sroop

[sroop]

leave it

You didn't really know how to ask a girl out. So you just... did it your own way, I suppose, with your big eyes and open hands. Do you want to shoot deer with me?

Pairing: König x reader

Warnings: very brief, very light mention of past bullying

Summary: at one point in your life, you thought könig would be nothing but a passing character. tonight, you have decided he will be your life partner.

A/N: oops sorry, just a love letter to my fixation at the moment 😟

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When I first met you, I thought you were a dog looking for a bone. The kind of lost mongrel that you see padding along a highway, when you're going too fast to care and, by the time you do, too far gone to do anything. I wrote you off as another boy my age, only thinking he was ready for a relationship.

You didn't really know how to ask a girl out. So you just... did it your own way, I suppose, with your big eyes and open hands. Do you want to shoot deer with me?

Not really, actually, but I'd be happy to make us a dinner with what you bring back. Worked out for us anyway I guess. And even though I thought I wanted someone older, more experienced, you were actually so much more than I thought you'd be. Nervous, yes, but kind and so, so attentive. Always at my heels, happy to please.

Now here we are. You, in the dairy aisle of a supermarket I don't know the name of because I haven't quite gotten the hang of German, with your handwritten shopping list that I've scribbled a few items of my own on. You'll notice soon. Not yet, because you're too busy puzzling out the offered discounts. But soon.

Actually, I don't know why you bother with discounts anyway. You have more money than the army has bullets. Maybe that times two. But I don't say anything about it because I remember the first time we really talked, you told me about shopping with your mother.

It still makes me ache a little to imagine you cutting newspapers up for coupons, afraid not of going hungry, but that your mother would look away when you couldn't add up the right numbers. Of getting to the grumpy cashier who called you slow, every time, that you'd gotten the total wrong. I hate to see little you clench your fists, study harder, grow more and more afraid, get it wrong each time.

I know you are still a little afraid every time we go shopping. And it's ok, I won't tell anyone.

What I don't know is why you hang on. Like sometimes, I think you're even a little relieved when you're deployed. Like the time you were deployed just before my birthday, when we'd just started dating.

You, at my door, flowers in hand. All 6 feet something of you that you hunch over to hide. When you told me the news, you'd said sorry, but I knew from that look in your eyes that you wanted nothing more. War and battle you knew. A girlfriend's birthday, though, was foreign territory.

That's ok too. You came back after all, a month later, and asked me if I still wanted you. Yes, König. I still want you. Besides, you're getting better at all that stuff anyway. Getting better at letting go too.

Like yesterday, when you sidled up to me during dinner and asked, like a child with a Christmas wish, if we could celebrate our anniversary somewhere closer to home for you. Austria. In your hometown, which I never thought you'd want to return to. And as it turns out, it can be quite charming if you have a hulking boyfriend following you around clearing obstacles.

I get the sense that you're doing more than clearing my obstacles, be it the language or the money or the transportation. I sense that you're uncovering old wounds. That's why you came back last night, after I'd fallen asleep, tears on your cheeks and shaking cold hands. I don't know where you went or what you did, but I can smell in your stories the morning after that it was something at your old school. That you chose to tell me about those old bullies because you had chosen to summon them again. Fight nightmares awake instead of asleep.

Did I ever tell you that I'm proud of you? That I don't care what oddness you get up to so long as it means you can live, a day in your life, unafraid? That I only watch you count up unnecessary discounts because I know, somewhere in you, you're still trying to make your mother proud?

I put a hand over your shoulder as you make your way down the shopping list. You're finally seeing what emergency supplies I've tacked onto the end.

Your eyes are big and your mouth is open and there's nothing on Earth more excited than you. You pull your features together in a question, pitched and desperately hopeful.

"Das ist wahr? du bist schwanger?"

I play it off coolly, just a chuckle and a shrug. König, I put my hands in my pockets to hide how they shake. How equally desperate I am for that hope, no less dog than you are.

"If we get the tests, we'll know by dinner."

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thanks for reading!

[sroop]

masterlist

all female, afab readers!! no smut, but occasionally suggestive/implied smut

cod - chain of command - könig x medic!you oneshot

Through you, he could play at being knight, except he wore a sniper hood for silver armor and had a humvee for a horse.

- leave it - könig x reader oneshot

You didn't really know how to ask a girl out. So you just... did it your own way, I suppose, with your big eyes and open hands. Do you want to shoot deer with me?

dune - (on hiatus) ineta - duncan idaho x harkonnen!oc series | I, II, III

"What do you say, Ineta? Is he insignificant enough to die a fast death?"

the last of us - chomper - joel miller x reader oneshot

She's a good actress, even when she was an inch away from a heart attack, Joel thinks.

the mandalorian - guided - din djarin x oc series | 1-7 parts

"This is my puck, so either we both go together, or you stay behind." It's her way of saying: kriff off. *plus a bonus chapter written after losing steam here

[sroop]

chain of command

Through you, he could play at being knight, except he wore a sniper hood for silver armor and had a humvee for a horse.

Pairing: König x you!reader

Warnings: not much but there's vague descriptions of the reader as having long dark hair.

Summary: König and his pampered medic one shot

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König hates weakness, in almost all its forms no matter what. He detests pickiness and delicacy. Disdains the people who whimper getting stitches or can't stomach the sight of blood. Once, he'd even sneered under his mask when his commanding officer complained of being unable to sleep on a hard mattress. Frankly, he thinks they need to grow up.

He'd hated weakness until he met it in this form, all wet eyes and parted lips. It was strange to him too. You came, supine, as though there was no place more natural to you than under him; but you were the one in charge. Always.

You'd refused to stay the night once, and the next day he'd made a special trip to get nicer sheets and a proper bed frame. Just to see you a little longer. The first time the two of you ate out together, you'd pushed at your food hesitantly and it was the first time he'd demanded a dish be sent back. When he'd lacerated the entire length of his forearm on an errant blade, he let you stroke and soothe him, even though he'd been notorious for being gruff with medics who babied him. He just liked it when it was you. You didn't feel weak. You just felt... vulnerable.

Maybe he liked that because you had long, dark hair like his first school crush. Maybe he liked it because you had such delicate, fast hands that bid the word fairy unprompted to him. Maybe it was because you always came to him, batting your lashes and winding your arm around his, when you needed supplies smuggled in.

You made him feel powerful. Invincible even. Through you, he could play at being knight, except he wore a sniper hood for silver armor and had a humvee for a horse.

"Turn around." You tug at the back of his shirt. "Please? It's cold."

Of course you're cold, he sighs to himself. Even with all my blankets, and my sweater. But he doesn't really mind. He's even a little pleased by the way you try to wriggle under him when you think he's taking too long to put his arms around you. Besides, he always does as you ask. You command him, even if you were always tucked under his arm or mouthing at his neck and jaw like a puppy.

You slip your head under his chin, sighing. König catches the slight shiver in your arms, rubs away the remaining chill until you're curled comfortably around him. He needs that. He needs to know you're here because you want him, need him, and not because of everything else. Not because you like the brand new mattress, the sheets with an impossibly high thread count, the essential oil diffuser, and whatnot.

He waits for confirmation.

At midnight, you open your eyes again and reach for his face. He can see your expression by the moonlight through the open window, just the way you like, that there's something close to worship in there. Wet eyes, parted lips. Dark hair and fast hands. It's all for him.

You're smiling while it spills out of you. It was nothing if not your love confession, and even König would admit that nothing made him quite so weak as that.

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Thanks for reading!

[sroop]

ineta (iii)

"Bring me to the Baron, and I will kill him myself if you let me," she snarls, sursprising even herself with the vehemence in her words.

Pairing: Duncan Idaho x OC

Warnings: violence, blood/gore

Summary: ineta is not a good liar, but she must be if she plans on getting duncan idaho and herself out of this war alive.

A/N: not a lot going on in terms of interactions between duncan and ineta. it's a lot of set up for everything else to come !

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There's a plan, she tells herself. And where there's plan, there will be a way. I have a plan, so I have a way. I have a plan, so I have a way. She says it as though it were a spell, as though it would slow her thundering heart or warm the cold chills seeping down her spine. Normally that mantra soothes her, but not tonight.

The reason comes to her suddenly. Her life depends almost entirely on the prisoner she'd just enlisted to help her. There is a plan, but is Duncan Idaho the right way?

Ineta bites down on her lip. He has to be. She had no better option and, even if there were one now, it is too late to turn back and find a way to ensure his silence. The Harkonnens would die, or they would.

"Deep breath, just take a deep breath," she whispers to her reflection. Her eyes look more steely than she feels and it strengthens her resolve. Haven't the Harkonnens had their time? Haven't they been monsters for long enough? She's dreamed of taking action like this for her entire life, of doing something more meaningful than slipping Renate a sleeping draught or playing on Rabban's weaknesses to spare a prisoner's life. There had to be more, and this was it. Ineta tightens her hands into fists and bites down her apprehension.

She has a plan, but one way or another and with or without Duncan Idaho, it would be the Harkonnens' last nights alive.

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Pounding.

It comes to her door, over her ceiling, in the corridor outside. The bestial thump, thump, thump of countless footfalls thundering through the fortress; and Ineta screams as her door crumples in on itself. 

There were so many men, some bleeding Harkonnens and some bloodied Atreides. They scream too, as she tears past them and flees their killing. 

He did it. Duncan Idaho actually, really did it.

Now, it's her turn. She gulps down her fear and runs for the stairwell, tumbling down steps stained dark and made slick with blood. She could hear the clash of blades further down. That and the thrumming of personal shields being invaded. Ineta remembers something that Rabban had told her once over the dinner table. It's the slow blade that penetrates. The slow blade that hurts most. She shakes her head, trying to forget that she had no shield to protect her from any blade, slow or fast.

