THIRTY FIVE.
when the galaxy dies!
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Starlight reflects off Zoya's skin, giving her an ethereal glow as she gazes out upon the galaxy. The child sits in the seat behind her, eyes wide as he groggily pulls himself out of a deep sleep. She'd separated herself from the others for an hour to sit with him while he napped. Din had left the ship on autopilot, setting their destination for Nevarro—back to where everything had started.
Zoya smiles quietly as she remembers lying in wait for Din on his ship, blaster in hand, ready to kill him the second he entered the cockpit. Hesitating, him catching her off guard. Besting her, once again.
The child gurgles behind her, drawing Zoya out of her reverie. Turning, she grins down at him, reaching to pick him up. "All done sleeping?" she asks. "You had quite the nap."
Cooing in response, the creature twists his tiny fingers into her hair.
"Sounds like it," she says, stepping out of the pilot's cabin. "Want to go find everyone else?" His eyes, impossibly, seem to get even bigger as he gazes up at her adoringly. "I'll take that as a strong yes."
Zoya carries the child down to the belly of the Razor Crest, holding him carefully as she descends the ladder. Din's waiting for her at the bottom, having heard her approach. When she gets close enough, he reaches up and holds her waist, lowering both her and the child gently to the floor, warmth filling his chest at the sight of them together.
"He slept okay?" Din asks, keeping a careful, steadying hand on her lower back as she turns to face him, feeling her skin burn against his fingertips, even through the cloth barriers of her shirt and his gloves.
"Kind of restless, but okay for the most part," Zoya replies. "He started snoring a little bit, it was the cutest thing. I wanted to come get you, but I wasn't sure if he'd still be doing it when we made it back."
Beneath the helmet, a soft smile lifts the edges of Din's mouth, and his fingers curl into the fabric of her shirt. "I'm sure it was adorable."
"It really was." Zoya sighs. "Dammit. I wish I would've come to get you."
"It's okay," Din says, trying to quell his smile. "Really. You telling me about it is enough. And—the ship's on the right path? Still flying all right?"
She nods. "Yeah, everything's in order."
"Mando." Cara snaps her fingers, catching both Din and Zoya's attention. "Are we gonna do this, or what?"
"Hold on," he says, rolling his eyes.
Zoya's brows raise. "What are you guys doing?"
"Arm wrestling," he says. "We have a bet."
"I want to bet!" she exclaims, stepping away from Din's hand and over to where Cara sits at a narrow table, placing the child down carefully into an empty crate, smiling down at him as he coos softly. "Who's betting on who?"
"Obviously, Mando and I are betting on ourselves," Cara says.
"And I'm not betting," Kuiil chimes in from where he stands near the Blurrgs, who rest on the other side of a rope barrier.
Zoya leans against the wall. "I think it's obvious who I'm betting on." Din looks up at her hopefully, but she shakes her head. "Nope. Cara's got my vote. She'll kick your ass."
"Thanks," he grumbles, dropping down into the seat across from the ex-shock trooper with a disgruntled huff.
Zoya snorts. "You're such a baby."
Refusing to acknowledge her comment, Din sets his elbow on the table, extending his fingers. A smirk quirks Cara's mouth, and she mirrors his position, gripping his hand. They both look to Zoya for her mark.
"Ready . . . now!"
Immediately, they begin, arms tensing and faces contorting with concentration and effort. They're evenly matched; their joined hands don't move an inch for a few seconds. A couple grunts fall from Din's lips as Cara gains some ground.
"I got you, Mando," she grits out.
"Care to double the bet?" he returns.
Zoya stares at their locked hands. "Come on, someone win already."
"It's only been like five seconds," Din pants.
"Four seconds too long," Zoya says, picking at her nails. "Cara, I thought you'd take him out quicker than this."
Cara opens her mouth to retort, but it never makes it past her lips. Her eyes fill with something that looks like fear, and she releases Din's hand abruptly, fingers rising to clutch at her throat as she chokes on air. The smile slides from Zoya's face in a split second, and something cold and empty seizes her heart.
"Cara?" She jumps forward, eyes wide, panic pulling amber hues into her voice. "What the hell is going on? D—Mando? Is she okay?"
Din stares at the ex-shock trooper for a dumbfounded moment, unable to respond to Zoya's question, until his gaze darts to the child. He almost looks away, then jerks his eyes back onto the claw the creature's tiny fingers curl into the air, and the rage contorting his round, typically sweet face.
"No!" he shouts, diving forward. "No, no! Stop!" He grabs the child, shaking it slightly. "We're friends, we're friends. Cara is my friend!" The baby relaxes his fingers, looking up at Din with confusion on his features.
Cara collapses back into her chair, coughing, and Zoya's at her side in an instant. "Holy shit. Holy shit."
"That is not okay!" Cara chokes out.
"Are you all right?" Zoya asks, ducking her head to inspect Cara's throat.
The other woman nods, wincing a little. "I think so."
Kuiil steps up behind the child, looking at it quietly, the wrinkles lining his face deepening with thought. The goggles on his forehead reflect the Razor Crest's lights, giving him the illusion of have two extra eyes. "Hmm," he muses, rough voice grating in the thick silence coating the room. "Very curious."
"Curious?" Cara repeats. "It almost killed me!"
"The story you told me of the mudhorn now makes more sense," Kuiil says, looking up at Din.
Beneath the helmet, Din's jaw clicks. "What is it?"
"What it is, I don't know. But what it does, this . . . this I've heard rumors of," Kuiil replies, deep in thought.
Old legends resurface in Zoya's mind. Dark and light, fighting for victory over the other, two sides of the same coin, the same deep, strong force. Her forehead creases as she tries to remember one of her mother's stories. There was someone dark and powerful, someone who died for the light, in the end. What was his name?
