#niteowls

“Easy, easy,” Bo-Katan called to the waking child. The Zabrak’s eyes blinked ope, before widening as she took in her surroundings. Blue and grey armored warriors stood around her, with her head pillowed in the rigid armored lap of a redhead, whose helmet rested on it’s side in the dirt. Grime and debris smeared across her face, brows pulled into a knot of worry, though relief shown clear in yellow-green eyes.

“Lady Kryze, we are running out of time,” The man to her side called. All their armor was damaged and covered in grime, like the smell of burnt plasma and sulfur hung thick in the air around them.

“I know,” She snapped when her head turned to him, causing the young girl to shift uncomfortably at the venom in her tone. She relaxed her features the moment she’d felt the discomfort, a small frown passing onto her lips. “Hey kid, we need to get moving, can I carry you?”

The girl shifted her weight again. “I can’t feel my legs,” She grumbled, voice low and hoarse.

When she tried to look down, a gentle hand grabbed her chin and turned her gaze back to the redhead. “Don’t,” The command was soft, more of a plea than a direct order. “Not right now,” The girl nodded her head, before she raised her arms. With a little bit of shifting and a dull pain in her hips, the Zabrak was soon wrapped around Bo-Katan’s neck.

The city was in ruins, masses of bodies strewn across the fallen debris of buildings. Stormtroopers, warriors in blue, and townspeople alike, fallen along the landscape. The child hung onto the strange redhead, allowing her head to be tucked close to the humans neck. Gentle fingers brushed against the back of her head, near the horns protruding from the top of her head in a comforting manner. The other blue soldiers walked close together, weapons at the ready as they blocked whatever view she could have with the closed in formation.

“Koska, could you…” The redhead started as they approached a ship landed in a clear part of rubble.

“On it,” One of the female soldiers brushed past before the woman could finish speaking. The sound of the ramp creaking open filled the crackling silence.

“Axe, Ka, Asun, can you three collect the fallen?” She turned on the ramp to face the small squad behind her.

“Yes, Lady Kryze,” The child couldn’t see who spoke, but he had a kind voice, if not a little stuck up sounding.

“Keep comms active, I’ll have Koska return us to the fleet before she returns,” It sounded more of a suggestion than an order, but the blue soldiers nodded their heads in agreement before three sets of feet started away from them.

They pushed further onto the ship, where the child was lowered into a pulled out cot behind the cockpit. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” The redhead frowned. “I am Bo-Katan, of Clan Kryze, we’re Mandalorians, and we're here to help,” She started to explain, digging through a medpack for something to do.

The small Zabrak on the cot stared, not just because of the real, living Mandalorian before her, but also because she’d seen a glimpse of the legs she’d been told to not look at yet. The lack of pain made sense, then. Yellow and black limbs had been mangled by the debris that had knocked her out. The memories had started to come back, then. The air raid sirens, Imperial patrols flooding the streets and shooting anyone who’d been outside, to the smell of jet fuel and the sounds of jetpacks landing all around.

The world was shaking a lot before she’d lost consciousness, she couldn’t remember anything past her home shaking and creaking with the explosions. “Hey,” Bo-Katan’s voice pulled her from the war zone that had been her life, a hand resting on her shoulder now and a look of understanding in her eyes.

The girl’s lip quivered as tears stung her eyes, until she was once more throwing her arms around the humans neck. The armor on her chest was cold and hard, but not entirely unpleasant as she sobbed into her chest, while the woman rubbed her back in a comforting manner.

There was an awkwardness to the woman holding her, a stiffness to her actions, but enough of a combined understanding that she rolled with what she’d thought was right. Not once did Bo-Katan shush the girl, or try to quiet the sobs that wracked her small frame. “Koska, can you engage autopilot and give me a hand?” She called softly to the pilot.

There was a bit of rustling and the sound of controls being hit, before the woman from earlier approached. “Get some Bacta around the wounds we treated earlier, everything looks clotted, but I’d rather be safe. Once we’re back to the fleet we can get the droids up,”

The other woman, Koska, did as she was told. The child couldn’t feel any of it though, aside from the pressure around her hips where she was able to feel.

Staying hidden in the offered safety of Bo-Katan’s arms, the overwhelmed child quieted at last, only the sound of their heaving breaths passing dry lips. One of the woman’s hands moved from her back at last, her upper body shifting and a quiet grumble following her actions, in some language she didn’t understand, until she was being gently forced away from her chest.

“Here, take a drink, nice and slow,” The small metal canteen was pressed into her hands, when they raised it to their lips, the woman helped her take slow sips. “There we go,” When the water was depleted and the ache in her head went away, she became briefly aware of the ship jostling. “We’re just docking with the fleet now, then we’ll see what we can do. We’re safe, here,”

The canteen was left on the bed, forgotten, as Bo-Katan once more urged the child’s arms around her neck and picked her up. The capital ship they boarded from the starship was old, and had a lot of the imagery her father had showed her from the Clone Wars emblazoned on the walls as they passed. Crates were stacked along the halls, full of more blue warriors, and even armored people not wearing blue, but reds, greens, yellows, it became a plethora of color once they passed through one of the larger halls.

