Cataclysm ─── The Mandalorian. ¹

v. the trade

The Jawas don't laugh this time, as if they can sense something's wrong. The group backs off, huddling in a murky corner ten feet or so away while Zoya struggles to breathe. Their quiet conversation makes its way over to her, and even though she cannot understand the words they say, their tone is different from before, when they'd been gathered around her body curled up on the floor, mocking and giggling and watching her struggle.

In her surge of terror, Zoya can't help but think of the Mandalorian and his stoic silence and masked face and the way he'd said her name so gently and wonder if he's found out they've taken her, or whether he even cares.

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

"They fucking took her and destroyed half of my ship. I'm trapped here," Mando mutters, the child standing behind him and looking around with wide eyes, as if he's never seen the world before in his fifty years of life.

He had woken up from the long fall, body aching from both the impact and the buzz of the electricity shooting through his veins and immediately returned to his ship, wondering if by chance Zoya could still be there. There was a slight hope in his head that perhaps she simply hadn't heard him call out to her when the sandcrawler moved away or she was just unconscious and left behind, alive.

He'd returned to inspect the Razor Crest, finding the majority of the ship and its parts scavenged, wires sparking and panels missing from the walls. He'd checked the cockpit first, and of course, Zoya had been missing. The Jawas had taken so much from the ship that it hadn't even worked when he tried flipping a few switches, so, gurgling child in tow, he'd made his way slowly back across the desert as the sun sank in the sky, walking until he reached Kuiil's home once more.

Now, Kuiil moves to a table of parts. "Stripped," he corrects. "Not destroyed. The Jawas steal. They don't destroy." He offers up a tool to help Mando fix his armor, buzzing with fizzing electricity. "Which means your woman is alive."

   "She's not—" Mando cuts himself off, taking the tool. "Stolen or destroyed, makes no difference to me." The child coos from behind him, playing with a little frog. "They're protected by their crawling fortress. I don't know how to recover the parts. Or Zoya," he adds more quietly at the end.

"You can trade," Kuiil says, as if it should be obvious.

"With Jawas? Are you out of your mind?"

"I will take you to them," he states. "I have spoken."

Silenced, Mando casts a glance back towards the child, who now has the frog in his mouth, burbling as if it's a fun game. "Hey—spit that out," he calls, but the little creature doesn't obey, swallowing it instead. He grimaces beneath his helmet and shakes his head. Kids.

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

Kuiil somehow directs them straight to where the Jawas have set up camp. Sitting on the hover that the old Ugnaught's Blurrg pulls, pulse rifle strewn across his lap and at the ready, Mando looks up to the top of the sandcrawler, outlined against the pastel sky. As the Jawas notice them, they begin to yell and talk amongst themselves. Kuiil calls out something that must be a greeting. In response, some of the Jawas draw their blasters.

"They really don't like you for some reason," Kuiil observes.

"Well, I did disintegrate a few of them," the Mandalorian mutters above the clamor of the Jawas, watching panels in the side of the crawler slide open for more to glare down upon him, eyes glowing in the darkness.