn time getting back to Coruscant. As much as he wants to call it home, to let himself have a place to stop, to settle, Coruscant isn’t it. Leia is as close to home as he thinks he’ll ever get- his one constant, someone who won’t back down just because of who he is. She’s strong and smart, but where he shirks political messes, half because of the Jedi Code and half his own disinterest, Leia rises to the challenge. Blossoms with each situation she maneuvers through. The fact that she seemed so much like a wilting flower, petals all but ready to fall betrays just how badly she hates what is going to be asked of him.

“Artoo, bring us back to Coruscant. Slow and steady.” Artoo whistles merrily, bringing the cockpit down around Luke and sealing him inside. Luke slips his helmet on and straps himself in, intent to do a bit of reading before they make it to the technocity. Artoo’s ascent through the atmosphere is a bit choppy, but Luke is used to that, bracing his feet along the bottom of the ship and tensing the muscles in his stomach. He hardly moves, and only once they’re in the vacuum of space, moving toward Coruscant does he open the first book.

The spine creaks eerily in protest at being opened, and most of the ink is faded or obscured. What Luke does manage to read is mostly journal entries, from a padawan by the looks of it. The entries are sporadic, messy, but Luke follows them as best he can.

They have us lifting stones. Stones! I can crumple an entire army of people under fist and they have us lifting pebbles. I tried to tell them, to show them just what I could do, but they urged patience. That’s all they ever go on about! “Be patient, be calm, the Force guides in all ways.” Well, if this is the Force guiding me, what was guiding me before? What called me to this cursed moon to sit with stuffy old men in scratchy robes who ignore my skill level and train me with children?

Luke feels his own earlier training mirror the thoughts of whoever owned this journal before, and Luke can’t help but remember his masters. They’d been right in almost every way, in the way they were training, but Luke, like this person, was too blind to see. Luke was too blinded by emotion, by worry for his sister and his friends and everything to care. Luke still feels like it will choke him now sometimes, but he can never let the feeling quite catch up to him. He tucks the journal away for now, knowing that he isn’t going to get anything analytical from that particular volume. The next one that Luke cracks open is smaller, denser, and the ink on the paper is dark, as if fresh. The pages are crumbling at the edges, deteriorating with age, so the fact that everything else is holding up is intriguing.

Luke loses himself within the pages.

Pages upon pages of Jedi training, rituals and rites of passage- all that Luke has ever dreamed of knowing is here, in this book. His heart soars with the implications, the knowledge he holds in his hand, and he reads greedily. There are entire passages on things he can do with the force, from growing plants to healing to reading someone’s mind- Luke had already been finely attuned to feelings, but the thought that he could read thoughts? That opened a can of worms he wasn’t sure he was ready to tell anyone about. Granted, the thought of invading someone’s privacy like that leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but the thought of all that Jedi were able to do, able to specialize in, makes him giddy, flushed with anticipation and nervous all over again.

It’s almost enough to distract from the fact that whatever the Senate is about to have Luke do is dangerous and potentially life threatening. Luke flips through the rest of the book, skimming more so than reading, until Artoo whistles and chirps, alerting him that they’re about to break through hyperspace and into the artificial atmosphere around Coruscant. Luke braces himself for the descent and the flashing lights of the city, letting Artoo communicate with the tower as he brings them down to a private landing pad reserved specifically for Luke. He hardly uses it, more content to be off-world than among the smog and people who bother him for pictures and stories from the rebellion. He takes his time gathering his things and shrugging back into his robe, figuring he’ll be here long enough to at least go home. Luke wants to take his time walking to the Senate building, but he feels Leia before he sees her, and he drops from the cockpit nearly into her lap.

“Leia-” He hardly has time to steady his feet before Leia is hugging him tight, arms squeezing around his ribs and cheek pressed to his chest. There’s no hesitation in Luke’s response as his arms go around her, Luke pressing his nose into her hair and closing his eyes. He holds her there as she shakes in his arms, fingers digging into his back. “Leia…”

Leia finally pulls back, dashes her hands across her cheeks and smiling weakly. The smile doesn’t light up her eyes like it normally does and Luke pulls her into another hug, this time letting her arms go around his neck as he squeezes her. He feels her shudder again, and finally she speaks when Luke sets her down, chucking her gently under the chin.

“I don’t like what they’re doing to you, Luke. Haven’t you done enough?” Luke doesn’t let his own anxiety bleed into Leia’s, instead merely raising a brow.

“I’m the last Jedi, Leia. There are things they have to ask of me.”

