Saranghae

𝘓𝘖𝘕𝘎 𝘙𝘖𝘈𝘋 𝘏𝘖𝘔𝘌, Mando x reader

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Season 1

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Season 2

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter X: Mon by Mon Calamari

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilization, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

Waynes cheeks take on a glowing beam as he softly snores. You smile down at him, gently rocking him from side to side. You softly hum a tune your mother used to sing to you when you were his age.

A little hand reaches out, rubbing across his face, you try to stil your giggle, reaching out your fingers to stroke his hair. Could there be anything more precious? You feel utterly peaceful as you sway from side to side, closing your eyes and giving in to the gentle hum of life.

Your eyes peel open, a deep sorrow unexpectadly taking over you as you notice the buttons of the Razor Crest cockpit. You rub your eyes roughly, slanking your hands across your face as you let out a deep sigh.

You notice the soft beeping that must have awoken you. Up front, you can see a cloudy blue planet you vaguely recognise.

You hear the child and the lady stirring beside you.

"Looks like we made it." Din says, "Get ready for landing."

The lights go out and Din lets out an irritated grunt,

"Dank farrik! The landing array isn't responding. Without the guidance entry it'll be a manual re-entry."

You blow out an exasperated breath as he continues,

"It might get a little choppy. Once we're through the atmosphere there should be enough fuel to slow us down."

"You don't seem too confident about that," you say,

"Well yeah," Din says, "If we don't burn to a crisp first."

You raise your eyebrows incredulously as the back of the ship dips, nearing the planets atmosphere.

As you fall, a burning starts to build up on the bottom before fully bursting into fire. You're tugging on the sides of your seat in a futile attempt to not fly out of it as Din taps at the controls.

"Come up here. I need your hands!"

You place the kid on the seat as you near the controls.

"This lever needs to stay back,"

You pull on it as Din continues, "Keep it steady. Here we go."

The ship pierces through the clouds, revealing somber docks beneath. You knew it, Mon Calamari.

"Razor Crest, this is Trask flight control." a voice comes in through the intercom. "Please reduce your speed to port protocal."

"I'm trying my best here!" Din grunts out, "Engage reverse thrusters. Brace!"

"Razor Crest, do you copy? You have to reduce speed." the voice comes back in.

The ship continues to shake violently,

"Almost there, almost there," Din says.

"Razor Crest, do you copy?"

You can now see the docks clearly,

"Razor Crest, you're coming in too fast, you have to re-"

Din smashes a fist to the intercom, the voice stops as you rock back and forth, nearing the dock.

"Here we go. Nice and easy-"

An engine bursts, causing the ship to tumble to the left, into the water.

+++++++++

It had taken a while to get the ship out of the water, but it had worked! And as you broke through the surface, you could spy a dissapointed looking dac observing the ship.

The four of you were now wandering up the dock as said dac nears you,

"So, how can I help you?" the dac asks. Din looks back at the now pathetic looking ship,

"Can you fix it?"

The dac looks at the ship incredulously,

"Fix it? Nah. But I can make it fly."

Din hands him a sachet, "Do what you can."

You notice the frog lady looking derelict as she takes in the surroundings,

"Husband?" you ask, she nods in answer, not stripping her searching eyes away.

"Otto!" she croaks out, you assume it's her husbands name.

A call comes from the other side of the dock, you look to see another frog-like creature. The lady smiles broadly and you can't help mirroring her expression as she lets out a squeal, padding to the frog-man.

They embrace one another as you, Din and the kid near them. The lady sets down her offspring, reaching out for her husbands cheek as they gaze at one another tenderly. The two look down at the tadpoles, caressing the tank.

You smile softly, the child looks to you and Din and coos. Your face warms a bit as you imagine the three of you being a parrallel to them.

The gentlemen gets up, taking yours and Dins hands,

"You're welcome."

"I was told you could lead me to others of my kind,"

The man nods pointing towards the inn,

"He says he's seen them frequent the inn," you translate.

You see the small family off and enter the inn. A far more friendly looking dac comes up to you,

"Have a seat, what can I get you?"

"Nothing for me. A bowl of chowder for my friends." Din says,

"These seats are scarce buddy. Everyone seated needs to eat."

"I can buy something else," he slides some gows across the table, "information."

The dac takes the gows, lending a flat ear as Din asks,

"Have you seen others that look like me?"

The dac looks around carefully before pulling down a chowder tube,

"Others with beskar have been through here." he slides one of the bowls to the kid, then pours another bowl,

"Who can take me to them?" Din asks,

"I know someone who might help." he slides the bowl to you before turning around and walking off. You take a spoon, digging into the chowder, which you haven't had in a while. Din is still looking at the server, who is now talking to a quarren.

The kid taps at his chowder curiosly,

"Patu,"

You side eye him as you bite down on some squid. As you roughly chew at it, the kid get face palmed by his, squealing out as it sucks at his face. You set down your spoon. Tugging at the squid, you manage to suckle it off.

"Don't play with your food."

The kid gazes into his bowl and then back to you in amazement.

A quarren comes to sit by your table, "You seek others of your kind?" it asks.

"Have you seen them?" Din asks,

"Aye, I can bring you to them."

"Where?"

"Only a few hours sail. It'll cost you, though."

++++++++

Salty water sprays your face as you look out into the gloomy ocean. The kid sits next to you in his crib, looking stoic as ever.

"You ever see a mamacore eat?" the quarren asks,

You grimace a bit, you didn't particularly like seeing how creatures ate, especially after the spider bonanza.

The quarren nods to himself, "Quite a sight."

Dins helmet gazes at the quarren from where he stands behind you, not answering.

"Child might take an interest," the quarren continues.

The kid coos at you and you're honestly shocked at how much he seems to be capable of taking.

"You should take a look, come on over here,"

You begrudgingly follow him to the square opening in the middle of the ship.

"Get a good view, let the kid see."

You peer near the opening as a net of fish is lowered,

"Alright, close enough." Din says.

The fish are dropped into the hole and you look on in vague disgust as bubbles start to form in the water.

"She must be hungry." the quarren laughs, "Oftentimes we'll feed her in the early morning. But we missed that 'cause we were going out of port!"

You don't even have a moment to calibrate as the quarren slams the childs pram into the water before you feel a hard metal crack against your back.

"No!"

Dins cry is the last thing you hear before water encases you.

Liquid rushes into your throat, your ears pound as you throw your arms in a futile attempt at salvaging the situation.

You feel something sharp tugging at your leg and a force pulls you down. You try to scream which only causes more water to rush in. You shake around in the waves but only get tugged further in.

You crouch in an attempt to get the child to safety but all you feel is sticky, wet, lizard-like skin. Your lungs burn at the lack of air and you splay out again.

As you throw out a hand you feel another brush yours, you don't know whos and you don't really care. You grab onto it but it cruelly slips out of your grasp. You try to hold on to strength, but it's quickly fraying. You feel yourself weaken, your thoughts weaken.

Air, you need ai-air, need air...

++++++++

The warmth of a glow is the first thing you notice. Your eyes are closed, but you can see it through your eyelids, can feel it gently nipping your skin.

You try to open your eyes, but they feel heavy. A hand strokes your cheek gently. You stir a bit, pulling up one lid slightly. Your sight is a washy but you can just make out the sliver beskar of Dins helmet.

"Din?" you weaze out,

"Burc'ya," he answers.

You roll your head to the side, you close your eyes before looking up. The warm glow hits the ceiling in an amber hue.

"Din, I just had the weirdest dream, we were being attacked by these giant spider monsters and there was this frog lady and then we crashed- twice."

"That all happened."

You groan as you raise a heavy arm to your face, splaying it out over you.

"You get me into the weirdest situations."

"You nearly drowned-"

"And I nearly drowned?"

Dins hand comes to your face again, stroking the side of it as you breath out "Damn,"

You look at his T visor for a moment, feeling his hand touch your-

His hand, his bare hand, gloveless hand. You notice this and go tense, not taking your eyes off him, though. Neither does he.

"I found other Mandalorians, they need me for a mission, I have to help them, but you're safe here."

"Wait where am I?"

You hear a croak from somewhere in the room and moments later a frog head pops into your side vision.

"Oh,"

"They'll take care of you while I'm gone. But I won't go for too long, okay?"

You look back at him, he seems just a bit nearer now.

"Okay," you nod, but he doesn't make a move to go.

"A-are you alright, do you feel okay?" your eyes search the visor and just like in that small shelter in Nevarro, you swear you can see his eyes.

"I'm fine," you breath.

He nods, suddenly seeming to come to, his hand leaves your face as if it was a hot stove, his helmet nods a couple of times before he stands up. You look up at him -you can almost make out some hesitation- and he turns around, thanking the frogs again before leaving. He doesn't turn around.

You let out another breath, your eyes slide to the couple who sit by a table with the kid. From here, you can see one of the eggs sway before breaking apart as a little tadpole swims out.

You look at it as the couple make a happy sound. The tadpole swims around a bit. The woman looks behind at you and gets up,

"All good?" she asks as she waddles towards you. You nod as you try to get up, aided by her.

"I not actually know name?" you try to get out, you see her smile as she points to herself,

"Tsuma," then to her husband, "Otto,"

She beckons you to move to the table, where Otto and the child are still gazing at the tadpole. She sets you down on one of the seats, then goes to get a bowl which she fills with water.

She sets it down on the table as her husband screws open the tank. You see the tadpole excitedly swim up to the top. Tsuma reaches for it, Otto closing the tank behind her as she sets the tadpole into the bowl.

The child reaches for it and you're quick to lower his hand.

The five of you look on in wonder as the little baby swims around, Otto drops some food into the bowl, which it quickly chomps down on.

"She grow fast," Otto tells you. You smile as you look down at it,

"We try to build family, like yours," Tsuma says, gesturing to you and the kid, "You very close,"

You look at her as you consider her words. Rather selfishly, you decide not to correct her. In a way, you sort were a family, weren't you?

"How long you and your husband?" she asks and you go along with it.

"Couple of cycles," you both cringe and warm at the words that pass your lips. Tsuma smiles,

"I can tell he have very much love for you," she nods at this, as if further confirming it. You open your mouth a bit, perhaps in shock. Your cheeks warm and you feel guilt -and something else- pooling through you.

"And you and your husband?" you try to shift the subject, suddenly uncomfotable.

"Since childhood," she smiles at him, Otto mirrors her soft expression.

You then hear a little splash, looking down you see the tadpole has suddenly grown a lot more, almost twice the size, you let out a shocked noise.

"She actually grow fast," you laugh.

++++++++

And she just kept on growing. While Tsuma gave back your previously drying clothes, she had grown almost too big for the bowl.

A knock sounded and the front door opened revealing Din.

"Thank you," he tells the couple as he nears the table where the five of you were still sitting in wonder. He goes up to you, kneeling down and asking,

"Are you feeling better? Can you walk?"

Your face burns at the softness in his voice, "Oh no, I'm a feeble little lady, these legs won't work. You'll have to carry me." you grin as he shakes his head.

"I've done enough carrying of you today. Okay kid, come on," he reaches for the child, who whines in protest,

"Let's go, come on. Congratulations." he tells the couple as you move towards him. Tsuma takes your hand one last time,

"Good luck," she croaks out.

"You too," you answer with a smile.

You hear the child squirm in Dins arms as you move to the exit,

"No," Din says, "I have enough pets."

++++++++

"I don't want to sound pessimistic or anything," you start, looking to the Crest, "but maybe it's time to let her go."

Din sighs, looking to the dac who was supposed to tweak the ship, "I gave you a thousand credits. This is the best you could do?"

The dac doesn't answer, instead soundlessly pulling out a credit transmitter. Din taps at it before trudging towards the Crest.

The inside did not look much better. Ropes and nets haphazardly thrown around like wonder tape.

Din sits down in the squeeky pilots chair,

"Din," you say, "I think you might have an unhealthy attachement to this thing."

Din shakes his head as he taps a button through some damp net, "Mon Calamari. Unbelievable."

The engines breath, but it's not the same as the ship jerks from side to side, bumping up and down.

You hear a slimy noise at your side and turning around, you instinctively grab at the baby squid that was about to drop onto the child.

The kid giggles as you grimace down at it,

"I finally know where to take the kid," Din says.

Your eyebrows pull up in shock, "Really?"

"Long story, but I finally found other Mandalorians, they told me about a forest planet, a lady jedi lives there and she might know what to do with the kid."

You look at the child somberly, forgetting the slimy squid now in your hand. You hadn't fully accepted that there might come a day where you would have to say goodbye.

"Wait," you pause, "We finally get some action and I was knocked out the whole time?"

Taglist:

@enfppuff

@orcasoul

@bookloverkat

Chapter IX: The Things

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilization, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

Since you were a kid, you had had an irrational fear of insects, specifically spiders and ants. Something about the way they moved, crawling menacingly, clicking and clacking. It was because of that reason that you were now squirming away from Pelis competition.

"Looks like someone's gonna be going home empty handed," Peli smirks at the giant ant looking thing sitting opposite her. You and Din had returned to Mos Eisley not too long ago, tracking down Peli to try to get some guidance on your next move.

Peli glances at the bag that Din is holding containing the Mandalorian armour and huffs, "You finally found a Mandalorian and ya killed him?"

"He wasn't Mandalorian, I bought this armour off him,"

"What'd that set you back?"

"Killed the krayt dragon for him."

"Oh? Is that all?" Peli says sarcastically,

"He was our last lead on finding other Mandalorians."

You jump back as the ant creature suddenly buzzes enthusiastically, Peli holds out her hands to him,

"Well you might be in luck. Dr Mandible here says he can connect you with someone, if you cover his call this round."

"What's the bet?"

Peli tugs at her lips before muttering, "Five hundred,"

You blow out a whistle at the high price,

"That's a high stakes game,"

"Hey," Peli shrugs, "he's on a hot streak,"

Din sighs before pulling out a sachet and throwing it on the table.

"Is the pot right?" Peli asks before huffing out in celebration, "Ha! Idiots Array! Pay up thorax!"

The thorax squirms in unrest, you slide back a little, reaching for your arm and biting back a hiss when your hand rubs the festering wound under its bandage. You look down at it, little stains are starting to soak through the gauze.

Din grunts, "I thought you said he was on a hot streak?"

"Oh, stop your crying, you'll rust!"

The thorax says something which Peli translates, "All right, he says the contact will rendez-vous at the hangar. They'll tell you where to find some Mandalorians. That's what you wanted, right?"

"Yes,"

"All right well stop your moaping. More importantly, did you bring back any of that dragon meat? Better not have any maggots on it, I don't like maggots."

++++++++

You look up in pure adoration at the sizzling meat that's rounding the fire. The child, who is sitting in your lap, matches your wonder.

"All right, heres the deal," says Peli, "a Mandalorian covert is close, it's in this system, one sector trailing."

"Are they the ones that left Nevarro?" Din asks.

"Don't know, all I know is that the contact will lead you to them."

"How much will it cost me?"

"Well, that's the great news, it's free. Aside from finders fee of course."

Din puffs, "What's the not-great news?"

"Nothing, it's all great," Peli insists, "However, there is once small skank in the scud pie."

"Which is?"

"The contact wants passage to the system."

Din hesitates, "Do you vouch for them?"

"On my life,"

"Fine," Din sighs,

"And... No hyperdrive,"

Din seems flabbergasted, "You want me to travel sublight? Deals off."

"It's one sector over,"

"Moving fast is the only thing keeping us safe."

"These are mitigating circumstances," Peli grits out,

"What do you mean 'mitigating'?"

You hear a squak from the corner as a half-person-but-mostly-frog, leans past the entrance,

"Aw," you coo, you really can't help it, it looks adorable, even wears a little dress. Din does not seem to share your sentiment,

"I'm not a taxi service,"

"I know, I know, I hear you," Peli nods, "But I can vouch for her."

The frog lady comes closer, now you can see what she's carrying on her back. A bright tank filled with yellow orbs and blue liquid,

"What's the cargo?" Din asks,

Peli translates it, your ears perk up as you actually understand what she's saying. You try to scoure your mind for where you've heard this language before.

"It's her spawn," Peli says, "She needs her eggs fertilized by the equinox or her line will end." At this you look warily to the child who is now longingly gazing at the tadpoles,

"If you jump into hyperspace, they'll die." Peli continues, "She says her husband has settled on the estuary moon of Trask, in the system of the gas planet Kol Iben."

"She said all that?" Din asks,

"I paraphrased,"

"What language does she speak?" you interject, having finally found the memory of when you had been stashed by a family of Zilkin on your first -and failed- attempt at escape. You had been there for no more than 14 rotations and yet you had picked up a little of their language.

"Kaerunian, why, you know some?"

"A little,"

"Ah, there you go!" Peli says, reaching out an arm which she throws around your shoulder, "You've even got a translator on board, all the more reason to go."

Din contemplates, "Is she sure there are Mandalorian there?"

"You sure... Mandalorians?" you understand Peli saying,

The woman replies, "Husband...seen,"

"She said her husband has seen them," Peli fully translates,

"Do you know the husband?" Din asks as the woman walks past him to the ship,

"No. I met her ten minutes before you walked it."

"I thought you said you vouch for her on your life,"

Peli shrugs as she reaches out for a piece of krayt dragon meat, "What can I say? I'm an excellent judge of character." she rips a piece off with her teeth.

++++++++

The noises you're making sound really stupid, but you're just trying your best here for crying out loud.

You had been trying to communicate with the woman for a while now, the result has been a trial-and-error of sorts. Sometimes you came to a common understanding, most of the time she just looks at you in confused -and you swear judgmental- silence.

"Tell her to stay strapped in whenever she's seated,"

"Yeah, 'cause I've been doing great so far," you mutter out in frustration,

"Try your best, traveling sublight is a bit dicey these days. Wether it's pilots or warlords, someone either ends up with a nice chunk of change or your ship,"

You're growing a pout throughout his spiel, "You're not giving us much positive energy right now," you grunt.

"Could say the same about you."

You huff at this, going to fold your arms when you softly hiss out. You look down at the bandage on your arm, which has now been fully soaked through, a mix of green and red staining the fabric. You grimace.

"I'm gonna hit the rack," Din says, "I've set the nav for our course. It's gonna take a while, you should get some rest."

He passes you as you try to croak out a translation,

"Take some time, rest," you mimmic a sleeping position,

"Okay," the woman nods and you're relieved she actually understands you.

You get up to go to your bed, a little nap shouldn't hurt anyone,

"No, no, no, no!" you hear Din say, you pop your head past the ladder,

"Everything okay?" you ask before letting out an 'oh' at the sight before you.

The womans tank is open and you can see a trail of liquid at the kids mouth,

"That is not food! Don't do that again," Din chides as the kid burps,

"I was afraid that was going to happen," you groan as you take the child,

"Bad," you tell him, bringing him over to his cot, "Nap time,'

++++++++

You wake up to a frantic beeping and hardly have a chance to check it out before Din is flitting past you and up the ladder.

"Razor Crest, M-one-eleven, do you copy?" you hear through the transmitter as you carefully go up to the cockpit.

You notice two jets flank either side of the Crest as Din says,

"This is Razor Crest. Is there a problem?"

"We noticed your transponder is not emitting." the voice says,

"Yes, I'm pre-Empire surplus. I'm not required to run a beacon."

"That was before, this sector is under New Republic jurisdiction. All craft are required to run a beacon."

Din pauses as you look to the jets, "Thank you for letting me know. I'll get right on it."

"Not a problem, safe travels."

"May the force be with you,"

"And also with you."

It goes quiet and you're about to release the tension your body's been building up when the voice comes back,

"Just one more thing,"

"Yes?"

"I'm gonna need you to send us a ping. We're out here sweeping for Imperial holdouts,"

Din stills, looking back at you as you send him a death glare, your body now fully stiff,

"I'll let you know if I see any," he says,

"I'm still gonna need you to send us that ping."

"Well I'm not sure I have that hardware online."

"We can wait,"

Din doesn't move, sending a side-long glance at you,

"Yeah, I... Doesn't seem to be working,"

"That's too bad, if we can't confirm you're not Imperial, you're gonna have to follow us to the outpost at Adelphi. They'll run your tabs,"

Din looks around before clicking at a switch, "Oh, wait. There it is, transmitting now."

A sound goes off, causing the woman to loudly stir awake,

"Quiet!" Din hisses as you shush her,

"What's that?" the transmitter asks,

"Uh, nothing. The hypervac is drawing off the exhaust manifold."

The three of you sit quietly, still tense as the two jets transmit to one another.

"Was your craft in the proximity of New Republic Correctional Transport, Bothan-five?" they ask.

A moment of silence passes.

Din suddenly stears the ship away violently, causing you and the woman to nearly fly out of your seats.

You dive headfirst into a blue, cloudy planet, crashing through it's hemisphere as the transmitter continues,

"Razor Crest, stand down. We will fire, I repeat, we will fire."

You want to yell at Din, asking him what the hell he's thinking, but don't have a moment to do so as the Crest jerks away from the jets, pushing through the clouds.

The ship spasms back and forth for a while before Din pulls on the levers, causing you to go into free fall. The woman squaks out, limbs flying as you barely hold back a scream.

As you finally slip through the clouds, Din regains control of the ship, steering you into a frozen canyon.

You're holding on for dear life, chest bumping up and down as you huff at air,

"Come on Razor Crest, don't make us do it."

Din doesn't answer as he stears the ship to a narrow opening in the ice, knocking against a glacier on his way,

"Hold on!" he says,

"The fuck do you think we're doing!" you screech at him as the lady squaks.

You crash onto the icy ground, sliding over its plains before coming to a violent stop as you jolt against another glacier.

You huff out uneven breaths at the adrenaline as you hear the voices flicker out from the transmitter.

"I've lost visual, he's got to be around here somewhere. You head north, we'll cover more ground."

Now it completely flickers away, Din looks back at you,

"Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" you can't help biting as the lady gets up from her seat.

"I'm sorry about that," Din apologizes as he flicks at a couple buttons. You're about to return the apology when the ground beneath you cracks. The ship jolts and jerks before fully collapsing within the ice.

Once again you're in free fall, though not for as long, you crash to a stop some feet below the icy surface.

++++++++

Your head beats violently as you feel ice clinging to your face, you jerk awake, peeling your eyes open and reaching for the back of your head. You must've been knocked out during the fall.

You groan, the adrenaline somehow still pulsing through you. You send a glance to the pilots seat, where Din seem similarly unconcious. You stretch out your limbs as you reach for Din,

"Din," you whisper, shaking him softly, then a bit more aggresively. He puffs up, looking around in confusion.

"What?"

"We crashed through the surface," you breath out, looking up at the hole you'd created before remembering the events leading up to said hole,

"What the fuck was that?"

"I had to get us away,"

"Well you succeeded, now we're under the surface of a desolate ice planet," you bite out, looking around you. You spot the frog lady laying on the floor shivering,

"Shit," you mutter, getting out of your seat and pulling her up gently, she squaks at you and for once you can actually understand the full coherent sentence,

"My eggs, are they alright?"

"She wants her eggs," you say, turning to Din,

"I'll find your eggs, don't worry," he tells her.

You translate this as he goes to the bottom deck. You follow him to check if your kid is alright, only to find a huge gaping hole at the side.

"Fuck. Do you see the kid?" you ask Din,

He throws a blanket to the side to reveal the child, head hanging over the tank, a tadpole in hand,

"No!" you and Din yell simultaniously,

You hear the lady squak above, "Found them!" Din yells back as you grabble the tadpole out of the kids hands,

"Don't do that!" you chide,

"Patu!"

"No! No Patu!"

You hear the lady step down the ladder, reaching for the tank that Din holds out. You shiver lightly, looking to the open hole.

Going over to your disgruntled bed, you rip off your blanket, tightly wrapping it around the lady.

