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You clutch fistfuls of your skirts in an attempt to school your shaking hands, hoping your palms aren’t sweating enough to leave marks on the silk.
It had been easier than you expected to convince your guard to wait outside. It could be because it’s the middle of the day, and the cantina is filled with families eating, making trouble unlikely. Or maybe it’s because the mere mention of feminine hygiene requirements is enough to root the guard’s feet in place out on the street, believing your dramatically urgent need for the ‘fresher to be genuine. But you know the real reason is because he’d never believe you have it in you to plan something so bold.
You duck your head to deepen the shadow of your hood as you step inside, just in case.
It’s dim in here. Several uniformed figures are gathered at one end of the bar, where a bronze server droid is polishing three glasses at once on the ends of its tined claws. You’ve heard enough whispered, giggled stories about this place from the maids over the years that you know the droid can be convinced to perform bar tricks if credits are slotted into its side-port. But that’s not why you’re here.
While the tables at the front of the establishment are crammed with people laughing and talking, you slip straight past, heading for an even darker alcove in the back. Here, the booths are enclosed behind partitions. It’s known as the ideal place to come to undertake business away from prying eyes.
You just hope he’s still here. The rumours began days ago; he could have already moved on by now, concluded whatever business he had and disappeared.
You tap on the first booth, darting a furtive glance over your shoulder as you do. Your heart is hammering in your throat so hard that you feel as though a great hand is already closing around your airways, squeezing away your courage.
There’s no response, and you move to the second booth, raising your hand to knock, when the door zips open in front of you.
You have a sudden wave of vertigo as you blink into your own face, distorted as though underwater, your eyes wide. It isn’t until you tilt your head up that you realise you’re staring into one side of a reflective chestplate. Its owner is standing motionless in front of you, arms by his sides.
“Oh!” you gasp, almost tipping backwards. You can’t see his face. He wears a helmet, made from that same strange, wavering metal; the texture unlike any you’ve seen before, broken with a black visor in the centre.
The sight of real Mandalorian armour is just as impressive as you’d heard in all the stories. Just as impressive, and as intimidating. Intimidating is good, you think, forcing yourself to breathe. Intimidating is what you wanted. “I’m looking for you,” you blurt, gracelessly. It’s hardly the most eloquent introduction of your life, but your lips feel icelike and brittle.
He doesn’t move, but you can feel his eyes on your face. You know he must be taking in the gold thread embroidered around the edge of your hood, and the glint of your amaralite pendant. You swallow, waiting, as you are weighed.
Evidently, he decides you’re worth his time. He jerks his head back in the direction of the booth, and you hold your breath as you slip past him, close enough to feel the brush of his ragged cape against your hand.
The tiny dining booth is cramped, and while it may be in part due to the bulk of his armour, the reality remains that he is not a small man. His knees almost touch yours beneath the narrow table as he eases himself into the bench seat opposite you, leaving a cruelly sharp-looking spear leaning to one side with a quiet ting. Then, pointedly, he lays both gloved hands on top of the table.
Nervously, you mirror the gesture, laying your own, smaller hands on top of the ugly, greasy-green plasticrete.
You can’t decide where to look. The curved lines of his armour are a little too bright; bladelike, every edge perfectly forged. Your attention drifts from the leather bandolier across his front to a horned sigil pressed to his shoulder.
He’s covered in so much…stuff. Rounds of ammunition line his belt; tiny, gleaming darts clipped next to larger devices you can only assume are charges. This man has killed people, you think, dizzily.
You realise he’s waiting for you to speak, and you lift your chin, reaching to push your hood back from your face. “There was gossip that you were here, but I didn’t know if I’d be too late to find you before you left.”
“A minute later, and you would’ve been,” he says, flatly. He has a pleasantly deep voice. You wonder what he’s like under there. Whether his voice matches his appearance. Your eyes dart down to the empty bowl on the table in front of him, where he has clearly just finished eating.
