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Red is the color of the Nightsisters, the color of loss, the color of danger, and if she sees any more of it right now, Kycina thinks she might be sick.
There are dozens of Mandalorian Guard troopers in red scattered around the port, more squads of them moving at a quick clip across the duracrete. Every instinct screams for Kycina to run, to take the bare seconds of an opening she can see as the commander speaks with a squad, but sense says that running will only attract attention. Movement will only attract attention, because Kycina couldn’t more clearly be a Nightsister even if she shed the traditional robes when she first fled Dathomir.
In his sling across her chest, Savage squirms, and Kycina desperately presses the need to be still, to be quiet, into his mind. He’s so young that it’s impossible for him to understand, though, and his tiny face screws up, his fists balling as he gurgles his displeasure. Panic rises almost with his struggles, and Kycina hushes him fervently, tries distraction, tries a Force suggestion, but Savage has a strong will even at his age and Kycina is the one distracted, reacting, without the focus necessary, especially when the babe she’s still carrying decides to start kicking.
She never should have come to Mandalore. She should have avoided this part of space entirely. One step into the port and she’s already at risk of being found out, but—
This, the burgeoning empire the Mandalorians are forging under their new Mand'alor, is the only place that the Sith Lord doesn’t dare go, and if he catches Kycina, neither Savage nor the child she’s carrying will be spared.
“Shh, please,” Kycina breathes into Savage’s ear, trying to ignore her shaking hands, the tremor in her voice, the heavy, armored steps just a few paces away. The Mandalorians kill witches on sight, and Force-users without mercy, and Kycina had no time or space to cover her traditional tattoos, her horns, her eyes. The pregnancy is hard on her control, and Savage already moves things without touching them when he’s upset, and if she dragged him all the way here just for him to be killed by Mandalorians—
“Fox,” a brisk voice says, a woman, just a pace from the thin screen Kycina is crouched behind. “Any sign of the stowaway?”
“Not yet, Mand'alor,” the commander says, approaching with a creak of kama, boots heavy on the ground. Kycina freezes, not quite daring to press a hand over Savage’s mouth when it will just upset him more. She buries her wince as the baby kicks again, sensing some edge of distress, clutches Savage a little closer, tries to breathe as quietly as possible.
“Keep looking,” Arla Fett says, and Kycina can hear the frown in her voice, the wary edge. “Pre’s landing at any moment, and you know he likes to make trouble.”
“Bastard. You should just let me shoot him,” Fox mutters, but he keeps moving, calling orders to another squad. The Mand'alor doesn’t go anywhere, though, and Kycina stays perfectly still, heartbeat thundering too quick and too loud in her ears. Her eyes flicker to the closest exit out of the port, but it’s manned by a whole squad of red-clan soldiers. Maybe at another time, Kycina would charm herself invisible, try to sneak past, but—
One kick from the baby, one too-loud noise from Savage, and the spell would break. Kycina can't risk it.
“Mand'alor!” another voice calls, and Arla, still on the other side of the barrier, curses quietly, turns.
“Thorn,” she acknowledges, and then, flatter, “Pre.”
“Lady Mand'alor,” a voice says, perfectly pleasant in a way that puts Kycina's hackles up on instinct. “I hear you’ve been having a problem with intruders. Is this something that should concern the citizens of our great city? I can help organize a search, if it’s necessary.”
“It’s not,” Arla says without hesitation. “There’s no intruder. I don’t know who’s been spreading tales, but Mand'alor is perfectly secure.”
“I believe you, but you know how the clan leaders worry,” Pre says, sincere tone a perfect lie. “If they think someone has slipped past your grand army, right before the first meeting of the clan heads since you took the throne, they might doubt their choice of you over another worthy candidate—”
“Like you?” Arla asks coldly, and there's a scrape of metal and heavy cloth as she folds her arms across her chest. “Everything’s fine, Pre. Safety for the meeting is assured under the old laws—”
In Kycina's arms, Savage squirms, kicks, squalls.
Kycina's heart lurches in her chest, even as Arla stops short. She presses a hand over Savage’s mouth, trying to summon up the concentration for a spell, but her magic slips between her fingers the way it’s done since she realized she was pregnant, won't come smoothly the way it should—
“A baby?” Pre asks, sharp. “In a military port? Fett—”
Kycina hisses a silent curse, but Savage is struggling now, and a cry slips free, angry, offended in the way only a baby can be, and Kycina lurches up—
A hand catches her, pulls her around, and she collides hard with red armor, as bright as fresh blood. Jerks back, but even as she goes to do so the Mand'alor leans down, her blonde hair falling free around them, and hisses, “Play along.”
Then, quick, she tugs Kycina's shirt up to almost bare one breast, and says, “Lovely, I thought you were going to feed him. Is he feeling all right?”
It takes a bare second longer than it should to realize what she means, and another to make the words come. “Just cranky,” Kycina says over Savage’s next loud protest, and—she was always too powerful a shaman to take undercover missions, but she had the same training as the Nightsisters who did, and she makes herself smile up at the Mand'alor, even though her heart is still racing, fear churning into nausea in the pit of her stomach. She makes a show of straightening her shirt, tugging it down like she was caught breastfeeding, and slides Savage out of his sling, hoisting him up in one arm.
