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“Shae Kriffing Vizla!”
Mandalore the Avenger ducks her head in embarrassment and sucks in a breath through clenched teeth as the shout reaches her and several of the troops around freeze, trying to decide if they want to watch the Mandalore talk to her angry wife or pretend to work so they won’t be shot.
Next to her, Caliah struggles to hold in his laughter and Jos doesn’t even try, giggling like a schoolgirl.
“I think you’re in troubleeeee.” He sing-songs, and Shae has to try very hard to stop herself decking him, instead turning towards the really incredibly furious woman stalking towards her.
“I think I might be.” She grunts out of the corner of her mouth, before Ysaine comes into hearing range. “Elek, cyar’ika?
Ysaine grabs her by the neck ring of her armour and pulls a very surprised Shae in so they’re nose to nose.
“Don’t you ‘cyar’ika’ me!”
Because she can’t help herself, Shae steals a quick kiss from her wife and enjoys the blush that stains the other woman’s cheeks.
“What’s the problem, Izzy?” She whispers.
Her wife looks like she can’t decide if she wants to be angry or deeply in love and Shae finds either option just perfect.
“You know what you did.” She hisses. Or tries to hiss, she sounds a touch less committed to her searing anger now that Shae’s lips are brushing her own, hazel eyes inches away with barely contained mirth, love, and lust warring inside them.
“You’re just like a little nexu cub when you hiss at me.” Shae fawns, and Ysaine narrows her eyes.
“What have you done to my armour, Vizla…”
“I have done nothing to your armour, Izzy. I promise.” Shae cocks her head to the side and looks her wife up and down. “You’re wearing it, in fac-... oh.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, too distracted with the heat in Ysaine’s gaze to realise that her previously copper coloured armour had been repainted.
“It’s- ah, it’s a very… fetching shade on you…” Shae tries and fails to hold in her sniggering, the reddish copper has been splattered with a coat of neon pink in a rather rough tiger camouflage pattern, although sloppily applied would be too kind a way to describe the technique, there are paint drips everywhere, the normal brushed metal look of the full forged beskar’gam has been mostly drowned under the mess of what looks like still-wet spray paint.
“I. Look. Ridiculous.” Ysaine hisses, and because she really just cannot stop herself from acting like a teenager at this moment, Shae reaches up to pat her wife on the head; gauntleted hand bouncing tenderly on her half-shaved wild helmet hair.
“Ni copikla verd’ika nexu-riduur.”
Behind her, Jos and Caliah howl with laughter and Shae suddenly finds herself being physically dragged away to their quarters as her wife blushes a vivid crimson.
“Izzy.” She protests as she’s dragged through the settlement. “Izzy come on, it wasn’t me.”
Shae plants her heels in the ground because being dragged is rather slowing their progress down and gently pries her furiously embarrassed wife’s hands off her armour.
“I’ll help you clean it up, cyar’ika, I promise.” She takes one of the very angry woman’s hands and starts making her way towards their quarters under her own power. Their armoured shoulders clink together as they walk and Shae squeezes her partner’s hand comfortingly. “You know I still love you if you look ridiculous, right?”
The venomous glare she receives makes her actually cringe and she hurriedly amends the statement.
“If your armour looks ridiculous I mean, you know I’d never think that of you Izzy.” She stops them walking and turns Ysaine to face her, noting the full on pout she’s now wearing. “I love you, so much.”
Some of the anger fades from Ysaine’s face and she huffs.
“If this does in fact, turn out to be your doing…” She lets the threat hang. “So help me Shae.”
The Mandalore lets go of her hand to slip her arm around her wife’s waist.
“It wasn’t me, love, I promise you. Ori’haat”
Ysaine pouts, but she no longer looks quite as livid, so Shae counts it as a win.
“Let’s just get it cleaned up.” She grumbles, leading Shae off towards their quarters, hips pressed together, armour clinking, droplets of still wet neon pink splattering on Shae’s greaves.
It takes the two of them a couple of hours, but eventually Ysaine’s armour is scrubbed back to it’s brushed copper texture, drying next to Shae’s on the floor of their room.
“You know, I’ve never asked, why this colour?” Shae queries, as she fishes out her bag of armour oils, their cans inside the canvas clinking like falling glass.
“Uhh…” Ysaine blushes, feeling like a love-sick teenager instead of the nearly fifty year old woman she is; seated as she is behind her wife on their bed, Shae’s back against her knees as the other woman sits on the floor, cleaning rag in hand. Gentle, delicate fingers roughened by armour callouses play with The Mandalore’s rich mane of hair as it flows like molten copper around her digits. “N-no reason.”
“Huh?” Shae turns her head and nuzzles into her wife’s hand. Her own hair falls into her eyeline and she realises with a start just how close the colours are. “No… Izzy you didn’t…?”
Ysaine blushes furiously and Shae giggles, head falling back onto her wife’s legs.
“Izzy, that is the sweetest thing…” She can’t stop giggling. “I love you so, so much.”
“I’ll do my hair gunmetal silver to match you.” Ysaine tugs Shae upwards and into her lap. “Then we’ll look the part.”
Sitting in her lap, kissing her wife softly while they giggle about their matching armour, Shae Vizla doesn’t feel like Mandalore the Avenger. She just feels home; and that’s all she really wants.