“Not this. When is enough enough?” Luke feels Leia’s anger surge in her like a rising storm, but it’s tempered by her own confusion and heartache, and Luke reaches to take her hand. Leia stares down at his gloved hand, taking a deep breath before her shoulders square again, and this time when Luke looks at her, really looks, he sees the same hot-headed, determined Princess he saw on the Death Star so many years ago.

“Let’s go see what they have to say.”

Luke allows Leia to keep hold of his hand while they slip into the city, Artoo following along dutifully even as they hop from speeder to speeder. Luke’s landing pad and apartment are about as far from the Senate building as he can get without them throwing a fit, and Luke needs that distance. Craves it. Luke doesn’t miss being in the city, even with the cool breeze that’s so unlike the humidity of Yavin IV. The smog and din of people milling around him, of holorecorders snapping pictures as he moves through the crowd makes his skin crawl, and he fights the urge to pull his hood up. They’ve already gotten half a dozen pictures and headlines by now, Luke is estimating, so what’s a dozen more?

What’s one more moment stolen from him in the grand scheme of all the ones stolen before?

The Senate building looms like all the other buildings, built of twisting steel and glass and overwrought opulence. Half of the budget that went to the building could have fed planets of people, but Luke tries not to see the waste in it. Tries to pretend that stepping foot into the building doesn’t make his stomach clench with untold anxiety. Leia is a steady presence beside him, having recovered from the landing pad, and she straightens her clothes and brushes a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. Once her armor is once again set in place she squares her shoulders, pushing into the main meeting room and ignoring the way that silence falls around her.

Luke slips in behind her, hoping not to be noticed as she takes her seat. It doesn’t work, never has before, and Luke descends onto the floor as the desks of the senate rise above him in a slow wave, a sea of faces staring back. Luke folds his hands in front of him, aware that he is in no way in trouble, and projects serenity as strongly as he can manage. He sees the front row of senators relax, and knows he’s doing something right at least.

“Master Skywalker, it’s good of you to join us.”

“I’m sorry I couldn't come sooner, I was preoccupied on Yavin IV.” Luke inclines his head toward the body of the Senate, hiding the scowl that wants to furrow his brow.

“Did you find anything of import?” The question is innocent enough, curious even, but Luke can hear the double edged blade he’s balancing on, and he straightens up, giving a careful, bored shrug of his shoulders.

“The ruins of the temple were in far worse shape than I thought. It will take quite a few visits to search through the whole thing.”

“We can have a team sent, if it would ease your struggles, Master Skywalker.”

Luke smiles, easy and warm, and shakes his head at the man who has deigned to do most of the speaking. “The temple is in poor shape, and I fear sending someone nor versed in the Force would only cause it’s gradual collapse to speed up.”

“A good point. Well…” Luke watches the way the crowd shifts, all at once glancing toward Leia before glancing back at the man asking the questions. Luke has dealt with him before, many times, but for the life of him he cannot remember his name. “We have a task for you, if you are willing to undertake it.”

“I believe the Senate gave me leave to resume my search for Jedi artifacts.” Luke points out, trying not to let his irritation rise when the man nods, fake sympathy etched into the wrinkles around his mouth.

“That was… Before this newest problem had arisen.” Luke’s hands clench in front of him, fingers curling around each other, and he eases back with his right hand, careful not to crush his other fingers. Luke dips his head in a motion meant to tell them to go on, and to his annoyance and relief, they do. “There is a new king on Mandalore.”

“The glass planet? I thought it was inhospitable.”

“It was under the Empire’s control for quite some time.” The man agrees, steepling his fingers against his chin as he leans back in his chair. “But a mandalorian has claimed the Darksaber from Moff Gideon, and by extension, risen to power.”

“And what am I to do about it? Mandalore is a ghost planet, a myth more than anything else. Why bother them?”

“Mandalorians are by far the greatest warriors this galaxy has ever seen.” Luke’s eyes widen marginally, flicking to Leia only to find hers steely with resolve. Growing horror mounts within Luke, gnawing at his heart and scraping across his ribs. “They despise the Empire and Imperials nearly as much as we, but we cannot risk them doing something out of desperation.”

“So reach out to them.”

Smiles among the Senate turn sharklike and Luke feels like a piece of bait lobbied into a sarlacc pit. Waiting with resigned dread to be eaten alive. “We have. We have offered the help of our greatest asset and commander of the Rebellion to aid their fight in retaking and rebuilding their planet.”

“You aren’t seriously thinking of sending Leia with me.”

“No, Master Skywalker.” Relief floods Luke, making his knees go weak, but it’s drowned out by the sudden rushing in his ears. “We’re only sending you.”