“Right. That’s fortunate. I mean, at least for me. Well, maybe for you too.” Your voice is an octave higher than usual, and your face prickles.
He sounds exasperated. “Why were you looking for me?”
Right. Get to the point. You force your shoulders down. “I want to…engage you? Contract you? I don’t know what it’s called.”
“You have a job for me.”
“Yes.”
He sighs, leaning back in the booth seat with a creak of leather. “This isn’t how it works. You’re supposed to speak to the Guild agent. Then they’ll put out the job to any hunters looking for work. It’s dangerous to come asking around yourself. Most clients don’t want to get their own hands dirty.” You’re sure you don’t imagine the way his helmet tilts down to the hands in question, beringed and varnished and anxiously tapping on the table’s edge.
You swallow. His voice has a harsh, breathy quality. You can’t tell if it’s all him, or just an effect of the helmet’s modulator. Either way, it makes your skin feel electric with sensitivity. “I’ve never done this before. I wouldn’t know where to find a...Guild agent. But I’d like to keep this quiet, if that’s alright. Just between us.”
Cold, shiny silence. You wonder whether he’s annoyed with your cluelessness. It’s impossible to tell, but then he tilts his helmet in your direction. “You can pay?”
You nod, fumbling in your skirts for the small embroidered pouch you’d hidden there this morning. Untying the cord from your belt, you hand it over, your heart beating wildly in your throat. He rolls it in his palm with a low clink, testing the weight. It’s a strange sight; his cracked, filthy glove cradling the unmarred pale suede normally used to store jewelled hairpins. He unties the drawstring, tipping out several of the credits within before scooping them back on top of the rest.
“Dead or alive?”
You blanch. “Oh. Alive, please. Definitely alive.”
He nods, retying the lip of the pouch. “Alright. What’s the job?”
You scoot a little closer, touching your fingers to the fine chain around your neck. “So, the thing is…I’m engaged to be married.” Your voice cracks, and you pause for a moment before continuing.
“I’m not to be his first wife. He’s already been through three, you see. The last one only made it two months before they found her body at the bottom of the tower, covered in marks. An accident.” As you speak, nausea unfurls in your stomach.
You’ve been trying very hard not to think about any of this more than strictly necessary. Every time you do, your breaths shorten into clawed scrapes inside your throat, the terror threatening to curl itself around your limbs and drag you under. But you’re not ready to give up. Not yet. You lift your face, meeting your scared-looking reflection precisely at the place where his eyes should be. “I won’t let the same thing happen to me.”
The Mandalorian tilts his head back. “Bringing him in alive might create a bigger problem for you. Unless you got another plan.”
You blink. “Oh, no, he’s not the job. My father would just find another wealthy lord to sell me off to; probably an even worse one.”
“Then what do you want?” You can sense the plating of his patience wearing thin, and you suck in a breath. This is it. There’s no going back. Hot, irrevocable significance rolls in your stomach.
“The job is me. I want you to take me.” He is absolutely still. You plow ahead, despite your rising panic. “I can’t just leave on my own. My father keeps guards over me night and day. There’s one outside, right now.” His head turns fractionally toward the closed partition leading out into the cantina-proper. You hope against hope that that’s true, and that he’s still waiting where you left him as more words spill out. “You need to make sure it looks good. Like it was an attack, from one of his enemies—he has enough of them—so that he doesn’t suspect anything. You need to—otherwise he’d punish the guards if he thought any of them had helped me run away. I just need to get off-world, and far enough away so that he can’t find me.”
He hasn’t moved a muscle. You can’t tell what this means; whether he’s actually considering your proposition, or just winding up to decline.
And it’s understandable: your plan, now that you’ve finally spoken it aloud, sounds insane. You haven’t had a chance to stop and consider it—to really think through the ramifications of what you’re about to do. Your plans beyond the immediate: getting away, as fast as you can, are vague. While you have gold and silks and gemstones enough to set yourself up an entirely new life, albeit a modest one, you’ve never been on your own before.
