#useran

Stars above— this’ll get you through the next month.

Excitement trails up your spine as you carefully guide yourself down the jagged edges of the rocks, dust and pebbles skittering out from under your feet. Have you just missed it before? You don’t often take the same routes on your scavenging, and this is well out of the way of civilization and any repair stops.

The rock threatens to snag your hood, your legs nearly wobbling over as you meet the end of the small cliff. The silver wings of the ship span vastly above you, but sheets of durasteel seem as if they’re about to fall off.

It looks vacant, hardly clean enough to have moved through space lately. Speed would have knocked all the grime off of it, right? And who would just leave their ramp down like this? To you, this is free range.

You lug your knapsack of trinkets up to the entrance of the giant ship, looming over the cracks and fissures of Nevarro. The fabric looped around your shoulders is already filled with a chain necklace picked off the ground, the handle of a blaster along with other random tool parts, and also on your back, your best find in the past month. It must be a rifle, of some sort. Its fork shaped resonator fits into a long barrel, the stock of it brown and made of wood. You’ve tried your best not to touch it; if one thing sets off on it, you’re ninety-nine percent sure it’s going to kill you. 

You perform a perimeter check of the ship, its silver swimming in the dark pink sunset, ensuring no one nearby emerges as your eyes catch onto the ships of the mercenaries returning to the trading post. Krall will probably want to see you back there soon, but you’re not too keen on returning now; tomorrow, you’ll bring your finds in. As the head collector, he favours those mercenaries most, assigning them quests to locate skulls of rare species, lost chalices— and you’re stuck here with the scraps. Your discoveries are still useful to the Togruta, and eagerly paid for, but there’s a suffocating feeling that follows you, working solely from one planet.

The post just gets a little crowded, is all. 

You glance back at the run-down ship. Maybe this one will be your big break.

Walking up the ramp with a giddy rush in your stomach, you place the rifle gently on the floor of the ship before you get to work, fingers trailing along the walls, bumping over the ridges and exposed wire.

Some sort of compartment sits toward the back, and you feel out the metal until your fingers spot a button. Pressing it, a shiny door slides up and reveals a bunk. 

A tiny bunk.

The rumpled sheets are pushed back, but they’re cold to the touch. Is this really an abandoned ship? You whip your head around at a loud humming noise, relief spreading from your lungs when you register it had only been the gentle wind caressing over the weakened durasteel.

Well. You’ll keep looking.

The next thing you find comforts you no more than the chilled bunk sheets. You open the closet-like doors by the cot to an armory, with… more blasters than you can count, with the way your head swims. Whoever owned this ship was a killer, no doubt. 

You take a blaster from its mount on the wall, admiring its sparkling glint, as if it’s just been polished and greased. It tempts you to pack it away, to replace the malfunctional blaster strapped to your thigh with this hefty, new, sleek one. Reluctantly, you mount it back on the door, and start to rummage somewhere else. The sheets of metal on the exterior seem like your best bet— not dangerous or deadly unless you tried hard enough, but useful, and a good resource to leave at the trading post. 

Slowly, you do a final scan of the hull, and find yourself too scared to climb up the ladder to what must be the cockpit. All the storage seems to be down here, anyway. 

Something isn’t right— it’s too dark, the blasters are too numerous, the ship keeps whining at you— it’s not abandoned. It would have been salvaged already. It must be—

The pulse in your neck pounds uncomfortably hard as you snatch the rifle off the floor, your boots scraping against the worn durasteel, and disoriented, you stumble down the ramp into another wall.

Except, you stop yourself short, and it’s not a wall in the slightest.

It’s a Mandalorian. Covered head to toe in beskar, a spear poking up from his shoulder as his body shields you from escape. He's a giant. Hands at his sides, fingers relaxed, shoulders broad and steady.

“Find what you want?”

His voice is deceptively soft as it is raspy, with a smug edge, and you can’t fight the sharp gasp that leaps from your throat, or your hand aimlessly flying out in front of you in a poor attempt at self-protection.

“Holy sh—”

His head tilts and you panic, unsure whether to slip your blaster from its slot on your thigh, to try and duck out of his way and run, or to brace yourself for whatever your fate is for getting caught in a compromising position by a Mandalorian. 

