Center of Gravity

Oftentimes, Din is more pessimistic than you would expect, but his take on Sorgan being a “backwater skughole” isn’t quite far off the mark. 

It’s certainly humid and without any major developments, but you see a certain charm to the towering forests of pine and mud stamped roads. After a few hearty meals and a bit of exercise in the hull, the child is almost back to his usual happy hopping self. You feel lighter when the hatch opens and the two of you toe curiously off the ramp, your staff feeling the uneven ground carefully. 

The blurry shape of the child toddles here and there until he comes to hold the bottom of your staff with three green fingers, waddling around it happily in circles while Din finishes loading a pack for the three of you. 

“Are you sure they will be able to accommodate us?” you question, eyeing the Mandalorian as he trudges closer to you with the familiar cocksure stride. “This is short notice, and it’s their harvest time. They must be very busy.”

“They owe me a favor or two.” 

You smirk at the telltale sarcasm, knowing he must have shown quite a feat of bravery to feel this assured that you will be welcome. The two of you walk side by side down the forest path, his own boot steps measured and uneven to match your own, and you let the child hop and dance and puff along beside you until he begins to lag. You bring him up with one arm so he can cling to your shoulder, and you carry him the rest of the way.

Din hasn’t spoken much of this associate that he claims will be a good partner for taking on the imperial bounty. You can’t imagine anyone living on this sleepy planet who would be fierce enough to fell an AT-ST, as he so claims, but he has never led you astray. You do doubt his opinion that she will be more suited to teaching you self-defense and hand-to-hand combat than him, but you also recall Briinx and Rhalaz’s opinions on Din’s capabilities of melee. 

Perhaps it’s just as well.

The truth of the matter is that you need extra credits for fuel, and Din needs a capable partner to go after this bounty. He’s staunch in that stance, and you wonder in the guarded tone of his voice if he isn’t more shaken than he lets on after being burned by the stormtrooper. You almost broach the subject several times, but the frigid air between you two whenever you get close to speaking of it stops you in your tracks.

Not that it matters. As it stands, the bounty had gone off world by the time Din was awake and functioning again, and he claims his associate on Sorgan has contacts that might be able to point him in the right direction.

Which brings you to the middle of the damp wilderness of the green planet of Sorgan, toeing pine needles and squinting through the earthy watercolors your vision makes of everything. Din, in his polished dark armor, seems a shade, a figment of the deep space you’d left behind, and the child in your arms reaches out to him with grabbing little hands, whining insistently.

An orange fingered glove holds the baby’s hand as gently as if handling cotton, and you smile when the little one’s ears flutter up and down in happiness. If you didn’t know better, he’s trying to assure himself that neither of you will go anywhere, and you don’t have the heart to break that assurance.

The walk itself isn’t long, but your feet are unsure on the uneven terrain. More than once, the soft soles of your boots slip on mossy rocks and mud slicked parts of the path where rainwater pools, and you aren’t sure when Din lets go of the child’s hand to rest his palm against your back. It feels natural, though, and comforting, so the next time you slip on the gentle slope up toward the thatched huts of the meager outcropping of village buildings, you whisper your thanks with a minimum amount of heat in your face.

You’re paying so much attention to the path that you don’t recognize the sound of approaching feet until you’re suddenly ambushed, surrounded by a small sea of young children clamoring towards Din from playing in the reeds near the fishing ponds. They’re yelling and laughing and reaching up, and more than one rushes you to greet the baby, whose ears perk up instantly. He squeals with delight, clapping his hands at one girl with dark hair and glittering eyes who greets him with a kiss upon his brow.

It reminds you of Corde so very much that your eyes are quickly glassy with tears, which is just as unexpected as the group of younglings gathering and calling out "Mr. Hero!" and "Little Baby!" 

Din pats a few on their heads, grunting when several of the younger boys grab at his legs and swing from his arms in play. He heaves one up aloft over his pauldron with a long-suffering sigh before straightening his back, tense and still.

You watch through your blurred vision, worried for a moment that he's hurt himself or a child by accident, before he whirls around, drawing at his hip holster and aiming his fingers in the shape of a blaster toward the tall grass. From it bursts even more children, shrieking with delight and running around him, heading for the village. 

"Friends of yours?" 

He drops the child on his shoulder to his feet, gently thumping him on the head before watching him run off. When his helmet tilts toward you, he shifts from boot to boot.

"If I had any, it'd be them."

