#whole slide imaging market size

[mi-researchreports]

Whole Slide Imaging Market is poised to grow at a CAGR of 17.2 % by 2027. Factors driving the Whole Slide Imaging Market are increasing usage in drug discovery processes and technological advancements in whole slide imaging.

[anyawinget]

North America Whole Slide Imaging Market Scope, Status and Outlook 2022-2028

“The whole slide imaging market in North America is expected to grow from US$ 223.83 million in 2022 to US$ 615.72 million by 2028. It is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18.4% from 2022 to 2028.”

The North America Whole Slide Imaging Market forecast report analyses the present and future competitive scenario of the analytics industry. North America Whole Slide Imaging Market report offers an in-depth analysis of segments including top companies, products, applications, revenue, and regions. A number of topics including likewise market share, drivers, trends, and methods. This report additionally offers insights into the latest growth and trends. It encapsulates key aspects of the market, a with focus on leading key player’s areas that have witnessed the highest demand, leading regions, and applications.

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North America Whole Slide Imaging includes Market Analysis Report Top Companies:

3DHISTECH Ltd.                                

Hamamatsu Photonics K.K.

Indica Labs

Inspirata Inc.                                                                                

Leica Biosystems Nussloch GmbH (Danaher)      

Mikroscan Technologies, Inc.                                                    

Nikon Corporation

Olympus Corporation

Visiopharm A/S

Akoya Biosciences, Inc.

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

In this report, the market has been segmented on the basis of:

North America Whole Slide Imaging Market by Types:

Hardware

Software

Service

North America Whole Slide Imaging Market by Applications:

Telepathology

Immunohistochemistry

Hematopathology

Market Analysis and Insights: North America Whole Slide Imaging Market

North America Whole Slide Imaging Market report elaborates the market size, market characteristics, and market growth of the North America Whole Slide Imaging industry, and breaks down according to the type, application, and consumption space of North America Whole Slide Imaging. The report also conducted a PESTEL analysis of the industry to check the most influencing factors and entry barriers of the industry.

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Some of the key queries answered in this report:

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[pathologyucgconference]

Computational pathology: A look at its past and future.

Introduction of whole slide imaging

Pathologists use traditional brightfield microscopy to analyze glass slides as part of their work in histopathology, which has long been a crucial component of pathology. The digitalization of glass slides in pathology advanced much later than-radiology, where digital sensors are widely used, in digital transformation. A pathologist can study digitalized histologic glass slides from a distance on a computer screen.

Digital image analysis, which was laborious and potentially add bias, was mostly utilized by scholars and frequently restricted to individual fields of view. 

The use of classical image analysis methods on sparse, manually chosen regions of interest has given way to the state-of-the art in digital pathology today: methods that automatically process the full slide image. WSI has made this possible.

The market has seen the entry of numerous full slide scanners with brightfield and fluorescent capabilities While just two WSI devices have received regulatory approval for primary diagnosis in the United States, multiple WSI devices are marketed for clinical usage in the European Union. Presently, clinical diagnostics, including lab-developed tests and in vitro diagnostics, medication discovery, and fundamental and translational research all regularly use whole slide image processing approaches.

Machine learning-enhanced traditional image analysis

Localization, classification, and quantification of image objects are the three main measurement categories that make up traditional digital image analysis. This technique is iterative, wherein a few parameters are often manually adjusted, included into an algorithm, and frequently checked only on a certain area of the slide image. Aspects are adjusted till the algorithm performance satisfies pre-set analytical criteria if they fail a quality control assessment.

Due to advancements in deep learning, an approach that enables an algorithm to automatically uncover pertinent image elements that contribute to computervision tasks, the capabilities of ML have drastically increased in the previous ten years.

Image analysis and patient outcome

Researchers discovered very away that ML algorithms might be applied in creative ways that weren't restricted to the data found solely in the slide image. Multiple features in an image could be extracted using ML algorithms. The identification of things in a histology image, for instance, can be used to produce "histologic primitives" such nuclei, tumour cells, etc.

independent breast cancer prognosis information 

One step further is to train a deep learning algorithm in a way that allows for the automatic extraction of a huge number of image attributes, which can then be applied to images to predict patient outcomes. 

There is a trade-off: comprehending the predictions becomes more challenging the more picture features are employed and the more abstract they are (see our section on understanding algorithms).

implementation challenges and approaches for computational pathology

The majority of algorithms utilised in clinical practise now only do conventional image analysis of immunohistochemistry stains and do not make use of cutting-edge ML methods like deep learning.  In this part, we discuss various obstacles to using CPATH in clinical settings as well as potential solutions.

network constraints

Network bandwidth becomes a crucial factor for methods that involve either distant data storage or remote picture processing. Whole slide photos' enormous size could be a barrier to effective processing in settings with insufficient bandwidth. Several data transport considerations depend on how the network is implemented. The full file is needed in order to transfer the digital slide data from the entire slide scanner to its network storage location. 

The digital slide needs to be moved from its network storage location to the image analysis environment (which could be local).

10th World Digital Pathology & AI Summit on April 04-06, 2023 in Berlin, Germany

Thank You For Visit My Blog.

Mail: digipath@ucgconferences.com| info@utilitarianconferences.com

WhatsApp: +442033222718

Call: +12073070027

Reference Digital Pathology UCGConferences press releases and blogs

[manlyaustralia]

Much loved family home in one of Allambie's premier streets

[ken-research-market-research]

Landscape of the Global Whole Slide Imaging Market Outlook: Ken Research The Digital Pathology pursues to develop and fueled by the huge developments in the technology, software and cloud storage solutions.

[guyghoul]

I try to write the High Guardian Spice story by memory.

I spent a lot of time watching videos that critique High Guardian Spice.

To my embarrassment, I feel that all of those videos taught me the whole story of that series.

Curiously, I try.

A Red Oni, Blue Oni (not literally) duo f girls start hinking of their futures in the academy then immediately say goodbye to their family. They tag along a goat and some flying chest while riding a carriage pulled by a couple of shiny brown Chocobo Cramorant. They then go to a train... bu the Red Oni decides to just use a flying broom and struggles to fly to the next destination wi the Blue Oni. They also get on a room-sized carriage pulled by a surprisingly normal, semi-shiny horse while a musclegut orc with a too-small suit rides on the back of the carriage. One Jetix-styled animation later, they arrive near the place and take a tram. The Red Oni wonders about how small their own town looks. The place itself is a city surrounded by a circular stone wall and led by the academy on a hill.

The duo meets a lesbian couple that leads them to the duo's bedrooms by conjuring a magic door inside the house. One nightmare abou the Red Oni's mother leaving her later, she wakes up then opens the window in joy. One lesbian gives them cookies; the Onis eat quite a few.

The duo then leave to wn, go through a market with oddly unmoving people and past a literal giant. The Red Oni swings her sword and accidentally almost hurts a Green Ranger, who becomes understandably jerky towards the duo. The Green Ranger leaves, then the Red Oni finds ome ferret snake with a rather slick mane.

Red Oni: 'Maybe it's got rabies!'

Blue Oni: 'Do you... want... rabies?'

Th is the first episode.

Somewhere, they meet with a Yellow Dwarf that looks and acts pretty close to Lotte Jannson from Little Witch Academia. They pass a partially-painted photograph of a lamppost befor entering the academy whic has a livin gargoyle in charge of a clock. There, they mee three old women, one who is trying too hard in being a likable jerk. They get oriented where they meet a lot of mundane teachers and a very fanservicey incubus demon. There is a Coco LaBouche teacher who tricks her students into drinking a mutating potion, but Blue Oni makes an tidote that cures everybody, thus teaching others tha they should not jus trust anything without verification. The Coco LaBouche also had a Venus lamptrap that disintegrates a nezumi and almost rots a student's head (who reminds me of Diana Cavendish).

There is also a bored student wh only bothers with attending voiced by a bored actor wh only bothers with attending. He i surprisingly good wi the harp, though. Tw others are Snapdragon and this jerk girl. They have problems wi their initial weapons. A teacher swaps the weapons, which no longer give them trouble.

Th episod ends with a surprisingly cool-looking scene where students make promises of their future then have themselves projected on the middle of a blue-lit platform... though they are actually reciting the school vow.

After that, there is an episode where the students have to go through an obstacle course. A Yellow Lotte goes down a slide with a fellow classmate... while their animation of sliding is actually their still images liding around the screen while changing size. Some Prince Charmles student is rather stuck up and misogynistic, bu the Red Oni keeps defeating and humiliating him, whereas the Yellow Lotte 'accidentally' drops her hammer on his foot. The swapping teacher laughs along the High Guardian Spice team. Meanwhile, the jerk girl suddenly uses R-rated speech (whic happens on occasion) while inside a maze. She then meets up with Snapdragon, who solves a puzzle. Then...

Jerk girl: Only girls have feelings! #Killallmen!

Snapdragon: I am a boy. I am tired of being forced to live up to society's expectations of manliness!

Jerk girl: ...

Snapdragon: Here. I solved your puzzle.

In another episode, the jerk girl also talks about drawing... 'intimate anatomy' on her notebook.

Each student (and the Green Ranger) gets their own plots, too.

The Red Oni gets two: one has a couple of mammalian owl steal her locket. Both Onis chase the mammalian owls to a tree then look behind a wall secretly. The mammalian owl se the locket in a treasure pile then do a mating dance. Afterward, both Onis ge the locket. Inside, there is a picture of cheesecake... which is folded in a way that hides a phot of the Red Oni's family... including her Missing Mom. Another has her mess around wit her sword (actually her mother' sword) and accidentally drop the sword, whic has the knob a the hilt of the sword break. The Red On i sad. The Blue Oni gets the Red Oni to Professor Callaway, the self-insert, who instantly fixes the sword. The Red Oni finds an album that shows her mother and a female Professor Callaway. Professor Callaway is revealed to be transgender, explaining tha to the Red Oni. Th explanation itself is actually fine (if a little jammed in th episode), but, somehow, Professor Callaway needs to take a potion monthly that restores a spell that gives Professor Callaway a male body, this being connected to hormones that real-life transgender people take.

The Blue Oni ends up conflicted between old magic (which is the traditional, brews-and-spells, equivalent exchange magic) and new magic (which is just magic without any restrictions). Apparently, her parents did not want her learning new magic, bu the lesbians encourage the Blue Oni to use new magic, anyways. After all, 'your mom wasn't always so conservative'.

The Yellow Lotte aces her blacksmithing class in jus two lessons, hence the blacksmithing leader just sends her on a quest where she needs to find a hammer behind a portrait then dig a tunnel by herself. She also ends up in a conflict with how she needs to take care of her huge family before she decides to be both a student and a family caretaker.

The Green Ranger also gets two: she has to fight an infection that is affecting her land. The Blue Oni makes a brew that gets on a cat, which turns anthropomorphic (actually a cat head and tail on a rather buff human body). The cat suddenly runs away, takes an arrow, slashes at a tree, then jams an arrow there before the Green Ranger uses her arrows on the cat, which turns back to normal. Turns ou tha the arrows were the cure to the infection, which was inside the tree. Another has her need to contact her parents. Despite the aforementioned lesbians being able to conjure a door, the Green Ranger needs to summon a (rather neat-looking) demon before being able to communicate wi them, instead. The demon, naturally, betrays her. She and Yellow Lotte fight the demon until the demon is bound in a web.

Demon: Hey, I know that I betrayed you violently even though you just wanted to contact your parents, but maybe we can...

