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valkblue · 2 years

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Lost and Found - Episode 8

"Tales of Clan Mudhorn" series

Word Count: 27k Pairing: None Rating: General Summary: POV Din + OC + The Child — When you reach Tython, Tython reaches you too... Warnings: ...more ✨Space Travel 🪐, angst, thriller style, hallucinations, childhood traumas...

A/N: This chapter takes right after the end of previous one, after the emergency exit of hyperspace. This chapter is more angsty than all the others but I hope you'll like it too. Also, this chapter is the last of Part One. And I'm really hoping you're enjoying the story so far. Part Two is in the work. (I already have a few illustrations ready for it, even! 👀)

BONUS: I offer a drawing to those who guess who's the guest 'appearance' in the last scene! 👍 (No joke, I'm really offering.)

— The Jedi Planet

Krrsssh-trshhhk !

The control panel of the cabin door, forcefully opened, spat a bunch of yellow and white sparks at Din's visor, rivaling with the light from his helmet spot lamp. The power surge had damaged a few components that apparently were still receiving enough power from the auxiliary source to add to the challenge of opening the cabin door.

With a grunt, Din pried open the door by hand again. It creaked, like a balky dewback, but finally slid open a little, enough for Din to see that the whole ship had gone dark. Not that he expected otherwise…

"Ela!" He called again in his helmet's comlink and through gritted teeth — it couldn't be a good sign that she didn't pick up. "Do you copy?! Anton!"

She was with him when he had left the galley, so maybe he could answer for her! With these thoughts in mind, Din didn't lessen his effort to open the door, which creaked again without opening more than a few centimeters — something must have jammed it. Din jumped to his feet and tried to squeeze himself through the narrow space he had already managed to open; his armor pieces scraped against the frame and thickness of the door, but with a little extra push and no grace, he managed to extract himself out of the cabin with just a few painful grunts. Din almost stumbled as he stepped out of the doorway but he caught himself with both hands on the edge of the door.

Finally free, he wasted no more time and walked up the circular hallway to the galley and lounge by the light of his lamp.

"Ela!" He called again, raising his voice as much for the comlink as to be heard in the hallway. "Anyone?!"

One of the lights in the corridor crackled as he walked by, in a vain attempt to restart, but it went out shortly after. The ship wasn't as large as the Bold Sister or the Long Storm, and all the amenities were not so far apart, so Din soon reached the galley side. He avoided a tray and two metal bowls on the floor as the beam of his spotlamp revealed Anton's collapsed form. A small, nervous but familiar squeak made him turn his head to the left where he found Elara, and the child was holding the thumb of her hand stretched out to him. He blinked his large eyes against the lamp light, his ears low and with another sad sound.

Din got down on one knee to feel his little head and ears; he didn't look hurt, just scared. Then he turned to Elara, pushing her hair away from her face. He rolled her on her back, holding her head carefully.

"Ela, can you hear me?"

He put her head down, and when he touched her cheek, his glove left the bloody imprint of his fingers on her

skin. Din gritted his teeth and checked the palm of his glove by the light of his lamp. In response, the child gave a long, anxious whimper.

"It's okay, kid," Din whispered, without turning to him and searching for Elara's pulse on her neck. "She's… just unconscious."

And he could feel it under his fingers, even through the thickness of his glove. Reassured, he turned to Anton; a large bloody gash ran across his forehead into his hair, but his pulse was strong too. Elara groaned and wiggled weakly on the floor.

Krrsssh-trshhhk! Sparks in the galley behind them splashed the dark for a spell, and Din shifted his focus back to Elara, changing knees.

"Hey, easy… You knocked your head pretty bad."

Words of support to which she groaned again, trying to bring a limp hand to her forehead without even opening her eyes.

"Wha—what happened?" she mumbled, jaw clenched.

And she rolled awkwardly to the side to try to stand up. Din supported her with firm hands.

"I think the ship made an emergency exit out of hyperspace."

"Why?!"

Of that, Din hadn't the faintest. Elara laid a trembling hand on his left pauldron on which she clenched her fingers, tensing all her muscles in an attempt to get up.

"C'mon." Din encouraged her, holding her by her arm and with a supporting hand behind her head. "Can you stand?"

"I'll have to…"

Din winced a smile as he helped her to her feet. She staggered into his arms, shielding her eyes from the harsh glare of his spot lamp and her focus turned to Anton.

"Is he alright?"

"I think so," Din confirmed. "A few cuts and bruises for what I see."

In response, Elara let out a weak, creaky groan, clasping her fingers tightly on his pauldron.

"We have to carry him to the medbay…"

"Ela, you—"

"We can't leave him here!"

Getting upset, panicking, made her lurch again and Din held her tight. He had no intention of leaving the gunner in the hallway; he just hadn't planned to involve Elara in this effort. Yet he didn't frustrate her resolve.

"Tell you what," he said to bring her focus back on him. "I'll lift him up, and you grab his legs."

She nodded with a painful frown, her hand, raised so far as a visor, found her bleeding wound at the back of her head. He walked her over to Anton's motionless form and turned him on his back to lift him under his arms with a little struggle. Once his weight was secured against his chestplate, Elara took hold of his ankles and secured them at her waist.

"You'll have to walk, kid," she mumbled to the child who was watching them quietly, out of their way.

He made a short, high-pitched chirp and took a few short steps after them towards the medbay, not far from the galley and lounge. The room was dark and some tools and equipment had been tossed around, but nothing that would trip them up. And, with less trouble than Din had first feared, they hoisted Anton onto one of the beds. He was finally waking up, judging by his low grunts and the nervous twitching of his fingers. Elara examined Anton's wounded forehead by the light of Din's spot lamp and then he bent down to pick up the child and place him in Elara's arms.

"I'm going to see how they are in the cockpit, and try to figure out what happened…"

Elara only nodded, still looking a little stunned.

"Ok, I—um… I'm stayin' here, with Gun."

Din stroked her arm in a supportive gesture and jogged out of the medbay towards the cockpit.

Space seemed peaceful and there were no planets visible through the circular viewport in the cockpit where TC was hovering around Neal and Ron, panicking that he couldn't contact any assistance. Neal was completely ignoring the droid as if he couldn't hear it, but turned towards the hatch when he heard Din's hurried footsteps and saw the beam of his lamp.

"Oh, Mandalorian, you are alright!" TC noticed, raising his two-coloured arms as he entered. "This is such a relief!"

Din nodded but it was to Neal and Ron that he asked :

"Is everyone okay ?"

Though obviously stunned, Neal also looked in much better shape than Ron, sitting in his chair and leaning forward to keep his head between his knees.

"We're fine, Mando. Just a little shaken…" Neal patted Ron's shoulder as a gesture of support and affection. "How are Ela and Gun? And the little one?"

"The kid is fine but we had to carry Anton to the medbay," Din told him, coming closer. "He was still unconscious when I left Elara with him."

He glanced around; anything not riveted in the cockpit had been scattered all over the place and the panel beside the open door crackled ominously.

"What happened?" Din then inquiered.

"We've been pulled out of hyperspace. Tessy, try to launch the auxiliary power…"

"At once, captain."

And the droid waddled over to the panel by the door.

"I think we've been caught in the Net…"

"The Net?"

Din had the confused feeling that he was supposed to know what Neal was talking about but it seemed to him that some of his ideas had been scattered around in the impact with the cabin wall despite his helmet already being back in place by the time the ship decelerated.

"The Imperial Hyperspace Security Net," Neal reminded him as he delved into the pockets of his jacket. "Oomil said we might stumble upon what's left of it…"

Indeed, Din remembered now. He peered out through the viewport without moving Ron's chair, who was groaning his discomfort; there was no sign of ships, beacons or starcrafts. Yet, barring a miscalculation that could have catapulted them into the gravitational field of a celestial body, nothing else could cause such an ejection than a technical failure of the ship or the hyperdive. And clearly, it was neither.

Click-click-clack. Behind Din's back, TC was unsuccessfully trying to redirect some power from the backup systems to the cockpit.

"What could have caused this?"

But Din didn't get an answer right away; Neal had whiped out a flat comlink from his inside jacket pocket and was trying to call the mechanic:

"Jox, come in!" — click — "Jox?"

"Yeah, yeah! Kinda busy at the moment, captain!"

Neal heaved a sigh of relief but it was Jox's voice that insisted, on the other end of the comlink:

"What the kriff did Ron do again?!"

But Ron still didn't seem in any condition to reply; he straightened up a little and glared at Neal who smiled briefly.

"Ron has nothing to do with it. Not this time. I think we've been interdicted, but there is no ship outside, nothing. How are things on your side?"

"Sparkly!" Jox retorted through comlink. "Whatever happened, the power system and hyperdrive didn't take the surge kindly."

Neal winced a silent word but let Jox continue:

"All in all, t'could have been way worse. The droid and I are already on it…"

"Can we jump, or do we need to switch on the backup hyperdrive?"

"No, no need," Jox promptly replied. "We'll just risk to blast the backup too. I'll just fix what fuses have blown and then, we're good to go."

"Ok," Neal then said. "I leave my link open, keep me updated."

And upon these words, the power returned to the entire cockpit in a reassuring hum; the indicator lights flashed on the dashboard and a few alerts pierced the near silence.

"Thanks, Jox!" Neal dropped again into the comlink that he pocketed back right after, without even waiting for an answer.

TC became agitated again as he took a step away from the panel and Din switched off his spot lamp to put it back in his utility belt.

"I regret to say that I'm not the cause of this improvment, captain!"

"It's alright, Tessy." Neal made his seat swivel to face the dashboard where he turned the warnings off. "Get back to your post, we're gonna bounce…"

Even Ron regained some of his composure to sit up straight, and face the viewport again. With a few switching of buttons and pushing of throttles, the engines started up again smoothly and the Riser glided slowly through the black of space at Ron's command as Neal recalculated their course.

"Incoming automated transmission, captain," TC chimed in again.

"What does it say?"

Click — TC switched the transmission to the speakers of the comms console. A dissonant droid's voice delivered its message flatly:

"… entered restricted Imperial space. Provide ISB identification number or you will be terminated."

Right away, TC added :

"Radar indicates several small crafts heading in our direction. Fast, I might add."

"Let's not give them time to see our names aren't on their special guest list," Neal joked through gritted teeth, focused on his maneuvers. "Ron, prepare the jump!"

"I'm tryin', but… I think we have a problem."

"How big a problem?" Neal asked.

On the control panel, Din could see that the ship's systems indicated that they were in the gravity well of a planet, making a jump impossible. Neal typed on the keyboard in disbelief.

"How?! We aren't even in a system!"

"Captain!" TC called. "Scanner indicates ten crafts closing in on our position. We will be swarmed in less than two minutes!"

Din gritted his teeth and glanced down the corridor towards the centre of the ship, and its gunwell, through the cockpit's open door.

"Dank farrik!" Neal barked. "And Gun is out! Mando, could you—"

But Din was already rushing to the gunwell that he reached in a few more strides. The gunwell was a tiny, narrow room at the center of which stood a single swivel seat facing a twin firing-grip and a transparisteel gunport. Din settled in the seat as the Riser picked up more speed, both feet on the pedals, and connected his helmet to the intra-ship communication system through the wired headset on the backrest, just in time to hear Neal state:

"Hold on tight everyone, it's gonna be bumpy!"

Through the gunport, Din spotted six of the crafts flying straight at them in an erratic, nervous flight that defied any organic pilot's ability — those were droid fighters. But even more alarming was where they came from; far enough away to look almost as small as a ship, Din could make out a station with three dome-like bulges at the top, similar to those on Interdictor-class ships.

"I know why we can't jump!" He shouted over the intra-com, grabbing both grips, fingers ready on the triggers.

"What?!" Neal exclaimed, as the ship swerved on its port wing, out of the fighters' line of fire — the chair's suspension dampened the turn, leaving Din's aim perfectly steady. "What is it?!"

"It's a gravity well station!" Din revealed, and he gritted his teeth as handling the gun stirred the pain in his left shoulder. "It's pinning us down, we can't jump while we're in its grip…"

Feet on the pedals, Din trained his gun on one of the droids before they were ready to fire while the other four droids TC had counted appeared on his laser scope before being visible through the gunport.

"Can you destroy it?!" Neal inquired.

One of the fighters fired, but the shots missed wide.

"Not with those cannons. It would take a much heavier firep—"

PEW PEW PEW! Din fired at the first of the droids to enter his scope, but missed; the craft rolled over before firing rapidly at the Riser. Soon, the others came into range too. The Riser dived under fire from the other droids and Din grunted against the pain in his shoulder as he straightened the twin-cannons at the closest drones. As soon as he had lined up another, he pressed the triggers.

PEW PEW PEW PEW!

Din only stopped firing when the lasers pierced the droid, sending it hurtling into the path of another — BOOM! Two down in one shot. But the other droids didn't slow their attacks to lament the destruction of the first two, dodging their debris with nimble moves that held their fire for only a second. It was enough for Din to line them up in his scope. Neal and Ron had increased the speed again and Din could feel his seat vibrating despite the dampers. He braced himself for another evasive action by the pilots when the nearest droids began firing again.

PEW PEW PEW PEW — CRACK!

The droids' snapshots brushed and hit the Riser in a blaze of sparks that Din saw through the gunport, his full focus on his scope, and the guns on his current target — BOOM! With a well-aimed round, Din blasted the droid. The others fanned out to avoid the debris and rained scarlet fire on the ship as Neal and Ron zigzagged out of their sights. Several shots hit the hull as Din tried to lock onto the droid that posed the most imminent threat.

"Shields won't hold much more, captain!" Jox's voice shouted over the intra-com. "We have to jump outta here!"

Din locked a droid in his scope — PEW PEW PEW!

"Doing our best right now!" Neal retorted. "We're still trapped in the well for another klick! Mando, can you hold up a lil' longer?!"

But Din was doing his best too. Without answering, he snapshot the droid that was firing at them while shifting his attacking stance; droids were much more difficult opponents in a dogfight, able to move faster, like no other pilots, and now Din was feeling overwhelmed. Still, he held good. And, his hands on the triggers, he caught the same droid again and managed to destroy it in a blast of red laser — BOOM!

And he kept firing at the remaining six droids, resetting his aim with each turn and dive of the Riser until Neal's voice clamored in their comms:

"Ok, we're out! Haul jets, now!"

Space and droids stretched in dazzling lines through the gunport, and with a familiar little jolt, the Riser jumped into hyperspace, engulfed by the tunnel of light. Din relaxed his arms, releasing the triggers and letting himself flop against the seat's backrest.

"WOOHOO!" Ron burst out on the comms. "That was somethin'!"

Relieved but also oddly out of breath, Din let out a chuckle; quite frankly, he was sharing Ron's enthusiasm, right now.

In Elara's arms, the child was much more calm now that they were out of danger, and that the ship was no longer shaking them either. When Neal had warned them to hold on, she had strapped a still unconscious Anton to his bed and, with the child clutched to her, she had curled up on the floor next to the bed's solid base.

The little one had squealed and whimpered with an anguish she had never known him before, even against the cold of Ontellar, which had only seemed to make him a little grumpy. And to tell the truth, she couldn't get out of her head what they'd read in Crent's articles and notes, and what he'd told them himself about the powers of the Jedi; perhaps this little one felt more intensely the danger that threatened them out there, and that all the turmoil and fear in the Riser was becoming his own?!

So, despite Neal and Ron's turbulent flight, despite everything that wasn't stored in drawers and lockers being tossed around, Elara had tried to keep herself calm, to manage to appease him. At least a little. And he had seemed receptive, even though he had kept his clawed little fingers tightly closed on her collar. And he had only let go when they were back in hyperspace.