Your front teeth catch your bottom lip on a smile, and at the insistent tugging of children on your dress, you gently set the child down on his feet. He immediately toddles, arms cast out on both sides to retain his balance before he sets into a full huffing run to play with the other children. You and the Mandalorian watch curiously as the child completely integrates himself in the gaggle of youth, chirping and babbling gibberish. 

A warm, steady hand at your back draws your attention away, and the warrior at your side directs you to the wooden steps of a building a few yards away. The path in front has been worn down from use. Inside, you hear raucous shouting that seems to shake the thatched roof, and you blanch at the vibrations beneath your feet. You’ve felt it enough to recognize the scuffles of a fight.

“We’re going in there?”

“It’s where Cara is. Why?” 

The genuine surprise in his voice makes your eyebrows lift even higher, not to mention the name of his contact. You have all too vivid memories of the last time he was drawn into a brawl in the dusty subterranean enclave on Nevarro. Your stomach seems to churn and cramp at the reminder, and you swallow hard around a growing knot of anxiety. 

Worn leather fingers capture your hand that has begun to wring your dress at your side, and the gleaming helmet tilts closer towards you. His voice is tender in hisz quiet baritone when he asks, “What is it?”

Your mouth opens, but the words die in your throat. It’s not utterly irrational to worry for him-not really. He has risked his life nearly every day you’ve known him and always come out on top, but that luck surely will run its course. The sounds of children’s laughter behind you seem to grow distant, and he stands in front of you, his impatience making itself known in the shift between his boots.

That little gesture buries your concern, walling it behind something thick and uncomfortable.

“Nothing,” you murmur, drawing your hand back gently. The two of you face each other with more things unsaid in the heavy silence, you knowing he’s aware of you holding back. Just as you know he is fighting between the urge to stay and the need to go. You make the decision for him, closing your staff and tucking it beneath your robe, and grasp the railing to ascend the short stoop. “It’s nothing.” 

You can hear his sigh, quiet but creating soft static through the modulator, but he resumes his place at your side, bringing his palm back up to the small of your back as you walk up the rickety steps side by side. You don’t feel quite comfortable leaving the child outside, even if he isn’t alone, and when you hesitate at the door, the Mandalorian looks back at you, reading your wariness.

“We won’t be long,” he finally says with a determined promise in his voice, and you nod and allow him to escort you inside. It’s much darker beyond the entrance of what you find is a tavern, lit by the meager sunlight slipping past the eaves. It is a broad, expansive space full of the scent of charred meat and hot bread, and your stomach begins to cramp at the delicious smells. 

But, that would have to wait.

A fight, unlike any you’ve ever witnessed, unfolds before you so violently that the sandy floorboards tremble beneath your feet. You don’t realize it when you clutch the Mandalorian’s arm, but he carefully leads you around the room behind the crowd of cheering, yelling spectators. Your eyes drift down to look at the floor and where you step, rather than attempt to make anything out of the brawl happening in the middle of the tavern. You feel more than hear when a body is thrown savagely against a piece of furniture, and your nails begin biting into Din’s bicep through the thick fabric of his shirt beneath his armor.

His movements are careful as he maneuvers you both into an empty pocket in the crowd, bringing you in front of him so his arms can wrap around your frame, keeping you safely ensconced. The lip of his helmet touches your shoulder, and the familiar weight of the beskar anchors you to the floor. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Gambling,” he answers simply, his modulator cutting through the crowd of onlookers and their shouting. You begin to relax further into the firm steel chestplate at your back when his leather gloved fingers draw circles on top of your arms. “Mercenaries out of work who turn to spectator sports to make money.”

You can hear the brutal, meaty blows of fists connecting with muscle and bone, and you can’t help but flinch every time. Your heart has taken to galloping in your breast being so close to the fight, and a downtrodden part of you thinks you’ll never be fit to fight anyone, much less defend yourself.

Crackling, brilliant electricity lights up your vision when a few spectators move in front of you, and you can see what appears to be a corded whip connecting the two fighters. You suck in a breath when they clash together in a vicious slam, throwing each other to the floor. 

“Shame,” Din mumbles at your ear. “This would’ve been easy money if we’d got here sooner.”

“I didn’t know you made bets,” you say, a smile tugging at one corner of your mouth. The small details of this man continue to amuse and endear you to him, and finding his regimented, disciplined personality could be broken up by something as mundane as gambling is both surprising and funny. 

He says nothing, humming noncommittally and continuing to watch. Your eyes follow the electrical cord, the brightest bit that you can make out with your poor eyesight, and you suck in a breath when you realize one fighter begins to loop it around their opponent. The next moment, the thickly muscled alien begins to choke, and his huge fist slams down on the floor desperately, tapping out.

