Kasia and Mando were again walking alongside Ran, both trying to look much more at ease than they felt as he guided them to meet the rest of their crew for the job.
"Hey Mayfeld," Ran called out as they approached a bald man who had his back turned towards them.
At the name, something in the back of Kasia's memory seemed to trigger, and she frowned as they got closer. She recognized the name from somewhere, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"Yeah?" the man who Ran had introduced as Mayfeld responded as he shifted to face them.
At the sight of the bald Caucasian male with a faint red-haired beard, Kasia felt her body go slightly rigid for a moment before she regained control over it and tried to look as casual as possible.
Shit, she thought, trying to look nonchalant even as she continued to internally panic. She had met Mayfeld only once in the past, and very briefly. Of course, that one meeting had consisted of her stealing a couple thousand credits from the man in a few rounds of Sabacc. As she gave him a strained smile, she could only pray to the Gods that he wouldn't remember her.
"This is Mando, the guy I was tellin' you about," Ran introduced, luckily drawing Mayfeld's attention to the Mandalorian and away from Kasia for the time being. "We used to do jobs way back when."
Mayfeld looked almost surprised as he frowned at Mando and furrowed his brow, "This is the guy?"
Kas, are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost, Kasia heard Mando's voice in her head. At the concern, she turned and gave him a tightlipped smile, shrugging slightly in an answer that wasn't really an answer.
"Yeah, we were all young, tryin' to make a name for ourselves," Ran responded to Mayfeld's disbelief, a touch of what might have been reminiscence in his voice. "But I tell ya, runnin' with a Mandalorian, that was... That brought us some reputation."
"Oh yeah? What did he get out of it?" Mayfeld asked curiously.
At the question, Ran gave a small chuckle as both Kasia and Mando remained quiet. "I asked him that one time. You remember what you said, Mando?" Ran turned to look back at Mayfeld as he answered his own question, "Target practice."
Kasia unwittingly choked on a laugh as she glanced at an obviously uncomfortable Mandalorian. Target practice? Seriously? her eyes seemed to say as she chuckled alongside Ran and Mayfeld.
I had a flair for the dramatics in my youth, Din told her a moment later, smiling faintly under his helmet as she laughed again. It was the truth, he supposed, and looking back now he couldn't help but cringe slightly.
"Not much has changed then," Kasia quipped under her breath.
Unfortunately, making noise proved to a bad decision as it reminded Ran that she was there. And it brought Mayfeld's attention to her as well. Kasia fought the tension that crept upon her body as his eyes scanned her, a sense of familiarity wafting from him.
Suddenly his eyes widened. "Wait a second. You! You owe me 3,000 credits!" he stammered, and Kasia couldn't help but sigh. She had always considered herself a relatively lucky person, but these past few weeks had seemed to contradict the idea.
3,000 credits only? Huh, I honestly would have thought it was more than that, Kasia found herself thinking. He got way away easy.
Din glanced between her and Mayfeld at the latter's exclamation. "You two know each other?" he asked, surprise evident in his tone in an uncharacteristic moment of unguarded emotion.
Kasia cringed. "We... met each other once a little under a year ago," she answered vaguely. "Played a couple of rounds of Sabacc. And I don't owe you shit, I won that money asshole," she responded, crossing her arms.
At the explanation, understanding sparked in the Mandalorian, and Kasia felt his humor at the revelation a second later. Din knew full well her past with casinos and Sabacc, as well as the extreme measures she took towards ensuring her own victory. "Won" was certainly a very relative and generous term for what Kasia had done.
Ran raised a brow at Kasia, looking almost impressed with the girl for the first time. "You won 3,000 credits off of him?" he asked with a surprised laugh which made his eyes twinkle.
Kasia shrugged, "What can I say? I'm fucking amazing at Sabacc and rather lucky if I do say so myself."
Under the helmet, Mando rolled his eyes at her, a disbelieving smile on his face.
You cheat at Sabacc, he reminded her silently.
"No, I fucking win at Sabacc," was her low response, murmured quietly enough that neither Mayfeld nor Ran heard. She had a feeling Mayfeld wouldn't take the information that she had effectively scammed him all that well.
Even now Mayfeld looked as though he wanted to argue with Kasia further about the game and the money she had won, but Ran cut him off, "So, since you obviously already know Kasia, we can move on to-"
"Kasia?" Mayfeld interrupted, confusion obvious on his features as he directed his gaze to the woman in question. "You said your name was Eva?"
She gave a small, guilty smile and shrugged indifferently, "It's Kasia now," was her only response, not wanting to have to explain that when she introduced herself around gambling tables, she used her mother's name so the money couldn't be as easily traced back to Kasia Torelo.
At her short answer, Mayfeld's eyebrow furrowed and he shook his head but gave no response.
"As I was saying," Ran began again, his voice gruff as he glared at Mayfeld. "I don't go out anymore. You understand? So, uh, Mayfeld, he's gonna run point on this job. If he says it, it's like it's coming from me."
Well. That's just fucking fantastic, isn't it? Kasia didn't bother to hide her frown.