With the child sitting on the large headboard equipped with various controls and devices, Elara had then turned her attention to Anton. He had been in and out for the last few minutes and, now that they had jumped into relative safety, she had plenty of time to take care of the gash on his forehead. A little spray of bacta and a patch of sticky gauze had been enough there. She had to scan his wrist too where he was bleeding a little from a cut across an already big bruise. Nothing broken according to the readings, but a nasty sprain that would need some rest in a tight dressing sleeve. Her treatments complete, she turned the switch on the headboard controls to dim the lamp above Anton.

"Hey, Sprinkles…"

Elara smiled.

"Finally awake?" She taunt him, on a tender tone.

He winced a painful smile and brought a heavy hand to his forehead and its bandage.

"How's the kid?"

And as an answer, the child chirped a soft trill as he leaned over Anton from the top of the headboard.

"He's fine." Elara chuckled. "Thanks to you."

"Hey, lil' bug…" Anton raised his arms to touch the child's ears but stopped himself halfway when he noticed the bandage on his wrist. "Oh, I really've been through it, hey?"

Elara winced and a sharp pain in the back of her head reminded her that she hadn't tended to her own injuries yet. With a cautious hand, she felt the crusty blood tugging at her hair.

"How are you, Gun?" Neal's voice inquired from the open door.

And he entered the medbay, followed by Ron, Jox and Din. Elara lowered her hand to the back of her neck; she would take care of that later.

"I'm good, captain." He sat up with the help of an elbow and a grunt. "What happened, anyway?"

"We've been pulled out of hyperspace by a gravity well station," Neal simply said.

Anton's face darkened like before one of his memorable bursts of anger.

"Those karkin' things are still up and runnin'…" He wasn't asking, it was an observation. "Any ship nearby?" How did we escape?!"

"Only droid fighters," Neal said, placatingly. "And Mando took care of them."

Anton glowered at Din but he had the hint of a smile in his beard and he bobbed his head, approvingly.

"And you took us out of it alive?"

A question to which Din nodded.

"Apparently."

A moment of tense silence stretched in the medbay and then, without warning, Anton laughed. He raised his injured hand to slap Din's arm and grunted at the wave of pain the stunt sent through his wrist.

"Good job, Mando." He rubbed the thick sleeve of gauze "Yeah, good job…"

Elara held back a smile, touched to see them get along.

"I can see why the Big Imps kept talkin' about takin' your planet, now."

"You served in the Imperial Navy?" Din understood.

Anton let out a short, muffled grunt as he shook his head.

"Gunner Bastra, 5th Artillery Regiment. Dishonorably discharged."

His tone was as proud as Elara knew him to be of that fact; serving on this capital ship almost drove him insane. And she heard his voice crack with anger and emotion when he added :

"Some time before the whole Alderaan mess…"

And he glanced at Neal, Elara and the kid, sitting quietly on the headboard touching the buttons within reach. In the general silence, Neal turned to Jox:

"Damage report?"

"A few scratches on the hull, nothing too serious, or that the droid won't fix as soon as we'd stop somewhere cozy. The power surge has caused quite a stress on the system too, but the droid and I are already on it."

"What about the hyperdrive?"

"Still a bit cranky but it'll hold. I'll fix what need fixing next time we're out but we'd be smart to go easy on it for the next jumps."

He grumbled a brief sound, similar to a ronto snort.

"How much more do we have to do?"

"We're up to three left but, it's four now, because of this exit," Ron recapped.

To what Neal added:

"Provided we won't get pulled out again. Ron, you should get some rest, I'll manage for a few hours with Tessy."

In response, Ron jumped off the edge of the second bed of the medbay, landing his feet back on the ground.

"Alright," he said. "Move along, then. And, Gun! Don't make your wounds worse this time, ok?"

In response, Anton raised his gauze-clad arm, and after a nod, Neal stepped out of the medbay, following Jox and Ron. Anton sat down on the edge of the bed as if to get off it, but turned to face the child, and flipped the regulator to increase the intensity of the light above the bed. The child looked up at him with big black eyes and a happy squeak.

"Fun, uh?"

Elara glanced at Din as he stood behind her back to examine the wound on her head; she bit her lip to hold back a complaint as he parted strands of hair from her scabs. And his vocoder let out a low, muffled grunt as he reached up to rummage through one of the supply lockers beside the bed. She wondered then if he too had been injured in the deceleration, or if his shoulder was simply still hurting.

"So, Mando…" Anton broke the silence. "How d'you like my rocker?"

"It's a nice one."

Anton barked a laugh.

"A nice one?!"

Elara grinned at Din's visor. She could tell he was smiling too when he added, on a casual tone:

"Yeah. Very comfy."

Anton laughed some more.

"I know, right?!"

Din put some gauzes on the shelf where Elara had left the torn flimsi wrappers and rested a gloved hand on the back of her head.

"Don't move."

But Elara had no intention to. Soon, she felt the cold spray of bacta wetting her hair and wound. She winced at the stinging sensation and the cold drops sliding down her neck.

"This is, by far, the nicest station I've ever had the pleasure to slot my exhaust port in… And what about the guns, Mando?!"

Elara snorted at Anton's excitment but also to know that if Din was feeling comfortable enough, he'd be more than loquacious on the subject of ships and their armament. Behind her, Din stopped the spray and put it on the tray.

"I mean, they're CEC standard-issue but pretty sharp, right?" Anton went on.

He shrugged as Din patted Elara's shoulder to signal that he was done with treating her.

"I bet you had to punch those droids a few time before they went down, though ! Those cannons are just big blasters next to the shockers I had to handle on that karking destroyer…"

Anton brushed his beard, looking gloomy but his tone was still rather light as he added:

"With turbolasers like that, you could punch through deflector shields and some pretty heavy defensive layers, like on armored spaceships, y'know?"

Elara watched Din's reaction but he just nodded.

"It cuts through pirates like, uh… like, um… hmm…"

His voice quavered and he furrowed his thick eyebrows, clearing his throat, and his whole face went white as his mood darkened. And he said nothing more, watching the grey ground beneath their feet. Elara laid a comforting hand on his arm.

"I honestly wouldn't know where to begin to use that station like you do, brothers!" she said. "I only know how to handle blasters. So, I take your word for it!"

And Din added of his own accord, in that soft, calm voice that Elara knew so well, even though he kept his tone casual:

"They are great guns even for a standard-issue. Very responsive."

This comment seemed to sweep away the storm in Anton's mind; he raised his head, his blue eyes still a little reddened, but he smiled.

"Yeah! And I told Neal they could be even better with a few adjustments but Jox won't let me touch his tools! Can you believe that?!"

Din bobbed his head, neither affirmative nor negative. Anton nodded vigorously and jumped to his feet with confidence, even though he held on tightly to the edge of the bed for a second longer. Then, he put a large hand on Elara's and turned to the kid; he took him at arm's length. The kid burst into happy laughters.

"Mind if I take this lil' guy for a spin?"

He smiled wide at the child who chirped a few quiet sounds, ears up.

"Just to peek at hyperspace through the gunport for a few minutes," he added. "I'll even have the headset on, if you need to ring and check on him."

He glanced at Elara and then Din with an uncertain, almost shy look that she was discovering him.

"Sure, why not," Din agreed.

And Anton nodded, with a deep breath as he tucked the child comfortably into his big arms.

"You'd like to come visit the ship with me, buddy?"

The child squeaked in joy.

"Take it easy, you two," Elara told them, tenderly.

"Of course!"

Elara stroked one of the child's small hands, resting on his bandaged arm. And she stepped aside to let them leave the medbay. Din came and stood beside her.

"Did he tell you what happened to him when he served?"

Elara winced with a brief shrug and crossed her arms.

"Barely. I know a few things, but he never goes in depth. He just says something, and then…"

She gritted her teeth and shared a knowing look with Din who nodded.

"Thanks for the bacta." She pointed to her head with her thumb. "I already feel better."

Din nodded again, and she knew he was smiling behind his visor.

The next hours of travel went by without any more emergency exits, just the six others they knew they had to expect. According to Jox, the hyperdrive had groaned a little but took it bravely. Meaning that it would need some maintenance as soon as they'd land. But for now, they finally were on a steady sublight course to Tython.

Around the standard lunchtime, Din and Elara had taken the kid for a snack in the ship's lounge area. There, Din had settled down with the datapad a little aside, sitting on one of the swivel seats next to the engineering station's console, whose faint, regular flashes had a soothing effect. He had begun to review all the information they had annotated about Tython while Elara shared a large bowl of Mon Cal food with the child, humming a few songs she had heard and learned from him and the other Mandalorians in the stronghold. She was sorry she couldn't remember the words, but according to Din, that was for the better; some of them were rather rude.

Ron, Jox and Anton had eventually joined them after a little rest to finally take the time to enjoy a meal, free of the stress of the last few hours. And once his mind was lighter, Ron's talkative and cheerful nature had taken over. And at this point, he had started to boast about his feats at the academy and the trickiest starfighter maneuvres he had learned there.

"And that's when Tidas and Umaar tried their Gandder's Spin too, but later my wingman and I went for an Under Split, and they just couldn't evade that!"

Din had a faint smile; it was indeed a rather complex maneuvre, dangerous even. Especially for the leader. Standing between the table and the console to take advantage of the space to stroll and stretch her legs, Elara asked, curious:

"And what's an under split exactly?"

"Ah, blast…" Anton grumbled, with as much humour as genuine annoyance. "Don't ask him things like that, Elak! He won't shut up again!"

He reclined against the backrest with a grunt, and taking his cutlery out of his bowl, the leftovers of which he had given to the child. Ron took no offence at all at this comment, smiling broadly, and answered Elara's question:

"It's one very dangerous tactical maneuver, one that requires the leader to know and have full control of his craft…"

He paused as Neal came through the cockpit corridor and crossed the lounge to the galley, not saying a word but paying attention. Ron ran a hand over his short curls, one of his legs under the lounge table beating out a relentless rhythm that only he could hear before continuing, using his hands to mimic the flight of two ships:

"You need two crafts for that. Lead man is taking all the heat to act as a bait and while wingman shot away… You have to trust your wingman and his reflexes on this one!"

He made sure Elara was listening, and even Din, before going on, over the sounds of the autochef's engine from the galley:

"Once your enemy took the bait, you spin and avoid all shots as best you can, and that's the sweatiest place to hold in that tactic! But then, wingman reverses up hard and takes position behind your attacker…"

He used his hands again, flapping them in place to illustrate.

"Or under, and then — PEW PEW PEW!"

And he used both hands to imitate the blast of an explosion — boom! — before letting them fall flat on the table, almost startling the child, who perked up his ears with a surprised sound. Anton chuckled and placed his injured arm behind the kid, as if to keep him from falling off the edge of the table. Neal was coming back to them with a bowl from which he had already taken a spoonful of its contents, and stopped beside Elara.

"Did that trick a few time, as leader and wingman, and never a drop of sweat! Takes more than that to scare me, in fact…"

"Says the one who's scared out of his wits by corellian hounds," Neal taunt him.

"Have you seen those things up close?!"

Anton laughed even more and Neal smiled as he turned to Din and asked, in that same conversational tone:

"What are your plans once we land on Tython? Do you know where you have to go out there exactly? Will we have to do some exploration?"

If there was any exploring to do, and Din thought there would be, he intended to do it on his own.

"I have a few leads." He tapped the edge of the datapad case with his index finger. "But, if there is need of exploring, I thought of using my jetpack."

He bobbed his head.

"But I have a limited amount of fuel in it."

Neal cracked a brief smile.

"A chance that there's plenty for a few spins in the shuttle over there, then."

With a nod, he motioned to one of the corridors. And this information made Din raise his eyebrows and straighten up a little in his seat.

"You have a shuttle?"

"Of course!" Neal scoffed. "C'mon. Let me show you."

He took another spoonful of the content of his bowl before handing it to Ron as he passed by the table. He received it with a hungry cheer and took a generous spoon of it as if it were his own bowl. Din got up and followed Neal and Elara into the corridors after a glance at the kid, perfectly at ease in Ron and Anton's care.

"It's the one from the Riser 1," Neal explained them, as they made their way to the port side. "We barely used it and never as an escape pod, thankfully! So, it was in perfect condition. No need to change it."

He stopped in front of a wider and thicker hatch than the cabin and cockpit doors. With a press on the side panel, he opened the door on a relatively narrow space at the end of which stood a switched-off piloting station under a viewport similar to that of the gunwell and cockpit, and behind which the black of space slid at the speed of the ship. Added to that, one piloting seat and two other seats on each side of the bulkhead. Not much else, but still much more than any other escape pods. Neal sidestepped to let Din peek inside.

"There's an honest shielding and quite powerful thrusters, onboard communication and flight control systems, and you can switch in automated landing too without even bothering to be at the controls."

Din hoped he wouldn't need this. Neal patted one of his pauldron to invite him to enter with him and, once inside, he slapped an overhead locker with his hand.

"Medpack's in there, toolbox too and the usual electronic spare parts for the dashboard. Also, a few dry rations."

Despite all these encouraging features, Din had some concerns to which he gave voice:

"Are you sure there will be enough fuel in it for me to scout a continent?"

He glanced anxiously at Elara, who stood in the shuttle's entrance. Neal shrugged and thrust his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket with the company logo.

"If you were to make an entry in the planet's atmosphere, no ! It would burn half of it, if not more. But the Riser will do that for you, so you can disengage in the blue to save fuel, and fly by like with any airspeeder. Not exactly standard issue on a YT, but I like to keep my mobility, you see?"

Din nodded.

"And should you wind up stuck somewhere, we'd come to get you, of course."

He had a brief laugh, and then asked:

"Sounds good to you, Mando?"

It did. And in fact, it was near perfect, actually! Even though he hoped he wouldn't need all that. But he had no time to express his gratitude that Ron's voice shouted from the corridor:

"Hey, captain!"

And almost a second after, he was beside Elara at the shuttle's entrance.

"Tee says we're here!"

At these words, Din gritted his teeth and clenched his fists on the datapad.

"Well, Mando, what d'you say we get accointed with your mysterious planet, now?"

Through the viewport loomed the crescent of a large greenish planet, ensnarred in a ring of thick clouds; Crent's records spoke of two moons but only one was visible at the angle of their arrival. TC was at the controls and Anton turned with the child in his arms as they entered the cockpit.

"Hope you know where you need to go, Mando!" He greeted them with. "'Cause it looks like one big planet!"

Elara glanced at Din who didn't reply and continued to walk forward, gazing at the planet through the bay as Ron took his place beside TC who informed them:

"The planet matches the navicomputer's recent additions, but there is no signal from the surface or any spaceport to contact to assure a safe landing, captain."

"Yeah, guess not." Neal patted one side of the backrest. "Thank you, Tessy. Now move, I'm taking over."

"Of course, captain."

And TC easily pulled himself out of the seat where Neal immediately settled down. He and Ron steered the Riser on a sharper curve towards Tython.

"So, where to, Mando?" He asked.

Elara turned her attention away from the planet to check the notes she and Din had made on the datapad he'd given her on the way out of the shuttle; his priority was one of those nameless temples — or rather, its ruins — nestled deep in a mountain on a continent described as lush and vast. But Elara doubted they should trust these outdated descriptions; Oomil had told them that the place had been classified as barren by the Empire, of more recent memory.

"Go around this continent," Din requested, with a move of his hand towards the viewport, and the planet through it. "I don't have geopositional data. All I know is that the place I'm looking for first should be on the northern coast of a large continent…"

"They all look very big, Mando!" Ron bantered.

And Elara rather agreed with him; the two halves of the visible continents on this crescent of planet seemed to extend beyond its daylight curve. The Riser pushed on, closing in on the blue halo that encompassed Tython until they could make out the most prominent landforms, the intensity of the blue of the seas and oceans that bordered the continents and the peaks of some of the mountains that clawed at the clouds.

"The mountains I'm looking for should be near a sea," Din told them. "With wide inlets, in the shape of claw marks…"

A moment of silence stretched in the cockpit.