Green Ranger: LOL NOPE *kills the demon*

...yes, there is quite a bit of killing here. Aside from the nezumi and the demon...

The Yellow Lotte kills ome Parasect.

Professor Callaway, after talking about being transgender, tells a story abou the Red Oni's mother killing a rather cool-looking manticore.

The High Guardian Spice turn into mermaids, accidentally gruesomely harm a sea dragon, and the Red Oni feels forced to 'Mercy' Kill the sea dragon.

They also kill an octopus, which wound has this purple, oily flow... because the octopus was actually a ship that Professor Callaway constructed. The whole thing was a test.

A big episode starts with a black cat spying on High Guardian Spice... excep tha the cat is actually a human in a cat magical disguise. She then talks with an evil spirit. Meanwhile, the Green Ranger needs to find a vial of precious medicinal water. Soon, there is a costume festival. The Red Oni s in a dragon costume. Both onis have a fight out of no reason. The human who was in a cat disguise then hands flyers to High Guardian Spice. Meanwhile, the actual cat consciously uses the anthropotion on itself then goes to the festival. Some transphobe tries to flirt with a mermaid until he finds ou tha the mermaid i Snapdragon crossplaying. Naturally, the transphobe reacts in disgust. The human who was in a cat disguise lures the Red Oni into an alleyway before getting into a figh that was, to my surprise, nicely animated... despite the lack of magic. Meanwhile, the Green Ranger has found that healing water in a nearby cave then helps the Red Oni... bu the human who was in a cat disguise takes then deliberately spills the water. The Green Ranger is distraught, and the Red Oni comforts the Green Ranger... instead of just going back to the cave and getting more. The Blue Oni, the Yellow Lotte, and the anthro cat probably helped ou the Red Oni, since the Onis apologise to each other later in th episode.

Human who was in a cat disguise: I am sorry. I am a good gal now.

High Guardian Spice: Okay; I believe you.

By the by, the Red Oni meets the lesbians with Professor Callaway. One of the lesbians is crossplaying a magician whereas the other lesbian and Professor Callaway are in rabbit dress.

Red Oni: 'So, how did you guys and Professor Bunny know each other?'

Professor Callaway: 'Oh, we uh... uhm...'

Magician Lesbian: 'We go to the same parties...'

...the lesbians and Professor Callaway are in a polycule.

High Guardian Spice decide to just go to the cave and get more. They manage to do so, though they end up reviving then riding a dragon... that flies to the air, ages rapidly, then disintegrates in fireworks. Even they are confused.

After the festival, the transphobe mock Spandragon crossplaying. Snapdragon then... 'snaps', beating up the transphobe.

(I just noticed tha the transphobe has dark skin. I am surprised tha this cartoon is actually making a dark-skinned person a bad guy.)

A this, Snapdragon vents to Professor Callaway.

Professor Callaway: Feel free to crossdress if that helps you feel good. You do not need to bend to the gender expectations of bullies.

Snapdragon: That is not jus that. I dislike how 'manly' my body is because my father and brother abused me because I was not 'manly' enough. I do not wan to be the same they are. Professor Callaway: There are many solutions to this problem, but I say that you might be transgender.

Spoiler: Snapdragon really is transgender.

That means that, according to thi series, the only reason why Snapdragon, a boy, has feelings is because Snapdragon is actually a girl.

(Somehow, despite Professor Callaway needing to take a potion every month, the cat can stay anthropomorphic forever, apparently.)

There is another episode where the goat mascot gets cloned and floats in the air.

There is another episode where some psychopath firs transforms into the Red Oni's mother... bu th is a trick. The psychopa then turns into then beats u Professor Callaway before transforming into his true form again. The Red Oni eventually defeats the psychopath... non-fatally, this time. Apparently, this caused a fire... which brought mundane firefighters using hoses instead of water magic.

Also, there is a stock photograph of bread pasted on the table somewhere.

The programm ends with both Onis, the Yellow Lotte, the Green Ranger, and mayb even the human in a cat disguise forming wha they are now formally calling 'High Guardian Spice'... even though I just remembered while typing this tha they are all named after herbs: 'Rosemary' (the Red Oni), 'Sage' (the Blue Oni), 'Parsley' (the Yellow Lotte), and 'Basil' (the Green Ranger). The human who was in a cat disguise also apparently does not have a name that is a spice or a herb.

Th ending has the Red Oni's mother actually not dead... but serving some obscure council of evil. Th is obviously going to be resolved in the next season... had not High Guardian Spice been pretty much cancelled due to its terrible reception.

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (78) || atz

You haven’t left the infirmary for a whole day.

“Ahhhh!” You shriek into your pillow for the fiftieth-something time that day, burying your face in the soft down, fingers winding into the sheets. “Ahhh!”

There’s an amused chuckle from somewhere in the room, and soft footsteps draw closer. The mattress of your bed sinks lightly from the added weight before a hand comes to rest on your head, gentle and comforting.

“What’s going on with you?” San’s light voice is full of amusement, and you peek out from under the covers to see your master sitting cross legged on your bed, teasing smile on his face. “You’ve been holed up in here for a whole day now. Don’t you think that you should go explore the town a bit before the Treasure leaves Tortuga? Did something go wrong when you tried to give Hongjoong the jacket?”

Instantly, your mouth twists into a pout and you bury your face into the pillow once more with a tiny, muffled scream. Your cheeks burn, and the image of Hongjoong looking at you with such tenderness in his eyes resurfaces at your master’s mention only serves to addle your mind further.

“Please shut up for a second, master.” You groan into the pillow, refusing to look up. San snickers, but then in the next second he gasps. “Wait, didn’t you mean to give him that handmade jacket? Did he reject it? I’ll beat up the ungrateful little bastard, why he-”

“No, no, master!” You catch his arm before he can march out of the infirmary. “He didn’t reject it, I did give it to him and he accepted it. It’s just that...” you hesitate for a moment, the words rolling about in your mouth. “It’s just that, well, captain... he...”

San stares back at you, unblinking. “He...?”

You bury your face in your hands. For some reason, the tips of your ears feel like they’re on fire. You try to speak, and the words come out a mangled mess - almost as bad as Mingi’s attempts at cooking.

“Words.” San encourages. “You know, with consonants and vowels. Using the mouth might be helpful.”

You make an unintelligible noise and launch your pillow in his direction. There’s a satisfying “oompf”, but the downside is that you’ve lost your only shield between the two of you.

San grins. “So?”

“Well,” you pause, trying to find words more eloquent within your choices and resulting with none. “He... confessed.”

Good job, Chin Hae! Your inner self cheers, full of pride. That’s was a full sentence!

Your master stills for a moment, pulling the pillow off his head. The previously amused expression he was wearing on his face morphs into one of concern as he looks at you. “Oh. Oh.”

You’re stunned for a moment, staring at your master. “I would have expected you to be a little more surprised. Do you mean you actually knew about this?”

​San’s expression softens, eyes pained, before his fingers come up to poke you in the nose. “You’d be surprised how dense you can be sometimes, Chin Hae. That’s not good for you, you know.”

Your lips purse as you pick at the ends of the threads of your blanket. “What am I supposed to do, master? Wooyoung too, both of them... I rejected them both, but still... it hurts...”

There’s a soft exhale that leaves your master, that lingers in the air, still in the silence before he speaks. “Only you can decide that for yourself, Chin Hae.” When you look up at him, he puts his hand on your head with a painfully gentle smile. “I promised to do my best to help you find a cure, but I won’t give either of us false hope - there is every possibility you might die. Since this concerns you and the two of them, you have to make the choice yourself.”

You have to make the choice yourself.

You sigh and rub at your temples, trying to resolve the onset of a headache you can already feel coming. All this thinking hurts your head. “You know, I wish you weren’t right all the time, master.”

“We all want the impossible sometimes.” San shrugs easily, his usual smirk tinged with a hint of cheekiness. You turn a glare at him, but there’s no heat to it at all - how could you? Instead, San yanks you out of the bed and you follow, a tad unwillingly.

“What are you doing?”

“Let’s go get some herbs from town,” San suggests, pulling you along with him. “A good walk about time will clear your mind, and the Treasure will be leaving Tortuga soon.”

You sigh, reluctant, but follow.

What could possibly go wrong?

>>>

The trip to town starts off fine enough.

Wooyoung whines about not being to go with the two of you - you remind him about his ban from the town due to his little hostage attempt (‘it was only one teeny tiny hostage attempt,” he protests) and the two of you set off hand in hand, chattering brightly about what you’ll find in the marketplace.

And well, apparently the Fates had been listening, because they were determined to proved you wrong.

It’s barely ten minutes into the market that you’re completely lost.

You have no idea how you ended up in this situation - quite alone, separated from San in the middle of a bustling crowd in the marketplace. The sea of people surge around you like the push and pull of an unyielding tide, and the last thing you remember is San’s hand separating from yours after a man bumped into the two of you.

You’re not too worried, you’ve come here quite a few times, enough to be rather familiar with the place. As long as you find your way to the central town square, you’ll definitely be able to navigate your way through the back alleys back to the harbour with the town square as a reference point.

That is, until you hear something.

“The Treasure is leaving the harbour soon. We should move as soon as possible.” A low mutter reaches your ears as you step into a dark alley, and the second you hear those words, you flatten yourself against the wall in shock. That definitely doesn’t sound like any of crew, you know most of their voices well enough.

“But the Pirate King is the captain of that ship.” A nervous tremble in the voice of the man’s conversation partner. He sounds reluctant, and for a moment pride wells up in your chest at the reputation your captain holds. “We can’t just attack them! We’ll die!”

What?

They’re going to do what now?

“Listen, you coward,” the man practically growls, his voice a low rumble. You shiver lightly at that, and peek around the corner. To your horror, you see a hulking, burly man with rippling muscles, tan skin decorated with swirling black lines that spiral down his chest and across his forearms. He could easily crush you under his foot. “The big bosses in the inn right now are discussing plans, big ones. The second the Treasure leaves the harbour of Tortuga, ten different ships are going to hit it all at once with everything they’ve got. There’s no way they’ll escape.”

You clap a hand over your mouth and crouch behind the brick wall again. Heart racing in your chest and cold sweat sliding down your temples, you think carefully over what you’ve heard. All thoughts of escaping immediately flee your mind. Ten ships intending to attack the Treasure?

“Pirates don’t band together, the loot split amongst them won’t be big enough.” The other man mutters, although he seems slightly more reassured. “You’re intending on fighting one of the most terrifying ships to ever sail the waters of the Caribbean!”

“Are you an idiot, or do you just not know how much the Royal Navy is offering for this capture?” The man’s voice is near maniacal with the delirium of his excitement. “They’re offering enough wealth worth an entire Spanish treasure galleon as well as pardons signed by the Queen herself. We’ll be free men, all of us. All we need to do is take down one ship.”

“What? Sounds like a load of rotten shellfish to me.” The other man snorts derisively, and your knees tremble at their words. Such a reward would surely make the Treasure the target of most ships, if not all, in the waters. “What exactly does the Royal Navy want with the Treasure? They’ve been causing less trouble than they used to ages ago.”

You know what they want.

“Some woman with a wooden hand on board, called Chin Hae or something along those lines. There are drawings of her image circulating, so we know what she looks like.” The man says roughly, and your legs nearly give out beneath you. You’ve got to run, run, but your legs won’t move. Sucking in deep breaths, you urge strength into your legs as you clamber onto your knees.

Run, run, run!

