ICARUS ○ Din Djarin

XIV: Sentiment

Adrestia's eyes widened. "Where can we find her?" she asked. "What did she say when you spoke to her?"

Din told Adrestia everything he could remember about the strange merchant he had encountered before meeting with Gor Koresh. The way she had been making the medicine when he arrived, the way she knew things she shouldn't.

All the while, Adrestia was tapping things out on her datapad, looking up occasionally, her dark eyes intense with rapt attention.

When Din finished she stepped back from the table, nodding to herself. "We need to find her. If there is any chance of her helping..." she trailed off and met Din's gaze. "You need to bring her here,"

"I'm not leaving," Din objected immediately, knowing that she was going to suggest that. "I'm not leaving Cato," Adrestia opened her mouth to argue, but Din cut her off. "I don't need to go. She will know," he insisted.

With a sigh, Adrestia closed her mouth, crossing her arms and leaning back slightly. "Do you think Re'va would go?" she asked a few moments later. "I would send Âzel with her. She's the..." she let out a breath. "She's the only one I trust to handle this besides the two of us, but I don't want her going alone."

Din nodded slowly, understanding. "She could be convinced," he said, knowing that was the best answer he could give.

"Good," Adrestia nodded. "This is good. A lead is good," she said quietly, as if talking to herself.

He thought about Cato sitting in the cell several stories below. The flat look his blue eyes had now, the strange scars on his arms darker and more pronounced, or the streak of grey on the left side of his head that had solidified since Din had last held Cato in his arms.

One step closer.

☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎

Carrion's hands were shaking. They would not stop shaking either, no matter how many times he repeated the words Scaris had drilled into his head.

Weakness is not tolerated.

He hadn't meant to fall asleep, he really hadn't. But he had been so tired. His limbs had felt heavy and his mind foggy. And then before he could stop it, he was back on the sand flats with Kemuria all softness gone from her features and replaced by a harsh cold look that seemed to make her look more ghoulish. Her touches had changed as well, what were once gentle caresses and strokes down the side of his face, across his shoulders, following the curve of his spine as white hot pain seeped into him had been replaced by a harsh grip on his jaw or shoulder, pinning him in place as his mind went blank with pain.

Carrion had woken abruptly, fleeing the hands that were on him. By the time his thoughts were coherent enough to realise where he was and what he was doing, he had the medic who had been checking up on him in a chokehold, one of her instruments broken against the metal floor, broken glass glittering in the light.

She's alive. He told himself, her pulse beating frantically beneath her warm skin. She's not Kemuria. He released her numbly, letting her fall out of his hold.

No one had come to see him since she left and sent in someone to clean up the broken glass.

But they would come, Carrion knew. The silver armoured Mandalorian would come again. And when he did...

Carrion shifted, feeling the coolness of the shard of glass pressed between his back and the wall, tucked into the waistband of his trousers.

He may not remember much of anything, but he believed the Mandalorian when he said that Carrion had known him. He also believed Scaris when she told him that the people who had taken him from the Empire had inflicted pain on him. The old scars on his back ached as if in confirmation.