"I'm afraid nothing here seems to fit your description, Mandalorian," TC broke the silence.

Din nodded, and the tension in his voice wasn't lost on Elara when he replied:

"Maybe it's on the night side right now…"

"We're going in, and take a closer look," Neal then said. "Ron, prepare the entry."

Ron and Neal busied themselves on the dashboard and overhead panel before steering the Riser into Tython's atmosphere. The entry was smooth and they let the ship continue its course along the planet, sinking into the night speckled with the alarming glow of a volcano and its lava flow freezing in the sea. While the continents were vast, they were not very lush. From what they could see in the night, the place seemed indeed barren and even downright hostile.

"I hope that ain't the place, Mando," Anton grumbled.

A remark to which Neal mumbled, careful:

"Actually, this rock doesn't look inhabited at all…"

"I have a bad feeling about this place," Ron muttered too.

And quite frankly, so did Elara. She glanced at Din, whose attention hadn't wavered from the planet and its features through the viewport. His silence seemed to weigh heavier, accompanied by that of everyone in the cockpit — even the child was unusually quiet. The ship continued for several more kilometers until the night became clearer and revealed more of its rugged landscape.

"Here!" Elara exclaimed, and she pointed at the broken coastline to the north of the continent, at the foot of a mountain range that stretched in icy spikes into lands that looked burnt. "Look, the claws!"

"This could be the place," Neal admitted. "Mando, what do you think?"

His question was initially met with silence, Din's focus not event shifting from the broken landscape through the viewport.

"We have to find you a safe place to land first," he finally said in answer.

"But… we can land just here," Neal replied, puzzled and with a move of one hand towards a ashy plain spiked with burnt-looking trees. "There is a perfec—"

"No." Din cut him short. "I don't know what dangers, or defenses to expect around a place like this other than the feral species your cartographer talked about. I'll go on my own… so if anything happens, you can bail safely out of here."

Elara let her gaze fall on him, but she wasn't surprised that he gave her the impression to ignore it. Neal, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to voice his opinion:

"You don't make all that 'lil trip and place sound very reassuring, so… I'm fine with your strategy."

Elara drew a sharp breath in, and only then Din tilted his helmet towards her, and she could perfectly picture his eyes casting a sheepish glance at her behind his visor. Yet, neither he nor she said anything.

"The shuttle is yours," Neal then stated. "Good luck out there, Mando."

Ron and Neal steered the ship further out of the night towards the barren, rocky plains still bathed in the reddish light of the sunset. Then, Din straightened up and turned to Anton, who raised his thick eyebrows, then frowned.

"Looks like it's where we say goodbye, lil' bug," he said to the child, voice tight.

Elara gritted her teeth and blinked; if Din were to find these Jedi, hidden or not on this unwelcoming planet, then he'd come back without him... The child seemed to understand the meaning of his words, letting out a long squeak as he stooped his ears. Anton cleared his throat to utter:

"You'll be, um… you'll be fine with your kind there, I'm sure."

The child blinked, his little clawed fingers scratching the bandage on Anton's wrist. He nodded and returned the kid to Din's arms, adding:

"Yeah, good luck out there…"

Din nodded, settling the child against his chestplate and, after a glance at Elara, he left the cockpit. She leapt after him, her hands clasped at the datapad to keep them from shaking.

"Are you sure there's anything to find on this rock?" she wondered as she caught up with him in the corridor, on their way to the cabin. "Neal's right…"

Din slowed down in front of the door and Elara lowered her voice, reluctant to say the words that sent a chill down her back.

"It looks uninhabited and-and… dead, even. What if the Empire already bombed this place and there's no-one to find here anymore?"

Hissss — The door slid open on the interior of the cabin, which lit up softly as they entered. Din handed the child over to her to walk to the bed and pick up his jetpack from the floor.

"I don't know, Ela."

She was aware that her intervention wasn't helping, but she couldn't explain why she suddenly felt so restless, anxious, buzzing with the urge to jump as far away from here as possible, and not to leave this little one there, whether there were any Jedi to find here or not.

Maybe it was only heartache at the impending separation from the child, she supposed. And yet she felt something else, something more intense, something deeper, something primal... As heavy and overwhelming as a lingering pain she couldn't pinpoint anywhere in her own body.

"But we're here now." Din reconnected his jetpack to his backplate. "So, I'll go fly by these inlets, and search this whole mountain for ruins of villages and temples carved in, like it's described in Cornell's files, and then…"

He shook his head slowly.

"And then search for another before running out of fuel."

Elara gave him a kind smile.

"You'll need this, then…"

He took the datapad she held out to him.

"Thank you."

And he preceded her out of the cabin and to the shuttle in which they entered. Din put the datapad on the dashboard that he then began to switch on and set up. A step during which the child grabbed the open collar of Elara's jacket. She looked down at him.

"It's gonna be alright," she murmured, fondling his little hand. "Like Gun said, if there are Jedi down there, they will know how to take care of you proper."

"Prrr…"

Elara winced a poor smile and took the small metal toy from one of her pockets. The child's eyes didn't drift from hers, even as he took the toy in his free hand.

"I'm glad we've met. I hope you'll remember us when you'll be a big, wise Jedi soon… 'Cause I'm sure you will!"

Pent-up tears stung her throat as she spoke again:

"You're a good kid…"

"Aaah!"

She held him close, and the child rubbed his forehead against her cheek. Din was getting up from the pilot's seat when the shuttle began to hum and shake softly under their feet.

"Goodbye, Tip-yip," she said again, before giving him back to Din's arms.

With both hands, Elara pushed away the tears and faced the impassive visor, sniffing. He said to her, his vocoded voice more tight than usual:

"I'll get back to your landing position once I'll know for certain what's out there, or not…"

Elara pursed her lips and nodded in response before touching his gloved hand; her fingers found their way under the leather and Din relaxed the muscles in his hand to welcome them against his palm.

"Crent's files were also talking of many unknown dangers and predators out there," she reminded him, trying to keep her anxiety under control. "And we don't know what may still be lurkin' now…"

She bit her lip and Din folded his fingers over hers in his glove.

"Just… come back alive," she then whispered to him low enough to hide the emotion in her voice.

Words to which Din nodded a single time. He then lowered his head a little to touch Elara's forehead with his helmet's. Heart lighter, she closed her eyes at this contact and even managed to smile. Then, they stepped apart and she released his hand.

"I'll keep my link open," he told her. "And the shuttle's too."

"You better!"

She took one last look at the child and stroked the tip of one of his ears, then forced herself to back up, and finally turned to get out of the shuttle, her breath short and a lump in her throat. Din closed behind her. The Riser's hatch locked with a pressurising sound and the whole bulkhead shook a little as the shuttle disengaged.

Her steps stiff and fists balled, she walked back to the cockpit where Neal and Ron had slowed down for Din to separate from the ship; Elara could see the shuttle now gliding more slowly a few meters below, and in the opposite direction. An overwhelming feeling, bordering on irrational fear, came over her and she ran her hands through her hair, scratching her skin with her short fingernails down to the back of her neck as if hoping to get rid of it. But the feeling lasted, swelling in her chest, almost suffocating her.

"The sensors indicate that the selected site is safe for landing, captain."

TC's modulated voice pulled Elara from her thoughts and the shuttle disappeared as the Riser turned.

"Ok, no time to waste," Neal told them. "We have a lot of repairs to keep us busy up until next nightfall, whenever that will be here!"

And as the ship plunged on a downward curve, Elara felt like she was sinking with it.

The shuttle was sinking into the night, dark with a mass of iron-tinged clouds that flickered briefly, as if struck by a bolt of lightning. And it must have been a storm forming over the sea, stretching in angry black waves as far as the eye could see. The inlets in claw marks were fringed with grey foam at every wave that came crashing against the rock and earth, and Din pushed the shuttle's engines a little against a strong gust of wind that threatened to knock him off course by several meters.

By the light of a new cloud-coated flash, Din could spot the ruined shapes of what may once have been a village further down these inlets and higher up on what looked like a flat hill; the stone foundations of buildings covered with blackened vegetation, the long curve of a fortification facing the land broken by fallen dead trees, the ruins of a towering archway that opened to a wide mountain path that nature seemed to have failed to claim.

Din flew over the ruins of this lifeless village, explored the surroundings and those of the mountain which stood like a row of dark thorns, careful to follow the twists and turns of the path, which sometimes disappeared into the rocky crags and the night, until he found his destination under a new flash of storm; the entrance to a cave, its thick, carved lintel half collapsed. Jaw set, he took a deep breath; apparently, he had just found the gate of one of those temples about the use and significance of which Cornell had speculated so much in his notes.

Another flash of lightning in the clouds cast an ominous glow over the entrance to the cave; the storm was approaching. Din flew over the nearby area, slowing down a little to try and find a safe place to land, but the whole mountainside was far too steep to accommodate a ship, even one as small and agile as his. He would have to land in the valley, possibly even as low as near the village, and jetpack up here. And he wasn't too happy about that, with the threat of a storm on the horizon. But Din sighed softly and turned the craft around, heading for the foot of the mountain. There, and a little further away from the village in sight of its collapsed arch gate, Din would land the shuttle on a flat, fairly solid-looking strip of land. The thrusters grumbled and didn't allow for as controlled a landing as Din used to make; the whole interior shook as the landing gears made contact with the ground, and even the child squeaked a little in the chair behind him.

With a few flick of switches, Din brought the shuttle and its entire dashboard to a halt before standing up. Through the narrow viewport that faced the ruins of the village several meters away, he could make out that the sun had to be rising on the coast, somewhere behind the thick black clouds that were packing against the mountains from the sea. No, Din really didn't like the idea of being stuck in a storm, here or in this cave.

Teeth clenched but resolute, he walked around his seat to find the child, strangely silent and perhaps even a little pale; he raised his large eyes to his visor without a sound, and blinked slowly, his little toy clutched in his hands. Not knowing what to say to him to break the heavy silence, he first put his jetpack on his back. Then, he leaned over to the child and took him in his arms.

"C'mon, kid…"

To speak these words hurt, like trying to speak with a pair of hands clasped around his throat. And yet he added bravely:

"We're gonna have to fly all the way up there, so… why don't you give me that and I'll keep it safe for you."

He held out the palm of his gloved hand. The child looked up at him, seemed to hesitate, his ears drooping and letting out a small squeak which Din felt pulsing in his arm clamped around him. Then, with a last look at his toy, he placed it in Din's hand, who weighed it, still detailing it; if he had been astonished, and even impressed, to discover another of the unexpected things this little one knew how to do, now Din wondered at the extent of all he had been taught, and why.

"Don't worry," he said, tucking the toy into one of the blasterbelt's leather pockets. "I'll give it back to you once we're back here."

He didn't expect to find anyone in that cave, but rather clues, traces that he would have to track down to the actual hidding place of anyone matching the description of one of those Jedi in Cornell's documents.

Din then walked to the shuttle's hatch and pressed the panel in the bulkhead; the door slid open onto a dead, grey landscape of which he felt nothing of the cool temperature read by the sensors, sheltered in his armor. With a glance, he checked on the kid ; he didn't look surprised or bothered by the cold so he jumped with two feet from the hatch's edge into the thin fog crawling on the ground. And, after closing the shuttle, he walked towards the village's ruins in an unnerving silence, aside from the crunching of thick, brownish grass under his boots and the distant rumble of waves in the inlets far down the hillside.

Din walked through the broken archway, stepping over some of its huge rubble, covered with the dull, singed foliage under the pallid mist that stretched out in shreds, and startling a few insects with long, iridescent wings that fluttered noiselessly into the questionable shelter of a peeled bush. But Din went past the bush without disturbing its occupants any further, walking between these ghostly buildings whose walls were lying on the ground, their stone smoothed by time like pebbles in a river bed.

Further on, after having climbed a cracked pillar, thrown across a long path knitted with black vines like a web of sharp veins, Din found this other arch that opened on to the mountain and its path still visible from the sky. And it was also visible from the ground, despite the mist and brambles.

"That's from where we'll go airborne," Din muttered for the child, still silent in the crook of his arm. "There's a cave up that path…"

With a wave of his hand, he pointed to the dirt and rock path that nature seemed to carefully avoid, save for those black, thorney vines he'd had to burn to get through — but quite frankly, Din would rather save his time, and flamethrower's fuel in case of actual danger, not use it foolishly on a mere annoyance while he could just fly, even at the cost of discretion.

"Hold on tight, ok?"

The child cooed a little, tiny fingers gripping his thumb and Din activated his jetpack, the burning heat of which he felt behind his legs, even through the fabric of his flightsuit. He looked at the sky and the surroundings; everything felt frozen in time, everything felt dead, as Elara had said. Yet, Din would still be mindful. Many things and people he had thought dead had become his most pressing concerns...

Din took a step towards the arch, and then another to take off. Another flash of lightning shone through the cloud layer, casting a gloomy light over the ground and the village's ruins which grew smaller as he rose. The fog seemed thicker between the shapes of collapsed buildings and their bare foundations, greyer, like smoke, the harsh taste of which he thought he could feel on his tongue and scratch his throat. He thought he heard the echo of distant screams on the wind, the cracking sound of blasterfire over the wooshing of his jetpack, and the ruins he left behind blended with vivid memories of his own village.

Din gritted his teeth, and held the child tighter against him, to turn his focus and the weight of his body towards the eastern side of the mountain where he would find the entrance to the cave.

Wooossshtt!

As soon as Din's feet touched the almost flat rock ground that stretched across the entrance to the cavern, the jetpack's thrusters shut down. If a slight buzzing sound lingered in his ears, everything around him was as silent and lifeless as in the valley. Even the storm and the wind hadn't yet reached that side of the mountain that the pale morning light was trying to reach through the thick clouds. Against him, the child wiggled a little. So, Din unwrapped the safety of his arms to check on him ; he looked fine, though he gave him a look that Din found a little anxious. Quite frankly, so was he… And even more so when he turned to the gaping, pitch-black entrance of the cave. Its massive frame, carved with faded patterns, was split in two and laid across, but as Din approached it, he found that it wouldn't block his way in at all. With one hand, he reached into one of his blasterbelt pockets and pulled out his rifle's spot lamp, which he secured to the side of his helmet.

"Ok." Din sighed without taking his eyes off the the giant stone rubble and the darkness beyond. "Let's be careful in those ruins…"

He heard the child squeak a little and stomp his arm to curl up against his chestplate, one of his ears folded against the beskar. So, taking his reaction as a sign that he was ready, Din lit his lamp and stepped under the broken gate. He didn't even have to bend down. The beam of light splashed across the high walls of bare rock and a pathway littered with more carved stone and rubble, that Din avoided and stepped over cautiously. At least the ground felt solid under his feet. And a few meters further on, it gave way to a long descent of wide, rock-cut steps into an oval room, empty except for piles of dust and more rubble; Din looked up, and the beam of his lamp followed, to see a few small chips of stone and dust raining down from an archway that stretched so high in the darkness that it was almost invisible.

A deep, low rumble was echoing in there, like the snoring of a giant beast sleeping in the womb of the mountain. And if Din's first thoughts turned to mythosaurs and the legendary Taunruk, which had given its name to the mountain range that dominated Kragsted and the stronghold, his logic and knowledge of natural environments leaned more towards the sea and the wind that crashed in waves against the mountain on the coast. And there was something mind-numbing about that slow, steady rumble… Din could feel his senses dull and he found himself almost dragging his feet in the rock dust that covered the floor where weathered carvings meandered into the next room. With a low, displeased grunt at himself, Din shook off the drowsiness that weighed on his shoulders, and pushed forward; the rocky shaft turned gently to the right, and in front of him, under the white glow of his spot lamp, a single wide step like a platform led to the next room.

