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You tugged on the hood of your gauzy jacket over your head — if you could even give the sheer fabric that title — simultaneously pulling the equally sylphlike scarf up to cover your lips and nose.
The gale begrimming your clothes also succeeded in mixing the fervid air with the tiniest bits of boiling hot sand, which led to it getting in your lungs each time you tried to take a breath in this accursed sandstorm; even in Mos Espa, the weather had zero mercy.
Mando, on the other hand, probably didn’t have similar problems. The agleam beskar helmet shielding his face from the turbid cloud of dust clearly was getting the job done pretty well, because his modulated voice didn’t reveal even the tiniest scintilla of difficulty to articulate the words.
He called your name and your gaze snapped right back to his armored figure, eyebrows shooting up in an expectant look.
“Do you remember what I told you?” he questioned, his body halfway turned to the side, but his burnished helmet remained focused on you.
“Talk to nobody, stay close, scream if needed, speak only in our language if needed,” you reeled off immediately in a blank tone, your attention caught on his gloved hand resting on the holster of his blaster.
He was expecting danger. Reasonably, since the aggravated glares transpierced through your backs the second two pairs of your combat boots touched the sand in the vicinity. You did expect this kind of welcoming gesture — after all, the Mandalorian was a highly respected and even more feared man, known well across the whole wide galaxy. Naturally, various stares and appraising whispers followed each of your steps, although when it came to you, it was mostly curiosity. When it came to your guardian, however, it was either terror or contempt, or at least so you observed.
He gave a barely existent nod, then his silver helmet gestured at you to get moving. You complied, and he quickly caught up with you. Shoulder to shoulder, you hacked your way through the boundless labyrinth of the cramped area. The wind made your loose, light clothes flutter, and the hood on your head was holding on only by the power of prayer and belief.
People passed by you, their stares escorting you until you’d vanish from their sight, swallowed by the macédoine of buildings and sand. The farther you got from the safety of the Razor Crest and the endless dunes, the more uneasy you were getting. Like your guardian, you weren’t a fan of the entirety of Tatooine, the interminable sand, the sweltering weather, the heat of two suns beyond endurance. You preferred the cool seclusion of the ship you began to call your home, away from all those foregoing traits you honestly despised.
And most importantly, away from prying stares and irritating hushed tones you could spot wherever you two went, either together or separately. The older you were getting, the more freedom the Mandalorian was approving of. Now, you were allowed to explore certain areas on your own while he was closing a bargain or hunting down a quarry. Sometimes you’d help him, fighting by his side, but more often you were set loose to walk around with a tracker on you — of course — so that he’d know exactly where you were.
Today was one of the days when you were told to just go with him. It was supposed to be a simple task — close a bargain, receive the credits upfront and the tracking beacon, then go right back to the Razor Crest before the hunt that was planned for tomorrow.
“You’re nervous,” the calm statement of his modulated voice cut through your train of thought, making your gaze shift from the street ahead to his glistening helmet.
You were once again reminded how annoyingly perceptive Djarin was.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” you mumbled with an almost inaudible sigh that got muffled by the fabric wrapped around the lower part of your face, rolling back your shoulders to relax the tense muscles. In vain. “I think it’s a trap.”
Your words made him silently weigh his options. Your intuition barely ever was wrong, each time you ‘had a feeling’, it turned out to be right. He had to give you credit where it was due, your gut feeling saved his ass more times than he’d like to admit.
However, he was a greedy man, as much as he hated to acknowledge it — he wouldn’t go back to the ‘Crest without a bag full of credits attached to his hip. Today’s offer paid well, that’s why he pushed aside the thought of listening to you and spinning on his heel to go right back where he came from.
“We’re almost there,” he said instead, his helmet tilted slightly in your direction.
Not that you could see it, your unnerved gaze was dug into the boiling hot sand below your feet as your mind produced the worst possible outcomes of the meeting you two were about to attend.
For a split second, he hesitated, faltering between telling you to turn back and just continuing to stomp over the dusty surface in the direction of the final destination. In the end, he said nothing. His armor clanked with each step as he overtook you, leading the way through the narrow streets.
You reached the cantina in no time. Before you could disappear in the abyss of the dark space, you turned a bit to face him and asked, “tsikala?”. It meant ‘ready?’, you kept in mind to speak only in Mando’a around other people.
