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‘‘I just noticed something.’‘ Nino declared as though she had found the meaning of life, staring at the fogged up window and the clumsily scribbled letters there. She half turned around to look at the man laying down beside her, nestled against her on the small bed to the wall, staring up with an amused albeit sleepy expression,
‘‘Your name.’‘
‘‘My name?’‘ he raised a brow, propping his head on an arm and glancing at the window himself, ‘’What of it?’‘
‘‘Well it’s…very stupid. What’s on my mind. Not your name. I just thought. Mandalorian. Torian. Torian the Mandalorian. Just one letter difference.’’ to prove her very logical point, Nino added the necessary letters to complete the word, ‘’See?’’
He chuckled at that, sitting up to put his chin on her shoulder, and pulling the blanket up with him to wrap them both in a warm cocoon ‘’Only in Basic.’’ he quickly wrote Mando’ad under her invention. No rhymes at all.
‘’I warned you it was stupid.’’ Nino leaned against him, looking at her ‘artwork’ ‘’Well…Maybe they considered Basic as well? - Don’t laugh! I’m not joking. No? Who named you anyway?’’
His warm breath ghosted over her bare arm as his laughs died down to give way to a deep sigh and momentarily Nino regretted having asked anything at all.
‘‘Think it was my mother.’‘ he said after a moment, carefully tracing her name over the fog right beside his, in right letters, ‘’What I was told anyway.’‘
Nino hummed thoughtfully, ‘’Well it’s a pretty name. And I also noticed your fath..-Jicoln’s name and yours both end with an N sound. Was this intentional?’’
‘‘Why are you noticing things in the middle of the night?’ he sounded amused and bewildered both and not strained much to Nino’s relief. She was more relaxed than she had even been in her life and it apparently resulted in her blurting everything without much thought. And for her tactless speech, she blamed him too. I’m becoming a bloody human.
‘’No. A lot of names end with N.’‘
‘‘Why?’‘
‘‘Because.’‘ he chuckled again, nuzzling against the cold skin of her jaw, ‘‘I have no idea, really.’‘
‘‘What does your name mean then? Does it mean anything?’’ Nino asked again, despite the moonlight leaking from the windows and the invitingly soft mattress, she didn’t want to sleep at all, dragging out the conversation as long as she could. She felt guilty however when he let out a large yawn,
‘’ You should know the word but I’ll go easy for once. Tor. Justice.‘’ he said, sounding distinctively bitter all of a sudden ‘’Ironic huh?’‘
Nino didn’t dare say anything to that, merely turning her head slightly to kiss his temple and he sighed again, pressing against her tighter,
‘‘Well… My name is pretty ironic too when you look at it’‘ Nino said, trying to change the subject, ‘It literally means Little Bird.’‘
‘‘…Seriously?’‘
‘‘Yes.’‘ Nino smiled, remembering her brother, her home on a far away frozen colony and most pleasant bits of her earlier life all at once before the ones she dreaded came rushing in, ‘‘It’s a childhood nickname. People usually outgrow those.’‘
‘‘But not you.’‘
‘‘No.’‘she shook her head, ‘‘It was my mother’s nickname for me so I decided to make it my own.’‘
‘‘Good call.’‘ he looked at their almost faded names written on the window again, smiling for a moment, ‘Fits you well.’‘
‘‘Seriously?’‘ Nino repeated his earlier remark, ‘’Little bird?’’
‘‘Maybe not so little.’‘ he squeezed his arms around her tightly with one hand boldly grasping her thigh and shrugged, ‘‘You do fly.’‘
This time Nino chuckled, remembering her attempts at using her jetpack, ‘If you could call it that.’’
>>’’My little bird.’’<< he cooed, uncharacteristically goofy in drowsiness and Nino leaned back, utterly horrified,
>>’’Say it in public and I’m obligated to kill you.’’<<
>>’’Definitely.’’<< he yawned again, ‘’What’s your full name?’’
‘‘In Cheunh you mean?’‘
‘‘Yeah.’‘ he nodded, ‘‘I know your name..Uh..- Core name. Shat..-Shatri’‘
‘‘Shatrani.’‘ Nino felt strange uttering that long - and thankfully- forgotten name, ‘‘I’ll write it but don’t expect me to read it.’‘
‘‘Deal.’‘
Again feeling oddly detached she wrote what was her whole identity just near a decade ago, her mother’s house went first, and most easily, then her given name, then her father’s house and the one they belonged to and then her husband’s name. Dead husband’s. One she had supposedly killed.
‘‘Ta-da.’‘ she gestured to the comically long line - even for chiss standards, ‘’That’s me.’’
‘‘Nope.’‘ he gestured to one he had written… - Nino ‘‘That’s you.’‘
‘‘That’s…correct actually. One way to look at it.’‘ She gave a deep breath, though it was said in simple words, the meaning was all the same. She was basically not the same person she once had been. Not at all. Not even physically. That woman was dead. Long gone. As childish was the thought she felt a bit easier to breathe. A bit less weighed down.
And she didn’t notice she was thinking out loud before he cuddled her firmly with a firm promise, something that could sound absurd coming from anyone else’s mouth. It somehow…fit him,
>>’’With you all the way. No matter what.’’<<