"Sit," you try to sound out, "We figure out something,"

She nods, thanking you and cowering by her eggs. You look to Din, who's checking out the power systems,

"How's it looking?" you ask,

"Not good, the main power drive isn't responding and the hull has lost its integrity,"

"Yeah, I can see that. And the temperature is only going to drop when night falls."

You look around contemplatively, eyes falling on the small cooker you use for dinner.

You grab it, turning it to its highest degree. It quickly warms up and you set it up in the middle of the hull, working as a makeshift campfire-

"Ah!" you yell out unexpectadly when you feel a hand grip your injured arm. You swat it away,

"Y/n, you can't leave it like that." Din chides. You flick your arm away,

"It's fine, I'll wash it up later-"

"No."

Your left silent at the command in his voice as he goes over to the 'fresher where you normally stow your medpack,

"I don't care if you're mad at me, I don't care if you're alright with letting it get infected and frostbitten. I'm helping you heal and that's final."

You're about to snap back a remark, but don't get the chance to as Din takes your uninjured arm and not-so-gently pulls you to the corner of the 'fresher.

As much as you want to argue, you know that at this point it's useless and so you pout defiantly as he much more gently peels off the gauze.

Cold air bites at your injury, causing you to hiss out in pain. Din let's out a similar noise,

"Dank Farrik, why didn't you tell me it had gotten this bad?"

"I was going to take care of it," you snap,

"Were you?" his voice is frustrated and it throws you a bit off kilter. You bite back another gasp of pain as he sprays disinfectant onto the wound, intermediatly dabbing it with a paper towl.

You sit silently like that as he takes care of your wound. You don't look at him, gaze falling to the side, watching frost bloom on the deck. You feel his gloved fingers streaking over your skin, as if he were handling fragile china.

Din gently wraps fresh gauze around your arm, hand lingering a bit before pulling away,

"Done."

You don't understand why you suddenly miss his soft touch so much the moment it leaves, you choose to ignore the feeling.

"Thank you," you whisper out, finally turning to look at him. His helmet nods but doesn't leave your face,

"Din,"

"Y/n,"

You say this at the same time, also at the same time the frog lady squaks to you two, pulling you out of your trance.

"Not wait... morning," you understand as she continues. Something about having suffered a lot, an ending family line and last hope. You manage to understand the general idea,

"She's saying something about the eggs, that they're her species last hope at survival and so we need to get to her husband. Something like that,"

"Tell her the deals practically off, we're lucky if we get of this frozen tombs with our live."

You translate this best you can, she seems upset, "Honouring word...Mandalorian code?"

"She says she thought honouring ones word was part of the Mandalorian code." you say. Din looks at you in seeming shock,

"Hey, I'm not the one who said it," you defend. You see the child look up at Din somberly. Din sighs, slightly exasperated and gets up.

"You said you knew how to fix a ship?" he asks, looking at you. You stand dumbly for a moment before remembering that this was, in fact, one of your jobs on the ship. You hadn't actually had to do much of it in the rotations you'd lived together, though.

"Fix is a strong word, I can try to do something-"

"That's great, any attempt is welcome." Din nods as he gets a tool box and goes out into the snow.

You follow him out, gazing at the side of the ship before plopping down in front of it.

"Okay, I guess," you sigh, assesing the broken plate dripping oil in front of you. Easy enough.

"You mind helping out?" you ask Din, who gladly holds back a screw as you attempt to close the dripping oil tank.

You work quietly, surprisingly confident about the work you were doing, remembering the way you had seen a busted tank being handled at one of the workshops you had been kept at.

"Can we talk?" Din finally breaks the concentrated silence, your working hands still for a split second as you contemplate,

"Sure," you say haphazardly. Despite initiating the conversation, Din doesn't say a thing. You ignore his silence and continue your work.

"I've been..." Din starts, "Alone... For a very long time."

A bout of silence, you're almost afraid to move, worried it will disturb this rare moment of vulnerability.

Din continues, "I'm not...used to having, you know, others around this long."

He seems to weigh his words carefully, "It's...unusual and a little..." his helmet looks to the side, as if his next words weigh a ton, "Scary."

You're now completely still, losing focus on the work in front of you, shifting to the man who, by all accounts, was practically bearing his soul to you by his standards. You felt almost sick at having caused this,

"Din I'm sorry," you drop your working hands to your lap, looking down in a sort of shame,

"I'm really sorry, I was being an asshole, I am an asshole,"

"That's not true-"

"Yeah it is. Truth is..." you take a deep breath, if he could do it, so could you, "I've been alone aswell, even before leaving Earth. Some shit happened there and..." you try your best not to choke on the words,

"I'm really scared of... being alone. I don't want to be...left and I don't know." your breath is shaky as your gaze flicks to his helmet, intently looking at you. You look away just as quickly, as if burned,

"I guess I thought that I could quench that in you and the kid." the words felt like lead on your tongue. You didn't expect to feel such shame at admitting this out loud,

"Y/n-" your name comes out in a sort of light breath but is interrupted by a peep behind you. You look to see the child waddling through the snow. You smile softly at him,

He babbles a bit, pointing to something before waddling back off. Your brows furrow in confusion as you get up to follow him,

You see him standing by a path leading further into the icy cave, small footsteps dissapearing into it,

"She's gone into the cave." Din grunts behind you, gazing into the darkening cavern "You stay with the kid, I'll try to find her."

You nod, "Okay, be careful," Din enters the cave, following the footsteps as you pick up the child. You go back over to your work, setting the kid down before taking out a wrench, tightening the screws.

"Don't go off too far, it's not safe out here," you tell the child, who's wandering eyes are already looking to a small opening in the ice.

"Patu," the kid pouts out as you return to your work. You let your mind wander as your hands continue their manual work.

How long had Din been alone? When you had met him, he had already been living with the kid for sixty rotations, which in Earth terms was about two months. And you two had been living together for about 216 rotations now, which was about 7 months. You'd have thunk that after 9 months of living with one, then two, people basically 24/7 he'd have gotten used to not being alone. But isolation is a hard thing to shake, you guess-

You hear the child wailing. He sounds far, though. You whip around, just to find him missing, his whining coming from somewhere in the opening of ice.

"Shit," you curse, mostly at yourself for having been so reckless as to let your mind wander. You jump up, looking into the opening, you see the child trip towards you in fear,

"What happened? I told you not to go off like that!" you chastise,

The kid ignores your warning, springing right into your arms which causes worry to rumble inside of you,

"What's wrong?" you ask, the childs gaze turning back to the opening. You follow his eyesight and a moment later a little spider looking thing crawls out,

"Eek!" you yelp, shoving your foot down to step on in. After a couple of failed attempts, making you feel like you were playing some sort of wack-a-mole, you squish it with your boot. You let out a disgusted noise as green goo smushes out.

You were not generally a cowardly person. You could deal with many thing, but spiders? Forget about it.

And today seems to be your unlucky day, because just as your wiping the goo off of your boot, another spider crawls through. You flinch back before hearing a low clicking that does not sound good.

One after another, the spiders slowly click and clack out, seemingly becoming bigger. Your tripping over yourself trying to get away when you hear a low grumbling, followed by heavy footsteps.

Fuck no.

"Din!" you yell as you carry the child to the Crest, the spiders now crawling along the wall. They keep coming, skittering down. A couple fall in front of you, you yelp as you snap out your blaster, shooting like your life depended on it, which -you coldly realise- it just might.

"Din!" you yell again, trying your best to not become frantic, but at this point there's spider goo clinging to your cheek and-

A blue claw pierces through the ice followed by a rumbling roar. You can't keep down the scream that winds through your throat as some of the ice falls, reavealing what you assume to be the mother spider.

"Y/N!" you finally hear Din yell, sounding far off.

You barely have a chance to answer when one spider flanks its spiral teeth and shoots out a web. It clings to your foot, which you pathetically try to raise, to no avail.

Not being able to move, you cling to the kid as you continue shooting at every spider you see.

"Y/N!" Dins voice sounds closer.

A spider crawls up your leg and you smash it immediatly, the sticky goop now clinging to your side.

You notice gleaming beskar with a heavy sigh of relief as Din and the frog lady near you.

"Y/n?" Din nears you,

"I'm stuck," you yell at him, not taking your eyes off of the crawling spiders.

With a shock you feel Dins arm wrap around your waist from behind, pulling up with a force. You hold back a gasp as he carries you, carrying the kid, to the crest.

You want to tell him you can now walk perfectly fine but it seems useless as he carries you in to the ship, other hand shooting blasts at the increasing number of spiders crawling through the bowls of the ship.

He practically throws you into the cockpit as the doors are closing. The lady is already there, clinging onto her offspring as Din blasts at the spiders trying to pry at the closing doors.

A couple manage to get through and you don't hesitate to shoot at them. Din seems to give up on his technique and shoots a blaze of fire at the prying spiders which finally seems to work as the doors snap closed.

There's a moment of frantic silence as you all look at each other before it's interrupted by the tapping of spiders just outside the glass.

"For fuck sake," you mutter as Din jumps into the pilots seat,

"Strap yourselves in," he says, "this better work." he flicks the levers up as the ship partially glows back to life.

"I've got limited visibility, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

The engines breath as the ship cracks away from the ice, you slowly rise, hope filling you up before crashing right back down along with the ship as a ridiculously huge spider springs on the back.

It's circular mouth lets out a menacing roar as its claws pierce the glass of the cockpit. You and the lady shriek as glass sprinkles your heads.

The ship creaks as you see the spiders beady eyes looking in before pulling back a bit and then smashing its round, sticky mouth onto the glass. It's teeth scrape across the ceiling as you wonder what kind of nightmare shit this is.

The spider is about to smash back into the glass when a sudden red beam blasts it.

The blasts keep coming as Din turns around. Your eyes watch him in worry as he open the doors to the cockpit, gingerly stepping out,

"Where are you going?" you softly ask, voice still quivering from the shock.

"To check it out, don't worry, you just stay here with the kid, okay?" you nod as he leaves.

You keep hearing the blasts as you try to soothe the child and the lady.

A moment passes and the shooting stops, you see Din walking out into the bright light of one of the jets that had been tracking you.

"We ran the tabs on the razor crest," says one of the pilots, "you have an arrest warrant for the abduction of prisoner X-Six-Nine-Eleven,"

Your heart skips a beat as you look at the child,

"However," the pilot continues, "onboard security records show that you apprehended three priority culprits from the Wanted Register. Security records also show that you put your own life in harms way to try to protect that of lieutenant Davan from the New Republic Correctional Corps. Is this true?"

Din puts away his blaster and asks, "Am I under arrest?"

"Technically, you should be," says the pilot, "but these are trying times."

"Say I forego the bounties on these three criminals, and you two help me fuse my hull so I can get off this frozen rock?"

The two pilots look to one another incredulously before one says, "Let's say you fix that transponder, and we don't vaporize that antique the next time we patrol the Rim?"

The pilots nod to one another before climbing back in their respective jets.

You watch on in relief as they fly off into the steadily darkening sky. The lady starts for the hull as Din enters, you follow closely behind her. Din leans past the make shift curtain,

"All right, I'm gonna repair the cockpit enough for us to limp to Trask. There's nothing I can do about the main hulls integrity, so we're going to have to get cozy in the cockpit," you almost balk at his choice of words, but decide not to say anything considering the circumstances.

"It's the only thing I can pressurize. If you need to use the privy, do it now, it's gonna be a long ride."

You snort as he walks past, "When have you ever used the word 'privy'?"

"It's for the sake of the cargo,"

You smile as the kid follows him to the cockpit and you translate everything to the lady.

++++++++

"I think I was six and my cousin had worms," you continue your story to Din, who was closing up the broken glass of the cockpit,

"It was so gross, you could see them moving and all. That was when I started being afraid of a spider crawling into my ear or nose and laying its eggs there."

"That's really gross, but I don't think any of those things were small enough to get into an ear."

You snort as you fiddle with the blanket Din had given you to stay warm. Since you had already given yours to the frog lady, he had given his to you. If you pressed the soft cloth to your nose, it smelled like him, not that you liked that or anything, just an observation.

"I once got an aribo stuck in my armour," Din says as sparks fly about him. You drop your hands to your lap and laugh up at him,

"How do you even do that?"

He chuckles softly, the sound warms you as much as the blanket. He had seemed frustrated at all the damage caused to the ship, and since you weren't as well-versed in pressurized repair, you figured you'd give him some company instead.

"Yeah," he continues, "they're devious creatures."

"Very devious," you grin at him.

You let a lull of comfortable silence fall over the two of you.

"So does this mean we're friends again?" Din asks, stopping his work temporarily. You let your face soften a bit before looking back up at him,

"Burc'ya,"

He laughs, "What?" you ask, "Did I pronounce it wrong? Impossible,"

"It's boor-sha,"

"Yeah, that's what I said,"

He keeps chuckling, you huff playfully, "Shut up, you're so mean."

"Boor-sha,"

"Booooor-sha,"

Next Chapter

Taglist

@enfppuff

@orcasoul

@bookloverkat

Chapter VIII: The Good, the Bad and the Tusken

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilization, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

"Patu!"

"No, see? Pillow. Spell it out, pil-"

"Pa-"

"No, pil,"

"Patu!"

You drop your head in exasperation. You had been trying to teach the kid to speak for at least 60 rotations now, but the best you had gotten to was patu, which he now said for everything.

"Fine," you sigh, "Patu,"

"Patu patu!" the kid claps his hands together. You try to stay grumpy but come on. A smile breaks over your face as you throw the pillow aside and reach for the kid, tickling his little body as he giggles manically.

"Oh, you naughty little womprat, I can't teach you anything," you laugh, falling to the ground in a heap of giggles.

You then hear someone bang at the ramp and quickly get up to check who it is.

"Password?" you ask,

"Cheese," an exasperated voice sounds, which already gives away that it's Din, but you woke up choosing violence this morning,

"And?"

A deep sigh sounds from behind the ramp and you can't help but grin smugly.

"Y/n is better at cards,"

You open up the ramp, a grumpy Din enters.

"Did you get anything?" you ask,

"He says he knows of a Mandalorian on Tatooine-"

"No,"

"I found it strange too, but it's all we got."

"Not Tatooine, I hate Tatooine!" you huff, nearing him. Din picks up the child as it runs to him, proceeding up to the cockpit, you follow behind.

"Who would ever voluntarily go to Tatooine?" you groan as you plop into the passengers seat. Din ignores your complaining as he ticks in the coordinates.

"Mind turning on the engines?" he asks.

You grimace, reaching for the handles, flicking them up. The Razor Crest floats up into the sky, leaving the dark planet behind.

++++++++

Pelis workshop hasn't changed in the many rotations since you'd left.

Din walks down the ramp as the droids clammer around the ship,

"Sorry gang, come on." you hear Peli say, "You know he doesn't like droids!"

"May as well let them have at it. The Crest needs a good once-over." Din says,

"Oh, so he likes droids now," Peli throws her arms in the air, "well you heard him, give it a once-over."

The droids run back to the ship as Peli smiles at the three of you,

"I see you haven't found your stop yet," she grins at you before pulling her attention to the child in your arms, "Oh, thank the force! This little thing has had me worried sick." she reaches for the child which you hand to her.

The kid coos in her arms, "Looks like it remembers me," Peli smirks, "how much do you want for it? Just kidding. But not really. You know, if this thing ever divides or buds, I will gladly pay for the offspring."

You smile lightly, furrowing your brows a bit when you hear a small burst from the Crest, "Hey!" Peli yells at her droids, "Watch what you're doing up there. He barely trusts your kind!"

"I'm here on business, I need your help," Din says. He explains the situation to Peli, who doesn't seem too confident,

"Didn't the guy say something about a Mos Pelgo?" you ask. Peli blows out a breath, "Ooh, Mos Pelgo, haven't heard that name in a while."

"It's not on any of the maps," Din says,

"That's 'cause it was wiped out by bandits," says Peli, "Once the Empire fell it was a free-for-all. I didn't dare leave the city walls. Still don't."

"Can you tell us where it used to be?" Din asks,

"Depends who's asking. You wanna see it? R5!" she yells to a droid, "bring me the map of Tatooine."

After taking about half a century to actually make it to the four of you, the droid projects a map into the air. Peli points out the different spots, which are all clearly shown on the map. Only Mos Pelgo is not visible.

"I don't see anything," you say,

"Well it's there," Peli says, "Or at least it used to be. Not much to speak of, it's an old mining settlement."

"You still got those speeder bikes?" Din asks,

"Sure do," Peli smirks as she shows you to the speeders you had used to get to Fennec Shand.

++++++++

The suns are nearly setting and you'd been riding through sandy plains for a while when you stop by some tusken raiders. Din brings you to a halt as the raiders greet you.

You watch in lame interest as Din signs to them, he then turns to you,

"We'll stay with them for the night. We leave at first light tommorow,"

You didn't reply, simply raising your eyebrows and sighing as you got off the bike. The raiders were already collecting sticks and twigs for the fire, one of them taking out a dead creature of some sort. You picked up the child from where he sat in a little bag at the back of the speeder.

You could feel Din looking at you but ignored his gaze, wafting past him to go help with the fire.

++++++++

As you look up to the stars, you're reminded of that night, several rotations past at this point when you had layed against a rock beside Fennec and Toro, waiting for Din, then Mando, to return. You don't remember the stars being this bright or clear.

"Are you mad at me?"

The question came as a surprise to you. You stay quiet for a moment, eyes searching the starry sky before sliding to where you had thought Din was sleeping. You find the T visor looking back at you, clearly still awake.

"What?" you whisper, trying not to wake the child who was sleeping at your side.

"You've been... Distant lately."

You don't answer at first, looking away,

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean-"

"I really don't."

"See? That's what I mean. What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong,"

There's a moment of silence, Din looks up, then back at you.

"Does it have something to do with the conversation yesterday?"

You bite your lip, still looking up, contemplating your next words. You just end up blurting out what you were thinking,

"I'm not saying we're like... supposed to be soul bonded or anything, I know you- you don't easily trust people, I get that. But.. I don't know, we've known each other I don't know how many rotations-"

"213."

You stop to look at him, "Shit, really?"

"And a half."

You look at him, brows furrowed, "What, you keeping a calender?"

"Why are you angry?"

"I'm not angry, it's just that...And I get it, your distant, but I figured we'd kinda come to a more trusting place-"

"I already told you I trust you,"

"Do you?" you pause, "'Cause, I don't know, I don't feel like you do."

"I do,"

"What's that wall?"

A moment of silence,

"What wall?"

"You know what I mean,"

Another bout of silence,

"It's not-" Din sighs, looking away. You stare at him a moment longer before turning as well, blowing out a raspberry. You then roll to your side, giving up on the conversation,

"Goodnight Mando,"

"Y/n-"

"Goodnight, Mando"

You knew using 'Mando' was a low blow, petty really. But you didn't care, you didn't look back, even when you heard his sigh through the modulator,

"Goodnight, burc'ya,"

Friend.

He had started calling you it shortly after you had left Nevarro. Burc'ya. It was the first word you'd learned in Mando'a and you had been flattered when he had first explained it. It felt like you had finally arrived to some place. What place exactly, you don't know, but it was a place. It had filled you with such happiness. Everything felt like it would be different after Nevarro. The wall finally felt more translucent than solid.

After cycles of being alone, of feeling like you were a metal scrap floating in the endless void of space -unwanted, unneeded- for the first time you actually felt like you belonged. You thought it would only get better, but it just stayed like that. A kind of static, unmoving.

You tried to ignore it, to give it time. You tried to not care about it, not care about the fear of being left behind, left alone. Of being unneeded, uncared. You tried to convince yourself that you didn't care that Din still seemed to keep distance between you two. That you didn't care that he didn't care. That you didn't feel that twinge everytime you saw him and the kid together and remembered what the female Mandalorian had said. A clan of two. You didn't care that you didn't fit in there. You didn't even care if Din decided one rotation that you weren't needed anymore, that you could go off on your own. That he didn't need you, that the kid didn't need you. That he didn't really care enough to be bothered with what happened to you.

You angrily flick away a tear, shoving your eyes shut. It was all stupid.

Stupid.

++++++++

You were already wide awake when Din shook you in the morning. You hadn't gotten a wink of sleep last night. Simply waiting for the suns to rise so you could finally do something, instead of buzzing through your thoughts of self pity.

The two of you got onto your speeders, thanking the tusken raiders before zooming off. You'd been riding for a while, and the suns were high when you came across a settlement that you assumed was Mos Pelgo.

It was small, just a few typical Tatooinian style houses scattered about. The people there stared on as you two slowly entered.

You stopped near an empty bar, following behind Din as he entered. A Klatoonian was drying a glass behind the counter, his movements slowing as you entered.

"Can I help you?" the Klatoonian asks,

"I'm looking for a Mandalorian," Din says,

"Well we don't get many visitors in these parts. Can you describe him?"

"Someone who looks like me."

"Mmm," the Klatoonian observes Din, "you mean the Marshal,"

"Your Marshal wears Mandalorian armour?"

"See for yourself," the Klatoonian turns to look at the entrance, where a -presumably- Mandalorian stands. He's not as big or bulky as Din, but he does wear the same T visor helmet and beat up beskar armour.

"What brings you here stranger?" the Mandalorian asks, slowly entering the bar,

"I've been searching for you for many parsecs."

"Well, now you've found me. Weequay, three snorts of spotchka."

The Klatoonian takes out a bottle filled with some neon blue coloured liquid along with three glasses.

"Why don't you join me for a drink?" the other Mandalorian says.

He goes to sit down and you're about to follow when you see him take off the helmet. This causes both you and Din to still, the air suddenly tense.

The man looks to the two of you with a smile, "I've never met a real Mandalorian."

Din doesn't say anything, but you can feel his body tensing more with each passing second. The man huffs,

"Heard stories, though. I know you're good at killing. And probably none too happy to see me wearing this hardware." he pours the drink into cups.

"I figured only one of us walking outta here, but then I see the little guy," he points to the kid, who is preoccupied with a large ceramic bowl, "And," he now looks at you, whistling, "a beauty like that," he grins as you fight back a squirm, "Not often you see such a pearl." he sips from his drink.

"Who are you?" Din's voice is cold,

"Cobb Vanth, Marshal of Mos Pelgo," he raises his glass to you in greeting.

"Where did you get the armour?" Din asks, seemingly getting more irritated.

"Bought it off some jawas,"

"Hand it over."

Cobb Vanth smirks, putting down his cup, "Look pal, I'm sure you call the shots where you're from, but 'round here I'm the one tells folks what to do."

Din isn't swayed, he takes a step toward Vanth, "Take it off. Or I will."

Cobb Vanth clicks before saying, "We gonna do this in front o' the kid?"

"He's seen worse."

Vanth nods, "Right here then?"

"Right here."

"Right here?" you interject

Vanth smirks at you, "You can look away if it gets too much for ya darlin'. Or don't," with this he sends you a wink before getting up.

You can't tell exactly what's causing the deathly violence now oozing off of Din, but the tension is palpable as the two stare at one another.

But they never quite get to it, because there's a sudden rumbling, like an earthquake. You go to pick up the child, who whines.

Cobb Vanth holds up a warning finger before moving to the entrance. You and Din follow him outside where you see a growing mound in the distance. A siren is going off, people sprinting into houses, animals stirring, the wind picks up.

The lump beneath the sand enters the town letting out squeels of a beast that you can only partially see. Your eyes follow it as it rolls to the other side of town, nearing a bantha that's munching on some slop.

The beast bursts through the ground, a loud moan echoing through the sandy plains as it swallows the bantha whole and dives back into the ground.

Cobb sighs, "Maybe we can work something out." and starts walking through the town where people are slowly exiting their homes to recover the damage.

"That creature's been terrorizing these parts since long before Mos Pelgo was established."