“I’m— I’m sorry— is this your ship? I was just leaving, I thought it was—” 

“I know.” His gaze drops down your body, his words firm.

“I promise I didn’t take anything,” you ease away from him and up the ramp, your hood blowing against your hair, voice shaking. “I didn’t know—”

You swallow dryly, a snap of guilt hitting you in the back, as if you’ve committed a heinous crime. Had you? You’re not even sure anymore, but you feel as if you’re going to get your ass handed to you. 

“I know. I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, holding up his hands in a placating manner, his boots remaining put where he stands. He lets you look at his empty palms in an uncertain gesture of comfort, a reassurance that it’s okay; you’re okay. “I… watched you.”

Involuntarily, your startled fear makes you take another step and slip backwards and down onto your hands. He huffs, easing his weight into one hip.

“Watched me?” you gawk, your wrists aching from the drop onto the hard surface. Embarrassment pricks your shoulders, your breath escaping with a deep sigh— what luck. What timing.

He dwarfs you, your neck craning up, and up, and up to accommodate his height. He’s… the strongest looking man you’ve ever seen, and it’s not just the armor that makes him so. You’re expecting him to pounce any second, waiting to be cuffed, yelled at, or plainly told off.

His hand is barely extended out to help you when you pick yourself up instead with a warmer face than before, and dust yourself off, the rifle still in your hand.

Smoke curls up from the rocks in the distance behind him, but where the hell had he been watching you from? You did a fairly detailed check before you went in— it doesn’t matter now.

“Aren’t you gonna…” you gesture awkwardly, motioning towards his blaster, then letting your hand fall back to your side as you leave the suggestion open.

“I’m not,” he takes a step back to allow you more space to calm yourself as your brows knit together, but his tone turns harder than it was before. “I was told I’d find you out here, just not on my ship.”

Guilt hangs over you at the way he scolds the words my ship, as if you should have been able to tell this junk heap was still kicking at first glance. And what business does a Mandalorian want with you? Flicking your gaze back up to the black visor in front of you, you narrow your eyes in confusion. “What?”

The beskar reflects the warm sunset, magenta glowing on chrome. He appears to glance behind you to scan the hull, and once satisfied that you really hadn’t taken anything, he turns his attention back, nearing you.

“The collector said you have something I want. And you do.” 

His voice dips low on the last dregs of his sentence, and he gestures with a finger in the direction of your shoulder, where the wooden, curved end of the rifle looms. Your breath catches, but relief momentarily overrides your previous guilt, seeping through every bone in your body at the mention of Krall, to know you’re not just some random person the Mandalorian can do away with. “Help me and I’ll let you off.”

“Wha— you want this thing?” You lift it higher in your grip, heart hammering away in your chest. With your forearm, you wipe a swathe of dirt from your temple to assuage the sudden sensation of vulnerability, and you internally start to scold Krall for giving this Mandalorian info about you, for telling him of your great find of the month.

“I have a store of objects off some bounties that I can trade you for it.” 

This time, he approaches the deal with a gentler energy, but you’re still too frazzled to let your guard down.

Trade?

The revelation that he’s a bounty hunter makes it no easier for you. Taking a deep breath, you extend the weapon to him, as if accepting your fate that he could end you with it right here.

“You can just take it,” you mumble, inching to the side, surrendering the majority of your credits for the week. “I’m sorry I went looking through your ship, I know it looks bad.”

“Hey, no—” 

He barks after you, whipping an arm out in your path.

“Please take it, I didn’t want to cause you any trouble. I just thought your ship was…” you subtly keep on edging down the ramp, but he pauses, his fist closing above yours on the rifle’s handle.

“... Garbage.”

You fight off a smirk at his mildly offended tone, but a quiet snort comes out instead, a hand clapping over your mouth. He peers out to the horizon melting into its nightly purple hue, ignoring your dig with another sigh, assessing the port. 

“I can’t let you go empty handed,” he continues almost annoyedly, looking back to you, “so how are we gonna do this?”

Perplexed, your brows knit together. “Why do you want to trade?” 

