#third pov

“No!” she screamed, collapsing to the ground. Her weight came down with full force, her knees shattering the ice and causing her to sink down several inches. “You fucking bastard!”

Her throat tore, and she felt the iron begin to dance on her tongue while she screamed. Nora did not dare to cry: the feeling of frozen tears on her cheeks once was enough to teach her a lesson. Instead she unleashed every bit of pain and frustration and sorrow and coldness in her bones through her mouth.

Nora exhausted herself and curled forward. “I can’t let myself die out here,” she whispered hoarsely. “Why can’t I just let myself die out here?”

She dared to glance up at the path before her. The cabin still sat on the far end of it- unattainable. She redirected her gaze to the trees beside her. She never thought to stray from the open lane she followed, for it was the only consistency she could rely on. Nora climbed to her feet, clumsily maneuvering with the snowshoes. She brushed the snow and ice from her knees and shook her shoulders, preparing herself for the unknown. Nora stepped into the trees.

The snowshoes proved far less useful off the main path, and Nora carefully untied them and slung them behind her shoulder. Twigs crunched nicely beneath her boots, and Nora found herself able to become something adjacent to calm. Nora began to hum, something she hadn’t been able to do up until now. The music flowed from her, the buzzing pleasant in her aching throat. Before long, words spilled out.

Her song was nonsensical- to her, at least. She did not recognize the lyrics, nor did she recognize the melody they followed. Her tongue moved in a way that was not native to her, but not unwelcome. She imagined she sang of birds flying over lovers, of stars and heartbreak, of joy and laughter. Sparkling colors swirled in her head: pinks and reds of all shades flecked with gold. The silvers and whites that accompanied them were not suffocating, unlike the whites and silvers her eyes were able to see before her.

A deep harmony sounded out, joining in softly. Nora stopped in her tracks, her song abruptly cut short. When she had been out in the open, she had felt numbly fearless. And now, under the true protection of the trees, the thought of meeting another person terrified her.

“You stopped!” A man’s voice called out.

Nora opened and closed her mouth dumbly for a moment before responding. “Yes.” she agreed.

The man did not answer immediately.

After several minutes he called out again. “Do you plan to restart?”

“I don’t know,” Nora answered honestly.

“Mm.”

She stepped forward cautiously, mindful of any undergrowth that could give away her position any more than she already had herself.

“Why do you not sing yourself?” she asked suddenly.

“Don’t know the words.”

“But you did when I sang them.”

“Yes.” he agreed.

Nora did not know how to proceed. She chose forward.

“Are you planning on hurting me?”

“I don’t think so,” the man said. “Are you planning on hurting me?”

“I don’t think so,” she echoed.

“Well! Glad that’s settled.” The man sounded genuinely pleased.

Nora continued to walk forward, calling out to the man intermittently. Before long, she found herself in another clearing with another cabin.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” she said in a hush under her breath. “Are you real?” she called out.

“Yes!” the man answered. No one appeared.

“Are you the man who came to my cabin all those nights ago?”

Heavy footfalls on wood. The front door of the cabin exploded outward, and a massive man stood in its frame. “What?” he asked. It was the owner of the other voice.

“The man in the window,” Nora explained, slowly stepping forward. “He watched me all night.”

The man ushered her in, waving one arm frantically while he held the door open with the other. Nora obliged awkwardly, having trouble finding traction in the clearing. She exhaled heavily once inside the cabin and sank onto the floor. Everything hurt.

“When did you see him?” the man questioned.

“I have no way of knowing,” she sighed.

He nodded slowly, making a meal of his bottom lip. Had she been standing, the man would have been over a head taller than her and about twice as wide. His beard was black and thick as it was coarse. The woodsman offered her a hand up, and plucked her from the ground.

“Did you let him in?” he asked.

“No, no. I stared back.”

The woodsman seemed surprised. “Why?”

Nora had never considered the answer to such a simple question. The truthful answer was that it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and she told him this. The woodsman did not press.