The thought is such an enormously frightening one that you feel your mind recoiling from it, not wanting to plan, just wanting to be gone, and to work out the rest later.
The armoured man in front of you still hasn’t spoken. Your vision has begun to blur, just a tiny bit, and you blink several times to try to clear any tears before they fall. You don’t need him thinking you any more helpless than you’re sure you already appear. If you didn’t feel so desperate, you’d probably be too embarrassed to keep talking. But you won’t get another chance like this. You need to convince him. You need him.
Hesitantly, wondering whether you’ve truly lost it, you extend your hand across the table. You can still smell the scent of rosemilk lingering from your bath earlier this morning. Your skin looks unnaturally soft beside the cold edge of his gauntlet plate, the edges of the blue-painted triangle on the back chipped.
If it hadn’t already been painfully obvious that you’re out of your depth, the stark contrast between your hand and his makes it clear.
Lightly, barely impressing the contact into the dark yellow leather at the end of his glove, you let your fingertips rest just above the seam. He doesn’t pull away. “I know how this must look to you. How I must look. But I only have three days left. Three days. And then I heard the whispers that a Mandalorian was in the city. I remember reading the stories when I was little about Mandalorians. About their bravery, and honour, and the Codex, binding them to protect the helpless.”
“The Codex only applies to those who’ve taken the Creed, not outsiders. What you’re asking for is more like smuggling.” His rasp is flat. But it’s not an outright rejection.
You look up into the cold, black line of his visor. You aren’t sure where his eyes are, but you know he’s looking at you. You can feel it. “Please. I can’t marry him. Please."
There’s a moment of contraction. It could be a slight shift in his posture, or an intake of breath, or something invisible; outside the sphere of your perception. But for a tiny, split moment, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s going to agree to help you.
You don’t know the first thing about him, but you know this: he isn’t the type to leave someone to die.
But then he turns his head to the side, sharply, as though listening to something you can’t hear. “You need to go,” he tells you shortly, turning your hand over in his and dropping the pouch back into your palm with a clink.
“What? No!” You cut yourself off as you hear it: your name, muffled through the partition and under the voices of the cantina patrons. Your guard has obviously grown tired of waiting. Which means your time has run out.
You turn back to face him, your trembling lips parted. There’s nothing more to say. Even if you had hours to throw at his feet, which you don’t, you have nothing else to use to convince him beyond what you’ve already said. You left it too late.
“You were my only hope,” you whisper, crestfallen. If he cares in the slightest, there’s no way of telling.
You force yourself to move.
You barely crack the door open to slip out, thankful for the cover of shadows as you dart sideways into the narrow corridor leading to the ‘fresher. Your skirts stream behind you as you dash wildly to the end of the passage, swinging the door open and throwing yourself inside.
The sudden quiet makes your breathing loud. You weren’t caught. That’s the first thing you think: you managed to slip away quickly enough to avoid causing irreparable damage. This should be a relief. It isn’t.
Your face crumples, and you bend down into a crouch on the dirty ‘fresher floor, crying so hard that no sound comes out. Your skirts will be marked, and you know that 9PO will fuss about it later, but you couldn’t care less.
When you’d heard the whispers, you’d thought it was fate. The timing felt too significant; like some strange power beyond your understanding, like the magic in the fairytales of the Jedi. You’d truly believed he would help you.
But this is the real world. There is no all-powerful light connecting everything together. There is no fate. And there is nobody coming to save you, all dressed up in shining armour.
“My lady? Are you alright?” The tap outside pulls you shakily to your feet. When you open the door, the guard looks equal parts uncomfortable and bewildered.
Most of the guards are not intentionally cruel. They, like you, are simply doing their best to live under the thumb of your father’s tyranny. This one is tall, with an overgrown baby-face; his skin still pocked with clumsy shaving nicks and spots of youth.
“Are you well? Do you need something?”
“No,” you say, not bothering to hide your tears, pressing your hands to your stomach. “No, please take me home.”