You’re offering it to him just for an escape ticket— it’s better than giving up whatever junk he took from his bounties. “Why give me something in return?”

“Because you didn’t steal from me. You were harmless.”

He says it so simply. You immediately make a frown, fixing your posture to give yourself an extra inch, and in the back of your mind, you’re faintly aware of just how little it’s doing for your dominance. “Harmless?”

Your feelings fly in every direction all at once. Annoyed, nervous, heartbreakingly happy that he’s not going to hurt you. Harmless. He can tell that to your blaster. Not that you could necessarily make a mark with him, unless you shot him in the cuirass.

He remains quiet, letting a hand sit on his belt, his thumb tucking on the interior side against his abdomen. “You got pretty… frightened.”

“You scared me,” you grumble at him, shoulders slouching. 

Mando shifts, comfortably in control, and a breath of his scent— heady leather and musk— graces your nose as he steps closer, looking straight into your eyes. “You gonna help me out or not?”

***

When it comes to scavenging, the Mandalorian has it a lot easier than you. His bounties do the basic work for him; he takes the quarry, pulls their belongings, and he comes to the post after collecting new bounty pucks to get extra credits for the old possessions. You’ve scavenged the entire surface area of Nevarro, and you’re willing to bet on that. But you don’t actually mind it— he does seem to have some interesting objects.

His suggestion to move into the cantina after a sour trek from the ship sees you sitting across from him with a cup of Nikta as he lays out the bag of objects he brought along, and they cascade over the table in a circular shape. Bits of silver shine at you in the dark alcove, your eyes then picking up a glint of something red— a jewel, of some kind. But that’s not what has your attention.

The cantina’s noise drowns out as you narrow your eyes— it’s full, and warm, but not in a cozy way. It’s stuffy in the grey-scale room, and the one thing that pulls you from recognizing the sticky surfaces are the dull pieces of an undetermined material scattered throughout the pile.

The Mandalorian slowly bends down to sit, his thighs spreading as his arm slings over the back of the seat. His other arm comes to rest on the surface of the table, but he drinks nothing, orders nothing for himself. His body fills out the booth, broad chest glinting at you, and you stare for a moment without a thought as he settles in.

Unlike him, you sit in a reserved way, hands on your lap and your feet touching each other on the floor.

You’re not sure if you’re scared of him. You know everyone else is— he’s huge, covered in indestructible material, his creed made up of the best warriors in the galaxy. The second you walked in, everyone stared and whispered, like they felt threatened just by his presence.

But from what you can tell, he’s nice if you’re nice. Surprisingly so, for being caught rummaging through his ship— at least you’d had an item to bargain with. 

Something dull catches your eye again. When you bring your fingers to smooth over it, pushing the other trinkets away, you register its material as clay, a shard of a ceramic pot. Its rough surface is adorned with a pattern, withered away with time, blue lines winding around an orange base.

“Hold on—” you pause, raising the jagged piece toward the nearest source of light. He cocks his head, says nothing, so you continue in the silence. “Where did you get this?”

“The bounty was on Coruscant.”

“And what were they wanted for?”

“Thievery.”

Your throat catches on air, your eyes rapidly darting back to the ceramic shard. “Stars.”

Mando perks up at your reaction, straightening his back as he lowers his voice, inaudible to anyone else but you.

“What is it?”

A tingle touches your spine and you stutter, scanning the rest of this bag’s contents, locating another piece that fits neatly next to the first one.

“These… These must be pieces of the antique Twi’lek pots,” you breathe, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything to Mando. “This could be worth a lot of credits.” 

He runs his gloved thumb over his pointer, considering your words, then he bars his forearm over the table, not looking at the objects in your hands.

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” you reply, perspiration covering your palms as you slip into an excited account of the artifact, “it was said these were lost. They were kept in the archives on Coruscant when the Empire rose, and apparently were heavily damaged during an attempted theft… your bounty must have found the pieces.”

You wouldn’t trust it, but he almost seems like he’s entertained by your rambling, leaning in closer the longer you talk, nodding along to your anecdotes. That ship seemed… dark. Lonely.

“Huh.”