Ran stared at Mando for a moment as through trying to read his emotions underneath the Beskar helmet. "You two good with that?"
Din leveled his gaze on Mayfeld, "You tell me."
There was a moment of tense silence before Kasia gave a small laugh to resolve the tangible tension, Ran joining in a moment later.
"You guys gonna have a pissing contest next or what?" she asked with a small smirk, crossing her arms. At the vulgarity of her statement, Mando and Mayfeld both stared at her, incredulity emanating equally from each of them as Ran continued to laugh. Kasia put her hands up in false innocence. "Just asking a simple question," she defended with a serpentine grin.
Ran still looked amused as he turned towards Mando, looking him up and down. "You know, you really haven't changed one bit," the old man remarked as he grinned at him.
At the words, Kasia noticed Mayfeld stiffen a little bit, obviously uncomfortable with Ran's ease with the Mandalorian—he didn't seem to pick up on the fact that the pair of "old friends" would just as soon turn their blasters on each other as they would sit down for a glass of spotchka.
"Yeah, well, things have changed around here," Mayfeld indeed cut in, his voice bordering on hostile as he directed his words pointedly towards the Mandalorian.
Kasia resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Less than two minutes they had been talking with this guy and already he was trying to assert his dominance. Classic alpha male shit. Maybe they would end up having that pissing contest after all.
With that statement, Mayfeld gave Mando and Kasia each one last glare before turning and walking away.
As he left, Ran shifted towards Kasia and Mando. "Yeah, well, Mayfeld, he's one of the best triggermen I've ever seen," Ran explained to them as if trying to justify having the asshat captaining the mission.
Truthfully, Kasia couldn't have given less of a shit, knowing that regardless of how good a shot the man was, she'd likely never find it in her heart to like him, simply because of his petty grudge against her. Okay, maybe not totally petty because she did technically cheat him out of 3,000 credits, but he didn't actually know that—as far as he knew she had won the money fair and square.
"He's a Formal Imperial sharpshooter," Ran clarified a moment later as he nodded towards Mayfeld's back.
At the words, Kasia couldn't help her small laugh, smirking up at the man. "Is that supposed to be a testament to his skill?" she asked in amusement.
Next to her, Mando seemed to be thinking something along the same lines as a beat later he nodded and remarked, "That's not saying much."
They swapped amused glances, Kasia's smirk transforming into a small, mischievous grin.
"I wasn't a stormtrooper, wiseass," Mayfeld snapped as he turned back towards them, annoyance clear in his tone as his fists clenched at his side. Still, despite his obvious anger at the unspoken comparison, one look from Ran was enough to keep him from saying anything else, choosing instead to continue to walk away.
Kasia raised her brows at his retreating figure. "Touchy subject," she murmured under her breath, grinning fiendishly a second later as Mando coughed to hide his chuckle—he had a reputation to uphold in front of Ran after all, and laughing would certainly tarnish it.
*.*.*
"A Razor Crest?" Mayfeld asked in disbelief as he, Kasia, Ran, and Mando slowly made their way back towards where the Crest sat in the middle of hanger bay. "I can't believe that thing can fly. Looks like a Canto Bight slot machine."
At his words, Kasia surprised Mayfeld and Ran with a laugh as Mando shook his head, already expecting her response. "Well, I certainly think I like you a bit more now, Mayfeld," she announced, a devilish twinkle in her eyes as she glanced towards a predictably sighing Mando.
Mayfeld's eyebrows shot up at the words, but he made no reply as they continued towards the ship where he was going to introduce them to the rest of the crew being the good ol' team captain that he was.
He nodded towards a red-skinned Devaronian carrying an impressively large load of supplies, "The good-lookin' fellow there with the horns, that's Burg." As he spoke, Burg dropped his load, glaring menacingly at both Kasia and Mando, "This may surprise you, but he's our muscle."
"Yeah, no shit," Kasia muttered. "The dude is literally Satan." With blood-red skin, almost grotesquely large muscles, and horns, he was practically the spitting image of what Kasia envisioned the devil to be.
Burg came right up to Mando, standing so close that even Kasia blinked as he looked the Mandalorian up and down, unabashedly evaluating him. He grunted and began to circle him, ignoring Kasia and the threat that she could potentially pose completely. As usual. Typical male bullshit—if they didn't want to get in her pants, then they didn't even acknowledge her.
"So, this is a Mandalorian," the Devaronian stated the obvious as he continued to circle Mando, annoyance radiating from Din in waves. "I thought they'd be bigger."
Mayfeld snickered at that as Burg stepped away from Mando. Next, he pointed towards a nearby protocol droid with large bug-like lenses, "Droid's name is Zero."
Kasia grimaced. A droid. Awesome. That's gonna go over fucking great with Din.
Indeed, Din's body was tense, but he surprisingly made no remark about running the mission with the droid. Kasia supposed that that was progress—one step closer to leaving his droid-abusive tendencies in the past.
After a beat of silence, Mando spoke up again, "I thought you said you had four?"
"He does," a nasally, feminine voice spoke up from behind them.