Cara's hand still rests at her throat as she cuts back at Kuiil, fear staining her face in a way that Zoya's never seen before. "What? When you worked for the Empire?"
"When I was sold to the Empire, in indentured servitude." His voice is hard. Din and Zoya exchange a look, the same thoughts running through their heads.
"Yet somehow," Cara says, rising, "you walk free."
"Cara—" Zoya starts.
"I bought my freedom through the skill of my hands and the labor of three of your human lifetimes," Kuiil interrupts, his voice scathing. The IG droid approaches from behind, sensing his master's emotions, and Zoya feels rather than sees Din tense. "Do not cast doubt upon that of what I am, nor whom I shall serve."
"Tell you what," Din says smoothly. "I could really use your craftwork right now. Can you pad this container so the child can sleep better?"
The Ugnaught's hand touches the child gently. "I shall fabricate a better one. Then, perhaps this Dropper can see how one can win their freedom with the skill of one's hands." And with that, Kuiil turns and walks away.
Zoya catches Din's eye, mouthing nice one as Cara massages her throat, moving towards the ladder. His helmet dips, and she's unaware that he mouths thanks back, forgetting momentarily that she can't see him through the visor. She smiles anyways at their silent communication, stepping around the edge of the table to be closer to him.
"You diffused that situation pretty well," she compliments.
"Yeah?" he asks, and she nods.
"I'm impressed."
His heart nearly skips a beat. "You are?"
Zoya grins. "Definitely." Before she can think twice, she lifts herself onto her tiptoes and presses her lips against the cool metal of his helmet, so quick that Din wonders, hours later, if he'd only imagined it. "Let's go up with Cara, yeah? I want to make sure she's okay."
"Of course," Din replies, when really he's not listening at all, just staring blankly at the details of her face, so beautiful and structured that it looks as if the gods carved her from the stars themselves, using painstaking care to etch each feature with burning moondust.
Zoya's halfway up the ladder before he thinks to move, wondering when he'd fallen so hard for her.
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Zoya rests her chin on her knees, staring out the windows as the galaxy flies by, deep tones of onyx and ivory, darkness and light. Cara leans against the wall, expression drawn into something Zoya can't read, while Din sits in the pilot's seat, eyes fixed on the control panel as a few different things beep, glowing with crimson and amber and azure lights.
"So," Cara says, breaking the silence. "We're going to Nevarro?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Zoya mutters, earning herself an amused glance from the ex-shock trooper.
"Have you ever been?" Din asks.
"No. We lost a lot of our forces there. The city's dug in pretty deep. No cover when you drop in." She eases herself down into one of the other seats, catching Zoya's eye. "It stayed in Empire control until the end of the war."
"The warlord we're taking out was an Imperial officer." Din hesitates, almost mentioning the man's second in command, but decides to remain silent, acutely aware of Zoya's presence in the seat behind him.
Cara's jaw works. "What station?"
"Hard to tell. No insignia anymore. I took out the safehouse when I snatched the kid. More Imps have reinforced since," Din replies.
"There's something more going on," Cara says.
Din's head tilts. "Maybe. We'll find out more when we land."
"Before or after we kill all of them?" Zoya asks offhandedly, still gazing out at the backdrop of stars.
Cara snorts as the doors slide open, revealing IG-11. "I have prepared second meal. Would you care to be served here or below?" it asks.
Din's chair turns, and he looks up at the droid for a long, tense second. "I'm not hungry." Before Zoya can chime in that she is, in fact, very hungry, the droid ducks out once again without waiting for either her or Cara to answer its question. "Under no circumstances does that thing leave the ship."
"You got a real thing for droids, don't you?" Cara jibes, cleaning the barrel of her rifle.
"I got a real thing for that droid."
Zoya makes a tutting noise. "I think you're uptight about all droids, or else you would've let Peli use hers to—"
"All right, all right," he mutters. "Maybe I do. But this one's different."
"The Ugnaught said he rewired it," Cara says.
Din remains unmoved. "That droid was designed to kill things. I don't care how much wiring he replaced. It goes against its nature."
"Well, it shouldn't be a long job anyway," Cara says, unbothered by the bite in Din's voice. "We take out the head Imp, the rest will run like rats." She stands with a quick grin in Zoya's direction and exits the cockpit.
Even seated a few feet behind him, Zoya can practically feel the tension radiating from Din, just by the set of his shoulders. She stands and moves on light feet to stand behind him, placing her hands softly down upon the Beskar's curves. He nearly jumps at her touch but manages to conceal the movement by reaching forward to press a button on the console.
Zoya leans down enough that her lips linger by the side of his helmet. "You know," she says, "if you'd just take all this off, I could give you a little massage."
"A massage?" His voice almost sounds choked.
"Yeah," Zoya murmurs, pressing her fingers down onto the spot where his cloak attaches to the long sleeved shirt he wears underneath the Beskar. "You look tense."
"I am tense." Din releases a breath. A massage does sound nice. "I don't like not knowing what Greef's intentions are."
"I know." Zoya's quiet for a moment, then she says, "I'll be with you, the whole time, watching your back. You'll always have me."
Doubt and guilt pull in tandem at his heart, and Din swallows, the weight of her hands resting on his shoulders almost feeling like a lifeline. "I will?"
"Until the last star in the galaxy dies," she promises, unaware that the words will become a bitter, mocking lie.
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huh. act 3 really gonna begin like that i guess.
& thank u guys for 100k!! i don't know what i did to deserve all this support & it means the world to me ily 🥺💫
little self promo, but i published an oc one shots book, so if any of you guys want to see extra scenes with din & zoya or any of my other characters, u can go request & let me know what you'd like to see!