"Doesn't seem like the best place to stick a town then," you say. Cobb Vanth looks behind at you with a smirk,

"I suppose so. But anyway, thanks to this armour, I've been able to protect this town from bandits and sand people. They look to me to protect them. But a krayt dragon is too much for me to take on alone." he sighs looking about at the people before moving his gaze back to Din, "Help me kill it, I'll give you the armour."

Dins contemplation is merely a nicetie, "Deal, I'll ride back to the ship, blow it out the sand from the sky, use the bantha as bait."

Vanth shakes his head "Not so simple. The ship passes above, it senses the vibrations, stays underground. But I know where it lives."

"How far?"

"Not far."

++++++++

You hadn't been riding for long when Cobb Vanth threw up a fist to signal a stop. You where in an area surrounded by dense rocks. The three of you got off, carefully pointing blasters to where you could now heared a low moaning.

A type of dog, but scarier, peaks past a rock, opening up its wide mouth in a sort of roar. You shiver at the sight of sharp teeth that could easily rip at your skin like bovine hide. More of its kind appear behind the rocks and you can hear Cobb preparing to shoot. Din -however- seems to loosen up a bit.

The beasts continue snarling when Din lets out a guttural sort of cry which echoes off of the rocks and seems to calm the creatures. You would laugh at the ridiculousness of the sound if it weren't for the tense situation.

You see Din start to approach the creatures as Cobb Vanth asks, "What're you doing?"

Din simply holds up a hand, moving closer. At this point you've completely loosened up. This wasn't the first time you'd seen Din handle a situation like this, it made you wonder what he had experienced in all those years alone.

The creature is bordering on puppy behaviour as Din gently rubs it. You've put away your blaster, holding back an eyeroll at how seamlessly he handles these kinds of situations.

It's then that two tusken raiders appear from behind the rocks. You aren't worried, as Cobb Vanth seems to be, and go over to the child to check if he's alright. You hear Din grunting out the signs to communicate with them, and now -with your back turned- you do roll your eyes. Where this sudden annoyance with everything he does has come from, you can't pinpoint. Must have something to do with the talk you had yesterday, and the day before.

"Hey partner, you wanna tell me what's going on?" Vanth asks with a huff that you recognise very well.

"They want to kill the krayt dragon too,"

++++++++

You once again find yourself by the flames of the tusken settlement. You stare into them with a matching burn as Din speaks to the raiders. You hear the child babble and follow his line of sight to one of the dog creatures, staring at you both as it spools out a tongue and licks have its face clean. You huff as you reach out a hand to pet it, your fingers coming back slightly wet.

You grimace down at it when one of the raiders hands you a coconut looking cup containing a sort of disgusting smelling substance. You take it, cautiously sniffing it before taking a sip. You have to hold down a gag as you squeek out,

"Thanks,"

The tusken seems pleased as it hands another to Cobb Vanth,

"What am I supposed to do with this?" he leans in asking you,

"You drink it," taking another sip, this time the gag is apparent,

"It stinks," Cobb scowls,

"Yeah, no shit," you snide, sending him a glare as you try to chug the rest of it down,

"I'm not doing that,"

"Do you want their help?"

"Not if I have to drink this,"

The tusken besides you mimes his hands in a frustrated manner,

"Don't be such a wuss," you chide him, "You're insulting them by not drinking it."

"He says they know how about Mos Pelgo, they know how many sand people you've killed." Din interjects which makes you unexpectedly irritated.

"They raided our village," Vanth huffs, "I defended the town,"

"Lower your voice," you hiss

"I knew this was a bad idea,"

"You're agitating them,"

The tusken stands up, Vanth matching its stance,

"These monsters can't be reasoned with. Sit back down before I put a hole in ya-"

You flinch away as Din raises his arm past your face, blowing flames between them. Once the flames stop, he signs to them,

"What are you telling them?" Cobb asks,

"Same thing I'm telling you. If we fight amongst ourselves the monster will kill us all."

The others go to sit back down, you tilt your head back in exasperation as Din slowly signs,

"Now, how do we kill it?"

You scheme amongst yourselves for a while, finally landing on the decision to return to its lair tommorow, lure it out with a bantha to get a better idea of it and then go on from there.

It was well into the evening when you all went to sleep. The child cuddling into you as you held on to him. You noticed him sending a glance to Din, who was lying down a couple feet away from you. The child then looks at you questioningly and you couldn't help but feel a twinge of guilt at how cold you had been towards Din. But after thinking it over, you decided not to bother making ammends for the time being, you now had to focus on the giant monster living just beneath the sand.

++++++++

You watch the tusken and bantha as they neared the mouth of the large cave where the dragon apparently resided.

The tusken makes a calling noise that echoes over the walls of the cave. A deep rumbling comes from within it, causing the tusken to start sprinting back towards you. It trips over sand, continuing to move forward when you see the giant head of the kayt dagon sliding out from the sand and chomping down on the tusken,

"Holy fuck," you bite out as the other tuskens beside you start to howl in shock. The dragon retreats into it's cave.

"Think we're gonna need a really good plan." Cobb mutters.

++++++++

You return a day later, some of the towns folk having joined in. The tension between raiders and towns people was palpable but this was the only way the plan would succeed.

Another tusken stands before the opening, a bit more cautious considering what happened last time. It stands there a moment before signing something.

"What'd he say?" asks Vanth,

"He says it's sleeping," Din answers, not taking his eye off of the cave, "if we listen carefully we can hear it breathing."

You get to work setting up the trap, tuskens and villagers help setting up pillars and lines. A villager hands you charges as you bury them beneath the sand. The tuskens had said the belly was its only weak spot, so you would have to hit it from bellow.

Once all is set up, you sit beside one of the spires that will be shot to hold the dragon in place. You see three tuskens nearing the cave, ready to wake it. You send a quick look back at where Din and Cobb Vanth are standing before turning back to the cave.

The three tuskens set down their weapons before cupping two hands over their mouths, their cries piercing through the tenuous air.

A moment later you hear the dragon croan and see the sand bubbling up. The tuskens sprint away as the dragons head pierces through the ground.

The tusken standing beside you signals with its hand, you pull on a lever which sends the first spear flying into the dragons head. Many follow, seemingly scaring it off as it starts retreating again.

"Shit," you mutter,

Villagers and tuskens start berating it with explosives and shots, you point your blaster to it, hoping the attacks will anger it enough to at least pull it out again.

This seems to work as the dragon once again reaches out. You walk back, continuing tto fire at it.

The dragon rises its head up and you fight a gasp as you just now take in its full size. The villagers and tuskens keep retreating, you follow them, not taking your eyes off the beast before you.

The next moment a huge roar fills the area as the dragon throws up a kind of greenish substance, slathering some tuskens and villagers. A splash hits your arm and you hiss at the burn it causes. Then you hear a huge explosion go off, knocking you and several others to the ground.

The dragon dives back into the sand, dissappearing temporarily as you help the others up. A moment of silence passes, every second raising your suspisions even more.

They are quenched when a huge sound comes from above a rock, the dragon piercing through its side.

"This is fucking ridiculous," you mutter as it sprays another bout of green substance towards the people.

You hear Vanth and Din fly off but don't pay them much mind. Focusing on getting the others back to safety, you clammer the villagers away.

You notice one of the villagers that were hit, their skin starting to peel of much like yours.

"Ok, how many were hit?" you yell into the crowd that was currently focused on the fight happening above the large rock.

"Ignore them, is anyone else injured?"

A woman comes up to you, holding out a fleshy arm. You get right to work, checking for poison -a sigh of relief when the test comes back as negative- spraying it with disinfectant and wrapping it up with gauze.

"Hey!" you look up to see a man holding up a case that looks a lot like an old medpack, "I'm the local nurse, let me help,"

You sigh a thanks as he sits beside you, opening up the case and taking on another villager.

With two, you manage to help a lot more people, it seems no one was critically hurt. You can hear the action going on behind you, fighting the urge to look back, concentrating on helping the injured.

You hear a thunk beside you and send it a glance,

"What in farriks name is he planning!" Vanth grunts out,

"What bullshit is he getting up to now?" you ask,

"I don't know, he just took the bantha and allowed himself to get swallowed whole!"

This does cause you do look back at the dragon who has apparently munched down on Din. A pulse of panic drives through you before your reason reaches your brain,

"He knows what he's doing,"

"Ya sure?"

You furrow your brows before nodding confidently, "Yeah,"

A rumbling starts up before the dragon reappears, spitting out a flying Din who seems to press a sort of button. The next moment it explodes, knocking to the ground as Din slides off.

You would roll your eyes, but instead you can't help a grin,

"See?" you look at Vanth, "Told ya."

You set the last patient on their way and run over to Din, "You're insane, here," you hold out a rag to him, "Salivas toxic, you could get burned."

You look at the rag and then up at him when he doesn't reach for it. You shake it a bit,

"Well? Do I have to do it?"

"Is the kid okay?"

"Are you okay?"

A pause,

"Yes, he's fine,"

"You're hurt," he states, which reminds you of the now blistering wound on your arm.

"Yeah, that's why I'm giving you this," again you hold out the rag,

"Let me help,"

"It's fine," you shove the rag into his chest and turn around,

"That was really cool, by the way," you yell back at him before returning to the child.

You pat him on the head as you reach for your medpack, pulling out some gauze before haphazardly wrapping it around your arm. It would be better if you would disinfect it first, it would be better if you'd let Din help you. But you ignored this, setting the bandage as you collected your stuff and the child, who coos at you in worry,

"It's alright, little guy,"

You go over to the speeder where Din is already standing, talking to Cobb Vanth. He's holding on to the Mandalorian armour, a big piece of krayt meat on the back.

"I hope our paths cross again." Vanth says, shaking his hand,

"As do I," Din says,

"I hope to see you two around as well," he says, looking off to you and the kid, sending you another wink as you smile at him.

"We should get going," Din mutters to you, you nod as you place the child in one of the side bags to the speeder. You give him a last stroke on the head before the two of you zoom off.

Next chapter

Taglist:

@enfppuff

@orcasoul

Chapter VII: The Love and It's Uncertain Walls

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilization, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

Silky water laps at cold skin. Fingers streak through, gently pushing back.

You plunge your head into the depths, liquid grazing your face. You hold your breath, arms pulling you forward. They keep pushing you further down until you're about to burst.

Kicking your legs, you come back up, head breaking the surface as you gasp for air. You stay in that spot a moment. Arms and legs keeping you steady as you breath in and out. You look around at the trees surrounding you.

You stop moving and sprawl out like a starfish, your body stays afloat as a small smile graces your face. You let out another breath and close your eyes. The forest is quiet and serene. You love Endor.

After a while you return back to the bank of the lake, toes reaching for the sandy bottom as you rise from the water, checking to see that no one is watching. You scramble over to the tree where your clothes are haphazardly draped over a branch.

Once your clothes are on, you wade through the bushes and branches until you come back up to the plain where the Razor Crest is standing.

You can't help your smile when you see Din sitting placidly while sharpening a knife, the child propped at his legs.

"How was the water, burc'ya?" Din asks as you stretch your arms to the sky,

"Cold,"

"I told you it would be around this time."

"It was okay, I liked it." you smile, going to sit next to him. You pick up one of the longer knives and start sharpening it.

"I saw this thing that looked like a fish but it had two arms. No legs, just two arms."

"I've seen those, I don't know what they're called though." Din says,

"They're freaky, but I also don't understand what the evolutionary purpose is for the arms. It's like they couldn't make up their minds for what they wanted to be."

Din hums at this. You look to the ithorian cactus that you had left out to melt in the sun,

"Is the cactus good yet?" you ask. Din puts down the knife and goes over to the cactus, picking it up and flicking it a couple of times.

"I think so,"

"Great, I'll start dinner."

++++++++

The huff Din lets out causes a small smile to creep up on your lips. You try to hide it, not wanting to come off as too cocky, but you were kind of kicking his ass.

"You've gotten better," he says, grabbing for your arm, you quickly dodge it, kicking him in the back of the knees,

"Practice," you shrug with a smile, which is quickly wiped off your face when he pulls the ultimate uno reverse on you. You grunt as you hit the floor, mock knife pressing against your neck.

"Life is about learning," Din says, reaching out a hand to help you up.

"You're a dickhead, I did really well," he pulls you up,

"I didn't say you were doing badly, you did very well. But life is a lesson, even I'm still learning."

You raise a mocking eyebrow at this and smirk, "Wow Din, didn't know you were such a philosopher."

You hear him chuckle through the modulator as the two of you return to the campfire where the kid is still chewing at a piece of brawballo. You pat him on the head as you plop down, reaching your hands out to the warmth of the fire.

"I've gotten word that an abyssin on Alderaan knows the position of other Mandalorians. We'll leave tommorow." Din says

You hum, "You think you can trust it?"

"Not particularly, but," he shrugs, "you know."

You huff, nodding along, "All right. Just, you know, making sure it's not another Mon Calamari situation."

You laugh at the groan that comes from Din,

"It was one time,"

"I know, it's just you were sooo confident about it," you laugh even more as he shakes his head,

"You need to let that go,"

"Oh, I have but, you know," you grin at him, "life is a lesson, no?"

++++++++

It's dark, so dark you can hardly see anything, not that there would be much to see. Your breaths are shallow. Every time you get up, your head spins and you have to lay it back down.

Someone's crying, probably one of the new ones. It doesn't help your growing migraine. You want to kick them and tell them to shut up, but your legs are weak and won't move.

It's then that a bright light pierces through the darkness. You squeeze your eyes shut and then slowly reopen them. At the entrance a figure stands, it doesn't move though. The persons crying grows even louder and your head pounds at the sudden overstimulation.

The figure starts to move, closer and closer, bigger and bigger. The crying continues, morphing and changing. The figure keeps coming closer but never seems to reach you. The cries now sound more like those of a human child. The room gets brighter.

The cries now sound identical to Waynes. You try to move your head to see him, if it really is him. But you can't move, your body won't listen to you and you stay in the same position.

The figure is now beside you, it's face molding into Gideons. His hand reaches out to you. Waynes cries grow louder and louder, the hand comes closer and closer.

Sweat gleams off of your body as you sit up from your bed with a gasp. You look around manically, shoving the blanket off of you. Your eyes quickly recognise the inside of the Razor Crest, the childs pram next to you. You look inside at the kid, who is sleeping soundly.

You fall back down to your cushion, breathing heavily. You wipe a hand over your face, now wet with sweat. You shut your eyes just to be met with the same image from your dream.

You had been getting a lot more sleep lately, which was both good, because you now had more energy during the day, and bad, because you also had more nightmares during the night.

You blow out a breath, looking to the ceiling contemplatively. You look back to the side for a moment before getting up.

You walk towards the 'fresher, noticing Dins open, empty cot. Your brows furrow slightly as you turn on the light of the 'fresher and open up the tap. You take a handful of water and splash it onto your face.

Dabbing it off with a rag, you look up to the cockpit, where you now notice a little light gleaming.

You put down the rag and climb up the ladder. Opening up to the cockpit, you see Din sitting at the pilot chair.

"Y/n?" he asks,

You hum in answer, plopping down at the passenger seat, leaning your head against it.

"What are you doing here? Planning on zooming off?" you ask.

"Could ask you the same,"

"If I'm gonna zoom off?" you smile. Din looks at you, doesn't say anything for a while,

"Couldn't sleep," you say,

He hums, "Me neither," with this he looks back in front of him.

You lean your cheek against your knees, sitting quietly.

Neither of you says anything for a while, Din then looks at you. You raise an expectant eyebrow. He doesn't say anything, though, just looks at you.

You're about to ask him what's up when he breaks the silence,

"You have nightmares."

You still, looking at him almost in shock. The question, or rather statement, felt oddly personal. It's not like you hadn't gotten closer. Kind of impossible to still have much animosity after being holed up together for over half a year. And yet there always seemed to be some sort of wall between the two of you. It had thinned over the rotations that you had known each other, but it was still there. That impenetrable wall. You could almost see through it, but you couldn't reach past it. You talked to one another, lived together, took care of one another to a certain extent. Yet somewhere there was still a threshold you couldn't seem to pass.

You now look away, staring at the controls. You can still feel his gaze burning into you.

"Like you never have them," you finally say,

"I do."

Now what is this? You look back to him. Was it the late hour? Was he in some sort of delirious state?

You hear what sounds like cicadas outside,

"Din," you whisper,

"Burc'ya,"

You swear you can see his eyes through the beskar, or maybe it's a trick of the light. You don't know what to say, so you don't say anything, just look back at him.

"Try to get some more re-"

"Don't you trust me?" you ask. Din stills for a moment, looks away, looks back at you,

"I do."

You stare at him, then flick your eyes back down,

"I trust you too."

There's another passing of silence. The wall shifts, but does not open.

"I'm gonna go back to bed," you finally say, getting up. Din seems like he's about to say something, but doesn't.

You don't turn back as you make your way to the lower deck.

Next Chapter

Taglist:

@enfppuff

Chapter VI: A Life Named Desire

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Medical inaccuracies (doctors, I'm sorry! Did my best) Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilazation, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

Your legs are burning, your cheeks are burning, your lungs are burning. Everything burns, burns, burns. But you ignore it.

The last time you remember running this fast was during sports day in 8th grade, your mother cheering you on, it had burned back then as well, a good kind of burning though.

This was not the good kind. Tears are streaking your cheeks, you hadn't even notcied them and you don't bother rubbing them away. Your focus is on the child and only on the child.

The two men had zoomed off on speeders, they were fast, probably faster than you, but your brain wasn't really working very well at the moment.

You'd been running for a good while, you don't know how long, when you saw some metal gleaming in the weak sun. This had somehow spored you to run even faster. As you neared it, it began taking shape.

A droid.

"Hey!" you yell at it,

No, the droid,

"Ah, greetings, you were one of the carers of the child, am I correct?"

You come to a full stop, knees bucking as the full weight of your excursion fully hits you. You gasp air in and out, rubbing against your tear and now dirt stained face.

"Yeah, hu, hu, that's, ugh," you gulp, "me,"

"You seem to be out of breath,"

"The fuck did you even come from?"

"I have been wandering about the planes for some time since you left me by the ship."

"Oh, alright, hu, hu, they've got the kid," you stand up straight, "The child! They've got the child."

"Then we must retrieve it, is that not our jobs?"

"Yeah, the fuck do you think I'm doing, droid?"

"I have a name, it is IG-11,"

"Alright, IG, help me out,"

"The village is in that direction, we must make haste,"

You nod warily at the droid, it seems to know what it's doing, You two start to make your way towards the village, at a slower rate though, since you've already excercised enough for a lifetime.

It is only after a couple of minutes that you spy the two Imps standing by their speeders.

"That's it, that's them!"

They seem to be looking at the child, you start up your running again, not taking your eyes off of him.

One of the men punches the kid,

"Hey!" you screech without warning,

"Stop that," the droid says calmly, the two Imps hold their blasters up. You're about to do the same, but IG-11 starts talking,

"I am IG-11, I am this childs nurse droid and require that you remand him to me immediately."

"A nurse droid? I thought it was a hunter," one of the Imps laugh before turning to you,

"Isn't that the girl on the blurg?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," you say flatly, the Imps pause a second,

"I'm sorry nurse and random woman, but you're gonna have to get outta here," the droid steps towards them, you're too nervous to move, you stand pensively behind, watching the scene unfold.

"Are you refusing my request?" IG-11 asks,

"No, I'm telling you to get out of here." the Imp says. The droid suddenly grabs his arm, twisting it tightly until it makes a squishy sort of cracking noise. The other sprints to the droid, but in a second your balster is out and you shoot at him without flinching.

You sprint to the child, wrapping your arms around him as he coos, "Oh, I'm so sorry for ever letting you get taken, I'm never letting you go,"

"We must return to the Mandalorian, he is its master."

You nod at the droid as it gets on the speeder, you join it before the two of you dash off towards the town.

You're close when the comlink goes off again,

"Come in Kuiil,"

You hold on to the child as the droid answers,

"Kuiil has been terminated,"

"What did you do, where is Yun?" the cold violence in his voice reminds you of that which you heard when he had warned you against hurting the child on Jakku.

"I am fulfilling my base function," the droid says,

"Which is?"

"To nurse and protect,"

You roll your eyes, "What kind of vague ass answer is that? Give that to me," you snatch the comlink from him,

"Mando?"

"Yun?" you're surprised at the intensity of his voice,

"That was really vague, Kuiil's gone, he was dead before I could get to him, I ran after the kid and bumped into the droid and- Jesus fuck!"

You yell this, covering the child,

"Yun? Yun?!" you hear Mando say, but you can't answer. IG-11 is zooming right into the village, storm troopers shooting at you doesn't seem to sway him. The child whines as the droid shoots back, making it's way through the entrance.

"Might you aid me in my protection?" the droid asks as he whips out two blasters and starts shooting at each trooper in sight. You pull out yours, other hand holding the child as you shoot around blindly.

Up ahead, you see an assembly of troopers,

"Jump off, keep the child safe, we are nearing the position of the others," you barely have time to react, jumping right off the speeder before it crashes into a pole.

You hit the ground with a thud, holding the child to your chest and getting up quickly, you hide behind a collom, looking out into the chaos before you.

In the turbulance, you see IG-11 shooting around manically, Cara doing the same. From the corner of your eyes, silver gleams. You look to see Mando pointing a huge blaster at everything. The relief you feel at the sight of him is confusing but you hardly have time to ponder on it before you see him.

You have to slap your hand in front of your mouth in order to muffle the rabid noise that escapes you when you see Mof Gideon.

hands caressing, people cheering, laughing, hands are reaching, reaching, you can't breath,

Can't breath,

Gideon shoots Mando in the neck and you hold back a shriek, you can't stop your legs from running towards him.

BLAM

The explosion knocks you to the ground, you stumble up, holding onto the child with one hand the other reaching,

reaching,

reaching for Mando.

Cara joins you, the two of you dragging him into shelter. You lay him against a wall,

"Mando, hey, it's me," you hand the child to IG-11, now focusing all your attention on Mando,

"Yun?" he mutters out

"Yeah,"

"I'm not gonna make it,"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, I'm gonna help you, okay?" you say, reaching for the spot at his neck, you bring your hand back, it's covered in blood.

"I'm gonna need to take your helmet off-"

"No," he says, reaching for your arms "You leave me, you make sure the child is safe,"

"The others are taking care of the child, but it needs you, I'm not leaving you here,"

"Mando, listen to her, she's right, the child needs you," Cara says, sitting beside you. Mando looks to her and pulls something from his neck,

"Here," he hands it to her, "When you get to the Mandalorian cohort, you show them that, you tell them it's from Din Djarin, you tell them the foundling was in my protection, and they'll help you,"

Cara shakes her head as you sit, staring at him silently, "We can make it,-"

A blast of fire bursts through the shelter,

"I can hold them back long enough for you to escape," Mando grunts out, "let me have a warriors death."

"I won't leave you," Cara says,

"This is the way,"

Another burst of fire shocks through, you snap out of your trance, a million things zooming around your head at once,

"This is ridiculous, Cara you take the child, keep him safe, I'll stay back with Mando-"

"No,-" he grunts,

"Shut up," you say, "I stay back with him, I know how to treat these kinds of wounds, I'll get him back to you."

Cara is about to answer you when a storm trooper enters, holding a big weapon, it shoots a thrill of fire. You're about to cover when you see it being held back by some force field.

You look around and with a hitched breath see the child holding up it's tiny arms, holding back the wild flames and then shooting them back with a blam!

You all look towards him as be bucks down, falling asleep.

Cara looks at you as the droid pushes at an opening,

"I trust you'll bring him back safely," she nods at you before picking up the child and leaving with Greef following along.