The tavern’s patrons cheer, throwing up hands and credits and all manner of clamoring shouts in different languages. The crackling electrical cord suddenly disappears, and as you watch the winner help their defeated opponent from the floor, you suck in a breath.

It’s a woman.

“Pay up, mudscuffers!” the winner yells, her smile so brilliantly white and gleaming that you can see it from across the tavern. The sound of credits being thrown and passed is foreign to you, and you admit you are more than enchanted by this woman’s command of the room, of the crowd.

Of Din, who shifts from behind you to move into the winner’s line of sight. Her smile somehow broadens into a half hungry, half fiendish sort of delight, and the Mandalorian nods her way.

“Looking for work?”

When she walks, she swaggers, and you can’t really take your cloudy eyes away from her boots, the guards on her hands, the armor on her shoulders. She throws out a sturdy hand, which Din grasps at her forearm in a firm, reliable gesture of comradery. 

“Good to see you,” she grins, her voice a velvety alto that makes you feel warmer. You’re not sure when she sees you, but you can tell after a moment her eyes flicker from the armored warrior toward your position behind him. She tips her head deep to the side, still smirking. “Step into my office.” 

The table is near the corner, far enough that no one should be able to overhear anything spoken, and Din brings out your chair for you to sit down in before angling himself towards the door of the tavern. The woman plops heavily down across from the two of you, spreading herself out in a victorious unfurling that exudes confidence and satisfaction. You wish you could sit near a window or the door so you could peek outside at the baby, but you feel a gentle nudge of a boot under the table and turn back around.

A tavern worker approaches the table, but before she can ask what anyone would like, the woman drops a few coins on the table before her. “Spotchka, for the ladies.”

Heat floods your face and you quickly sit up straighter. “Oh, I don’t-”

Two cups are promptly set on the table, and you can see the brilliant blue beverage poured until it kisses the lip of the cup. The server does the same in front of the fighter, taking her money before disappearing. She leaves the flagon.

“It’s good, but it burns,” the fighter warns you, and you can still see the white of her teeth. You don’t touch your share.

“I need some help. A job.”

“Not going to introduce me to your friend?” The woman asks, and you think she’s pouting. The Mandalorian shifts beside you, and you can hear his deep inhale before the fighter throws her hand out at you from across the table. “Cara Dune,” she says, her voice purring it more than proclaiming it with no shortage of pride. You feel more heat in your cheeks as you lean forward to shake her hand, calluses scraping the sides of your hand. “Never seen anyone with this guy before. Other than the-wait, where is the kid?” 

Cara turns in her chair, looking under the table and around at the floor, and you hear Din sigh beside you. “He’s outside. Playing.” 

“Did you see Winta? She grew another inch since you left.”

“I need help with a job,” Din repeats, and you think you can hear annoyance in his tone. Or perhaps it’s just that he’s tired. You rest one hand in your lap, the other gently moving beneath the table to lay on top of his cuisse. Your thumb trails the edge of it, catching on his pants, and you can hear him take another breath. “I-I have a bounty that’s proving more difficult than I expected.”

“Why me?” Cara asks, lifting her cup to her mouth. You don’t realize you’re staring at the curve of her bicep until you catch a wink from over the cup, and you quickly look away to a very fat, sleeping loth cat near the bar. 

“I...lost the lead. Was hoping you might know where I can start,” Din mutters, and it sounds like he has a bad taste in his mouth, whether from admitting he needs help or having to ask for it, you’re not sure. There’s a tension in the silence between the three of you, and you know Din isn’t going to tell her exactly what happened. Not that he needs to, you think, but Cara Dune seems to pick up more than she lets on.

“Well, if you need information for a bounty, I doubt you’d be welcome where I’d go. They’d draw before you could make a case for yourself,” she puffs, a mirthless sound. The hand not holding the cup of spotchka is drumming against her knee where her leg is propped against the table’s edge. “Is that what your friend’s here for? Bait?”

“No.”

The heat leaves your face at how cold Din’s voice gets, razor like, and you look down at your hand in your lap. 

“What? You want me to go fishing for you?” Cara snorts, taking another deep gulp of the crystal blue drink. “You must really be desperate to ask me something like that.”

The Mandalorian remains as stoic and silent beside you as the steel he wears, and you can see Cara’s face change, melting and molding into something equally fierce. “I’m not looking to get involved in another hunt, Mando.”

“You won’t. I just need information.”