“Hmm, I heard something over there.” You immediately clamp your mouth shut, nails digging so hard into your palm you feel blood slide down your skin. Don’t make a sound, you chant in your mind, don’t even think about breathing. “Huh. Musta’ just been a bird or a rat. These alleyways are filthy.”

“Hmph. Go check anyway, it might be a street urchin or something. If anyone finds out that we were talkin’ about the plans, we’re good as dead in a ditch.” The gruffer man mutters, and you hear grumbling and footsteps drawing closer to where you’re crouched.

Your heart practically stops beating in your chest. Your hand slides into your healer’s satchel, trembling. What do you do?

“See? Absolutely nothin’, it must have been just a-”

The man rounds the corner, and in that single, desperate second, you strike.

Pulling the largest round bottomed flash that you’d just bought from the apothecary with San earlier, you smash it over the man’s head with everything you’ve got.

The man lets out a tiny scream and shattered glass flies everywhere, your eyes lock. He stumbles back, bleeding from the forehead where you’d struck him, and grabs for you again.

“That’s the girl! The woman with the wooden hand! Get her, you fool!”

At the sound of his partner’s bellow, you gasp as you see him draw his sword. The size of it along could cleave you in half across the middle. When you whirl around to flee, the scrawnier man grabs you by the back of your tunic, terrifyingly strong. “I’m not letting you go!” He swears, and you react instantly, just as Jongho had taught you all those months ago.

You shove the remains of the broken glass bottle straight into one of his eyes with all your might, and the man screams in agony, curling up on the filthy ground as crimson blood gushes down his face. The same hot, sticky blood runs over your hand and between your fingers.

You don’t have time to worry about him. You run.

“Stop right there!” You hear him pounding on a wooden door behind you as you stumble, cursing your legs. Move! “Oi, we found the girl! Get your asses out here and get her!”

You dash down the alleyways. People, people, get to where there are lots of people! Your lungs burn, and you hear angry shouting of ‘where did she go’ at your back, the voices drawing closer every second. You’re not as used to the maze of alleyways as these people are, what do you do? What if you take a wrong turn and just end up running deeper into it?

You pause for a moment at a cross section, glancing about desperately as you heave for breath. Left, or right or-

Your eyes lock on something, up!

“Sorry, coming through,” you apologise as you shove past a townsmen as you race up the stairs to the rooftops. The man shrieks at your invasion of his house, but you barely hear him. Yes! Up here, you can see the way to the harbour without the walls of the alleys in the way!

Luckily for you, the houses here are clustered and cramped together, and you leap across the roofs with relative ease - nothing compared to toeing the wildly swinging masts in the middle of a storm.

The harbour!

Your knees nearly buckle as you land hard, but you don’t have the luxury to stop and think about the pain. Picking yourself up, you run with all your might, leaping across a gap between two alleys and hear some more shouting. “She’s up there! Get onto the roofs before she gets out of the alleys!”

There’s a whistle of something sharp slicing through the air, and instantly you throw up your hands to protect your face and your neck (‘better your hands that your life,’ Jongho had told you once grimly).

There’s a heavy thunk and you stumble back at the sheer force of the blade, eyes screwed shut as you wait for the agonizing pain to come. But it doesn’t.

To your surprise, when you pull your hands away from your face, you look down to see a blade embedded in your prosthetic hand, the wood nearly split in half. You make a little amused noise, unable to keep the laugh in, half crazed with adrenaline. That hand has really bad luck when it comes to knives, wooden or not, you think.

There’s the rattle of loose stones behind you, and you whirl around to see one of your pursuers already clambering onto the roof and your heart drops into your belly. Yanking the knife from your wooden hand, you send it sailing at the man and it misses his head. Instead, it strikes his hand and the man screams in pain to clutch at it, before realising he’s still climbing and falls to the cobbles below, taking his friends down with him.

“Don’t let her get away! She’s the key to us getting rich! She’s our treasure!” One of the men from below roar, and you balk at the words, disgust pooling in the pit of your stomach. Courage surges up in you out of nowhere. “The only one who gets to call me that is Captain, you bastards!”

You don’t have the patience to see if they’ve heard. You dive for the exit out of the alleyways and scramble along the shops at the docks, ducking and weaving around startled shopkeepers as you yank your hood over your head.

Can’t let them recognise you, you think frantically as you continue sprinting down the docks, chest heaving. Behind, you hear your pursuers roughly shoving the townspeople aside in their rush to get to you before you reach the Treasure. “Oi, stop right there! Stop running!”

“Do they seriously think I’ll listen to that?” You mutter under your breath, but for all your bravado, the voices are getting closer, and you’re almost dizzy with exhaustion. You look about frantically for somewhere to hide, but before you can, a hand wraps around your wrist and pulls you into a narrow alleyway behind a makeshift tent selling an assortment of mirrors, shrouded in darkness.

Thrashing, you struggle to get out of the man’s grip but it’s as firm as iron, and strangely gentle. Gentle as it may be though, you’re ready to bite your way out if need be until a mild, lilting voice touches your ears. “Hey, hey, you’re alright now. Those men are gone.”

You still, trembling. The man’s voice is soothing, but there’s something that grips your chest about it; it sounds familiar, but not quite. Unable to resist the urge, you look up to look at your saviour’s face.

A slender, handsome face, sharp nose and delicate features. But your eyes lock onto his eyes, mismatched ones, one a familiar, kind green and the other a dark, murky colour, the shade of dirty, brackish water.

Your heart drops into your chest, and instantly, every survival instinct in you screams at you to run, so loudly that your head nearly splits.

He looks like... he looks like...

He looks like your captain.

Recognition flickers across his face, and the kindness in his eyes disappear almost in the a blink. Instead, that kindness is replaced by something that looks like depraved hunger, and you feel like a prey being stared down by a predator.

Your survival instinct screams at you.

Run!

“I found you.” The man whispers, one hand coming up to touch your cheek and you recoil, heart beating unnaturally loudly in your chest. Your head feels like its about to split in half, strange, disembodied voices ringing in your skull, each louder than the other. “My treasure.”

“S-stay away from me.” You warn, one hand gripping your head as if you could physically prevent your mind from shattering. “Don’t move another inch!”

The man doesn’t seem able to hear you, taking a step closer. Power spills from him, so dark and thick it makes you gag, flinching backwards. Your back hits the wall. “I finally found you. With your power, I finally can-”

“I don’t have any power!” You shriek, trying to stay on your feet but the pain that wrecks your head threatens to bring you to your knees. There’s something growing there, too large for you to push back, as if you’re trying to hold back a storm wave with your bare hands. “I’m a normal human, just like everyone else! I just want to live a normal life!”

You are still part of the Treasure, part of my crew, one of my family. Even if you are a woman, a clay one, instead of a man of flesh, neither of those things change for me.

“Normal? No, you’re not.” The man takes another step closer, and the pain resounds throughout your entire body, so badly till your fingers are trembling. “Human? Something like you could never be. No matter how much you try, you can’t escape what you are.”

He regards you with a smile that seems almost surgical, and your heart plummets.

“You’re not even really alive.”

There’s the sound in the back of your head that sounds like tearing cloth, and your mind rents in half.

The last thing you see is a pair of vividly blue eyes in the gloom, rippling in almost liquid surface of a mirror, startlingly lifelike.

It takes a second for you to realise those are looking right back at you.

Thunder and lightning surges, wild tempests riding like wild horses bringing about the end of the word, and everything dissolves into chaos.The man from earlier seems to have vanished, of course he would, who would remain in this storm? The person in the mirror looks at you in the eye as the hurricane rages all about you. You stare, unable to move.

Who are you?

The howling of the wind and the icy blades of freezing rain don’t affect you in the least, but your limbs are leaden. The reflection in the mirror opens its mouth to speak.

They will come bearing a gift. Kill the man, and return. There is no running from me. Free us both, ****.

The one-eyed green boy smiles at you, and holds out his pinky finger.

I am you.

The storm screams overhead. Kill him, kill him, kill him, it chants.

You are me.

You crumple to your knees, and everything goes black.

Kill him.

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Fic -- And we are kind to snails

Gen, 3700 words. Story time on the Razor Crest! It was obviously way too early to introduce the kid to combat training, but there were other ways to prepare a child for the world, surely.

If that meant Din was occasionally stuck trying to imitate animal calls for the enjoyment and edification of a delighted and indefatigable one-person audience, so be it.

Can also be found here on AO3

--------------------------

Din had, he was slowly becoming aware, created a monster.

“Da-wah,” the baby announced, reaching his arms out to be picked up and dropping the holodisc next to him in Din’s lap once he was safely positioned.

“...oh,” Din said faintly, slumping back a little in the pilot’s chair as he kept the baby steady with one hand. “Again?”

The baby turned wide expectant eyes on him, and Din — who had in fact been planning to troubleshoot the concerning noise one of the engines had been making the last time they took off — sighed. Well, he supposed that would be easier to get done uninterrupted once the baby was asleep anyway.

“Right, again,” Din agreed, and went to activate the ship’s holoprojector on the dashboard before sliding the disc in for the second time that day.

The reading had been a bit of a shot in the dark. It was obviously way too early to introduce the kid to combat training and he may never be suited for it in a way Din would be able to teach him, even in maturity — and for all Din knew about the kid’s species that might not even be within his own lifetime, it didn’t seem worth holding his breath on this one. There were other ways to prepare a child for the world, though, surely. It was probably a bit on the premature side for engineering too, since the kid still had a marked tendency to put everything he could pick up into his mouth at least once, which ruled out most of Din’s own expertise.

He’d mulled it over for a few days until a half-buried memory of his parents reading to him had presented itself for consideration. He no longer recalled what exactly they’d read — only the feeling of sitting nestled between them, his mother’s fingers running through his hair, the way his father’s voice had taken on a specific cadence when he read aloud. That they would sometimes switch off doing the voices for the dialogue so it became almost like a real conversation.

It was… well. He still remembered some of it.

Recognizing in himself no great talent for acting Din had elected to aim for something more practical, at least to begin with. In the end he’d chosen something he hoped would be both suitable for a kid and something useful to teach him and gotten, among a few other things, a holodisc that included information on and pictures of a great variety of animals from around the galaxy. Despite the breezy assurances of some people who were born and raised in the tribe, Din suspected that there was such a thing as too early an age to be introduced to the bloodthirsty treatises of Mandalore the Conqueror.

As it turned out the kid had taken to the whole thing with so much gusto that getting him to go to bed without reading at least a little first was starting to become a minor diplomatic incident. It didn’t seem to matter so much what they actually looked at — Din sometimes wondered if he could have gotten away with reading the ship’s manual aloud every night and had the same entranced reception. But for that space of time every night and sometimes during the day, the kid was glued to Din’s lap and poured his full undivided attention into whatever was set before him, and filling that time with anything less than worthy of that attention felt unacceptable.

If that meant Din was occasionally stuck trying to imitate animal calls for the enjoyment and edification of a delighted and indefatigable one-person audience, so be it.

The holoprojector sprang sluggishly to life and the image flickered until Din leaned forward to give the dashboard a succinct and practiced thump. He really should open that up and take a proper look at it one of these days, it’d been acting up for years and the components were likely older than him. “There we go. Okay, then. What are we looking at today?”

In the flickering light of hyperspace illuminating the cockpit he squinted at the small hovering icons that served as previews for the full articles, looking for one that seemed interesting or failing that an old favorite. Before he could settle on something the kid leaned forward and pointed at one of the icons with an intent yelp, so Din opened that one and gave a surprised huff of laughter when the large four-legged bulk of the creature rose from the holoprojector, its horned head immediately familiar where it was lifted in a silent roar. He hadn’t realized the disc included extinct species. The kid glanced up at him, waiting for him to start the normal routine of saying the animal’s name.