The place is crashing out,

"Yun, please, save yourself, let me die,"

"You're so stupid sometimes-"

"You can't take my helmet off, no living thing may see my face,"

"I am not living," you jump at the sound of the droids voice behind you,

"Were'd you come from?"

"My base function is not yet completed, I must aid you in the recovering proces."

You nod, "All right, good,"

"Yun, it's impossible, you can't see me without my helmet-"

"I already told you I could do this shit with my eyes closed," you say, ripping at the cloth of your shirt to create a makeshift blindfold. You tie it around your head, now blinded, you reach for his helmet, hesitating, giving him a moment for protest, it doesn't happen.

You pull at the helmet, laying it to the side, you reach for his neck directing simple pressure to the wound, with your other hand you feel at his head.

"I think he might have some brain damage, droid?"

"I have bacta spray, that should heal the damage in a matter of hours. It will not however work on the neck wound,"

"That's fine, I'll take care of that,"

The injury doesn't seem to have hit an airway, you reach into your medpack, pulling out a bandage and placing it over the wound, with the other hand, you rip even more of your shirt to act as a sort of dressing. You wrap the dressing over the bandage, around his body, you tap at his opposing shoulder, getting him to raise it and wrap the dressing under the armpit.

"All right, lower that arm, don't raise it anymore. IG, how's the bacta going?"

"Smoothly,"

"All right, Mando, can you breath, I mean, I know there's a lot of smoke, but can you generally breath well?"

You hear him take a breath before muttering a soft 'yeah',

"Good, I'm gonna need to check your pulse real quick," you press two fingers beneath his jawline, the pulse is a bit slow but still steady.

You grab another piece of cloth, bunching it up and gently rubbing at his face, ears and neck. You try to do it as quickly as possible, as to not invade his privacy. But you can't help when you feel the makings of a moustache and you need to hold back a smile at the fact that he keeps it up, even though no one can see. You reach for the helmet at your side, blindly grabbing at air before your fingers stroke the beskar. You place it back on his head,

"Yun-"

"Y/n"

"What?"

"That's my real name, not Yun,"

"Y/n," he repeats softly,

"My name's Din, Djarin," he says, you smile,

"Yeah, you mentioned that,"

You wrap an arm around him, pulling up his weight,

"Hey, IG, you mind helping?"

The droid supports Mandos other side as you pull off your blindfold, blinking at the sudden light of flames.

The three of you scramble into the opening as the fire roars on behind you.

You enter a labyrinth of tunnels, following Mando- Dins directions.

Further along, you run into the others. Cara runs right up to you, face gleaming as she thanks you, then takes over the spot where you're supporting Din, handing the child over to you. You feel an inexplicable dissapointement,

"I got you," she tells Din as he mutters a soft 'oh', you swear you spot a look in your directon, but you are in a bit of a delirious state.

The six of you make your way down the halls,

"Do you know which way to go?" Greef asks Din,

"No. I don't know these tunnels. I've only ever entered from the bazaar."

"Well if we get the smell of sulfur and we follow it, it'll lead us up to the plains where the river flows."

"The Imps will catch us before we make it to the ship," Din grunts, "We need the Mandalorians to escort us to safety."

You keep walking through the tunnels, nothing much in sight. Cara lets out a frustrated grunt, "Ugh, this place is a maze."

"Stop," Din says, leaning away from Cara, "I can stand." he says wobbling a bit.

"You sure?" you ask, reaching out an arm for him. He puts his hand over yours with a new kind of intimacy as he looks at you. Even though you haven't actually seen him without his helmet off, you still feel like you see him more clearly now.

"I'm sure. I'll try to find tracks." he says, looking away, which leaves you ever so slightly dissapointed. He points to a right tunnel,

"We're close," he says and starts making his way down it.

You all follow him, winding down the paths before ending up in a sort of large room. You look out in front of you and despite your lack of knowledge of Mandalorians, the pile of beskar and armour you find lying on the floor doesn't seem to be a good sign.

Din switches off the flashligt at his helmet, slowly nearing the pile with an intensity that makes you start to sweat profusely.

He kneels in front of it, reaching out for one of the helmets, looking at it carefully.

"Din?" you ask softly,

"We should go," Cara interrupts you.

"You go." Din says, not looking back "Take the ship, I can't leave it this way. Did you know about this?" he almost hisses, turning to Greef, "Is this the work of your bounty hunters?" the edge in his voice causes you to flinch,

"No," Greef replies, "When you left the system and tooks the prize, the fighting ended and the hunters just melted away. You know how it is. They're mercenaries, they're not zealots."

Din puts the helmet down, standing up and turning to Greef with a violence you recognise from your first meeting, "Did you do this?" he points a finger to Greefs chest, "Did you?"

"No!" Greef yells defensively,

"It was not his fault," a voice comes, you look to see it belongs to a female Mandalorian, the only other Mandalorian you've seen so far.

"We revealed ourselves," the woman continues, "We knew what would happen if we left the covert. The imperials arrived shortly thereafter." she grabs one of the pieces of armour, putting it into a box of other pieces.

"This is what resulted." she continues.

"Did any of them survive?" Dins voice is strained,

"I hope so," the female answers, "Some may have escaped off-world."

Din stays quiet for a moment before saying, "Come with us."

"No." the female answers simply, "I will not abandon this place until I have salvaged what remains." she pushes the full box into a next door room. Din follows her, you remain behind him.

You all enter a work room, bright blue flames piercing in the middle where the female holds one of the pieces of beskar above, letting it melt.

"Show me the one whos safety deemed such destruction." she says.

You look to Din, who nods at you. You hold out the child.

"This is the one," he says,

"This is the one that you hunted, then saved?" she asks,

"Yes," Din answered, "the one who saved me as well," you smile at this remembering the story he had told you of the child and the mudhorn.

"From the mudhorn?" the female asks,

"Yes,"

"It looks helpless,"

The child coos at this, you bring a soothing hand to its head as Din says, "It is injured, but it is not helpless. Its species can move objects with it's mind."

"I know of such things," says the female, returning to her work space, "The songs of eons past tell of battles between Mandalore the great and an order of sorcerers called Jedi, that fought with such powers."

"It is an enemy?" Din asks,

"No. Its kind were enemies, but this individual is not."

"What is it?"

"It is a foundling,"

You raise an eyebrow in recognition, remembering what Mando had told you of foundlings and Mandalorians.

"By creed, as you know, it is in your care."

"You wish me to train this thing?"

"It is too weak. It would die. You have no choice, you must reunite it with its own kind."

"Where?"

"This you must determine." she pours melted beskar into a mold.

"You expect me to search the galaxy for the home of this creature and deliver it to a race of enemy sorcerers?"

The female turns to look at him, "This is the way."

Din stays quiet as she starts banging at the mold. You stand there, going over everything that had just been said. It must be reunited to its own kind, be returned. You look down at him, he looks up at you. You feel a needle in your heart.

"Hey," Cara interupts your thinking, "These tunnels will be lousy with Imps in a matter of minutes. We should at least discuss an escape plan."

"If you follow the descending tunnel, it will lead you to the underground river." the female says, "It flows downstream towards the lava flats."

"I think we should go." you hear Greef say.

"I'm staying," Din says, "I need to help her and I need to heal."

"You must go," the female interupts, "a foundling is in your care. By creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father."

The child babels as the two of you look at Din.

"This is the way," the female repeats before turning back to Mando, "you have earned your signet."

She walks up to him and starts inscribing something in his shoulder armour, "You are a clan of two," she says.

You look to the signet, a mudhorn. A clan of two. You can't help the sting you feel.

"Thank you." Din says, "I will wear this with honour."

There's a noise of blasts in the background, which finally causes reality to fully set back in.

"We should go," Greef says,

"IG, please guard the outer hallway," the female says, "A scouting party draws near. I have one more gift for your journey," she continues to Din, "Have you trained in the Rising Phoenix?"

"When I was a boy, yes,"

"Then this," she turns around to reveal a jetpack, you nearly gasp at its coolness, "will make you complete."

"Thank you,"

"When you have healed, you will begin your drills. Until you know it, it will not listen to your commands."

"I understand."

The small smile permeating your face at this moment quickly dissapears when you hear the shooting grow closer. Red light flits off the walls, the blasting stops, IG-11 turns the corner,

"You are protected," it says dryly, you raise an eyebrow.

"More will come," say the female, "you must go."

"Come with us," Din insists,

"My place is here. Restock your munitions." Mando does so as she goes to the droid, "IG, carry this for Din Djarin until he is well enough to wear it." she hands it the jetpack, "Now go, down the river and across the plains. Be safe on your journey."

"Thank you," says Din before you all leave the room, into the hallway.

After a while of winding down hallways, you come out into a highly volcanic area.

"This is the lava river," Greef explains, as you near a boat with a dead looking droid.

"The ferry droid is fried," says Din,

"Yeah, but if we push the boat out, we can get it to float downstream. Come on." Greef insists,

"Looks old, will it take the heat?" Din asks which earns a frustrated look from Greef,

"You got a better idea?"

"Guess not," Din gives in, helping Greef push the boat off.

Their attempts are futile, Cara goes up to them,

"You guys mind getting out of the way?" she asks before absolutely drilling blasts into the side of the boat. You push your hands at the childs ears in a futile attempt to muffle the sound. The boat breaks off and you all jump in.

You're a while on the river when the fried droid you're sitting next to bursts alive suddenly. The others point their blasters at it as you get away from the droid. It beeps and boops, seemingly trying to tell you all something.

"I suppose no one here speaks droid?" Din asks,

"I believe he is asking where we would like to go," IG-11 says,

"Down river, to the lava flat," Greef tells it.

The droid obliges, sticking a long rod into the lava, pushing the boat forward as you and the child look on in wonder.

++++++++

The boat has been oozing down the river for a while now, Din looking out in front of you, not sparing anyone a glance. You keep the child busy with a game of 'I spy with my little eye' which the droid and then Cara join in on.

"I spy with my little eye..." you search for something other than the molten lava, monkey creatures and clothing items that have been mentioned so far.

"An exit!" Greef says,

"Wait what?" you ask looking towards the end tunnel to, in fact, spy an exit,

"We're free!" Greef celebrates,

"No," says Din, quickly ending the celebrations, "No we're not. Storm troopers. They're flanking the mouth of the tunnel. It looks like an entire platoon. They must know we're coming."

"Stop the boat," Cara commands the droid. It does not listen, "Hey! Droid! I said stop the boat." it continues, frustrating Cara as she nears it, gritting out, "Hey, I'm talking to you! I said stop." she blows the droids head of with her blaster, which shocks you enough for your mouth to fall open a bit. You look down at the child who whines. You bump him up and down with your knee in soothing.

The boat still doesn't stop,

"We're still moving," Greef says,

"Looks like we fight," Cara sighs, but Din shakes his head,

"There are too many,"

"Then what do you suggest?" you ask, starting to get really tired of this shit,

"They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child. This is unacceptable," IG-11 says, "I will eliminate the enemy, and you will escape."

"You don't have that kind of firepower, pal," Din grunts, "You wouldn't even get to daylight."

"That is not my objective."

You look at IG with worry at what he might mean,

"We're getting close," Cara says,

"I still have the security protocals from my manufacturer," IG-11 continues, "If my designs are compromised, I must self-destruct."

"What are you talking about?" Din asks,

"I am not permited to be captured. I must be destroyed."

"Are we gonna keep talking, or get out of here?" Greef says, frustrated. IG-11 ignores him, holding out Dins jetpack, "I can no longer carry this for you, nor can I watch over the child."

"Wait," Din says, "you can't self destruct. Your base command is to watch the child. That supercedes your manufacturers protocal, right? Right?"

"This is correct,"

"Good, now grab a blaster and help us shoot our way out."

"Victory through combat is impossible. We will be captured. The child will be lost. Sadly, there is no scenario where the child is saved, in which I survive."

"Listen, you're not going anywhere. We need you, let's just come up with a-"

"Please tell me the child will be safe in your and Y/ns care. If you do so, I can default to my secondary command."

"But you'll be destroyed."

"And you will live, and I will have served my purpose."

"No, we need you."

"There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive."

"I'm not sad," Din says slowly,

"Yes you are, I'm a nurse droid. I've analyzed your voice." he reaches out an arm to where you and the kid are sitting, brushing a metal finger over his ear. You look down at the gesture, feeling a strange stillness of everything.

IG-11 leans over the boat, jumping and then treading through the molten lava.

"IG, what are you doing?" Greef asks as you all silently look on. IG-11 walks through the exit, where you assume the troopers are,

"Manufacturers protocal dictates I cannot be captured." he says, you wobble slightly at the words, "I must be destroyed."

He explodes loudly, the flames blowing about, leaving behind empty destruction.

It's quiet for a moment as you wait to see if the coast is clear. It is not.

A high zooming droans over your heads, an empire ship, much like the one you'd escaped in. You all blast up at it, as the ship lowers slightly then shoots back up in the sky.

You drop your blaster, clamming your body aroud the child.

As you hear it zooming further away, you peek up.

"He missed," says Greef,

"He won't next time," Din grunts as Cara yells,

"Our blasters are useless against him."

"Let's make the baby do the thing," Greef says, turning to you and the child, "Come on baby, do the magic hand thing." he mimics his three fingered hand. The child looks up in confusion,

"I'm not sure that's how it works," you say as the child waves at Greef.

"I'm out of ideas," he mutters,

"I'm not," says Din.

Gideons flies closer, you reassume your position over the kid as Din pulls out his jetpack.

He puts it on, waiting still as the ship gets closer, blasting at you.

"Didn't the woman tell you not to do that?" you ask in worry. You get no reply.

Din shoots up into the sky, flinging his thwarper at the ship so it catches on. You gasp as he gets pulled along, the ship swinging from side to side, trying to get rid of him like a spider.

You can't see much from your position bellow, but you do see that he climbs onto the ship.

You hear the child whine beneath you and turn your attention to him.

"It's okay, your dads just being a little insane." the child looks back at you questioningly, you shrug,

"Runs in the family."

You hear an explosion from above, which causes you to redirect your focus to the violently shaking ship, which doesn't seem too affected. You then see Din flying off of it, your breath hitches before the ship explodes at the side, slowly crashing to the ground.

Din clumsily lands on the ground, you run right to him,

"You're fucking insane!"

"Don't swear in front of the kid,"

You huff at this, shoving him in the shoulder, before looking at him weakly, still shaking slightly from the adrenaline. Din looks back at you as Greef says,

"That was impressive Mando. Very impressive." Din looks away from you, to Greef, who continues, "It looks like your Guild rates have just gone up."

Din looks to Cara, "Any more storm troopers?"

"I think we cleaned up the town. I'm thinking of staying around just to make sure."

Your brows furrow for a second, thinking back to how beautiful Sorgan was and how... Nevarro, Nevarro is.

"You're staying here?" Din asks,

"Well, why not?" Greef ask, "Nevarro is a very fine planet." you make a dirty look at this, you can't help it.

"And now that the scum and villainy have been washed away," Greef continues, "it's very respectable again,"

"As a bounty hunter hive?"

"Some of my favourite people are bounty hunters. And perhaps, this specimen of a soldier might consider joining our ranks." he gestures to Cara, who waves her head from side to side,

"Yeah, I've got some clerical concerns regarding my chain code."

The two continue talking as you set down the child, who waddles over to Dins foot, pressing his hands into it. Din looks down and you can't help beaming at the two.

"You, my friend," Greef says to Din, "you will be welcome back into the guild with open arms. So go off, enjoy yourself. And when you're ready to return, you will have the pick of all quarries."

Din looks back down at the child and picks him up,

"I'm afraid I have more pressing matters at hand."

Cara smiles, stroking the childs little ears, "Take care of this little one, and you," she tells you, "take care of this big one." gesturing to Din.

You smile at her, face heating up a bit.

You all bid your last goodbyes, and then you're going your separate ways. Greef and Cara to the village and you, the child and Din to the Razor Crest.

++++++++

Lava excrement brushes against your knees as you sit by Kuiils grave.

You and Din had taken the time to dig and then lay it with rocks, as well as Kuiils hat. You hadn't let the tears fall until Din had gotten up from where he sat beside you, telling you to take your time as he returned back to the ship.

The tears had been fat and hot, but quiet. You hiccuped a little as you stroked his hat. You missed him, you were sad that he never truly got to live his idealic life. You miss IG-11, he had done so much for you.

You breathed in heavily. You missed Wayne, you missed your old life, imperfect as it had been. And yet behind, you couldn't help feeling the creepings of a new possible life, a new purpose, a new...

You got up, sending a last look at the grave before wiping your tears away and returning to the ship, to your life.

And as you walked up the ramp and into the ship, you noticed it there.

In the open space, in a corner where your meak blanket had once lain, now stood a matress, elevated from the floor slightly. Sprawled over it, was a proper cushion and blanket and beside it sat the childs pram.

To be continued...

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Chapter V: A Child Named Desire

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Medical inaccuracies (doctors, I'm sorry! Did my best) Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilazation, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

You could have sworn that this is where you'd last seen it. You furrow your brows as you shuffle through your bag in search of your toothbrush. You go to the 'fresher again to see if you had accidentally skimmed past it, but no.

You climb up the ladder,

"Hey Mando, have you seen my toothbrush?" you ask,

"No,"

You look from Mando to the kid, who's standing by his seat, grin plastered over his cheeky little face as he holds your toothbrush in his grimy little hands.

"You!" you say accusingly, pointing at him as he giggles wildly, his tiny legs sprinting across the cockpit.

"You've kidnapped my toothbrush!" you yell, trying to catch the surprisingly quick child.

"And you," you say, pointing a finger at Mando, "are an active accomplice!" Mando simply shrugs in answer.

The child sits at a small platform and you make a quick move to catch him before he suddenly moves away, causing you to crash into one of the control panels,

"Shit," you hiss, Mando is about to chastise your swearing in front of the child when a blue hologram pops up behind you. You look at it, seeing a middle aged looking human,

"My friend," the hologram starts "if you are receiving this transmission, that means you are alive,"

You, the kid and Mando look intently at it,

"You might be surprised to hear this," the hologram continues, "but I am alive too. I guess we can call it even. A lot has happened since we last saw each other," you look at the child.

"The man who hired you is still here," you hear the man say, "and his ranks of ex-imperial guards have grown. They have imposed despotic rule over my city, which has impeded the livelihood of the Guild. We consider him an enemy but cannot get close enough to take him out. If you would consider one last commision, I will very much make it worth you're while. You have been succesful so far in staving off their hunters, but they will not stop until they have their prize." your stomach drops as you look at the child, their 'prize'. You shiver.

"So here is my proposition. Return to Nevarro. Bring the child as bait," at this you let out a dissagreeing noise,

"I will arrange an exchange and provide loyal Guild members as protection. Once we get near the client, you kill him, and we both get what we want. If you succeed, you keep the child and I will have your name cleared with the Guild, for a man of honour should not be forced to live in exile. I await your arrival with optimism."

The hologram goes off and you're left in silence, pondering this information. You look at the child who coos up to you, gingerly holding out your toothbrush. You smile softly, taking it from his hands before looking back at Mando, who is gazing down.

"Mando?" you question gently, testing out the waters, noticing his now rigid figure.

He then looks at the two of you. A moment passes, you can't gauche what he's thinking.

"Hey kid, why don't you go play a bit downstairs, me and Yun need to talk," the child coos, brows furrowing slightly as you pick him up and go down the ladder.

There, you hand him the stick figures, stroke his head and tell him,

"Everything's going to be alright, okay?" in the gentlest voice you can muster up before heading back up the ladder.

"What are we gonna do?"

"That brand on your arm, you know what it means, right?" Mando says, not looking back at you.

You tense up, hand reflexivly moving to where the branding used to burn painfully.

"I'm not leaving the kid-

"I would never bring him harm, but I also don't want you to get wound up in that- that system again."

Neither do you, you'd rather die than go back to him. But that would mean leaving behind the kid, what if he gets hurt? Yes, Mando wouldn't let that happen, but some things you can't control,

the droning buzz of the person talking on the other side of the phone, something about trying their best but it's not looking good, the clank of the phone falling to the ground, you want to scream, cry, shout, run, run to them, to Wayne, his small hands, small feet, precious smile, no, you have to save them, no, no,

"No."

"Yu-"

"I don't care, I'm not leaving him behind. Let me help, in any way I can but just don't take him away from me."

Mando looks at you quietly, it's only then that you notice you're shaking. You close your eyes, shake your head,

"Alright, but we're gonna need some more help, I know a friend on Sorgan, she's a bit rough, but she's loyal, and she knows the kid."

++++++++

The muscle clad woman pulls the electric rope tightly around the zabraks neck when the rope dissapears and he falls to the ground. The woman kicks him with a proud grunt.

"You said a bit rough,"

"Yeah, a bit," you look at Mando incredulously and then back at the woman, Cara Dune, who is collecting her biddings. She looks up to you two,

"Looking for some work?" Din asks, she grins, sending you a questioning look before going to a table.

"You pick up another project since we last saw each other?" she asks, gesturing towards you.

"It's a long story, she takes care of the kid." Mando replies, seemingly wanting to move on from the topic of you as fast as possible. Cara raises a questioning brow, looking at you weirdly,

"Live in babysitter, huh,"

"Listen," Mando ignores her comment, "I got a message from Greef Karga,"

He explains the situation as Cara listens intently, sending you a look every now and then as you hand the child some fried facet spider.

"It seems like a straightforward operation," Mando says, "They're providing the plan and firepower. I'm the snare,"

"With the kid?" she asks,

"That's why I'm coming to you."

"I don't know," she ponders, "I've been advised to lay low, if anyone so much as scans my chain code, I'll rot in a cell for the rest of my life."

"I thought you were a veteran,"

The zabrak comes by, throwing some credits on the table and then grunting off, Cara smiles sweetly,

"Come back soon. I've been a lot of things since, most of the carry a life sentence. If I so much as book passage on a ship registered to the New Republic, I'm..."

"I have a ship," Mando interupts, "I can bring you there and back with a handsome reward, you can live free of worry."

"I'm already free of worry, and I'm not in the mood to play soldier anymore. Especially fighting some local warlord."

"He's not a local warlord. He's Imperial,"

The mere word sends shivers down your spine, Cara's face falls before something creeps up on her,

"I'm in," she smiles.

++++++++

You had gravely undermined your enthusiasm during your stop at Sorgan, it's beautiful nature and trees. You realised this when you looked at the coordinates on Mandos screen only to see you were headed for Tatooine,

"Mando, don't do this to me,"

"A friend lives there,"

"I hate that place with a passion-"

"For seemingly no good reason,"

"If you're planning on dumping me there-"

"I would never do that,"

You sigh, a bit taken aback by the vigour of his words,

"Fine, but make it quick."

"Will do,"

You huff a smile.

++++++++

The ship lands near a small farm, mythosaurs and blurgs standing about, munching on slop. As you near the hut, an ughnaught comes out to greet you, bidding you entrance.

You sit down in the cramped space as the ughnaught, named Kuiil, observes the child,

"It hasn't grown much." he tells Mando as you stroke the kids ear,

"I think it might be a Strand-Cast,"

"I don't think it was engineerd, I've worked in the gene farms. This one looks too evolved, too ugly." you furrow your brow at this, shaking your head when the child looks up at you.

"This one on the other hand," he points to Cara, "looks like she was farmed in the Cytocaves of Nora."

Cara smiles as Mando introduces her,

"This is Cara Dune, she was a shock trooper."

"You were a dropper?" Kuiil asks,

"Did you serve?" she asks,

"On the other side, I'm afraid. But I'm proud to say that I've paid out my clans debt, and now I serve no one but myself."

A droid enters, holding a tray of drinks, Cara and Mando jump up, pointing blasters at it. You reach for the child as the droid asks,

"Would anyone care for some tea?"