“I don’t know,” Cara tosses her head to the side, her dark shorn hair clearing her face. “I’ve been advised to lay low. If anybody runs my chain code, I’ll rot in a cell for the rest of my life.” 

“I thought you were a veteran.”

A hand slaps the table from your side, and you jump as a hulking alien pushes money towards Cara, his demeanor unamused. She flashes a brilliant white smile and nods toward him. “Come back soon,” she sings, her voice gentle and low. It might be the only soft thing about her, you think. She turns her eyes back on you, and then the Mandalorian. “I’ve been a lot of things since. Most of them carry life sentences, too. I can’t risk it. Something as simple as booking passage on a New Republic ship-”

“I have a ship. We’ll take you to where you need to go, and I’ll make sure you’re dropped back off here with more than fair compensation.” You raise your eyebrows at this, digging your thumb into the side of Din’s thigh. What kind of compensation? You’re more than acquainted with the fact he doesn’t even have enough money for fuel. 

Cara shakes her head slowly, rolling her neck. “I can’t risk it, Mando. Especially not for some local warlord bounty.”

“He’s not a local warlord,” You don’t realize you’ve spoken until Cara sets her cup down, and Din’s helmet turns towards you enough to catch sunlight that’s streaming in from the roof. Your face heats again, looking toward Cara and keeping your voice level. You can still feel the vibrations of the carbonite freezer being shaken almost off the hinges. “He’s Imperial.” 

Cara doesn’t move, the curves of her cheeks still holding up a smug and self-satisfied grin, but she slowly dips her chin downward. “Alright. I’m in.”

Feeling tension flee you didn’t even know you had, your shoulders drop. Warm leather encompasses your hand resting on Din’s leg beneath the table, and he squeezes your fingers with his own. With your free hand, you lift your previously untouched cup to your lips and take a delicate sip of the spotchka. It tastes a little sweet and grassy with a potent strike of alcohol, and your nose wrinkles at the distinct flavor. You set it back down before attempting to meet Cara’s eyes.

“Where will you get your information from?”

“Coruscant. Ever been?” When you shake your head, Cara snorts and downs the last of her drink. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Place is nothing but a home for crime syndicates at this point, but if you want information on an Imperial, my contact there will have it.” 

Din heaves a sigh beside you, and you look at him out of your periphery. “That's the inner rim. It’ll be hard to manage. And there’s one more thing,” he says, his voice rasping and his tone rather cagey. 

“Isn’t there always?” Cara winks your way again, and that’s the last bit of warmth you feel toward her for a while.

Because now, you are flat on your back in the mud, staring up at the watery greyish blue sky, and you think you might truly try and kill this woman. As far as you can see, you have a few options.

You can ring Din Djarin’s neck and try to bury him in the woods, and that option is looking favorable now that he’s set this friend of his on you for combat training. You want to take back everything you said, the declarations of family and love and contribution to a Mandalorian clan, because this is the fifth time Cara Dune has slammed you so hard that you’ve left a bodily indentation in the earth.

Option two is giving up on melee and trying to take as many hits as you can. The idea of tiring out your opponent seemed like a good one to begin with, but Cara is made of muscle, sculpted and hard as stone. Every time you think you know what a grab or a shuffle or a hit will feel like, it leaves you winded and sore. Maybe if you had beskar covering you from head to toe, it wouldn’t be as big a feat, and you don’t miss your chance to shoot the Mandalorian a withering glare when he tries to give you advice, sitting on the fence lining the border of your host’s property.

“Don’t listen to him,” Cara says breezily, a playful smile tugging the pink curve of her lips from above you where she props her fists akimbo. “He hasn’t been able to beat me, either.” She gives you her hand and hoists you up like you’re a trodden flower, and you feel mud caking your back, bum, and legs. A large, wet clump of dirt falls from your scraggly braid, and the child giggles from his perch on the fence post beside his father, clapping his hands.

“Do you have to hit so hard?” you ask, rubbing your abdomen where her elbow had jammed against you to throw you off of her. You wince at the sensation, dropping your shoulders. “I don’t think I’m retaining any of this.”

“Look,” Cara gently turns you toward her, both of her hands warm on your shoulders as she keeps you at arm’s length. There is nothing clear about her to you, even up close. She is about the same height as you, give or take an inch, but somehow you still feel small as she stares down her nose. “We have some advantages being women in fights against boys. You just have to know how to use them.”

Heat begins to crawl up your neck to your ears when you imagine the various guards and soldiers you have crossed paths with over the years. Nothing about them even remotely seems conquerable to you, even without their armor. Black or white, armed or not, something within you deflates at the prospect.