A Harkonnen soldier gasps for his last breath by her feet and she sinks down by him, wiping his wet cheeks with her thumbs. She recognizes him, a nameless but familiar face on rotation by the Baron's office every night. He wheezes up at her, grabbing clumsily at her arms.

"It's ok, I'm going to get help," she whispers, glancing down at the gushing wound in his side. Liar, her thoughts echo back. There is no help for how quickly he was losing blood, and even if there were, it would not arrive in time. Ineta holds him until his wide eyes and gaping mouth drift closed. The guilt hurts so badly she doesn't notice that she's bitten a gash in her cheek. No time for it to matter. Not now, at least. Ineta steadies herself against the wall and moves on.

The soldiers below cling to each other, weapons and bodies alike bouncing off shields as she threads herself in and out of the fray. Ineta makes a wild lunge for a man wearing the Atreides hawk, dragging him into an empty nook.

"I am the daughter of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the heir of the Baron."

His eyes widen in confusion, flickering between her face and the fight behind them. Ineta grabs his collar. "Do you understand me?"

"Y-Yes," he sputters, though he makes no other move. Anger surges through her and Ineta yanks him down to eye level.

"Then why am I not hostage yet?!"

It takes a few minutes for the realization to down upon him, but the plan begins to progress. She is dragged through the fight to the breach in the fortress, where the Atreides were already setting up camp. Ineta shrinks from the soldier, whose hands sweated so much she could feel it through his gloves, as he thrusts her into the hands of another man. He was tall and thin and had such a stern face that Ineta guesses him to be their commander. He confirms it swiftly.

"My intelligence tells me that after tonight, you will be the sole heir to the house. It this true?"

Ineta stands to her full height and nods. Again, something sickly scrambles up her throat and she strains to suppress it. I'm not a good liar, she realizes, as the smell of blood grows in the background. Ineta fixes her eyes on this commander, determined not to let the death around them weaken her facade.

"I was told you gave yourself up. Why?"

"I have no love for the Harkonnens. Bring me to the Baron, and I will kill him myself if you let me," she snarls, surprising even herself with the vehemence in her words. She anticipates his next question. "Keep me alive and I will give your Duke the keys to their power, ones he cannot afford to turn down if he wishes to survive the onslaught the emperor will call down on him."

The man's eyes narrow, but the deliberation behind them comes to a quick resolution.

"Bring her to the Baron."

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Duncan could not see, but the smell of blood and smoke were enough to tell him what had happened here. The fellow they'd sent to bring him out from the dungeons had died somewhere along the way, and he'd half stumbled, half fought his way here himself. He imagined that the feat would seem more like a miracle by tomorrow. Right now, he mostly just felt very beat up.

"Idaho!"

His head jerks toward the sound of his name.

"Idaho, is that you?!"

He tries to yell back, but his voice had been lost a little while back. Probably the smoke, or maybe just general weakness. It doesn't matter. Whoever is calling him has grabbed him by the arm, was already dragging him towards some place with great determination.

He struggles, but Duncan manages a few hoarse words.

"Ineta? The girl, Ineta?"

"Who?!"

It's too loud, they can't hear. But he chokes down a few more breathes and the pouch of water offered to him. He's shoved onto a seat, or maybe a piece of rubble, something. Duncan reaches out blindly and finds the buttons of a uniform. He clenches around them and drags the body close.

"Where is Ineta?" he cries.

The body falls out of his grip, and at first he thinks that his partner must have been killed and that he was next. But a more familiar voice replaces it.

"You're alright, Idaho. Just take it easy."

Duncan shakes his head, squeezing his eyes open and shut in an attempt to regain sight. It doesn't work, but he knows who is before him well enough to imagine it. A stern, long face, the weathered hands and battle-scuffed uniform.

"Gurney, where's Ineta?"

"The heir? The girl?"

Duncan nods wildly.

Gurney sighs, and pats Duncan's shoulder.

"Just take it easy, Idaho. You did good already telling us about her. We took her as hostage to the Baron, like you'd suggested, but he didn't care. I wanted to bring her back live, but the last I heard of her was that she'd escaped during the fight with the Baron."

Duncan's shakes his head, clutching angrily at Gurney's arm. That wasn't an answer. What happened to her? He nearly tries to wring the answer out of his commander's sleeve.

"I'm sorry, Duncan. We'll do a sweep for her, but my best guess is that she's already dead. Probably collateral damage."

No. The word slips from him as a mangled grunt. Surely not. It was the one thing he'd managed to accomplish. When she'd come that next night to ask for his help, it was the one thing he'd been able to get her to promise, that she'd live. We'll protect you. You'll be safe with us. The Duke is kind. Did she not believe him? He'd told her so that she'd stay, and that he'd be able to properly meet and thank the girl who'd saved him. In fact, Duncan had lived the past few days of his life confident that between the two of them, he'd be the one to meet death first. 

"I'll let you know if we find her body. The Duke will want to know anyway." Gurney pauses. "It's funny, actually. I didn't know the Baron had declared a heir after Feyd-Rautha. I didn't even know that bastard had a kid, let alone one set to inherit this hellhole."

Duncan didn't really listen. Did that matter anymore?

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thanks for reading!

[sroop]

ineta (ii)

When Duncan does sleep, he dreams of green and something gold looking.

Pairing: Duncan Idaho x OC

Warnings: violence, light blood/gore

Summary: ineta is backed into a corner, and finds that duncan may hold the key to their survival.

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Ineta shrieks and collides against the jagged stone walls of the dungeon.

Why it was necessary to remind all that they were in an Harkonnen dungeon escaped her, as though it were possible to forget. Still, the ram hung over a bloody orange field leered at her. Red eyes and claws. She had thought it a real beast, pouncing on her for its latest victim. She lays a hand over her pounding heart. 

"Miss Ineta?"

Ineta curses her feeble nerves, and draws herself up to a more dignified pose on her own two feet to greet the guard. He's a tall, clean-shaven man only a few years older than her at most. Soft eyes, and a mouth twisted upwards in a curious smile. She eyes the crest on his breastplate warily.

"What are you doing here?" he asks kindly.

Ineta nods towards the cells.

"The Baron orders me to see to the newest prisoner. I am to ensure his survival for questioning," she says levelly. Ineta doesn't wait for him to respond to move past him. There's authority in her words for servants, but soldiers were hard to predict, being more under the command of the Baron and his nephew. It was best to move fast.

"Wait."

Ineta stops and feigns an impatient scowl.

The soldier looks at her with something akin to understanding in his face. She's reminded of the same expression she wears when letting off a slacking maid or clumsy server. "You'd best return quickly then, Miss Ineta. Before the Baron grows impatient." 

He gives a small smile and turns to face the other way. Ineta smiles back.

"Thank you, soldier."

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Duncan Idaho is clinging to the precipice of life. At least he still had all his fingers, he thinks. He inhales harshly at a more piercing pain at his cheek, jerking his head away. The pain is soothed by a soft hand. He's been a fighter for long enough to recognize the the pain as a needle and thread, and the soft hand as a nurse.

In the darkness, he can't quite see who's there, though he's uncertain the swelling over his eyes would have allowed him to see at all. He cracks his lips open from the seal of dried blood.

"Thank you."

"You need to save your breath," comes the firm reply. He recognizes the voice immediately as the girl who'd been at his most recent beating. Duncan tries to remember her features, but recalls only the green color of her skirt and something gold looking.

"You saved my life," he says suddenly. It sounds clumsy coming from a spurt of belabored breathing, no doubt tinged with the dank, prison air. But he feels the need to thank her almost oppressively. Briefly, he realizes this is because he is unsure he will ever get the chance to ever again, and stops himself from envisioning a painful death.

No, he must not lose hope. His hands clench in on themselves, only to be unfurled by her.

"Eat it, if you can," she murmurs. Its grainy texture implies bread, but his stomach flips stubbornly. Despite its protests, he brings it to his mouth and gnaws with determination. It hurts to move, to breath, to swallow, but he'd do it if it meant he'd survive to see the red hawk of House Atreides fly again. He just needed a few days. They couldn't be too far off from their next incursion into fortress territory.

He feels her return to work, cleaning and sewing open wounds quietly and quickly, experienced with pain.

"What's your name?" he asks. There's a beat before she answers, like she's considering if he's worth the trouble of replying. Or if he'd survive long enough for it to matter.

"Ineta," she finally says. "Miss Ineta to you."

Duncan chuckles, immediately regretting the burst of pain in his lungs he feels. He clutches his chest and rolls his head over on the stone slab of a cot they'd given him. The cell, from what little he'd seen, was nothing but a simple square, enclosed on all sides save for the barred entrance. What mattered more to him was the corridor leading into it.

One way in, one way out, from what he'd seen. It was nothing but a single, unending row of rotting prisoners.

"I'm glad you can still laugh," she says quietly. Duncan doesn't really hear. He imagines Atreides forces marching through, saving them.

"Duncan?" Ineta calls gently, shaking his shoulder. He must have worried her, going quiet like that. She touches his forehead and sighs at the temperature. "You'll be alright, if you don't get any worse. I'll try to come back whenever I can."

Try. Duncan grasps her wrist. She shouldn't try, not when he wouldn't need it. In fact, she shouldn't be anywhere near him after tonight. He rasps, but the words are sticky with blood and catch in his throat. Instead, he drags her close to him, ignoring the pain of her palm pressed against his chest in resistance.

"Get as far away as possible. You should run," he says. This is foolish, he knows, it is entirely possible that she, the cupbearer for the Harkonnens, would run to warn them. But Duncan has always trusted his heart. He tells her anyway. "Run far, far away. They may not spare you."

He can't see, but he hears her gasp and stumble away. It's comforting to him. At least one person would live either way, the girl who'd shown him mercy in the face of his captors. Captors he knew were cruel masters from his time as a slave here, though he wondered what her true place was with them. Servant? Favorite? Mistress?

Duncan sighs and brings the bread to his lips again.

