found. | Din Djarin

Sixteen

When he returns I'm still there, breathing in a way my father taught me to calm myself, to gain focus. Which I need more than ever to face what's ahead.

"Now," Din says sitting with me and taking my hands in his. "I need you to be honest with me, I need to know how much danger we're in so we can protect the child. I need you to tell me what you know about him."

I nod and squeeze his hand tight, my lifeline, trying to disassociate as much as I can from my feelings as I recount the horrid story to him

"Boba Fett was the best bounty hunter in the galaxy when I knew him," I tell him, remaining as calm as I can as I tell him the story I never even dared tell Leia. "After my mother was killed and we blew up the death star I needed passage to Mandalore, ironically the smuggler who saved us before couldn't do it. It was too dangerous even for him with the Empire's presence in the system. Then I found myself sitting in a cantina here on Tatooine, and behold, a Mandalorian."

"You got him to do it," he gathers and I nod. "So he smuggled you to Mandalore?"

"He didn't know who I was until we reached Mandalore but on the journey there I-" I shake my head at myself now. "I found myself enjoying his company, he was far older than me and wise and I certainly thought myself mature then. Barely nineteen, while he was well into his thirties." I hear the sigh come from him and laugh bitterly "I know, I know."

"You were a child," he says, saying the words I've never been able to. "How could you know?"

"'d lost my parents and I wanted someone to guide me, to advise me," I explain to him. "And so when I arrived and retook Mandalore I paid him with beskar to stay. Bo-Katan didn't trust him, she knew what he was but I didn't care. I figured he did the odd jobs for the empire, who didn't?" He can't argue with that. "I was nineteen, my parents dead and my aunt and I at odds when I retook Mandalore from the Empire. I paid him to stay as I found my footing, wanting someone with experience but little did I know he despised the Jedi, and little did he know I was one until we were both in too deep."

"Why?" he asks in confusion. "Is he hunting you because you're a Jedi?"

"If only it was that simple," I grimace painfully. "You see, being older than me he was a child when my father as a Jedi knight came to investigate his father for an assassination attempt, so when he learned I was a Kenobi he was reminded of the fact the Jedi cut off his fathers head in front of him." He swallows at those words. "He left in anger but not before I'd seduced him as he would say and I left mandalore in the hands of my aunt to return to the Rebellion."

I had my out, I had my chance to escape him then and yet...

"It would not be long after that Mandalore would be destroyed and I lost everything," I say, tears in my eyes now. "I-" I struggle to get the words out "After Vader tortured me and I escaped I went back to the ruins of Mandalore where my aunt disowned me thinking I'd run away instead of been captured." I look up and find myself struggling to breathe at what comes next "I- I took myself to the burning ruins of the palace and I-"

I cut myself off, the tears running down my cheeks now and he squeezes my hands tight. "It's okay, you don't have to-"

"I do," I say, needing to finally face it. "I used the force to bring down the burning ruins upon me, to bury myself in them."

"Why-" he immediately asks before slowly realising and sighs deeply "Kyra..."

"I was prepared to die with Mandalore," I tell him, telling him what iIcould never tell anyone, not Lando, not Leia, no one. "Until Boba Fett pulled me out of the ruins and saved my life. From then on I saw him in secret. I thought he was all of Mandalore that I had left. And so for the next nearly two years we had an affair no one knew about, I hid it from the people I loved because i knew what they'd say." It's then I say what I've tried to hide from him. "That I'd fallen in love with a bounty hunter, with a bad man and I knew he was a bad man but I didn't care because I loved him"