“How many nights ago was this?”

Nora shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I just keep going forward.”

“But you don’t have to,” the woodsman stated bluntly. “You could have rested.”

“And I’d still be there. And then what would you have had me do?”

The woodsman eyed her curiously. His hands were massive and rough, with the visual texture of sandpaper. Nora became mildly aware that his lone flannel was surely not enough to keep the cold out of his bones.

“Do you have food?”

“Oh!” he startled. “How rude of me.”

The woodsman rushed past Nora and beckoned her as he disappeared around a corner. Nora followed carefully, her boots stomping across the hardwood floor. The cabin was the same as any other she had visited, although the woodsman’s was far more lived in, as was to be expected. No photos or paintings decorated the walls, but small trinkets here and there made it feel closer to a home than any of its siblings had. She glanced up the staircase into the darkness above, noting the worn rug that lined the steps. It had once been a bright patterned red. Another trait its brethren did not share.

The hallway ended with a bright kitchen, the floor and cabinets made of the same maple wood. The woodsman busied himself at the icebox before plopping several frozen chunks of meat down onto the clean counters.

“A stew,” he said. “I was about to start one anyway. Would you like that?”

Nora’s stomach grumbled in the affirmative. The woodsman smiled. She watched quietly as he began to cut up potatoes and carrots and celery and toss them into a large pot on the cookstove. The temperature of the room had risen drastically in a matter of seconds. The thunk! of knife on cutting board grew monotonous, broken occasionally by the crispiness of the ice being cut along with the meat. It was like watching an artist at work. He worked with a sort of violent precision, one that confused Nora for a moment. She found it hard to focus on anything else.

The woodsman spoke to her as he cut and seasoned and measured, but Nora did not hear the words. In her daze, she grew increasingly anxious. The woodsman turned suddenly, and the spell was broken.

“Really, you don’t have to be rude.”

“What?” Nora shook her head and swallowed hard. She was dizzy, stumbling over her own feet where she stood. The woodsman rushed to her side, firm hands on her shoulders.

His frustration melted away instantly. “Are you alright?”

Nora vomited politely in response.

She fell to her hands and knees on the floor, thick tendrils of spit dangling from her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she coughed out weakly.

He ushered her out of the kitchen and back into the living room, where she was placed gently onto the couch facing the fireplace. The woodsman draped a scratchy blanket around her shoulders and nodded as she pulled it tightly around herself.

Nora drank in several deep breaths as she steadied the thumping in her chest and head. The crackling and popping of the fire did its best to ease her mind. When the woodsman reappeared with two steaming bowls filled with stew, barely five minutes had passed.

“It’s done?” Nora asked, her voice hoarse.

The woodsman nodded and did not intend to offer any explanation.

He sat on the floor across from her and the pair ate quietly.  It was good, and warmed her stomach pleasantly. The nausea had fled her the moment she left the kitchen, but she had not felt the need to think deeply about anything for the time being, nor did she have the energy to do so.

No matter how much she ate, the stew never seemed to be dented. Nora ate until she could not handle even a bite more, and suddenly the bowl became empty. The woodsman watched her in silence, having finished his share moments before.

“Thank you,” Nora said gratefully, handing him the clean bowl. “And I’m sorry for the mess.”

The woodsman waved a hand dismissively. “Happens all the time.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Nora nodded slowly. The woodsman climbed to his knees, his large body slow and creaking under its own weight. The floor rumbled beneath him. He disappeared once more down the hall and into the kitchen, once again leaving Nora alone with the fire. She stared into it, willing it to tell her if the man would turn into a problem or not. It would not answer.

When the woodsman returned, he held a deck of worn cards in his hand. “Don’t get visitors much,” he said awkwardly. “Will you play?”

Nora smiled, and found herself surprised to find that it was a genuine one. “Sure.”