“That’s a mythosaur,” Din said, unaccountably pleased the kid had zoomed right in on it. “Our people used to ride them, a long time ago.”

The kid made a long intrigued coo and reached out towards the hologram, moving his hand like he meant to stroke the mythosaur’s horned, ferocious head.

“Too bad they’re extinct or we could’ve gotten ourselves one,” Din said, genuinely a little wistful. “Wouldn’t that have been something?”

Apparently the kid got just enough of that to fix Din with a wide-eyed look, ears perking up in breathless expectation.

Regretful to burst his bubble Din was forced to clarify: “I don’t have one. They aren’t around anymore.”

After a moment’s pause the baby took this revelation with somber dignity, turning back to the mythosaur. “Bah-ta,” he intoned, waving his little hand at the hologram like he was bidding the creature a solemn farewell.

“You still got one here, though,” Din said, in the hopes of softening the blow, tugging gently on the mythosaur skull pendant the kid wore around his neck most waking hours. ”See how they’ve got the same horns?”

The baby grabbed the pendant and glanced down at it, then between it and the hologram a few times, before holding the pendant up for Din’s inspection with a triumphant happy cry.

“Yeah. We keep the important parts,” Din said, grinning a bit at the enthusiasm.

The baby absentmindedly stuck the pendant in his mouth, small toes wiggling in contentment as he turned back to the hologram, clearly awaiting what was next. Biting his lip Din added ‘toy mythosaur?’ to his inner list of things to look out for in markets when he went to resupply and then read off the sparse information the holodisc’s compilers had thought worthy of inclusion.

“Remind me to find a more exciting version of this for you one day,” Din said as he closed the article. “There’s gotta be some better stuff about them out there.”

The baby gave a garbled sound around the pendant, idly swinging his legs while Din picked a new article at random, coming up with something aquatic and vaguely frog-like from a planet covered almost entirely in shallow oceans. The kid’s eyes sparkled.

“I think you’ll find that’s a lunch buffet too big even for you, buddy,” Din told him, moving through the different pictures of the sort-of frogs flitting between corals and strange tentacle-like sea plants. “They’re at least twice your size and squirt poison. Which apparently has psychedelic effects for some species. Huh. Let’s definitely steer clear of that, then.”

Quite apart from anything else Din had no idea how much the baby’s inexplicable mind powers were controlled by conscious thought and how much was purely instinctual — Din already felt out of his depth enough as it was with this, he could only imagine with dread the results of any unforeseen variables. If Din had already wondered whether the kid could lift himself into the air as well as things around him, it was only a question of time before the baby’s inventive and ever-active brain came up with the same idea. Din tried to keep it out of his mind most of the time, outside of the involuntary planning for endless contingencies he engaged in when he couldn’t fall asleep at night. One particularly fevered evening he had, for a while, seriously considered padding the entire ceiling of the interior of the Razor Crest, just to be safe.

After the frogs were duly ‘ooh’ed and hungrily ‘aaah’d over they continued through a few types of bugs until Din used his veto by right of being the person in control of the holoprojector to get them over onto something else. He never knew the universe contained quite so many beetles or that they all looked basically the same. The Naboo guarlara got a raucous reception, though Din suspected this might have more to do with the fanciful and brightly coloured costumes of the royalty depicted riding on them than the animal itself.

Hm. Maybe hunting down a history book or two might be a good call, actually, and not just for the kid. Din had never had much of an interest in the subject himself — surely the world was bleak enough without going around dredging up the muds of ancient strife and suffering to cloud the waters even further. But these Jedi were currently the best lead he had on finding anyone like the baby out there, and if they had once been powerful enough to challenge a Mandalore… they had to have left tracks somewhere. He couldn’t imagine the Empire having tolerated information about formidable sorcerers, however ancient, being freely available, and sometimes knowledge faded surprisingly quickly if it was stamped out hard enough. Off the top of his head he was having a hard time coming up with anyone among his established contacts who might have an interest in banned literature on the side. People in his line of work did not tend towards bookishness, by and large. But then again they might have clients who did and who had the credits to back it up. It could be a useful trail to pursue, anyway, and less risky than trying to ask around about such a loaded subject in person.

What he’d do if he actually found these people was a bridge he’d have to cross — or burn behind him while fleeing blaster bolts, he could only wryly extrapolate from recent events — if he ever managed to get to it.

Still half-lost in thought Din switched to a new animal at the kid’s urging, then startled out of his distraction when the kid sat up straighter in his lap and gave a call of accusation and reproof that came straight from the depths of his little body.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” Din blinked at the hologram of the round-faced fuzzy creatures and tried to understand what was freaking the kid out about them.

“Eh!” the kid insisted, gesturing hotly at the hologram.

Realization finally dawned; Din had to push down a laugh. “Oh yeah, you had a little run-in with one of those on Sorgan, didn’t you. It’s called a Loth-cat, it’s a type of tooka. It’s not dangerous,” he added, chuckling a little despite himself when the small body in his lap remained rigid with outrage and resentment. He wrapped his arms more securely around the kid and stroked a calming hand over his side. “Some people keep them as pets.”

The kid still scowled distrustfully at the image of the Loth-cat like he found this very hard to believe, but burrowed closer against Din’s chest, tucking himself into the crook of his arm.

“See there,” Din said, pointing out the kittens cowering behind the bigger animal. “It has little ones to take care of. That’s why it’s hissing, it’s protecting them.”

Blinking slowly the kid seemed to consider this, his tiny hand wrapped around one of Din’s fingers. He gave a quizzical sound and looked up at Din, pointing at a kitten too.

“Uh-huh,” Din said. “It’s a baby. Like you.”

Softening slightly the kid lowered his hand again and tilted his head to one side.

“That’s the parent,” Din said, indicating the adult. “Buir. And they’re its children. Ade.”

He still couldn’t quite tell how much language the kid actually understood yet, but it felt like the right sort of thing to do, so he kept going.

“Together they’re a family. Aliit. I, uh. Don’t know if they really do clans, but it’s the same word.”

The kid gave a thoughtful sound and fumbled for a handhold on Din’s armor. Din gave him a squeeze, stroking his head when he butted his forehead against his palm to ask for it without taking his big dark eyes off the hologram.

“Every being gets scared and angry if its children are in danger,” Din said quietly, rocking the child gently on his lap. Since this one had sparked an interest, and to give the kid some time to get used to seeing the animal without fear, they read all the information provided, going through galactic prevalence, social structures, speculated planet of origin for the tooka, anatomy and behavioral patterns, history of domestication and hunting strategies. Din was almost sure most of it went right over the kid’s head, but the attentive tilt of his ears never wavered and he seemed to listen the whole way, even glancing questioningly up at Din when he fumbled a little in getting to the next page at one point and left a pause in the flow. Maybe the facts weren’t the most important part.

The last image of the article was of the Loth-cat asleep, its kittens tucked close all around it. Apparently reaching a place where he was ready to bury the hatchet and extend a gracious hand of peace the kid finally leaned forward and tried to pat the Loth-cat’s head like he’d done with the mythosaur, making a soothing sort of warbling sound.

“Yeah, we’re not gonna mess with its babies,” Din agreed. “It doesn’t need to be scared.”

“Nahwa-lah,” the baby babbled sagely, sitting back and leaning against Din’s side again.

“Well, while we’re on things you’ve already seen before...” Din did a quick search and found the large one-horned head he’d had the dubious pleasure of surveying from extremely up close several times.

The baby stilled in his arms, ears perking up.

“You remember this one too, huh. Guess it’d be hard to forget. Well, it’s called a mudhorn,” Din said. “In the capacity as your father, let me take the opportunity to advise you to learn from my mistakes and leave their eggs the hell alone. My vision still goes double sometimes if I turn my head too quickly.”

“Aaah,” the kid said, imperiously waving his hand in the way that meant he wanted the next page of the article, then let out a squeak when the next picture was a mudhorn contentedly grazing with its calf, plump and with a head nearly comically oversized, the horn only about the length of a human hand. The baby pointed to the calf, his excitement so radiant that Din had to smile.

“Yeah, that’s another baby. Actually...” Din knitted his brow as he scanned through the article until he found the section about anatomy and brought up a hologram of the mudhorn’s skull in profile. “Look familiar?”

The baby’s mouth turned into a little ‘o’ of surprise; he glanced up at Din, stretching up as far as he could to tentatively poke the edge of a shoulder pauldron.

“That’s right,” Din confirmed, twisting a little so the kid got a clearer view. “That’s our signet. Which you should rightfully get most of the honour for, honestly, I wasn’t doing so hot on my own.”

Running a three-fingered hand back and forth over the edge of the signet the baby babbled away, his free hand gesturing towards the hologram. Din nodded and ‘uh-huh’ed dutifully along until the kid’s story culminated in him throwing both his arms up with a shout and looking up at Din in a ‘can you believe it?’ sort of way.

“I did go flying a couple of times back there,” Din hazarded while sitting up straight again, and was rewarded with a firm nod. The kid chattered some more and patted Din’s breastplate as if in reassurance, pressing his small round cheek to the smooth metal and blinking cheerily up at him.

Din’s chest did some strange twisting things he didn’t quite understand.

“How could I be worried out there when I’ve got you watching my back, huh?” Din said thickly, cupping the back of the baby’s head in his hand and stroking his thumb along the downy crown of it, making his ears droop in contentment and his eyes slip closed as he craned into it.

Clearing his throat Din turned back to the hologram and indicated the bundle of nerves right behind the mudhorn’s jaw on the anatomy cross section. “Anyway, it went down so quickly because I managed to get it right here after you incapacitated it. Cut that connection and it’s lights out right away. Odd quirk of anatomy, but there you are. You’d do better to snipe it from a distance, though, under normal circumstances — if I didn’t have a set time I had to be back with the egg it probably would have been smarter to lie in wait until it emerged from the cave on its own, shoot it before it even knew we were there. Even tossing a few grenades into the cave would be a better choice than taking it on up close, if you don’t have to worry about the state of the egg. I’m sorry, I realize it is probably a bit on the early side for tactical reviews for you,” he added apologetically, as the baby blinked at him in what looked like well-meaning and attentive incomprehension. “...I’m not very used to having conversations about anything else. I’ll work on it.”

Thankfully the kid was already a far smoother conversationalist than Din and simply tugged on Din’s hand insistently until they could go back to the mudhorn calf, squealing happily as he spotted it again, so Din rather assumed he was forgiven.

The next animal was another bug, so Din quickly skipped it while the kid looked the other way. They detoured through the squills of Tatooine, who despite being largely composed of leathery skin, teeth, aggression and generalized malice got a much friendlier initial greeting than the small fuzzy Loth-cat had. Go figure.

Then they reached one that made Din trail off mid-sentence and grow quiet.    

The creature itself was something small and pointy-faced and furry that lived in the high mountains of Alderaan — or at least it had, before, well. There was a twinge of something he couldn’t place in his gut; he’d heard about it, of course, since he hadn’t been actively living under a rock at the time and the destruction of an entire world is the sort of thing that fights itself to the front of people’s minds no matter where you go. It had seemed nearly absurd, though, hard to really imagine, enough so that he hadn’t thought much about it one way or another until he’d seen the look on Cara’s face when she heard the name of her homeplanet spoken by the wraith-like shade of the empire that destroyed it. She had looked the way Din felt hearing ’Mandalore’ from Gideon’s mouth.  