Moments later, he hears a body crumpling to the floor somewhere. Duncan exhales sharply, filled with cold dread. He felt hot in his head, and cold everywhere else. Useless and weak. He clings to the thought of Ineta and the hope that she will survive, that if she may be brave then he'd do the same.

When Duncan does sleep, he dreams of green and something gold looking.

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This time, Ineta manages not to scream. The horror is nowhere less, nor the odor of blood. Distantly, she thinks that it's odd. That that poor, kind soldier, dead on the floor, was not bleeding. And yet, it seemed the world stank of bloodshed.

She cannot tear her eyes from his, even when the Baron chortles.

"Poor boy, that one," he says in a sickly soft tone. "Lied for you, dear Ineta. Died for you, too."

The Baron huffs impatiently. "What is it about you? That my useless son should sire a useless girl, out of some servant on a hellhole of a planet. But that you are the one that they listen to." He looks at her intently, as though to discern meaning from her face. "Why do you inspire devotion?"

Ineta feels that she has nothing in her throat but reeds, snapping in harsh wind and making some eerie screeching of its own volition. She clutches her mouth to try to stop the sounds, but nothing does. She cries and cries, shaking her head.

"I admit, even in myself, I thought you were the best of us however lowly your birth. But this can be forgiven."

"No. No, no, no," she whispers. She could control herself. She really should, but what's the point now? The Baron knows that she was here against implied orders. It was less than what she'd seen him torture and kill for. No doubt, she shared the same, if not a worse, fate as that guard. Maybe the Baron would snap her neck too and be quick with it.

"Look at me," the Baron snaps.

He'd never seemed a more grotesque man than now to Ineta. He towered over her, perhaps triple her mass, with blood on his hands he seemed to relish in. Maybe it was the wine they drank, so dark and pungent it was that it might cause insatiable blood-thirst. It was her fault. She should not have come on some wild dream that she would do good, or that they might be able to escape. Now a man was dead, and she'd follow him.

"This is a predicament. But it seems you've made yourself pleasant to Duncan Idaho, I'd presume? My nephew is... not bright. But perhaps he was right? That Idaho is some lover of yours?" The Baron leaned over Ineta. "I might be motivated to forget this whole ordeal-" he says, gesturing to the body, "-if you were to produce viable information."

Ineta forces her hands from her face.

"Of course, my Lord." The compliance comes easily, after a lifetime of swallowing hard commands. This time though, her voice tremors. Deceit, she thinks, does not suit me.

"Good, it's settled then, dear girl. Leave, and not a word to Rabban or he will kill you both himself."

As Ineta flees, nearly running through the prison corridor where the Baron stood over his victim. She passes the banner of the red-eyed ram over its orange field. It had somehow become flat to her, and she does not pause to glance at it a second time.

Its power is lost. The real beasts, she realizes, are the Harkonnens. It would not matter if she gave in and extracted information, however vital, from Duncan. She was dead anyway, for the simple reason that she betrayed them. There was very little time to act, but she needed to see Duncan again as soon as possible.

Their lives depended on it.

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thanks for reading!

[sroop]

ineta (i)

"What do you say, Ineta? Is he insignificant enough to die a fast death?"

Pairing: Duncan Idaho x OC

Warnings: violence, blood, brief discussion of sexual harassment

Summary: a chance reunion with duncan idaho gives ineta the chance of a lifetime to get out from under the thumbs of the Harkonnens.

A/N: slowburnnnn

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The wine smells especially pungent today. As Ineta pours it into the Baron's cup, its scent seems to cling to her, metallic and a little sulfurous. And yet she's grateful for it today; its odor almost distracts her from the wet crunch of breaking ribs as Count Rabban pummels his prisoner further into the ground.

Maybe it's not the wine that smells metallic, she thinks, eyeing the growing puddles of blood on the floor. As they grow ever larger, so does the tremble in her hands. She looks instead to the high, vaulted ceiling of the hall where her master took meals.

Every night, she stood at dinner with a pitcher of wine in her arms. It was a duty she addressed with distant dread, an ordeal to be endured patiently in exchange for the relative security and even dignity it offered in the House of the Harkonnens. Frankly, it was a job she much preferred over having to scrub floors or sweep vents. Besides, the Harkonnens were not a sentimental bunch, but they were proud. They would never let anyone with Harkonnen blood, even the illegitimate sort, to stoop so low. For their own reputations, of course.

Ineta ponders this, not realizing that Rabban was staring at her intently now.

"Ineta," he calls, slightly out of breath from beating the soldier so harshly. As he gestures for her to approach him, the Baron stirs uneasily, grunting his disapproval from behind several mouthfuls of honeyed duck.

"Yes, Your Lordship?" she replies obediently. Ineta has mastered the art of standing delicately, like a lady would, with her hands folded before her and her face trained into a pleasantly neutral expression. Something close to docile, but not anything so violent as eager or happy.

"What do you think?" Rabban hoists the prisoner to his feet. "Did I do well to bring you a traitor to our house? Do you recognize him?"

Ineta studies the prisoner's broken face dutifully, observing the swells of broken skin and matted hair where his forehead would have been and the unnatural angle his broken nose twisted. The man's eyes were so swollen, she could not see the whites of them. She meets the Count's eyes again, hoping her shaking hands were not noticeable.

"No, Count, who is he?"

"This is none other than Duncan Idaho, pretty. None other than your childhood sweetheart, you remember? And now he's a boy playing soldier with the Atreides, a traitor!"

Rabban's eyes give away a flash of violence and Ineta bites her tongue as he swings the man's face into the ground, kneeling over his back. She responds quickly.

"I could not tell, Your Lordship. You have done well to seek him out, and to punish him for having betrayed the Baron's benevolence."

"My benevolence, sweet girl, has nothing to do with it. Be gone with him, Rabban. I doubt she even remembers this boy you say is Duncan Idaho. I don't know why you harp on about a man of such little significance," the Baron sighs. He hated nothing more than his nephew's impulsive bursts of aggression for no reason other than extravagant brutality. Especially at dinner. Especially if it was to peacock in front of Ineta.

Rabban scoffs, picking Idaho up by his collar.

"What do you say, Ineta? Is he insignificant enough to die a fast death?"

He picks out a thin blade, almost comical compared to the heft of his fist, from a sheath at his side and holds it against Idaho's neck. Ineta could hardly tell if the man even perceived the edge of the dagger at his pulse.

Duncan Idaho. The name is familiar to her. She recalls a young boy with golden eyes and a penchant for stealing her schoolbooks to tease her. She thinks that maybe he's the one who'd comforted her once, when she'd been crying after a particularly harsh lesson. A playmate or a peer, but certainly not a childhood sweetheart. Still, those were such long years ago. It didn't matter whether this was Duncan Idaho or not. What a waste of bravery and strength, being killed like this. Ineta feels pang of pity for the man.

"Please, Your Lordship, may you not spare him? If not for me, then in the hopes that he may recognize your power over him and that he may defect. Perhaps he knows about what the Atreides do, or some weakness you could seize on?" Ineta says.

"Aha!" the Baron laughs. "You see, Rabban? Even this slip of a girl has more brains than you!"

Rabban glowers, but sheaths his weapon.

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Ineta shuts the door to the Baron's study slowly, waiting for the lock to slide into place before stepping quietly away from it into the corridor. There's need for stealth. The Baron kept guards stationed all along the halls during sleeping hours.

She turns her head, scanning for signs of detection once she was a few paces from the office.

There's a second mission she has tonight. Ineta ghosts her hand across the pocket in her skirt again, just to reassure herself. Sure enough, she feels the bulge of the surgical needle and thread, and the fistful of bread she'd skimmed from off her own dinner plate. It's daring, maybe even treason.

No, she thinks, it is treason.

The stairwell leading west towards the dungeons were a ways from where she was, so she moves boldly. Better to be seen with nothing to hide than caught lurking.

But as she winds across a sharp turn, nearly there, she finds herself nose to nose with a young serving girl, Renate. Renate had wide, round eyes, even wider now in surprise, and a face full of delicate features that put her at odds with most other laborers from the Giedi Prime. People here tended to be rugged, more bulk than the clean-limbed frame that Ineta recognized in Renate. Ineta had always liked her, pitied her slightly more than others. She, too, knew what it was like to be a foreigner, having been born on Arrakis to an unknown Fremen woman.

"Miss!" Renate gasps, her hand quickly following the exclamation to her mouth. She leans forward with concern. "What are you doing here?"

"Avoiding Rabban," Ineta lies. "You know how he is, and he's in a foul mood with me after that business with the prisoner."

Renate looks to her feet and sighs. See, Renate does know how Rabban is, being one of the handful of women that he's dogged after. While Ineta had the benefit of some status, and some protection from the Baron, Renate had nothing but her wits. Ineta squeezes the girl's shoulder gently.

"Don't go around sleeping chambers tonight if you can help it," Ineta pauses. She had to consider that Renate had no say over whether or not her duties brought in into Rabban's path. Ineta grasped her hand. "But in case, this is for His Lordship to... sleep easier," Ineta says, slipping a small vial of sleeping draught into Renate's hand, brows raised pointedly.

"Yes, miss! Thank you," Renate said resolutely, eyes shining with determination. "Good night, miss!"

Ineta slips away, and once Renate's footsteps faded, she began a steady trot down the stairs and into the belly of the dungeons. The guards there could be bribed, she knew, and no one would be the wiser. Please, let no one be the wiser, she prays.

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thanks for reading!

[sroop]

loved chomper sm!!

ty that means a lot !! (also ur page aesthetic is 🤌)

[sroop]

chomper (i)

She's a good actress, even when she was an inch away from a heart attack, Joel thinks.

Pairing: Joel Miller x reader (no y/n)

Warnings: suggested danger, potential for violence (none actually happens), aggressive behavior from an animal

Summary: Joel sees a woman struggling with her dog as a strange man approaches, and steps in to help before things escalate.