The woodsman grunted in response and turned toward a large dining table that Nora had not seen before. It sat in an adjacent room, whose mouth did not have any doors separating the living room from itself. It glowed with the same warmth and coziness as the rest of the cabin. Nora stood with the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and joined him. The wooden chair she found herself in was smooth and polished, and clearly carved by the woodsman himself. It did not creak under his weight as he sat down.

“We can play any game you like,” the woodsman said as he began to shuffle. “I’ve learned them all.”

“I thought you said you don’t get many visitors,” Nora said. “How do you practice playing?”

“I’ve learned them all,” the woodsman repeated. Then he blushed lightly, a change nearly imperceptible amid his already-ruddy face. “Doesn’t mean I’m good at them.”

Nora laughed delightedly. She extended her hand for the deck and smiled, enjoying the feeling of the woodsman’s eyes glued to her hands as he studied the way she shuffled. She bent the cards with one hand and released, shooting them directly into the palm of her other hand. Although she hadn’t looked up, she felt the woodsman’s eyes widen. It was a cheap trick, something her father had done to impress her as a child, but the movement was natural and the woodsman felt like the right audience. She began to place 8 cards face down between the two of them, then seven, then six, and so on. She divided the remaining cards into two piles and offered one to the woodsman.

“I don’t know this game,” he said quietly, as if embarrassed.

“Because it’s not a real game,” she explained. “Not that I know of, at least. But if you know every game, I imagine you’re bored of all of them, too.”

The woodsman’s smile spread across his face slowly. “How are we going to play it, then?”

“It’s like War,” Nora continued. “We’ll each randomly put down a card, starting here-” She pointed to the right-most card of the 8th row. “And when we’ve both put one down, we’ll flip this to see who got the closest. Closest wins the card.”

“Hm,” the woodsman said, amused.

It was a simple game, not unlike something a child would come up with on a playground, but it was not long before Nora and the woodsman found themselves slamming cards down faster each time, as if racing. They laughed and chatted and collected their respective cards.

The final mystery card sat between them, and they both slammed their cards down in the same exact instant. When they removed their hands, they had placed the same card. Nora’s blood ran cold. Two Jokers looked up at them, each sporting the same dead smile as the man she had seen in the cabin window. The woodsman inhaled sharply and clenched his jaw.

He flipped the mystery card, revealing a third Joker.

He continued forward, the snow straining his already tired muscles. As the cabin grew nearer, the tracking fob on his belt began to blink faster and faster, its annoying beeping a comforting sound of relief, knowing that this job will soon be over.

But as he grew closer, he couldn’t help but feel as though something was… off. The cabin itself was old and decaying, a structure that has undoubtedly housed generations far before Din was ever born. No light peeked through broken windows and no sound nor movement could be detected with the naked eye.

Din paused again and amped up the sensitivity of his heat sensor mode and eyed the cabin. It was faint, and he nearly missed it, but he found a trace of a heat signature unmoving within the structure’s walls. He waited, so still, he could’ve been mistaken for a tree. But the body his helmet picked up didn’t move for the five minutes he observed.

Something was definitely wrong.

This bounty was supposed to be a considerable threat, from what Din recalled of his puck and the information Karga gave him. Another runaway wanted by their father, a deadly stray who had taken out plenty of bounty hunters before Karga practically begged Din to take the job. It was a pity the father wanted his kid alive, the job would’ve been so much easier if he could’ve dragged a dead body back between the snow and cold.

The criminal in question hadn’t come with a photo, nor gender, just their age and some basic information that was enough for Din to go off of. They had planet hopped for the past year before disappearing, and his search led him to the very cabin he now stood before.

Din hesitated, but the blinking light and sound of the fob were adamant that his quarry was indeed inside. He let out a sigh, trying to peer in through the darkness of the cabin before caving and trying the door.

To his surprise, it opened rather easily. He waited for the inevitable, the sound of a blaster going off, the blinding flash, the pressure as the plasma bounced off his armor and destroying whatever is unfortunately in its path. Instead, he was met with a deafening silence and contrasted darkness caused by the moonlight pouring through the window.