Luke freezes at that, head emptying, stomach dropping away from him all at once. He feels hollowed out, dizzy with disbelief, and he can’t breathe standing under the lights and hungry gazes of the Senate. Luke does the only thing he can think to do: he turns on his heel, robe flaring out behind him as he turns and slips from the room, letting the door close with a final, resounding click.

He’s running after that- thoughts a blur and faces passing him by in messy smears of colors and concern. Their feelings flood in him in waves of curiosity, awe, admiration that he doesn’t deserve, and by the time Luke makes it over and down to his apartment his heart is beating from his chest. He can’t go to Mandalore- it’s a death wish, certain and swift. Luke locks himself away in his apartment, moving through the dark of the living room without needing sight, ignoring the lights and Artoo’s quiet beeping. He has to think- there has to be a way to say no, to tell them in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t feel like dying on a planet no one has set foot on in decades. On a planet so steeped in agony and death and betrayal that Luke feels sick just at the mention of it.

He knows Mandalore’s history, knows it and does not want to see it.

Luke is sitting on the floor in the living room, legs folded and eyes closed when the lock on his door beeps before the door itself slides open. There are only two people with access to the apartment, so Luke isn’t surprised when Leia’s aura brushes against his, watery and weak with sorrow as she sits across from him. He doesn’t need to open his eyes to see the way she slips into her own meditative state, breathing in and out in time with Luke to calm the raging of her heart and her emotions. Luke allows his own power to brush against hers, to gauge the way she’s feeling and offer his own steady calm in the absence of hers.

“You don’t have to go.” She whispers, voice shaking in the dark of the room.

Luke sits there for a moment, throat tight, before he answers. “You know that isn’t true. If they don’t send me, they’ll send you. And when you don’t come back they’ll send me anyway.”

“They wouldn’t hurt me. Not with the strength the New Republic holds.”

“You don’t know that.” Luke hears Leia’s mouth open to protest, but she stops short, unable to say anything truthfully and aware that if she lies Luke will feel it. “How long have they been planning this?”

“I don’t know. The rise of the new king was abrupt- one moment Mandalore was a barren planet, and the next? An old Imperial Remnant was blasting each and every Empire base into obscurity.”

“Moff Gideon’s ship.” Luke parses that much from the little the Senate gave him, and Leia makes a noise of affirmation. “How quickly did they take the planet back?”

“A matter of hours. They took out the air bases first: all the tie fighters, their best military outposts. It was a textbook take over. I doubt we could have done anything better.”

Luke huffs out something resembling a laugh. Even in the face of the unknown Leia finds something to learn from, and Luke loves her more for it. “Why me?”

“You’re a status symbol. A mark of the New Republic’s power. For you to willingly step foot on the planet, to go and talk to their king? It’s-”

“Monumental. A moment in history.” Luke finishes, words twisted and bitter on his tongue. As if he hasn’t had a lifetime of making history. Of bleeding and bleeding and bleeding for a cause.

“I tried to fight against it.” Leia says softly, voice full of iron. “You’re one man, surely they could find a contingent of people to represent us. But once your name was suggested no one listened to anything else.”

“It’s okay.” He says, even though it’s far from okay. This is the path that he’s been placed on, and there’s no way he can get out of it. He knows deep in his heart, in the very core of him that this is inevitable- like the rising and falling of the tides, Luke is on a direct course toward whatever destiny is in store for him, and he’s only holding on in the desperate hope he makes it out relatively unscathed. “Go, Leia, tell them that I’ve decided.”

“What have you decided?” Luke smiles, leaning forward to nudge Leia’s knee with a hand and shoo her up to her feet.

“You’ll hear in the morning, when I tell the council.”

[impossibleprincess35]

i am so sick of seeing ur works in the obitine tag and i don't know how you can write so much about a ship that isn't even that good. do you think its healthy to write so much about sex???

Oh yay, anon criticism is back.

So, I took the afternoon off from work, so guess who's got time today? ME.

(For those of you who don't care, this will be tl;dr, so scroll on by.)

First, I will acknowledge that even I cringe when I click on the Obitine tag and I see my contributions. I'm aware that my hyper-fixation and my prolific writing is annoying. I come up in here like the fucking Alexander Hamilton of a ship that most people loathe, and trust me, I live with this brain, I'm probably more sick of it than you are.

That being said, maybe filter out the #asphodel and #theechoandthestain tags. I don't know. Just a suggestion.

As for the second thing that you bring up, I don't know your damage, Heather, but you brought it up, so let me make this super clear:

First of all, they are fictional characters, and second, it's not unnatural or immoral for people who trust and respect each other (note, I didn't say love - but hey, if they love each other, that's great, too) to explore intimacy together.