No outbreak au and Joel has both his daughters :D

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It's dark, mostly, and usually Joel likes it like that because it feels safe and familiar, but he just feels bad about it now. He wishes he could switch on that broken streetlight that the city's been refusing to fix for months now, if only so it would help the girl across the street from him feel a little better.

She twists her head around her shoulder. No one there, not that they can see, but her dog is growling and snapping at the empty road anyway. Joel can hear her muttering reassurances and pleading with the animal to let it go and hurry home instead, but if anything it only encourages the dog's snarling. She's starting to pull at the leash now.

From where he's standing, he can see a figure shift from far away. It slinks closer and closer until it's standing under the glow of a lamp further back, casting a stark contrast of light and shadow on the silhouette of a lanky man. He's tall, maybe taller than Joel, and stares straight ahead. At her. His pace is steady and unwavering, a straight march towards where she stands, tugging desperately at her half-mad dog. Joel thinks the animal is right about its instincts, just not about staying and fighting. He stays right where he is, just in case.

It's when the man begins to slow down, just before the girl and her dog, when he hears her voice crack with fear, that Joel crosses the street. It must have frightened her even more, to see two unfamiliar men stalking towards her in this time of night, because she skitters away from them and jumps when her back reaches a chain link fence behind. The dog, to its credit, snaps ferociously at them.

"Darling, I've been looking for you," Joel sighs, doing his best impression of the tone he takes with Sarah and Ellie when they've been late out. "Do you know we had dinner thirty minutes ago?"

"I- sorry, she wouldn't go back until we reached the park. I didn't realize it was that late," the girl says. She's a good actress, even when she was an inch away from a heart attack, Joel thinks. She even goes so far as to smile sheepishly at the man and apologize for the way the dog tries to lunge at him. "Let's go, puppy. We gotta go."

The man crosses the street and disappears down some other shadowy part of the neighborhood when the girl shifts her attention to Joel.

"Thank you," she says stiffly. She's scanning his person, subtly, but enough for Joel to recognize from his years of service as someone who knows they're still in danger. Her dog, at the very least, has calmed down.

Joel gives her his best gentle smile and says, "I'll just walk with you for another block or so. In case he's still watching." It seems reasonable enough to her, and she nods her assent. 

They end up walking three, the first in silence, the second in amiable small talk, and the third exchanging stories of the dog Joel had when he'd been in school and the dog, Chomper, she was watching for a friend for a few months. The night was pleasantly cool enough for him to offer her his flannel, though he felt strangely warm despite its loss as they arrived on his street.

He taps her shoulder gently.

"This is actually me. If you feel ok walking back alone from here, I think I'll go inside," Joel says, his smile lopsided and a little sheepish. He's wondering if this is rude, stopping mid way, but he doesn't want to get to her house and have her feel afraid that he would know where she lived. It wasn't ideal, but it was enough. She waves away his worry.

"You've done more than enough. Thank you, Joel."

The kiss she lays at his cheek flutters through him violently, all shut eyes and short inhale. He thanks the city for not fixing those damned lamps because if they were on, he was sure she would be able to see the way he flushed red from a goddamned kiss on the cheek.

He clears his throat and gruffly replies, "Anytime."

Joel shuts his door and slumps onto his couch a little numbly, unable to suppress the smile at his lips as he recalls the events of a few minutes ago. He feels excitement bubble in his chest. It was just all so... pleasant, the way she smiled as she took the flannel and told him about all-bark-no-bite Chomper and poked fun at how much of a grumpy father he sounded like. Joel doesn't realize he's grinning at his shoes in a dark living room until Ellie snaps the lights on.

"What're you doing?"

Joel jumps to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck and says, "Nothin'. Get back to bed, it's late"

"It's te-"

"Too damn late f'you to be up."

Ellie raises a brow, but shrugs and leaves, muttering something about how the rules in this house changed whenever Joel liked them to. He laughs scoffingly at that too, until he realizes, suddenly, that he'd never even asked her her name.

He puts his hands on his hips.

"Damn you, Joel. All these years and Tommy is still better with women than you."

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thanks for reading and lmk what you think!

[sroop]

guided (final)

He should tell her, he knows. All those nights laid alone after she'd left imagining everything he wanted to tell her.

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!OC

Summary: Din loses his son and his Creed, and took it out on Reyza. Now they're reunited on Tatooine.

Warnings/Notes: smidge of suggestiveness, a little angst. Also, Fennec Shand was part of Polaris in this series!

For some context, this takes place between seasons 2 and 3 of the Mandalorian and during The Book of Boba Fett's season one, when Din helps out on Tatooine. Also, Mandalorians can only marry non-Mandalorians if they become Mandalorian (from what I gather from my research), and the OC and Din have been together unofficially for some time before this.

A/N: I've been writing the guided series for a bit now, and it was so much fun I decided to rework some of the details and characters! The other mini chapters I've been posting will stay up, but aren't what is necessarily "canon" in this new updated version (i'll change their titles to avoid any confusion). Anyway, this is the first chapter I'm posting, but I won't be posting chronologically because I just prefer to write jumping all over the place. Hope someone out there likes it because I really like writing this!

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Din tries not to jolt upright in his bed when she knocks on his door, searching for permission to enter the room he'd been given. He hangs himself casually over the pillows instead, propped up languidly, grunting an affirmative. He wants to look laidback, like he doesn't care. He didn't want her to know he was starting to wonder if it was normal for his heart to beat so quickly, for his hands to shake.

"Hey, tin man," Reyza calls softly, teasingly. The old nickname feels like balm on his bad leg, easing over the burn like he was a young, invincible man again. He smiles from behind his mask at her.

Dank farrik. Why pretend?

He straightens himself and lifts the corner of his blanket, opening his arms to invite her into him, like she deserves. Din hopes she knocks some sense into him through his mask. It'd been so long since he'd last seen her like this, so long since he'd gotten the chance to apologize for all the things he'd done and said. He should tell her, he knows. All those nights laid alone after she'd left imagining everything he wanted to tell her. All the apologies he'd rehearsed, but also the little things. Murmuring how his day went into his pillow, pretending she was there.

Instead, he settles on, "Are you happy here?" Because he wouldn't bother if she was. If this was what made Reyza happy, living on Tatooine in a palace with her guild sister, then he'd leave it be. He'd keep whispering to his pillow than to her.

But Reyza smiles up at him so brightly that he questions if he even has the resolve to do that. She's shaking her head, stroking a hand down his shoulder.

"What? No what've you been up to? How've you been?" she teases. She's always teasing, Din laments without any real complaint, always trying to push his buttons. He runs a thumb over her cheek. It's smooth.

"What've you been up to? How've you been?" he echos softly.

His room is dark, and the only light comes from the three moons outside, filtered through a gauzy curtain. It's still stifling hot despite nightfall, and his gaze falls to the rest of Reyza, folded carefully under herself so she could sit with him in bed. The closeness of them, the still air, and the dark. It reminds him a little of the small, secret tenderness in his bunk on the late Razor Crest. Familiar.

Her silence feels a little oppressive though, and Din shifts uncomfortably, trying to get a better look at her face to gauge whether he'd done something wrong. She knows and squeezes his hand.

"Thinking about you, mostly," she finally says, and it cracks whatever composure Din had left.

"Me too, cyare," he groans, closing the distance between them easily. They tumble to bed and Din cages her in between his arms, resting against her forehead. "Been thinking about everything. Can't stop thinking about it."

She pulls at the stray hairs peeking out from under his helmet.

"I'll bet. You haven't even cut this," she says. Din shrugs, pulling her closer still. The apology is right there, in his throat waiting to crawl its pathetic way out and spill all the sad things he's done to try and stave off the sheer loneliness he'd felt when she'd left. But he keeps it still. He's still waiting to hear whether she's been doing better without him. He gulps down his fear that maybe she has been.

"So, you happy here? On Tatooine?" he asks.

Reyza sighs quietly, running soothing fingers through the hair she can reach and down his neck in comforting patterns. Her hands go everywhere. They're smoothing over his shoulders, tracing the figure of his arms, massaging the knots in his back. Please, please, please, Din thinks. Please don't do this to let me down easier.

He can hear her heart, beating as fast as his, now that his head is on her chest.

"I'm ok. Tatooine is nice in its own way, but I miss you. I miss..."

"Grogu," Din supplies gently as his heart soars selfishly. The name still feels a little foreign to him, and he can tell from the way Reyza's lips quirk that she feels the same way.

But there's no time to think about that. She misses him, he misses her, he's starting to think this might all work out for them. That is, if she can forgive him. Din turns his attention back to the words he'd been practicing for months before, feeling both horrifyingly unprepared, yet pathetically over-prepared all at the same time. But the look on her face is soft, and nonjudgemental.

Din lifts himself, dragging the helmet off slowly.

The warm air on his cheeks feels cool, the result of always sweating and being covered head to toe in beskar. He can feel the way Reyza jerks back, hands flying to her eyes to respect a Creed he didn't even have a right to anymore. The way Din figures it, he was an apostate already. He may as well say what he needed to say face to face, and part of him wants her to see and know him fully. He needs her to look at what she may, potentially, if he's lucky, choose as her forever.

"Look," he says, guiding her hands from her eyes. "It's ok."

At his reassurance, Reyza opens her eyes and devours him. It's her first time. He's older than she expects, and the streaks of grey in his tangled, wavy hair show it. As expected, there are worry lines everywhere and Reyza smiles at that. Of course he does, the way he gets himself tied up into knots. She lifts a finger to the etch between his brows, the drag of where his cheek and frown meet, tracing and memorizing each. Then she goes to the bend in his nose, the unexpected mustache over his lip, the heavy brows and matching eyes. Those eyes, as lost as she'd known they'd be. As vulnerable and unguarded as she would ever see them. She puts both hands to his cheeks and leans in to brush her lips across his forehead.