Din took a step and the wooden floors creaked and gave a little underneath his weight. He waited, but still was only met with silence and darkness. He closed the door behind him and blended into the shadows, eyes flicking over whatever was exposed by the light of the moon.

He could faintly make out furniture within the one-room home. A table with two chairs appeared to be pushed up against one wall next to a window where the moon can be seen through the ice-tinted glass. The circular rug laid at his feet took up most of the living space, disheveled and faded with time and love.

The rest was too dark to see, and he immediately tapped his helmet for his night vision feature. The cabin really was modest, but his eyes were immediately drawn to a figure lying in the cabin’s only double bed.

He could see the scratch marks his quarry had made pushing the bed closer to what Din can now see is a fireplace. Darkened wood and soot have stained the firebox, but the last fire it held had snuffed out a long time ago.

Despite being inside and no longer assaulted by the cold, brutal winds; Din could still feel just how chilled the cabin was regardless. The air lightly whistled through the cracks and broken pieces of the windows that should have been boarded up long before the storm ever touched down.

For once, Din felt a tad out of his element. He was used to violence, fighting, a struggle, begging, or bribery. Not silence, not darkness, and not a barely warm but still alive body laying on a bed as if they were a gift from the maker Himself for Din to easily snag and be on his way. Din considered calling out to his target, to ensure it was even them, but his voice got stuck in his throat. And the now fully lit up fob on his belt told him his hunch was correct, regardless of the silence and lack of facial features to identify the quarry.

After hesitating, Din finally found the nerve to quietly make his way over to the body on the bed.

His target was hidden underneath layers of musky, old, moth-eaten blankets. The top of their head poked out from underneath, but everything else was tucked away from sight. With more caution than he was used to, Din slowly peeled the blankets back and gently nudged the body from facing opposite him to laying on their back.

Din flinched. He knew his quarry’s age, but he was still surprised to find that the child he was after was a grown woman a lot older than he was made to believe, and also at how fragile she looked. She barely had the energy to shiver from the lack of warmth, limbs stiff as if in rigor mortis.

The girl was ashen, lips a grayish-blue, and her clothes were stiff as if glued to her from the cold. Din sucked in air, looking her over, wondering if she was even worth the credits to bring back. It had taken him, a healthy human male, hours to trek through the snow to find her from the nearest village. In this state, would she even make the trip alive?

Would she even survive overall?

Fists clenching and unclenching as he overlooked the girl, he monitored how shallow her breathing was. Din sighed and knew he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. Out of caution, he took a photo of the girl just in case his next actions resulted in failure.

He tucked the quarry back into her blankets and sifted through the room until he found tools, rusted, but still in rather good shape. The sparseness of the cabin was infuriating, and he ended up needing to break the table down to use the flat parts to board up the windows.

He swore the whole time he was outside, fighting with the brutal winds and the cold to nail each piece of wood until he couldn’t see the glass anymore. It meant the cabin was even darker when he returned, but he doubted his sleeping companion cared all that much at the moment.

Din grabbed the remaining pieces of the table and snapped them into smaller fragments, each leg was broken in threes and placed them in the fireplace. Adding some dried unused paper he found in a chest near the bed, he used his flame thrower to ignite the kindling and the fire in the hearth roared to life, strong and resilliant. Din allowed himself to breathe and enjoy the warmth the fire brought as he kneeled in front of it.

The cabin, although still cold, was much more comfortable than when he first arrived. Din had turned his fob off and placed it in his pack and unhooked his cape to dry off on a hat rack nailed into the wall.

Din glanced over at the girl, but not much has changed. Once he felt warm enough himself, he stood and checked on the girl. Her breathing was less shallow and the sensors in his helmet told him she was starting to grow warmer, but it may be a day or two before he can get her to a healthy enough state to drag her back to the Crest where he can treat her properly before throwing her into carbonite.

