THIRTEEN.
underneath the cloak of shadow!
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The night air tastes of shadow and deceit and is almost too cold as it slides into Zoya's lungs. The invisible clouds of her breath billow out in front of her as she stands with her arms wrapped around the child, waiting for the Mandalorian to return. After they'd finished loading the supplies onto the farmers' transport, he'd requested the credits immediately. Soon, he had informed her of why, after catching her raising her eyebrows at him, communicating silently that she'd felt out of the loop.
Before he leaves, Mando pulls her off to the side. "Zoya." She looks up at him, hazel eyes glimmering in the muted light, as if specks of sunshine are caught in her irises. "I'm going to find Cara—we might need help. I'll be back."
"You always say that," she replies.
Beneath the helmet, the bounty hunter smiles softly, the edges of his mouth curving up gently. "Have I been wrong?"
She grins. "Not yet."
He falters, delaying his departure, even though he shouldn't be gone for long, as he knows Cara won't be far. Slowly, Mando turns back to face her, as he'd been about to step away. Zoya's eyes flick back up to his immediately. The same spark from earlier when they'd watched each other across the clearing relights within them.
"Zoya," he begins, not knowing what he's going to say.
A small crease appears between her brows as she gazes up at him intently. "Mando." The corner of her lips twitches as she prevents herself from smiling at him.
His hand rises, mirroring the way hers had, to rest on her shoulder, as light as a butterfly's fluttering touch, careful, unsure, hesitant to change anything, afraid of denial. "I . . ."
When he trails off, she tilts her head, more aware of his gloved fingers on her shoulder than anything else in the world, even the child tottering around their feet. "What is it?" she whispers, voice a slight breath in the forest air, barely louder than the shift of a pine needle in a cool midnight breeze or a dove alighting on a slim branch.
Underneath her gaze, his eyes search her face, though she cannot tell. A thin wind pulls between the two, slipping chilly fingers through her dark bangs, ruffling them across her forehead. He watches the movement, wanting to brush them away from where they cling to her eyelashes. Her shoulder moves slightly beneath his hand as she shifts closer.
"Mando?"
"Just . . . don't leave without me," he murmurs, dropping his hand back to his side.
She slips back in a whisper of shadow. "Oh." The word comes out quiet enough that he barely catches it. "Don't worry, I couldn't get this little guy to leave you behind even if I tried my hardest," she says, trying to lighten the mood and figure out if she'd read him wrong. The smile she gives is tense, and slips off her features as soon as he turns away.
Dammit.
Zoya stands near the farmers, eyes fixated on the tree line where the Mandalorian had disappeared whilst simultaneously watching the child play at her feet. It hasn't been long since he'd left her with her protective armor of certainty and confidence fractured, puzzling over the hand on her shoulder and what had seemed to be begging to tumble from his lips that he'd held back—or whether she'd imagined it all.
Within a few short, rapid heartbeat filled minutes, two figures emerge from the darkened edge of the black forest, and it's time for them to leave.
Mando and Zoya dance around each other on careful feet, taking measures to avoid glancing at each other as the farmers ready themselves. Zoya jumps up first whilst holding the child, nestling herself into the furthest corner, curling up nearest to the farmers' end. Cara climbs into the transport next, propping herself up on one side and stretching out her legs. When it's Mando's turn, Zoya thinks he'll just stay on the edge, but he steps over Cara's calves and lowers himself down, sitting right beside her. Their knees brush, but he doesn't pull away like he'd done earlier. Trying not to think anything of it, Zoya slides down further on the edge of the transport so she can look up at the stars woven through the night sky as the other two speak.
"So," Cara says, "we're basically running off a band of raiders for . . . lunch money?"
"They're quartering us in the middle of nowhere," Mando replies, the deep tones of his voice—as always—alluring as they brush against Zoya's ears. "Last I checked, that's a pretty square deal for somebody in your position. Worst case scenario, you tune up your blaster. Best case, we're a deterrent. I can't imagine there's anything living in these trees that an ex-shock trooper couldn't handle."
Cara looks at him, something arrogant draped across her mouth. It's deserved—according to her stories, she'd served well in the war. Zoya wants to believe that she can be as important as that one day, but insignificance is easily achievable, whilst becoming legendary requires a hell of a lot more blood and sweat.
Mando leans back and stretches his arms out behind her, allowing them to drop down on the edges of the transport. She looks down at the child tucked between them. He squeaks quietly and falls back against a fold of fabric, round eyes reflecting the stars.
As the vehicle trundles on through night's veil, no one else speaks, for a long time. Cara soon falls asleep leaning against the opposite side of the transport, but Zoya can't convince her eyes to remain closed. She doesn't know if Mando is still awake or if he'll want to talk to her, but all of her other options for entertainment are knocked out cold.
"Mando?" Zoya says softly, propping herself up on an elbow.
His head turns towards her immediately, Beskar melting into liquid silver underneath the moonlight. "Yeah?"
"You're still awake."