The ughnaught turns to you three, holding up a peaceful hand,

"Please, lower your blasters. He will not harm you,"

"That thing is programmed to kill the baby," Mando says.

At this, you fully grab the child into your arms,

"Not anymore," Kuiil says.

The droid lowers the tray as Kuiil explains how he found him and reprogrammed the droid to a nurse droid.

"Is it still a hunter?" Mando asks

"No," Kuiil says, "but it will protect."

You look at the droid, still wary of it.

Damn, Mando's really rubbed off on you, you think.

"Tea?" the droid offers, you grab it.

++++++++

You crinkle your nose lightly as Kuiil feeds the four blurgs that have been cramped into the ship.

"Did we really have to bring those?" you ask, leaning towards Mando, who's having an arm wrestling match with Cara.

"Kuiil wanted it, and I'm not one to argue,"

"Yes you are," you say which earns you a look from Mando,

"I got you Mando," Cara grunts, putting more force into her grip while he's distracted.

"Care to double the bet?" he asks, now fully concentrated on the match.

Cara is about to reply when her eyes suddenly widen, she grips at her throat and you look around confused. You look down at the child in your lap, who's holding out a three fingered hand,

"Hey, stop that!" you chide, Mando now looks at him,

"No, stop." he picks the child up, "We're friends, Cara is my friend."

"That is not okay!" Cara points an accusing finger at the child,

"Hmm, curios," says Kuiil

"Curios?" Cara scoffs, "It almost killed me!"

"The story of the mudhorn you told me now makes sense," Kuiil tells Mando.

"What is it?"

"What it is, I don't know. But what it does...This, this I've heard rumours of."

"What?" Caras voice is irritated, "When you worked for the empire?"

"When I was sold to the empire in indentured servitude."

"Yet somehow, you walk free,"

"I bought my freedom through the skill of my hands and the labour of three of your human lifetimes. Do not cast doubt on that of what I am nor whom I shall serve."

There's a tense silence.

"Tell you what," Mando tells Kuiil, "I could really use your craftwork right now. Can you pad this container so the child can sleep better?" he gestures towards it's cot, which you had been collecting a multitude of fabrics to soften, but none seem to help.

"I shall fabricate a better one," says Kuiil, "Then perhaps this Dropper can see how one can win their freedom with the skill of ones hands."

Cara huffs, returning up to the cockpit. You and Mando look at each other,

"And I thought the moss I got on Kashyyyk was working so well."

"It was fine, but it'll rot over time,"

"Yeah, yeah I get it. I'm a shit crastman anyway," you smile as he shakes his head, going up the ladder to join Cara.

You sigh and look towards Kuiil, who has already started work on the cot. You think back to what he had said about his years of working towards freedom. Of course, you know that for you there was no other way out.

He starts banging at a metal piece, you walk up to him,

"Anyway I can help?"

"If you could hold this piece down for me, it would be dearly appreciated."

You hum as you grab at it, holding the piece down as Kuiil begins banging at it again.

"H-how did you get sold off, if you don't mind me asking?"

He continues banging before looking at you,

"You have experienced this too, no?"

You look down, suddenly embarrased,

"Yes, I was stolen, I was also sold to the empire, for other reasons, though."

"Something similair had befallen me. It is truly a cruel thing to steal anothers freedom,"

"But I'm still not free, not really," Kuiil sighs at this,

"Yes, it is a sad faith, I should not ask wether it was within the sector of pleasure that you were sold?"

You sniff, not wanting to answer, the silence is answer enough. Kuiil hums,

"Worry not, child, you are good and I hope you find peace, although it seems you have already found part of it, no?"

You look at it questioningly, he gestures to the cockpit, then to the child. You sigh,

"It's only temporary, I can't stay forever, no matter how much I'd want to," you stroke the childs ear, he coos sadly at you.

"I would not be so sure of that," the ughnaugt says,

"Huh?"

"I have spoken."

++++++++

You really did not like being on the blurgs back, but you put up a strong front as you ride it towards the four men waiting for you on the planes of Nevarro.

"Sorry for the remote rendez-vous, Mando," says the leader, whom you recognise to be Greef Karga, "but things have gotten complicated since you were last here."

"It appears that introductions are in order," he continues looking to you, Cara and Kuiil "It seems we've both provided a security detail. I recommend the shock trooper guards the ship," he says, pointing to Cara, "These lava fields are lousy with jawas."

"She's coming with me." Mando says

"But the town is now run by ex-Empire. If a rebel Dropper is with us, they'll all get their hackles up."

"She's coming." Mando repeats

"Fine," Greef huffs then points at Caras arm, "at least cover your tattoo, no need to flaunt it. Now, where is the little one?"

You all look towards one another, unsure as Mando taps at the controls on his wrist, causing the childs cot to move forward and reveal him.

"So, this little bogwing is what all the fuss is about," Greef says as he reaches for the kid,

"Careful," you warn instinctively, Greef looks up at you and chuckles, looking back at the child.

You reach for your blaster when Greef picks him up, you notice Mando doing the same,

"What a precious little creature," Greef says, "I can see why you didn't want to harm a hair on its wrinkled little head." He puts the child back, which eases some of the tension.

"Well, I'm glad this matter will be put to rest once and for all."

The childs pod closes again and returns to you.

"The sun drops fast on Nevarro," Greef continues, "We can walk for a spell, camp out at the riverbank, then make our way into town at first light."

+++++++

The fire is bright and warm against your face as you chew at the meat, handing little pieces to the child every once and a while. He coos everytime, chewing with his clean little teeth, you're welcome.

Greef points at him, "I guess the little bugger's a carnivore. Never seen anything like it. They were ready to pay a kings ransom for that thing. Must be for some kind of high-falutin menagerie."

You shuffle uncomfortably at the thought,

"Let's go over the plan again." Mando says,

"We both enter the common house. We show the client the bait. We join him at the table and you kill him."

Damn,

"Tell me about his reinforcements." says Mando

"They're all ex-empire. As soon as they loose their paycheck, poof, they'll all scatter."

"And what if they don't?"

"They will,"

"That's not good enough."

"If, for arguments sake, a few of them don't realize that I'm their best path to alternative employement and they elect to react impulsively, then these three fine Guild hunters," he points to the three men, "along with that battle hardened shock trooper," he points to Cara, "will cut down anyone who bucks."

"How many will there be?"

"No more than four," he gets up, "he travels with at most a fire team. Trust me, nothing can go wrong,"

Wrong!

A huge bird looking thing screeches down at the meat still sizzling over the fire. People start to shoot at it although you can't make out who exactly, simply focusing on keeping the child safe.

In the chaos of the scene, one of the blurgs are carried off, Kuiil yelling in protest behind it.

There's a moment of silence when one of Greefs men suddenly gets carried of. At this point Mando has closed the childs cot and you've joined in the shooting, although it's more frantic and scrambled.

Another blurg gets taken, but the bird is shot down before it can fully fly off with it.

Mando shoots flames at the creatures which finally seems to scare them off. Another moment of frantic silence passes. You hear Greef grunting in pain as the childs cot is opened.

Your natural instinct from years of medical school kicks in and you run towards him, relieved at your choice to bring a medpack.

"Where?" you ask, he grips at his arm, you pull his sleave up to reveal three deep scratches.

"Were those beasts poisonous?" you ask Cara who grabs a thermometer looking device and pierces it into Greefs arm.

"Yup, and it's spreading fast,"

"So this is how I go?" Greef says, looking into the darkness,

"Don't be so dramatic," you chide, now fully concentrated, "I'm blocking of circulation, if the posion spreads any faster you're dead or you get sepsis. I'm gonna need to amputate it."

"You're not making any sense,"

"I need to cut it off,"

Greefs eyes widen as you pull a piece of cloth around his arm tightly,

"Oh, no, no, we're not doing that,"

"Sir, I'm gonna need you to stay still,"

"You have no idea what you're doing!"

"I've practiced this many times, I could do this with my eyes closed,"

"You're not cutting it off!"

"You'll die if it spreads any further, we need to take action now!" you yell as you grab a thick stick, telling him to bite down on it when he feels the pain. Greef starts shaking around incessantly, refusing to get his arm removed as you try to calm him down, doubling on the necessity of this when the child moves towards you two, placing his hand on the injury.

"Get this thing out of here," Cara hisses, but you look at the child, trusting it for some reason.

"He's trying to eat me!" Greef cries out, earning a slap on the head from you.

You look on in amazement, barely holding back a gasp as the wound closes and then dissapears completely. The child falls to the ground, you catch him, barely hiding your amazement at what just happened. The others look on in shock.

You look down at the child, completely stumped.

++++++++

It's the next day when you're finally reaching the village. You wonder if anything about yesterdays events might have made them second guess themselves. You stay close to the childs cot as Mando and Cara walk in front of you.

Greef and his men are all the way up front, while Kuiil hangs in the back, riding the last remaining blurg.

Greef comes to a stop, looking out at the village,

"I guess this is it," he mutters,

He suddenly turns around, shooting in your direction, you spring in front of the cot, whipping out your blaster. But you realise that the shot wasn't directed towards you, but instead his men.

You look back at them in shock as Greef holds up his blasters,

"There's something you should know," he says, "The plan was to kill you and take the kid. But after what happened last night, I couldn't go through with it."

You stand in shock, but the three of you are still holding up your blasters,

"Go on." Greef says, "You can gun me down here and now and it wouldn't violate the code. But if you do, this child will never be safe,"

You look back at the child, pondering the situation,

"We'll take our chances," Cara says,

"The imperial client is obssesed with obtaining this asset. You tried to run, but where did it get you?"

"This is ridiculous," Cara grits out,

"Pehraps, you should let him speak." Kuiil says

"Listen," Greef continues, "we both need the client to be eliminated. Let me take the child to him-"

"No." you say

"Let's just kill him and get outta here," Cara says,

Mando lowers his blaster, "He's right," he pockets the weapon, which motivates you to do the same, though you still keep your body framed in front of the child.

"What are you doing?" Cara asks, looking to the two of you.

"He's right," says Mando, "As long as the Imp lives, he'll send hunters after the child."

"It's a trap," she grits,

Mando turns to Greef, "Bring me,"

"Bring you?"

"Tell him you captured me. Get me close to him and I'll kill him."

You look to him, a little uneasy,

"That's a good idea," Greef says, "Give me your blaster."

Mando hands it to him as Cara scoffs, "This is insane,"

"It's the only way,"

"Well I'm coming with you,"

"No, no, no," Greef says, "that would look too suspicious."

"I don't care, I'm coming" she says,

"Tell him she caught me," Mando says,

"Fine, then she can bring the child,"

"No. The kid goes back to the ship with Kuiil and Yun."

"But without the child none of this works!"

"I have a plan," says Mando, "Yun, you and Kuiil ride back to the Razor Crest with the child and seal yoursleves in. When you're inside engage ground security protocals. Nothing on this planet will breach those doors."

You nod sternly, remembering the afternoon when he had showed you all the workings of the ship. Most had slipped your mind, but this one stuck. You go over to the child, gently picking him up as he coos. Kuiil goes up to Mando,

"Here's a comlink. We will keep the child safe." he looks to Cara, "Don't forget to cover your stripes."

You and Mando nod at one another one last time, before he turns to Cara,

"Let's go,"

You look back at the three figures leaving one last time before following Kuiil to the blurg. The child cries out,

"It's okay, he'll be back," you soothe him.

You get on the back of the blurg and Kuiil moves it forward.

You're now trotting through the lava wasteland, holding tightly onto the child, occasionally soothing its worry as much as your own.

You don't even know why you're reacting so strongly to Mando leaving. You loved the child, of course, but somewhere along the way you had started to care for the Mandalorian too.

"Oh boo you,"

"I'm doing my best,"

"No," you shake your head, "cheater! That's what you are, let me see those cards," you grab for them as he pulls away,

"That would defeat the point of the game, cheater,"

You gasp, holding your chest in mock hurt as you laugh.

"I still think you're a dirty cheater, but that's your burden to live with, not mine."

While waiting in a bar on Kashyyyk for Mando to be done with some business, you had seen two wookies playing something that looked an awful lot like cards. You had gone up to them, asking if they had any extras and they had challenged you to a match. If you won, you got the cards. You've never played cards that hard in your life, until now.

"Ah ha! Four! You need to take four!" you had laughed, placing a four down, only to be followed by another four by Mando. You gasp,

"I'm done,"

"Sore loser,"

You glare at Mando, before breaking into a smile.

The memories cause another smile to bloom over your face, and suspiciously enough, also warming it up. You shake your head, what was this man doing to you?

"Kuiil, are you back at the ship yet?" as if he had been summoned by your thoughts, Mando asks through the intercom,

"Are you there? Do you copy?"

"Yes," Kuiil answers

"Are you back to the ship yet?"

"Not yet,"

"Get back to the ship and bail. Get the kid out of here, we're pinned down!"

You tense up, before you can even control it, your arm reaches for the comlink,

"Mando, what's going on?"

"Don't worry about us, just get the kid out of here-"

"We're not just gonna leave you here!"

"Please, for the child,"

You stay quite for a moment, gripping tightly to the comlink,

"Okay,"

"Thank you,"

You put the link away, trying to keep your worry at bay, you need to focus on the child now,

"Kuiil, go faster,"

"I am trying,"

You look behind you in worry, but sigh in relief when you see no one. You hold on to the child who whines softly,

"It's all gonna be okay," you say, though the validity of that statement is tested when you hear two zooming noises behind you.

"Kuiil! They're on to us!" you can barely keep the panic from your voice, he urges the blurg to go faster.

"Kuiil, do you copy! Yun!" you hear Mando from the comlink. But you don't have time to answer, you're now nearing the ship, praying you'll get there on time.

Luck does not smile down on you, a speeder with an ex-Imp crashes into the blurg, causing all three of you to fly off.

You gasp when you're lying on the ground, grabbing at air. The child, the child.

Your face rubs into lava excrement as you turn it, watching the child be swooped up by one of the Imps.

"No," you mutter out, desperately holding out a hand to something that was dissapearing before your very eyes.

The child, your child. He was yours, Wayne was yours. You let out a frustrated screech. He is not Wayne. They are not the same. The child is it's own and Wayne is gone, you'll never get him back, never.

And they are not the same, but you'll be damned if you let that kid get hurt.

>Chapter VI

Chapter IV: Double Indemnity

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilazation, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, unrealistic fighting (oh the horror) FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

"Hallelujah! Now this is what I'm talking about!" you laugh with glee as you run down the ramp into the grassy area surrounded by idealic forest.

"You've been dragging me through the absolute shitiest planets the outer rim has to offer while this was right here!" you yell back at Mando, who's standing by the entrance of the ship,

"Polis Massa wasn't that bad," he says,

"Oh, Polis Massa was bad," you grumble, thinking back to your previous escapade on the planetoid where you had nearly been smushed by a small asteroid.

"Well take it in, we're not staying here long," you pout at this before turning your attention to the child who was bounding towards a small pond by a tree.

"Careful," you chide, running up to him.

He leans towards the water, sticking his three fingered hand into it, litlle fishes swim around, causing him to giggle.

"Let him enjoy the place, there's something I want to go over with you," Mando says. You look over at him with furrowed brows, your expression dropping at seeing the blaster hanging from his finger.

"I can shoot a blaster perfectly fine,"

"Liar, you were nearly knocked out by it on the prison ship and if you're going to keep prancing around the galaxy you're going to have to learn basic fighting."

You huff and walk over to him, he hands you the blaster before steering you to a tree. He points,

"Stand in your beginning position,"

You hold out the blaster in front of you, pointing it at the tree,

"Legs apart," Mando gestures to your legs, you follow his instructions,

"Back straight," he taps your back, fingers like hot coals against you. You straighten out your back,

"You holding tight?"

"Yes,"

"I can tell, loosen up"

Your hands slack a bit,

"Breath in, and shoot at the exhale,"

You do so, breathing in deeply, shutting one eye,

"Eyes open,"

You exhale, shooting at the tree, it misses and you stumble back slightly,

"I told you to loosen up,"

"I am,"

"Not when you pull the trigger, you tighten up." he walks up to you, grabbing the blaster from you and demonstrating, you watch him carefully, his position and the way his hand holds the blaster. He shoots, the blast goes right in the middle of the tree.

"Wow," you breath,

"Your turn," he says, holding out the blaster. You take it, trying to emulate his position as best you can. You breath out and shoot, you still flinch back a little, but there's no stumble and the blast grazes the tree. You smile at Mando,

"Did you see that?"

He huffs a laugh,

"It's a good start, but your hand's still a bit tense, you also need to keep a stable arm, here,"

He comes up to you, reaching out his gloved hand to clasp around yours. Your breath hitches at the contact but you concentrate on your target.

"Breath in,"

The two of you breath in, and then his finger squeezes over yours, the blast hits the tree and you flinch a little less.

"Wizard," you breath,

"What?"

"That was really wizard, really cool." you say, Mando seems a bit confused but nods.

"Now on your own,"

You nod, readjusting your grip on the blaster. You take on the position, breath in,

BLAM

You see the smoke coming from small black spot on the tree, not in the middle, but on the tree.

You throw up your hands in glee,

"I'm great at this," you smile back at Mando, he chuckles,

"Careful with that, you still got some things to learn, but you're starting to get the hang of it."

He takes the blaster from you as he continues,

"But how good are you at one on one combat, you know you won't always have a blaster with you."

"How many fights do you get in on a daily basis?" you ask incredulously,

"A lot," he simply answers, throwing you a mock knife. You attempt to catch it, fumbling around a bit before standing back up.

He stands in front of you,

"All right, I'm your attacker, how are you gonna stop me?"

You stand dumbly for a moment,

"So I just attack you?"

"Yeah, go for it,"

You hesitate a moment before running up to him, holding out your knife in preparation of a swing. He doesn't hesitate, grabs your arm with the knife, twisting it which causes your body to go slack as you fall to the floor,

"So no, you can't combat." he says and you scoff from where you lay on the ground,

"That's so not true, you saw how I fought that Devaronian, and what about that rodian on Polis Massa?"

"I was there both times, you don't suck but you're screwed on your own." he says matter of factly,

"Well aren't you a sweetheart?"

"Get back up,"

You do, standing up in front of him,

"All right, I move first, you block me,"

You nod, he slowly grabs at your arm,

"What? You fighting in slow motion?"

"You'd rather I go fast?"

You sniff,

"All right, I have your arm, now you're gonna grab mine with your free hand,"

You do so,

"Now you turn and push your leg into my knee,"

You do, he falls slowly which causes you to snort,

"Now you have the highground,"

"I have the highground!" you cheer,

"But now you're distracted because of your mediocre win, I shove you with my feet," he nudges his legs at your feet, you slowly fall down, unsuccesfully holding back a laugh at your slow faux fighting.

"Now you no longer have the highground,"

"Oh no! I've lost my highground, now I only have lowground," you giggle from your spot on the ground.

"I jump up and now I'm over, you, I'm trying to choke you,"

He comes to lean over you, holding his arm softly against your neck in a mock choke,

"Oh no, please don't choke me!" at this point your falling apart laughing,

"That's not what you're gonna do, instead you grab the knife and use your free hand to stab me in the neck,"

You do so at the same slow pace, holding back a small giggle as you softly press the mock knife into his shoulder. He holds a hand to where you just fake stabbed him,

"Now you use this opening to shove me away,"

You do so gently, bursting into a full belly laugh as he falls to your side.

"You're not going to be laughing that much when it comes to actual combat," he chastises but you clearly hear the smile in his voice. You press the mock knife into his side and then hop up, throwing your hands in the air.

"I have the highground! Hey kid!" you yell at the child who looks up from the fishes,

"I have the highground!" you laugh.

++++++++

You softly brush the childs head as his eyes flicker shut, you hum softly as you tuck the blanket around him tightly. You look down at him adoringly, his breathing slows and he falls into a deep slumber.

You stand there a moment longer, taking in his sweet expression, he looks so precious sleeping.

After a while you finally tear yourself away from him, walking down the ramp to where Mando is sitting by the fire you had made.

"Kids asleep," you sigh as you sit down, tucking your legs up to your chin as you stare into the flames.

"He's really been warming up to you," Mando says, poking a stick at the fire to keep it alive.

"You think so?"

He hums in reply and you smile. You stay sitting in silence for a moment before looking up at Mando, you hesitate a moment before saying,

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Maybe,"

"How come you can never take your helmet off? Not that I'm asking you to, just wondering why."

He sits quietly for a moment,

"All Mandalorians must follow a creed,"

"Creed?"

"It is the definition of what it means to be a Mandalorian. Loyalty and solidarity, we help our brethren and keep our word, even at risk of death."

"Wow... So it's like a bible?"

"A what?"

"On Earth, people follow many different religions. We have a lot of different kinds. The biggest are Christianity and Islam, they both have books which followers abide by."

"I suppose the Mandalorians are similair,"

"What else does the creed say?" you ask, hoping to be too envasive, but your curiosity overtakes you.

"It requires Mandalorians to take care of foundlings until they are reunited with their own race or come of age."

You sit still a moment, "So that's why you're helping the child?"

Mando doesn't answer, shifting slightly. You hum softy in understanding,

"This is the way?"

He looks at you, then nods "This is the way"

You smile softly and look back into the flames,

"So you've trained a long time to be a warrior?" you ask, Mando simply nods and you huff a laugh,

"I trained for a long time as well, but kind of the opposite."

Mando looks at you questioningly,

"When I was taken from my home, I was training to become a doctor, a medic. To take care of and heal people."

"That is very honourable,"

You smile, looking back into the flames, "Yeah but I never got the chance to actually save anyone."

No you didn't, you couldn't save anyone, not your dad, not your mom, not Wayne, not even yourself. You feel tears prickle at the corner of your eyes. You look away sharply, sniffing and coughing in order to cover yourself up.

"We should probably get some rest," Mando says, standing up. You nod, still looking away before clamering to your feet, making your way over to the ship.

You hear Mando put out the fire, feeling a tinge of embarrasement at your sudden brazeness. You ignore this feeling and go to the small area where your makeshift bed is. At first it had only been a meak blanket on the floor, but had now evolved to two blankets, one supposed to function as a lame matress, and makeshift pillow, a shirt stuffed with some of your clothes.

You laid on it, closing your eyes as you hear Mandos footsteps going up the closing ramp, stopping for a moment nearby your spot and then climbing into his cot.

You squeeze your eyes shut, stiffening soft tears.

>Chapter V

Chapter III: Prison Break

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilazation, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

"Oh my god, will you just stay still for one second!" you nearly hiss as the child moves his head about, arms flapping all over the place.

"Mando! Will you please tell this demon child to sit still!" you yell through the ship.

"Come on kid, open up," Mando says from the cockpit. The child grumbles before opening it's mouth. You stick the toothbrush in as fast as possible,

"Ah ha!" you cheer in your victory and start scrubbing at the childs teeth as it gurgles up at you.

You feel the ship slowing as it nears its destination, you don't have the chance to see were you are, concentrating on the child, but you just hope it's nowhere with sand.

Mando comes trudging down the ladder,

"You two stay here. I won't be gone for long." he says as the ramp opens to reveal a sort of engineerings port. You hum in reply, pulling the child up to the basin in the fresher, telling him to spit!

You rinse off his toothbrush and gently set him down before climbing up to the cockpit. You look out the windows, taking in were you are, and luckily for you, you don't see a single grain of sand. There are workers, mostly human ones, grumbling around, working on ships and other projects. You see Mando talking to an old looking man with a large beard, must be Ran, you think. They're walking off, still talking when your attention is pulled to the child who's cooing. You slip your eyes from the two men and go back down the ladder, picking up a toy and the child. Plopping down in the space, you make the toy kiss the child on the cheek, which delights him terrifically as he grabs at it.

The two stick toys are just about to have their marriage ceremony when the ramp opens. Mando enters followed by a bug headed droid.