With nothing to do other than wait, Din dragged a chair close to the quarry’s bed and sat, arms crossed, gazing into the fire.

The cold jolted him out of a sleep he didn’t remember falling into, his body slightly trembling. Din wasn’t sure how long he had been out for, but it must have been for a few hours. His body trembled and Din squinted into the cabin, confused, until he realized the fire had started to die out.

Din swore under his breath and took the poker next to the fireplace and stabbed at the kindling. The fire breathed to life before it weakened, threatening to snuff out again. Din frantically tore through the cabin and picked up any books and loose paper he could use as kindling.

The fire accepted Din’s offerings happily, jumping back to life as it washed the room in hues of oranges. Din sighed, shoulders tense, eyeing the fire as if he didn’t trust the thing to keep going. Outside, the wind rattled his makeshift blinds, and the cabin groaned under the pressure of a storm he hadn't known was coming when he had come to fetch the quarry.

With the panic of the fire now gone, a new panic crept up on Din. He quickly stands and tugs the blanket back to look over his girl and sucked air through his teeth, seeing just how worse off she looked.

Just like the fire, sometime in the hours of his sleep, she had changed positions, her front facing the fire as if trying to get warm. But unlike how he found her before, the quarry’s glazed eyes were open and gazing at him from beneath hooded lids, barely lucid.

The quarry licked her chapped lips in vain, the small smile pulled at the cracks in her lips, causing the crevices to start to bleed. But the cold made the blood move more like tar than life’s vital liquid, and Din couldn’t help but flinch at the sight.

“I should’ve known death would come for me in the form of a Mandalorian.”

She weakly lifted a shaky arm as if to reach out to him, but the limb immediately fell limp and her eyes rolled back into her skull. Din swore and ripped off his gloves, forcing her to look at him but her eyes remained shut.

“Hey, girl, I need you to stay awake. Can you hear me?”

He swore when he realized how icy her skin felt under his fingers. She felt like a marble statue, and for the first time since he took this bounty, Din began to seriously panic.

Din pushed down the blankets once more to really take the girl in. It couldn’t be just the cold making her this weak this fast. Din honestly was angry at himself for not realizing that the arm she hadn’t used, the one that she had cradled close to her body since he first found her, was broken. Even through the makeshift bandage job, Din could tell the way she tried to set it hadn’t been good enough and most likely had been done in haste between the storm approaching and perhaps a hunt gone wrong.

Din emptied out his own pack, found his med kit, and immediately arranged a bacta needle and the tools he needed to properly set the bone. He gently peeled the fabric from her arm and hissed at the wound that awaited him.

The skin was rotting around the opened juncture of the wound, and he could see a small flash of white where her bone was. Luckily for her, it was a clean break, but unluckily for her, she may lose the arm if his medical skills and the bacta don’t cut it.

Din rummaged through the small kitchen’s cabinets, pleased to find some canned foods and dried meats that could hold them over for at least a week, and took out a big pot and plopped it in the sink. He used his flamethrower on the spout and prayed to whatever god was out there that it would warm the pipes enough to get some water for him to clean the wound before giving the girl proper medical care. He sighed with his whole body when the pipe managed to spit out enough water for him to put in the pot and for him to clean a piece of cloth and his hands before freezing over again.

Bringing the pot over, he waited until the water was still warm enough to be pleasing, but not enough to scald. Din held his breath and gently apologized as he quickly re-set her arm properly, and she flinched hard enough for Din to need to hold her down so as to not re-injure herself.

After setting the arm in a make-shift splint made up of remaining wood and cloth from his cowl, he took the other now clean cloth and dabbed it into the water and gently patted it around the wound. The woman jolted and let out a long, hollow moan that made Din’s skin erupt in goosebumps that weren’t from the cold.

“I’m sorry, I know it hurts, but it’ll be over soon. I promise.”