Shkriiik… Din looked down at the split rock and what cracked under his feet. Glass. And more precisely, coloured glass — blue or green, there wasn't much of it left — like the holocrons on Cornell's shelves. Din crouched down slowly and examined the shards, spreading them carelessly in front of him with a brush of his gloved fingers.

"Well," he muttered for the child. "Looks like we're in the right place, at least."

Not that he still had doubts, though. In response, the child let out a slow squeak, resting his forehead against his chestplate.

"Alright." Din sighed, concerned by the kid's unusually uncomfortable mood. "Let's not waste any more time."

Din straightened up to his full height.

"The faster we check this place out, the sooner we can leave it behind."

And the light was much brighter in the next vast room; The morning sun that had risen outside streamed in a long pale beam from a wide opening high in the wall to spread across the floor, not quite in line with a large round slab, broken in two by the fall of other rubble apparently from the vault that neither the light of his lamp nor that of the day reached far up top. But at least it was bright enough to walk around. So, Din turned off his lamp, unhooked it and put it back in a pocket on his belt. In his arms, the child wiggled a little, cranky, and he put him down to let him stretch his legs.

"Don't wander too far," Din instructed him, straightening his crumpled little coat. "I'm going to look around, like I did on Nevarro… So, I want you to stay in sight, ok?"

But, as usual, the child didn't really react; he let out a soft, little warble, and waddled out of his hands to the large broken slab at the centre of the room. With a sigh, Din straightened up and pressed the buttons on his left vambrace to set his HUD on thermal sight, which he then activated. Right away, the cavern took on shades of grey and green.

So Din began to inspect the walls, looking for traces and other markings that anyone could have left for whoever could find them, as the Armorer had done for the Mandalorians who had survived the covert attack. But after a complete tour of this immense room, he had to face the facts; there was nothing. Or, at least, nothing that his own tools could find. He turned off his HUD. In the centre, the child had climbed up one of the pieces of cracked slab and was walking through the huge chunks of stone.

"Careful," Din told him, firm. "Something could still fall from up there. "

The child simply looked at him over a large chunk of stone with a faint squeak. Din pursed his lips; he would be careful for him. A roll of thunder outside echoed between the walls of the cave and some dust fell from the heights of the vault to rattle on his pauldrons and helmet.

Ssamss… talsseem…

Din turned around, one hand over his blaster; even with the echo, those sounded like voices. He searched the shadows with his eyes, hesitant to reactivate his thermal HUD and pick up his spot lamp. Another flash of lightning brightened the sky outside to a reddish hue and its crackling sound had something very similar to a ship firing its ion cannons. An anxious doubt seized Din by the throat and he pressed one side of his helmet.

"Ela! Is everything ok for you out there?"

In response, his link only clicked, as if struggling to make a connection. Or worse… Din felt his heart pound harder, then quicker. He called again, but his own voice was stuck in his throat. No, the cave or the storm had to simply mess with the links. Another tremor around them, and he let his arms fall back down his body, dashing to the slab where the child seemed to pay no attention to him.

"Let's go, kid." He found the strength to utter, feeling the muscles in his throat strain. "It'll be safer to wait for the storm to pass in the shuttle…"

Or even in the Riser…

"We'll come back here when the sky's clear."

It was an excuse, and at the same time not at all; more rock dust rained down from the vault to the ground in a new thunderous roar like that of ship engines that gripped Din's heart. Something was definitely wrong on this planet… Din couldn't say what but he was feeling it deep down. And now, he wanted to leave this place, or at least this cave.

He stepped on one of the broken parts of the carved slate and all his body felt strangely heavier. He ignored it and reached for the child who had raised his little arms to him. But he only felt a strong pressure against him, like walking against a river's current, preventing him to take one more step towards the child. With batted breath and confused, maybe also a little scared, Din still tried to push against it, and come closer to him. Then, he realised ; maybe it was the child, doing to him what he had done to the mudhorn. But why would the kid stop him from picking him up?!

"C'mon kid!" he grumbled, his voice hoarse from his own efforts. "S-stop playing, we need to leave!"

But Din was focused on his goal, and headstrong; he pushed harder against the child's power, if it was even him doing that at all. The kid squeaked a long, high pitched and distressed whine that echoed under the vault and let his arms fall at his side, and Din managed another step. He felt his skin tingle under his flightsuit, like getting zapped all over again, and his armor felt heavier with each breath drawn through gritted teeth. With another step, the pressure brutally lifted, and Din stumbled forward. Hands first, he fell on all four, breathless and shivering. Eyes closed, he took a second to calm down the beating of his heart and the painful, electric-like quivers that shook his whole body.

Then, he lifted his head up to face the child, eyes watery.

"W-what was that?!"

His voice sounded strange, like something was missing. For all answer, the child whimpered, ears low and his face still a little ashen. Din stood up on his knees and reached for the kid.

"Hey, it-it's okay, let's get out of—"

With a gasp, Din froze, eyes wide, staring at his hands, his bare hands… And he was seeing them without the usual edges of his visor. His hands flew to his face and, with a sinking feeling, he felt his bare skin getting colder under his fingers, his burning hot, anxious breath against his palms, his hair, his stubble… And he let his eyes fall on his chest to discover with horror that he wasn't wearing any armor. He felt his chest and his neck, clutching with shaking hands at the reddish tunic and hood he was wearing. And a surge of pain made him almost sob when he saw and touched the intricate patterns on his cuffs, recalling vividly the big, warm hands that cupped his young face, touched his hair and held him while the world was burning around them, screaming under the blasterfire of ships and droids… He couldn't explain it, nor say what happened to his armor but right now, Din was wearing his father's clothes, the last thing he had seen him with, that fateful day.

Din fumbled to his feet, shaking and scared, looking around him. But his armor was nowhere to be seen. The child was staring at him, and Din stared back. Something had to be playing tricks on his mind, this 'Force' was trying to make him believe things! Maybe these Jedi saw him as a threat, an enemy, and this was their way to defend themselves and make him leave… But, if that was how the Jedi worked, then Din wasn't so sure he wanted to leave the child with them anymore.

So, teeth tightly clenched, Din picked up the child, and he felt uncannily heavy in his arms. But he held good. The child let out a plaintive whine that reverbed all around — in front, from each sides, under the invisible vault from which shards and dust of rocks continued to rain down on the floor, and from behind him… Din fumbled in the dark of the wide corridor, scrapping one trembling hand on the wall of stone, the other arm wrapped tightly around the child, heavy like he had to be in his father's arms long ago, and left this cursed place as fast as he could, without turning back.

That storm coming over the ocean wasn't looking good…

This was the thought that had been running through Elara's mind with every flash of lightning and distant roll of thunder for a good hour since they had landed on this rocky plain lined with blackened and shrivelled trees, if they weren't simply fossilised on the ground. Elara hadn't tried to get closer to check. Instead, she had joined Jox and the new R6 on the back of the Early Riser 2, and lent a hand in repairing the hull.

Krashhhbrrrmmmm — another flash of lightning and the roll of thunder that followed made Elara look up from her welding work again. Everything on this planet looked even more grey and cold through her goggles, which she pulled up a little over her nose with her free hand. They were the darkest clouds she'd ever seen, the most opaque, and yet she'd spent quite a bit of time on Nar Shaddaa.

Another bolt of lightning pierced the sky, streaking the clouds with horizontal veins of light. Elara frowned; she hadn't seen any of these flashes fall vertically yet, or perhaps they were too far away to see.

A pang of anxiety caused her to look around the ship and below for the child, to make sure he was alright, realising she hadn't heard him for a while, and a sinking feeling froze her deeper than the gusts of wet wind. Of course she hadn't heard him! What was she thinking?!

Grumpy with herself, Elara gritted her teeth and tugged her cap back on her head with a heavy hand, before turning her blowtorch back on with a flick of her thumb. The tool was still hot in her hand, even through her leather mitt, but she was almost done with fixing those connectors anyway. She got back to her task, holding the two cables of the same colour reattached together in their thick sheaths, which she shrank around the weld with the flame of her welding torch.

Bbrrrrmmmm! Elara jumped, and so did the tools in her hands.

"Aouch-fierfek!"

She dropped the welding torch, the flame of which had just licked her fingers. The tool went out and Elara shook her hand in the damp air.

"Y'alright?" Jox's voice inquired from behind her.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled.

She shook her hand again and the twinges soon became more tolerable. Then she inspected the damage, but apparently her glove had cushioned the burn.

"D'you need bacta?"

"No, it's ok, I'm…" She checked again. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Jox's footsteps on the hull joined her and she let him check her hand, tiny in his big webbed palm. He grunted as he released her arm:

"Told you, you're a poodoo mechanic, Elak!"

She huffed a laugh.

"Thanks."

He grumbled again and then turned to look at her work in the open panel.

"Did I mess it all?"

"No, no, it's all good. But… take a break, ok? I'm gonna take care of it now."

Elara let out a deep sigh and sat back on her heels.

"Ok."

He patted her on the shoulder and, picking up the blowtorch, she sprang to her feet more nimbly than she actually felt the energy for it, all of a sudden. She pulled her goggles up over her cap and, tapping her leg with the unlit tool, she watched the storm over the ocean, behind the fringe of black trees that spiked the hills. It had to be just over Din and the child's heads now… The fingers of her free hand found the screw and bolt in her jacket pocket, and she fidgeted with it, feeling her heartbeat heavy in her chest. She was feeling oddly weary, and slow. Maybe a caf would help… She winced; no, she was already too tense. With a sigh, she walked to the edge of the Riser's hull to get down.

"Ah, move out o' the way, Dee-Four!" Jox grumbled behind her.

"Dreeet droot brrrrrbrrrr!" R6-D4 retorted.

"Yeah, yeah, say what you want. I still can do that better than you, anyway."

Elara climbed down the rickety ladder wedged against the left wing of the ship, and jumped the last rungs. And even the touch of the burnt-looking ground felt strange under the soles of her shoes, unstable, though it was rock-solid and far from the relentless claws of the ocean. She walked back to the ramp where a few bursts of voices made her quicken her pace.

"No, we can't leave like that! And we have to fix—"

It was Ron's voice that Anton's growl cut short.

"What got into you, mate?!" Ron spoke, through gritted teeth, like in full effort. "What are you talkin' about?!"

"Move, Ron! We have to leave! NOW!"

Elara found Ron, trying to hold Anton back from entering the ship with all the strength of his body. But Anton was pressing down with his own and pushing Ron backwards over the grey earth towards the ramp. Frustrated with his resistance, Anton slapped Ron's arm with his injured hand; Ron grunted but so did Anton, massaging his bandaged wrist.

"Hey?!" Elara stepped between them, arms outstretched to make them keep their distance. "What the kriff is goin' on here?!"

"He's gone thermal!" Ron groaned, rubbing his arm and catching his breath. "That's what!"

"Where's Neal?" Elara inquired for Anton and Ron.

Ron gestured to the inside of the ship.

"Countin' nerfs with both hands!"

"And he shouldn't!" Anton raged. "We have to jump as far as possible from here or we'll be vaporized in just seconds!"

And as soon as he said that, he tried to run back into the ship, pushing Elara, who stood firm on her legs.

"What?!" She exclaimed. "Ron's right, you need to calm down!"

He growled angrily.

"NO!"

"Gun, stop!" Elara firmly urged. "What are you talkin' about?!"

"What am—?!"

He grabbed Elara's arms to pull her with him a few steps away from the ship, and Ron followed. Then, he turned her to face a stretch of open sky, where a clearing of clouds revealed a grey moon in the morning sky, towards which he held out an aggressive finger.

"This!" Anton barked, and Elara heard terror in his voice as it broke. "I'm talkin' about this atrocity!"

"It's a moon, Gun…" she tried to soothe him, turning to face him. "It's Asher—no, Ashla… or Bogan. One of them anyw—"

"THIS IS NO KARKIN' MOON!" Anton erupted, shaking and pale. "This is the Death Star! I saw it, I saw that-that thing when we dropped entire battalions on it!"

He grabbed Elara's arms again and shook her so hard that her cap slid over her eyes.

"I know what it does, Ela! It will blow this rock to dust and everything with it!"

She lifted her cap from her eyes with one hand and pressed on Anton's broad shoulder with the other, her heart sinking to see his panic and worried about its cause; Anton Bastra was hot-tempered and brutal, with a tendency for violence, but he wasn't prone to hallucinations… Even at his worst expression of these traumas he earned in the service of the Empire.

"No Gun, calm down! I assure you it's not, that thing is gone, for good."

He seemed to listen to her, and to recover his senses for a moment.

"It has been destroyed. You're fine…"

And quite frankly, if there was any chance that he was right, they would have seen it on their approach flight around the planet.

And all the moons they could count were the ones mentioned in Crent's files and Oomil's data. Not one more.

"But they—they won't even sent a recon, they…" He stammered, and Elara felt him shake like a leaf under her hands. "They just need to charge the cannons and—and…"

"I know, Gun," she murmurred, tender. "You told me, already… Remember?"

"Y-yeah…"

She nodded vigorously without taking her eyes off him, frozen with anguish at what might have been going on in his head. Ron added to the fire with a comment:

"I don't like this place. Something's wrong here…"

Elara widened her eyes at him with an air of unspoken threat, her jaw clenched. He took the hint and lowered his eyes, nodding, lips pursed.

"I… I feel dizzy." Anton mumbled, still shaking. "Like I drank too much Naboo wine…"

"I bet you are." Elara smiled. "Come with me, you're gonna lay down for a minute and you'll feel better after."

He nodded and complied, following her inside the ship. Anton blinked under the lights and let himself be led down the corridor to the medbay.

"Hey, Sprinkles," he mumbled again, sheepish when she made him sit on the bed where she had treated him earlier. "Not a word to the cap', yeah ? He's gonna think I can't work anymore or-or… I can't behave. I don't want to leave the crew…"

Elara knew that Neal would never sack Anton for a panic attack, even one this violent, but she understood his anxiety; he had already had enough problems with his fits of anger. But the crew was his family, and the Riser, whether 1 or 2, was his home…

"Not one word," she promised him, one hand raised in oath.

He nodded in gratitude, not saying another word, still pale and trembling. He laid down and she patted his shoulder.

"Please, try to get some sleep, yeah?"

He nodded and, patting his shoulder once again, she left him in the quiet of the medbay. Once back in the hallway, her smile vanished and she took a deep, shuddering breath; despite his bad timing, Ron was right — something was wrong here, and she didn't like that place either! She had to warn Din.

In a few long, hurried strides, she was back in their cabin and closed the door behind her, her hand already searching for the comlink in her pocket. She felt oddly lonely in this room that she shared with Din and the kid, all of a sudden… As lonely as in her parents home after she received the confirmation that they were dead, and not just lost in space. A violent shudder shook her from head to toe and she felt suddenly heavy… and deadly cold. Her thumb pressed hard on the comlink she raised to her chin.

"Din?!" She called, voice deep to try to contain the fear in it. "Do you copy? Please, come in, I have to warn you… There's something weird goin' on around here, we-we…"

She swallowed hard and only statics answered to her. Teeth gritted, she went on :

"Not sure if it's us all being nervous or not, but… please, be careful, alright? I… I don't know. Something doesn't feel right…"

She released the button and her breath, waiting. No answers. Just statics in which she thought she could hear faint voices, words… Maybe this planet was messing with the coms on top of it, now!

"Din?" She insisted, tense. "Can you hear me?"

If she couldn't reach him on his comlink, then she'd simply go to him, on foot or wathever, if she had to!

… kkrrssinside… fffrrrrelcome…

The voice on the other side was uncannily familiar. But it wasn’t Din’s.

… ttsssss… ffrrrrollow… kkrrrsstayed home wsssh…

Her blood froze in her veins. It couldn't be who she thought she heard… And yet, her own tight voice spilled the words out loud:

"J-Jord?! Is… is that you?"