“Like what?”

“Center of gravity,” Cara says, dropping her hands and taking a step backward. “Mando, come give me a hand.” 

You hear very quiet mumbling from the armored man, but the sounds of boots stomping through mushy grass and wet mud circle from behind you until the Mandalorian stands beside Cara.

Without a word, she shoves him hard in the shoulder, and unsurprisingly, he barely moves. “A man’s center of gravity is here, in the center,” she says firmly, the back of her fist bumping against the beskar chest plate over Din’s heart. His helmet tilts down toward her wrapped knuckles. “Hits here aren’t going to do much for you or him. Now,” she repositions herself, her feet planted shoulder width apart, and she rests her hands on her belt. “Ladies center of gravity is lower. We’re more equipped to be grounded, to feel solid beneath our feet. That’s our advantage. So if you want to take a man down, don’t aim up. Aim low.”

You watch, fascinated, as her blurry outline suddenly collides with Din, her shoulder ramming down toward his abdomen. The Mandalorian is caught off guard and tries to keep his balance by outweighing Cara, scrambling to dig his heels in. But her logic is sound, and the lower she aims herself, the sooner Din is thrust backward, nearly rolling backward over his own helmet. You hear a muffled groan into the grass, and Cara straightens upward, beaming. “See?”

Wrinkling your forehead, you rub one of your arms, nodding warily. “I’m not as strong as you,” you point out, but Cara shrugs, grabbing Din by the scruff of his neck where his cape is and hauling him to his feet.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s all about gravity. Let it do the work for you. With a little bit of elbow grease and the element of surprise, you’ll have plenty of guys on their backs. Uh, in a fight,” she adds, flashing a brilliantly white smile. Din rolls his head from side to side, cracking his neck. “Now, you should try.”

Your eyes widen, glancing between their two shapes. “I-I don’t want to hurt him.” 

“You won’t,” they both reply in unison.

“Just try to push him over,” Cara adds, slapping the side of his helmet. “He might be old, but he’s scrappy.”

Din mutters beneath the helmet, “We’re only a few years apart.”

You blow out a heavy breath, shaking your hands at your sides, and suddenly, the Mandalorian has never seemed so intimidating. You know that it’s Din, a very kind-hearted, quiet man standing in front of you, but with all the armor, the dark clothing beneath, he seems more like an impassable shadow. Your hesitation is used against you, because in two quick strides, Din grabs your shoulders and twists you around, and you realize he’s trying to push you down to the ground. Heart thundering like a rabbit, you attempt to push with your feet down, throwing yourself back against his chest, and it might as well be a stone wall you’re trying to move.

“Low!” Cara yells, squatting down a few feet away. “Don’t push up, push low!”

It’s awkward, at first, purposefully throwing your weight to the side instead of up, and you use Din like a landing pad, letting him hit the ground first so you can roll back on top of him. It’s clumsy and panicked, but you’re surprised at how quickly you can scramble up and away from him. Even in his armor, Din is an adept fighter.

“Not bad,” Cara walks over, and you can taste grass now, stained green with mud in your hair as you lean your hands on your knees. Din doesn’t make a move to get up, having accepted his fate as a practice dummy, and he continues to just rest flat on his back. “The easiest things to remember are to hit where someone is weak. Obviously not him,” she adds, gesturing to the helmet. “But if it’s an unarmored man, the eyes and nose are good places to start.”

“What about if he’s armored then?” you ask through your pants for air. You gently lower yourself forward until your knees sink into the grassy carpet. You’ve never felt this sore before.

“It depends. A Mandalorian’s armor is different than, say, a trooper’s.” 

“The knees are usually pretty vulnerable,” Din says, and you narrow your eyes at how perfectly unaffected he sounds from his position. “Especially if you can get at them from the side. Hips are good if you have a weapon, because there’s no way most will be able to walk if you can aim at them.”

A distant, foggy memory tries to emerge from the depths, and you think of brawny arms wrapping around you when a soaked cloth was covering your mouth and nose. You want to ask how you could have escaped that attack on Cantonica. You want to ask what Cara would have done in that situation, but the fear of knowing the truth-that only you were stupid enough to fall into that trap at all-keeps your mouth shut.

“What is it?” Din’s voice is so soft, but it still pulls you out of your wonderings. His visor is looking at you now, the sun gleaming on the beskar as bright as super star clusters.

“Nothing,” you murmur, pushing some loose, sweat soaked hair from your face.

“You deserve a break. Come on, I’ll show you where the bath house is,” Cara says, her own voice gentler. She helps you to your feet, dusting off some mud from your back.