He’s not entirely sure why he’s trying to soothe her, Din doubts she could even hear him, but it made him feel less…useless as he cleaned the wound the best he could and redressed it with bandages from his med kit. He considered the catalyzer, but between the cold and any infection, he feared that would be the last shock her body needed to completely give out.

Din pulled away and watched her shiver, tears streaking down her face. He tucked the blankets back around her with care, bare fingers brushing hair out of her face with a gentleness Din didn’t even know he was capable of having. The girl was beautiful in her own right, and perhaps in other life, he would have pursued her for different reasons. 

Between keeping the fire going, ignoring the wind's howls, and the adrenaline still buzzing in his ears; Din couldn’t get back to sleep even if he wanted to. He sighed and got up, stretching, feeling his back pop. He put his items away and began to clean up the mess he made in a panic. Din paused when he came to the spilled contents of what appeared to be his quarry’s bag. He wasn’t sure how he missed it in his haste to keep the cabin shut tight, warm, and clean, but it now splayed itself in front of him as if beckoning for him to open it.

Aside from enough credits to last another six months, a toiletry bag, a med kit with expired medicines, an old-fashioned camera, and a handful of clothes; Din couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. But while shoving the items that spilled out back into the bag, he felt something bulky partly sticking out from inside of the bag’s walls.

Din brushed his fingers along the outline until he found the opening of a secret pouch. He dipped his fingers into the secret compartment and pulled out a small but thick book. The traditional material nearly threw Din off in and of itself, but when he flipped it open, he was even more shocked to find it wasn’t a book: it was a combination photo album and journal.

He wasn’t sure what possessed him to read the entries or even look at the photos, but Din felt a pull that he couldn’t quite shake, even if he felt slightly wrong for peeping into someone’s clearly private catalog. Why would a wanted criminal take the time and energy to capture photos, print them, glue them into a book, and write within its columns? Why couldn’t a data pad suffice? He knew the risk a digital journal could have, but it still felt like so much effort to make a physical book that he knew it wasn't about this being made out of safety, but rather love and passion.

The book’s binding and paper told Din it was handmade, and very well loved. He flipped through random pages, eyes moving over pictures of painted skies and clear oceans and lush forests. Some photos were selfies of the quarry, handheld, others looked like the photo had been perched on a rock or taken by a local of the area. There were a few photos here and there of what looked to be local lovers you might've picked up on your travels, and he tried not to stare too long at any selfies of you kissing a stranger or a point of view shot of them holding your hand from behind. He didn't know why jealousy briefly flashed in his heart, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. 

Din settled back into his chair, unable to look away. The quarry wrote of each of the places she visited with such love and devotion, and each passage was written in letter format, always starting with “Dear Dad,” and ending with her name and hearts drawn around her signature.

Brow furrowed, Din flipped the book back to the first page and really took a look at the photos within the first few pages. The photos were older, more bent and wrinkled, and featured a much younger version of the woman fighting death in the bed mere feet away. Sometimes she was alone, other times she posed with a woman much older than her, other times it was with an older man, a few times all three of them.

The quarry didn’t exactly look like the older couple, but there was love there. The way the man looked at the woman with such deep affection it made Din’s heart ache, remembering the way his own father looked at his mother before the war. The woman was beautiful, with laugh lines and wild hair tied up with a rag. Who were these people?

Din stared at the photo of the man in the photo, finger absently running over the image. The man in the photo and the man who hired him to bring his daughter home were two very different men. In coloring, in age, in kindness.

The man who hired him didn’t have an ounce of the love and gentleness in his face and words that Din could feel that the man in the photo had for his partner and daughter, regardless if the quarry was his by blood or not. Din couldn’t deny the love only a father could give to his child. The love didn't speak, but rather screamed at him from every photo as he turned each page and saw the quarry’s backstory come to life.

A pained groan had Din snapping the book shut with the same guilt and sheepishness of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar would have. He blinked over at his quarry and stood abruptly, dropping her journal. When had she started to shake so violently?