“Tsikala. Gar?” his dead serious voice answered, his gloved hand skimming briefly over the gauzy material of your shirt or jacket covering your shoulder — whatever it was, really — to uplift your spirit.
“‘Lek,” you confirmed with a light nod, with a simple ‘yeah’, and walked straight into the tenebrosity of the venue, pulling that scarf off your face.
The nothingness dissipated the second the soles of your heavy boots touched the wooden floor of the building, giving way to dull lights that cast shadows over those few people’s faces who were sitting there, chattering dapperly about everything and nothing.
Silence fell the second your guardian emerged from behind you, hovering over your shoulder like a living shield. A terrifying shield, because the interested gazes that turned your way when you walked in quickly averted in the opposite direction.
The air stiffened, leaving the cantina quiet and in stagnancy.
You scanned the people’s faces, taking note of the visible discomfort. You found yourself somewhat amused by the thought that some of them clearly fell into a flat spin the second the beskar armor came into view.
“You’re late.”
Both of your heads snapped in the deep, male voice’s direction. A man with a haggard face, but attired in expensive clothes surfaced from the murk, seemingly out of nowhere, with his hands hidden behind his back.
You caught Mando’s gloved hand reaching for his blaster in the corner of your eye.
“Ibac cuyir kaysh?” you questioned with uncertainty with your eyes narrowed, pretending to adjust your belt while in reality you were just checking if your dagger was still there.
You asked if that was him, to which you got a quiet response, “ni mirdir”. ‘I think’.
“We’re here for the contract,” he finally spoke up, his modulated, cool tone echoing through the cramped space.
“‘We’,” the man repeated, drawling, and you could feel his burning glare sizing you up. You shifted uncomfortably. “And who is that?”
You supposed he meant you.
Out of nowhere, a hand, a cold and rough glove to be exact, covered your shoulder and squeezed it lightly in a supportive gesture. You knew it was a warning, not to you, but to him.
“That’s my daughter,” Djarin’s voice hit that cautionary tone, his grip on you tightening.
Your breath got caught up in your throat, your stomach performed a keen somersault as soon as that three-word sentence reached your ears. He thought of you as his daughter.
Saying you were shocked was like not saying a single thing. You remembered clear and well that one argument you’d had, that thing he’d said.
You’re not my daughter, he’d spat out then. And I sure as hell ain’t your dad.
Seemingly he’d changed his mind since then. You were still entirely taken aback, not only because he called you this one simple word that spoke volumes, but also because he said that with at least ten people around.
You knew the power of a rumor. Not in a million years you thought he’d risk being on people’s tongues with intensified frequency. Definitely not for you.
Judging by the sudden soughing echoing in the entire space, the people sitting there were shocked as well. Maybe only two or three pairs of eyes turned your way, but it wasn’t hard to tell what they all were whispering about.
You stood straight, not allowing your face to show any signs of inner chaos that was actively twisting your stomach into a tight knot.
The commissioner’s eyes met yours, your piercing, ice cold stare. He looked away after a millisecond, speaking to Djarin standing behind your back, so close that you could feel the heat radiating off his body mixing with yours.
“Follow me,” he said in an excessively cloying way, gesturing deeper into the venue.
He didn’t comment on the Mandalorian’s last words, which caught you off guard. You expected a quip or further questions, yet there were none.
“Let’s go,” you heard him mumble, giving your shoulder one last squeeze before his hand slid off it.
You watched him pass by, his heavy footsteps cutting through the equally heavy silence ruling inside the bar, people still frozen in place. Quick to follow his lead, you exchanged telltale glances with the bartender who was overly absorbed in polishing the same glass for the past five minutes before your wary gaze clung to Mando’s back.
All three of you sat at one of the free tables, you and Djarin facing the commissioner. The amount of wrinkles on his ghostly pale face was astonishing, but not as astounding as the countless scars decorating every inch of his skin. You studied his expression, his heavily lidded eyes locked on the Mandalorian's coruscant helmet that seemed to incurvate all of the dim light, absorbing it into the silver metal.
You were so rapt in your own conflicted feelings that you didn't register the beginning of the conversation. Your thoughts oscillated around the simple word Mando had called you without a second thought, the tone he used; he was giving the man a warning. You were a bit hesitant to assume he cared about you, but the thought kept on resurfacing in the front part of your brain.