He hesitates, eyeing you warily. “But…we haven’t been to the flower-sellers yet. You said you wanted to—“
“I will send a droid to collect them. I don’t want to go to the market. Not today.”
He knows this is uncharacteristic; you always choose your arrangements in person. It’s one of the only freedoms afforded to you, and it’s one you cherish. But his nervous eyes linger on your tear-stained face and your shaking hands, and he seems to decide against argument.
You don’t speak during the walk back, even as the guard quietly points things out in an attempt to amuse you: a dancing bogling, a toothless old Pantoran man selling sweetcakes shaped like flowers for chits, offering one out to you, grinning. You should smile—if not for your own, then at least for your guard’s sake, lest he’s punished for returning you home so clearly rattled. You manage to stop crying, at the very least.
Late rains have brought explosions of unseasonal colour to every windowsill in the city. Petals choke the canals and cling to the poles of the gondolier droids. It’s beautiful, and the scent of the flowers lifts like clouds on the breeze.
All you smell is salt.
Quick, nimble fingers are weaving through your hair, in and out, winding strands of pearled silk into braids. Your head feels unbearably heavy, as does your dress, as does your face. A silver dish of fruit sits untouched in front of you as your feet are lifted and laced into soft, brush-painted slippers.
The last three days have blurred past so quickly you barely remember any of them, despite the fact that you’ve done nothing but sit numbly in your rooms.
You’ve daydreamed the time away with happier thoughts; like running barefoot through the gardens, and sitting awake on your balcony to watch visitors arriving in repulsor-carriages downstairs, and the soft-eyed boy from the neighbouring moon who had taught you to play the Hapan lute before taking you apart on his tongue one afternoon. The both of you had tried your hardest to keep silent as you’d fallen, tangled together into your bed while 9PO—forcefully relieved of chaperone duty—stood powered down by the door.
When he’d pressed himself inside you, it had only lasted a few moments before he was withdrawing, spilling his release across the embroidered hem of your underdress.
He’d been sweet, and handsome, and you wonder where he is now. Rama, his name had been. Perhaps that’s the type of person you’d marry, if you’d been able to choose for yourself. Or maybe someone brash and funny; the kind who carries laughter with them everywhere they go, conferring it like a visiting guest. Perhaps you wouldn’t marry at all. It hardly matters.
The maids murmur to one another, too quiet for you to hear the words, light fingers pressing finishing touches your cheeks and your lips. An attendant opens a gloved hand in front of you, and you allow yourself to be lifted to your feet and led down the sun-drenched corridor to the reception hall, where they bow, leaving you to enter the room alone.
The doors open silently.
Considering how many people are sitting in the long, petal-draped space, it’s unsettlingly quiet. Aside from your father, standing stiff and stern at the front, you don’t recognise a single one of the unsmiling faces. All merchants and nobles, associates of your father and members of the city’s administrative council. The wedding is economically significant for many, not just your family. You won’t find any sympathy here.
You keep your eyes forward until you reach the front of the room and take your position in the centre of a ring of adflowers, right in front of the enormous arched windows leading out to the gardens.
You had thought that the absence of fear over the past several days would shatter once the moment came, but you feel absolutely nothing. You stand before the Rishin officiant while he daubs ceremonial oil into your palms, murmuring blessings for fertility. Your stomach turns at the thought.
As per tradition, you kneel, bowing your head to await the arrival of your fiancé.
Your fiancé. The Viscount. You’ve only met him in quick, carefully-controlled moments at formal dinners, and once in passing while your father hosted a hunt. His etiquette has always been flawless; bowing his silver-moustached lips to touch the back of your hand and offering words of flattery for your beauty. If not for the flinty, reptilian coldness behind his eyes, he’d almost appear pleasant.
The doors open again, and measured footsteps click onto the marble behind you. You squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the blade to fall.
Then, a sharp, loud crack, as though of a column splitting cleanly right along the centre.
There’s a moment of absolute silence, then the screaming begins.
