Stowaway | A Mandalorian Love Story | Din Djarin x OC

Chapter Sixteen: The Other One

Suggested Listening:
New Fish - Thomas Newman (from Shawshank Redemption) | ...unstoppable guilt
Truth/Mal's Speech - David Newman (from Serenity) | ...worth more than the other one
Rest in Peace - Ludwig Goransson (from The Mandalorian) | ...retrieving dr pershing
Lost in Fog - Thomas Newman (from Finding Nemo) | ...the next stop
No Mood for Conversation - Rachel Portman (from The Duchess) | ...so much for the way
The Mission - Bryan Tyler (from Avengers: Age of Ultron) | ...the plan
Seoul Searching - Bryan Tyler (from Avengers: Age of Ultron) | ...request denied
Kuiil - Ludwig Goransson (from The Mandalorian) | ...kyra's armor

"I have to hand it to you — for a rookie, you're not bad at Pazaak."

Fennec was peering over her cards at me, an impressed glint dancing in her eye.

"Beginner's luck," I said, pulling another card from the deck. "Besides, I genuinely have no idea how much each card is worth, so I'm benefitting from a hearty amount of ignorant confidence."

Her sly chuckle echoed in the passenger's hold of Boba Fett's ship. I knew nothing about the game, so as far as I was concerned she could've been making the rules up as she went along, but as soon as she pulled her deck out — sparsely assembled from her bounty-hunting days when they had been used as some sort of code — and offered to teach me, I jumped at the chance. Cara was up in the cockpit with Boba Fett, and it had been an anxiously silent journey thus far.

I snuck a glance over at Din, who was leaning back with his arms crossed, his head tilted toward the porthole. He could've been thoughtfully watching the stars whiz by, or he could've been asleep. It would do him good, I thought to myself like a fussing mother. He's no good to anyone if he's dead on his feet.

A pang of worry shook my chest as I took in his still form. I knew he must be steeped in grief after watching his ship be destroyed in a single instant. The memory made me feel sick — even though I had only spent a short time on the Razor Crest, watching it be reduced to rubble broke me in half. I couldn't believe it simply didn't exist anymore. The idea felt ludicrous. Deep down I knew that despite being new to the ship, I had begun calling it home in my head — I could only imagine how he was feeling. I did, however, share the furious, white-hot terror and rage that began coursing through his veins the second the kid was out of our reach — and something even more insidious: a radiating, unstoppable guilt. I remembered Grogu's little face peering down at us, his fearful expression getting smaller and smaller as he disappeared into the clouds. Though Din had been through far more with the child than myself, I knew that we were both on exactly the same page when it came to the idea of losing him. However, he dealt with that cacophonous typhoon of feelings by being still and quiet, vibrating tensely in the corner like a dangerous animal ready to pounce as soon as the prey was in view. I, on the other hand, seemed to be coping by focusing every ounce of my energy and attention on the mismatched cards in front of me.

"Ha!" I exclaimed, triumphantly putting a card down. Fennec leaned forward and examined it, shaking her head.

"That'll send you right over twenty, you don't want to play that one." She picked it up and tossed it back to me.

"This is the problem with a cobbled-together deck," I scoffed. "I don't understand how you tell the difference between this card and the three you played before, they look exactly the same!"

She held up the three card in front of her that used weapons imagery instead of writing.

"You can't tell the difference between a Dathomiri seventeen and three slugthrowers?"