But again there were only statics on the link, sounding like distant, ghostly whispers of voices she knew. Then, it rose again, slightly distorded but clear:

"Hey, 'ugly face'…"

Elara gasped and threw the comlink on the bed as if it had just burnt her hand like the blowtorch — it was her brother's voice.

Outside the cave, everything looked as calm as when Din had entered under the stormy morning sky, but the air was saturated with that strong, distinctive smell of ozone from discharged blasters. Din stayed under the cover of the broken archway and swallowed hard before taking a deep breath in, eyes closed. He tried to calm down the pounding of his heart while listening in the almost silence around.

In his arms the child squeaked a little and Din looked at him again. He seemed frightened, pale, so he held him a little closer to him in the crimson folds of his tunic. Din didn't know if he was a victim of these hallucinations too, or if he was seeing the same thing he was.

"This… this is all in our heads, kid," he said, his voice bare of vocoder weak against the wind that brushed the mountain. "We have to get back down to the shuttle and…"

And what ? Din thought to himself. He would go back to the Early Riser to begin with, make sure everyone was okay, and then he would figure something out. For now, he couldn't stay there, he couldn't stay stuck in this illusion! He had to fight it.

Din watched the path wind its way down the mountain slopes ahead of them, peering at the relatively flat area where he had landed earlier. With his free hand he felt around behind his back, looking for the limits of the illusion, and the edges of his jetpack. His armour couldn't have just vanished, he knew that! It was only a cruel trick played on his mind, like he'd read Jedi could do in Cornell's files. And maybe even the ruins of their temples could do it too, apparently.

His fingers followed the thick brown belt around his waist, found a small tear near the seam of the tunic… but no jetpack. Despite his frustration and stress, Din remained calm and focused — Don't let the panic do the thinking, kid. You're the only pilot in your cockpit. That's what Korben used to say to him, touching his forehead with a gentle brush, when all his anxiety and other upsetting — almost angry — feelings were becoming overwhelming, and pushing him to make mistakes. Now, there was no room for mistakes.

Calmer, he closed his eyes and visualised his HUD in his mind's eye while, with one hand fumbling on his wrist, he tried to activate his jetpack. His fingers ran over the thick frills on his cuff, and his heart clenched to find the same sensations as in his childhood. The urge to clutch his father's hand tightly shook him from head to toe and he came to his senses with a sharp breath in of cold, damp air. But his wrist was still bare under his fingers, whether his eyes were open or closed. The power of these illusions alone frightened him and planted the seed of a doubt in his mind; he had to get away from these ruins as quickly as possible, even without a jetpack. Then perhaps he would be free of these visions, once he'd be out of range of what seemed to be their source.

Din took his first step out of the shelter of the arch and faced the stinging wind that made the dry dust of the path swirl at his feet. The child squeaked and Din put a hand on his head, in hope to protect him.

"We have to go down the slow way." His voice was hoarse. "It's gonna take just a little longer…"

And the child suddenly fell very quiet and motionless in his arms, but Din didn't uncover him, walking briskly down the gentle slope lined with black bramble. A ruddy flash of lightning cut through the solid clouds, and a low roar like the thrusters of a large battleship drove him to duck under the useless cover of a dead tree. Din swallowed hard, nervous, and forced himself to stand still as the ship passed, the child held tight. The ship — if it was one — seemed to fly slowly by them, barely breaking through the crust of clouds, which was streaked again with thiner lightning bolts as if a violent battle was raging above.

No time to waste! — Din sprang from his hiding place and ran down the path that snaked along the mountainside, the soles of his boots less sure on the rocks than the ones he usually wore with his armour. And he kept running, not knowing how long, without stopping, barely slowing down in front of the obstacles and against the wind and thorns, until at last the path became wider and straighter again, sloping down towards the arch that stood between the mountain and the ruins of the village — and those ruins were smoking.

Breath raw and sweating, Din froze; red and orange flashes of blaster fire flared against the broken shapes of the houses, and the wind carried the cries of people under attack.

Din closed his eyes and tried to compose himself; it wasn't real, this village wasn't being attacked, all those screams and the acrid smell filling his nose and throat were just illusions, repressed images that this Force had to have stirred to the surface… He opened his eyes again and walked, calm and fearless, under the stone arch — he hadn't noticed how much it looked like Nevarro's, earlier. Din gritted his teeth, and hugged the child tighter against him, but the guilt-ridden thought that he was the cause of the death of so many Mandalorians and foundlings, back on Nevarro, weighted down his step in the street shrouded in black smoke. A man in beige and brown clothes suddenly emerged in front of him, running and flailing, his breath ragged with fear and effort, but Din convinced himself to ignore him. He wasn't real…

CLANK-CLANK-CLANK… From behind the man, three tiny red lights were dotting the smoke, and this time, Din threw himself on the side, hiding behind fallen carved stones. The towering shapes of three super battledroids emerged, arms outstretched, and blasted the street in front of them in a clamor of fear. Din curled up on himself, protecting the child in one arm and the other hand nervously searching for his blaster. But he only pawed at the red fabric of his tunic.

PEWPEWPEWPEWPEW !

The droids kept firing and more forms of men and women fell to the ground in a hail of sparks and a chorus of screams. In the hand of a dead man, Din spotted a blaster, and as soon as the droids cleared, he darted out of his hiding place, swiftly and with the child safely pressed against his chest, to grab the weapon under more fire coming from nowhere. But, even in his father's clothes, Din was still a Mandalorian, trained to fight and survive ; he dodged a shot that landed almost in front of his feet and threw himself down to grab the blaster before rolling to get cover. Said cover was not that great behind half a broken wall but at least, now, he had a weapon. Din almost gasped when he saw the blaster in his hand ; it was his! Just his regular IB94…

With an angry groan at himself, he had to make an effort to remember that all this wasn't real… Yet, he was far from the temple now! Would he have to wait for the effects on his mind to wear off? And for how much longer?! It would only take a second for a misstep induced by one of these visions to cause his loss... and that of the child.

Pushing that thought at the back of his mind, he kept his blaster steady in his hand, watching the street. Maybe it would be better for him to stay hidden, and wait for the effects of this dreadful magic to end. Din wouldn't let his guard down, anyway.

Around him, for all he could make out over the broken edges of his low wall, the visions went on like one of Elara's holovids — a dreadfully realistic holo… A holo he could even taste on his tongue and in his lungs as the smoke whirled around the corners of the wall, crawling to Din's feet and neck, as if to get him. Blasterfire and explosions made him curl, the child in his arms.

In a clearing of smoke, he noticed an old man in a dirty grey cape, standing there on the support of a long staff and looking unconcerned by the fury around him, staring in his direction, maybe at him even… For some reason he couldn't explain, this vision rattled him even more than the others around. The urging need to tell him to hide made him move a little out of his own hidding place with a grumpy groan. He put the child on the ground, setting his back against the rough stone of the low wall.

"Stay here, don't move…"

The child stooped his ears and sat down without a sound. So, Din crouched a little more to peek carefully over a broken side of stone. The old man was still here, stirring in Din that same feeling of urgency.

"Get down!" He grumbled with a wave of his blaster.

But the vision didn't move. The smoke began to envelop him, and in an instant it swallowed him whole. A blaster shot came across the street and forced Din to take full cover. He took the child in his arms and held him tightly.

"We can't stay here!" His voice was shaking in spite of his efforts. "We can't wait for those visions to stop, we…"

Words failed him. Din didn't need to talk anyway, he needed to act. So, he focused on what he could see on the street, on what looked real and what was mixed with these visions of the past and their violence. A violence that was slowly ebbing away as those wretched superbattle droids marched away from his shuttle — if this was his mind's way of trying to rid itself of the influence of those visions, then now was the perfect time to act.

Din !

Upon hearing his name called out by an unfamiliar voice, he ducked to look around anxiously. But the ruined street seemed eerily empty now. A few meters further on, a ruined building whose shapes blended with those of the houses in his village on Aq Vetina could offer him fairly good tactical cover. Much better than that of this low wall anyway.

Din leapt forward, the child clasped in his arm and his blaster gripped tightly in his hand. Only the thick fog slowed his progress, but he reached the shelter of the nearest wall with no more trouble than rubble on the ground on which he almost tripped up. Din took a few steps along the pale wall whose roof railing and blue-grey dome had been destroyed by cannon blasts to survey the street; screams rose again and red flashes of blaster fire pierced the thick haze that blocked his view of the shuttle. But for now, that section of the street he stood in seemed to have been deserted by the fight.

Din took a cautious step out of his hiding place, and then another, blaster forward. The front of the building looked like a shop he remembered a little — a bakery. But Din didn't dwell on this memory and kept going, his back brushing the walls and arches blackened with carbon scores. In front of him, the fog flashed red again, vibrant with muffled screams.

Jaw tightly clenched, Din hesitated to rush to another cover, a few strides away, collapsed under the fall of a black tree like the ones spiking the path from that cave in the mountain to the village, and like that large twisted trunk across the wall he had seen upon his arrival. If this hallucination and reality were still merging, then he might be closer to the shuttle than he believed. Encouraged by this thought, Din dashed forward.

Shouts and blaster fire echoed again under a roll of thunder but he did not slow down. He'd shoot his way through! All of this was only imaginary anyway. But the doubt wasn't…

The bright red bolt of a superbattle droid split the mist and Din threw himself to the side to avoid it; he felt the heat of it brush against him, the air crackle in his ears and smell of burnt ozone followed him as he pressed himself against the dead branches slumped in the dirt and mossy stone debris.

BOOM-KRASSSH!

Something exploded around the shuttle. Maybe the shuttle! Din felt all his muscles tense and the child squeaked in his arms so, he relaxed them a little.

When the fog shook under the gust of debris and dust, Din caught sight of that old man again, standing still under the shots in the smoke, unfazed by the screams and fury, staring in his direction. The thought that he was the cause of this nightmare hit Din so hard that an angry pang made him clench his jaw and his fist on the handle of his blaster. He grunted and shut his eyes tight in an attempt to pull himself out, to push away the influence of this Force, or whatever this man — this Jedi?! — was inflicting on his mind.

Din reopened his eyes on the child and found only a large, dark grey piece of rock in its place in his arms. With a gasp of shock, Din let the boulder fall. There was a squeak under the grey haze and it was the bewildered form of the child that straightened. Din's heart sank at the large black eyes staring back at him and he scooped him up promptly to hold him close.

"S-sorry, sorry kid, I…"

Anger made Din's blood hot and he didn't give an end to his sentence to glare at the old man, still upright and stoic at the centre of this nightmare. Maybe that was exactly what that man wanted; for him to drop the child, just to pick him up and then, let him to die in his visions. But Din wouldn't let this Jedi have the kid, now. He couldn't leave a child to that kind of people! Even a child like him. Then Din stood up tall under the screams and imaginary gunfire; blaster in hand and child in the crook of his arm, he stepped out of his hiding place.

"What do you want from me?!"

If his scream shook more than he would have liked in the heavy air, the blaster in his hand did not. The man remained silent, and vanished again in a flash of lightning that streaked the black sky, and Din tensed some more, aiming the barrel of his blaster at random, where his eyes fell.

Din!

Again, he heard his name shouted in the storm; he pointed his blaster at the voice, somewhere to his left.

"Show yourself!"

A crash of thunder carried his cry, which vibrated fiercely between the ruined facades of the buildings. The child squeaked in his arms. In front of them, a darker shape moved in the smoke, right where that old man was standing a minute before. The shape that came forward was clad in a brown tunic over a dress of the same crimson as his own tunic, and Din's heart clenched with a conflicting emotion between grief and anger. The form called his name again in his mother's voice. Yet, when he finally saw her, it wasn't his mother. His blaster shook in his hand as he recognized Elara, the child in her arms.

"Din!" gasped her image, hugging the kid tighter and out of his barrel's range as if to protect him. "What's wrong?! We have to—"

"Who are you, and what are you doing to me?!" He cut her short, blaster heavy with his doubts in his hand.

The image of his mother's face replaced Elara's for a blink before she replied:

"Come on, follow me! I know how to get out of here."

"No!" He growled. "You're not her! You-you're…"

He winced, and the frightened screeches in the street were only topped by a squeak from the child in Elara's arms; he held out a little hand to him, ears dropping. Heart racing, Din glanced at the one he held in his arms — only a piece of rock. With an angry growl, he tried to shake off the illusion, but it persisted; several blaster shots flew in their direction and one hit Elara, who fell to the ground without a sound.

"ELA!"

And, regardless of the fact that it was only an illusion, Din rushed to her side. He put the child on the ground, looking for the one she had held a moment before but now missing before turning her onto her back. The blaster fire had hit her in the side, burning through her tunic and flesh, and yet she was still alive. Even barely so.

"No, no, Ela…" Din's voice was tight and his throat painful. "I'm sorry!"

Even in the form of an illusion, he couldn't bear the thought of her dying, let alone dressed like his mother. In his arms, she had a weak sigh of pain, with that sleepy look of someone slowly dying, and he stroked her cheek and hair, the feeling oh-so familiar under his palm.

"I—I know you're not really here," he heard himself say, like in a dream. "I know you're not really her… but please… please, don't die! I can't… not you too! Because of me…"

Elara painfully raised a hand to his face, touching his cheek with already cold fingers. She blinked and tears traced clear lines on her dirty cheeks. Din placed his hand over hers, in the vain hope of warming it, as much to keep it there as for her to keep touching him. And if he was honest with himself, Din was even happy, relieved, that she could touch him, see him again, and to see and hear her too without his helmet. Even though he knew he was only holding a cruel illusion in his arms...

This time again, Din didn't cry, he couldn't cry, the sobs stuck in his throat, his breath short.

"Don't cry, son, stay quiet… Don't let them find you. You'll be safe here if you don't make a sound."

That's what his father had told him last, before making him go down into that storage. He never cried more than a few tears ever since. Even under heart-shattering pain. Like now… He closed his eyes and a few tears escaped him, melting under her cold fingers against which he buried his face, relishing their touch on his forehead, his nose, his lips against her palm and wrist, like when they were children. It struck him how much he had missed it.

"I should have said goodbye too you…" he uttered, painfully. "I shouldn't have left like that, I… I'm sorry, Ela, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, never…"

He swallowed the pain each word caused him, tearing his throat inside. The feeling of her fingers on his face faded and Din opened his eyes wide, heart clenching; Elara was no longer there, and he was holding only his own hand to his cheek — his gloved hand. Yet he was still wearing his father's tunic. And still no helmet.

Around him, mist and smoke were still creeping in dark swirls, while the street was finally quiet. Beside Din, the child had vanished too, replaced by this same piece of stone from the mountain cave that he had seen in his own arms a moment earlier. He jumped to his feet and looked around the street, panting. He would have wanted to call the child, even by the nickname Elara had given him, but a familiar yet unpleasant feeling crushed words and sounds in his sore throat.

Faint footsteps on hard dirt ground made Din turn around, whipping his blaster out of his belt in one motion; He saw the old man's grey coat before the lines of his face. In his arms, nestled in the long folds of his sleeve, the child squeaked a grumpy, exhausted sound. Din's heart leapt and he aimed at the old man, straight at the head. Even at this distance and under that dim light, Din knew he wouldn't miss. But the old man was the first to speak with a vague gesture of his hand no longer holding a walking stick:

"You will come with me now, Din Djarin."

Upon hearing his name, Din gritted his teeth but didn't lower his weapon or his guard.

"Put the child down on the ground and step back!"

In the old man's arms, the child grumbled again.

"Now!" growled Din, taking a step forward.

"Enough is enough…"

And the annoyance in the man's voice was obvious. He gestured again with his hand, as Din had seen the child do before, against the mudhorn, against the flametrooper… He took aim and swallowed, nervous; whatever this Jedi was about to do to him, he would have to shoot… He hesitated for a split second, his finger on the trigger. And the old man turned his hesitation against him; the blaster flew out of his hand and into his own. Din had no time to protest that, with a finger pointed at him, the old man threw him backwards with the same strength as the impact of the mudhorn's charge had.