At the sound of the voice, a wave of shock emanated from the Mandalorian next to her, followed quickly by equal parts disdain and irritation. Kasia turned to see a lavender skinned Twi'lek walking towards them slowly as she twirled a knife in her hand. Anger and a touch of hurt poured simultaneously from the Twi'lek as she stared at Mando with a smile that promised pain, and Kasia quickly concluded that the pair were most certainly not strangers.
Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later as the Twi'lek spoke again, flirtation coating every syllable, "Hello, Mando."
"Xi'an," Din replied, his voice almost awkward as he greeted her, his body rigid.
Kasia raised an amused eyebrow at him. "An ex I presume?" she questioned quietly, slightly surprised to learn that he had ever even been a part of a relationship. Kasia fought a surge of annoyance at the thought. She had never been the jealous type in any of her past relationships, yet she couldn't help but feel a natural irritation towards the woman in front of her.
Something like that, came his vague response a moment later, obviously a bit uncomfortable with the situation, though Kasia supposed that that was just what happened with shitty exes.
"Tell me, why I shouldn't cut you down where you stand?" the Twi'lek asked as she continued to pace in front of Mando. Then, quick as a flash, she darted towards the Mandalorian and brought her knife to his throat.
At the sudden movement, Mando remained unflinching as Kasia instinctively drew and raised her blasters at the woman. Truthfully, she couldn't really see the harm in shooting the girl; Ran had earlier specified that this was supposed to be a five-person mission so in all honesty, Kasia might well be doing all of them a favor.
It didn't end well, Mando confessed silently, and Kasia couldn't help glance at him with incredulity in her eyes.
Yeah, no shit dumbass.
"Nice to see you too," came Mando's gruff reply, the calmness in his voice enough to signal to Kasia that he knew he wasn't in any real danger. Slowly, she lowered her blasters back into their holsters, body still tense as she did so.
Xi'an cackled loudly, tilting her head as she grinned coquettishly up at Mando. "I missed you," she purred, her words almost mocking in tone, but genuine in feeling. She reached forward and tapped Mando's new Beskar breastplate. "This is shiny," she remarked, clicking her tongue at him. "You wear it well."
Kasia felt another flare of annoyance as the woman casually touched Mando. Still, though Mando appeared only slightly tense outwardly, Kasia could sense his anger at being touched in such a cavalier manner and his dislike of the woman in front of him; the knowledge seemed to cool the irritation building in Kasia's chest. Slightly.
"Do we need to leave the room or something?" Mayfeld asked jokingly, and Kasia resisted the urge to roll her eyes, scoffing in annoyance quietly.
At the sound, Xi'an seemed to notice Kasia for the first time. She raised an eyebrow at the girl, smirking. "And who are you? Mando's new fuck toy of the month?" she asked nastily, causing Mayfeld to give a low whistle and Ran to chuckle loudly.
Kasia merely returned the girl's smirk with a wry one of her own and crossed her arms. "Well, if I was, it would certainly beat being his ex-fuck toy," she remarked, her voice sickeningly sweet as she answered the question in just the manner that she knew would make the Twi'lek see red. Kasia wasn't usually a petty person, but she did have her pride, and she wasn't about to let some ex of Mando's trample all over it for the sake of the woman's spiteful grudge.
"If it wasn't already a bit obvious, Xi'an's been a little heartbroken since Mando left our group," Ran cut in to address Mayfeld's earlier question in an amused tone.
Oh really? I'm fucking shocked. Wonder what gave it away—the flirty glances or the knife to the throat?
"Aw. You gonna be okay, sweetheart?" Mayfeld crooned in mock concern, recementing Kasia's former disdain of the man.
"Oh, I'm all business now," Xi'an answered lightly as she shrugged her shoulders. She raised her knife, pointing it towards Mando, "Learned from the best."
Next to her, Din noticed the tense set of Kasia's shoulders that she was trying to hide, and he couldn't help but feel slightly bad for having dragged her into this situation. He hadn't expected Xi'an to still be here after all these years, but he supposed that he should have; she had started doing jobs here long before him, and he should have predicted she would continue long after.
"All right, lovebirds," Ran cut in, continuing the mocking joke. "Break it up till you get on the ship. Right now, we don't have much time." With that, the rest of the crew began to walk with him towards Mando's ship, obviously intent on getting the ship ready to go spring whatever prisoner they were supposed to rescue.
Only Burg hesitated, stopping in front of Mando and gazing down at him with a menacing grin. "Tiny," he remarked, chuckling ominously as he walked away.
Kasia turned to Mando with raised eyebrows. "Remind me never to let you introduce me to any of your friends ever again," she quipped dryly as they slowly followed behind the others, the words causing Din to wince slightly beneath his helmet.
"Remind me never to introduce you to any of my friends again."
*.*.*
Haha I love Mayfeld sm he's my fav.
Also, my school started doing soccer again while club soccer is still going so I have soccer things 6 out of 7 days a week on top of school stuff so updates might start coming in a bit more slowly (I'll still shoot for two a week but we'll see).
On a happier note, Boyd and Pedro met up in London and my boys are so cute! I miss them sm. And also I've run out of Narcos fics to read so if you have any suggestions it would be very appreciated).