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"MANDO!" Her voice screamed out to him as he was thrown back in the blast.
Elani ran towards him, dropping to his side, placing her hand on the cold Beskar of his cuirass.
"No no no no no," she whispered to herself as she frantically looked around for his injuries.
His vision swam as his head lolled to the side to watch her.
They had been through so much together.
Her and the child...he needed them safe. He had to ensure their protection with him gone.
A wave of nausea and pain ran through him.
He wasn't going to make it.
But they would if it was the last thing he did.
"Elani." His voice was a pained rasp.
She stopped her assessment of his injuries and looked into his visor.
Her face was smudged with dirt. Her green eyes wide with fear.
"Mando, I - I can't tell how hurt you are, I need to -"
"Elani, repeat after me exactly," Her lips pursed, and she head tilted as she always did when something confused her.
"Mando, we need to get you help! I need you too-"
"Please." Her mouth snapped shut with the finality of his tone. Her eyes flitted closed as she took a deep breath in. She reopened her eyes and looked at him expectantly.
"Mhi solus tome." He uttered.
"Mhi solus tome," she stumbled slightly over pronunciation. He almost felt as though his helmet was not there with the intensity she was looking into his visor.
"Mhi solus dar'tome."
"Mhi solus dar'tome." His chest constricted, and he was no longer sure if it was due to his injuries.
"Mhi me'dinui an."
"Mhi me'dinui an." His mind raced through his memories of her.
How she would scold him when he came in injured but would always help him.
How she so easily showed the kid a more playful side. Lifting her voice into that playful lilt.
How she'd accept any patient on any backwater skughole knowing full well that she would never be compensated for her services.
How her tongue would stick out slightly from her mouth when she was using the cauteriser.
How she’d run her hands through her hair in frustration, sending the errant blonde curls into chaos around her head.
How she quietly and fiercely cared.
How he...cared for her.
"Mhi ba'juri verde."
"Mhi ba'juri verde." She finished.
Her eyes were full of questions, but he would not be there to answer them.
He slipped his gloved hand to the back of her neck and gently tugged her head to him.
Their foreheads pressed together in a Keldabe kiss.
He knew that this was not apart of the ceremony. But he figured in his last moments he had earned a moment of indulgence.
A stuttered breath crackled through his helmet’s vocoder.
He would die a warriors death knowing she and the child would be safe.
"Can you move the grate?" He heard Cara ask the IG unit. She slung her weapon over her back and jogged over to where he and Elani were.
"I'm not going to make it. Go." he said to them.
"What? No!" Elani said, her face mottled pink with anger at his admission.
"Shut up," Cara reprimanded. She was trying to stay calm, but he could hear the panic in her voice.
"You just got your bell rung. You'll be fine."
"Leave me."
"We're not going to leave you." Elani all but shouted.
The pain washed over him again. He tipped forward slightly into Elani; her hands flew to the unarmoured fabric on the backs of his arms.
"I'm not going to leave you." She was looking directly into his eyes now, and for a moment he allowed himself the fantasy.
He dipped slightly into a world where the Riduurok was not out of necessity, but something...else he wasn't prepared to admit.
A world where she would say yes and repeat after him with affection in her voice. Not fear.
But that world was not real. The real world was burning around him.
And he needed her to be safe.
"I'm gonna need to take this thing off." Cara voice snapped him out of his fantasy, he looked to find her reaching towards him.
"No. You leave me." Din recoiled away from her.
He turned his visor towards Elani again, tears were welling in her eyes but that fierce determination was still present.
"You make sure the child is safe." He pushed the Mythosaur's skull pendant into her hand.
"When you get to the Mandalorian covert, you show them that. You tell them it's from Din Djarin."
He took a shaky breath in.
"You tell them the foundling was in my protection...and that you are my Riduur, they'll help you."
Riduur...A wife. He had a maker damned wife.
"No, Din. I'm not leaving you." He’d never stopped to think how his name would sound on her lips.
“We can make it,” said Cara, she placed her hand on Elani’s shoulder, tugging her backwards slightly. Elani pulled forward towards him out of her grasp.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Cara insisted, reaching forward to pull him up.