"Mando I don't think we have room for a fourth," you say,

"We need the Razor Crest for a job, he's coming to check out the programming."

"A job? How many others?"

He seems to think for a moment, then says,

"Three, they're a little rough, but don't worry, just ignore them. I'll be here, okay?" you nod, looking at where the droid is climbing up to the cockpit.

"Don't break anything!" Mando yells up at it,

"I thought you hated droids?" you ask. Mando simply answers with a shrug of the shoulders and leaves back down the ramp. You look back up the ladder, but get distracted when the childs hand paws at yours and you resume the marriage cermony.

You hear the droid beeping at things upstairs, naming everything monotonously. You're starting to understand why Mando hates them so much.

After a while the droid comes back down and, ignoring you and the child, goes down the ramp to report on what a shit ship you have.

A moment later you almost have a heart attack when you see a Devaronian entering the ship,

"What have we got here?" he asks menacingly, you still can't get used to there devilish look. You decide not to answer, when a bald human and twi'lek enter.

The twi'lek looks at you with eyes that slowly go manic and in a moment she's all up in your face. You grab the child, holding it tightly against your chest, keeping eye contact with the purple lady.

"What are you?" she asks almost savagely,

"Stay away from those two." you hear Mando say,

"You get lonely up here Mando?" the bald man asks mockingly, he points to you, the kid and then to Mando,

"You two make that thing?"

"There just some refugees I'm transporting. Just ignore them. Xi'an, I said just ignore them."

The purple Twi'lek, Xi'an apparently, hisses at you at then turns to Mando.

"Didn't think you'd be able to move on from me so easily"

"I told you, they're refugees," Mando says.

All eyes are on the two of you, you shift uncomfortably.

"Didn't take you for the type to smuggle, guess that code of yours must have softened you," Xi'an giggles wickedly, then turns her face to you, a tinge of something akin to jealousy coming over her face.

"Interesting pair." the bald man says, "Where you two from?"

"That's not important," Mando's voice grows more stern. The bald man looks at him, laughing a bit, then jerks out towards the two of you. You grip tighter at the child, Mando flinches, reaching out. The bald man cackles then raises his hands up.

"All right,"

You hate this, these strangers. Xi'an is still glaring at you menacingly, you hope she doesn't try to bite, though she does seem like the type to try.

"Someone tell me why we even need a Mandalorian." the Devaronian says

"Well apparently they're the greatest warriors in the galaxy. So they say." the bald man says

"Then why are they all dead?" asks the Devaronian, which sends a gaggle of laughs through the ship. You stay quiet, grimacing while looking at Mando, who stands there silently.

"Well you flew with him Xi'an. Is he as good as they say?" the bald man asks.

Xi'an finally looks away from you, "Ask him about the job on Alzoc III."

You all look to Mando, "I did what I had to," he says, you furrow your brows,

Xi'an scoffs "Oh but you liked it," Mando looks at her as she continues, "See I know who you really are."

"He never takes off the helmet?" the bald man asks

Xi'an shakes her head with a giggle and then mimics his low voice "This is the way," she hiccups another laugh and you can't help but cringe.

"Huh," the bald man looks at Mando "I wonder what you look like under there. Maybe he's a Gungan, is that why 'yousa don't wanna show your face?'"

The others roar with laughter, you and Mando stay silent, the child coos sadly.

"You ever seen his face," the man asks Xi'an,

She grins brightly, pulling at one of her head tails, glancing at you,

"A lady never tells,"

"Aw, come on Mando," Baldi says "We all gotta trust each other here, you gotta show us something. Come on, just lift the helmet up."

The Devaronian stands, you flinch ever so slightly, looking to Mando with a worried glance,

"Come on, let us all see your eyes," Baldi smirks,

"I'll do it," says the Devaronian and reaches out to Mando. You jump up as the two start to tussle.

It's then that the droids voice is heard,

"Dropping out of hyperspace now."

The two get away from one another as the ship jerks and everybody stumbles.

"Commencing final approach, now. Cloaking signal, now."

You all tumble around, you hold on tightly to the child, protecting it from harm.

"Engaging coupling, now" the droid continues and you really wish you could punch it in the face.

The ship finally jults to a halt,

"Coupling confirmed, we are down."

You get up, arms still tightly wound around the child as Mando comes to check on it.

"And relax. Commence extraction, now."

"That useless droid didn't even give us a proper countdown." Xi'an hisses as the Devaronian throws two large boxes.

"Z, you sure they can't see us?" Baldi asks,

"The razor crest is rounding our signature and I'm inside the prison system. It's impressive that this gunship has survived the empire without being impounded." as the droid is saying this, Mando looks to you and the kid,

"What's all this about prison and the empire?" you ask grumpily, not in the mood for another chaotic escapade,

"It's a quick mission, we'll get back once we've got the asset, you just stay here with the kid."

You're unsure about this whole thing, side eyeing the others suspiciously. You look back at Mando and curtly nod.

"All right, we got a job to do, Mando your up." baldi says,

Mando turns to the hatch, opening it up.

The four of them gather around, Mando holding a beeping device that goes from red to green. The opening forms to the ship and the three look at Baldi,

"It's me?" he asks

"Always you," says the Devaronian.

Baldi grumbles a bit before popping down the hatch, followed by the other two. Mando sends a last glance to you and the child, you lamely hold up a waving hand before he jumps down to join them.

You sigh, looking down at the child who's also holding up a waving hand, before looking up at you.

"Now we wait," you grumble, the kid coos in answer, pointing to the two toys that had been abandoned on the floor. You smile, grabbing them up and continuing the play pretend.

++++++++

It had been a while since the four had left and you were starting to get skittish, though you were trying to keep it together for the child.

You look up the ladder to the cockpit were the bug droid is buzzing on about directions. You felt an uneasy sensation in your stomach, you really didn't like, or trust, these people.

You look back down at the child, who also doesn't seem particularly at ease. You grimace.

"It seems your prescence has been detected. Redirecting security alert away from your position." the droid says above.

"Is everything alright?" you ask up at it,

"In order fo me to concentrate on the current mission, I will have to ask you to refrain from further distraction." the droid answers curtly.

You roll your eyes, letting out an annoyed groan as you and the child plop down at Mando's cot.

The child looks at you, worried as you're looking at the still open hatch. Vague noises rising from it that you can't make out. You shuffle a bit.

"Zero to Mayfeld, zero to Mayfeld, I've detected a distress signal homing in on your location."

What?

"What!"

You stand up and go up the ladder where the droid continues,

"You have approximately twent minutes."

Shit, shit, shit.

"If I could ask you to leave the cockpit-" the droid starts,

"Yeah, yeah I get it," you say, looking down at the child who whines at you.

You jump down the ladder and gather his toys, plopping them beside him, he coos at you questioningly.

"Just in case," you shrug, going to the storage pack and pulling out a bag of pre-chopped meiloorun. You plop it next to him before climbing back up the ladder.

You peak your head through, the droid is tapping at some buttons, saying,

"You have 15 mintues remaining."

"Come on, come on, open it up!" you hear Baldi yell over the intercom.

You heart is already beating a bit heavier than usual, but it goes into overdrive when you hear a commotion over the intercom, a grunt from Mando,

"Attack's on the way, he's already dead meat. Let's go." Baldi says.

Your breathing chokes up a moment, you had a feeling something like this was going to happen.

You go back down the ladder and run to the child, pulling Mando's blanket around him.

"I've gotta go save your dad, okay? If anyone opens this up, hide, got it?" the child nods and you peck it's forehead before pushing the button to close the cott.

You run to grab a blaster and then go to the hatch, poking your head through it.

You look around, it's all white and minimal space, there doesn't seem to be anyone around.

You jump down, without really much of a plan except to find Mando. When up in the cockpit, you had seen the map for the ship, a light blinking at where the prisoners cell was. They must've locked him in there.

You start running down the hallways, ears wide open in case you hear anyone coming.

You hear droids footsteps and flick behind a wall, holding in your breath as it passes you. You sigh, craning your head to check the coast, it's clear.

You're now nearing the prison cells, looking into each, trying to spot Mando. You pass a growling zabrak, a chevin banging loudly against it's cell door.

"Yun," you hear from behind you. Relief pools through you when you see Mando standing behind the cell,

"Mando!" you run up to it,

"You see the black rectangle in the middle of the door?"

"Uh huh,"

"Shoot at it with your blaster,"

You nod, stepping away, holding up your blaster to it. You shoot, stumbling over slightly, looking back to see a shot right beside it. You shoot again,

"I thought you knew how to use a kriffin' blaster," Mando growls annoyed,

"I kinda do, I'm just not that good at it."

You shoot at it again and again until electricity flies all over the place and the door opens.

"See," you say,

Mando runs out,

"Where's the kid?"

"In the cot, he's got food and water, I told him to hide in the cubby if anyone opens it."

Mando nods, looks down the hall,

"Come." he says, running.

You follow him down the hallways, holding out the blaster in case you bump into any other droids.

You two make it to what seems to be a control room, Mando lowers his blaster and it's then that you notice the dead man lying on the floor.

"What happened to him?" you ask,

"Xi'an." Mando replies as he looks at one of the screens. He pushes at a few buttons and a loud groan is heard in the ship, the lights flickering and turning read.

On the screens you see panels falling down to block most of the exits.

"You gonna try and kill them?" you ask Mando, he's looking at the screens where you see Xi'an and the Devarionian splitting up. The Devaronian coming your way. He then looks at you,

"Not particularly,"

You huff as he crouches down beside the dead man, picking up a white, remote looking thing that's blinking red and pocketing it.

He then looks at you,

"You probably don't know how to use a thwarper?"

"What's that?"

He shoots out a thin looking rope to the other side of the room, it seamlesly wraps around a controler and with a tug from Mando, gets pulled clean off the wall.

"Ah, like a mini grapling hook," you nod,

"Sure," he looks up at the railed ceiling that looks up into a small lit area, "Can you get up there?"

You look up and shrug, "Sure,"

"Alright, heres the plan; I hide behind that compartement over there, you're up there. When he comes in, you shoot the thwarper down at him as a distraction and I take him out."

You nod as he hands you the thwarper. You roll the stool over, him holding it stable as you get on it and stretch your arms towards the ceiling, shifting a panel to the side.

"Mind helping me out?" you ask as your fingers grip at the ridges. Mando hesitates a moment before gripping one of your shoes to help you get up.

Your hands are grabbing at the ceiling, pulling your weight up when you wobble a bit. Mandos hand shoots to your hip and the touch feels like a shock.

You ignore this, pulling yourself all the way up and sliding the panel back. You see Mando pushing the stool back and crouching into the compartement. You hold out the thwarper, waiting with bated breath for the Devarionian to arrive.

The spot on your hip where Mandos hand had touched burns, you don't know why exactly, before realizing this is surprisingly enough the first time Mando has touched you since the time when he first found you on his ship. And you had been living with him for almost a week now, which isn't much time, but considering you lived together on that cramped little ship, it's impressive how well you've avoided too close contact.

You then hear the Devaronians heavy footsteps nearing the control room and tense up a bit, praying he won't look up.

You see him beneath you, holding out his blaster while looking around,

"Where are you, little mouse," he grumbles, lowering his blaster. You take the shot, it wraps around his neck tightly as he let's out a surprised grunt, looking up at you. You pull hard as Mando jumps from his hiding spot, shooting at his arm.

The Devaronian, goes to punch at Mando, who shoots tiny pews at him.

The Devaronian shakes around trying to free himself from your ever tightening grip before tugging hard on the rope, causing you to crash down the ceiling, yelping as you fall. The Devaronian falls to the floor beside you and Mando shoots a blast at his leg which causes him to howl before reaching out to Mando and pushing him the controls.

You ignore the pain in your everything and point the thwarper back at the Devaronian, who gets caught off guard, pulling at his neck as Mando shoots fire from his armour at the Devaronians face, a feature that you'll have to ask him about later.

The Devaronian doesn't react to the fire, simply cackling as he again pull on the thwarper. You let go of it in time and jump at him, sticking the butt of your blaster against his head as hard as you can which surprisingly seems to weaken him a moment.

Mando shoves him against the opening of the room, throwing a knife at a button beside it.

A panel closes down on him and you almost sigh, but are given no time and he holds it up. How strong is this dude even?

You look beside you and without even thinking that hard, push at a bunch of random buttons. A second pair of doors close in his face.

Now you do actually sigh, leaning against the wall,

"Well done," Mando says, you just throw out a tired hand,

"No problem,"

Mando gets up and opens the two doors back up, the Devaronian falling slack to the ground.

"Get up, there's still the others,"

You nod, trudging up and following behind him.

The two of you wade through the hallways when Mando holds up a fist and points to where you assume his ear is supposed to be. You listen intently, hearing the footsteps in a nearby hall.

Mando points to you and then to a side hall, you nod in understanding, making your way around.

You hide behind a side pillar, now on the opposite side of the large hall.

You hear a grunt and then the flicking of a knife and jump from your spot.

You see Xi'an facing Mando, throwing knife after knife towards him. You don't feel even a tinge of remorse as you sneak up behind her, smashing your blaster into her head hard. She lets out a squeel of anger, holding her head as she falls to the floor, throwing a knife that grazes your shin.

Mando butts her head with his elbow but misses as she slides out from under him, pouncing at you and throwing you against a wall. You drop your blaster as she pushes a knife against your throat,

"I'M PRETTIER THAN HER!"

She screeches before getting hit on the back of her head by Mando. She drops to the floor, finally knocked out cold. You and Mando look at each other for a moment before you say,

"She's your crazy ex girlfriend, not mine."

Mando shakes his head, moving down the hall, you follow him to an area where the lights blink on and off, on and off.

Mando leans out behind a corner, then looks at you,

"Cover me," he says before walking out, you look to see Baldis back turned as Mando looms behind him. He grabs Baldi by the back, knocking him into the wall and then punching his head with the butt of his blaster. With that, Baldis out cold, good riddance, you think.

You and Mando start to make your way back to the ship, you notice another twi'lek, bigger than Xi'an, trying to get up the hatch.

"Qin," Mando says, the twi'lek looks defeated,

"You killed the others," he mumbles,

"They got what they deserved," Mando answers as you shift on your feet. The twi'lek growls before turning to you two sharply. Your two blasters point at him.

He scoffs, "You kill me, you don't get your money. Whatever Ran promised, I'll make sure you get it. And more."

He starts nearing the two of you, "Come on Mando. Be reasonable," he throws his weapon of to the side, which does little to ease your tension.

"You were hired to do a job, right?" he continues "So do it." he holds out his hands, "Isn't that your code? Aren't you a man of honour?" he chuckles as Mando lowers his weapon and goes to him. You still hold your blaster up, though.

Mando tells the twi'lek to turn around and go up the hatch, he does so obediently. Mando looks back at you as he follows the twi'lek up.

You put away your blaster, climbing up the hatch when you hear a loud blast. You scramble up the hatch, only to see Mando holding up his blaster as the bug droid falls to the ground. You see the child standing at the cot.

"Is he okay?" you ask, Mando walks up to the child,

"He's good."

You jump up into the ship, going straight to the kid and picking him up,

"You okay?" you coo at him, "I'm sorry I left you here," the child just giggles up at you, hands strechted out to your face.

You hear a grunt and look to the side of the ship to see the twi'lek sitting grumpily, his hands tied to the wall. You huff as you take the kid up to the cockpit, where Mando is already sitting, preparing to take off.

++++++++

Arriving back at the port, you and the child stay put as Din climbs down the ladder to take the twi'lek out.

You look out from the window, watching as Ran and Mando talk. Ran throws him a booklet of credits. Mando says one last thing before walking back up the ramp.

Returning to the cockpit, you look at him curiously and he starts steering the ship out of the port,

"How can you trust they won't do anything?" you ask, holding the gargling child on your lap,

"I wouldn't be worried about that." Mando answers, clacking at some buttons as you sail off into space. You furrow your brows, confused at his vague answer.

But your confusion is short lived when you see empire jets pop out of hyperspace, making their way to the port.

You huff as you look back at the space port now being bombarded by jets, thinking back to the tracking device Mando had taken earlier.

"You are evil," you laugh as Mando puts the ship into hyperspace.

>Chapter IV

Chapter II: Breakfast at Yrem's and Dinner in Jakku

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilazation, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied!MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

Your back hurts like hell, you haven't always had the best sleeping situation but there was something about the floor to this particular ship, the bolts probably.

The child coos in one of your arms, the other holding a cup of caff. You perk up at the request, picking up one of the small fruits and handing it to him. He chews on it as you smile at him.

Your attention is pulled to the ladder as you hear Mando crawling down.

"I made breakfast," you say, gesturing to the fruits and dough in front of you.

"You take the dough and wrap the fruit in it." you showed him, picking up a pink fuit and wrapping it up, chewing half of it and handing the other half to the child who makes an excited noise.

Mando comes up to you two, gently stroking the happy childs cheek. You hand him his plate and he goes back up to the cabin. Toro had previously told you that his kind, Mandalorians, can never take their helmets off in front of others, so you had looked forward to figuring out how they ate. Pretty obvious now.

This was your first meal onboard. After leaving Tatooine, Mando had given you a proper tour of the ship, which lasted like two minutes, it is not a big ship. He had then told you what your jobs were; cleaning, washing clothes, repairements if needed, taking care of the child and cooking.

"With what food?" you had asked. He brought you to a storage box, opening it up to reveal dough, a handful of nuts in a pot, some fruit and a canister of caff.

You looked at him incredulously, "You call this proper food?" you ask,

"Yes." he answered simply, you scoffed,

"Mando, this is a growing child, it's gonna need more than a few nuts."

"What's wrong with the nuts?"

"There's nothing wrong with the nuts-"

"Great-"

"Bu-ut, I'm gonna need more to work with, I guess I could still make something with this but don't you have anything else?"

"Sounds like a skill issue."

You glare at the Mandalorian, holding back a smile at the rare show of humour.

"I'll make a stop at Jakku, there's some markets there."

The child now giggles up at you, two fruits stuck in it's nostrils, you laugh, picking some dough and shoving it in yours. The child claps its three fingered hands together in delight, the action seems so human-like.

You hear Mando shuffling upstairs and a moment later his hand reaches down with the empty plate.

"Was it good?" you ask, grabbing the plate. He grumbles an affirmation and then says,

"We're almost on Jakku, get the kid ready."

++++++++

You had been relieved to leave Tatooine and it's sandy planes and had hoped Jakku would offer some more living flourishments up but walking down the ramp, you almost had a spasm at the desolate landscape.

"I thought we left Tatooine?" you ask

"We did," the Mandalorian says, walking around you.

"You sure?"

"Markets up this way."

Your mouth is still agape, eyes scanning the scenery as you follow behind him, feeling at the child in your bag. You can see his eyes peering out, eyeing you with question.

"I know right?" you say down at him, the child coos softly in answer.

"Is there anything in particular the kid likes?" you ask,

"Frogs, but don't let him have those, it's disgusting. Whatever you think would be good for him is fine."

You nod earnestly, no frogs... maybe some frogs.

Up ahead you can already make out a few houses, a bustling village.

You enter, looking at the different extraterestrial beings all packed up on each other.

When you had first left your homeworld, this had all been a shock to you, the diverse creatures and beings all living together. It's gotten a lot more normal now, but the memory of seeing your first Devaronian and being fully convinced you had accidentally ended up in hell still stays with you.

You slowly enter a market place full of screeching creatures and busy consumers. An ongree is hagling at one of the stalls, maned by a gran who loses it's temper and bangs down, causing some items to fly all over the place.

You pull the child closer to you as you follow Mando along. The crowd splits for him like the red sea does for Moses and you wonder just how feared his race is.

Mando pulls you off to an empty side,

"I need to take care of some business, but I should be done in about an hour. Take these credits," he hands you a small satchel "Here are the rules,"

Oh boy, more rules, you think unenthusiastically,

"Don't spend credits on aything other than food for the child, don't stray from the market place, don't do anything stupid, do not let the child eat frogs, don't let anyone see the child, keep him safe and do not get into any trouble. Got it?"

You're on the edge of an eye roll but catch yourself just in time,

"Got it!"

Mando suddenly grips at your arm, causing you to flinch, back pressing into a wall.

"Do not get in to trouble, I'm fully trusting you with that kid right now and I swear if anything happens to him, I will not make your death an easy one, there will not be a single corner, galaxy, constellations in the universe that will keep you safe from me. Got. It?"

Jesus fuck.

You stand tense against the wall, mouth slightly agape, brows furrowed deeply. You can hardly hold in the shiver raising up your spine as you try and almost fail to keep your eyes on the now horrifying T visor. You close your mouth, swallowing some saliva in an attempt to lubricate your dry throat and nod a little too aggresively.

"Got it." you say, voice shaky.

"We meet back here in an hour, not a second later." and with that, he walks away.

You stand there a moment longer, staring into space. How come the moment you leave one scary, violent weirdo you get stuck with another? A sound from the child brings you back to. You look down at the child,

"He always that intense?" the child simply coos in answer.

You make your way from stall to stall, looking over the foods. There isn't a ton but you find some things you can definitely work with. Figuring out the diverse range of different foods in the many galaxies was a tough job. Not that you had every really gotten the time to master the use of them. You had been a great cook on your homeworld, people always praising it highly. You hoped that you could recapture your former glory and spent most of the hour trying to figure out which foods would offer the best results.

You were at one such stall when the kid made a loud annoyed noise from your bag. You tensed up, avoiding eye contact with the ishi tib running the stall. The child made another noise and you made a loud hungered noise in order to cover it up,

"Hmm, these look so good!" you exclaim, sweat starting to build up at your lower back. The ishi tib looks at you judgementally,

"Good price too," it says, gesturing about it's produce, "yeah, great, sorry I'm just really hungry,"

"Hungry? There is cantina nearby," at this the child punches at the bag, you panic and jump up a bit.

"That sounds great! I'll go check it out," you say, embarrased at your ridiculous behaviour and starting to panic even more.

"But first buy some, no?" the ishi tib gestures to some of the fruit,

"Um, yeah sure, I'll take two of those," you say, pointing at the meiloorun. The ishi tib packs them in a bag for you and you hand it the credits, promptly walking away in embarrasement.

"What is wrong with you? We need to keep low," you hiss down at the child, who lets out an annoyed sounds and another punch to the top of your bag.

"How can you be hungry again? We just ate this morning!" the child pouts out a noise in answer as you move towards the cantina.

'Yrem's' you read on the front. Walking in, you let out a sigh of relief at the lack of people. You trudge up to the counter and look at the options.

"Cushnip's half price on mornings," another ishi tib says behind the counter.

"Oh, uhm, that sounds..." you drawl out, sticking a hand into your bag. The child squeezes at it tightly,

"Great," you smile. The ishi tib nods, turning around and yelling your order at a single somber looking Ardennian stirring a pot in the kitchen,

"Coming right up," the ishi tib smiles, you nod and move to a seat somewhere in the corner.

You gently plop down your bag beside you, making a scan of the cantina to make sure no one was watching and peer into the opening. The childs wide eyes peer back up at you, making an excited noise. You smile gently, whispering,

"You're a little chaos gremlin, you know that?" the child just coos in response.

A moment later the ishi tib yells out your order and you go to get it.

Sliding back into your seat, you rip off a piece of fral, holding it out incospicuously to the child, who snatches it from your hand, making a sound of glee that you cover up with a cough.

You chew on the baked cushnip, sighing lightly. This wasn't so bad. You look around at the other customers, all held up in their own business. An utai was slurping loudly at some jogun fruit pie, two Theelins having an argument, hissing quietly at one another.