“Krall would hound you for these.” You push them back in his direction, “You can get one hell of a bargain for them. Even if they’re broken.”

Mando makes a soft grunt of consideration beneath his helmet, and guides the pieces to you again with one large hand. “I only want the rifle. You take them.”

Your jaw hangs slightly for a prolonged moment, and the room fills with more patrons as you shut your mouth with a sigh. No one dares to bother you— as horrifying as your meeting had been, he’s making a visit to the cantina loads easier.

“You’d be losing a lot of credits…”

“I keep a lower profile by trading with you. Do you want them?” Mando reclines, nodding toward the table covered in precious pieces. 

“I— I couldn’t—” you smile, and you mean it just as much as you want it. You can’t take something that valuable just for a chance discovery of a rare weapon; you didn’t find the pots, you can’t take the reward. 

Biting your lip, you glance aside at the bar’s counter, where there’s a Rodian guzzling down spice cider in front of the server droid, painfully aware of the Mandalorian’s gaze. You can’t see it, but you feel it, you know it’s there, and you think you like it.

“Why do you need it so bad?” You ask him instead, and he doesn’t move an inch when he tells you.

“I lost mine. They’re not carried by many weapon stores,” Mando replies. “Where did you find it?”

You take a sip of your Nikta, brows furrowing together at the sharp taste. “Just… in this crash the other day. No one was there, but this was, as well as all these ship parts, intact. It was just lucky.”

“So you technically didn’t steal it.”

“Scavs don’t steal anything,” you retort pointedly, “we only take lost and discarded items and sell them for credits or use them to fix things. At least I recognized the ship was still in use without your help.”

He grunts, “Thanks for the compliment.” 

Raising your brow, you want to laugh at him again, but you stuff it back and blink instead, amused that he has yet to let go of the notion that his ship looked a little less than decent.

You inhale deeply and peer through his visor, only to be met with more black. You hope you’re looking into his eyes— but you suppose he prefers not to be seen anyway. Everyone had looked at him in malice, for the price of his armour, but not you.

A streak of lamp light shines on him through an opening in the wall to the outdoors, skating across the shape of his pauldron with each breath he takes.

And then it hits you out of nowhere, when your eyes fall down to the triangle shape over his gloves, the orange tips of the leather.

“Were... you the Mandalorian that shot up the Guild?”

And what happened to that little child, the green thing with the bug eyes and the giant ears? It’s only talk, so far as you’re concerned, and you’re half-regretting your decision to ask already.

“That’s old news.”

Alright. Yes he was.

The Guild had been reinstated a while back along with a restoration of the main row, during a time when your scavenging finds were in the higher numbers, and so were your credits.

“They let you back into work?”

Mando huffs a low sound, running a palm down the beskar adorning his thigh. “I made some amends.”

There’s the end of that. You sense your time for pressing questions is up.

You swallow the rest of the Nikta, and still, he doesn’t say much to fill your silence until you circle back to the real purpose of you being here; sitting in a booth with a strange Mandalorian. 

“I’m telling you, Mando, you would rather trade this stuff for credits. I can’t take it from you.”

“I thought scavs wanted this stuff,” he says evenly, his sentiment almost more of a question rather than a thought.

Fuck, you don’t want to lose this opportunity— you shut down your skepticism with a pinch of your thigh.

“Okay. Fine.” You relent, dropping your head down and peeking at him through your lashes. Your chest sinks on the inside, as if you’ve ripped him off— it’s not your problem. He was damn insistent.

“Thank you.” He speaks his gratitude sincerely, and you feel your face rapidly heating up at the raspy way it sounds. You hand the hefty weapon over to him as he rises and crosses to your side to take it into his hands, inspecting its handle, the scope, the barrel. His fingers are gentle along the material, caressing the length of it with focus. “This’ll do well.”

You crane your neck up again as you watch him sling it over his body, adjusting the strap with a few deft tweaks. It belongs on him, matches his powerful exterior. 

“What does that thing do, anyway?”

“Just hope you won’t have to see it,” is all he responds with, before quietly offering to lug the bag over to the trading post for you. “And be careful next time you wanna climb into an unfamiliar ship. You’re lucky I was looking for you.”

***