“I’m not gonna make it and you know it.” Din had accepted his fate, he just wished they would, so they could be safe. “Protect the child.” He said to Elani, holding her hand to his cuirass. “I can hold them back long enough for you to escape.”
A few tears were running down Elani’s face now.
“Let me have a warrior’s death.” He implored to her.
“Please, Din. I can’t leave you.” Elani said, her voice cracking with emotions.
“This is the way.” She let out a choked sobbed at his statement. Accepting that there was no convincing him. She pushed her head against his helmet again, the force of which surely hurt her. She was gripping the back of his neck; her bare fingers were brushing the exposed skin under his cowl.
She whipped her head around at the clang of the grate hitting the ground and Karga’s exclamation.
The IG unit made its way over to them and carefully dropped the child into her arms. She immediately brought the child close to the crook of her neck and placed her hand protectively on the back of his wrinkled head.
“Escape and protect this child. I will stay with the Mandalorian.” The IG unit said to Elani.
Cara placed her hand on Elani’s back and pushed her towards the now open grate.
“Promise me you’ll bring him.” Cara’s tone was forceful. As if the IG-11 had no other choice but to bring him.
But he was a goner, there was no coming back.
“You have my word.” IG replied.
Elani pulled away from Cara and hurried in front of him. He was about to tell her to go, to leave him once again, but she surprised him with what she said next.
“I will never forget you, Din.” Whispered to him. His helmet almost didn’t pick up her quiet but reverent words.
“I won’t forget you either, Cyare.” He knew it was wrong for him to throw out such admissions when he wasn’t going to be around to explain them to her.
But he couldn’t help it.
She looked so fierce in the fiery hellscape around them. He knew she would do whatever was needed to protect the child.
Like a true Mandalorian mother.
That was months ago.
He had obviously lived, and they were now on a quest to return the child to his kind.
And he still hadn’t told Elani that they were married.
As the days went on, the topic seemed harder and harder to broach. How would he even start such a conversation.
Elani trusted him, and he had married her without her knowing or understanding what she was committing too.
He should have told her immediately when they were in the ship leaving Nevarro. He even had an opportunity to when she had asked him!
“Mando- Din? Is it alright if I call you that? In private, I mean.” She asked him from passenger seat in the Razor Crest. Her eyes were lowered to her lap, where the child was snoozing. His ears were twitching slightly in his sleep.
“Yes.” He answered simply. He made sure to keep his tone even. To not make it known how maker-damned much he wanted to her to keep using his name.
She hummed in agreement. Her eyes never leaving the child as she gently stroked his forehead.
He turned his head back to the Nav system, fiddling with the dials to keep himself busy.
After a few moments of silence, she piped up again.
“What does Riduur mean?” Her question caused him to pause his activities and his shoulder to tense.
“I mean, you told me to tell the other Mandalorian’s that I was your Riduur, and you had me repeat or those things in Mando’a…” She trailed off, unsure how to proceed. It was almost as if she was afraid of offending him with her question.
She had always been so accepting of his culture. Never once questioning his helmet, or armour, or any other custom.
She went out of her way to accommodate him. She left his food in the cockpit and made a point of closing the hatch behind her. She always announced herself before she entered a room. She never probed further when his answer was ‘This is the way.’ And here he was making her feel nervous about questioning him about the marriage vowels he had forced on her.
“It means charge.” The lie slipped so easily from his vocoder. His gut clenched at lying to the woman who had been so raw and honest with him through their journey together.
“Non foundlings must be pledged to their protector. Otherwise, the other Mandalorian’s might not have helped you. That was what you repeated.”
“Oh.” She said simply, returning her eyes to the child.
The opportunity had been right there to tell her the truth. He could have allowed her the option to break the bond.
But he couldn’t do it! And he couldn’t even lie to himself anymore that it was about him being too nervous to tell her. Because the truth was…He liked it.
He liked being married to her.
Not that they had been acting like a married couple.
But knowing that this journey together was formalised in his culture gave him a…warm feeling inside.
He still wasn’t ready to admit what that feeling was.
The hatch to the cockpit opened and the object of his daydreams wandered in, datapad one hand and a meiloorun fruit with a bite out of it in the other.
There was some juice running down to her chin.
He’d tell her another day.