His head hit the ground, or rock, with a reassuring clang of metal, that of his helmet. Yet the shock was enough to stun him, and Din struggled to get up on the support of his knees. He staggered as if this strange world was tilting around him before he slumped into the dust and mist.

Still, Din fought to stay conscious. He heard the mudhorn roar and stomp on the ground again, tasted blood in his mouth, and he tried his hardest to reach for his vibroblade in his shinguard. The gallop of the beast made the ground shake undearneath him, until stopping in front of his nose, in the form of two boots of worn leather.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Mandalorian. But this is for everyone's safety…"

Din grumbled a sound which mixed with one of the child's low cries before everything went black.

***

On the crumpled sheets, the comlink emitted only a few crackling, almost droid-like sounds, but no recognizable voices anymore. Elara hadn't taken her eyes off the object, staring at it with as much fear as amazement. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, hugging her legs with both arms and rocking back and forth in shock, but her whole body was numb and hurting now.

No matter how long she thought about it, and was still thinking about it, she had no doubt; she did recognize her brother's voice. And her memory was even clearer since she had revisited her holovids with Tip-yip recently. It wasn't holos she often watched, the pain was too heavy, but this time, in the company of the child, it was the first time she had been able to watch them without crying, and she even smiled! Now it felt like her heart had just suffered the same deceleration as under the pull of a gravity well station. And now, just one question kept hammering her wounded heart and mind; could it really be her brother?!

After all, she'd heard quite a haul of stories on the various ships and planets she had set foot on! All spacers had stories to tell, it was part of their daily life; incredible stories, epic stories of smuggling, of the Rebellion, of Endor and the Death Star, spooky stories… Kriff, she had lived some herself… and her family too. It was even the last tale she had to tell about them.

Elara gritted her teeth and for the first time broke eye contact with the comlink on the bed to squeeze her eyes tight shut and fight the burning tears. So, if spacers like her encountered things they couldn't explain out there, in the endless black of space, what about a planet like this one, homeworld of people able to read minds, lift mountains and to heal with their hands no matter how tiny they were?! Maybe ghosts were real after all, and this planet was giving them power to communicate wherever their souls had found refuge now!

When she reopened them, the comlink was still in front of her, almost silent. She took off her cap and goggles, which she left on the floor, and pulled the cloth headband Litti had given her from her jacket pocket, not taking her eyes off the comlink. She scratched her temples and the back of her neck, nervously. What could she possibly say to her brother after so long? How should she address him?

Hey, 'ugly face'…

Those words were still ringing in her ears. It was one of the few monickers Jord had given her during their childhood. So, maybe she could talk to him the same way she always had?

Elara slipped the headband around her neck and pulled it up over her forehead to keep her hair back. She took a ridiculously long time to adjust it over her temples, giving herself time to reconsider, to think about what she might say… if Jord, or his soul, was still at the end of the link. The comlink was awfully quiet now.

She slid on her backside to the edge of the bed on which she propped her arms, carefully, still hesitating to take the comlink in her hands. With a few slow, measured breaths in, Elara tried to calm her heartbeat. In vain. Soon, she felt sweaty and her teeth almost started to chatter. She swallowed hard and grabbed the comlink with a heavy hand. She thumbed the button when she raised it to her chin.

"J-Jord?"

Her voice broke. On the link, there were only cracks and faint syllables in voices she didn't think she recognized.

"Is… Is it really you?" she finally found the courage to add. "H-how is it possible?! You-you're…"

"Dead?" replied the distorded voice of her brother through cracks. "Yeah…"

Eyes blurry with tears, Elara nodded, throat so tight that she couldn't let a word out. She swallowed hard again, and then croacked:

"How… how are you? I mean…"

She felt almost dizzy, suddenly.

"Well, still dead."

At least, it was his deadpan humor, and tone. Or rather, what she remembered it to be.

"I'm sorry," she heard herself mutter, voice shaking. "I'm so sorry…"

Silence on the link.

"I miss you," she then added, closing her eyes to press the tears out. "I miss you all so much…"

The comlink only answered with statics but Elara went on, quivering and sniffling :

"Sometimes I dream of you, and it's like you never died."

A crackle of unidentified voices on the link. Yet, she continued, and too bad if she was only talking to herself now, or that Jord couldn't answer to her anymore. If he was still here, around, he'd hear her, he'd know… and that was all that mattered.

"I—I never want to wake up from these dreams… I want to stay here with you. At least a little longer…"

"But you wanted us to go…"

Elara almost gasped, gutpunched to receive an answer as much as by the statement itself.

"No," she breathed out. "Wh-why d'you say that?!"

"You w-wwwere sick," the crackling voice of her brother said. "T-ttssstold mom and dad I could sssss-staykrrrrrr help, but you told me to go anyway."

"But dad…"

Elara's voice faded in a wheeze and she swallowed, gathering her thoughts through the shock to say:

"Dad said he needed you! He always did after Orson went back on Lantillies!"

It was like arguing with Jord over petty things all over again, and yet… something was off, something wasn't exactly the same, something she couldn't put her finger on, that she couldn't really explain. It made her stutter, heart pounding and on the verge of crying:

"I—It w-was just a cold…"

She would have wanted that talk to go in such a different way, to tell him so much more and anything else than that. And it was quite unlike him to just jump on a fight like that, to not respect the gravity of a situation, as if they had talked only yesterday… Maybe death had changed him back to the unruly kid he had been before their parents settled on Varthen-4? Or maybe something was happening to her, like it happened to Anton earlier? She winced and blinked, tightening her grip on the comlink as the thought that maybe she wasn't really talking to her brother made its way.

"I wasn't that sick, I could manage, I…"

She sniffled again.

"And how did you managed without us, hu?"

This time, the blow was too hard ; Elara broke in tears, dropping the crackling comlink on the sheets to bury her face in her hands.

"W-whatsssssskkr-ould mom and dad think offssssss what you've become… Kkkrrrdrifting in the galaxy likkkrrrr jetisoned load, waiting to crash somewhere, or on sssssomethin'…"

"Jord, please…" Elara whimpered.

"They expected better of you, Ela…"

Yeah, she was sure of that! She kept telling herself that for years, a decade even, in the darkest hours of the days she had to go through and places of the universe she had been.

"I'm sorry, Jord! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

And she was sorry; sorry to be such a disappointment, sorry that they were dead, sorry to have told him to go that day, sorry she couldn't even save at least her brother, sorry to have murdered him, in a way…

Maybe the voice on the link spoke again, but she heard nothing through her sobbing. When she finally calmed down a little, there were only statics on it… In the corridor, however, she heard shouts that made her jump on her feet with an anxious gasp.

"No! I won't listen to one more word!"

It sounded like Neal… What was going on again?! she thought to herself, still stiff and tense in the middle of the cabin.

"It doesn't make any sense!" Neal went on, over Jox and Anton's voices.

Maybe what had happened to Anton came back to mess with his head like what had just happened to her, and he finally went to ramble again about the Death Star looming over them to Neal. Or maybe worse… Elara drew a sharp breath in and wiped her tears with both hands before jumping out of the cabin that opened in a hiss.

The corridor was brightly lit in a yellow light on the pale bulkhead that made her squint a little but she rushed to the source of the voices, somewhere near the cockpit's entrance ; Anton was here but he was the one holding Neal in the tight vise of both his arms around his chest, trying to drag him away from the open door and Jox standing in the frame. TC was flailing around, stuttering words and half broken sentences.

"I-I helped your family when you'd lost everything!" Neal was screaming at Jox, standing still in front of him, filling the doorframe by crossing his long arms and looking more grumpy than usual. "And this is how you reward me?! With mutiny?!"

"What's goin' on?!" Elara called as she reached them.

TC whirled on himself to face her in a whirring sound of servomotors.

"Oh, miss Elak!" He whined. "This is terrible. Captain Neal has gone mad!"

"No, I haven't!" Neal protested, fighting Anton's grip.

Elara put a hand on Anton's wounded arm and another on Neal's shoulder — he seemed to calm down when he saw her.

"Ela, please," he begged her, sounding reasonable and collected, yet a little scared. "Go to the comms and call Jein. Make sure she and the kids are alright, m-make sure Corellia is still there!"

Elara's eyebrows jumped in surprise

"What?! Why would—"

"Captain Neal experienced distressful sleep-induced concepts, miss Elak," TC explained. "In which he maintains that I have relayed to his cabin a message from mistress Jein who told him that the Empire was on the rise again, and that Coruscant had just been blasted to dust like they did with mistress Jein's homeworld, and that Corellia was the next targ—"

"They have no ship to escape, Ela!" Neal panicked, fighting Anton's grip harder. "We have to go back! Ca-call your Mando friend back, we—"

"Calm down, Cap'," Anton tried to placate him without letting go. "T'ain't true…"

"Indeed!" insisted TC. "I was in the cockpit and there were no transmissions received and did no such things as relaying inexistant calls to his cabin."

Elara frowned this time; so, none of the things they'd all seen or heard were happening for real? Maybe nobody had talked to her on the link then, the same way she had just seen one of Tython's moons where Anton was seeing the monstrous ship that was still keeping him awake at night to this day… All of this was just in their heads!

"You're faulty, Tessy!" Neal thundered, his voice cracking. "And while we're talking, my family, and all of yours, are in danger!"

"My, my, miss Elak!" Whzz-whzzz — TC flailed his stiff arms in obvious distress. "What if there is something wrong with my programing?!"

"No, Tessy. There is—"

"I shall close myself down until a proper diagnostic can be performed on all my systems! I cannot risk—"

Elara put her hand on TC's mouth — it wouldn't mute his modulator but at least the droid understood the gesture and whole body language.

"No, you won't do that!" she commanded. "We need you on deck right now more than ever."

She lowered her hand and turned to Anton and Neal as TC wasn't objecting.

"I'm sorry, captain," she told Neal, her heart tight in her chest. "The coms aren't safe right now."

"Ela!"

He got agitated and she couldn't face the raw terror in his eyes any longer.

"Ela, please! You of all people should understand, you—"

Elara gritted her teeth, tears shooting right up at the corner of her eyes to hear those words and knowing what Neal meant. She could tell him that she could try and contact Corellia but, not only did she know she couldn't but, she was also terrified of what she could imagine hearing on the comms again…

"Take him to the medbay," she said to Anton. "And keep him safe there."

An order to which Anton nodded, and Jox stepped out of the door to help him.

"Traitors!" Neal growled as Anton and Jox dragged him to the medbay. "You're all murderers and traitors!"

With a lot of strength and patience, and under a heap of insults and threats, Neal was finally secured on one of the beds, and the door closed. Anton was rubbing his cheekbone where the back of Neal's head had made quite a hard contact but himself looked more composed and calm than earlier when Elara's been the one to close the same door on him. With a growling sigh, Jox crossed his arms on his chest and his tool harness' straps again. So, Elara asked :

"You aren't feeling anything weird o-or hearing things yourself?"

"No," he replied, his usual gruffed self. "And that's because I eat my disgustin' seagrass!"

The stab was obviously directed at Anton who grumbled. He pointed one big finger at Elara and added for Anton again:

"So we aren't goin' funny in our heads like the lot of you!"

He poked quite agressively at his own forehead between his eyes. Elara bit her lower lip, saying nothing; she was thriving on Mon Cal food and yet, she had been caught in the same hallucinations.

"Yeah, yeah…" retaliated Anton. "Say what you want. I ain't touchin' that no more."

Elara looked around her in the corridor, listening to the silence. Even Neal seemed to have tired himself and stopped yelling, just grumbling.

"Where is Ron?" she then asked.

Jox shrugged.

"Don't know. Last time I saw him, he was outside, standin' guard…"

Elara felt a dreadful shudder shake her whole body and with nothing more than a nod, she darted out of the ship to find him. And she didn't have to search for long; Ron was here, at the foot of the ramp, blaster in his hand…

"Ron?" Elara tried, carefully, a hand hovering on the handle of her own.

Without turning back, he waved to gesture her to stay behind, to stay safe. But she took a step on the ramp anyway, foot light and ready to react, or draw her blaster. Outside, the sky was darker than when she helped Jox on the hull and a thick fog was covering the ground.

"You should come inside. I… I think…"

What was she thinking anyway? That they were all going crazy on this forsaken planet? That she was worried sick for Din and the kid?

"I think there's somethin' in the air…" she said, tentatively. "Somethin' that makes us feel… a 'lil weird, y'know?"

Ron still didn't say a thing, nor even turned to her, watchful of the ship's surroundings, covered in fog. When she reached him, he didn't even glance at her. It was flattering of his trust in her, but also kinda scary under the current circumstances.

"What's goin' on?" she asked for the second time in less than a standard hour. "What… do you see?"

And she looked around, her palm resting on the handle of her blaster.

"There's somethin' spyin' on us… T'came with the fog."

Ron's voice, low and cold serious, made her shiver.

"W-what kind of somethin'?" she whispered.

"Dunno. Predators?"

Elara clenched her jaw, and her fingers on the handle of her blaster. That's exactly what they'd need on top of everything…

"Said it once, but gonna say it again, I don't like this place."

"Tell me about it…"

And maybe he took her comment literally because he added :

"Feels like everythin' wants us dead, or at least gone… And I can't wait to give that everythin' what it wants. By jumping far from here, I mean."

"Yeah," Elara croaked.

"Any news from Mando?

"N-no." It hurt her to admit it. "My direct link with him is full of statics and…"

She pursed her lips.

"And I couldn't reach him when I tried," she said instead of another truth. "Maybe the planet's messing with our comms."

And quite frankly, she was starting to be really scared for Din and the child now, with no way to reach them, to warn them… And maybe something had already happened to them, and they couldn't go and help them. Elara tensed and held her breath to keep herself and her anxiety in check.

This whole journey here was a bad idea. Anton was right, they could perfectly take care of the little one themselves! They just had to be careful with his powers, and to teach him to be careful too if he didn't know already… And if Gideon were to find them again, wherever they'd need to go to protect this child from him, his remnant or his bounty hunters, she knew how to fight and wouldn't be afraid to do so, again. A brief pain in her side reminded her of the fear and the feeling of her bones crushed under the blow, of the vocoded voice and then the gurgles of agony of that vac-head…

"Get back!" Ron growled between gritted teeth, tensed and pushing her with his elbow up the ramp.

Elara whipped her blaster out, making one step back before crouching a little.

"What?" she hurried him, her voice low. "What did you see?!"

Whether it was real or not… He pushed her again and she followed when she thought she saw the dry brush quiver unnaturally through the fog.

PEWPEW!

Ron shot at something Elara had no time to see; the red bolts lit up the space and fog between them and the line of dead trees where they vanished in sparks. And then, Ron shot again — PEW! Under the burning red light of the bolt, she caught a glimpse of dark metal, and even heard clicks of blasters.

"Hounds!" Ron barked. "Get back in, or they'll rip us apart!"

"No! It's not—"

He pushed her back with a stronger hand before grabbing her arm to make her follow him inside the ship. She let herself be dragged in, staring at the fringe of black trees, blaster trained on it. Maybe Gideon's men had found them here already, as impossible as it might seem! Maybe the gravity well station had relayed their transponder signal and Gideon had worked up their destination on his own?!

Ron commanded the closing of the ramp, blaster aimed outside until they couldn't see any of it — CLUNKSHH! The ship was sealed now and Elara drew a sharp breath to collect herself, blaster still in hand while Ron holstered his own back.

"We're good now," he said, more relaxed. "Those karkin' creatures or whatever these ones are can jump good but, he, they still can't open hatches or scratch their way in through several layers of Corellian engineering…"

And, shooting her a charming smile, he patted the bulkhead. Elara forced herself to smile back, saying nothing of what she thought she'd glimpsed.

"That will keep 'em and their awful maws out, and us safe in. Now, all I want is a caf and a cup-worth of warra nuts! Want some?"