I write a monogamous couple who engage in consensual sex, but more than that, they're two mature individuals who are bonded by shared trauma in their past and a continued affection for one another. Their lives are stressful. Their duties and responsibilities take precedence over everything. Therefore, they can't commit to one another in traditional ways.

All they can give one another is themselves, in a physical, intimate sense, and so they do. They know it's futile, that it's a consolation prize for everything they wish they could have, but the galaxy is on fire, he belongs to the Order, and she belongs to Mandalore. If all they can have is a sliver of one another and they're both consenting adults who trust each other, then.. why not?

The exploration of this is a big part of "Asphodel," and I think I do a pretty good job of keeping it from being completely gratuitous (there's some because - oh noes! clutch your pearls - not all sex needs to be a spiritual experience; sometimes, you can have dirty, filthy fucking with someone you love, respect, and trust, and that's totally fine and normal, too) because I spend a lot of time living in these imaginary characters' heads, diving into their thoughts and how their physical relationship has both pros and cons to it.

Is that unhealthy? I suppose I'd need to know what your barometer of health looks like.

Personally, I think reading my excerpts instead of scrolling on (or, as I suggested above, filtering out the hashtags for my fic titles) and then sending me an anonymous message is pretty unhealthy.

ANYHOW.

[jngles]

Thoughts You Definitely All Asked For on ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 2 Finale!!

These are in chronological order for the show.

One of my biggest fears about them reintroducing Boba Fett was that by removing some of his mystery, they would make him less cool. Thank god that has not been the case. He’s still an aloof and nasty piece of work but with dimensions added.

We all know the Empire is most often a metaphor for America right? At least when it’s not being Nazi Germany? The Imperial pilot talking about destroying an entire planet (of peaceful weaponless civilians no less) to stop terrorism hits a little too close to home of the nuclear bombs the US has dropped and the endless destruction of the Middle East in the “war against terror.” And of course we frame all our wars in similar language like “our troops died to keep our country safe,” which hasn’t really been true since WWII.

I do think it’s worth noting that this is the first time SW has had someone acknowledge the human losses of the Death Star blasts. Usually it’s framed as a loss in construction time, strategical advantage, and power. The Empire proved time and time again that the lives of its soldiers were utterly expendable, which always made me question why people remained loyal outside of fear. Through this pilot’s phrasing, you can see the propaganda Imperial superiors used to twist the truth to their followers, always blaming those deaths on Rebel aggression instead of prideful Imperial neglect (I.e. not abandoning ship when there was still time) or even direct Imperial aggression like Operation Cinder where they fired on thousands of their own (discussed in S2E7.)

You can’t tell me Din wasn’t into it when Cara shot that asshole pilot. That cold faced revenge shot? 100% Mandalorian style, and also very very hot.

I appreciate that it was a pretty equal match between Boba and Koska Reeves. So much of Boba’s advantage comes from his suit, but since she also has one, it’s a battle of wits on how to use it, and they even out. This both maintains his legendary badassery and also that of highly trained Mandalorian warriors, and hopefully avoids asshole chauvinist SW fans on the internet complaining abujt “pandering to feminism” (fuck off @ all of them, especially since Mercedes Vernado who plays Reeves is a WWE champ and could kick all of your asses.)

Din point blank asked how many Death Troopers there are and Dr. Pershing never answered, and that annoys me.

Why is no one suspicious why Dr. Pershing is being so helpful and revealing so much information? He totally did not have to tell them about the Dark Troopers or any of the specifics of locations on the ship. He’s still with the empire post-fall, implying he’s a loyalist, so... wtf on his part (since no tricks come of it), and “be smarter” on the part of everyone else. Unless he’s been captive as a clone engineer all this time. But couldn’t he have made his escape back in Season 1 when Din killed everyone at that lab to get the kid back?

Bo Katan really could’ve just told them how the retrieval of the dark saber needs to work in the flight before the mission instead of being vague about “he belongs to me.”

Boba Fett’s usage of “Princess” and “don’t worry about me” are a good throwback to Han Solo and the culture they both grew up in. You can never quite tell if it’s based in misogyny or resentment for upper classes, but both of them seem to use it as a shield for begrudging respect they hold for a woman they think is brave but following a fool’s errand (the Rebellion and retaking Mandalore).

The Comms Officer (Katy O’Brian) assisting Moff Gideon will forever and always look like Ilana Glazer to me, and then I get swept up imagining what would happen if the Broad City cast accidentally got transported to Star Wars.

The launch tube sequence has some amazing cinematography.

The second I saw Boba was cut off from the pack, I really thought they were going to kill him again and make his return bittersweet. Glad they didn’t.