“Wait-” Din moves fast then, nearly tripping over himself to stand up, but Cara waves him off.

“It’ll give you some privacy, won’t it?” she asks, and you think she might be trying to bait him into something, fishing for some details or asking a question without really saying the words. Because when Din curls his fingers into fists at his sides, you swallow instinctively. “You’re safe here. All of you.”

You know the Mandalorian well enough now to recognize his hesitancy, even beneath the beskar, and you try to smile reassuringly his way before Cara gently steers you back toward the fence. She helps you climb over the side, retrieving your staff and cloak for you. Your own beskar is tucked within the folds of fabric, and you hold it tight as you follow her down the path towards the village. 

Krill harvests are being lifted out of the mossy water banks by the bushel, and you can smell the algae hanging in the air. While the community is small, they are lively, working together to not just bring in their aquamarine catch, but they also brew spotchka in brewing houses all throughout the village that gives it a bit of a sweet aroma.

Cara waits for you outside the small cottage barn where you, Din, and the child are staying. He’s claimed the owner is a very kind woman, a leader in the small society, and you feel safer knowing he can trust her and these people who are foreign to you. It was easier to blend in when you lived with the Moff on his estate. Guards and soldiers, lieutenants and commanders constantly roamed the halls of the sprawling house. In your child’s memory, you can remember burgundy columns that spiraled into a lofty ceiling, smooth sandstone flooring that opened out into regimented and manicured gardens. The order you had been so familiar with seems lifetimes away now in this wild, thriving village.

After you scoop up your clean clothes, you consider leaving your walking aid. You can feel the slippery mud coating your boots, and rather than risk falling in the village center, you extend the staff and feel a comforting sense of security. You do feel grounded, now.

You join Cara once again, who you think sneaks a long, lingering glance at your staff. You tighten your fingers around the grip, following her into the bathing house built closer to the mid-center of the village. It is hemmed in by a series of smaller, thatched buildings, but it shares the border of the community near the woods. You find out why as soon as you enter.

Inside, billows of thick, white steam hang in the air like a dense fog, and it smells starkly of herbs and flowers. In the dim light, you can’t make much out, and you hesitate, pushing the bottom of your staff out so it hovers above the ground, feeling for anything you might bump into.

“Cara?”

“Hm?” Her voice, gentle and almost melodic in the post-adrenaline fueled afternoon, seems suddenly much farther away. “Oh-over here.”

You try to follow the sound, and you tense when she cups your shoulder. “I think I need help,” you murmur quietly, lacking resignation or embarrassment. Really, you are more concerned with being a bother than of any false sense of pride, and you begin relaxing when Cara pats your other arm. 

“The baths are sectioned off, and then there’s a larger hot spring built down into the ground once you’re clean. Can you get your clothes off?”

You nod, letting her set your things to the side, and you smile gratefully when she leads you to sit on a small wooden bench. It’s quick work, shucking off your boots and socks, and you begin to untie the back of your dress at the nape of your neck. It’s the old one that they gave you when you were first bought to serve at the cantina so long ago. It’s the only thing you could reconcile getting ruined during Cara’s lesson, since Din mentioned you might not want to wear anything you’d resent getting messy. You slip the sleeves off, shimmying the worn fabric down your body, and you start unbuttoning a very old tunic next.

“Can I ask you a question?” Cara says suddenly.

You blink and smile, nodding as you peel away the undershirt. The steam is so thick that you hardly feel the need for modesty, standing up and gathering the soiled garments.

“How do you know what to pick out to wear? I mean-” Cara grunts, yanking a piece of her own clothing off over her head. “I feel like if it were me, I’d wear everything backwards, or wrong colors.”

“Oh.” You unravel the tunic again, feeling around the neckline until you reach the back, turning it inside out to show her. “I sew the inside, here-either with a letter or a shape. I can see most colors, I think, but this way I know which one is which, even in the dark.” 

You think she is smiling, because the whites of her teeth remain brilliant even in the dim of the bath house. “This is Mando’s, isn’t it?”

A blush unrelated to the heat of the baths fills your cheeks, and you fold the tunic back up tightly. “He goes through them constantly,” you murmur, setting your things down where you were sitting, reaching a hand out for the wall. You can feel Cara nearby, and hear her when she tells you there’s a tub to the right.

It’s not very big, just giving you enough room to sit with your legs crossed, but it’s deep and the water is so hot that you hiss when you step in. The Razor Crest’s refresher is glacial compared to this.