This holodisc must have been put together a while ago. The creature wasn’t marked down as extinct yet.

Din glanced down at the kid, who was already looking up at him, getting a bit heavy-eyed but otherwise perfectly cheerful, not seeming to suspect anything was amiss. A collection of memories stirred in the depths of Din’s mind, though mercifully vague and transient — something about the beginning of the war, his parents’ voices, low and worried, conferring in the kitchen when they thought he’d fallen asleep, the slight brittleness to his father’s smile when he called him home from play in the evenings, just a bit earlier than he would have before. He wondered now if they’d been planning to leave or if they had surmised, probably correctly, that there would be nowhere truly safe to go and that the only thing they could do was to shield him from the worst of the fear.

He’d been frightened anyway, of course, but they’d tried. It seemed to him an ancient, unspoken sort of pact, that trying and that fear. A bittersweet creed all its own.

“Let’s skip this one for now,” Din said, as lightly as he could manage while he skipped the article and wrapped one arm more protectively around the baby. “Maybe another time.”

The kid didn’t seem to mind, only gave a contented yawn and turned towards Din’s chest in that way that meant drowsiness was finally catching up with him, his ears fluttering languidly. Din found a smile tugging at his mouth and started on the next animal anyway, in the knowledge that it would probably do the trick.

Din’s hunch was right; between the rdava-bird’s colouring and their mating calls the baby’s eyes were starting to slip closed every so often and he had curled himself up completely in the crook of Din’s arm, sucking absently on the pendant while he fiddled with the edge of the cloth of Din’s gambeson. Finally, in the middle of a description of the bird’s favoured habitat, his head drooped towards his chest and Din decided it might be time to call it.

“Time to sleep?” Din asked, stroking his thumb over the kid’s forehead. The baby gave a weak cry of protest and struggled to sit up a bit, managing to keep his eyes open for all of five bleary seconds before they fell closed again. “Sssh. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere, you can sleep. I’ll be here.”

Whether because of the words or simply the cadence of his voice the baby relaxed, gazing up at Din with soft-eyed sleepiness and the perfect trust that still made Din feel a little dizzy if he let himself think about it too hard. He swallowed and stroked the baby’s ear, rocking him slightly when his eyes finally slipped all the way closed and stayed that way.

“I’ll be here,” he repeated quietly, holding the kid for longer than he probably needed to before getting up to place him in his seat and tuck him in.

You have no idea how desperately I NEED Mando having to actually tackle a children’s picture book about mythosaurs and being persuaded by big hopeful eyes to do the voices, I’m probably going to have to write it for the sake of my sanity if nothing else

Title is from Fleur Adcock's poem 'For a Five Year Old', because the combination of that poem and this show, what is the word... absolutely devastates me emotionally.

[makemoneyonlinebybestways]

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[colehasapen]

(ONE SHOT) kir'manir STAR WARS

He had gotten them out.

They were free.

Pirates had attacked the spice rig, and Jango had taken his chance when he saw it, gathering Ob’ika to his side the moment the ship had started to shake. He had taken the pick he had been using to crack stone open and turned it on the nearest slaver. Jango had made sure to keep his tiny adiik behind him as he brought the improvised weapon down on the overseer’s head over and over and over again until it was nothing more than a mess of fractured bone and gore. Obi-Wan was just a child - freshly thirteen by the boy’s own estimate, but still an adiik until he either triumphed in his verd’goten and earned his beskar’gam, or turned eighteen by Human Core-standards - and he didn’t didn’t need to see the damages Jango’s rage had wrought. He had kept his ad’ika behind his back as they’d made their way through the transport, picking off slavers and pirates alike as they hurried down the halls, weapons in hand. He’d found the keys for the cuffs on the fourth guard he’d killed, and he’d watched with pride as Ob’ika had grimly helped him pat down any bodies they came across, coming up with credits and weapons and the small pouches of spice they’d need to use to wean themselves off the drugs in their systems.

They’d come across a dead Jawa pirate that had been killed by a shot through the head, and he’d stripped the being of it’s belongings, long robes included, to offer to the adiik as protection. It would offer him more warmth than the shredded, bloodstained tunic he had already been wearing, and would fit him better than anything they’d get off of the taller beings. His adiik was only a little taller than a full-grown Jawa after all, and the sizes of the weapons would fit better in his hands. It would do, at least until Jango could get him a kute that would fit him.

They had gotten off the transport, had stolen the Master’s own ship out from under him while the overseers were attempting to fight the pirates off. They were finally free.

The shuttle had been fully stocked, thankfully, and Jango had made sure to clean and dress all of Ob’ika’s wounds before he had carried the sleeping child to the large bed in the main quarters, clean for the first time since before Jango had claimed him, and looking so small and delicate as he slept. He had stitched every lash on his tiny back closed, generously applied bacta to the wounds and hoping they wouldn’t scar, and then he had sat back and watched over his ad’ika as he slept peacefully.

He had wondered, watching as the little boy breathed, if Obi-Wan had a family to return to, beyond the brother that had sold him. Obi-Wan hadn’t brought it up, not over the months they had spent together as Jango taught him Mando’a and told him stories of happier times. He had seemed hesitant to mention anything from his past, like he couldn’t bear to think about it, and Jango couldn’t help but wonder if, with their freedom won, Obi-Wan would want to go home.

Jango didn’t want to give the adiik back, he didn’t want to be alone again. But if Obi-Wan asked it of him, he’d fly their stolen ship into the heart of the Core and deliver him safely into the arms of his family. Jango already loved the child as if he were his own ad’ika, it didn’t matter if he wasn’t old enough to be the boy’s buir or that their respective ages put them closer to being vod’e, but if Ob’ika didn’t want to stay with him, he’d let him go. He’d find the adiik’s family, or find him a new home if Obi-Wan didn’t want him, because that’s what Jas’buir would have done for him.

Jango hadn’t slept that night cycle, and he couldn’t bring up those thoughts afterwards. He had gone about cleaning himself up instead. He had shaved for the first time since that last morning on Galidraan, in camp and with Myles cheerfully draped over his shoulders, ever the disgustingly happy morning person. It had been the last time he had touched his venriduur’s skin, the last time he had kissed his lips and seen his face, because they had gone on patrol afterwards and returned to find the Jetiise murdering their aliit. Jango had forced himself away from those thoughts. He had let Obi-Wan trim his hair for him when the ad’ika had wanted to feel useful, and Jango had ended up with a choppy look straight out of his childhood - he’d even let his ad’ika pull it back in a nerftail with a gold ribbon they had found lying around.

It was a fitting colour, though he doubted Obi-Wan knew - their lessons hadn't covered what colours meant to a Mando’ad yet.

Now, once again clad in beskar’gam, and feeling like himself again for the first time since he had been stripped of his honour and purpose, Jango marches towards the clearing that had once been used as a Haat’ade camp, a quiet Obi-Wan clinging to his back and a burning mansion left behind them. He feels whole now, having been reunited with his armour, and maybe he should have thanked the aruetyc shabuir Governor for stripping his beskar’gam of it’s paint before he had shot him between the eyes. It would save him the trouble of having to find the specialized solvent himself.

But he hadn’t, of course, because the shabuir would have needed to comb through the Haat’ade belongings for the kind of solvent that was needed to strip beskar'gam of the specially made Mando paints.

“You killed him.” Obi-Wan says quietly, resting a freckled cheek against Jango’s pauldron, and his voice sounds wet. He’s not accusing, or scared, but instead he sounds confused.

“I did.” He acknowledges, because it was what Jas’buir would have done. Jaster had always been honest with him, and it was the least Jango could do to be the same with Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan sighs, warm breath fanning across the sliver of skin that was showing between the neck of his kute and his buy’ce. “He wasn’t armed.” The kid murmurs, “He wasn’t a threat.”

“Not yet.” Jango replies roughly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He hadn’t thought the Governor was a threat either, and his people had suffered for it. “But men like that don’t need to be armed to be dangerous.” He tells the adiik, “They have connections, and power they abuse.” Jango sighs angrily, pushing away the images of all the verde who died because Jango chose the wrong contract.

“But does that mean he deserved to die?” Ob’ika asks, and - Ka’ra, Jango doesn’t think he had ever been that innocent.

His innocence had died with his Buire and Arla, and he had learned quickly what lengths he was willing to go to for vengeance and aliit. It was a shock that Obi-Wan’s hadn’t been beaten out of him, but his ad’ika had already proved that his innocence wasn’t a weakness - he had killed to get them off that rig too. He had shot one of the overseers through the eye to protect Jango.

“He would have never paid for his crimes otherwise, kid.” Jango states bluntly. “There’s no justice in the galaxy, not unless we make it.”

“That’s not right!” Obi-Wan says shrilly, jerking in his arms. “That’s not justice - that’s vengeance! The Jedi-”

Anger flares in Jango’s gut, burning and all-consuming. “The Jedi killed my people!” He snaps, and Obi-Wan flinches. Vibrating with the amount of fury in his bones, Jango lets the kid slide off of him, and he turns to face him. His body is tightly wound with restraint, and clenched fists shaking at his side. “They saw Mando’ade and decided that we deserved to die for some perceived crime. They slaughtered them, and when I was the last one left they gave me to the Governor and had me sold into slavery!”

Obi-Wan curls away from him, eyes wide and teary, and he whimpers. The sound makes Jango flinch. He steps back, tries to reign his rage in, and the weight of it sends him crashing to his knees.

Jango chokes on a breath, pulls off his buy’ce, and lets out a harsh sob as he curls around it, hugging the beskar like he had once hugged Jaster, looking for comfort it couldn’t give him. “Is that right?” He gasps, tears and salty as they pour down his cheeks in over a year’s worth of grief and anguish.

Small, wrapped hands reach forward hesitantly, before they press against Jango’s cheeks and pull his attention away from the dirt his people died on. Obi-Wan is crying too, silent tears dripping down freckled cheeks, and he looks horrified. “The - the Jedi killed them?” He asks, and Jango nods.

“‘Lek.”

The kid lets out a shuddering breath that turns into a hiccup, and Jango reaches forwards, carefully telegraphing his movements to give the adiik plenty of time to move away if he wants to. Obi-Wan doesn’t, and Jango curls his hand around the back of his verd’ika’s neck, pressing his thumb to his pulse to ground himself. “I’m sorry, Jango.” Obi-Wan whispers, blinking quickly, tears caught on his lashes, and Jango makes a nonsensical noise of denial, but the frantic shake of the adiik’s head quiets the Mando. “I-I’m not a Jedi - I wasn’t good enough to be one.”

Jango jolts, as if struck, and he stares at the little redhead in shock. “You’re-” He can’t bring himself to say it. He’s angry, for a moment, that Obi-Wan had kept such a thing from him, but he knows how much Force Sensitive children go on the slave market - it had probably been safer that Obi-Wan hadn’t said anything.

“Not anymore.” Obi-Wan sniffles, “They sent me away.”

“They sent you away.” Jango echoes, a different kind of anger blooming in his stomach. They had sent him away, they hadn’t protected him, and Obi-Wan had been sold into a life no one deserved.