God this team of Bo Katan, Koska Reeves, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune is SO BADASS. I’m just obsessed with all these characters and their various motivations to get shit done. I honestly didn’t even think about the fact it’s all women until my re-watch, showing that the writers made it feel natural, the way women deserve to have their representation done. You can bet I am SO EXCITED for my future daughter and the wealth of possibilities she’s going to have of characters to play pretend as, action figures she can relate to, Halloween costumes to wear, etc. It’s so validating that we’ve gone from only Princess Leia as a female main character to all these women + Rey, Jyn Erso, Ahsoka, etc. etc.

Can’t wait for the trap remix of the Dark Trooper activation noises. (And the transition from that to the minimalist flute theme is perfect.)

The spy movie version of the main theme music is sick.

The Dark Trooper droid faces have a lot of similarity to Darth Vader’s mask. That callback is especially apparent when the one is literally lit from the inside with fire. He was already a martyr/legend to the Imperial remnants, Kylo Ren didn’t start the trend of ignoring his redemption.

Cara’s “excuse me” right before shooting up Stormtroopers is hilarious. Literally “can’t talk rn, doing hot girl shit and murdering space Nazis.”

Finally an Imperial ship got some frickin security cameras. Truly- the amount of times people just wander down hallways they’re not supposed to be in with no one being able to find them throughout the course of Star Wars is ridiculous when you think about the degree of surveillance our real life society carries out. I also love that this means The Mandalorian characters have also seen The Mandalorian.

The storytelling does such a service to Pedro Pascal and his already heroic efforts to portray emotion through a helmet. For example: Din easily could’ve killed the one stormtrooper outside Grogu’s cell much more efficiently, but instead, to show his absolute rage, they wrote in Din choking him out with a spear.

Moff Gideon would have been the BIGGEST pain in the ass in philosophy class. “Assume I know everything” my ass. I want to hear about his backstory (he would’ve been “coming of age” at the time of the Clone Wars) mostly just to hear about him getting bullied at school.

Smart move honestly, to try to tempt Din with the Mandalorian throne, given the Mandalorian power struggles of the past. Proud of our boy for keeping his priorities straight.

So has the blood from Grogu been transferred out of the ship and back to the remnant empire already, or do they have to find a new “donor” to help with building Snoke and Palpatine’s clones? Will they continue to go after him with Luke?

Lmao Din being so annoyed by Bo Katan being stringent about the tradition of winning the Dark Saber through combat is HILARIOUS, coming from a man who up until like a day ago hadn’t shown his face to a living being in decades.

The dark troopers can punch in blast doors but NOT Din’s helmet?? That’s a wild testament to beskar. Somehow that’s the comparison that sticks out to me, more even than its resistance to lightsabers.

This show works because of the cynicism of so many characters adding contrast to the moments of heart. Cara Dune is not a “fan” the way Rey was (for the record I love Rey, don’t come at her, it’s just different). Cara doesn’t see an X-Wing and go OMG THE REBELLION I LOVE THEM. She’s been through too much to believe in the magic saviourism of the “good guys,” and is instead thinking strategically when she, the one Rebel present, brushes off the usefulness of “one X-Wing.” The only positive things she seems to feel in battle situations are moments of relief and brief satisfaction in hurting the empire, with a dark knowledge that it will never make up for the hurt they did to her.

How do you keep a cloak hood on while fighting? Both from a technical standpoint (my hats fall off without me even having to move- is he expending force energy just to keep it on and look cool lol?) and also because idk, maybe it’s just me, but peripheral vision is helpful when surrounded by killer robots on a thin bridge above oblivion. I know his first lesson was to “see” through the force, but every resource helps, right?

Now that she has the ship, I wonder if Bo Katan can reprogram any salvageable Dark Troopers to help with retaking Mandalore?

There is nothing like seeing Luke’s fighting style, with its efficient choppiness and twinge of darkness. I always wonder how much is natural and how much is influenced by his first fights with Vader (that Skywalker diva flair). I love how they’ve advanced his technique but also kept him extremely “grey” here- like to straight up COMBUST a Dark Trooper takes some violent energy lol.

How tf is Moff Gideon alive after threatening Grogu’s life twice directly? That’s a wild testament to Din’s regard for Cara.

I love how seeing Luke slice through a bunch of murder droids like butter probably was a huge point in his favor for Din actually letting Grogu go with him. Like he will only send his child to boarding preschool if he knows the teacher will be a certified killing machine.

Oh my god they finally brought in some OG Star Wars theme music for Luke to take his hood off to 😭 It felt weird seeing him fight to different music, so the emotional payoff is huge when his themes come back for the face reveal.

Whoever added the digital young Mark Hamill face NAILED those classic shining Luke eyes and the earnest eyebrow lift.