Your breath rushes out, and your eyes snap open. Someone shoves past you, treading on one of your wide sleeves, and you topple sideways, catching yourself on your hands and knees. You twist to look behind you, and see chaos.
The guests are clamouring over one another in a panicked roil of bodies, all trying to get to the doors in front of you. Away from the doors at the back of the room.
As you watch, stunned into frozenness, a woman draped in obsidian staggers sideways, her feet slipping out from underneath her on a pile of grey ash in the centre of the aisle. Two men trip over her, and all three of them scramble, crawling, trying to regain their footing as the ash is kicked into every direction.
You stare at it. It wasn’t there a moment ago.
Then the crowd parts, and you realise why everyone’s running.
The Mandalorian strides into the room, disruptor rifle still raised, spear gleaming along his back.
Your painted lips drop open, still holding yourself shakily off the floor as a man with gold rings around his lekku seizes the carved chair he’d been sitting on and throws it through the window beside him. The glass window: expensive, real, antique glass, not transparisteel. The viciously sharp fragments explode everywhere in tiny bursts of light, and desperate people clamber over the jagged spikes remaining in their rush to get outside.
But you barely notice. You’re watching him.
You can’t hear the heavy, purposeful thud of his bootfalls under the screaming, but you imagine you can feel it all the same; vibrating up through your palms, into your body. One of the guards, braver than the rest, shoots off a bolt of plasma in the hunter’s direction. You scream, throwing your arm across your face, but it pings off an armoured cuisse, scorching away somewhere high overhead. The guard drops his blaster in his hurry to join the escaping mass.
You did this. You caused this chaos. You brought him here. You have no idea what your face looks like as he reaches you, tilting his helmet down.
A broad, gloved hand closes around your wrist, dragging you to your feet. The beading in your hair clacks against his chestplate as he draws you close to his body, and your heart jumps violently at the feeling of him against you; impossibly solid.
Your father steps forward; one of the only people remaining in the room. His eyes bulge with apoplexy. “What is the meaning of this? Who sent you?”
The voice vibrates against your cheek, and a shiver washes all the way down to your centre. “Someone you don’t wanna get involved with.” Slowly, pointedly, he unclips a dark hilt from his belt. When he activates it, crackling heat blooms at your side. The blade flickers with dark-coated light; the effect disconcerting. Whatever it is, its power is unmistakable.
His hold on you is firm, and as you meet your father’s gaze, a tear rolls down your cheek.
“My daughter has no part in this! Leave her in peace.” And if you didn’t know better, you could almost imagine the wild fear clawing behind his eyes to be borne out of concern for you, or even love. The Mandalorian draws you nearer still, deactivating the blade, his forearm braced across your bodice.
“The Viscount ran out of time to pay, but his debt’s still high. You could make a deal to cover it, and maybe they’ll forget the whole thing. Then again,” he tilts his helmet in a non-committal half-shrug, “maybe not. This client’s not known for their forgiveness. Unless…”
Your father is no longer looking at you. Instead, he directs his next words to the man behind you. “Unless.”
“The girl. They’d probably be satisfied with the girl. She’s pretty, and young.” As he speaks, his thumb shifts on your skin; slightly to one side and then back. He could just be rearranging his grip, but the gesture feels like reassurance all the same.
You watch the way your father’s face closes off as he quickly recalculates his bearings. You’d understood precisely why this marriage was so important right from the beginning. The family’s wealth has been steadily melting away for years, unable to regenerate using the same clever accounting that had worked in the past.
The Viscount was supposed to save everything.
But he’s gone. And with him, any cushion of financial protection your father might have needed to survive precisely this type of situation.
The fear in his eyes has nothing to do with you, and nothing to do with love. It’s fear only for himself. Your father had already resolved to sell you once today. It isn’t a difficult leap to make.
“Take her. And tell them I cooperated.”
It’s done. Fresh, enormous tears well in your eyes, blinding you, and you suck in a broken breath as the Mandalorian tightens his grip and turns to go.