"Beautiful," she murmurs without moving her lips away. When she does draw away, it's just to look again. And she repeats the word over and over again, breathlessly, until Din begins to smile crookedly.

"When we had to let go of Grogu, I felt like all I had left was you and whatever was left of my Creed, and then I lost that too." Reyza furrows her brows and shifts her hands to his shoulders at his voice, deeper and richer without the modulator in place. "I don't know why I said all those things," Din admits, closing his hands over where Reyza's lay. "I just know that I did, and that I was wrong for it. I'm sorry."

"You said I could never be anything to you. Because I'm not Mandalorian," Reyza reminds him, turning cold suddenly. Din gulps and reaches for her cheek.

"I shouldn't have, because you mean more to me than any marriage vow could have made you, cyare. I shouldn't have said any of it." He exhales slow and long when he reaches for Reyza and she goes with him happily. She mouths at his jaw and he sucks in a breath. "Reyza, wait, I want you to hear this," he says.

"Go on." Maker blast her smile, always the same devil-may-care smirk.

"I want you to be with me always, for as long as you want to be with me. And I'll give you whatever it is you need to believe that." He swallows thickly. "I've taken off the helmet. My covert has disowned me. If you want, we can be husband and wife." He looks away and quickly repeats, "If you want."

Reyza pauses, smile gone, lips parted.

"No, Din."

The disappointment crushes them both physically, pitching towards each other in their fall. Din desperately shoves aside the sting in his chest. But Reyza holds onto him still.

She tilts his face until they're looking at each other again, and Din can't help but sigh a little at the color of her eyes so close to him. They're almost a blur, between the darkness and the wetness forming over his vision.

"You're a Mandalorian. You have always been a Mandalorian, and you always will be no matter what anyone says." Reyza says this with such conviction, it sends chills up his spine. "We'll find a way for them to accept you again, so be it, but you can't just... You can't offer this to me."

"Why not?" Din rasps. "I want to."

"Sooner or later, it'd break you. If you do this, you'll be betraying a part of your Creed and don't even try saying it's ok. You know it's still important to you." That much was true. Din could say he was an apostate a hundred times, and still feel Mandalorian at his core, still feel the prickling little voice in his head that told him that it was possible, that the living waters could still exist and cleanse him.

Reyza wipes the pad of her thumb against a forming tear at the edge of his eye, pecking the other away. She relishes the way Din's sad chuckle rumbles against her. 

"I want to do right by you," he finally says.

Reyza shrugs and it hurts his heart how resigned she looks.

"I want to love you." She drives a finger into his unarmored chest to punctuate the sentence. "Not love you for a few years until you resent me for making you give up your Creed. Not even love you forever knowing you'll never really rest until you're redeemed."

It's hard, but it's the truth, and somehow Din loves her all the more for it. He pets her back as her own tears bubble up, like he was soothing a child.

"Cyar'ika," he murmurs as they embrace. "Forgive me."

She squeezes her tears onto her cheeks and shakes her head, wrapping herself around him.

"I forgave you the night I left," she weeps. "For better or worse."

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Thanks for reading! If you liked this, consider reblogging or following, and feedback is also always appreciated :D

[sroop]

guided (vii)

She stands behind Din when he corners Qin and the Twi'lek thinks she could almost be a wraith or a shadow or just something not quite tangible.

A/N: ahaha i love writing abt them so much that i can't even really testify for the quality of this particular chapter. i feel like the tone is slightly different from the rest of this series, but it was one of my favorite episodes (ep. 6) in the first season so i really wanted to include it. anyway, warnings for some violence, but not much.

Summary: Old friends can be mercenary, but Reyza won't let them get away with it.

prev. | next

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Din feels his heart stutter when the door to the bunk opens with a hiss. The kid, he thinks urgently, her and the kid. He jerks to try to shield them from the crew's view, though it's too late. Reyza, but only Reyza, stares back at them. Weaponless on first glance, wide eyed.

"Well hello, little lady," Mayfeld simpers, strolling towards the door despite the way Din is staring at him. "Didn't realize you were the type to keep feminine company around, huh, Mando?" he jeers. His eyes, though, never leave the stretch of Reyza's cramped figure. "Oh, now, wait a minute." He leans back on his hips, hands splayed comfortably over his blasters while looking between Reyza and Xi'an. "Let's not get catty, ladies. Might get a bit awkward for the Mandalorian here!" The crew cheers with laughter, as Reyza lets her gaze spring from member to member with doe-eyed fright.

Din knows better than to fall for that. He'd noticed immediately that she must have hidden the child somewhere, and the way one hand was hidden under his blanket just so, concealing a blaster. Let her play the spooked doll, he thinks. It's going a game of sabacc from here, and she would hold her cards close to her own chest.

The ship lands soon after, and Mayfeld gestures at Reyza with a blaster.

"Be a good girl and stay here, with Z."

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"Mando? You hanging in there?" Reyza mutters into her commlink. Din changes from the open channel to their private one instantly.

"Right here. Is the kid ok?"

"He's in the bunk, he'll be fine. I'm in the hull with him now." She glances up the stairway, shuddering at remembering the strange, insect-like eyes that the droid has. It unnerves her, the way it'd spun around when she'd excused herself to use the fresher. "Just in case they try anything, I can take the droid out easy. I think I heard that Twi'lek say something to Mayfeld."

"You got a bad feeling?"

"You don't?" Reyza asks, and Din doesn't miss the slight cheek behind it. He imagines her grinning lopsidedly, calling him an idiot for need to ask.

"Maybe she was just saying how much she's missed me."

There's a beat a fizzled out laughter while Reyza shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Maker, he had a strange sense of comedic timing, trapped in a prison transport surrounded by enemies. Or at best, precarious allies on thin ice. 

"Let her. I'm not the jealous type," Reyza lies.

"We're headed for the target now. Listen close for anything and- " Din glances around at the crew he was beginning to regret running with. "- just be careful. The target is an ol-"

He's cut off by a pained grunt.

"Mando?" Reyza strains to hear the faint sound of blaster fire and clanking metal over her comms. Clearly, something had gone wrong, and she was willing to assume it wasn't Mando's fault. She grabs her blaster and makes for the ladder.

"Dank farrik," he growls. The back of his head still feels like an echo chamber clamoring from where he'd hit his head falling. Mando forces himself to his feet and grits out his answer. "They just threw me in a cell. Give 'em hell."

"Already on it," she says.

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Din is a soldier. A Mandalorian. Though his gods have long been reduced from reality to myth to nothing but constellations in the night, they had still forged him into the kind of warrior he is now. Something powerful and endless. All the unrefined ferocity of molten beskar contained in the austere, Creed-bound vessel of a human body in armor. A weapon in and of himself.

That is not what Reyza is.

She observes, with no small amount of pleasure, as the halls flood red and the alarms begin to scream. Her footsteps are weightless. Her breaths are silent. The poisons lined against her body and the blaster she has at her hip are all the weapons she has or needs. Hardly anything. Mere trinkets in deft hands.

But just as Din is made for the bold and the brutal, Reyza is made for this. A cat-and-mouse chase. A game of how well she commands not weapons or strength, but shadows.

Xi'an screams, kicking and flailing against the metal door separating her from her brother and her freedom. This cannot be it. This is not how this ends. She whirls around to Burg, shoving him out of the way. But for all that bravado, Reyza notes coldly, she still trembles when the lights fail, with only the prick of a needle at her neck to ease her fall to the floor. 

Faintly, Xi'an hears the same fate befall Burg, and groans into her comms.

"It's coming."

She stands behind Din when he corners Qin and the Twi'lek thinks she could almost be a wraith or a shadow or just something not quite tangible.

Something pleasant curls around her stomach, the knowledge of having won, of having finally dusted off her hunting instincts. Reyza thinks maybe Mando can feel it too, how pleased she is with herself. When she slips the honing signal, a veritable magnet of doom for those in their line of work, into the waist of Qin's pants before padding into the Crest, he gives her a pointed look. One she's come to learn is his little way of saying, really? She stops to peer up at him from behind a fringe of lashes. Yes, really.

They're well into hyperspace before Reyza feels settled enough to check on the child. She doesn't expect it, but Din rises and goes with her to the bunk. It's strange. His hand trailing behind her, just a few inches from touching the small of her back. Even just him just watching her rock a little green alien at her shoulder quietly. She smiles up at him and Din sighs too quietly for her to hear.

"It's funny," he mutters.

"What?"

Electricity runs up his spine as he meets her eyes with a hidden grin. He voices the rest of his thought loud and clear, "That you spent your first time in my bed without me."

She'd needed to pause, to blush, but then she returns his challenge head on. She grins, and says, "And next time?"

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thanks for reading!

[sroop]

guided (vi)

Reyza could accuse him all she wanted about using that helmet to unfair advantage, but Din often felt it was her that had all her features trained into the perfect wall.

A/N: ohoho, i'm having lots of fun here. i think there could potentially be need for some warnings. there's a bit of angst, mentions of death and violence, but that's about it.

Summary: For the past few days, the Crest hasn't felt much like home, until Din finally begins to hear what it's trying to say.

prev. | next

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Reyza climbs into the seat next to Din's aboard the Crest. His visor swings towards her with a small jerk, following her as she sinks into the leather chair wordlessly. Nearly two days after their departure from Sorgan, she'd hardly spoken a word to him, much less seek out his company in the cockpit. In fact, Din found himself secluding himself to this quiet area of the ship if only to give her freedom of movement with the child in its belly.

"So why are you hiding?" she mutters, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. It's a familiar sight. Her, curled to her side with her knees up to her chin in the passenger seat. It lightens some of the apprehension he'd had about this inevitable conversation.

"Why are you?" he retorts.

The silence between them grows stale and rotten. Even when they'd fought in the past, Din had not remembered it being so... charged. He glances at her without moving his helmet and is surprised to see a flicker of wetness in her eyes. He's never seen her cry. He's not even sure if damp eyes counts as crying.

