A Crown for a Bounty Part 2
Summary: The princess could sense the danger long before she could see it, and knew she was being watched; hunted.
It wasn’t long until she was confronted with a bounty puck, and the person carrying it.
The princess walked over to the slumped over mandalorian and kicked him gently. He was out cold.
“Hmm, that bite is pretty bad.” She said, examining his leg. She looked over at the child who was now climbing over top of him, banging on the mando’s helmet.
“Listen Grogu,” the princess said bending down to his level. “Did he capture you, too? If he did….now is our chance to escape. We can run away together.”
But the child didn’t seem to like this idea. He looked up at the princess with his wide eyes and she realized they were filled with tears.
“Da,” Grogu said between the babbles. And the princess blinked, looking over to the mandalorian.
“Da?” She repeated. “Is that dad? Is he your dad?” She thought back to how happy the child was to sit on the Mandalorian’s lap in the spaceship, and how concerned Mandalorian seemed when Grogu had almost drowned.
Grogu continued to babble and whimper, knocking on the Mandalorian’s helmet.
The princess let out a long sigh. “You want me to help him, don’t you?”
Grogu whimpered and the princess placed her fingers on the bridge of her nose. “I’m too soft for this,” she muttered to herself.
“Fine,” she said finally, throwing a glance at Grogu. “I’ll help. But I’m doing this for you, not for him. And once I patch him up I’m making my escape, right?”
The child continued to babble as the princess made her way onto her ship to retrieve her backpack. On her way back out she saw a first aid kit pinned to the wall.
Handy.
She grabbed it and made her way back over to them, the Mandalorian still out cold.
The princess rummaged through her bag and pulled out Darendell Oil and a type of syrup medicine called Revershell. It was stuff she had stolen from the hospital wing of her palace before she left. With it, she stole a book of injuries and how to heal them.
She flipped through the book and confirmed that the creature that attacked was called a Noctus Crow, and that Darendell Oil should work to suck the poison out if acted upon quickly.
The princess cracked open the seemingly brand new first aid kit and grabbed a long bandage wrap, something that she also had in her bag but figured she’s better off using his.
She read the directions in the book carefully as she disinfected the Mandalorian’s wound and carefully patched him up. The cut on his leg sizzled loudly as she placed the oil inside and she automatically winced for him, surprised that he never made any movement.
“That’s gotta hurt,” she told Grogu as he sat watching intently.
Finally she was done and she stood back, examining her work.
“The book says the bite can be so painful that it puts the body in a deep sleep. I think he’ll he fine now. The medicine I gave him will draw out the toxins ok?”
Grogu looked up at the princess, wide eyed and gurgled some more.
The princess clenched her fist as she looked up at the sky and realized the sun was going down. “You don’t want to be alone, do you?” She asked him.
He cooed some more as she adjusted the fire.
“Fine,” she told him. “I need to dry off anyways. But after that I’m leaving ok?”
——————————————————————
When the Mandalorian woke up, it was dark outside and the only thing visible was the brightly lit fire set beside him with the smell of something cooking.
There was a woman with long blonde hair, in her underwear, standing over a pot which was simmering over the open flame.
“Don’t eat that yet,” she said softly to the child beside her. “It’s too hot.”
It was then that the Mandalorian remembered where he was and who he was with and he sat up quickly, much to the surprise of the blonde woman and the little child who let out a gasp.
The child ran over happily to the Mandalorian who was awake and the princess dropped her spoon in surprise with a small gasp. She didn’t expect him to get up so soon. She really expected him to be out for a full 24 hours like the book had told her, but it appeared to be wrong.
“What happened?” She heard him mumble as he stood up off the ground. “Did you poison me?”
The princess rolled her eyes at the accusation and pointed to his leg. “Yes I did. I poisoned you, and then I patched you up and decided to stick around to make soup.”
It was then that he seemed to realize that he had a bandage wrapped around his leg securely.
When he didn’t speak, she spoke again. “You were bit by that thing. A Noctus Crow. Has disgusting teeth and it infected you. Leave that on for the rest of the night & you should be fine.”
As she said this she cursed under her breath, knowing full well that the reasons for her rambling wasn’t because she wanted to talk to the Mandalorian particularly, but was due to the bottle of wine she had consumed an hour earlier. This was when she had decided that everything in sight that belonged to the Mandalorian had now belonged to her. It didn’t matter if she was a thief because she was going to be leaving anyways.
The Mandalorian was quiet as Grogu babbled on, climbing onto him and pulling at his sleeve.
“He was very worried about you,” she finally added. “He’s your kid?”
More silence, and the princess continued stirring the soup over the stove until
“Why did you patch me up?”
The princess paused and thought about it for a moment. Truth was, she didn’t know.
“Because I’m not a monster.” She finally said, filling up a bowl with the hearty soup that was now ready. She walked over and passed it over to him. “Grogu, yours should be cooler now.” She said gesturing to the one she had put aside on a nearby rock.