He moves fast. Glass crunches beneath the soft soles of your slippers, and you stumble in his hold, unable to see where you’re going with your streaming vision. He only hurries you along faster, the gardens streaking past in shades of emerald.
Hushed, shocked voices drift out behind you, the words indistinguishable under your now chest-wracking crying. You can’t seem to draw in enough breath to balance the intensity of your sobs. You feel weak, your head swimming with a lack of oxygen. The sun dances off his armour, turning him into a blurred flame at your side. If he weren’t holding you upright, you’d already be slumping double.
“Come on,” he grits, close to your ear. “It’s not far.”
You try to nod, but all you manage is a wild, tense duck of your chin downward.
You can’t see anything, so you rely on your feet to tell you where you’re going: leaving the soft carpet of grass and stepping onto stone, warm in the sun and then cold in the shadows, onto ringing durasteel, then the grind of something mechanical, and just like that, you’re walking up an incline—a ship’s ramp, you think, hysterical, fresh tears bursting forth.
It’s dim and cool inside. He releases you, and you slump to your knees. Unsupported, you’re free to curl your body around your gasps, your jewel-woven head heavy.
The bounty hunter stands awkwardly in front of you, his hands half-extended in your direction. “I need to get us off the surface. Don’t want anyone changing their minds about not following. Alright? I’m gonna leave you here. Just for a minute.”
You’re too overwhelmed to answer him, heaving, sobbing, and after a moment, his footsteps fade.
The floor groans underneath you as the hyperdrive engines power up. They feel heavier than the ships you’re used to; the engines probably modified beyond the strictly legal, and it’s strangely comforting to feel the powerful rumbling up through your body. As the repulsorlifts kick in, you swallow down your next cry. You find yourself breathing more slowly, matching it to the rolling purr of the ship beneath your hands.
Every passing second is taking you further away from the ground. From the city, and the walled gardens, and your beautiful, glass-box bedroom.
You’ll never see any of those people again. You’ll never see any of your dresses, or your combs, or the painted birds on the walls of your dressing chamber. It’s almost enough to send you over the edge again, and you choke back a hitching gasp.
His bootsteps are back. You lift your tear-swollen face as he pauses over you, divested of his weapons; belt and bandolier included, but still fully armoured.
“Are you…alright? Do you need anything?” He sounds wary, like you’re some kind of wounded animal he’s regretting bringing aboard. Clearly, despite his obvious competence within his line of work, he’s never attempted to comfort a girl crying on the floor of his ship in a wedding dress before. His discomfort is clear, but he doesn’t step away. He holds a hand out, clearly unsure what to do with it.
It’s…oddly endearing, the way he’s hovering. Almost sweet.
You shake your head, your parted lips trembling. “I never have to go back there again. I’m free. I can do whatever I want. I’m free.” You blink giddily up at him, fresh tears threatening to spill out, and a short, unhinged-sounding laugh bubbles to the surface.
His reaction is inscrutable. You shift on your knees, suddenly aware of the ship’s strong vibrations rolling up through your legs, and higher still, into your core.
Every nerve ending in your body feels alive with the knowledge of your escape. Experimentally, you run your hands over your head, down your neck. Your body. And it is your body. You can do whatever you want with it. You laugh again, shortly, shakily, reaching up to unpin the heavy strings of adornment from your hair. You want this off you.
You’re unpractised; your hair catches and tugs more than once, but you don’t stop until your head feels blessedly unburdened; silk and pearls heaped beside you on the dirty ship’s floor.
For the first time, you’re able to take in your surroundings properly. You’re in what looks like the cargo hold of an unsectioned freighter, clearly freshly patched. The shape feels blocky, even from the inside; the only separation between the hold and the cockpit a narrow, windowed door. You can still smell the plasma from the weld-lines holding a makeshift weapons locker to one side. So it’s new. Or, at least, new to him.