But the sight doesn't let him stay silent for long. He sighs, "I'm sorry. For dragging you into all this. It's not right."

She doesn't respond to him, except to curl further into herself.

"You didn't make this choice, to put yourself in danger for the child. I'm sorry I forced your hand." Din pretends not to notice the way she drags the back of her hand across her face. "I wanted a better life for you too," he admits softly.

Her head snaps towards him. Half surprise and half some other emotion he can't name, unhidden, before it's shuffled away behind a mask. Reyza could accuse him all she wanted about using that helmet to unfair advantage, but Din often felt it was her that had all her features trained into the perfect wall. He wants to remind her that they're partners, her very own words. She didn't need to hide anything from him.

He hears her shuffle in her seat, unfurling. Even though he doesn't look, he feels the weight of her full gaze on him, the determination of how she holds the armrest to turn towards him.

"You remember when you asked me to tell you what was bothering me? Before Corellia?"

He nods.

"I never really told you. Not honestly, at least."

Din shakes his head, smiling softly. No, she didn't, but he didn't really have the heart to care anymore, so long as she forgave him. Still, he's touched by her insistence to tell him now.

"Well, do you- " her gaze falls to the floor and back to him, " -wanna hear? How I really got to the guild and everything?"

Din switches the Crest onto autopilot, and turns his chair towards her.

"During the war, Polaris was a neutral entity. It's not easy for spies to choose sides," she says lightly, a sad smile crawling up one side of her lips. Din tilts his head. This wasn't where he had expected her to start her story. "But our leadership at the time came to a decision pretty quick when the Empire started getting greedy. They wanted us to either swear complete and total allegiance to them, or die. So we did the only thing we could and swore allegiance, which is probably why most people seem to think we merged with the Empire and ended with them. The truth is that that was all a front. A play for freedom."

It makes well enough sense. And Din suddenly realizes he's being made privy to a truth that few in the galaxy knew. He sits up a little straighter and nods to acknowledge her words.

"We were working with the New Republic, trying to weaken the Empire enough that it wouldn't be able to make good on its threat. But we were found out, somehow, and they started killing us. All the Empire contacts, just gone." She gestures with her hand, pinching it shut and releasing into an open palm. Gone. Nothing. Just air in the palm of the Empire's hand.

Din recalls faintly the fear in her eyes when she'd collected the puck, her attempt to clue him in on why she was afraid. The Empire. She'd been saying it all along. They hurt me before, you're letting them hurt me again.

"Some of us trained as assassins survived by running away or killing for the Empire, but that doesn't mean all of us did. Mando, I've never seen anything like it." She leans forward to grab his hand. "They wiped us out. All our leadership, all espionage agents, even the ones no one could have possibly known about. Entire constellations just erased."

"Constellations," Din says, testing the word. "Constellations, as in coverts?"

She blinks in surprise.

"I- yes, I suppose so."

"Is that why... you were upset on Sorgan? When we found the walker?"

She'd hardly spoken to Din on that backwater planet, even refusing to share a hut with him and choosing to sleep in the forest. Something about keeping watch for hunters. He feels like hitting himself on his head on his own helmet. Of course something had been wrong. Everything had changed after that discovery.

Reyza doesn't tell him that it was that; and the kind, genuine woman she'd seen Din lost in conversation with a few times. Instead, she nods her head slowly.

"It's why I begged you not to take him back, Mando," she says softly.

"I would've kept you out of it, if they'd caught me. I would never- "

"It's not about that!" she cries, interjecting. She paces from her seat and with a wave of her hand, dismisses the thought. "It's just... I finally have this, you know?" she opens her arms to take in the whole of the ship. "When you went back for him, you were going up against the same people I've seen kill mine, and you didn't listen."

Din's stomach plummets and he stands, reaching for her arms, but she swats him away.

"You didn't listen," she says again, this time the tears pooling at the edge of her eye. Din clenches his jaw.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs, lifting a gloved finger to catch the tear.

The Razor Crest hums gently beneath them, as their foreheads meet, eyes closed. He doesn't remember the last time he's really stopped to listen to their ship, the low groans and the constant bips. It's steady and faithful and Din is grateful. How many times had he bustled past all the signs and warnings and messages she'd left for him here? All the clues and hints she'd press into his hand, and plead with him to heed.

He lifts his head.

"I'm listening," he promises.

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thanks for reading!

[sroop]

guided (v)

You're not strong enough alone. How could he be? They'd crushed an entire galaxy of them, what was one lone star?

A/N: warnings for death, violence, and some #brooding! also takes place in episode 3 of season 1, towards the end of it. also, i'm not sure about the pacing of this chapter. i feel like this whole thing moves a bit too slowly, but let me know if you have any thoughts

Summary: Din chose to trust Reyza a long time ago, and today, she chooses to return the favor.

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Maker curse that blasted, stubborn, good-for-nothing hunk of beskar Reyza called a partner. Because what had she done but warn him from the very beginning?

Don't get attached, when he'd killed the droid for threatening the bounty. But that she'd written off as needing the full beskar reward.

This doesn't mean anything, when he'd cradled the child too closely after it had saved their lives from the rampaging Mudhorn. But she'd thought that was only natural, too.

Don't cause any trouble, when he'd stopped her from taking the child back to the Imperials. Pleading with her with nothing but the gentle resoluteness only he could express with total and complete silence. It hadn't mattered what she'd said, his entire being an unmovable wall.

It hadn't occurred to her in the moment to tell him why she didn't want him to go. Why she needed him to stay. She didn't know how to tell him that she'd had a creed once, a constellation to belong to, a family of fellow stars. She didn't know how to tell him that the Empire had finished them off, with so little struggle and so much blood. She didn't know how to tell him that if he did this, then he was letting them take the last thing she had.

So Reyza just said, you're not strong enough alone.

How could he be? They'd crushed an entire galaxy of them, what was one lone star?

He was playing with fire hot enough to melt the armor off his back, even if he didn't think so. And ever since Karga had hailed Reyza promising great rewards and high standing in the guild, a career of her own without Din as her mentor, in return for turning him in with the child, she'd been pacing back and forth and back and forth in the hull of the Crest. This couldn't be happening. Not again.

Bring him back, convince him to let the child go.

And if he refuses?

Bring him back anyway.

Karga was generally a cheerful man, charming and diplomatic. So the iciness he'd said those words with and left a hard knot in her stomach. Reyza tries not to recall all the times Mando had saved her life. She tries not to feel understanding for why he'd run off alone to take the child back. But she can't.

In the one year she'd known him, he had been a pillar of trustworthiness and dedication. Sometimes, she thinks he even pulls off being an honorable bounty hunter, if such a thing existed. He loved his people and his religion, and sometimes, in his own way, even her. That was the kind of loyalty he'd offered her. The kind where he'd put himself in front of a charging blurg, or let her pilot his precious ship, or give her her own pucks when she was only an apprentice. That unwavering, steadfast protection that whispered I trust you.

The sound of blasters being fired shakes her from her thoughts, and with a jolt, she realizes her decision has been made without so much a choice. Her allegiance would ever be to that Mandalorian.

As she steps off the ship and into the fray, she thinks to herself, if not for him, or the child, then for me. For my brothers and sisters.

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His eyes are big and black and so damningly reflective, Din can't really look away. He sees, in those eyes, every inch of the Mandalorian he should be, shining in beskar. And it was partly the armor that had driven him to do this. Because how could he wear a full set of beskar, knowing that the only reason he'd gotten the metal in the first place was by failing his duty to protect a foundling. The baby gurgles, and Din holds him closer to his chest and the speeder bike he was taking cover behind.

He hears some of the mercenaries and hunters shouting every once in a while. For what exactly, he's not sure; but when he dares to lift his helmet slightly to survey the situation, he swears there are fewer people attacking him than he'd first counted.

And then someone from the rooftops, a would-be sniper, flails over him and lands on the bike. Dead. Din turns in time to see Reyza's figure disappear back into shadows.

She's here. It's a breathless thought, especially the one that follows it. She's for me.

Din sets the child down and begins shooting back. Her words are echoing in his mind, not strong enough alone, and he feels the implication of it afresh. He's not alone. Not if she joined him. Din's hopelessly outnumbered, but if he could draw fire and attention for long enough, then they wouldn't notice the silhouette darting from rooftop to ground to behind them. Once she shaved down enough of their numbers, he could take it from there.

Soon his blaster fire is rarely returned, the survivors flee, and it's just Karga, the child, and him. He wants to look around for Reyza, but he knows better. He couldn't find her even if he tried.

"Now let's think this through, Mando," Karga says lowly. "You know I've got more men coming, and it doesn't matter how many you or Reyza picks off. There will always be more."

"I know," Din replies lamely.

And yet, he can't find it in himself to really care. He's been a wanted man for decades now, having taken bounties that made him more rich in enemies than credits as a young man. But his thoughts turn to Reyza again. She is young, talented, and has a whole life ahead of her free of any Creed. If he did this, it was going to become an ugly black hole that sucked every bit of his life into. Including her.

He's too far gone, but maybe she could still change her mind.

Reyza doesn't let him make that choice for her and slips behind Karga, star in hand. It pierces the soft, unsuspecting skin of his neck without resistance and he crumples, falling into her arms. As he gasps for air, eyes wide, drinking in the face of betrayal, Reyza slides him to the ground. Sorry, and yet, unremorseful.

"Sleep well," she whispers, before looking up at the Mandalorian.

"Take the child, and go."

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[sroop]

guided (iv)

It's bad news when someone wielding a weapon capable of downing blurgs takes a dislike to your profession. She touches her blaster, but Mando settles a hand over hers.

A/N: warning for a smidgen of violence. also i'm having lots of fun writing for this little series, even if the show itself is already in its third season and i'm starting from the beginning. i'm not sure how far this'll go, but regardless of where i end it, i'll try to come up with some sort of ending that's as plausible and neat as possible.