It felt weird to think you possibly weren’t just a kid who clung to him like a barnacle, a problem he couldn’t quite get rid of. An issue he’d been dealing with for the past three years, ever since he found you as a stowaway in his ship when you were thirteen.
The more logical part of your brain kept telling you it was obvious he cared about you; after all, nobody would keep a child around for this long if they hadn’t somehow grown attached to them. However, the part of your brain that definitely was winning that debate screamed at you that he just pitied you or waited for the right moment to abandon you somewhere, to make you someone else’s problem.
Choosing to put aside your inner turmoil and focus on the contents of the meeting you were taken to, you forced yourself to pay attention. Now was no time for the ‘he loves me, he loves me not: fatherly edition’ series of thoughts.
The first sentence that reached your ears immediately made you straighten in your seat, you quirked your eyebrows incredulously.
“As expected, the contract does not include nor specify the payment,” the commissioner’s gnawed-up, dry lips twisted into a sly smile, one that made his appearance strikingly similar to a fox. For a split second, you got an impression he was going to clap his hands, but he didn’t. “The payment is dependent on the speed and quality of the service. You have two days to complete the task, every day of delay will withhold ten percent of all credits.”
“Ten percent,” Mando repeated, his voice devoid of any emotion. His helmet remained fixed at the man’s face, his arms crossed over his chest. “What is the total meed?”
It was supposed to be almost forty thousand credits. He told you as soon as he returned back from the ‘friendly hangout’ with Karga, which turned out to be a business meeting, as everyone expected, where the older man pulled out the ‘you owe me, you know you owe me’ card. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even be here in the first place.
“Ten thousand credits,” the answer came, so disappointing and completely outrageous.
Your gaze, full of disbelief, shifted from the commissioner to your guardian’s helmeted profile. His head tilted slightly in your direction, and you’d never seen some metal being as expressive as in that moment; it was almost palpable how the look on his face just had to be emphatic.
A high-level bounty. Only ten thousand.
You knew Djarin was way too polite (and also way too tired) to argue, so you quickly decided to pick up the slack for him. Keeping a straight posture, you folded your hands on your thighs and proceeded to glare at the older man with an unspoken sense of authority. You weren’t really taller than him, but somehow managed to look down at him from your seat.
“This isn’t what we agreed on,” you stated simply, holding the man’s stare with ease. “You said forty thousand, not ten.”
You could practically feel the Mandalorian side-eye you, even despite his helmet in the way, but your expression or tone didn’t falter.
“You don’t have that in writing, do you?” he said sweetly with that face-splitting, shit-eating grin spreading across his cadaverous face. His interwoven, swollen fingers rested on the surface of the table as he leaned forward slightly. “And children should be seen, not heard.”
You didn’t let him provoke you, but you could clearly see how Mando’s fingers twitched before his hands clenched into fists, his gloves creasing.
“You lied,” you said chillily, your frigid glare still piercing through the man’s eyes, deprived of that typical spark you’d often see in people. “We will not sign the contract. Your expectations are ridiculous, truly,” you sneered, “and the payment cries to heaven.”
You mirrored his pose, also intertwining your fingers and resting them on the table before leaning forward, keeping the eye-contact non stop.
“You’re a waste of our services,” you added, your sardonic voice informing him matter-of-factly. “And a waste of my father’s time. Unless you’re going to keep your word, I don’t see a point in further negotiations.”
In spite of continuously staring at the older man, you caught the Mandalorian nearly breaking his neck with how fast his head snapped in your direction upon hearing ‘my father’s time’. He didn’t say a thing.
The sly smirk on the commissioner’s face evaporated as fast as it appeared, replaced by a nothing but pure contempt. He barked a sharp, humorless laugh, leaning back in his chair and folding arms on his chest defensively.
“Watch your mouth, girl,” he snarled admonishingly, and you noticed he was trying to make himself seem as stronger than he was. Worth a laugh. “I won’t be negotiating with a brat.”
“And I promised myself I wouldn’t be speaking to a moron, yet here we are,” you retorted immediately, much more acrimoniously than you intended. You sat straight again, boring through him. “Watch your tone. One last chance before we leave.”