In the same moment, Arla chuckles, looping an arm around her and leaning in, and Savage’s cries stop short as he stares at one bright gauntlet. Instantly, he reaches for it, and Arla slides it off and lets him take it.
“Just bored,” she says, light. “And it’s not as if I blame him.”
“Are you implying I don’t know how to care for my child?” Kycina asks, and Arla meets her eyes, smiles lazily as she reaches out.
The slide of her fingers through Kycina's long hair shouldn’t make Kycina's breath catch the way it does, but—it’s been a long time since anyone touched her so gently.
“This morning you were calling him my child, weren’t you?” Arla asks, and tugs a lock of Kycina's hair up, kisses the dark strands as she holds Kycina's eyes.
She’s helping. She’s not shooting Kycina or her son on sight. And maybe that’s partially because it sounds like she has political problems of her own, but—it’s still more than anyone has offered since Kycina first spoke out against Talzin, argued against handing Maul off to Sidious. Not a single person since then has given her even this much cover, this much assistance, and that knowledge makes Kycina's throat feel impossibly tight.
“Before dawn, he’s most certainly your son,” she says, and doesn’t let the words catch on her tongue the way they want to.
Arla chuckles, tugs Kycina around, and aims a smirk at the pale man with a shaved head who’s watching them narrowly. “Pre,” she says. “Have I introduced you to my wife?”
“Your wife,” Pre says, look as it he just took a bite of something rotten.
Arla's smile is leonine, all teeth and dare. “Of course. Lovely, this is Pre Vizsla, the head of House Vizsla.”
Kycina puts on her best smile, the one she would use when the old shamans tried to play politics with her, manipulate Talzin’s favorite witch to gain just a little more power. “Lord Vizsla,” she says. “I'm Kycina. I've heard so much about you.”
It’s the right thing to say. Pre’s expression sours even more, and he flicks a glance from Savage to Arla and back to Kycina. “A pleasure,” he says, flat, and then to Arla, “Since you have everything in hand here, I’ll head for Keldabe, then.”
“Myles knows where to put you,” Arla agrees mildly, and her smile sharpens as Pre grimaces, but turns on his heel and stalks away. She waits until he’s out of earshot, then mutters a curse, flicking a glance down at where Savage is chewing on the leather finger of her gauntlet. She pauses for a moment, then lets her gaze rise, looking Kycina over for a long moment before she smiles crookedly.
“My stowaway, I presume?” she asks, dry.
Kycina tightens her grip on Savage, and part of her is tempted to run for Pre, to cling to the lie and use him as a shield—
The baby kicks again, right against her kidneys, and she gasps, presses a hand to her stomach and tries to keep a hold on Savage at the same time—
Arla's arm loops around her again, taking most of her weight, and she steers them back towards a quieter corner, a row of chairs. Helps Kycina slide down to sit, then sinks into a crouch in front of her, watching her with sharp brown eyes.
“What exactly is a pregnant Nightsister doing on Mandalore?” she asks, low enough that they won't be overheard. “This is a dangerous place for you, pretty thing.”
Kycina grimaces, lets herself list forward, hide behind the fall of her hair. The child is making their unhappiness known just as clearly as Savage did, and just for a moment Kycina feels exhausted, overwhelmed, furious except for how she can't even find the energy to summon up her anger.
“It’s the best of all my bad options,” she says, vicious. “At least if you're going to shoot me, Mandalorians have good enough aim to make it quick.”
Arla pauses, startled, and then snorts. Her mouth curves, and she reaches out, gently slides Savage out of Kycina's grip and hoists him up on her own shoulder. He immediately grabs onto her armor, fascinated, and Arla meets Kycina's eyes and offers her the other hand.
“You're lucky that Mandalorians don’t do weddings,” she says, dry. “But if you're willing to play my wife until this meeting with the clan heads is over, I’ll offer you sanctuary in Mandalorian space.”
Kycina flicks a look from her hand to her face, wary but still impossibly tempted. It’s the first time she hasn’t been carrying Savage in weeks, and her arms ache with the moment’s relief. Just the idea of having somewhere to stop, somewhere where she doesn’t have to wake up every few hours ready to run, is enough to make her feel dizzy with hope.
“Even though I'm a witch?” she asks, a dare. “And my son is Force-sensitive? I thought your kind killed those like us on sight.”
Arla pauses, and she looks down at Savage, curls her bare hand around the back of his fragile skull, his tiny nubs of horns just starting to grow in. Kycina tenses, but Arla just presses a thumb to black markings, raises her gaze to meet Kycina's again.
“I'm not going to kill children,” she says plainly. “No matter what they are. And if you chose to go on the run to protect them…” Her mouth twists, and she reaches out, catches Kycina's fingers and squeezes gently. In the sunlight, her armor is a flame, a spill of fresh blood, but her eyes are even brighter, a burning certainty in them that Kycina misses with a vicious sort of ache. “My mother died trying to save me. I'm not about to make another child go through that same thing. All three of you are safe here.”
Relief shudders through Kycina, and she curls forward. Arla pulls her in, lets Kycina cling to her bright armor, and—
Maybe, Kycina thinks, she can bear a little more red. Just for a while.