The quivering chuckle that escaped Elara wasn't forced, this time. She nodded and, in her turn, she holstered back.

"C'mon…"

He gestured her to follow him in the corridor. Despite her trembling, Elara still felt like she had recovered enough calm to think more clearly. Yet, she didn't move as Ron was already disappearing at the corner. Outside, there were no shouts, no barkings, no howlings, no blasterfire, no steps on the hull, nothing. And maybe what they both thought they had seen outside was just that — nothing…

***

The first thing that greeted Din out of his sleep was a massive headache. That, but also the faint ruffle of wind against thick layers of stone over a low gurgle of water. And his first conscious thought was that maybe he was still in the cave, that maybe he and the child had never left it… or that he'd been dragged back there!

His eyes shot open on a well lit room carved in rock but Din was feeling unaturally heavy so he didn't move, just in case. Over his head, there was a ceiling covered with chalked or painted forms of little beings and beasts, suns and stars, some red, others white and a few black lines turning into elegant letters and shapes of a language Din couldn't read. But the first thing he noticed about this fresco was that he was contemplating it through his visor.

Upon this realisation, Din let a light sigh of relief escape him; his muscles relaxed and he felt a twitch in his gloved fingers. He balled his fists, making the leather creak, and released them slowly. He was laying on something cushiony and soft, he could feel it even through his armor. Obviously, he wasn't in that gigantic cave anymore, but the sudden recollection of that old man's face and his attack made him bolt upright with a groan.

"Toh?"

Next to the couch, the child — or another illusion, maybe? — was drinking a greenish, steamy juice from a little bowl, seated on an upended clay pot like on a stool. With another surprised sound, the child blinked at him, ears up in attention.

"What are you drinking, kid?" Din asked, voice croaky and throat itchy — he could use a drink too.

For all answer, the child took another noisy sip. Jaw clenched, he dared to reach for one of his long ears, brushing the tip between two fingers. Then, he asked :

"Are you real this time, or are you another trick played on my mind?"

The child cooed, looking a little sad as he lowered his ears.

"This child is as real as you and me, Mandalorian…"

With a hand flying to his holster, Din turned to the old man who had entered the carved room, bearing a plate with two other steamy bowls. But he couldn't find his blaster.

"I kept your weapon," the old man commented as he set the plate on a rickety table made of dark wood and stone. "You were a little jumpy, and you obviously had no need of it while you rested…"

Just because all of this was making him rightfully grumpy, Din extended a threatening arm at the old man, the one with the flamethrower ready to fire.

"Calm dow!" He scolded him without a hint of fear in his voice and demeanor. "You definitely have a thick head, but I'm just trying to help you… and this Force sensitive child."

But Din wasn't ready to believe him on his word just yet! He didn't fire, but didn't lower his arm either.

"Why did you do all this? Wh-why put these… images in my head and…"

Din fell short of words in a shudder.

"I didn't."

The old man took one of the bowls and sipped on its contents, casually, as if he wasn't under any threat.

"The Force did. It is very powerful on this planet."

"You tried to take the child from me…"

And, at this moment, Din wasn't so sure anymore. And his headache wasn't really helping him to think straight. He balled his fists under his knuckle plate and swallowed hard as the interior of this stone house was starting to shift and change; that oddly shaped archway through which the old man came from was now reminding him of the backdoor of his parents' house, and the golden light flooding the room through the carved round window blinked and cast dancing shadows on the white walls and floor, like when the wind shook the jaytun trees…

Din squeezed his eyes shut, heart heavy, and drew a sharp breath that his vocoder picked up louder. When he reopened his eyes, the stone house was the one he had just woken up in again, and Tython's morning light was still and cold by the window despite the faint howling of the wind somewhere. Din lowered his arm, and his HUD switched to stand by mode.

"You are strong willed, Mandalorian," the old man said, breaking the heavy silence. "You're fighting harder than I saw anyone strong with the Force or not do it, here."

Din wondered if there were other Jedi here or other people, but he kept his jaw clenched. Right now, he just wanted to take his helmet off, and rub his temples and forehead hard enough to push the headache away…

"But your mind is filled with horrors and guilt of your own that the Force unleashed…"

"Why?!" Din groaned.

The old man shrugged.

"To study you. It wanted you vulnerable, to push you out of you shell."

With a gesture of his hand holding his clay bowl, he pointed at Din.

"Figuratively, and literally in your case…"

Din understood in these words that the old man saw his face as he had pried his mind open. It didn't matter, he hadn't taken his helmet off anyway.

"But you used them too," Din insisted, more angry about this fact. "You made me see people, merged them, and-and killed them in front of my eyes!"

The old man bobbed his grey head, putting his bowl down and taking the other from the tray.

"No, Mandalorian. I did use them, but merely tried to help you out of this, and for that, I only picked the more vivid faces you had turned to, deep inside yourself, to seek comfort and courage, to reach for you in your own mind. But you did the shooting, to fend me off with the rest, and gave me quite a headache in doing so!"

He stepped towards Din with the other bowl in hand which he extended to him; a little confused but more calm now, Din accepted it silently. He felt the clay, warm even through his gloves. The liquid in it had a very unappealing dark green colour.

"What you saw after this was made of your own imagination, I'm afraid."

The child gurgled a sound, raising his empty bowl to the old man.

"Oh, good boy," the old man praised him. "You drank it all again. You will feel much better now."

Din frowned and barely held a sigh.

"But, the child…" he muttered, through his vocoder. "He was in my arms and then…"

Din let his voice and sentence trail as the child turned his big eyes to him, blinking slowly with a little coo. The old man took the bowl and kept it in his hand.

"I'm sorry, Mandalorian," he then said, serious. "I know it will be difficult to hear, and to understand, but… you left him up there, in the temple."

"No, I—"

The old man held his indignation with a placating move of his hand but Din would have cut himself short anyway, heavy with doubts, and craving answers.

"To your defence, you had little to no choice in what happened up there. The Force wanted you to leave the child where he was…"

Din gritted his teeth and the leather on his fingers creaked a little on the warm clay as he clenched them tighter.

"I'm not too sure I like that Force-thing very much."

"Hmm," commented the old man on an amused yet compassionate tone. "But it likes the child, though… He his very strong with the Force and you brought him at the heart of one of its many temples here on Talss, it is no surprise it was so hard on both of you."

Those words filled Din with dread.

"The child had visions too?!"

The old man bobbed his head.

"He was quite distraught when I picked him up."

Din felt bad, and he heard again that heartbreaking cry echoing in his mind, believing he was holding him in his arms. He unclenched the fingers of one hand to brush the top of the child's little head, and his ear.

"I'm sorry, kid."

The child warbled happily. Then, Din raised his visor to the old man.

"How did you find him up there?"

"As you can imagine, we get very few visitors here, and it was quite hard to miss your ship flying over my ever so quiet place. And then, I saw your shuttle go straight to the mountains."

He shrugged with a look for the child.

"I already felt a disturbance in the Force before you entered atmosphere, so it was easy for me to guess what you came here for too."

Din frowned at this use of 'too' but said first :

"I am looking for Jedi. Are you one of them?"

The old man had a brief, disdainful laugh. He stepped back to the table to put the bowl on the tray next to his.

"Oh, I know what you're looking for," he said, coming back next to them with relaxed steps. "But you won't find any Jedi here. Not anymore…"

"But you used that Force, and you live here without being troubled by the visions, you—"

"I am very much troubled by them every day," he interrupted him, looking almost surprised. "But I'm used to them too. I can make the difference between what's from the Force and what's not. Also, the tea helps."

He gestured to the bowl in Din's hand.

"This is ak tree bark, blue vine and ibea… You may know it as frog berry, though."

Despite his knowledge on the matter, Din had no idea what these particular plants were, but he suddenly wanted to put the bowl down and get up, feeling restless and anxious; if they needed that marsh water looking tea to be free of the visions, then Elara and all the Early Riser crew could be in actual danger as they spoke! But he remained seated, tense to the point of feeling sharp pangs in his muscles, on top of his headache.

"If there are no Jedi here, I have to get back to my crew. If that Force is doing to them what it did to me, then—"

"Your crew is fine."

"How can you know that?!"

The old man let out a grumbling sigh in front of Din's mood.

"I feel it in the Force," he answered, with an even voice. "And you need to drink your tea before going anywhere."

The child let out an uncomfortable squeak and the old man scooped him in his arms.

"The visions may have receded a little for now, but they will come back. Maybe not as strong as they were out of the temple, but enough to make your way back to your shuttle more dangerous than it needs to be."

Din didn't protest and nodded once. At least, he could work out of his words that the shuttle was fine.

"Ok…"

Satisfied, the old man nodded too. Then, he took the tray with his free hand and said:

"The child and I will be drinking our tea in the next room. Don't call, we'll know when you're ready to be in our company again…"

"But, I have questions!"

An exclamation to which the old man groaned in exasperation.

"Drink now, Mandalorian… and then, we'll talk some more."

Without waiting for more protests from Din, he took the child and the tray in another room behind a tall, curvy pillar of natural rock, carved whether by tools or time. Once they had disappeared, and he heard a happier squeal from the child, Din put his bowl on the upended pot to free his hands, and take his helmet off. Hands on each side of it, he hesitated for a second, taking a slow breath, before lifting it.

The light seemed harsher, and the smells stronger without it but Din also felt more exposed than he ever did, here, after these nightmarish visions and what they stirred in him. He blinked a little against the cold light, then settled his helmet down next to him on the mattress.

He brushed his cheeks, scratched his stubble with gloved hands, and rested his face in his palm, thinking back to how it felt when he believed — even for a short moment — that it was Elara's, that she could see him, and touch his face again, like she used to…

Faint children laughter and familiar sounds reached him from a street that he knew didn't exist under that old man's window, voices and smells that moved him deep… Din reopened his eyes and picked up the bowl on the pot. Then, he took a first sip. And it tasted like it smelled — like marsh water.

After a few gulps, the memories stopped spilling and Din discovered that cave dwelling to be rather quiet and cozy ; the wind was still blowing outside, even though the storm had apparently cleared, and there was the crackle of a fireplace in another room. Din took a deep breath, appeased, and then finished his now lukewarm tea in one last sip.

Putting the bowl down, he then rubbed his temples; he didn't know what was that ak bark or ibea berry, and he had already forgotten the name of the other, but that bitter blend might have helped with the headache too. The pain was less sharp now, the beats of his heart more steady, and even if it wasn't exactly pleasant, Din would have been ready to drink another bowl of this herbal, so parched he was! And exhausted.

Facing this fact, Din had to refrain a yawn; now that he had calmed down a little, he felt like he could lay down and sleep for a bit, without the help of a smack on the head, this time. This old man was right; he was indeed feeling vulnerable, and Din hated that feeling. As a solution to it, he took his helmet with both hands to put it back on. It connected instantly with the rest of his armor, and his HUD's feedback blinked readily before disappearing. Din took a sharp breath of cycled air in, and he felt a little better almost right away.

"Tell me, Mandalorian," the old man's voice made him almost jump to his feet. "Why going through all the trouble of coming here, of all the planets in our galaxy?"

Din saw him come back in the room through the same arch, with the kid in his arms.

"As I said, I am looking for a Jedi. It's for the child, he needs one of his kind to take care if him, and help him with his powers."

The old man nodded with a look for the child in his arms.

"Do you need training, little one?"

As an answer, the kid cooed a grumpy sound, ears down.

"Will you do it?"

Din's question was greeted with a surprised look from the old man.

"Me?!" He exclaimed. "No! Certainly not."

Din gritted his teeth.

"I am not a Jedi, and if I were, I wouldn't be fit to teach younglings… Plus, for what I sense, this little one already had training… Long ago."

Again, the child cooed a low sound.

"What you sense ?" Din repeated, starting to feel a sour mix of anger and frustration make his blood boil. "How can you use the Force, and not be a Jedi then?"

"Anyone can use the Force, if the Force is with them."

Din let out a slow sigh; all this was starting to get on his nerves but he had to keep his calm, and his head clear.

"But you're right, Mandalorian," the old man added. "I can use the Force and it's unfair of me to confuse you so. Especially since it's clear now that you have no bad intentions whatsoever."

He sighed too, and sat at the table on which he put the child.

"I was a Jedi, once."

Din was heedful now.

"My name is Gren Kol Doon, and if I lived the life of a Jedi, now I am only a hermit, living his last days in peace, however long the Force will make them, far from all the conflicts and violence the sick and bored minds of the galaxy can conjure on the innocent…"

To what Din said nothing. And faced with his silence, Kol Doon added:

"Take no offense for you and your people in my words, Mandalorian. Throughout our shared History, Jedi were guilty of the same warmongering."

He paused, clearly saddened, if not embarrassed.

"Last time they had their hands in politics, we all know what happened…"

No, actually, Din didn't know. But, he didn't ask either, as Kol Doon went on:

"This arrogance, this… disgrace is exactly why I left the Order. Too thin had become the veil between dark and light…"

And he sounded profoundly sad as he said this, looking at the child who tilted his little head and blinked at him.

"A few of us had already taken our distances with Coruscant and the Order when the Empire went in power and we sensed our brothers and sisters die almost all at once throught the Force, in all places of the galaxy where that war had led them. We knew their purge wouldn't stop until all of us were dead. And they had all our names in the archives of the Temple…"

Din clenched his jaw, thinking back to Gideon's taunt on Nevarro, and how he'd figured out who he was; Mandalorians had kept registers too…

"So, we used our connexion to the Force and we found this ancient planet, birthplace of our kind you might say…"

He bobbed his head.

"We knew our presence would be hidden here, drown in the chaos of the planet."

He swallowed hard and added:

"Some died because of the visions, and those who survived left because of them, and the need it stirred in them to go find more survivors… and other Force-sensitive that could be in danger, now more than ever."

Kol Doon waved a hand aimlessly.

"Those who wanted to stay and I let them take the ship, and we've had no news of them since…"

Din wanted to respect his sorrow, but he had questions, and very little time to waste.

"Is there other Jedi here? Do you think they'll take the child and train him?"

"Sadly, they are dead, Mandalorian. I am the only one left here…"

Hearing this, Din was so despondent that it hurt even in his bones. They both looked at the child who sqwaked, looking back at each of them in turn, almost confused. Kol Doon took a sharp breath in and looked up at Din to say, on his usual terse tone:

"Nevertheless, it was quite inspired to come here of all places, to come back to the roots of the Force. But with a child like this, who's surprised, really?"

Din frowned behind his visor.

"What do you mean?"

"There is no coincidence around someone as strong with the Force as he is."

And Din frowned even more, looking at the child who stared back. He had no idea how all of this worked but he was sure that if he took the time to look back on the last few months and what he'd thought to be strokes of luck, he'd find enough arguments that would prove Kol Doon right. And yet even with this in mind, he said, moody:

"It was still a waste of time to come here…"

A waste of time, and resources, that almost killed them all!

"Maybe the Force wanted you, and the child, to learn something here…" Kol Doon pointed out, with the hint of a smirk that Din didn't like too much. "If not the location of another Jedi, then… something about yourselves, perhaps?"

Din tilted his helmet, miffed, and he felt downright vexed when Kol Doon let out a brief scoff in response; he was used to people making fun of him but maybe not in a distressing moment like this. And also, what could be possible to learn through a heap of terrifying and cruel visions?! It was all that Din didn't want to think about, all that he had had such a hard time to overcome as a child, even under the good care of Korben and other Mandalorians.

Din gritted his teeth and lowered his head a little, staring at his gloved hands on his thigh plates through the safety of his visor. No — he had learned something, actually… He had learned that even under this armor he loved so much, even if he'd been raised and trained as a Mandalorian, he was still that Vetinian boy too, his parents' only child, and that they were still very much alive inside of him — their faces, their voices, the warmth of their love — even though he couldn't conjure any of it with the same clarity in his conscious mind. They had always felt lost forever to him after a while, and after what little things about them he could hold onto had waned to the point that the only things that remained were their names… and that they died for him to live.