Whoever shines the glass of Baby Yoda’s lil puppet eyeballs each day deserves a raise. The light caught in those babies is devastating.

Din is shaking as he takes off his helmet. This is the most enormous show of love he could give him, and possibly the last he’ll be able to for a long time. He only just got Grogu back and is desperate for a moment of real connection before letting him go once again.

This is the first time anyone has touched Din’s face since... likely his parents as a child.

Whoever wrote this scene clearly actually has kids. Anyone who’s ever had to leave a young child even just to go out for a bit or to drop them off somewhere knows that heartbreak of seeing them look in your eyes and hold on to your leg, trying to keep you with them. Especially when they can sense your mutual separation anxiety. The one thing that starts to make them feel better is something fun like a new toy or friend who can be their guide in the new environment, and R2’s friendly introduction is exactly that (since digital Luke isn’t being particularly emotive or child friendly... I hope that’s just because he’s reaching into Grogu’s mind while also keeping an eye on the multiple people with guns trained on him, not because he’s going to be totally unfeeling raising this kid.)

I love that Grogu and R2 are immediately buddies in contrast to Episode 5 when R2 was like “fuck this guy” @ Yoda stealing food and hitting him with a walking stick lol. I would imagine Luke must be reminded of that first introduction too and entertained by this display of playfulness in a *positive* light between R2 and mini-Yoda.

I need to know if Luke and Ahsoka have met- it is KILLING ME.

Does this mean Grogu will get killed by Kylo Ren when he fucks up Luke’s academy??? I will reincarnate Ben just to kill him again if that’s the case.

How does Luke not even fully SMILE at Grogu?? An adorable little baby version of his beloved master Yoda, and you’re telling me he doesn’t have the same heart stopping gasp we all did when we first saw him?? Maybe he did when they first connected through the force. He has a bit of bemusement on his face, and also wonder in his eyes, but I want a grin of recognition and welcome, dammit.

I really wish Luke had somehow acknowledged Cara Dune. Everyone else seems to see the tear drop Rebel sign and know it means Alderaan. He could’ve been like yo I have a badass warrior sister from your planet that you should meet. Or just “thank you for your service.” (I know this actually wouldn’t have been cinematically good but my heart wants it.)

Luke didn’t tell Din his name?? Or ask for any details about the kid and his care?? I could literally never let my kid go with someone, regardless of how worthy, and not be like, “Excuse me sir who are you and where tf are you taking my tiny beloved green goblin in case I need to find him? Here is my contact info. He likes to eat frogs and eggs, and he can have macarons as a treat. He’s 50 years old and his favorite toy is still a ball. Bedtime is 8pm and he’s allergic to dairy.”

Another reason I wish Luke had identified himself would be to see the mishmash of reactions that would ensue. Cara would be like DAMN IT’S THAT GUY WHO BLEW UP THE DEATH STAR AND KILLED THE EMPEROR, ACT COOL (and she would indeed act cool). Fennec would be like ugh it’s that guy who helped kill my best paying client Jabba the Hutt and then fucked over my boss Boba, I helped save the kid for THIS? And I would LOVE to know how Bo Katan feels about him, assuming she’s heard of him, and especially if she knows he’s Anakin Skywalker’s son. That confusion is probably the reason WHY the writers didn’t have him reveal himself- they didn’t want to break the emotion of the scene.

Let‘s all be real I’m just being needy about wanting things from Luke because of what he meant to me as a kid and my resulting innate need to have more canon of him, whatever it is, whenever I can get it. Especially in this form that’s so similar to ROTJ, a movie I watched on endless repeat. Even getting this was incredible though. Who else could we trust this lil heart-stealing green bean with so fully? Yet who would be so arrogant as to try to train a baby yodling (see: Ahsoka’s wise refusal)?

R2 is reckless as hell lmao. Not that we don’t already know that, but for him to just head on in, effectively abandoning Luke’s ship (how can they know if there are more troopers or not who might blow it up?) and also putting himself in the path of the ridiculously deadly Dark Troopers is NUTS. I’m usually on his side but he absolutely deserves a scolding by C3PO for this one.

I wonder if Grogu has any memories of R2 or vice versa since they did occupy the Jedi Temple at the same time. Can Grogu understand droids? They could swap stories about mutual acquaintances.

Does Din pretty much have to go with Bo Katan now since a) he’s shown his face and may not be able to go back to the Watch, and b) because he has the darksaber and has to figure out how to get it back to her without dying?