The child happily walked over to it and ate it in a hurry.
The princess sat on the nearest log and continued to comb out her tangled hair which was almost dry. It was times like this she thought about chopping it off. As she thought of this she reached over to feel her dress which was hanging by the branch above her. Still damp. Drying off in her underwear seemed to be the only option for now.
She watched as the Mandalorian stayed unmoving.
“You’re not going to eat?”
“I can’t take my helmet off.”
“Why?”
“It’s against my creed. I can’t take my helmet off infront of other people.”
The princess ate her soup in silence; what a strange rule to follow. She wanted to ask him a million questions about it but stubbornly refused.
Silently, he got up from his seat and disappeared behind the ship. It wasn’t until half an hour later that he returned, when the princess and Grogu had finished dinner and she had finished setting up her bed by the fire. She noticed the Mandalorian’s bowl was empty.
“You can leave,” he said once she had crawled into her sleeping bag.
“Actually I’m comfortable here, thanks.” She mumbled into her pillow, thinking he’d rather her be chained up to a tree or something instead? He can think again. She deserved to sleep by the fire. After all she made it, and if it wasn’t for her -
“No. I mean you’re free to go.”
His words interrupted her thoughts with a halt and she suddenly rolled over to face him. “What?”
“You can go.” He repeated, and she realized he wasn’t meeting her gaze, but staring into the fire again.
“Why?” She pressed. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt so angry.
“You didn’t have to take care of us. But you did.” He said finally. “But if I were you, I’d stay out here in the woods. Everyone is looking for you now, more urgently than before. They increased your worth.”
The princess sat silently as the information sunk in. She knew it was true. But she also knew she would barely be able to survive on her own in the woods. And if she was captured again…she knew that the new bounty hunter may not spare her life.
“No,” she said finally after a long pause. “I should go back home…I don’t see that I have any other choice.” It was the honest truth and she knew it. There was no way in hell she would be able to really survive on her own, not when everyone was after her.
The Mandalorian stared at her for a long while before responding. “Why?”
“What other choice do I have? I barely lasted a month out there when you found me.”
“You were hard to find.” He said.
The princess looked up at him and blinked. “I was?”
She felt as though he regretted even mentioning it, for he never said anything after that.
She felt intrigued and somehow proud. She was hard to find? By a bounty hunter?
But then again, she did lay pretty low. If not in the woods, then in the streets, covered in mud and dust to disguise herself as a beggar.
They both sat in silence, and for a while all the princess could hear were the gentle snores of Grogu who had drifted off a while ago beside them.
“Why don’t you want to get married?” Came a voice so soft that the princess almost didn’t realize it came from the mandalorian.
Without answering, she stood up slowly to reveal a giant scar on the left side of her leg which lead all the way up to her lower bum.
“This,” she said finally, gesturing to the red marking. “Is from the man who paid you to capture me.”
Very gently, the mandalorian reached over slowly and the princess watched steadily as he brushed his fingers across her scar. “He would beat me if I didn’t listen. Leather whip. Not fun. Seeing as my fiancé is the same as my father, I know I’m in for more than this.” She finally said in barely a whisper.
They both didn’t speak for a long time, and the princess was very aware of the cool fingertips that laid firmly on her lower leg, yet the Mandalorian didn’t dare reach up any further.
This was the effects of the wine again; the princess knew as she stood completely still instead of slapping him away.
Why did he suddenly seem so interesting to her? Why did -
Suddenly a pop and a spark from her hands made both of them jumped back.
“Fuck,” she said snapping her fingers to put the flames out. “Sorry. I don’t know why it does that sometimes.” She could feel her face turning red as she waved the flames off. Such awful timing - but why did they appear at all? Was it the fact that her heart was beating faster than normal?
“What is that?” Mandalorian finally asked her, gesturing to her smoking fingers.
“Um, not sure really.” She muttered, sitting back down on the log beside him. “Born with it. Never got to the bottom of it.”
“So when your father told me you had burned down a quarter of the palace before you left - ?”
A sharp inhale came from her lips and she couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “Yeah…that might’ve happened.”
Of course the Mandalorian would know about that, but she was surprised her father never told him the details. The way that her rage took over and she burned down half the building and anyone who got in her way.
“He never elaborated?” She asked him.
“Why didn’t you use fire on me?” He asked instead.
Very good question, she thought to herself. With an answer far too simple: she couldn’t control it. There were times she was desperate for it. Needed it more than anything but the flames never came.
But she couldn’t tell him this information. It was too risky. She needed him to believe that she had complete control. Maybe make him believe that she had the upper hand.
“You weren’t worth the flames,” she said finally. And in that moment, she hoped he wouldn’t be able to see through her lies, and maybe the blush that crept up onto her cheeks weren’t visible in the dark.
He didn’t seem to have a response to that. Instead he said: “I won’t let you go back to him,” he said, gesturing to her leg.
The princess looked down at it before looking back up at him. “I don’t think we have much of a choice.”