“There’s some soap and oil here, if you want it.”

“Yes please,” you squeak, stomping your feet into the bottom of the metal tub and forcing yourself in. You think at first you’ll scream from the temperature, but as your back sinks into the water, you groan in relief. Every tight, tense muscle and aching joint begins to wonderfully unwind, and you slump fully down into the water. 

Cara’s voice comes from above your head, and you can hear her smile. “Good?”

“It’s wonderful.”

“I can help with your hair, if you need it.”

“I don’t think I can move anyway,” you mutter, rolling your shoulders and sighing deeply. Cara chuckles and you hear her shift behind you. Her armor is gone, and she gets to work undoing your braid with little finesse and grace. Her hands cup the back of your shoulders to ease you forward, and as she gathers the long length of your hair up, it occurs to you too late to tell her to stop.

“What-what the hell happened?” 

Cara is holding your hair in one fist, the other hand splayed over your shoulder to hold you in place. It’s the first time you’ve felt truly shy around her, and you swallow hard, bringing your legs to the side and leaning one arm over the tub as she continues blanching at your back. “Lower your voice, please,” you whisper, unsure if others are nearby who could hear.

“You look like you were dragged behind a speeder bike,” Cara whispers, but you can tell it’s through her teeth, the sounds of disgust and abject affrontal not new to you. She’s not exactly pulling your hair, but she doesn’t relax until you reach back to touch her arm. It takes her a few moments to collect herself, but when a group of women enter the building from the other side, she finally lets your hair go, drawing water up with her cupped hands to loosen some of the mud and dirt away. Her whisper is right behind your ear when she says, “I know Mando didn’t do that.”

“Of course not,” you whisper back, offense coloring your voice. You turn forward, closing your eyes and focusing on the hot water soaking your scalp and cleaning the muck away. It’s far more pleasant than to think about the deep, chasm like scars on your back. Some are layered enough that they resemble terrible burns-or so it has been told to you. “He doesn’t even know about it.” 

Cara only hesitates once in drawing water up to soak your hair. Once it’s wet, heavy and laying like a blanket over your back, she draws the soap through her wet hands until you can hear crackling bubbles. She starts at your scalp, massaging and scratching until soap suds begin to slide down your temples. 

“I thought...I thought that you two...you know.” You raise your eyebrows, but you keep your eyes shut as soap begins stinging them. You hear her sigh. “I thought he might have finally found someone to...share things with.”

Something tickles at the back of your throat, and you’re unsure what the feeling is linked to. You swallow. “He has.” 

“Oh. But he hasn’t...seen you naked?”

“No.” You consider it, realizing that no, he hasn’t-though you don’t think it’s for a lack of trying. You smirk a little, resting your chin on the side of the tub. “Kind of hard with a baby around. You have to be quick about some things.”

Cara suddenly snorts so loud you jump, sloshing water, and she laughs from her belly after that. She stands up, still laughing, and you can hear her laugh move away before coming back. “Tilt your head up,” she grins down at you, and you do as she says, shivering when she pours fresh, clean water through your hair from a pitcher. 

“What’s so funny?” you ask, a pout curving your lower lip. You part your thick curtain of hair from your face. “It’s true!”

“I just didn’t expect you to be so honest about it,” Cara says, smirking. She rinses your hair twice more before she hands you the soap bar. She moves away from you, and you’re vaguely aware of her shadow when you hear an abrupt splash nearby. She must be in another bath. “So. How’d it happen?”

Prickling heat breaks out behind your ears and up the back of your neck. You focus on dragging the soap over your skin with studious intent. It smells like wildflower honey, earthy and a distinct sweetness. You think the water must be rather murky by now, but you’re too anxious at the idea of making it out and into the spring by yourself when you can see so little. You weigh your chances breaking your neck against answering Cara’s innocent question, and you sigh, washing the bottom of your feet.

“It was a long time ago,” you say after a while, washing and rinsing, washing and rinsing. Your mind is too tired to grapple with the past’s ugliness. “It was an accident.”

“Oh.” There’s a long bit of quiet, followed by a loud splash of water and Cara releasing a big breath. She must have dunked her head under. 

You don’t have the heart to tell her about the Moff, about your indentured servitude, about the Empire’s own touch upon your life and the hurt it had left behind. So you press your own sigh down and rinse yourself off with a final wash. 

Cara helps you out of the bath house once you’re dressed in clean clothes-the tunic and pants Din had loaned you-and you feel drowsy enough to simply fall asleep wherever you might land. The sun has already dipped below the horizon, and you’re grateful for Cara’s escort back to the cottage barn as you don’t know which building is which, much less how to find your way back. As you approach, you can hear the laughter of children and adults, alike, and you perk up a little in curiosity.