Korben had told him once that his parents were the ones who taught him what true courage was, that Mandalorians only taught him to use it. But even as they knew they were about to die that fateful day, his parents had had the strength to say goodbye to him, while Din couldn't. He couldn't accept their death like they had accepted it, he couldn't just let them go under the fire. Din balled his fists. He had the faint memory that he had reached for them as his father closed the cellar on him, plunging him in the dark that was supposed to save his life. But he wasn't sure anymore; maybe he had just stayed still and mute, staring at them going away, and it was only when this Mandalorian in blue armor showed up that he finally moved to take his hand.

So, no, Din hadn't been able to say goodbye to the ones he loved back then. And he still couldn't now. Except that he would have to — to the kid, and to Elara too, eventually… But he didn't want to. Not because it was too hard, only because he loved their company. They made him feel that warm sense of belonging, that he had found again that home he had left behind… Din felt hot tears roll down his cheeks, reaching the corner of his mouth through his stubble.

"As for myself, after years of undisturbed solitude, it seems that I can't stop receiving visitors, now."

Din stiffened, but Kol Doon added right away with another smirk:

"You are not the only one to have come here in the recent months. So, maybe the Force gave me a role to play in your little quest after all."

"What do you mean?" Din inquired, nervous, almost getting up. "Who came here?"

If Gideon or his soldiers had found this place before him, then it could mean that none of the other places were safe either. But Kol Doon's reply cut Din anxious thoughts short.

"A boy." Kol Doon sat at the table, with a gentle look for the child. "He came here to search the temples for holocrons and other ancient artifacts."

"A Jedi?!"

Or so Din hoped, and that he wasn't just another scholar like Cornell. But Kol Doon nodded.

"Indeed. He had withstood the visions for many days as he traveled the continents… He said his master had taught him well. But, as strong as he was, he still needed my tea when he finally got here!"

A new sense of urgency took hold of Din who finally jumped on his feet.

"Did—did he tell you his name, or where he was going next?!"

"Yes, he did," assured Kol Doon.

And for that, Din felt relieved.

"The boy said he'd fly to Ossus next, to find more ancient relics."

"Ossus?"

That was a name Din had read quite a lot about for the past few days but still, Kol Doon added, thinking maybe that his surprise was only an expression of his ignorance or confusion:

"Another ancient Jedi place, tied to this one."

"When was it?"

The answer to that question could be already irrelevant but still, Din wanted to know; he could track him down, given a starting point.

"He left around two standard months ago," Kol Doon said. "He had found more than he had hoped for, here…"

Din barely listened to that last comment; as he feared, it might already be too late. This Jedi could have reached Ossus while he was loosing time on bounties for fuel money, and left the planet already…

"I feel your worry, Mandalorian." Kol Doon stood up in a faint grunt that made him look really old for the first time. "But do not despair…"

Din took a slow breath in, ready to hear anything.

"The boy has to go through that entire planet's ruins. He said he'd be there for quite some time too, before going back to Yavin 4… should I decide to leave this place."

"You have a ship?"

"No!" Kol Doon chuckled. "And that's what I told him but… perhaps he knew I would be presented with another opportunity soon?"

He had a genuine smile for Din, then he added :

"And that someone might be looking for him too."

That idea gave Din a sense of calm that he enjoyed for a minute. Back in control of himself, he asked to Kol Doon :

"And… do you want to leave?"

Who wouldn't? Din wondered for himself. But instead of giving voice to his thoughts, he said:

"We have a ship, we can take you, and find this Jedi together."

He glanced at the child.

"I could use your help with the kid on that journey…"

Kol Doon pressed his arm gently, under the pauldron.

"Your offer is generous and kind, Mandalorian. But I must decline…"

"You don't want to leave this place?"

That was beyond Din.

"No, I do not," Kold Doon confirmed. "I do not wish to see the scars of the galaxy with my own eyes when I know them through the Force already."

Din wondered if the child felt things like Kol Doon was describing them.

"I shall become one with the Force here, where I belong now."

Din had no idea what he meant by that, but he politely bobbed his head. Kol Doon cracked a smile that rejuvenated his crinckled grey face.

"But first, I have to give you some of my tea for your crewmates. They'll sure need some."

And with a brief chuckle, Kold Doon gestured Din to follow him to another room, behind the carved archway.

***

The Early Riser was landed a few kilometers away from the village's ruins. The hull looked in better shape despite the large carbon scores darkening half of its port side and that hadn't been washed. Neither by the astromech or any rain. But at least, it looked ready to fly without loosing more pieces…

The shuttle wasn't easy to dock on a landed ship but Din managed to couple it back without too much hitches. But what he was most anxious about was how silent the entire ship was. Even after this poor and scratchy docking that had to have startled everyone on board. He expected Elara to greet him right out of the shuttle in the corridor, but no-one was there, and there was none of the usual chatter and busy activity he got used to aboard either.

In his arms, even the child was quiet too, hugging the tiny carved wood box full of leaves that Kol Doon had given him, and Din walked up the main corridor to the cockpit. On his way there and before reaching the lounge, he was met by TC-20 who flailed in surprise.

"Oh, it is you, Mandalorian!" He stated, almost reassured. "Maybe we can leave this terrible place now that you are back…"

His photoreceptors stared blankly at the child and he added :

"And with the little one too? I take it that you didn't find what you were looking for here. This whole trip was for nothing then. What a pity…"

His dejected tone made Din clench his jaw.

"Where is everyone?"

"We're here, Mando…"

Neal's voice called him past the protocol droid who let out a little surprised sound before falling into steps with him, up to the lounge area; all the crew was here, around the table, playing dejarik, or just close by — save for Elara. And this observation worried Din a little more. All their eyes landed on the kid who cowered in his arms.

"Welcome back, little bug!" Anton greeted him.

So, Din took the box from the child's hands to put it down on the holotable where the holopieces quivered.

"Brew this in hot water," he told them. "And drink it."

"What is it?" Jox asked as Ron was picking the box up.

"A herbal. Something to help with… with the headaches this planet gave us all."

The way they all looked at him, tired and moody, confirmed that they had gone through the same imaginary hell as he did.

"I'm more of a caf kind of guy, Mando," Neal quipped with a lenient smile, and he looked all the more tired for it.

Din said nothing to that, staring back at him, even if Neal couldn't see any of it.

"Wow!" Ron had a recoil, holding the open box away from his nose. "Smells terrible!"

Din bobbed his helmet.

"Yeah. And the taste is too. But it works. And after drinking it, you'll be able to fly us out of here without… inconvenience."

"Yeah, that sure is a word for it…" Anton grumbled, turning the table and its hologame off.

Jox took the box from Ron's hand to go to the galley where he busied himself with boiling some water.

"Where is Elara?" Din then asked.

The answer came from Neal.

"In your cabin. She was wearing herself thin, trying to keep our heads out of the coolant, so… when we all made a little more sense, I sent her to get some sleep as well."

"Yeah, she'd fallen asleep on Gun's shoulder!" Ron chuckled. "And he was winnin' for once! But she snored through it."

He laughed again, but his taunt obviously targeted Anton, not Elara. Jox came back with a steaming cup in his big, webbed hand; he gave it to Din that he shooed away with a wave before turning to the others.

"Who wants some next?"

But Din was already leaving the lounge to get back to the cabin. He opened the door that he discovered had been fixed in the meantime, and a few lights added their shine to the overhead lamps of the bed where Elara seemed asleep, her back turned to the door and him.

"Ela?"

No answer. Only the child cooed in his arms and Din closed the door before going beside the bed where he put him on the sheets, holding the cup carefully in his other hand. He settled it on the bedstand and sat next to her. She still didn't move. Din brushed her hair away from her neck and shoulder; her breathing was calm and steady, and she didn't flinch under his touch. She looked peaceful and it bothered Din to wake her up, especially just to drink some disgusting brew. The child waddled to grab one of her ankles, to clutch at her sock with a low chirp.

"Ela…"

This time she grumbled a sound and took a deep breath before rolling on her back, scratching her head. She looked confused and even a little nervous to see him. And for a second, he wondered what the Force may have tormented her with…

"Neal told me they'd send you to bed," he said simply.

She nodded, lips pursed.

"How are you feeling?"

She grumbled.

"Jawa beered…"

Din chuckled.

"I have something for that right here."

"Prrrrr…"

She sat upright in a start to see the child perk his ears with a happy warble, fingers digging in her sock.

"Tip-yip?!" Her voice was croaky and tight. "You…"

She let her sentence trail and looked back at Din.

"You brought him back?!"

And she sounded happy of that fact too.

"I mean, there was no Jedi, or…"

"There was one," Din said. "But he couldn't take care of him. Not here."

He felt her shudder. With a light hand, he stroked her hair in comfort.

"The… the coms, they…" She paused and swallowed hard, avoiding his gaze. "They weren't working. I… I tried to talk to you, but…"

All her face scrunched in a painful wince and Din grabbed the cup to put it in her hands.

"It's ok. I'm here now…"

She nodded, clutching at the cup as if to warm her hands on it. A heavy silence fell in the room, but Din could see she was about to cry. And it wrung his heart. The kid resumed his walk up to her with careful steps on the crumpled bedsheet and she had a poor smile for him. He cooed gently, then let himself flop seated. The silence lingered still and Elara tried a careful sip of her cup; she winced but didn't say a thing about it. She was still staring at her shaky reflection on the dark brew when she murmured:

"I… I think… I spoke to my brother… on the comlink."

And her voice too was shaky. She raised her eyes up to his visor, again, catching his gaze through it. It was Din's turn to shudder.

"He told me…"

Tears rolled down her cheeks as her voice broke. She looked down at the tea, shimmering under the dim overhead lights, and Din stroked her hair again.

"He told me…"

She winced again and her shoulders quivered under his gloved hand. Din wrapped an arm around her; he already had a strong suspicion that she had to have seen — or heard — things related to her family too…

"It wasn't real, Ela. It was only visions, hallucinations…"

She sniffled and the child let out a long, sad woooo…

"It was your fears and your grief that spoke to you, not Jord…" Din swallowed hard, eyes tingling with pent-up tears. "It's the Force, here on this planet… Somehow, it feeds on our pains and guilt, and—"

"But the kid, he healed me!" And she sounded very agitated, even if she was trying to stay collected. "This magic, the Force, it's real, and powerful…"

Din wouldn't argue against that.

"So maybe it could have! Maybe it's true… and my parents are disappointed with me and… and…" She needed to take a deep, shaking breath in. "And it's my fault Jord died…"

Din was far from imagining such an idea and refrained from expressing his surprise.

"He'd still be alive if—"

"Ela!" He grabbed her gently by the shoulders to make her face him. "Ela, look at me…"

Din gritted his teeth under the sharp recollection of how it felt to be bare faced in front of her. Even only in his own mind… But then, she closed her eyes, pushing heavy tears out. So, he brushed them off her cheeks with his thumbs. Then, she reopened her eyes on him, but Din couldn't find his voice anymore. He mouthed a few syllables in the secret of his helmet, pushing himself to speak. He sighed and his voice cracked when he finally uttered:

"It wasn't your brother. The Force made you hear things, see things…" He pressed his lips after this slip of the tongue. "Things that hurts, people we miss… That's what it does here."

She took a deep breath, heedful.

"That's what this old Jedi I've found told me…"

Din paused, hesitated, but then admitted :

"After he helped me fight those visions."

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise and shock.

"What… did you see?"

Din drew a slow breath in, and fondled her shoulders and neck.

"It… didn't make much sense."

It was a very abridged version of the truth but Din didn't want to revisit all this quite yet. And she needed to drink that tea while it was still hot. And get some more rest. And honestly, Din wasn't sure he could fight the need to sleep either. She held his gaze for a second longer, then took another sip of her cup.

"I'm happy you're back…" she then said, head low.

Din stroked her hair. At her side, the child sqwaked a creaking sound, hands gripping the fabric of her pants.

"Come here, Tip-yip!" She took her cup in one hand to help him climb her leg to sit on her knees. "I'm happy you're back too."

The ship shook in a low rumble of engines before lifting off. Finally, they were leaving this place.

***

The cabin was quiet now, quiet and warm. And the bed was soft under his cheek and ear, his little crafted toy back in his hand. He had had food too, but it tasted wrong. Like dust. Dust was hurting his eyes and making his nose tingle. His mind was still tingling too, hurting deep in places he couldn't reach like he had been taught, and he blinked his tired eyes on the shimmering armor.

He and her, his protectors, were asleep now. They rarely slept at the same time, always watching over him, but now, it would be his turn to watch over them as this old and new ship flew gently away, searching for a path through the void, and quiet stars, far from this ancient, angry star, that screamed so loud. He felt it all around him on its scorched ground and still did now, even far away.

Another tingle, a softer one, made him raise his head, and then sit up. That's when the shape appeared, pale and mute, in front of him. And that pale shape looked like him, and others before him, but with long, tied up hair, like hers — that of his protector who was taking such good care of him, before she let the woman who smelled like the fallen rain on sunburnt earth cut them for her.

He knew the shape, from long ago, and he welcomed it with warm feelings. The shape had taken good care of him too, before giving him away to the people who had protected him, from star to star, like his new protectors were doing now. And he felt the shape's curiosity about them.

So, he opened his mind, hearing and letting himself be heard like when he had to solve the riddles of the puzzle boxes. The shape learned about the fate of protectors it knew and how himself had been lost, and then found by his new protector. It discovered the gentle face of the one who died for him on the ash planet with burning rivers where his mechanical child sacrificed itself too.

And then, it learned about her, his new protector, who fought the people in black shells, that he had to save her from, and this pained the shape, he felt it in waves that he let go through him. But the shape was still curious about them both, so he let it learn more; that they knew each others from long ago, that he called her Ela, and she called him Din. For him, they were light and colours.

She named him Tip-yip. That was not his name, but he loved the name, and he loved the meat too. And he loved him and her, both. And he knew he would be sad when their path would part. But he was happy that now wasn't that time. He had known people he loved before, like the shape that looked like him. Time and dark dangers took these people away from him, and him from them. But he'd been saved and kept safe again. And he was stronger now, the power flowing through him was easier to hold. So, in turn, he had kept people safe too, like he'd been taught — to help and save, and care.

That's what his thoughts were for the shape sitting on their bed to hear, and it nodded. He felt the shape's joy like if it was in his own heart, and he squeaked a little sound when the shape's ears twitched like his before it bobbed its head again, slow and calm, like he remembered it to do, when it was made of matter.

He extended an arm, a hand, towards the pale shape and over the sleeping bodies of his protectors, curled up together like the youngs of a mighty creature made of warm light and metal. Like the pendant he loved to play with. The shape reached for his hand too, and their fingers touched. It felt like the wind, and like water, blowing and flowing from inside out.

And so, the shape's inner voice spoke to his mind, soft and low. It spoke of tender pride, of trust and hope, and the voice made him feel warm and comforted like in the arms of all his protectors — him and her, and those who came before them.

And then, the shape vanished, like the moving memories she had shown him, that were trapped in the little sticks like they were in the puzzle boxes he had played with, and he cooed, a little sad.

He knew he wouldn't see the shape again before a long time, before the spinning and blinking of suns and stars woved the lives of hundreds. And by then, words would be falling from his mouth. But not for now. And now, he knew the shape to be at peace, to be happy with what became of him, and that he was safe, once again.

So, he waddled on the bed and climbed her leg to tuck himself between warm body and metal. She purred a sound, but stayed still, and asleep. He rested his weary head on her chest, ear flat to listen to the music of her heart over the deep rumble of the ship that carried them away, never to come back there. He closed his eyes on merrier thoughts, his own little heart light, and fell asleep.

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