“Anyone can choose to leave the Order,” Obi-Wan explains quietly, “We’re taught that as we grow. The life of a Jedi isn’t for everyone - we’re supposed to dedicate ourselves to bringing peace and balance to the galaxy, and it’s not the life everyone wants for themselves. There’s no shame in leaving, everyone gets a choice.” Ob’ika shivers slightly. “I didn’t.” He admits, and Jango draws him closer, into his lap. His own problems seem unimportant now, in the face of the adiik opening up and trusting him. “They said I was too angry to be a good Jedi - that I liked fighting too much. They tell us that if a Jedi needs to fight, then they’ve already lost, because we should always find the peaceful solution. I was just going to Fall, so it wasn’t worth training me.” Obi-Wan hiccups. “They didn’t give me a choice - they just sent me away.” And with those words, his ad’ika crumbles into tears, sobbing with lost opportunities and the choices that were stolen from him, and all Jango can do is hold him closer.

“Do you have anywhere you can go, ad’ika?” Jango asks quietly as the tears slow, and the thin arms around his chest tighten. “Any family you could go to?”

Obi-Wan sniffles again, “Kenobi means child of no-one in Joni.” He says, and it enrages Jango to hear such a statement said so flippantly. “And Obi-Wan means cursed child - I think the answer is obvious.”

“Shabuire dar’buire.” Jango says passionately, and Ob’ika snorts wetly, pressing his runny nose against Jango’s neck. The Mando’ad takes a slow, determined breath. “You could stay with me, if you’d like. I don’t have much, not anymore, but I’d look after you.”

Obi-Wan stills, and he pulls away just enough to stare up at Jango with shock, something hopeful dawning in blue-grey eyes. “You-” his voice shakes, “-you want me?”

“Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad, Obi-Wan be Fett be Mereel.” Jango says fiercely, and Obi-Wan blinks. “I know your name as my child, Obi-Wan of Fett or Mereel.” He repeats in Basic, and his ad’ika sucks in a shuddering breath, eyes widening in awe. He slides his hand up to cradle Obi-Wan’s head, and he pulls him closer to give him a gentle kov’nyn. “If that’s what you’d like.” Jango tacks on hesitantly, and he watches as a wide, heart-breakingly sweet smile grows on the adiik’s small face.

“Gedet’ye.” He warbles, wrapping his arms around Jango’s neck, leaning into the kov’nyn, his eyes fluttering shut.

Jango does the same, breathing in another person’s runi and sharing his own for the first time in over a year. “Olarom, ad’ika.”

“Olarom, Buir.”

(In which Cole forgot to post something, like a fool)

[capricornus-rex]

Two Sides of the Coin (7)

Chapter 7: Comfort in the Midst of Irony | Jidné Sheedra x Cal Kestis

Summary: Hell-bent on exacting revenge and retrieving the Holocron, the dreaded Darth Vader is now on the hunt for the young Jedi Knight, Cal Kestis. Under the assumption that he still possessed the artifact, while fueled by the intrigue of the boy’s strength and skill with the Force, the dark lord hires the bounty hunter, Jidné Sheedra, to track him down and have him delivered alive. However, the task becomes a trial for young Jidné, as she faces a conflict that tests her beliefs of a scarred past she had hidden for so long.

Also tagging: @silver-is-in-too-many-fandoms

Also in AO3

Tags: Fem OC, Jidné Sheedra, Force-Sensitive! Fem OC, Bounty Hunter! Fem OC, Jedi! Fem OC

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 | Previous: Part 6 | Next: Part 8 | Masterlist

7 of ?

Cal had just gotten back out into the open and found the river that divides the town from the jungle where he came from. He knelt by the bank, scooping up cold freshwater and splashing it into his face, scraping himself clean off the sweat and dirt. He used the last handful of water to comb his scarlet hair using his bare fingers.

He finally crosses the bridge, upon his entrance into the town, he was greeted with the colors spread across from each end of the street, hollers of vendors and haggling buyers rung loud between the walls of the buildings. Stall owners gesture at Cal to at least look at their wares, he politely dismisses them as he passes them by.

“Be careful not to overheat your scanners, BD!” Cal beamed, knowing that the curious little BD-1 is going to scan everything left and right as they go.

“Woop, trill! Chirp.”

“Yeah, this place sure is pretty,”

“Boo! Trill, beep!”

“Oh, you meant Jidné? Yeah, she is kinda pretty,”

Cal wandered off farther into the town, the thought of the Force ripple and Jidné ran tirelessly around his mind. He recalled the nudging sensation that he’s gotten ever since he and the crew landed, then the feeling spiked when he discovered Jidné—more so when she took his hand to help her stand up. The image of her constantly flashed behind his eyes—the shy smile that responded to his awfully awkward one-liners and quips burned into his memory, the melody of her voice, and the way she moved with her lightsaber.

Looking back, he rarely—in fact, never—encountered another Padawan who wielded a purple blade. The only person he knew who did was Master Windu.

Cal found himself into a modest-looking pub, light instrumentals filled the establishment as its patrons chattered amongst themselves over their drinks. He regretted that he didn’t wear the kind of poncho that had a hood; fortunately for him, no one seemed to have noticed the boy come in the bar. Cal scanned the place and saw no sign of Stormtroopers doing patrol, he sighed in relief.

“Something mild,” he orders to the bartender.

While waiting for the bartender to work on it, Cal surveyed the place again—the cantina was filled with so many species that he couldn’t name them all. The humans were also bizarre-looking: cosmetic implants attached to certain parts of their bodies, hair dyed in outlandish colors that match or complement their facial tattoos, with matching makeup on their eyes and lips to boot—especially the women.

The bartender slid Cal’s glass towards him, to which the boy halted the sliding with the cushion of his palm. The first sip was always the strongest one, no matter the alcohol level, a hot sensation seared his palate; he smacked his tongue against the insides of his cheeks until the fizz leaves his mouth. In the corner of his eye, he spotted a Haxion Brood hunter and the HURID droid; before they’d spot him back, Cal slightly angled his body so the back of his head faces them—though it doesn’t help him much because his red hair was the only defining feature they know to identify him.

Cal scooted a bit closer next to a Talz, hoping that the size of the creature would shield him from the hunters’ sights. It worked, but only for a moment. He had to move quick. He left his glass half-empty, slipped a gold credit to the bartender, and attempts to vanish in the pub. Little did he know that the hunters noticed him turn his back to leave the bar; he sensed them following him, so he briskly walked towards the denser crowd to blend in and lose the hunters at the same time.

“There he is!” the human hunter pointed with his bionic hand.

Both hunters shouldered their way through the crowd in the marketplace, especially the HURID droid who practically plowed his way through the people—it’s highly likely that the people he’s shoved and push will have a bruise pop out of them any day after that—meanwhile, Cal was careful in going through the crowd, matching their pace, regretting some more that he didn’t wear the hooded type of poncho.

“Out of my way!” the HURID droid bellowed, pushing away a local who stumbled upon the stall he was browsing at.

Cal picked up his pace while continuously mumbling “Pardon me” and “Excuse me” to the people he shoulders through. When he got into a wide space, enough for him to run, he bolted through the market’s streets—it didn’t take long until he came across another wave of people filling the road. He didn’t slow down for that though, he continued to run, looking over his shoulder from time to time—as consequence, he bumped into a stranger as he ran and they stumbled to the ground together.

From the fall, the cowl revealed its owner to be Jidné.

“Cal?”

“Jidné?”

Jidné groaned as she rubbed the back of her head, Cal’s brain was going haywire—deciding whether to bolt away and miss Jidné or simply hide with her tagging along against her will.

“Where is he!?” the HURID droid roared, drowned amongst the crowd.

There was no time for questions, Cal chose the latter option that his brain made in the last minute. He snatched her wrist as soon as she sat up and dragged her along. They crawled towards a market stall, sitting into a tucked position as their backs hug the wooden planks that make up the kiosk’s wall.

“What’s going on?” Jidné whispered.

“Shh!”

Cal braced her with his entire arm, both of them huddled together to the dust—just so they’re in the same height as the short-fenced market stall. Jidné was startled with the entire rough-and-tumble but she immediately knew what Cal was trying to pull.

The stampeding footsteps of the Haxion Brood hunter and his HURID companion approached their spot, they stopped just a few inches past the stall; both the young Jedi and the bounty hunter stuck their backs against the wooden planks more—both youngsters were frozen in place as they couldn’t look away from their pursuers, Jidné’s eyes fixed on the two goons, the human hunter was scanning the area. Not waiting for that hunter to turn his head to their direction, Jidné clutched for Cal’s arm on her shoulder and then put all of her focus on using her ability.

“What was that?!” the hunter snarled, abruptly twirling to face Jidné and Cal’s general direction.

Cal’s felt his heart fall to his feet when he met eyes with the hunter, but it occurred to him that the hunter apparently cannot see them. He swears that he’s face-to-face with the Brood hunter right now! The hunter is literally one step away from him, he shuddered at how close he is with the enemy but the Brood agent isn’t doing anything.

Cal looked to his side and saw the steely expression in Jidné’s face, he felt her hand around his, she afforded a quick side-eye as she caught him staring at her—he was beginning to grasp that she was doing this.

“You see ‘im, Fazer?” asked the bruiser droid.

The human hunter, Fazer, squinted his eyes and panned that one empty nook right beside the market stall.

“Argh! Nah, probably just a vermin or somethin’ I heard,” he grumbled.

“He must’ve went that way!” the droid pointed to their direction up ahead and then darted through.

Soon the footsteps receded, Jidné didn’t remove her hand from Cal’s until there was no sight of that pair. She scrambled to her feet, still crouched to the same level as the market stalls, and then peeked out into the street while ignoring the startled locals looking between them and the two hunters running ahead.

“I think they’re gone,” she turned around to Cal, still seated on the dust, mouth gaped open as he still tried to comprehend what happened seconds ago.

“How did…?” he mumbled. It was so quiet that Jidné didn’t hear it as she checked out their surroundings.

“You seem like you have a knack for attracting trouble.”

“Yeah well, there’s a bounty on my head for being a Jedi. The group that’s after me isn’t exactly the friendliest bunch,”

Jidné bit her lip. The whole thing is so uncanny that it hurt her on the inside.

“Right,” she hummed as casually as she could.

When the coast was truly clear, Cal brought himself up his feet and dusted off the yellow sand that clumped on his jacket and pants.

“Sorry, I kinda dragged you in there for a moment,”

“Wait, did you think those Haxion goons were gonna come after me too—that’s why you pulled me in with you?”

“Yeah, I…” Cal was patting off the dust from his sleeve until it occurred to him, he jerked his head to face Jidné. “Wait. How’d you know they were Haxion?”

Oh fuck! Jidné’s conscience screamed so loud that her mouth nearly replicated the words.

“I had my own run-ins with them,” she shrugged her shoulders. She nodded at the alley on her left. “Come on, this way should be safer. Less open, more hidden.”

Jidné led Cal into the narrow annex of the main road, doors lined the walls—assuming that this was another residential area that sits behind the business establishments—and worked their way out of the crowded part of town.

“You got yourself into a bar fight or something?” Jidné blurted.

“No, I was just out to get a drink until I spotted them—I guess they spotted me when I was about to leave,”

“Sounds like you haven’t truly mastered the art of subtlety,” she clapped back.

“Hold on,” he pressed. “What was that just now?”

“The what?”

“That!” Cal gestures at the space behind him, but Jidné knew what he exactly meant. “You saw the hunter, he was literally right in front of us! But… he didn’t see us? That couldn’t be me—I’m sure as hell that that’s not me!”

Jidné was calm, completely the opposite definition of Cal’s hysteria. She sighed. There’s no escape for her with these kinds of questions again.