“I’ll leave you to it. But listen,” Cara steps close to you, her face pale in the fading sunlight. She angles her head to the side, dark eyes blinking at you. “You’ll get it, you know. Defending yourself. You’re at a disadvantage, but you can do it, I swear,” she says, and you don’t expect it when her calloused fingers catch your cheek gently as she pushes some hair behind your ear. She smiles with her teeth. “Goodnight.”

You’re left blinking and burning with heat in your cheeks, watching her shadow shift and disappear into the darkness. Something in your chest loosens, something that had hurt all day and for several days that you weren’t aware of until now. The laughter from inside the barn shakes you from the funny feeling, and you turn towards the golden glow of light from inside that illuminates the outline of the door covering. 

The brightness creates a flare in your vision when you push the covering aside, and melodic sounds of laughter, giggles, and chuckles meet your ears. Inside, there is a small light coming from a lantern near the side of the cot that has been set up in the corner, and the Mandalorian sits on the edge, elbows balanced on his thigh cuisses and looking down at the child in the floor. He’s huddled beside a young girl around a holopad as she reads a story, you think, from the sounds of it, and just behind her, another adult sits in the floor with them. Every now and then, the little green baby tries to repeat a word, though it only ends in gibberish, making everyone laugh. 

For a moment, it almost feels as if you’ve walked into the wrong house entirely, and your heart drops, but the gleam of a newly polished beskar helmet catches your eye when Din tilts his head up toward you. His voice is tired but happy when he says your name, and everyone else turns to the door, too.

In fact, as soon as the child sees you, he pushes himself up with gusto and slaps his feet against the wooden slats in a full speed run toward you, huffing and puffing with his arms upward and out. That bit of pain in your heart deepens into a loving ache, and you set your things down near the threshold before scooping the baby up, gathering him close to your chest. He fits his head just against your neck where you are warmest, ears folded back and down as he clings at your tunic, wiggling with delight. 

“Hello.” Your misty eyes turn toward the other woman, you realize by the melodic sound of her voice. You can make out a mass of dark hair, and the blue of her clothing now that she’s standing. The young girl, in your blurry sight, seems a miniature version of her, the one from that morning that had greeted your own little one with a kiss. “We haven’t met yet, but he-” she gestures with fidgeting fingers toward Din, who still sits stoically on the edge of the bed. “-he’s talked all evening about you.”

Feeling warmth once again pool in your face, especially your ears beneath your damp hair, you smile bashfully and hold your hand out, happy when she shakes it. Her hands are not smooth, similar to Cara’s; she has seen hard work and perhaps even more than that. 

“I’m Omera, and this is my daughter, Winta,” she says, letting go of your grip to lay her hands on her own child’s shoulders. You recognize the name, and you are once again reminded of Corde when the little girl gives you a toothy grin. “And you are welcome as long as you need a place to stay.”

“That’s very kind of you,” you say softly, feeling the warm breath of the baby against your neck. His tiny hands grip at your neckline, the fabric soft and clean, and you realize he’s falling asleep. You fight a sudden onslaught of fresh tears building in your eyes, both from the tenderness of the child you hold and the compassion of your host. 

“Goodnight, Baby!” Winta whispers, reaching up to pat his back on her way out.

Omera looks back at Din as she steps through the door, nodding at him and then you once again before she disappears, and as soon as she is gone, you feel Din move swiftly to nearly crowd you, one hand under your elbow and the other brushing your cheek. He’s still in full armor, and you know he will sleep in it throughout the night, too on edge in a place that isn’t home to shed his protection.

“You look upset,” he whispers, his voice so quiet even the vocoder doesn’t pick it up. You merely hear him from beneath the helmet. 

When your cheeks lift upward in a brave smile, a tear escapes, and you swallow back a sob that threatens to break loose. “I only-I’m tired, I think,” you murmur, back, a strange mixture of emotions settling as a knot in your throat. Rather than let you go this time, Din follows you step for step as you lay the baby in the small, wooden cradle that Omera had been considerate enough to leave for you, and you feel him watching as you tuck the little sleeping child in. As soon as your arms are free, you feel Din turn you around, and it’s a smooth exchange, your gravity pulling his orbit back where you both belong. You fit yourself against his chest, wrapping yourself around him as he pulls you close. The embrace is secure, encapsulating, and his cape falls over both of your arms, hiding you from the rest of the world.