Summary: They're tumbling head first down a path Reyza has been down before, except she sees it too slowly.

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Reyza can practically hear him dragging his feet, trailing a reluctant distance behind her in the alley. She turns, hand on hip, with her brow raised and Mando stops. She rolls her eyes.

"You know you don't have to come if you'd rather not, right?"

Din gestures lazily for her to keep walking, and pretends not to hear the chuckle Reyza stifles. Truth be told, he didn't want to come. He didn't like direct commissions, no matter how high the reward. But Reyza had wanted to prove herself, and he didn't feel like denying her when he'd just gotten back in her good graces. Besides, she was right. The Razor Crest needed the repairs badly, and repairs needed credits. He watches her slip behind a metal door from a distance, calling out an I'll be back soon behind her.

By the time she's out, there's something furtive in her eyes and Din gulps when he realizes it's fear. He clasps her shoulders.

"What's wrong?" he demands, harsher than he intended.

She doesn't answer, so he shakes her a little.

"Tell me. What do you need? What happened?"

"I-" the words go sour as they leave Reyza's mouth, so she clamps it shut in a thin line and pulls her side closely to Din's. "Not here. Let's get back to the ship." Din is not, and has never been, the type to tolerate it when Reyza tries to dodge a question; but when she slips something cool and rectangular in his hands, his breath catches.

Beskar.

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Reyza sees it too late. By the time she can even think to scream his name, he was flailing in the blurg's mouth, setting the air next to it on fire too late, too slow. She sprints from the ship, her blaster already in hand, but she already knows. They're too big, their skin too thick. It didn't matter if she shot it, she was just wasting her time.

Din is shouting at her. Unintelligible grunts that she assumes translates to something like do something you stupid, useless girl! So she gouges her thumbs into the eyes of the beast, and it begins screaming too.

The three of them tumble into the dust.

"Reyza, run!" Din shouts, but she doesn't and instead stands to face the beast again. Except something whistles past her shoulder, nearly shearing a few strands of her hair with it, and it's all over. The blurg is on the ground, mouth still wrapped around Din's vambrace, twitching with blue electricity.

Reyza runs to Din, clutching him.

"Mando!"she breathes.

He's panting and shaking and ultimately fine, but Reyza holds him anyway, and chants his name the same way he'd done hers yesterday. She's staring at him, wide eyed with disbelief, and he stares back. He wants to tell her that they're ok, but then he notices another blurg and drags her behind him.

"You are a bounty hunter."

Their eyes travel upwards of the blurg, past the saddle they both hadn't noticed, to the eyes of an Ugnaught. Gruff, well on in age, and very much their savior.

"Yes," Mando replies, the uncertainty laced behind it filtered out by his modulator. Reyza tenses too. Generally, she thinks, it's bad news when someone wielding a weapon capable of downing blurgs takes a dislike to your profession. She touches her blaster, but Mando settles a hand over hers.

What she doesn't expect is the Ugnaught to offer help, and Reyza turns to Din in surprise.

She has her head over his shoulder, pressed between him and the sleeping blurg, with his arm wrapped around her shooting one.

"Are you alright?" she whispers. Din doesn't answer at first. He's looking at where she's hovering over his new pauldron and fighting the urge to tell her she looks pretty laid over his beskar. He bites his cheek hard, and nods once.

Reyza grins fiercely, clapping his back gently but playfully.

"Then let's go, tin head."

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Din's world is teetering to and fro on the blurg and the way Reyza titters with the Ugnaught behind her hand is not helping. He tumbles from the mount and stomps to them from behind the fence, pointing an accusing finger.

"We don't have time for this. Stop your giggling and find a speeder bike we can hire," he growls.

The Ugnaught, Kuiil, interjects with surprising strength.

"There is no way to the encampment without a blurg mount." He gestures to Reyza. "Surely if your mate can master a blurg, you can as well."

"He's not-" Reyza stumbles over her words, desperately wishing she could see what Din's face looked like. "We're just... we're partners." She realizes with reddening cheeks that the word is too easily a synonym for mate. Kuiil, for the most part, has already moved on from that part of the conversation though, and is rattling on about mandalorians and mythosaurs.

Din turns back to the blurg, if only so he can avoid Reyza's gaze.

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Men.

Reyza flits through the garage, searching for the bounty, as Din and the IG unit barrage the door with round after round from the cannon. If they'd bothered to even scan the area before shooting, they'd have noticed the hatch above, in the ceiling. With a wry smile, Reyza recalls the many times Din had accused her of not having enough firepower to get things done.

A fair accusation, sometimes. She carried only a blaster at her hip and was armed elsewise with the signature poison needles of Polaris. She carried the eight-pointed stars, each leg containing poisons of various uses or viruses for droids, all along her body. Where exactly she kept them, or restocked them, was a secret even to Din. Just as where he'd gone to make a pauldron out of beskar was a secret to her. Reyza supposed that was just how it was going to be. To trust each other only as far as you can trust an outsider. The thought leaves her a little stilted. 

That and the fact that Din had squeezed an answer from her before leaving Kuiil.

When you went inside for the puck, what happened?

She'd paused, and he'd pressed. God curse that impenetrable shield of a helmet he gets to hide behind. It always gets to her.

The bounty is Imperial. It just... reminded me of things, but it's fine, Mando. I promise.

The door falls to the ground with a thundering crash and she hides.

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as always, thanks for reading and any feedback is appreciated!

[sroop]

guided (iii)

Reyza turns back to him to listen. Briefly, though she couldn't see it, they smile at each other.

A/N: also a little warning for death and violence, and also a little heads up that I started this assuming it would be a one chapter sort of done deal, but it's grown from there. The next bit will start in season 1 of the show

Summary: Din wants to believe in her. He does believe in her. Sometimes, it feels like it goes a little beyond faith.

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Din made her freeze the body in carbonite, and Reyza imagines he'd done it so he could watch for a reaction, scanning for clues as to why she'd acted so uncharacteristically. Reyza knows she acted uncharacteristically. She also knows that Din knows she acted uncharacteristically. But the truth is hard to admit to herself, much less out loud to that towering metal man. When she imagines herself staring him in the eye, explaining that, yes, her emotions really did get the best of her like he said they would, her mouth clamps shut.

She wonders if that would be any easier than telling him why she'd done it. More accurately, why she couldn't stop herself. There's no fast, painless way of saying that man pushed children so hard they died and the rest of the survivors and I spent the rest of our lives under his sorry thumb, so sorry you had to shoot him to pieces.

Reyza bit her cheek hard to stop the flood of memories. Just in time, because Din comes into the cockpit and sits in the pilot's seat heavily.

"You failed."

Reyza can't find it in herself to refute him, so she nods.

"Yes."

"I warned you about this."

"I know."

Gods, he was really making it hard for her. The explanation claws at her throat, begging to be heard, but she already knows that she'd sound like nothing more than a small child making excuses. She needed - wanted - to prove she was more than that.

"We've lost time and money because we don't get paid for a dead body."

This is maybe the most challenging issue. Without the credits, they were running on nearly bone-dry funds, and the Razor Crest needed repairs for damages done by a ravinak while grabbing some bounty on a frosty planet she hadn't bothered to commit to memory. It really was all her fault.

"I'll earn it back. I'll ask Karga for extra pucks, even direct commissions," she says as coolly as possible. Din grunts.

For a while, the flight back to Nevarro is silent and tense. Din is growing tired of it being so kriffing uncomfortable between the two of them, from days before when Reyza had chosen this cursed bounty to now, on the trek back. So he leans back in his chair and offers her an olive branch.

"What was it about this one? You know better," he begins. Even before, when they'd been on Nevarro to collect pucks, he'd noticed the way she'd balked seeing this one. And then the way she'd snatched it before Din could even consider it. It had always meant something to her. He sees Reyza forming the words in her head, trying to work out how exactly she should answer. Silently, he turns to the systems information display to give her the privacy of thinking.

When she does answer, it sounds careful. Like she's navigating her way around land mines.

"He was Polaris. One of the... handlers for newer agents." She clears her throat. "When you join the society, you start off in a group of kids and you change handlers, until you reach their standard. Sometimes, the kids don't survive but by then they're like family to you." Reyza tries to stop herself, but the word family is out there now and it's as though it had held hands with all the other words she was trying to hold back, pulling them out without her permission.

"We grew up together, we were all we had, and it was like he wanted us to suffer. I used to think that maybe he enjoyed being the reason why we..." Reyza shakes her head and shrugs. "By the end of it, three of our ten lived. We got our stars."

Din turns to watch her thumb at her necklace.

"Where are they now?"

"Dead. We're all dead. The people still out there aren't Polaris, not really at least. It's just lost pieces of the star now."

Din wants to ask how they'd died, but he knows he shouldn't.

It strikes him how similar the two of them are. Taken as young children, raised to fight in wars, belonging to weakened factions barely a shade of their former strength, and now bounty hunters. The truth was that she was never really his apprentice. She never needed to be. On paper, in one of Karga's neat little datapad files, that's what it says; but it was really just a cover for his fear. I've got fresh blood, Mando, but this one's tricky. I don't know if I can trust her.

So he'd taken her on, if only to help a friend feel things out. In the past year they'd been traveling together, she'd been a worthy ally. She could do things Din just couldn't, in his heavy armor and heavier weapons, like scaling walls that he's sure has no handholds or slipping in and out of view without so much as a trace. He knows it's not magic, but sometimes he swears it is. How else does she disappear? Gone even to the tracking lens he has beneath his helm. Din was reluctant to admit it, but Reyza was also good company to be in. Bounty hunting could be burdensome, and she was competent and even kind sometimes.

He looks at her again, once more curled in her seat and tilted away from him. He wants to ask how old she is exactly, and when her birthday is. Instead, he settles for this.

"Foundlings are raised in coverts. We have groups of kids around the same age too, and you start training with..."