That earned you another laughable glare, but you wanted to pat yourself on the back proudly. So far, you had the client in the palm of your hand, basically cornering him. If he thought Mando wouldn’t argue just because he was too respectful and exhausted to spend an hour bickering back and forth, he was gravely mistaken. Thankfully, you were here to give him a rough ride. You could also throw an absolute fit if needed, but with that you chose to wait.
Djarin’s knee nudged yours under the table, perhaps indicating you should slack up, but you were determined. You gave the man the evils again.
Making it your new life goal to get your time’s worth, you settled on attacking rather than waiting for an attack.
“Thirty-five thousand is the lowest we can go,” you said flatly. “Take it or leave it.”
Silence.
The only sounds in the venue were the repressed whispers coming from a slight distance and the soft clank of glass, possibly of the glasses and stemware the bartender was arraying. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife with no bigger problems.
“Fine,” he finally spat out, throwing a pouch full of credits and the puck on the table negligently, just to return to his previous pose — arms crossed on his chest, huffish grimace on his face.
You didn’t move to grab the two items; you waited for Mando to do it, and he ultimately did after a beat. He shoved them somewhere into his flaxen bag, then slowly began to get up from his chair.
But you weren’t done yet.
“We will deliver the target up to seven business days,” now it was your turn to offer an excessively cloying smile, but disdain still showed through the sweet facade.
“That’s not what…” but you didn’t let him finish.
“That wasn’t an invitation to a discussion,” you cut him off coldly, also standing up with that idiotically kind smile still on your lips. “Pleasure doing business with you, sir.”
You smirked to yourself when his face began to turn comically red, probably from the downtrod rage, but it wasn’t your problem in the slightest.
Mando followed your lead out of the cantina in complete silence; not once had he spoken a word while you were doing ‘business’, nor had he said anything while you were weaving through the system of chairs and tables.
Only when the two pairs of your boots sunk into the sand outside again, he turned to face you with his helmet tilted down at you.
“I didn’t sign the contract,” there was no way of telling if he was displeased or not, the vocoder did wonders in masking every last bit of emotion in his voice.
“You don’t have to,” your tone that was sharp as a blade just a moment ago now was kind again — your soft-spoken nature was back. “You received the tracking beacon and the credits upfront. Now it’s up to you if he even receives the bounty.”
You were aware your guardian’s questionable moral compass pointed in the way of being fair, so you also knew the client would be getting his quarry one way or another.
He didn’t say anything else, just returned to walking right back where you two came from; right in the direction of the speeder you came here by, the Razor Crest left somewhere between the dunes. You followed, playing with a strand of your hair relentlessly.
Now that the chaos was over and the bargain was closed, the inner turmoil broke the surface once again. You didn’t know what to think. What he said, calling you his daughter, could be a simple slip of tongue. Could be him saying that just to skirt any more annoying inquiries or questionable assumptions. Could be another millions of reasons that you kept mulling over in your head.
“It wasn’t a trap,” Djarin’s voice brought you back to the sad, gray reality and you looked at him with your eyebrows raised. He explained, “you said you had a feeling it was a trap. It wasn’t.”
You gave a weak smile, shambling beside him.
“Something’s in the air, I guess,” you shrugged casually, but that uncomfortable feeling in the pits of your stomach still was there. “I still think that…”
But you had no chance to reveal what you thought when someone’s large, rough hand yanked the gauzy hood off your head and pulled you backwards with zero ceremony, ripping the delicate material.
Mando’s gloved hand grabbed his blaster so fast that you didn’t even have a chance to blink, but sadly, whoever grabbed you also had some solid reaction time. You could feel the barrel press to your temple, and you side-eyed the familiar swollen finger resting on the trigger.
“Bitch knows how to bargain,” he rasped right next to your ear and you winced, biting your tongue to hold back a groan. The metal buried in your skin hurt as hell, but you didn’t dare to move. “One move and she’s dead.”
Your guardian didn’t move either, his weapon still pointed at the commissioner’s head, right between the eyes. The tension was so thick that it threatened to ram you into the ground with how heavy it was, and you were sure the Mandalorian felt it too, judging by his corded muscles.
“Talk,” his modulated voice ordered.