The scene reminded you of a diner you used to go to on your homeworld. The name escapes you but you can almost see it in front of you if you think hard enough. The permanent smell of fries and grease, the soft music playing. You would go there every Saturday with your mom and Wayne. Mom would always get an ommelete, dipping her fries into the yolk before popping it into her mouth. Wayne loved the fish sticks there and would always make a mess trying to eat them on his own, you'd always have to wipe his face clean afterwards. Mom was always in a good mood on those trips, it would seem that all the problems and pains of everyday life would melt away with every slurp of your milkshake, for a moment, everything would be perfect.

A heavy rock forms in your chest, this is why you don't linger on the past. It doesn't help, only makes things worse, only serves as a reminder for everything that went wrong, everything you've lost.

You look down at the child, face covered in fral. You chuckle, picking up a tissue and wiping his face clean.

++++++++

You're standing in the same empty corner again when Mando returns,

"Guess who didn't get into any trouble?" you grin at him,

"Where's the child?" Mando asks, you lift the cover of your bag to reveal the kids fral free face.

"We didn't even get into any fights, can you believe it?"

"Congratulations," he says, unimpressed "you still got some credits?"

You huff at his lack of enthusiasm at your achievement and hand him the left over credits.

"Let's go," he says, turning around, marching back in the direction of the ship. You grimace lightly. It seems this guy really hates you, which you hope won't get in the way of your agreement.

You follow behind him, passing the stalls, the houses, eventually you're back on the sandy planes from this morning.

"We'll stay here for the night." Mando says, walking up the ramp, you nod lightly as you move into the ship,

"I'll start on dinner," you say to a lack of response from Mando, who's already up the cockpit. You huff, starting to get frustrated at his lack of interest in anything concerning you. You plop the child down,

"Wanna help with cooking?" you ask, the child coos happily and you grin back down at it.

Beside the ship you set up the heating tool and a pot filled with some of the blue milk you had gotten today, in front of you, you pull up the pile of blue puff cubes and start slicing them into little pieces, handing them to the child.

"You put them in the pot, okay?" the child nods with adorable determanation, taking the pieces you hand him and gently plopping them in the milk.

You had once seen a Pantoran cook this up as you sat by her father, wearing barely enough to cover anything. You had used the delicious scent and careful proces of the meal to distract from what was happening to you. The mouth-watering smell starts to form now that your sitting here, alongside a green child, sitting on the crass sand, fully clothed.

You reach into the bag of kiwip grass, gently throwing it into the concoction. The child is obediently stirring the mixture and you can almost see the saliva forming around his little mouth. You smile happily, glad that your work is causing such a reaction.

It's as your cutting up the chou-shou that Mando appears at the ramp, walking up to you and the child hard at work.

"What's that?" he asks, sitting down on the sand,

"Proper food," you say, he huffs as you smile at him,

"It smells good,"

You grab three bowls and fill each up with the soup, handing one to the child,

"Careful," you mutter as the small being stretches out it's hands to collect the bowl. You hand one over to Mando, who takes it to an area behind the ship where you can't see him.

"It's my first time making this, so don't get mad if it sucks!" you yell out to him.

"I thought you were great at cooking," he yells back at you,

"I am, just experimenting a little," you look to the child, who's already gulping it down like it's some elixir of life.

"Oh, never mind, the kid loves it!" you yell, proud that you didn't completely fuck up. You hear Mando hum in reply and still slightly, it doesn't have that modifide sound of the modulator. For a moment you had forgotten that there's actually a person behind the beskar. The thought of Mando being helmetless gets you thinking to how he might look under there. Is he human or maybe some other species? Is he green? Blue? Purple? Does he have three eyes? Maybe two mouths? Curiosity creaps up on you but you don't let it take over. He'd dump you right into space if you tried to find out.

You slurp at your creation, which was indeed delicious. You let the hungry little monster have the rest of the soup.

After finishing everything, the child sits next to you, looking out into space, a hiccup escaping from it's little body, the state reminding you of Wayne after he'd eaten a particularly copious amount of noodles. You smile soflty at him, leaning your head against your shoulder and sighing.

From behind , you can hear Mando nearing you. You see him sit down next to the kid, softly caressing his head.

"How long have you known each other?" you ask tentatively, still not sure wether this is safe speaking territory. Mando looks down at the child for a moment then answers,

"A while, maybe sixty rotations?" you mentally high five yourself at having gotten this new piece of information.

"Do you now what he is yet?" you're careful to not ask anything too envasive yet, sensing that this was not a man who liked to get personal.

"No idea, I've never seen anything like him," he says, continuing to stroke the childs ears gently.

"Me neither. It's weird, he's still so young,"

"50."

"What?"

"He's around 50 years old,"

You almost choke on a piece of chou-shou,

"God damn, you're an old man," you say, looking at the child, man, more accurately. He looks at you softly and smiles.

"His species ages a lot slower than most," Mando says,

"You could say that, yeah." you continue looking down at the child.

You suddenly burst out laughing, a full belly laugh which causes the child to join you.

"You're a strange little thing aren't you?" you laugh,

"Now you're gonna tell me you're what? 100? 200?" you continue giggling and swear you hear a smile as Mando says,

"No, I'm human like you, but I can hardly keep track of age anymore."

'Human, like you' it plays around your head a couple of times as you turn your gaze to him.

'like you'.

"Human, huh? Here I was thinking you were blue or something." you giggle again gently, looking at him.

"Most Mandalorians are human," he says, you cock your head to the side.

"What are Mandalorians actually? I've never heard of them before."

"You don't seem to have heard of much before." he says, visor looking at you intently. You look out in front of you, at the setting sun.

"I was taken from my homeworld, which is in some other galaxy, far far away. In my solar system, we don't even know that life exists outside of our planet, let alone leave it. I was taken from there some years ago. Haven't really had much time to learn about anything." you look down, mind floating of.

"What was your planet called?" he asks softly, you haven't heard him speak so gently before.

You look down and chew on your lip a little before answering,

"Earth."

Mando hums,

"Mandalorians lived on the planet Mandalore, but it is no longer as great as it used to be, since the great purge."

You look at him, stumped at how much he's just said in one go.

"What was the great purge?" you ask, worrying that you might be taking this too far, but Mando answers,

"The empire, in some sort of punishement, bombarded Mandalore, killing almost all of us and stealing beskar, our steel used for armour. Since then, Mandalorians have been broken apart, scattered across the galaxy." he goes quiet now, you slightly regret asking the question, knowing it probably brought up many awful memories.

"That's horrible." you pathetically mumble, looking back at the setting sun.

"We had a lot of purges on Earth. Not from other planets, just ourselves."

"You fought your own kind?" Mando asks, looking at you.

"Yes, we've done a lot to our own kind, but when it's just us on the planet, we start to focus on the unimportant differences. We would hate each other for the smallest things." you bury your chin into your knees, sitting quietly.

"That can't have been the only thing on your planet?" Mando nudges.

You smile lightly "We were also good, not always, but we would fight for one another, help one another. You're right, it wasn't all bad. But I don't even know if it's still there. Sometimes... I think I might've just made it all up. But I swear it's where I'm from, I just don't know how to get back. I've given up trying at this point."

Mando is looking at you, you look back at him and then down at the child, who's fallen asleep at Mando's hip.

"You never know." Mando says, you smile absently,

"No, I don't. I know if I ever do try to find it, that it'll be a long road home." you sigh, looking at the child.

The sun has fully set now, night settling in.

"I should get this little guy to his cot," you say, gently picking the child up.

Mando gets up beside you, looking at the child.

"We move early tommorrow,"

You nod, starting to treck to the ship.

"Yun?" Mando asks behind you, you turn to him,

"Yeah?"

"I think you'll find your way back home,"

Your cheeks heat up, you look at the Mandalorian and hesitate slightly,

"I-I think you'll find your home too."

>Chapter III

1 rotation = 1 day

The Mandalorian x Reader

Chapter I: Gone Girl

Summary: After escaping the grasp of a menacing sex trafficker, Y/N accidentaly finds her way onto the Razor Crest

Masterlist

This series will follow the general storyline of The Mandalorian, starting between chapter 4 and 5. It is going to be a SLOW burn, that I can promise. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Descriptions of rape, sexual assault and forced sterilazation, sex traficking, kidnapping, canon typical violence, FMC! able bodied! MC, other than that there are no further descriptions of readers apearance other than that she is pretty.

beep

beep

beep

Fuck.

beep

What time is it?

beep

Weird.

beep

Wayne didn't wake up a single time during the evening, and he usually won't shut up.

beep

How long is my shift today even?

beep

A girls hand palms against hard metal, once, twice.

beep

Where the fuck is that alarm coming from?

Her hand searches for the big button, instead she feels the same cool metal.

beep

The girl raises her head slightly.

beep

Actually, everything feels cold, hard.

Where am I?

beep

The noise is as incessant as Wayne's eternal cries.

beep

Eyes split open a bit, there's a red light. The girl lets out a soft groan. Yes, a red light, bright and flickering. The beeping continues.

beep

There's another moment of confusion, her eyes peel open a bit more, and the metal beneath her bunched up fists suddenly turns cold as a shock whips through her body.

beep

At once she's on her knees, then feet, clad with mismatched footwear, torn and worn. Her back hits a wall and the slight sound it makes has her clamping her hand against her mouth and sliding down, legs tucked near her chest.

beep

Creatures, men, armour clad beings. Hands, reaching, reaching out. Noises, an assortment of them, none pleasant. Fear, biting, cold, cold like metal. Metal, metal floor.

beep

She grips her hand out in the red lit darkness, feeling around blindly until her fingers graze rough fabric. She grips it tightly and pushes it between her chest and thighs. She slowly removes her hand from her mouth and breathes.

Breath.

beep

Holy fuck, when will that goddamn beeping stop?

Suddenly there's a sound from somewhere outside. She tenses up even more. There's a shuffling, then the door opens. Luckily not the door to the small compartment where she's hiding, she's not that stupid, stupid. No, she knew that they'd probably find her if she hid somewhere in the cockpit, obviously. Once she had made it onto the ship, she'd clammered her way to the back, furthest back she could get, crumpled up there, didn't breath for a while, then exhaled heavily, then curled up into a fetal position and breathed softly, waiting for something to happen, anything.

beep

Maybe it was the combination of adrenaline, lack of food and non stop running she had done, but at some point, she must have fallen asleep. Sometimes that happens, when she falls asleep so deeply. She'll wake up and have seemingly forgoten everything that happened. But it always came back to her, all at once. And the shock of reliving it was never worth the seconds she had forgotten all about it.

beep

She hears buttons being pushed, an engine coming on. It thrums through the whole ship. And suddenly she feels the lift. She goes completely still for a moment. And then, wooosh, the feeling of moving forward rapidly, sort of like a rollercoaster.

She can't help the smile that creeps up her face. Those fuckers. She knows she shouldn't be celebrating too early, but once she feels the force of hyperspace, it's as good as decided. She lets her head fall on her folded arms, her hands feeling at the fabric of her bag.

It's then that she notices that the beeping has stopped, and she feels a sudden and inexplicable ecstasy.

You're free,

kind of.

++++++++

The ship lands after a few hours. You hear the ships main entrance open up, the pilot walking out and you know this is your only chance at getting out for good.

So, just like a few hours ago, holy shit that was a few hours ago? Feels like a lifetime ago. You get up and quietly sprint towards the opening you had jumped into. Looking around the cockpit, you sigh, there's no one there. You look towards the door, it's just about to close. Like instinct, you shove the metal pipe you must have gotten somewhere along the way, though you can't remember when or where, into the door. It stops it closing and you softly peer through the crack it has left. You're on a space port, you're not sure on which planet, but it seems busy, a city of sorts. You observe the port, bustling, a lot going on, but your ship seems to be in a back corner, which gives you space to get out unnoticed. You wait a moment, the pilot is definitely gone at this point.

You look around a bit, find a big button, you smack it with your palm, but instead a storage looking compartment pops open.

Shit.

You click the button again and try another one, a light flickers on. No, no, no. Getting desperate, the fear of the pilot suddenly returning hits you like cold water and you start randomly smashing at the buttons. One of them must've been right, because the door opens up.

You don't wait a second. You squeeze through as the door is opening and slip into the crowd. Clutching tightly to your bag, your eyes search for an opening. You're not taking any chances, you start at the first one you see.

It's a beat up looking ship, but if it can get you farther away, nothing else really matters.

You jump into the ship without a second thought.

It's roomier on the inside than you'd expected , but you don't linger too long. It seems the ship is empty for the moment and you don't hesitate to find a hiding spot. You look around and see a sort of bathroom, next to it is a sleeping area. You look to your side and flinch back.

A pained looking face, encrusted in a silver glaze, there are four of them.

What the fuck?

You choose to ignore it and go futher into the ship. You find a wider space and your eyes scan for possible hiding spots. As you do so, you stumble over something.

You look down, it's a sort of toy. A toy? Multiple kind of sort of makeshift toys. Your eyes follow the trail to a crib. So this must be some sort of living situation. A kind of mobile home. A parent and child maybe?

As your eyes linger on the crib, they spot a small door. You walk over to it and pry it open. Before you is a small, cramped space. A holy grail of a hiding spot.

It's then that you hear bustling at the front of the ship.

"You did good little guy, but stop shoving everything into your mouth, okay?"

Your heart starts pounding, but you move fast, shoving your body into the cramped space and closing it behind you.

Footsteps move about the other end of the ship. You clamp your hand against your mouth and squeeze your eyes shut. The footsteps grow quieter and then stop. A moment passes and a hum fills the ship. You're off.

You want to celebrate, you've made it away, you're free. But thoughts of your uncertain future plague the feelings of celebration.

What the fuck even is your plan, actually? It had only really goone as far as; get away, as far as possible. But then what? Keep hopping from ship to ship? You couldn't do that forever, it was too uncertain. But you knew you couldn't stay anywhere for too long. What if the next place this ship stops at doesn't have a space port? Then you'll just be counting down the days 'till they find you, 'till he finds you. But maybe it does have a space port, you get on another ship, then what? You keep doing that? Where will you get food? Water? What if you end up on a ship back to that place? What if the captain of the ship is a sick creep?

You feel panic wash over you. What were you ever thinking? You know nobody, know near nothing, nobody cares about you, only try to use you, hurt you. What was your plan actually, really? Tears prickle at your eyes. What were you thinki-

Grasping hands pull you out. It happened so fast you hadn't even realised the door had opened to your hiding spot before you where smashed against the floor.

Disconcerted, you look up and only have a second to take in the figure standing before you, menacing T visor within a metal helmet and bright silver chest plate, before the figure grabs you again and shoves you against a wall near the silver encrusted figures. He reaches to push a button.

"No,"

It's the first thing you've said in...Shit, a while. It comes out hoarse and desperate.

"No, no, no, no," you scramble away just as steam is sprayed.

The figure doesn't hesitate, grabs you again.

"Wait, WAIT!" you desperately plead,

"Please! I mean no harm just hear me out, HERE ME OUT!" the figure shoves you against the opposite wall. Pressing you into it so you can't move.

"What are you doing on my ship," a low, gravely, menacing voice asks through a modulator.

You struggle to catch your breath, heart pounding.

"I mean no harm, I promise! I just need to get away."

"On my ship,"

You pause,

"W-well, obviously,"

His arm pushes into your throat,

"Sorry, sorry-"

"How'd you get in?"

You point lamely to a back hatch,

"It was open,"

The visor looks from the hatch back to you, doesn't say anything.

You stay quiet for a moment, gaze searching the helmet then sliding along the ship. You're eyes catch on one of the toys again, and then the idea hits you like a dumptruck, one that could maybe, possibly get you out of all your problems.

"You have a child, right?" you say. Before you know it, a blade presses against your neck.

"Wow, wow, wow, " you scramble in place, but the figures hold is tight on you,

"Who do you work for? The Gild?" he asks.

"What? The fuck is 'Gild'?- No!"

"So others know of it?"

"Listen, I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just trying to get away from my sellers, look." you show your wrist, on it is written your number, 13156 511182119 and the many brands of the sellers who have held ownership of you, as well as the pain in the ass that you're now running from.

The T visor observes it, something ever so slightly deflating within it, which surprises you.

When the silence goes on, you continue carefully,

"I could really use a place like this to crash, the guys who are after me are not particularly nice, and I might not have left them with the best impression." you stop for a moment, feeling out the territory you are slowly entering, but when the figure doesn't say anything, just continues to stare at your covered wrist and arm, you take it as your chance to keep going.

"You wouldn't even have to give me anything, I mean maybe some food would be nice, but that's it! And, and, I can take care of the kid, being a single parent, psh, it's h-hard, I would know. A-and I'm fuckin' great with kids. And I can cook, with whatever, that would take some stress off. I also know how to repair damages, which this ship might need."

Sort of, you had been tied up like a dog at a ship repairs station for a month, you had seen a lot, and really how hard can it be?

"And," you continue, trying to get as much in as possible, "I know a lot of first aid, hey, if you get injured or kid get's injured, you never know. I don't even need anything, no bed, no care, no nothing. Well, except for a bit of food, but really that's it. A-a-and it would only be for a couple months, they'll probably get tired of me and move on to some other poor soul.... Please."

With this you shut up, looking up with pleading eyes into the visor, still on your wrist.

A moment goes by, neither of you says a thing, until,

"I don't have time for another refugee,"

"Another?-"

"And I'm not some hotel, nor a taxi driver. I'm dropping you off at the next stop."

"Bu-"

You don't have time to protest before he shoves you towards a ladder,

"Up."

You oblige and go up into what seems to be a cockpit. He follows soon after you. Grabs you and shoves you into one of the chairs, then goes to sit in the front seat.

"Don't move."

Curt, short, you oblige once more. You sit in tense silence, feeling deflated, hopeless. On to the next plan, but what else? What else can you do-

You whip your head to the side where you hear a small noise. For a moment you don't know exactly what to feel, confusion, giddiness, shock.

Next to you, in a kind of pram, sits a little green creature with big ears and equally big brown eyes. You're breath catches in your throat as your eyes meet, a curious look playing about both. The thing reaches out its small hand slowly.

"No."

Your attention goes from the figure to the creature.

"This the kid?" you ask, there is no reply. You look back at the child, it smiles and you can't help join it in it's happiness.

"Are you his dad?" you ask, again to no reply. You smile as you gently reach your hand out to it.

"No." the figure says again. You can't help but pout in annoyance.

"If you're it's dad, are you green under there too?" no reply, which isn't surprising anymore. You figure you might as well just talk a bit more.

"It would be really great if you could reconsider my offer, 'cause right now I'm kind of fucked," you pause,

"You should at least try my cooking first, that'll change your mind." still no reply.

You watch the helmet clad figure a while longer and wonder how they might look underneath it. Then you look back at the child, who has been staring at you the entire time.

Ignoring previous protests, you gently stroke your finger against the childs cheek. It giggles and takes hold of your finger as the figure says,

"What do you not understand about the word 'no'."

You smile as the child squeezes at your fingers, grinning brightly.

"See? We get along great." you say.

The figure is about to answer when you suddenly hear a blast coming from somewhere behind the ship.

"Shit," the figure mutters as he clicks a couple of buttons and steers the ship away. You look out the window and see a small fighter jet flying past, shooting shots at a rapid pace.

The kid seems nervous and you rub its head softly and look at the figure. Despite the helmet, you can tell he's concentrated. More blasts are sent your way.

"Hand over the child Mando." You hear through an intercom. The figure, Mando as he was called, ignores this and continues steering the ship away.

More blasts are shot, one hits a dramatic blow to one of the engines, the child nearly tumbles over, but you catch it just in time.

"I might let you live," the same voice says again as Mando fervently looks around, in search of a solution. You don't know what to do and just hold onto the child tightly.

Another hit to the ship causes alarms to start going off, the child whimpers in your arms and you stroke its head in a futile attempt to calm it down. The shooting is relentless.

"Hold on," Mando says as he steers the ship in a roundabout motion. You and the child sit there in mutual shock and confusion at the chaos happening around you. You don't notice as the childs arm tighten around yours.

"Come on," Mando mutters, which does not give you much confidence.

"I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold," the voice says and you shiver at what it implies.

It then hits both engines causing all three of you to be knocked back and forth as you come to a sudden stop. The jet, however, does not and crashes into your side, swirving out of control.

It skates in front of you as Mando says,

"That's my line," and blasts it to pieces.

You don't have a moment to make any comment about the bad ass thing he just did. The alarms are blaring and your still holding onto the child, both of you a bit rattled at what just happened.

You see the figure, Mando, pushing at buttons, attempting to salvage the situation.

"There isn't fuel," he says

"Uh oh," is all you can pathetically muster up.

Then everything goes down, the child giggles,

"Not the time," you chastise as Mando looks behind at the two of you.

You're now floating aimlessly in space, Mando stands up,

"Are we fucked?" you ask as he goes to the back. He doesn't reply, as usual, but clicks at something which causes the ship to light up again.

"Oh, good," you say looking around curiously, not bothering to ask any more questions.

Mando sits back down, tapping at screens and clicking buttons, you and the child watch in mirroring wonder.

You're off, much to your relief and you're about to ask Mando about, you know, the assasination attempt just there. 'Cause you assume that it wasn't any of your guys, since he had adressed Mando and the kid directly. What was up with this green bat thing and his armour clad maybe father?

"This is Mos Eisley tower. We are tracking you. Head for bay 35, over." You hear through the intercom.

"Copy that." Mando says, pushing a button above his head,

"Locked in for 35."

You forget about the question you were about to ask as the ship nears a yellow planet.

The engines burst and pop as you near surface,

"You sure you can land this thing?" you ask, looking down at the planet you don't think you've ever been to before. In usual style, he doesn't answer you, instead semi-okay landing the ship.

"Huh," you say, impressed.

Mando turns off the engine, stands up and scoops the child out of your lap. He continues down the ladder and for a moment you just sit there, confused as to whether you should follow him.

You get up, moving to the hatch and poke your head through. Mando stands there, gently wrapping up the child, somehow already asleep, in some blankets. He places it in the sleeping space and shuts the metallic door.

Turning around, he looks up at your head, which is still sticking out of the hatch. There's a moment of silence, broken by him saying,

"It's your unlucky day, Mos Eisley isn't exactly the most pleasant place."

"Wait, your just leaving me here?" you feel panic creeping up on you again.

"I told you, I'm not a hotel, I'm dropping you off, that's enough."

You gape at him as he moves to the front deck and opens the ramp.

You snatch your bag and hop down the hatch to follow him outside.

"And you're just leaving the kid here?"

"The kid will be fine."

Before you can answer, he's already moving down the ramp. You haphazardly go to stand next to him, but jump back after he shoots at a gaggle of cute droids, weirdo.

"Hey!" a woman from within the workshop yells at you.

"You damage one of my droids, you pay for it!" she continues, coming closer, glancing at the two of you conspicuously.

"Just keep them away from my ship," Mando grumbles.

"Yeah?" the curly haired woman says, "You think that's a good idea, do ya!" she sends you a grumpy look as she says this, but you had nothing to do with this!

I dont even know this dude and now he's dumping me on this rando planet! You want to yell, but she's already prancing about the ship.

"Let's take a look at this ship." She bangs at it a bit,

"Oof," she says "Look at that. Ugh, ya got a lot of carbon scorin' building up top."

"That doesn't sound good." you say, earning you a look from Mando, you can almost imagine the expression he's making right now.

"If I didn't know better I'd think you were in a shoot out," the lady says, and it takes you a lot not to huff out a laugh at the situation.

You look around the repair shop as she goes on about everything that's busted about the ship. The place itself looks pretty busted, and from everything you've heard about the planet, it doesn't seem like the ideal place to stay. You'll have to figure something out.

You look back at Mando and the woman,

"I'll get you your money," Mando says,

"I've heard that before."

Mando warns her about the usage of droids one last time and then turns around. You think he'll say something to you, maybe some advice or a little 'good luck', but the tin can just swoops right past you.