The pair got odd looks every so often, though the child could not tell, only the blue people seemed to take off their helmets. There was a challenge in Bo-Katan’s eyes however, her head held high and her chin jutting out as they walked.

“Hey, did you get my comm?” She questioned after bouncing the toe of her boot off a doorframe once it slid open. Inside, a golden helmeted warrior stood surrounded by medical supplies.

“I have, the droid is prepared,” She gestured to the 2-1B series med droid standing idle by one of the many cots in the med wing. “Who is this?” She seemed rather attentive to the small Zabrak in Bo-Katan’s arms, causing her to shift anxiously.

“Hey, kid, this is The Armorer,” A pause, as the two exchanged a look. “She’s my Riduur, er.. my partner, The correction came quick as the Mandalorian reacquainted herself with basic’s term of a life partner. “She’s probably the safest person on this whole ship, and that’s hard to do with these guys,”

The child nodded before she’d finally allowed Bo-Katan to lower her into the cot by the droid. “My name is Staqi,” She finally spoke in a quiet voice, timid with anxiety and fear now that she was released from the secure hold of the first woman.

“I was once called Skira,” The Armorer shared. Stagi assumed this was some grand gesture, with how Bo-Katan’s eyes had widened and her lips had parted. Skira settled on one side, while Bo-Katan came around to the other to take her hand again.

“You don’t have to look,” Bo’s voice was soft when her eyes drifted to watch the med droid. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” The redhead’s hand squeezed around her own as yellow-green eyes shifted to the work on the lower half of the cot, her own nose crinkling at the sight.

“I don’t want to,” Stagi admitted, where upon her admission, The Armorer shifted from her perch on the side of the cot so her broader shoulders covered the procedure.

“You are doing very well,” The Armorer reassured her as she settled into place, her hand that wasn’t grasped in Stagi’s reached across the child to rest on Bo-Katan’s leg. A silent look was shared between the two, unreadable to the child who did not understand their unspoken language.

“I’m alright, Cyare,” Bo-Katan finally spoke aloud, her hand reaching to brush along the rim of the golden helmet. “Bumps and bruises, truly,” She’d promised in that same soft voice, with a kind smile pulling on her lips. It reminded Stagi of her parents, before the Imperials had come.

The Armorer seemed to take this answer as acceptable, as her attention shifted back to Stagi. For the remainder of the operation, the three passed stories, told each other about themselves, and kept the child’s mind occupied, far away from the operating table, somewhere almost nice.

Even when Stagi had fallen asleep, the two women did not leave her side, though she had a brief moment of wakefulness, when the gold of a helmet had been set down on the bed near her head. Her eyes had been blurry when she’d looked around, though she thought she saw Bo-Katan curled up in Skira’s side in one of the chairs beside the cot. Her skin was as red as the stories of Dathomir’s skies, with inky black markings outlining her face. The hair that tufted out around small horns seemed soft, and Stagi had fallen asleep with the thought that it was probably as soft as it had looked, as she’d tucked the golden helmet into her arms and fallen asleep hugging the cool metal.

When she woke up again, the helmet had been removed from her arms, though it had been replaced with the blue and white owl painted design, wrapped tight in her arms. Neither woman was around, but the med droid that was checking her over promised they’d only be gone a short time.

Curious, the Zabrak lifted the blue Niteowl helmet and slid it over her own head. It was comically large, though her horns pressed against the top in just the right way so she could see out of the dark visor.

It was awkwardly shaped enough that she couldn’t see out of the entire visor, however, so when knuckles rapped against the durasteel door frame, the girl had jumped, her head snapping to the side to find Bo-Katan, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest and a smile pulling at her lips. “Good morning, The Armorer needed her helmet, so I figured I’d slide in a replacement,”

“It’s so cool,” The child finally pulled it off of her head, going to hand it back to Bo-Katan, who’d just shook her head.

“It’s even cooler when you find all the buttons,” The redhead perched on the side of the bed once more, taking the helmet and holding it in a way so Stagi could see the buttons. “So this one engages the rangefinder, here, put it back on, we’ll see if you can see out of it,”

A guiding hand helped lower the helmet back onto Stagi’s head, before the weird stick on the side was lowered. Peering through the transparent glass, the room lit up with the heat seeking optic. “Woah!” She exclaimed as the rangefinder was raised and set back in place.

“Then, if you press this,” Fingers fumbled along the side of the helm, before smoothing over a button and reaching for Satgi’s hand to guide her to the button. When the child pressed it, a bright light lit up from a headlamp. She pressed it again shortly after powering it on, since it seemed hard for the redhead to see with the bright light in her eyes.

The Armorer returned, and the morning continued much like the night before. The Mandalorians had given her the ability to search for surviving relatives, though when none were found, there was no question about where she would go.

In the coming months, it had been clear that Skira had more familiarity with children than Bo-Katan, though when it came to learning how to use her wheelchair and learning how to fight despite it.