The older man huffed in disbelief, completely dumbfounded. He was the one threatening him and he was the one to be interrogated? He laughed again, shortly. You stood there, paralysed, not out of fear of losing your life but out of anxiety you’d make Din’s job harder. He already had enough on his plate, dealing with a corpse definitely wouldn’t help.
“Give back what’s mine,” the man whom you called a moron just a while back growled, his arm locked around your neck, threatening to strangle you any second. “Then she might live.”
He said ‘might’. You’d have to be stupid to not know it meant you wouldn’t make it either way, he’d put a bullet through your head independently of Mando’s actions.
“Nayc,” you protested firmly, your gaze locked on his visor with a hope he could read what you meant from this one word. “Ba’slanar.”
Instead of lowering his weapon, his finger landed on the trigger.
“Shut up!” the client barked at you, hitting your temple with the grip of his blaster with a surprising strength that got a whine out of you.
He grabbed your hair and pushed your head back, making it difficult for you to breathe.
“Hurt her one more time and there will be no place in the galaxy where you’ll be able to hide from me,” your father’s voice, as you caught yourself thinking, was low and dangerous, and you could tell he was barely containing the burning anger that threatened to spill over the dam.
Instead of answering, you could see the man’s fat finger squeeze the trigger in the corner of your eye. You squeezed your eyes shut, ready for what was inevitably going to happen.
But then you heard a blaster being fired, which you wouldn’t be able to catch if it was you who was getting shot. You immediately snapped your eyes open, feeling as if a boulder was dropped from your shoulders.
You spun on your heel right away, as soon as you heard the muffled thump.
The commissioner lay on the sand limply, his unseeing gaze plastered somewhere next to your guardian’s boots, cheek pressed against the dusty ground he fell on. You had his blood splattered on your already damaged, delicate top and hood, you watched his bodily fluids soak the sand and color it scarlet.
You looked at Djarin over your shoulder before turning to face him fully, blood humming in your ears with such intensity that you couldn’t even hear your own ragged breaths.
And then, you two spoke at the same moment.
“Are you hurt?”
“Did you mean it?”
“What?” you two asked simultaneously again, then stared at each other in silence.
In that short moment your heartbeat managed to calm down a little, and you ran a hand through your hair in an exasperated manner, exhaling slowly. What just happened was downright insane, right in the middle of a street that was conveniently solitary.
“You first,” you finally said, crossing your arms over your chest when a sudden wave of shivers shook your body.
He took a few steps closer until his taller, broader figure cast a shadow over yours, shielding your face from the merciless suns. His helmet tilted down at you and before you could even react, his rough gloves cupped your face, turning it gently to the side. He brushed some of your hair away, tucking it behind your ear to inspect the temple where you had been hit, to see if it needed any treatment. He already could tell it was going to swell some, probably leave a bruise.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his hands moving to your shoulders. You had trouble focusing, feeling a bit lightheaded. “Does your head hurt?”
“Just a teeny-tiny bit,” you admitted, bringing two fingers together to the point of almost-touching, but not really, watching your own reflection in his helmet stare back at you with those wide, terrified eyes.
You felt a sudden need to apologize for being about as useful as a ball and chain.
“I’m sorry for being so useless,” you began sheepishly, scratching your nose in an awkward gesture. “I just stood there, I should’ve done something instead…”
“He hit your head stronger than I thought,” he interrupted you in a completely deadpan voice, which made you crack a small smile. He gave your shoulders a good squeeze before letting go and reaching for your wrist instead. “Let’s go before we get caught. I don’t have the energy for this.”
You chuckled quietly, letting his fingers wrap around your wrist as he pulled you forward, forcing you to move in such a gentle way that the word ‘forced’ didn’t even feel fitting. You still felt guilty for making his job harder — first, you argued with the commissioner and prolonged your stay in the cantina, then you almost got killed just for closing a bargain.
At least he kept the money. No client, no trouble, and the credits were still hidden safely in Djarin’s bag.
That one question just kept forcing itself onto your tongue, and it rolled off it before you could even stop yourself and think it through.
“Did you mean it?”
He glanced over at you, a subtle frown forming beneath the helmet — one you couldn’t see.
“Did I mean what?” he asked slowly, his attention returning straight ahead as he led you out of that cursed place, away from the cooling down body and away from all that trouble.
