TWENTY.
a glittering sapphire sky!
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Shafts of burnt golden light dust the ground outside as the door slides open before them, whirring as it disappears into the colorless wall. Zoya tucks her long, dark bangs behind her ears; the strands have grown out enough now that they fall past her eyes, which turns trying to do anything into a cumbersome task.
Before her, the Mandalorian ducks out of the passageway and begins to walk confidently out into the streets of Mos Eisley, leaving bay three-five behind, but Zoya catches at his cloak, pulling him back so he doesn't walk as fast and focused.
"What is it?" he asks, looking down at her with something close to concern twisting his mouth as they continue forward, slower this time.
"Just slow down a bit, yeah? Not everything has to be so fast-paced."
Mando scrunches his nose a little behind the visor at the comment. "There's nothing really to see here."
"For you, maybe," Zoya tells him. She releases his cape, having not realized she was holding onto it, digging her fingers into the pockets of the pants Omera had given her a day underneath warm sunlight and emerald green forests, a day where peace reigned underneath a constellation filled sky, a day that feels like years ago. "But I've never been to Mos Eisley—well, I haven't really gone to many places."
He casts his eyes around. "Well, you haven't been missing much."
She stares at the short, beige buildings and the unpaved, dirt streets. It reeks of desolation and monotony, and the silence has a certain tone to it, as if it could be hiding something darker. "You might have a point on this one."
When he laughs, even though it's a quiet, subtle sound, she feels a blossom of warmth sprout underneath her ribs. "It always surprises me whenever you agree with something I say," he says with amusement.
She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah." Huffing a little, she adds, "Also, your legs are longer, so. I'd appreciate a slower pace, regardless."
"Longer legs," he snorts. "I'll try and accommodate you."
"I would be so indebted."
As they walk, the woman from earlier pops back into her mind. The fluff of curls hanging around her head, the sympathetic crease forming between her knit brows as she'd looked at Zoya, considering both her and the Mandalorian's gruffness. A light sigh and understanding tightening to her mouth. I know I wouldn't want to be married to him.
The reminder of the moment flips her stomach once more, and before she knows what she's doing, Zoya's reaching out and catching Mando's arm, the place between his elbow and triceps where there's nothing but fabric covering his skin. His muscle flexes impulsively at her touch, and she nearly chokes on the breath she inhales but recovers before it's obvious. He stops immediately, flummoxed by the feel of her fingertips on his arm, the heat from her skin seeping through the fabric to brush tentatively against him.
"It's funny," Zoya says, trying to force a grin, mentally pinching herself for pulling him back so abruptly. "You know that woman back there?"
"The mechanic?" His voice is confused.
"Yeah."
"What about her?"
She feels something beat harder in her chest as the words slip off her tongue. "She thought we were married." His brain nearly short-circuits as she laughs, the sound tight and nearly unnatural sounding. "Ridiculous, right?" Her voice sounds unsure, as if she's looking for affirmation, or, perhaps, denial of her question.
He swallows. "Yeah. Ridiculous."
His voice is hesitant, and Zoya catches onto the thread of his uncertainty, holding onto it like a lifeline. "It's crazy," she says, voice turning up at the end, as if she's asking a question. "We couldn't be, yeah?"
"Yeah." A muscle in his jaw ticks beneath the helmet, and he makes himself refrain from asking her what's so awful about the woman's assumption. Mutual trust and support for each other and their shared responsibility for the child have brought them closer, and though marriage is too extreme, the woman could've said something worse.
She forces another laugh, trying to lighten the mood. "I mean, I don't even know your real name, for fuck's sake." Zoya means for it to be a joke, but it comes out more serious than she intends, turning the situation on its head.
The Mandalorian's head cuts towards hers as he gives her a long, deliberately searching look. She lifts a brow in response, a concoction of confusion and a concealed, searching burn hidden beneath a façade of calm hazel eyes and carefully quirked lips. "Is that Zoya-speak for you asking me to tell you?"
She shrugs. "No."
"So—"
"I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to knowing," Zoya mumbles, cutting him off and starting to babble unnecessarily, throat closing as a flush rises to blossom on the apples of her cheeks. "But you don't have to tell me. I know you're a secretive person and all, and I'm really, really untrustworthy. Like, super untrustworthy because I wanted to kill you that one time—a long time ago, though. Not anymore, of course."
"I trust you," he says quietly.
"It's okay," she rambles on without hearing, trying to backtrack, thinking that he's both sickened by the assumption that they could be married and offended by her comment about his name. "So really, I understand if you don't want to—"
"Din," Mando says suddenly, shadows from the nearby building wreathing the armor set against his shoulders. His heart begins to pound harder, slamming wildly against the sheets of Beskar caging his chest. "Din Djarin."
Zoya stares at him, mouth still half open, unsure of what just happened, shock coloring her vision in shades of ivory. "Is that—"
"My name," he confirms quietly. "That's my name."
Silence pillows the air around them for a moment as Zoya's eyes glaze over, focused somewhere between his helmet and the armor on his shoulders. Her arms hang limp at her sides, and Mando hesitates, unsure of what's going on inside her head.