“I don’t think this is the best place to explain, don’t you think so too?” quipped the young hunter.

Cal surveyed the area, residents standing outside their homes—for reasons unknown—and children playing in the narrow annex with their balls and playthings laid out on the road. Some of the folks have already noticed the two of them standing awkwardly together by the wall.

“Alright, I suppose you lead the way then?”

“Just stay close,” she sternly instructed.

——————————————————–

The intricate network of roads, annexes, and alleys in the town of Ombari was confusing, but if one knew the landmarks and kept it in mind, then it would be easier to navigate through the town. Jidné and Cal passed through some intersections here and there, they were looking for a spot that wasn’t too crowded—a few people wouldn’t be a bother, Jidné only preferred to have less people around and Cal concurred with that.

Cal kept his questions to himself. As they go along, more and more questions pile up in his mind—particularly, questions about Jidné herself.

They found themselves in the base of the hill where the town was situated. There were more small-time businesses lining up the path just right in front of the main entrance, but farmers and tillers mostly resided at the stretch of landed where they had plotted their modest farms and vegetable gardens. Their harvests were already in display for those who wanted to buy, they were no different from the vendors in the town proper though—except the noise wasn’t a factor in their part.

“That spot by the riverbank looks okay,” Jidné nodded at her north, gesturing at the river gleaming underneath the afternoon sun.

She and Cal sat on the other side of the river, across the hill where they could observe the farmers till and plow their crops, underneath the shade of the trees that framed along the winding river.

Both of them were getting tired—or perhaps, fed up—with the same old silence that always hung heavily around them, no matter the space in between, it’s always there. Neither of them saw it a sign for either of them to start a conversation.

“So, about what happened back in the marketplace?” Cal prompted.

Jidné exhaled and prepared herself.

“Can you like… cloak anything or anyone?” he added.

“When you put it that way, yeah,” she looked at him in the eye, then her eyes wandered to her own hands. “At first, it was simply just activating and deactivating it—in a way—it was hard for little ol’ me that time. I was fresh out of the Initiate Trials back then.”

Cal didn’t avert his gaze from Jidné, he shifted between examining her hands and then to her whenever she spoke.

“But now that I’m older—even back then when I was still a Padawan—I learned how to wield it better. I can manipulate how transparent I want things or people to appear, whether they’d be as thin as smoke or as invisible as the air we breathe.”

“Do you really need to touch in order to make things almost or completely invisible?”

Jidné clenched her fist, “It makes it easier for me if I do, and the area of effect varies too. Not touching them but still focusing on my target can have them be under the influence of my Force Shroud, but only for a time. Whereas being in physical contact, it’s the same—except twice or thrice as better. It all boils down to a matter of distance, really.”

He let all of that information sink into him, trying to grasp how Jidné’s Force ability worked. It wasn’t difficult to understand, though he could imagine the possibilities if one could master such a power.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of another Jedi with an ability like that,”

“My master thought the same thing,” her tone became more somber at the memory.

Cal’s next question might be one of the most personal ones, but he had a feeling that his master might have known hers. Regardless, he put that question for another time—he figured it might have been a topic too heavy for her, considering that she was also a Jedi who must’ve lost everything.

And lost everything she did.

“So, you got anything special in you too, ginger?” she initiated.

Instead of using words, Cal searched for a target—any target. He spotted a pile of shards from earthenware that beached onto the shore of the river, hidden well between the reeds; he scooted closer to the shard pile and hovered his hand over it. Jidné watched and she could feel the slight ripple send out a weak shockwave and a gust of wind.

“These pots were used by farmers to ferment the grain and wheat into some kind of liquid. They collected water to continue the fermentation process, but some wild animals jumped on them and broke them,” Cal explained.

Impressed, Jidné flicked her eyebrows up at Cal, who seemed proud of his little demonstration and proved it with a smirk across his lips.

“I think I’ve read about a power like that a long time ago. You touch an object and you get a glimpse of its past… A Force Echo.”

“Exactly,”

“Interesting,” she hummed, a smile involuntarily curled along her lips.

For a moment, Jidné forgot that she was a bounty hunter. The feeling of having someone to connect with something familiar from a distant past was intoxicating. She and Cal continued to banter about topics that weren’t exactly correlated with one another—for instance, their own droids.

Jidné told Cal the story of finding ID-3 in a disposal bin. She was expertly vague in leaving out some details that could go unnoticed. She recalled the time when she took a look at ID, he was apparently still in tiptop shape—all he needed was a circuit wire replacement and a good power recharge.

“The poor thing wasn’t exactly given the right attention,” Jidné cooed, petting ID-3’s flat-topped head. “So I patched him and now he’s mine!”

“What else did you do to ID-3?”

“Oh, just added some little perks and tweaks that might come in handy sooner or later. The little saucer never failed me so far,”

The black droid chirped happily, absorbing all of the compliments that poured out of Jidné’s mouth and she truly meant them.

Cal and Jidné whiled away the afternoon bantering some more and letting their droids get to know with one another. This was one of the rare moments where Jidné allowed herself to let loose—although the moment was lighthearted and happy, she couldn’t ignore the irony that gleamed blindingly in front of her face: the irony that such comfort is coming from the exact person that she is hunting down.

[sexywookieesquadron]

Origins: Mey-Gon

Hey all, we’re finally ready to start sharing our OCs! This is the first chapter of OC Mey-Gon Niek’s backstory, created and written by Megan. We hope you enjoy and follow along as we introduce the rest squad and their wild adventures!

Word count: 1336

Chapter 6/9

Summary: How does a famous, wealthy party girl end up joining forces with a controversial paramilitary group like the Resistance?

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

xxx

29 ABY, Canto Bight

For the first time in a long time, Mey-Gon felt out of her league. The other patrons of the Canto Bight casino were more wealthy and ruthless than she could ever dream of being. They were throwing down bids the size of her entire acting contract on single rolls of the dice at gambling tables. A number of them gave her a second glance, as though they recognized her from somewhere. It was very possible that her holos had made it all the way to the Corporate Sector of the Outer Rim, where Cantonica was nestled, but nobody went so far as to admit that they were a fan.

Regardless of her actual status, Mey-Gon visually blended in with the human and alien crowd perfectly. Her copper hair gleamed with the oils she had used to smooth it up into an avant-garde style and her rich, velvety black dress featured an off-the-shoulder neckline that plunged into a distractingly deep “V” while the rest of the fabric clung tightly to her curves before flaring out below the knee. When the look was this on-point, she had no problem acting the part flawlessly.

The whole assignment was so clandestine and thrilling, she felt like a character in one of her dramas. Excitement simmered under her confident exterior, potent enough to rival the moments before a big audition or the opening buzzer of a swoop race. This kind of adventure was bound to get just as addicting as her other pursuits; and if the Resistance benefited from it, then all the better. Mey-Gon had already met with the arms dealer the previous day, and her first ever black market transaction had proved to be quite the challenge. It was a good thing she liked challenges.

She had found the Toydarian on a balcony overlooking the beach; and from there, he invited her out onto his private yacht for the negotiations. It turned out that the dealer didn’t really like to negotiate and Mey-Gon was terrible at it anyway. She had no idea what weapons were supposed to cost, and so she didn’t really know what kind of discount to ask for. Paying full asking price from the seller was probably a scam only amateurs fell for; but she had the credits, so the deal was sealed.

According to her accountant, Mey-Gon’s occasional rant against the First Order and New Republic, alike, had cost the G.I.D.E. a handful of steady donors over the past few weeks. Interestingly, though, the number of anonymous contributions had actually increased in the same time period. She had also lost a couple racing sponsors, so her personal wealth took a small hit; but the purchases on this trip weren’t coming out of her own account. Arming the Resistance accomplished all the same goals that her charity was founded upon, so the G.I.D.E. was unknowingly covering the costs.

Tonight she was gliding through the casino, looking for the dealer that had agreed to discuss ships with her. Vague anonymous notes had been exchanged via a dark corner of the holonet which Leia had introduced Mey-Gon to in order to set everything up for this trip. The ship dealer had told her to come to the slot machines on the third level at this appointed time and look for the fuzzy tauntaun. At first she had wondered if this was some kind of code that she didn’t understand or if someone would have a stuffed toy with them or maybe even a complete live animal - rich beings were eccentric like that. But when she didn’t see any of these items along the row of slot players, she suddenly realized it meant the drink. Finally, she located the frothy drink sitting on top of one machine and she paused next to it, happy to see that the gambler was an older near-human male. Those were her specialty.

Sensing her behind him, he turned and dragged his gaze up her figure, nodding in appreciation, “Finally, the jackpot.”

“If your rings line up right,” she promised.

“I can’t wait to find out,” he stood, heading toward the nearest lift.

She followed him, feeling that tickle of danger and excitement bubble up even stronger. They rode the lift to a floor with restaurants and lounges, and without even exchanging a word, one of the casino employees nodded at them and led them to a private booth, pulling a curtain closed around them that immediately dampened the sound.

“So you can tell me what you’re in the market for, or you can browse my catalogue and let me know what strikes your fancy,” her companion cut right to the chase, pulling a projector disk out of his jacket pocket and setting it down on the table in front of her.

“I know the general categories,” she activated the disk and started scrolling through the tiny images, occasionally selecting one to enlarge, “How about you buy me a drink while I narrow it down?”

He chuckled, “Only if you let me choose the drink.”

“All right,” she agreed, “Just no fuzzy tauntauns; they don’t agree with me. Pick something strong.”

His chuckle grew into a genuine laugh, “I think I’m going to like doing business with you.”

Mey-Gon had selected a medical frigate and a couple shuttles by the time their drinks arrived. Hers turned out to be a glass of straight bourbon from some exotic world, served over spiced ice and with a sprig of herb. She clinked her glass against the man’s and took a sip of the delicious liquor.

“Mmm, I think I’ll enjoy doing business with you as well,” she smiled, “Now, I want to see the fighters.”

He reached over to bring up the requested menu and leaned back to watch as she scrolled through. She casually sipped on her drink as she looked at her options, until one caught her attention and made her gasp.

“X-wings!” she enlarged the holo and watched with sparkling eyes as it rotated in front of her, “You know Luke Skywalker used to fly one of these.”

“Well,” the dealer seemed amused, “His was a T-65B, if I recall correctly, and my stock is mainly T-70s. Still Incom manufactured, if it matters to you.”

“Oh, yes, just as I’d hoped,” she said, even though she had no idea what he was talking about, “I’ll take a dozen.”

“A whole squadron?” he raised his eyebrows, “I’d hate to be the ex that kriffed you off, lady.”

“Yes, you would,” she replied mysteriously, sliding the projector back towards him as she returned to savoring the liquor.

He reviewed her selections with a nod, “Will this complete your order, miss?”

“For today,” she said and reached into her top to produce a datachip, “This contains my account information and the empty space coordinates for where my people will meet you to take delivery of the order. You’ll be sure to route this through an account that makes it look like a relief package for Hays Minor, as we discussed?”

“Of course,” he took the datachip, “I wouldn’t do anything to endanger the opportunity for further dealings with yourself. In fact, I’ll tell you what. I’ll include an entire case of that bourbon with your order,” he nodded toward her drink.

She smiled weakly, regretting the fact that she wouldn’t actually receive the gift, herself. Hopefully, Leia would enjoy it. They did have similar taste.

Mistaking her expression for a true lack of enthusiasm at his gesture, the man continued, “And, those X-wings you loved, I’ll throw in a custom paint job on one of them, free of charge - just for you,” his eyes moved from her body-hugging dress to her coiled hair, “Black and orange, in honor of the beautiful lady it flies for.”