“That word,” you said carefully, studying your shoelaces with greatest interest. You didn’t have the guts to look at him.
“I don’t…”
“‘Daughter’,” you specified quickly, before you could lose the courage. “Daughter. Did you mean it?”
His steps came to an abrupt halt and you let out an entire litany of curses internally, repeating it backwards and then spilling another stream of curse words in Mando’a, this time under your breath. All of it before you stopped as well, twirling to the side to face him.
His hand let go of your wrist, you suppressed a deep, defeated sigh. You fucked up, you shouldn’t have asked about that, it was so obvious it was just a slip of tongue and he didn’t actually mean it and—
He called your name. You had no choice but to meet his tinted visor with your absolutely terrified gaze, already preparing to apologize, but he anticipated you.
“You said ‘father’ back there,” he said, voice not hinting at any thought he might've been mulling over in his head at that moment, “when referring to me.”
“I did,” you agreed with a heavy sigh, shoulders slumping.
“Why?”
“What do you mean: why?” you blinked in surprise, staring at him as if he asked a question with the most obvious answer in the galaxy. “Don’t make me say it.”
It was his turn to sigh, the sound coming out a little strangled through the modulator. His hands landed on your shoulders again and he squeezed them lightly, making sure he had your attention. He’d always do that to ensure you were listening.
“I meant it,” he confessed, and it was like your heart stopped beating for a solid few seconds before it resumed doing its job again, racing with such a strength that it threatened to crush your ribs at any given moment.
You opened your mouth to say something and immediately closed it, realizing your voice would most definitely fail you now. All you could do was just stare at him, dazed.
“That argument back then,” he started with another deep sigh, and your whole body went rigid. “I said something I didn’t mean. And I’m sorry for that.”
“What?” was all you could utter, feeling a cold shiver run down your spine. You felt your chest swell with an entirely new, absolutely dangerous feeling: hope.
“I said you weren’t my daughter back then, you remember that,” it was more of a statement than a question and you gave a sharp nod, still bewildered. His gentle voice continued, “it was a lie. I don’t know who I tried to fool, you or myself, but it didn’t work. Not one bit.”
You could physically feel all the air get sucked out of your lungs, leaving you with a racing mind and a racing heart, deprived of any oxygen.
“You’ll always be my daughter, cyar’ika,” he carried on, with each new word you felt your stomach sink lower and lower, blood running cold. “You’ll always be my little girl.”
You stared at him in complete silence, trying to get a hold of your emotions and spectacularly failing to gather your thoughts. It felt as if a century had passed before you found your voice again, and you had to give it to him, he had some patience.
“I thought I lost you,” your tone came out a lot quieter than you wanted. “Hell, I thought I never even had you. I thought you were going to get rid of me sooner or later.”
His fingers twitched in shock, you could feel them brush over the fabric your shoulders were accoutered in.
“You didn’t actually think that,” he protested with no passion, practically pleading. When you didn’t answer, he added, “stars, I would never leave you. I would never abandon a foundling. This is the Way.”
At this point all you wanted was to freely burst into tears and sob into his sleeve until you’d fall asleep, but you decided to just suck it up and cry about it later. You forced a weak smile, suddenly feeling like you just ran a marathon.
“Ni kar’tayli gar darasuum, buir. Aliit ori’shya tal’din,” you deadpanned, staring right at his tinted visor with all of the blood drained from your face. And limbs. You were freezing, even in this impossible heat, slightly trembling.
I love you, father, you said. Family is more than blood.
His gloved hands moved from your shoulders to your face, his touch delicate and gentle despite the leather being rough and worn.
“Ni kar’tayl gai sa’ad,” came his response, equally serious and even twice as meaningful.
Now that, that knocked the last remains of air out of your lungs. The Mandalorian adoption vow, said to you by the person you held close to your heart and loved so dearly, not as a cruel joke but as a simple promise.
“That should answer your question if I meant it,” you could practically hear the humor in his tone, something so odd and rare.
You leaned into his touch, fighting to not cry.
“Let’s go home, ad’ika,” he added after a short pause, his hands slowly dropping from your face.
Djarin wrapped his arm over your shoulder, pulling you closer before you started to walk in the direction of the Razor Crest again.
You responded with a grin, your inner chaos slowly calming down to a barely audible hum.
“Let’s go home, dad.”