How in the hell did Bib Fortuna (whose chins age was not kind to) go from being butler to being boss? Were all the henchmen just like, “Fuck yeah, no Hutt parents no rules, let’s do what we want!!” And then they’ve spent the last ten years living off of whatever money they could salvage from Jabba’s non-banked wealth? Why has no one challenged them for that prime real estate and loot? I would love to hear that story.

Fennec Shand says “respect sex workers” so you better fuckin’ do it.

Idk dude Bib Fortuna really was a good butler, and he seemed pretty willing to comply with whoever’s in power. Did he screw Boba over in his attempt to return from the dead and earn that killing shot somehow? Or was this to make sure there was no one left who would have a claim to loyalty? Or maybe Boba just really wanted to sit in that chair.

Does “The Book of Boba Fett” mean we’re not on Din Djarin’s story anymore? Or is it a new show? I would much prefer the latter. I want to see Din help retake Mandalore or at least get a hug.

[writer1]

A Shared Curse

Part 2

Tears fill the blue eyes that stare at Rex, who can't believe what he's seeing. Anakin whines, crouching down to try to appear shorter. Rex notices that his right arm is just a stump, the cybernetic must have fallen off.

Rex just stares, making Anakin think that he hates him. He squeezes his eyes shut, turns and darts off. Rex snaps out of his shock, screaming at Anakin.

"Anakin! Wait!" Rex wants to run after him but Kanan stops him.

"What is going on! Why did you call that monster Anakin?" Kanan doesn't understand but Sabine quickly explains.

"Anakin turned into that after the other one bit him, he's something called a werewolf. I remember hearing the legends as a child on Mandalore." Kanan can sense the truth in her words, his eyes widen.

"Anakin isn't the only one, I'm one too." Both Sabine and Kanan turn to Rex as he starts to explain everything. They listen intently.

×××

"So you're a werewolf but Anakin doesn't know." Kanan tries to clarify, trying to believe what his friend has just told him. Rex nods.

"Yes. I was too scared to tell him, I never thought that he'd get turned into one too. Now he probably thinks that I hate him." Rex feels so much guilt, maybe if Anakin had known he wouldn't have ran.

Or he would have known what the creature was and would have been more careful. Rex looks around, noticing that Anakin's cybernetic arm is on the ground.

"Rex, you go get Anakin. I'll comm everyone to get back to the ship, that werewolf is still out there, Sabine, you head back to the ship and see if you can find any of the others on your way." Sabine nods

On it." She leaves, but not before grabbing Anakin's lightsaber and cybernetic arm from the ground.

"Okay, can you take my armor back. I'm going to transform, it'll be easier to find Anakin." Kanan nods and Rex starts stripping of his armor, he gets ready to transform, taking his shirt off.

"You can leave now if this'll freak you out."

"I'd like to see exactly what we're up against, besides you're still my annoying friend when you're like that, right?" Rex gives Kanan a smile, he's thankful that this hasn't ruined the friendship that was so hard to have.

Rex concentrates for a few seconds, instantly groaning when he starts to feel that familiar discomfort. He kneels down as he transforms, his body growing bigger, bones rearranging. His voice grows deeper everytime he groans.

Fur sprouts all over his body, all grey except for a few specks of white and a big section of white on his snout where his beard usually is. He stretches his body out like a cat as he stands up straight, tail swishing behind him. He turns to Kanan who looks shocked.

"Holy shit, you're huge." Rex chuckles, that was what Wolffe had said the first time he transformed.

"Yep, but you might want to warn everyone that there's going to be two werewolves returning, don't want any accidents." Kanan nods and Rex heads off to search for his Riddur.

He picks up his scent right away, his sense of smell is much better, so is his hearing. Rex runs on all fours, trying to get to his Riddur as soon as possible.

He comes to a large cave, he can hear the sobs and whimpers of Anakin coming from inside it. Rex's ears press back against his head, he feels so bad that this happened to his Riddur.

Some people might be happy to have there love share the burden with them... But Rex could never be happy. He's still going to love Anakin no matter what, but he hates that he has to go through this too.

Rex slowly walks in, making sure his footsteps are loud as not to scare Anakin. The whimpers get louder as he comes to a boulder, it must have fallen from the ceiling of the cave. Anakin must be just behind it, Rex hears the whimpers quiet down some.

"Anakin!" He calls out, hoping that Anakin will recognize his voice.

"Go away!" Anakin yells back to Rex, he can't believe that this happened. Rex must think that he's a monster, he'll never love him again. For a moment he wonders why Rex's voice is deeper, but he's in too much distress to really think about it.

"Ani, it's okay, Cyare." Rex can hear in how freaked out and distressed he is in his voice, it's perfectly understandable.

Rex knows that Anakin isn't thinking straight or he would have asked why his voice was deeper too.