There are no other compartments, as far as you can tell. There’s no dining room lined with drapery to muffle the sound of flight, or an open-fronted bridge to take in the view through hyperspace, or enclosed bedrooms with private ‘freshers. Just a cot, jutting from one side of the hold, and a vac-tube cabinet.
It couldn’t be further from the pleasure cruisers you’re used to.
He’s still standing stiffly in front of you, watching you. You’ve only just managed to wrestle your giddiness into something resembling composure, and you reach for the wall beside you, clumsily grasping it as you wobble to your feet.
“Help me get out of this, please,” you say, turning to present your back to him, where rows of ornate buttons bind the restrictive bodice closed. The dress is heavy and tight. Now that your hair is free, you want more of it: freedom; from the dress, from what it represents. The word alone is enough to spin you into a heady greediness.
He pauses. “I, uh. Don’t have any other clothes to give you.”
“That’s fine. I’m not cold. I just need to get out of it. It’s making me feel…just…I need to get it off me.” You bow your head, exposing the length of your neck. Another pause, then, tentatively, the feeling of a broad hand, gently smoothing over the fastenings.
Your eyelashes flutter closed as carefully, slowly, he unclips the top pearls from behind your neck. “I almost didn’t think you were coming for me. You left it close,” you say.
“You said to make it look good,” he grits back, slightly wry.
His voice, so close to your ear, makes your body feel weak. “And you…you killed him. You…disintegrated him. He was there, and then he wasn’t.”
“They were less likely to follow us if they knew I wasn’t bluffing. Figured you wouldn’t mind. You told me he already killed three women.”
You’re surprised he remembers. You don’t want him to stop talking. Or to stop touching you. The dress is easing open, and you feel a shift of air across your back as he moves lower, down over your waist, still gentle. You shiver.
“Thank you,” you murmur. “For helping me.”
He makes a small noise, halfway between hum and grunt.
The top half of your dress is loose enough now for you to pull your arms free from the heavy sleeves, letting it fall down around your thighs and leaving you bare from the waist up save for the thin lace slip underneath.
Already, the relief is incredible. Your bare arms goosebump, and your lips lift.
“I’ll never have to wear one of these awful gowns again,” you muse, almost to yourself. “Or sit through a morning of opera. I could go to a bar. And get drunk. Or learn to fly my own ship, without a hired pilot. I could go…somewhere, and meet a stranger, and talk to them, and dance with them, or kiss them, or—or…” you trail off, your head spinning.
The possibilities open out infinitely in front of you. For the first time, you can do whatever you want. Anything; whatever seems pleasurable, with nobody to stop you.
The final binding holding the dress up gives way beneath his fingers, and there’s a heavy clatter of pearls as the entire thing slumps to your feet. His hands linger on the small of your back, and warmth spreads across your skin from the epicentre of his touch.
You feel hypersensitive; electric. He steps back, and you turn to face him.
The helmet angles down, just barely, but you know he’s looking at the way your nipples stand stiff against the sheer lace, and lower still, to your sex, barely covered. He draws in a breath.
“I could kiss you,” you tell him, your head spinning with the thought.
His voice sounds rougher. “You don’t need to do that.”
“I know.” You look up into the shine of his helmet and see yourself the way he must; your eyes wide, your lips parted. “But I’d like to.” Your voice is barely more than a breath.
Slowly, you reach up toward the sharp lip of his helmet. He stands frozen, waiting as your fingertips barely touch the cold curve of metal, then he catches your wrists, gently lowering your hands.
“This…needs to stay on.” His tone brooks no argument, even though there’s a vaguely apologetic edge underneath it.
You blink, your thoughts racing. The stories you’d read had spoken at length about the significance of Mandalorian armour. Some had even described it in near-mythic terms; like an extension of the soul, imbued with meaning. You don’t remember anything about the conditions of its removal. But clearly, there’s an insurmountable something there.
You want to ask about it. About him. But you sense that his helmet serves a protective purpose beyond just the physical. Questions feel unwelcome.