Din was at her side in a split second and found himself holding her good hand, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. Her eyes were half open and glazed, blankly searching the ceiling as if trying to find an answer to unspoken questions within the wooden beams.

Her hands were icy to the touch, brow damp with sweat, clothes and hair clinging to her head and figure and shaking uncontrollably. Din swore and didn’t think twice to unclasp his armor and slipped off his boots. He slid into the bed and immediately held her to him, his larger frame enfulfing her in his embrace.

The quarry unconsciously clung to him, shaking so violently it made Din’s teeth clink together in his own mouth. But he held strong, rubbing soothing circles into her back and pulling the pile of blankets tighter around them, ensuring her back was to the fire.

After what felt like hours, the quarry slowly stopped shaking and settled into his arms. Din glanced down at her to find her face was relaxed, although flushed, and still damp with sweat. Her breathing mellowed and, for the first time since he found her, she looked to be at ease.

Din gave her a few hours, dozing with her in his arms, and rubbed her back absent mindedly with one hand. When he finally found the will to move, he pulled away from her and checked on her wounds, pleased to find the break and gash were healing nicely thanks to modern medicine.

For the next three days, when Din wasn’t holding her to him in bed and either reciting stories from his childhood or humming to her, he changed her bandages and washed the sweat from her face. When she was lucid enough, he fed her whatever he could find in the cabin, and when she had the energy, he helped her relieve herself in the cabin’s tiny bathroom before tucking her back into bed where she’d promptly pass out.

In those three days, when Din wasn’t taking care of her, he found himself drawn back to her photo album journal, flipping from one page to the next until he felt like he had memorized every detail there was to absorb.

And in those three days, Din knew he had to make a hard decision. One that would either lead a girl back to a jailer (or worse), or one where he would have to risk finding his way back to the guild with barely enough fuel and food but not enough credits to feed himself or refuel when he gets there. He loathed to think he’d have to borrow money from the covert’s savings, or deal with Karga’s smug smile knowing he had a Mandalorian in his debt.

On the fourth day, the storm let up and Din could see the sun shining through the cracks of the boarded-up windows. He glanced at the quarry and knew she was well enough by now. He could drag her through the remaining snow back to the Crest without the worry of infection or frostbite, and he could be in hyperspace by noon the next day.

All he had to do was move.

You weren’t sure how long you had been out for, but your body felt like it had been hit by a heard of banthas. Your muscles strained with the slightest movement and you couldn’t stop the pained moan from leaving your lips even if you wanted to.

When you found the energy to open your eyes, you had to squint to make out the cabin thanks to the sun shining through the cracks of the cabin. When had you boarded up the windows? It had been on your list of things to do before the storm hit, yet you had no memory of getting the chore done.

With another groan you slowly sat up, your body feeling tense yet weak at the same time. A fire burned as weakly as you felt in the fireplace, keeping the extreme cold out while still keeping the cabin on the chilly side, and you had to wonder yet again when you had found the time to make the fire in the first place.

Memories of days before came crashing down on you, causing you to squeeze your eyes shut at the intense headache that threatened to split your brain apart so suddenly.

You remembered going out to gather wood. A deer had startled you and you had tripped on a branch and tumbled down a steep hill, breaking your arm. Your arm!

You pulled your sleeve up to find the arm had been lovingly bandaged at some point, the bone back in its rightful place. Outside of a dull ache, you weren’t in any pain. You poked at the bandage and hissed, but your actions didn’t cause blood to leak to the surface and stain the bandaging. You didn’t remember dressing this, either.

You remember dragging yourself back to the cabin, hours later after getting yourself lost between the cold, the adrenaline rush, and the pain from the break. You remember desperately trying to get warm after being out in the snow for hours, finding your way back into bed after collecting every blanket the cabin had…

A Mandalorian.

You remembered the ghostly image of a Mandalorian standing above you, and your brain convinced you that it was the personification of Death coming to guide you home after so long. You remember gentle hands and kind whispers, vaguely, like a faded childhood memory. There, but not quite.