Genuinely flattered, her smile grew wider and she raised her glass, “Cheers to that.”

[perspective-series]

Lilliputian Perspective (1)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: Fear, panic, lying, stealing and almost drowning.

(Check the reblog for the links to any future chapters)

————————————————————————————————–

Logan gaped like a fish, floundering about on the deck as the storm threatened to overtake their tiny vessel. Another wave came over the side, dousing Logan in the salty spray and threatening to drag him back into the depths with it.

“Look alive, men!” The captain cried out, attempting to navigate them through the wretched waters. The sky above was in turmoil, dark and ominous as though warning them they never should have dared come upon the sea this day. 

A crack of lightning lit up the air, revealing the crew of seamen scuttering about like lost penguins surrounded by a pack of sea lions waiting to swallow them whole. For indeed, that was what the sea had become- one by one she began to pick unsuspecting sailors up and toss them over the rail, her bloodlust never satisfied.

And unfortunately, it seemed Logan was destined to share a similar fate. With a startled yell he felt himself pulled over the edge, miraculously tossed to the surface once more.

“Gulliver!” One of his colleagues called out, but Logan could not make out who it was in the darkness of the storm. He struggled to stay afloat as it was, finding solace in a piece of driftwood torn from the ship.

“Help!” Logan cried out, watching with growing dread as he was tugged further and further away. “Man overboard!”

Whether the crew heard him was of little consequence now; for better or worse Logan was at the mercy of the waves. He sputtered along, every so often finding himself drenched once more as wave after rocky wave crashed above his head. What was he going to do? He was adrift in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of a storm, with no ship in sight, and far from any… land?

Logan paused, feeling his feet touch sand. Perhaps he had merely stumbled across a sandbar by luck, but Logan knew that this was not a structure that would form on its own. If Logan could touch here, land could not be far off. 

Coughing up a bit of seawater, Logan tried to look around, disoriented as he continued to swim. It felt like several hours had passed since he was sent adrift, and by now the scientist was exhausted. As if to finally show mercy it seemed the storm had decided to die down, and in the pale grey light, Logan spotted a tiny island in the distance.

Spurred on by the sight, Logan used his last bout of adrenaline to paddle to the shore. When he finally made it, Logan walked several paces inland to ensure that if the storm returned he would not be taken back to see.

“Shelter,” Logan muttered. “I need… shelter…”

But he felt too exhausted to find a proper shelter. Letting his emotions overcome him, Logan simply laid down in the surprisingly soft grass and wondered if he would ever wake again.

 Roman wrapped the scarf tighter around himself, making sure no one could make out his face. He didn’t need to be recognized. Not in this section of town. 

 Stomach grumbling, Roman slid past a fruit stand and when the owner’s back was turned, grabbed an apple and walked away. When he was far enough, he smiled and took a bite. He loved the thrill of taking something, even if sometimes it was so easy.

 “Stop! Thief!” Okay, maybe he spoke too soon. Roman turned around to see a number of the castle guards running toward him. He cursed and took off running. They must have recognized him, which wasn’t good.

 Roman tried to lose them through the crowd but they were keeping up with him pretty well, despite having to disturb several innocent people in the process. Roman continued to run and weave his way through the market square, deciding to run into the incoming forest.

 He heard the guards following, but with so many trees and all his weaving, they started to sound farther away. Until suddenly, he couldn’t hear them anymore. He came to a stop and grinned. If they kept sending men like that, they were never gonna catch him.

 He continued to walk more into the woods, knowing what lay beyond the other side. A nice trip to the seaside sounded like a good idea. Besides, he always found a few pieces of treasure worth keeping or selling in the sand.

 He came up to the cliffside, looking down and out towards the sand and sea. But all his thoughts halted when he noticed what lay upon the sand.

 Was...was that an actual giant. Like-like in all the stories? Roman couldn’t believe his eyes. But the image didn’t go away as he rubbed at them. No, the giant was still there, clear as day.

 If Roman was anyone else, he probably would have run off and told someone.

 But he wasn’t anyone else and instead he found himself sliding down the cliff with practiced ease, carefully coming up next to the giant. Was it even alive? How long had it even been here? He gripped and tugged at the thing’s tunic, before deciding to hell with it and started to climb up the massive body.

 He made it up on to the chest and looked at the giant’s face. “...Hello?” He called out cautiously. Half of him was hoping the giant was in fact dead. Because the last thing he needed was the thing to come alive and eat him.

Logan let out a groan, feeling the sun beating down on him as he lay still. How long had he been asleep? He should probably get up, get some shelter, get some food, and yet...his bones still ached so terribly. Not to mention, he was clearly seasick as well, if he was already hearing voices.

 As the giant groaned and started to move, Roman’s eyes widened. So it was alive...oh heck no. Okay, maybe it would be a good idea to get out of here before the thing was fully awake. Yeah, he was gonna do that. He started to move towards the edge, but an especially heavy breath caused the chest to rise too much and caused Roman to become unbalanced and fall. “Whoa!” He cried as he rolled a bit and fell onto his back.

Logan tensed, feeling a weight on his chest and hearing that voice again. Slowly Logan opened his eyes, squinting in the bright sun before looking down at his chest.

Logan’s eyes widened. Was that…? Surely it couldn’t be. A man, standing no larger than Logan’s own hand was resting upon his chest.

“Surely I’m delusional.” Logan murmured, reaching up with his left arm to see if his claims were true.

 Roman’s head snapped up at the voice and his eyes widened as he realized the giant was actually looking at him. He scrambled to his feet but then noticed the hand, the giant-sized hand, coming right for him. “N-No!” Roman booked it, trying to make it towards the edge of the giant once again so he could get off this thing.

Logan tensed, feeling the peculiar sensation of tiny boots running across his body.

“Now wait just a moment!” Logan quickly blocked off the man’s path with his arm, propping himself up on his other elbow so his neck did not need to bend down so terribly low.

 “Ah!” Roman screeched to a halt before he could run into the arm, blocking his path. He turned to face the giant for but a moment, before taking off in the other direction, towards the other side.

“Stop that!” Logan scolded, moving his hand to gather up the little man in a fist.

 “H-Hey!” Roman cried, struggling as the giant got his hand on him. “Release me, you beast!”

“Beast?” Logan supposed that would make sense, given the man’s stature he must appear rather ghastly in comparison. “I am no beast.” Logan brought the man closer, entranced by his animated tiny features. The way Logan could feel his peculiar little struggles only solidified the fact this was no delusion. Or if it was, it was a rather detailed one.

“Who are you?” Logan questioned. “What were you doing on my chest?”

 Roman struggled even more as he was brought closer to the giant’s face. Closer to his mouth. He shivered at the idea of being eaten. Hopefully, he could escape before that happened. “I-I should be asking you such things!”

“Perhaps, but I asked you first.” Logan reminded the man. Though he was clearly cowering, it must have taken tremendous courage for him to stand up to Logan. The scientist was not yet sure if that was a good thing.

 He supposed the giant had him there. “Well, I am a Lilliputian. And I was trying to see if you were still alive or not.” Roman spoke, trying his best to keep the fear out of his voice. He thinks it was working, he was a pretty good actor after all. “Now, who are you? Why are you here? And I demand that you let me go!”

“I don’t think you are in a position to be making demands,” Logan said, his tone more observational than threatening. He sat up fully, noting the forest to his left with trees that were only just taller than his head when sitting straight. How peculiar- then perhaps everything was to scale with this funny little man here? A lilliputian, he had called himself.

“My name is Logan Gulliver, and I became shipwrecked here during the storm last night,” Logan explained.

 “Storm?” That was strange, he didn’t remember there being a storm last night. Roman narrowed his eyes. “Likely story, beast. You’re here to terrorize us, aren’t you!”

“Why would I do that?” Logan sighed, still far too tired for this sort of nonsense. “No, I assure you, I mean you no harm. Are all the people here your size, by chance?”

 Roman looked at him strangely. “Of course they are! Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Well, take a look at my own stature,” Logan argued. “It can be reasonably assumed that I am used to a population that’s of my size and not yours. You are the first ‘lilliputian’ I have ever seen, and quite frankly if I was not seeing you myself I would believe it to be impossible.”

 Roman’s eyes widened. “You’re saying there are more giants!” His eyes narrowed. “Well...if you are really telling the truth, about not planning to harm us, why have you not let me go yet?” Roman asked. Not buying into anything this giant was saying.

“I am still fascinated, I admit,” Logan said. “But regardless, that does not negate my claim, as I have not harmed you within my grasp. Aside from perhaps a mild heart attack, but you were the one who invaded my personal space and tried to wake me first.”

 “Yet. You haven’t hurt me yet.” Roman pointed out. After all, he was currently at this giant’s mercy. He could do whatever with him and Roman wouldn’t be able to stop him. “There is no way for me to know your true intentions.”

“Fair enough, think what you will.” In any case, Logan did not feel the need to try and convince the Lilliputian otherwise, especially when there were more pressing matters at hand. “Then perhaps you can assist me, and then I will let you go. Do you know where the nearest body of freshwater is? I’m terribly parched.”

 Yeah, that did nothing to calm Roman’s fears. And he didn’t think for one second that he would be released but...maybe if he did lead him to some water, he could escape while he was distracted. “...There is a freshwater pond just around that hill over that way.” Roman said, pointing in the near distance.

Logan started to stand up, peeking just over the edge of the trees to try and spot the pond the lilliputian mentioned. Rising a bit further, Logan noticed what appeared to be a miniature town just on the other edge of the forest. Of course, Logan now realized that it was just to the little man’s scale and perhaps ‘miniature’ was not at all the correct term. 

“Is that a castle?” Logan observed, going higher to try and view the kingdom within the distance, his curiosity growing.

 Roman’s eyes widened as he remembered the kingdom was not far from here and if Logan was seen...that meant he would be found as well. “Get down!” He yelled suddenly.

“What?” Strangely, Logan felt complied to listen to the command as he ducked beneath the treeline one more. He looked down at the figure in his hand, perplexed. “What for?”

 “You can’t have anyone seeing you. I would-I mean, you would cause a mass panic!” Roman explained himself.

“Oh, I suppose you’re right.” Logan winced. He hadn’t taken his size into account. While he could easily overpower one sassy Lilliputian, having an entire army after him would be quite troublesome. Certainly then Logan would have to go around the forest, as there was no easy way for him to maneuver between the trees on his hands and knees. 

Logan sighed, realizing that this would also make it incredibly difficult to carry the Lilliputian along. Though Logan did not intend on keeping the man captive, he certainly would prefer to have an ally on his side who knew the way of this world if Logan expected to survive.

“If I set you down, would you mind leading me to the pond?” Logan requested. 

 Roman tried to keep himself from looking too happy at this notion. If he was put down, he could certainly escape far easier. But he had to play it cool. “Fine.” He huffed.

“Alright.” Logan relented. “But I implore you not to go running off. Not only is it terribly rude, but I imagine I could catch you with ease.”

 Roman felt a shiver run through him at that. Well...he could just wait until he was distracted. Like he originally planned. “I won’t.” He sighed.

“Thank you.” With that settled, Logan placed the Lilliputian down on the ground, giving him a head start as even crawling Logan knew his strides would be much larger.

 Roman was very thankful to be back on solid ground. He took the time to dust himself off and look himself over before looking towards the giant. “Follow me, I guess.” He started off the long way towards the pond.