"Well what am I supposed to do?" you ask. He turns around as if just that motion takes an insane amount of effort,

"Take a tour of your new home." he says. You huff as he turns to go,

"You really can't take me anywhere nicer?"

He doesn't even turn back to reply,

"Not a taxi, remember?"

And with that, he's gone and you're left to your senses.

You look around hopelesly, ugh.

"You not going with?" the lady asks, looking at you vaguely.

"Uh, no, this is my stop." you say helplessly. The woman looks incredulous,

"Yeesh,"

This does not boost your moral. You're debating leaving or waiting until he returns to make a last ditch effort at convincing him when you hear the child making noise from the ship. Right, the kid.

You go back to make sure it's okay, only to find the woman holding it haphazardly.

"He yours?" she asks looking back at you,

"Uh, not really,"

"Well then, how 'bout we get you something to eat, huh?" she coos at the child.

"It's okay, I can look after him," you insist, but the lady seems suddenly possesive of the child.

"Oh no, that's fine, why don't you go join your husband, I'll take care of this little sweetheart for ya,"

"He's not my husband," you say, face burning, "but I'm in charge of the child," you continue, grabbing the kid from her arms.

"Whatever," she mutters grumpily, getting to work on repairements.

You look at the child in your arms and smile brightly. The child returns it with fervor. It then looks over to a shiny metal piece on the ground. You recognise that look and despite yourself, you think of Wayne and a mixture of sadness and deep joy swirl within you as you sit on the ground with the child. You pick up the object and hand it to him. He fidgets around with it, occasionally looking up at you, showing his little teeth. Your heart feels suddenly warm in a way it hasn't felt in a while. You miss it already, knowing that it's not something you can hold on to forever, or even for a longer while.

The child picks up another metal piece, this one he tries to put in his mouth,

"No, don't- Hey, spit it out," he begrudgingly does so, and spits it into your hand. It's stiky and gross, you can't help but giggle.

++++++++

It had been about an hour of you playing with the child, and stopping many attempts at an unhealthy helping of nuts and bolts, when Mando returns. You hear him at the far end of the shop, nearing the ship and moments later running out.

"Hey!" you hear him yell,

"Where is he?"

The lady gets up from where she's fallen asleep and comes out,

"''s okay! Babysitter's got him." she grumbles pointing at you.

Mando turns around and runs towards you two,

"It's fine, we were doing great, see." you say as you hold up the child near your head, the two of you smiling.

"I thought you'd be gone by now, you trying to steal him?" Mando grumbles.

"You can't just leave a child alone like that!" the lady, who at some point you've learnt is named Peli, says.

"You know, you have an awful lot to learn about raising a young one." she continues. You look at him pointedly before smiling back down at the kid. He grumbles.

"I started the repair on the fuel leak," Peli says "I had a couple setbacks I wanted to talk to you about. You know I didn't use any droids, as requested, so it took me a lot longer than I expected."

As she's saying this, Mando goes into the ship to get a bag,

"-but I figured you were good for the money," Peli continues "since you have two extra mouths to feed."

"One extra." he corrects and you can't help rolling your eyes as the child coos.

"You mind taking care of the little one?" he asks Peli,

"Oh, so you're now fully kicking me out?" you ask as he pulls the kid from your arms and hands him to Peli.

"Not immediately, I could use your help for something, in the meantime you'll get a nice tour of your future home." he says.

"You got a job, didn't you?" Peli asks as he starts moving toward the exit of the shop, you moving taughtly behind him.

Outside there's a young looking man leaning on what seems to be a kind of motorbike. He sends you a quick once over, eyebrow raising slightly before turning to Mando,

"This the third?" he asks. Mando simply nods as reply,

"Wait, what are we doing?" you ask,

"A bounty, dangerous one at that," Mando says "We could use some extra hands. You can use a blaster right?"

You've hardly used a blaster before, but really, how hard could it be?

"Sure,"

"Great,"

The guy looks between the two of you, a light smile playing over his lips,

"So, what do you think Mando, not too shabby, huh?"

Mando observes the three bikes, not too impressed,

"What'd you expect, this ain't Corellia. I'm Toro by the way," he says looking at you,

"Yun," you reply, using a false name, can't trust anyone these days.

The three of you get on the bikes, you sending a final look at the kid. He looks at you sweetly.

Now, you've never riden one of these bikes before, but at this point, you're a sort of master of mimicing others. You look to the two men, who both pull on the front steer and blast off. You do the same, feeling a sudden shock of movement as you follow them along.

You move the steer a bit, left to right, feeling it out mid-motion and trying to keep yourself on the bike. Neither of the men seem to notice your bad riding, which you take as a win.

The three of you ride over sand dunes and big rocks, which seems to be the only thing in this god forsaken landscape. God, you think, and I have to stay here?

You slowly come to a halt, pushing down on a brake looking thing and thanking the lord when it stops. Mando is holding up a fist, looking towards something in the distance.

"What's going on?" Toro asks

"Look up ahead,"

You look and your bad eyesight fails to inform you on what exactly is there except that it seems to be some sorts of figures.

The two men get off their bikes, you follow suit as Toro uses a pair of binoculars to look.

"Tusken Raiders," he says,

Sure.

"I heard the locals talking about this filth." he continues,

"Tuskens think they're the locals. Everyone else is just trespassing" Mando replies.

Different planets, same problems, you think.

"Whatever they call themselves, they best keep their distance." Toro mutters.

"Yeah?" asks Mando "Why don't you tell them yourself,"

You look at him confused and then look to your side,

"Shit," you mutter, flinching away slightly, next to you stand two strange figures, you've never seen that kind before.

"Relax," says Mando, walking up to the two and saying something in a sort of sign language.

You and Toro look on, sharing a confused look,

"What are you doing?" Toro asks him

"Negotiating." Mando answers curtly.

Ah.

Him and the two continue their chat, Mando explaining to you two that you need passage across their land.

The two creatures gesture to you and Mandos gaze glides towards you. You suddenly feel very exposed. Mando makes a gesture that seems to mean negative.

"Let me see the binocs," he then asks Toro,

"Why?"

Mando doesn't answer, simply sending him an apparent glare. Toro sighs and hands him them.

Mando throws them toward the two Raiders,

"Hey! What?" Toro gasps, "those were brand new!"

"Yeah?" Mando replies, moving past you to the bikes, "They were." and he's off, you get on as Toro shuffles along, frustrated.

Then you're off again, over the endless sand. You take the time to wonder what they had meant when gesturing at you. Had they wanted you? You look towards Mando, and as if he could hear your thoughts, he looks back at you for a moment. Then looks away and goes faster.

You'd been blasting through the sandy landscapes (not much life in sight, to your chagrin) when Mando raises his fist. The three of you stop,

"Get down." Mando says,

"What? Oh,"

You follow the two, perching by a sand dune, in the distance you see a fat, rhino looking creature, though it's nothing you'd ever seen before, dragging a limp body along with it.

"Alright, tell me what you see," Mando asks,

"You're mom," you say, it's instinct at this point but Mando doesn't seem to appreciate at all, it gets a chuckle from Toro though.

"Good guess, but that's a Dewback," he says "Looks like the riders still attached."

"Oof, you sure you want to leave me here?" you ask, craining your head to Mando,

"Absolutely."

You snort, looking back at the creature as Toro asks,

"Is that her? Is that the target?"

"I don't know," Mando replies "I'll go, you cover me, and you," he says pointing at you, "go around the other way."

You don't have time to respond before he's moving towards the target. You stumble to the other side, gripping the 'blaster' you had gotten tightly.

You buck by another sand dune as Mando moves closer to the creature,

"Woah, woah," he calms it.

You near him as he turns over the person, a man covered with some sort of breathing device. You keep alert as Toro asks,

"Well, is it her? Is she dead?"

You observe the man,

"It's another bounty hunter," Mando says.

Toro goes on about the man as Mando goes through his stuff. From somewhere in his jacket there's a beeping device.

"What's that?" you ask Mando, but before he can answer, you're suddenly getting blasted at. You let out a soft gasp, turning around and instinctively shooting back in the direction where the blast came from. Your shot is messy and probably shoots up somewhere to the sky, you're not used to using such a weapon.

"Get down," Mando says as he scrambles off, vaguely reaching at your arm. He doesn't have to tell you twice and you're already sprinting to the dune where Toro is covering.

Mando gets hit a couple of times, luckily the blasts only manage to graze at your cheek and arm.

You and Mando tumble over the dune, him getting a rough sounding hit. Before you even roll over, you ask him,

"You good?" crawling up to where he now lies on the sand,

"Yeah," he answers, clearly a bit out of breath "Hit me in the beskar, and at that range, beskar held up."

"What's beskar?" you can't help asking. He ignores your question as Toro looks at you with confusion.

"Sniper bolt," Mando continues, "Only an MK-modified rifle could make that shot."

"But neither of us are wearing beskar," Toro says, gesturing to your scratches. Mando looks you over then looks back at Toro,

"Nope."

You would shoot this man if the sniper didn't get to it first.

"So what do we do?" you ask, a bit sharper than usual.

"You see where that shot came from?"

"That ridge."

Mando ponders this for a moment before saying,

"Okay, we're going to wait until dark,"

You let out an incredulous sound,

"Well what if she escapes?" asks Toro

"Well what if I didn't agree to any of this?" you say.

"She's got the high ground," Mando ignores you "she'll wait for us to make the first move. I'm gonna rest, you take the first watch."

You make a sound of protest that is cut short by Mando,

"Stay low!"

You and Toro share an exasperated look,

"Can you believe this guy?" you ask. Toro chuckles,

"Yeah, he's a character." he looks towards where Mando has now plopped down to sleep.

"What's the situation between you guys anyway?" he asks

"Ah, not much really, he's dumping me on this shit planet after I crashed on his ship."

"Sounds rough."

You huff,

"Yeah, it is. What about you?"

"Tryna get into the Gild."

"There it is again, what the hell is the Gild?" you ask, looking towards his profile.

"You don't seem to know a lot."

"Haven't been away from my home world much." you explain.

"Where is that?"

You pause a moment,

"You wouldn't know it, it's far away from here."

Toro shifts his gaze to you,

"If the other women there are as pretty as you I'll have to pay a visit sometime."

You look forward towards the ridge, tensing up at the comment. Toro keeps looking at you for a moment and then looks away.

"It's a bounty hunter organization, one of the best."

"You're a bounty hunter?"

"Yeah, so is Mando, isn't he?"

"Is he?" you look back at the sleeping figure "And what's with the helmet?"

"Mandalorian, you must know those right?" you shake your head.

"Warrior race, they follow a strict creed which tells them to keep the helmet on in front of others."

"Awkward," you say, gazing at the strange figure who keeps getting stranger.

++++++++

Night has fallen, at this point you've taken over the shift, pointing your rifle towards the bounty whom you now have a vague idea of, pissed that Mando would drag you onto such a mission.

"Sun's down, shouldn't we start moving?" you ask Toro, who gets up and stalk towards Mando.

"Look at him, asleep on the job." he tsks, looking back at you,

"Kick him," you say.

Toro looks at the Mandalorian then back at you. He turns swiflty, pointing his blaster at Mando.

"I said kick not kill," you say, turning back around.

Toro ignores you and points his blaster back,

"You done?" you hear Mando grumble, which sends an involuntary smile to your lips.

"Yeah, I was just... checking, you know?" with that Toro shoves the blaster back into his belt,

"Get on your bike. Ride as fast as you can towards those rocks" Mando says,

"Sounds like a great plan," you grumble, shifting onto the bike.

Mando throws a metal object to you and for a moment you think it might be a grenade to get you to shut up. He throws another to Toro,

"A flash charge, we alternate shots, it'll blind any scope temporarily. Combine that with our speed and we might have a chance."

"A chance?" Toro asks,

"Hey, you wanted this-"

"I didn't." you interrupt. You can practically see the frustration pulsating through Mando's body.

"Get ready." and with that, you're off.

Adrenaline waves through you, Mando sets off his fash charge. There's a temporary halt, then another blast.

"Now!" Mando calls to you.

Pressing the button and holding it above your head, you set yours off. It emits a bright light and you can't help the grin that creeps through the excitement.

Blasts keep shooting at you, Toro sets his flash off but it's just then that Mando gets shot off his bike. You don't know what to do as he shoots a light into the air, getting shot again.

You look at Toro in an attempt to figure this out, he gestures to the side of the ridge and signs something that you hope you can make out correctly.

Steering your bike to the side, you come to a halt, jumping off and taking cover by the rock.

Gripping the blaster tightly, you breath heavily as you peer to where Toro is now creeping up to Fennec, the bounty. He sends you a last look, a nod.

"Not so fast Fennec." you hear him say in such a self appointed way you can't help but roll your eyes.

Fennec stills a moment, then throws a sharp object towards Toro, you wait for the perfect time to aid.

The two start fighting, you wait for her to fully let her guard down. Turns out you've let your guard down aswell as your back hits a metal figure.

"Shit," you flinch "thought you were dead."

"Beskar." the mandalorian says simply, you roll your eyes,

"Right."

"I'll get her, you cover me." you can't protest as he walks towards the two struggling.

"Nice distraction." he says, pointing his gun at Fennecs head. You stand opposite, doing the same.

Fennec sighs, letting Toro go, he stumbles towards you with pained noises.

"You good?" you ask, not taking your eyes off of Fennec,

"'Course I am." Toro answers lamely.

"Cuff yourself," says Mando, throwing a pair of cuffs at Fennec. She simply looks up at him.

"A Mandalorian. It's been a long time since I've seen one of your kind." Mando doesn't reply, you send him a wondering look.

"Ever been to Nevarro?" Fennec continues "I hear things didn't go so well there but it looks like you got off easy." Mando stands there, still. What is up with this guy? You wonder.

"You don't have to worry about getting to Nevarro, or anywhere else once we turn you in." Toro says "You know I really should thank you, you're my ticket into the Guild."

"You're welcome," Fennec huffs.

The four of you walk to where the bikes are parked.

"Uh oh, looks like one of us will have to walk," Fennec gleams,

"Or we could drag you," Mando says, earning a mean look from her.

"So what's the plan?" Toro asks as the three of you huddle to the side.

"I need you to go find that Dewback we saw," Mando tells him,

"And leave you here with my bounty and my ride? Yeah, I don't think so, Mando. Send the girl instead." Mando looks to you and then back to Toro,

"She's not as familiar with the local wildlife."

"Well then," Toro raises his hands.

Mando looks about for some time, then sighs "Okay, I'll do it, watch her," he points to Fennec, "and don't let her get near the bike. She's no good to us dead." with that, he walks off.

"Real ray of sunshine," you mutter, going to sit at a rock in a futile attempt to rest a bit.

++++++++

Rest did not come to you easily, you only occasionally came close to dozing off but were always startled awake by something. None of you had spoken since Mando had left. It was only when the suns were creeping up the horizon that Fennec finally said,

"It's been a while,"

You split an eye open to watch her carefully.

"Oh look, the suns are coming up." she continued.

"Quiet." Toro says, Fennec doesn't seem to hear this though, she continues.

"Look, there's still time to make my rendez-vous in Mos Espa. Take me to it and I can pay you double the price on my head." she glanced at you carefully, you didn't let anything show on your face.

"I don't care about the money." Toro says nonchalantly.

"Oh?" Fennec says "so the Mandalorian keeps all the money for himself."

"Only because I let him."

Fennec chuckles at this "Doesn't seem that way. I mean it seems like he's calling all the shots." you don't like where this is going, but you stay where you are, leaning against the rock.

"Shows what you know," you hear Toro say, agitated "I hired Mando, this is my job,"

"What about you? Seems he's just dragging you along." Fennec says, looking at you.

You let out a sigh "I don't really care what happens to any of you, but that money sounds nice." you mutter.

"And bringin' you in," Toro directs this at Fennec as she looks at you elusively "will make me a full member of the Bounty Hunters Guild."

Fennec smirks at this, finally sliding her gaze from you, "You already have something the Guild values far more than me. You just don't see it."

"What?"

"The Mandalorian, his armour alone is worth more than my bounty."

"I already told you, I don't care about the money."

"Then think what it can do for your reputation. A Mandalorian shot up the Guild on Nevarro," you tense up at this new information,

"Took some high value target and went rogue."

The child? You wonder.

"That Mandalorian?" Toro asks, your attention is now fully focused on the conversation happening before you.

"Like I said, you don't see many. You bring the Guild that traitor, and they'll welcome you with open arms. Your name will be legendary. Both your names, you won't have to live on this shithole planet anymore." she directs this at you. You don't reply, simply observing Toro as he stands up.

"How can we be sure he's the one?"

"Word is, he still has the target with him. Some say it's a child." Toro's gaze flicks to you, you know what he's thinking.

No,

"Look, if you're afraid to take him on," Fennec continues "fear not, I can help you with that. Take some advice kid, you want to be a bounty hunter? Make the best deal for yourself and survive."

You've heard that one before, lived it.

But Wayne, but the child.

Toro looks around with uncertainty, you hold your breath waiting for what will happen next. He puts his blaster away and walks to her, sending you a look. Fennec walks up to him, holding her cuffs out. Your breath is bated.

BLAST

Fennec falls to the ground,

"What the fuck!" you yell at Toro, he ignores you,

"That's good advice, but if I took those binders off of you I'd be a dead man. And if the Mandalorian's worth more than you well... Who wouldn't want to be a legend?"

With that he stands up and looks at you,

"How 'bout it? I'll give 10 percent of the earnings if you help me." you look at him carefully. You ponder it a moment, but no, you can't do that to the child, could never.

"Sounds great, but I gotta lay low right now."

"And how do I know you won't go right to him, huh?"

"Oh please, not that fuckass, I'll go the opposite way, try to find something there."

"Mos Espa's not far off," he walks closer to you, you pull out your blaster "Woah, don't worry, just wanted to thank you." he's up to your face now.

"No problem," you breath out, already anticipating what will happen next.

His blaster crashes into your head, not hard enough to kill you, but obviously meant to knock you unconcious.

Your head spins, feeling heavy as you hit the ground. Your natural instinct is to get back up and fight him, but like a lightning bolt a plan blasts to your mind and you stay still.

You hear Toro huff as he gets onto his bike and zooms off.

You feel your face burn, maybe because of the sun, probably because of the decision you'd just made. What if he hurts the child? He probably wouldn't but still. You could've stopped him then and there, shot him or knocked him out. But that would've been hard to explain to Mando, he might distrust you, think you were trying to betray him. It was better if he found you like this. You feel ashamed at doing this, but you still do.

You don't move, just lie there, breathing in the sand. You feel some blood trickling down your forhead and can't help the relief you feel. It will be more realistic this way. God, you hate yourself for doing this. But no one's going to get hurt, right? You'll help Mando as soon as he gets back. Your fingers twitch around your blaster just to check if it's still there.

You lie there for some time, the suns rising slowly behind you, you can feel them licking your body but you still don't move. The warmth makes you drowsy. You think back to where you were just 24 hours ago and use this as a comfort. Freedom still felt so far out of reach, so distant, and even though you were laying here, next to a probably dead mercenary, at least you weren't in that place. Even though it burned your skin, you could at least feel the suns on you, you hadn't felt that in such a long time, you could almost cry.

You think about the sweet child, it's big eyes and sweet smile and then you think back to Wayne, his eyes, his smile. You feel something gliding down your face. Blood? A tear.

++++++++

You're barely concious anymore when you finally hear the heavy footsteps behind you. You hear someone jump on the ground and you don't even have to act drowsy.

"What happened?" you hear Mando ask. You breath in, your throat raspy as you mutter,

"Toro, he's trying to- get... Child, the child." your lips are dry as you say this.

A sudden gush off water splashes over your face.

"Ugh, blah!" you get up, coughing a bit. You see Mando holding a canester,

"Thanks," you mutter, grabing the canester and taking a swig. The water feels like heaven.

"What happened?" Mando asks again,

"Fennec said you'd betrayed the Guild and taken their most prized asset."

"Shit." Mando gets up, "what is he gonna do?" he asks,

"Tryna take you and the child in."

Mando paces,

"Get on, we need to get back to Peli." you oblige, getting up despite the slight dizzines you feel. You grip your blaster tightly and get on the Humpback, Dumpback, whatever thing.

It starts to gallop, you look to the back of Mando's helmet,

"So what's your plan?"

He takes a moment, then says, "I go in front, you go in the back. I'll take care of a distraction, you shoot at him and get the child."

"Got it." you affirm.

You keep going, staying quiet. You look at his back, at his cloak and then up to his silver helmet. A Mandalorian? You ponder him a moment, then break the silence.

"So what actually happened on Nevarro?" you ask

"Seems you already know." you huff lightly, looking out at the landscape.

"Yeah, but why? Why'd you take the kid?"

He doesn't answer.

"You gonna eat it or something?"

"You do love to ask questions,"

You smile,

"So you're a sort of adoptive father?"

He doesn't say anything. You look down at your hands, where they lay on the creatures back.

"I used to have a kid. Well technically he was my brother. He was really loud." you chuckle "but sweet. He used to wake up every night crying and I would lie with him until he fell back asleep. He looked so precious asleep." you giggle at the memory of his small face, small feat, tiny hands, precious.

"He's gone now though." you shake your head a bit, loosening the memory from your mind.

"The kids not loud, just a bit curious." Mando says. You look up, a bit shocked that he actually said something. You huff out a small laugh.

"Curiosity is good,"

"It can also be bad."

You look down at your hands, scratched and dirty, contemplating.

"Those tatoos, how long have been in the sales?" he suddenly asks. You cringe a bit at the question.

"I've lost track how long, a while though."

Mando just huffs in answer. You expect him to pry further but he stays quiet.

++++++++

You arrive back to the workshop and hop off. It's already dark. You send a quick nod to Mando and head to one of the back doors.

You creep through quietly, making sure you don't get noticed.

You perch behind some supplies, peering to where Mando has just entered.

"Took you long enough Mando," Toros voice sounds from within the ship, "Looks like I'm calling the shots now, huh partner?" the superiority in his voice nearly sends your eyes rolling backwards.

"Drop your blaster and raise 'em." he continues.

Mando obliges and you can now see Toro, holding the child while pointing a blaster at Pelis back.

"Cuff him," Toro demands Peli.

"You're a Guild traitor, Mando." Toro says, "And I'm willing to bet this here is the target you helped escape." he's now pointing his blaster at the child and it takes you everything not to pound on him this second.

"Fennec was right, bringing you in won't just make me a member of the Guild, it'll make me legendary."

Hes about to shoot at him when Mando blasts off his flash charge. You don't hesitate a moment. Shooting at him, making sure not to hit the child. You stumble back at the force of the shot, still not used to the feeling.

He falls to the ground, nearly dropping the child if it weren't for you scooping in and catching it.

Mando and Peli observe the fallen man as you look down at the child, whos face beams up at yours.

"I'm sorry if that was a bit loud, hm?" you gently stroke his ears.

Mando comes up to you and you begrudgingly hand the child to him.

"Careful." you say.

He is, gently looking down at the small thing, you look on with a mixture of content and sadness.

"So I take it you didn't get paid?" Peli asks, Mando takes a sort of wallet out, Toros probably, and plops the contents into her hands.

"That cover me?" he asks, Peli looks bewildered,

"Yeah, yes. This is gonna cover you. All right pit droids, let's drag this outta here!" she yells at her droids as Mando approaches you.

"I'll be on my way then? Think I found a nice rock to live under," you quipped.

"The child likes you," Mando states. You smile down at the kid, holding up a finger as it reaches towards you.

"You mentioned you do repairs?" your gaze shoots up to him,

"Absolutely,"

"Cleaning?"

"Yup."

"Get in," he says, cocking his head to the ship. You smile brightly as the child coos. You follow the two into the ship.