"Can I . . . can I call you that?" she asks tentatively.
He nods quickly, jerkily. "Yes."
"Din Djarin," Zoya murmurs to herself, testing the way the syllables roll off her tongue, feeling a stirring in her chest. He trusts me he trusts me he trusts me. She catches the sound of him letting out a shaky breath, but he doesn't try to disappear, doesn't try to merge into the darkness that clings to the side of the building. "Are you okay?"
His helmet dips in what looks like a nod. "It's just . . . been a while since anyone's said my name." He doesn't say that he's running the way her lips shaped the syllables over and over through his mind, or feeling the purr of her accent softly silhouette the words, framing them with delicate lines of gold.
"Really?" she asks quietly, expressive eyes finding his through the impenetrable visor. His jaw works, but he nods, feeling as if he's bared before her, everything on display, even though his armor encases him still.
Something catches hold of the bounty hunter's throat, and he sounds almost choked when he says, "Yes." There's a soft, warm, heartbeat filled silence between them for a few seconds before Mando adds something else, voice so quiet and low that it almost doesn't reach her ears. "I'm glad it was you."
After the confession, the Mandalorian lurches forward once more, boots pulling through the clouds of hazy dust hovering about the ground quicker than she can blink. Zoya rushes to follow him through the streets of Mos Eisley, turning his name over and over throughout her mind on a never-ending loop.
Din. Din. Din.
I'm glad it was you. I'm glad it was you.
So am I.
As they continue around a corner, a chilling sight raises the hair on the back of her neck, and a strong wind threads an icy breath through her dark locks, whipping them out from behind her ears. Before the two, long, sharpened poles stick up from the ground, towering above even the Mandalorian's head. Speared through by the pointed ends sit Stormtrooper helmets, muddied by dirt and streaks of darkened blood, marked with deep scores from a battle long forgotten. Dark, ratty, and shredded pieces of fabric hang, rippling in the wind, clutched at by the ghosts of the troopers who'd once worn the helmets.
Zoya swallows as they pass through the bleak, unsettling display, feeling as if someone's eyes are on her back.
She reaches out to touch the Mandalorian's shoulder. "M—" She pauses, taking a deep breath, as if she's preparing for something monumental. "Din," Zoya corrects herself, voice trembling as his name passes between her lips.
He's already turning when she speaks, and the sound of his name coming from the woman he's begun to trust over anyone else nearly makes his heartrate thunder off the charts. On her tongue, his name is sunflowers glowing underneath a sky made of sapphires and moonlight on grassy fields and spring rain pattering on metal rooves, icy water on a sweltering day and snowflakes catching on pine needles.
"Zoya?" he asks.
Her eyes go to the helmets now at their backs. "Are there really any true laws in place here anymore? After the Empire fell, there's no one really left to reinforce them."
"The Republic, or whatever they're calling themselves now, is trying to drum up support and instill something new, but . . . it's best to keep our heads down," he replies, his own knowledge inconclusive on the matter. The Mandalorian releases a breath, turning away from the impaled Stormtrooper helmets and the old, browned blood staining the normally white surface. "The galaxy is just fucked up right now," he says.
"I know," Zoya mutters. "I try not to look."
Almost unconsciously, his hand falls to the hilt of his blaster, sheathed in the holster at his thigh. Zoya doesn't turn away from the helmets yet, eyes almost glued to the spears splintering through them.
"Do you think we can fix it?" she says, voice feather light.
He turns back, eyes falling upon the curve of her lower lip, the line of her jaw. Something fragile blossoms in his chest, something easily crushed and forged of beautiful, sparkling glass. "We can have hope."
Zoya looks up at him, finally bringing her focus away from the pikes. "Do you?" His head tilts to the side, a silent question that she reads easily after having spent so much time together. "Have hope?" she clarifies.
Gazing down at her, staring up at him with those hazel eyes underneath that dark hair that he can't stop thinking about running his fingers through, he finds it impossible to say no. "Yes," he tells her softly.
Her eyes go back to the Stormtrooper helmets at his answer, and after a minute, the Mandalorian reaches upward with his gloved fingers and curls them carefully around the curve of her shoulder. She doesn't react at first outwardly, though every one of her senses save her eyesight becomes sharply attuned to his touch as it slips gradually down the line of her arm, passing her triceps and her elbow and the line of her forearm until his fingers tangle slowly with hers, as if he expects her to push him away at any moment.
"Zoya," Din says quietly. "Let's keep moving."
And it's not just because she'd follow him anywhere in the galaxy that Zoya listens; it's the way his hand feels in hers, the way her heart had beat just a little faster when she'd realized how much he trusted her the moment he'd told her his real name, the way an ache forms beneath her sternum, trapped beneath her ribs, begging her to move closer.
In the end, all she says is okay as he starts moving towards one of Mos Eisley's cantinas, unaware of the track his name runs through her mind, the scarlet path it carves through the atriums of her heart.
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i know y'all want a makeout but i gave u The Name Drop so don't bully me
( also many thanks to lia for giving me advice on this chap and being someone i can always message if i need help! ilysm ♡ )