Reyza turns back to him to listen. Briefly, though she couldn't see it, they smile at each other.

The streaks of passing stars in hyperspace light the dim space the Crest cradles them in, and when Nevarro lurches into view, Din resists turning back to look at her again. Reyza is quiet, and finally, it feels warm.

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[sroop]

guided (ii)

If he wanted to fight for it, then they would, she promised.

A/N: just a warning for violence and murder

Summary: Some lessons are best learned first hand, and Din isn't quite as fast as he needs to be to stop Reyza.

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Hitting atmosphere is rough, and Corellia welcomes Reyza and Din into her skies with jostling and high, whistling winds. Reyza doesn't mind the fight. The adrenaline helps the leaden dread slip from her joints and forces unpleasant memories away.

The landing goes much smoother anyway.

Shivering with anticipation, Reyza reworks her grip around the tracking fob and regrets it instantaneously when Din tries to snatch it from her loosened grasp. She makes a noise of indignation and jumps to her feet, pushing away his reach for the fob again. If he wanted to fight for it, then they would, she promised.

The fiery upset in her chest propels her away, below deck, and Din wonders how she'd gotten away so quickly in a cockpit that hardly left her any room when he was already in it. He growls and chases after her.

He's expecting her to be pressed at the back of the ship, where the ramp is, so he's caught unawares when she launches herself at him straight off the ladder. A tangle of limbs and gnashed teeth, they tussle against the wall. If Din didn't know her so well, he would've rolled straight into her trap: the empty carbonite chamber. If she could have looked through his helmet, she would have seen his lips quirk in a wry smile.

Still, he does know her, and he twists out of her grasp just in time to make her victim to her own plan. Reyza stomps, surprised to find herself in the metal box, and puts her hands around the wrist at her shoulder.

"I told you everything," she says through labored breaths. There's frustration and impatience in her expression, but what makes Din let her go is the sheer confusion in her eyes. He exhales lowly.

When he'd been her age, the exact number he didn't even know, coughing up any part of his past was practically akin to painting a target over his unarmored back. He bit his tongue. She'd told him, hadn't she? And he was shutting her down as though it wouldn't have mattered what she'd said hours ago. She must think it was some cruel game to make her squirm. The guilt settles in his gut badly. Still, feeling guilty over making her revisit unhappy times was better than feeling guilty while she lay dying if the hunt went sideways.

Din lets her squeeze his wrist angrily.

"What exactly did you want me to say, then?" she demands. Din doesn't have an answer for her.

"You're staying. Don't make this any harder." He reaches down and fishes the fob out of her pocket. Except it's not there and he jerks in surprise when she knocks his helmet with her raised fist.

"Dank farrik," he mutters, reeling not from pain but surprise. She slips from under his arm, already standing behind him with a smug smile and crossed arms. Din scowls. She must have hidden the fob before he'd come down. Clever, but annoying, and Din was running out of time.

Karga had given him the first fob, but there were other hunters doubtless on their trail already for the honor of the kill and high reward. He huffs impatiently, holding out his hand.

"Give it."

"Find it, then," she says nonchalantly, turning to head up the ladder. "If you don't need my help on the hunt, you won't need my help getting the fob."

Din groans quietly, hoping the modulator won't pick it up. He's losing patience quickly and she's being especially grating on his nerves.

"Reyza," he says, the half-hearted threat in his voice rumbling low.

She doesn't respond.

"Dank farrik!" Din barks, throwing his hands up from where they'd sat on his hips. "Fine. But stay close."

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As it turns out, that's impossible, because the moment Reyza catches sight of the target, she flies.

"No!" The word tears out of Din's throat of its own volition as he bounds after her, vision filled with the glare of the cold sun against the blaster being drawn from the hip of the quarry. He's not even watching her sail overhead, carried by a jump off the walls he'd never been able to wrap his head around. He's just running, aware of her shadow and the blaster and its trigger and the way Reyza jerks when it hits her.

His own whip cord is out before he really processes where he's going. Quarry on the ground, choking, and Din chants something unintelligible to himself.

Reyza, Reyza, Reyza.

Reyza, Reyza, Reyza.

Slowly, the world comes back into his consciousness. There are people screaming, shopkeepers fleeing from their merchandise, and the smell of burnt flesh in the air. Din looks ahead and sees the target slowly loosening the whip from his throat. His hand moves by itself. The quarry is missing the center of his face, and the smell of burnt flesh doubles.

"I'm fine," she hisses, swatting his hands away. "Just a graze."

Din checks and she's not necessarily wrong. It's hard to hit anything vital when your target is a moving object, much less a flying object headed in a straight arc for you. He thanks the gods that the target was nothing but human.

"It's not a graze, but it could be worse," he admits, shaking his head. "Put pressure on it while I get him."

Reyza doesn't meet his eyes, but nods and it's enough for now. Din has questions. He's even recovered enough to be a little angry. But now's not the time, so he gathers the body over his shoulder and drags her alongside him back to the Razor Crest.

She presses his arm gently and he tilts his helmet to meet her eyes. She's offering him the fob, and if the docility in the set of her expression was any sign, it was an apology too.

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thanks for reading, and any feedback is appreciated!

[sroop]

guided (i)

"This is my puck, so either we both go together, or you stay behind." It's her way of saying: kriff off.

Author's Note: always wondered about the Mandalorian with an apprentice and wanted to write a bit about what I think Din would try to be as a mentor. This is definitely not the most canon accurate and Grogu isn't mentioned

Summary: Bounty hunting is precarious, even more so when it becomes personal. Din is determined not to let his apprentice learn that the hard way.

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Reyza is a good listener. Which was inconvenient because Din was a good listener too, and that meant it was mostly just silence between the two of them.

Normally, Din enjoys the quiet. He's used to nothing but the hum of the engines, the rattling of the carbonite system, or the firm whoosh of atmosphere thrumming against the ship. Even the more talkative quarries he brings on board are quickly silenced. So it's not the quiet that unnerves him, just the fact that it's silent when someone living and breathing and certainly not encased in carbonite is within arm's reach.

Plus, Reyza's silence today seems... cool. Din has been privy to companionable silences before, even from Reyza, herself. Today, she's faraway somewhere, and he's not so sure if it was just as simple as an off day for her. He tips his helmet towards her, watching.

"We don't have to go."

"We do. We should."

Din frowns beneath his armor and glances at the navigation system. Only a few hours before they reach Corellia. From what he's gathered about Reyza, she was either born on Corellia, or spent some harrowing years on it. He's not entirely sure if she was anywhere near their destination, Coronet City, or if she had even seen it before; but he was willing to put down a hard bet that she had, judging from the begrudging determination in her voice. He sighs too quietly for the modulator to pick up.

"Run interference from the ship."

That has her snapping to attention, all the distance and distraction of the last few days crashing in the face of the present. Din can't see her face, but he can imagine she's livid.

"What?" she growls.

"Run interference from the ship. Nonnegotiable."

There's a cold pause as Reyza races to find the right words for the Mandalorian. He was treating her like she was a child, as though she hadn't saved his life on multiple occasions or survived on her own as a full-fledged assassin long before he had ever made himself known to her. And the word nonnegotiable ate at her ego and insecurities in a way she was reluctant to admit, even internally. She could take care of herself. She could take care of this bounty, even alone. Reyza ground her jaw.

"This is my puck, so either we both go together, or you stay behind." It's her way of saying: kriff off.

"I'm not staying behind, you don't have the firepower. I'm not taking you with me until you're honest about what's bothering you about this bounty. It's dangerous to be distracted," Din replies. His voice is level and Reyza resents his composure.

But he's right. She's not childish enough to deny that, and certainly not naive enough to believe that she was above the dangers of human emotion under pressure. She glances at him guiltily, feeling a little juvenile.

Maybe it was a good idea to stay on the ship and let Din handle this one himself. She wasn't exactly rearing to see the city again, or the people in it. But she also hated the idea of standing by on a mission so personal to her. Reyza was left a simple choice: confess, or stand by.

The words feel slow and heavy in her chest, crawling their way up her throat and complaining about it the whole way up. It was like vomiting, but worse.

"I wasn't born on Corellia, I know that's what Karga's file on me says. I was born somewhere else, don't know where, and I was abducted to Corellia when I was really small." She huffs through her nose and shrugs. "I was there until I escaped, and that's all. I went to Nevarro, started working for Karga-" she shrugs again, "- and you know what happens next."

Din mulls over the brief story. It contained the absolute minimum amount of information she could have given, but he knew what it was to want to forget.

"Coronet City?" he asks.

"Yeah."

He recalls briefly why he had taken Reyza on as his apprentice in the first place. It wasn't just Karga complaining that the Nevarro guild would have no reliable hunters once he decided to retire. It was the starburst sigil she wore on a silver chain around her neck.

He'd recognized it immediately as the mark of Polaris. In their heyday, before the Empire, they'd been a deadly force of assassins and spies. A network spanning galaxies, infiltrating and plucking fate strings so expertly that it was unclear where their influence started or ended. But somewhere along the way, their name faded and the work of their assassins dwindled and they became more myth than reality. Almost like the Mandalorians.

Except Din was willing to assume that the Mandalorians valued their foundlings and assets a little more dearly than whatever or whoever it was Reyza went through.

"Polaris?" he asked, a pitch quieter.

"Yeah," she answers, a beat slower.

Reyza's knees go to her face and she spends the rest of the flight curled to her right, away from Din and his pesky questions and unfortunate truths. Reyza wonders what this means. Was her answer acceptable enough for him to deem her not a threat to their mission? Was he waiting for more? Was she still stuck a passenger on her own bounty hunt? Leftover irritation scratches at the back of her neck and she bristles again. Stupid Mandalorian and his stupid, self-righteous moral high ground. She turns to glare at him.

"It's my puck," she declares again, though she's not quite sure to what end.

Din chuckles under his helmet. Gods, for someone more competent than most, she could be such a child.

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