You glanced around the cabin to find that you were alone. You swung your feet over the edge of the bed and listened, waiting. But no one was inside the cabin with you, or outside, perhaps no one for miles as you had originally planned. Had the Mandalorian been a fever dream? You glanced back down at your makeshift cast and knew that you couldn’t have hallucinated him, there’s enough evidence to tell you that much for certain.

A beep caught your attention and on the nearby dresser was a fob and a small holo-pad you had never seen before. You weakly rose to your feet and stumbled over to the dresser, leaned your good arm against it, and squinted down at the devices.

The tracking fob was either dead or just not picking up on your DNA, and tapping it made the screen light up but your bounty headshot didn’t come up. You glanced down at the round holo-pad communicator, the piece of technology small enough to fit in your hand and had clearly seen better days.

The holo-pad blinked with a message from a com link you didn’t recognize. Your fingers lingered over the button to receive the message, shaking with hesitance. Before you could lose your nerve, you tapped the button and pulled your arm back as if it were being pursued by a wild animal.

You gasped and sucked in air, eyes zoning in on the image in the hologram. Anxious eyes scan the document, wondering if your tired eyes misread what was in front of you, if maybe you’re hallucinating the whole thing.

But there in front of you was a picture of yourself, much younger, grinning back at you. It had been a time when things were simpler and when your adopted parents were still alive and well. Before…before…

Your name was printed in bold letters, and right under it: DECEASED; followed by a half-assed obituary you knew had been from your owner. It lacked significant details about your life but put on enough of a show for those reading it who didn’t know you or your situation to believe the man who wrote it truly cared.

It was strange, seeing your own eulogy, gazing into eyes that were once yours so long ago. You thought of the ghost of the Mandalorian that had been there clearly to collect your bounty but had a change of heart. Did he figure out who his employer was? Did your well-being make him change his mind?

You had a million questions racing through your head as fast as your heartbeat within your chest. But amidst those buzzing questions, one statement made its presence known that made your knees weak and shoulders sag with relief, eyes tearing up:

You’re finally free.

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

This was the first fanfic I've written in probably 10 years. Honestly, the Mando fandom alone has some of the most beautiful writers I've ever come across and it genuinely inspired me to come out of retirement. I had a falling out with a friend in a fandom I was once in over a decade ago and it was too painful to write. But now that I've healed and moved on and found love and inspiration in the Mando fandom and reignited my love for Star Wars in general, I'm ready to jump back into it.

I have a few spicy ideas and a few spicy/sweet chapter story ideas as well. I'm hoping once things even out at work I can create a writing schedule for future works whether it's a one-shot or chapter story to have something to look forward to outside of my career goals and advancements. It really means a lot you read this and I hope to see you again on my journey back into writing! ❤️ I may create a tumblr for my fics, still deciding, I don't quite understand Tumblr cause I'm #old but I'm willing to give it a try if it means making friends in the fandom and sharing my work!

The stars glittered cold and bright above him, only obscured by the occasional cloud his breath created. He could feel the sting of winter in his lungs, yet he welcomed it compared to where he’d been just a few hours before. It was strange, the world seemed so quite now. But he knew if he stepped just over the hill, around the boulder they’d passed on the way in, he would see the after math from the bomb.

The ringing in his ears had stopped, but the world still rolled beneath him. When the bomb had landed it had trembled, he had trembled. His bones seemed to shake within his flesh and his brain felt as if it were bouncing around his skull. He’d been thrown forward with the aftershock. He was certain he’d vomited due to vertigo or shock. He remembered the intensity of the heat, the flames caressing his skin like a lover turned toxic.

He’d seen so many of his comrades… his friends, fall. Some taken by the explosion within seconds, some left to bleed out as he stumbled away, too unsteady to support himself let alone another. Their voices haunted him in the dark as he stumbled back toward the makeshift camp the medics had made.

They would have noticed he’d wandered off by now.

-End Report