"It's not okay! Nothing is okay." Anakin yells, ending in a sob, Rex feels so much pain in his heart, he wishes that he could have protected Anakin from this.

"There's something I need to show you, Riddur. Can I please come over." Rex waits for a response, sitting against the one side of the boulder.

"No!" Rex sighs, he understands how Anakin is feeling. He acted just as bad when he first became a werewolf.

"Please. I promise that I won't be afraid of you, you aren't alone."

"Okay." Anakin whispers, he's tired of being alone, Rex probably wouldn't have heard it if he were human. He walks around the rock, making sure to be loud. He sees Anakin, who's hiding his face in his hand.

"Anakin. Can ya look please." Anakin shakes his head, he doesn't want to see the look of disgust on Rex's face. He feels Rex grab his hand, noticing that Rex's hand is bigger than it should be. He keeps his eyes shut, scared of seeing Rex's reaction. He knows that it's going to be bad.

"Ani, please look at me, cyare." Anakin hears the pleading tone in Rex's voice, he slowly opens his eyes, and they widen in shock. He quickly pulls his hand away and tries to scoot back, but hits the boulder. His ears press back against his head and he whimpers.

"Anakin! Calm down its me, Riddur. Shhh, it's me." Rex tries to comfort Anakin, reaching his hand out. But he just flinches away from Rex.

"You aren't Rex! Rex isn't a Werewolf." Anakn curls in on himself more, he's absolutely terrified. Rex's ears press against his head, he feels so guilty for scaring him.

"Ani, it's me. I promise, look at me, don't you see that it's me." Anakin turns to look at the Werewolf, his eyes widen as realization slowly dawns on him. He see's that the Werewolf is wearing Rex's pants and has white fur exactly where Rex's beard would be.

"Rex?" Anakin asks quietly and Rex breathes a sigh of relief, happy that Anakin recognizes him now. He nods, but Anakin starts freaking out, thinking that the same Werewolf that bit him bit his husband.

"R-Rex! What happened? Did the beast bite you too?" Rex shakes his head, trying to calm down his poor husband.

"No. No, it didn't. At least not that one."

"What?" Rex sighs, he hopes that Anakin doesn't hate him for lying. His ears press tightly against the back of his head again.

"I was bitten shortly after the purge Anakin." Anakin uncurls himself a little, looking at his husband.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was scared, I regret it now. I'm sorry." Anakin looks at Rex in confusion, he doesn't understand why Rex is sorry.

"Why are you sorry?"

"Maybe... Maybe if I had told you this wouldn't have happened." Anakin stands up, immediately wrapping Rex in a one armed hug. He wrap's his arms around Anakin, nuzzling into him.

"It's not your fault, Rex. You couldn't have known, I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you when you were bitten. I should have been there" Rex feels the tears as they wet his fur, Anakin is crying.

"Hey, at least you're here now. Although when I imagined telling you I never thought that you'd be a werewolf too." Rex chuckles nervously, making Anakin smile against his chest. They both sit down, Anakin still pressed against Rex's chest.

Rex brushes his fingers through Anakin's fur, it always used to comfort him before. Although it was his hair not fur, it does still work as he feels Anakin start to relax against him, sighing in content.

They then hear a thumping noise, making Anakin looks around in confusion.

"What the Kriff...?" Rex chuckles quietly.

"Ani, that's... That's your tail, Riddur." Anakin turns to look at it, glaring as if it's the most offensive thing in the Galaxy, making Rex chuckle more. He pulls Anakin closer, nuzzling into him.

"We're going to need to make you a new cybernetic for while you're like this." Rex whispers as Anakin chuckles.

"I'm not sure if that's possible, it'd be to hard to attach it while I'm like this." Rex nods, wishing that he could kiss his husband. And resisting the urge to lick him. Stupid wolf instincts, he thinks to himself before nuzzling Anakin again.

"I love you, Ani, more than anything. You ready to head back to the ghost, the other Wolf could still be out here." Anakin pulls away, standing up and nodding nervously, he doesn't really want anyone to see him like this. Rex places a finger under his chin, lifting it so that he's looking at him

"Hey, I'll be with you the whole time. You aren't alone." Anakin musters a small smile, he'll be fine as long as he has Rex right beside him.

They head out of the cave together, finding their way back to the ghost. Suddenly there's a crack of a stick and Rex freezes.

"Ani freeze! We aren't alone!" Rex gets into a battle stance, the wolf comes out of some bushes. Anakin also gets into a battle position, wishing that he had his lightsaber right now, even if he's unsure that he'd be able to use it in this form. Anakin knows one thing, this isn't going to end well.

Tagging: @captainrexisboo @ahsokatano-thetogruta @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life