"So are you."
She relaxes back against the pack she'd been leaning on. "Can't fall asleep." The lower edges
of his helmet dip as he looks down at her.
"Why not?"
Zoya shrugs. "I don't know. I keep thinking about . . . everything. I don't know why I'm here."
The last part comes out unbidden, but it's true. She leans into the silence as she waits for his answer, wondering what's taking him so long.
"You don't want to be here?" Mando says finally, misinterpreting her words.
Zoya sinks further into the pack. "I do. I just—why didn't you turn me in?" He freezes, arms still tucked up above her head. "You had the chance, and you didn't. I still don't know why. And I can't stop thinking about it."
"You grew on me, I suppose," he says. "Like a tick on a dog."
A laugh falls from her lips, and it breaks the tension between them. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor."
He scoffs. "I have to have one to think it's a good idea to put up with you for this long." He says it mainly to hear her laugh again, which she does, muffling the sound with her hand to avoid waking the child and Cara. When she stops, he has to bite back words that will project him along a treacherous path. Do that again.
At some point during her laughing, she'd slid closer to him on the transport, and his arm has fallen a fraction, dangerously close to resting around her shoulders. She's so close that Mando can see the clarity of her eyes, the pinpricks of white in her black pupils reflecting the view of the galaxy above, the generous curve of her lower lip and the mark of her cupid's bow, hauntingly near in the unearthly white light cascading from above.
"How's your arm?" he asks.
She turns it around, checking the bandages. "Well, the ointment we put on it yesterday seems to be keeping it closed up. I think I'll be fine."
"We can change them one more time when we get to wherever their settlement is," Mando says, watching Zoya as she fiddles with the tied end of the bandage. She nods in agreement, a yawn crawling across her face.
"Well," she says, finally tired. (Perhaps she was worried about the taut line between them, and it was that pulling at her brain every second she tried to avoid talking to him, keeping them both wide awake.) "I'm glad you kept me around. I don't know what I would've done without . . . without you. And the child."
The Mandalorian is so surprised by the blatantly honest words that so quickly tumbled from Zoya's lips that he forgets to respond aloud. Her breathing slows, and it's too late for him to say anything as she falls into a deep sleep.
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Light attempts to perforate Zoya's eyelids, and she grumbles in annoyance, turning her face deeper into the hard surface beneath her cheek. Suddenly, the continuous movement of the transport halts, and she blinks, slowly awakening. As her mind clears, she realizes that she's curled up against Mando, an arm thrown across the armor at his stomach and her cheek pillowed against the hard metal molded to his chest. His own arm drapes across Zoya's waist, holding her close in their slumber. The child lays burrowed in the small space between them, warm and fast asleep.
As Cara jerks awake on the other side of the transport, Zoya pushes herself up, blinking slowly. The Mandalorian seems to be coming back to his senses too, and she wonders if he'd noticed their position before she moved away.
Zoya has no time to pay attention to the speed of her pulse as the laughing of children reaches their ears. The three turn to look upon the small village, encompassed by hundreds of emerald pines, turned a dusty gold from the sun peering shyly over the horizon.
"Everyone, they're here!" one kid yells excitedly.
A group of the children runs around the edge of one of the numerous ponds towards the transport, giggling as they go, in a pure, joyful way that only the young can.
"Well, looks like they're happy to see us," Mando says as they grab onto the edge of the transport, bright grins splitting their faces from ear to ear.
"Looks like," Cara agrees.
They begin to fawn over the child, who babbles back as if he speaks their language, his tiny, three-fingered hands reaching up towards them. Soon, the adults from the village make their way over to assist with unloading the cargo. Cara jumps from the transport, then Mando, who grabs his rifle as Zoya drops beside him.
"This looks like a really nice place," Zoya says to him, lifting one of the packs onto her shoulder. "The kids love him already, too."
Mando follows her fond gaze over to where the small army of children stares and smiles and talks to the child, who's full of wonder at being looked upon by so many other faces, instead of just Zoya's and his. "It is," he says, quelling a smile. "Hopefully the threat isn't as bad as they've made it seem."
Neither of them discuss the situation they'd woke up in when the transport stopped, and Zoya feels it may be better that way—better to ignore the whole ordeal than to bring it up and cause an issue for no reason.
Her eyes float to the pastel sky, where gossamers of fluffy white clouds linger. Briefly, they turn a glowing orangey-pink in the sunrise, illuminating the tips of the huts and surfaces of the small ponds within the village. She looks back to where Mando has started walking deeper into the encampment. It seems tranquil, quiet. If Zoya closes her eyes, she can easily picture a life here in one of the wooden cottages—her, Mando, and the child, all living peacefully out of reach of the Guild and anyone else who would want to take the creature away from them.
The image in her head is hopeful, too hopeful, and if Zoya has learned anything from her years surviving the unforgiving galaxy, it's that hope never survives for long.
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zoya: wait maybe im feeling something
zoya: nvm fUCK THAT