He’s still grasping your wrists when you lean up onto your toes. You can see every one of your eyelashes in your reflection. Lightly, barely making contact, your lips touch the cold edge where his cheek should be, just for a moment, before you lean back.
He lets out a strained breath, crackling through the modulator, and says nothing. You’re not sure if you’ve crossed a line.
But then he releases your wrists. His hands come together, unclipping the first, then the second gauntlet plate before pulling off his gloves and dropping them.
You swallow. His skin has a faint warm tinge, his fingers thick, his nails blunt. They’re just hands; work-roughened, despite the gloves, and broad. Hardly anything explicit. But with the entire rest of his body covered, they become something intimate; secret.
He mirrors your movement, bringing one of his hands up as though to cup your face, pausing before he does.
Gently, he touches the tips of his index and middle fingers to the centre of your lower lip. You hold perfectly still as he applies just enough pressure to feel the cushion of your lip give, testing your softness; exploratory.
You close your eyes. Your previous experiences with kissing have consisted exclusively of the damp sponginess of aristocrats’ sons; their wet tongues intrusive and their lips cosmetic-softened.
This is entirely different. The Mandalorian’s fingertips are weapon-calloused and rough-edged; dry, tentative. Hot shivers dance down your neck and unfurl somewhere below your navel. Your lips part, your breath whispering out over his touch.
His kiss; the only kind he can give you, is the best you’ve ever had.
You’re dizzy when you open your eyes. He’s still leaning close to you; his next breath jagged as he releases your face. You touch your tongue to the centre of your lip.
Every cell in your body is singing for him. Your heartbeat is throbbing between your thighs, tingling, aching with the heavy vibrations of the ship’s engines.
You wonder whether he feels it, too.
Helplessly, your gaze drags lower, down to the hard plane of his chestplate, and lower still, where you find your answer. No armour conceals his arousal.
You lean toward him. “Keep going. Please.”
“I dunno if that’s a good idea,” he husks, reluctantly.
“It’s a wonderful idea.”
“Look. You just had an…emotionally confusing day. I think—”
“I think I’m tired of other people making decisions for me,” you say, looking up at him, up at yourself. You whisper your hands across your neck, to the tops of your shoulders, where flimsy ties are the only thing keeping your slip up.
You can hear as he swallows, even through the modulator. Then, his hands are replacing yours on your shoulders, loosening the ties, finally bringing his slow undressing of you to its completion.
“Fuck,” he grits, looking down at you. Your skin prickles with the word; so vulgar, something that no other man has ever dared to say in your presence.
He curls his fingers, stroking the back of his knuckle across your shoulder, then down to your breast. When he brushes your nipple, light as a breath of air, you jolt, and catch your lip with your teeth.
“You sure about this? Have you…done this before?” Even as he speaks, you can see him leaning his weight to one side, the outline in his pants evidence of his discomfort.
“Yes,” you say, pressing your palms to his cold chest. “Have you?”
He exhales roughly. “Yeah,” he tells you, amused. “I have.” He reaches up, loosening the cowl from around his neck and pulling his ragged cloak free. Turning, he lays it over the thin mattress of the cot. “It’s not very comfortable,” he warns you, and your heart turns over in your chest at the apology in his voice.
You perch shakily on the edge, pressing your thighs together. You can feel the lack of padding beneath your legs, and you wonder whether he has ever had a single good night’s sleep here.
He leans over you, his bulk blocking out the harsh yellow square of the glowpanel above him. Bracing one hand on the wall behind you, he hesitantly lays his other hand on your thigh.
“Do you want…?”
“Yes,” you breathe, your lips barely moving. “Please.”
“Okay. Show me.”
Heat explodes beneath your skin. You spread your legs apart, feeling as though you’re in a dream.
You feel slick and swollen to the point of desperation. Brazen, like a woman in a lewd painting, you spread your legs for him. You let your hands trail down over your too-warm body, down to your sex, and between your lips.
You suck in a sharp little breath. You’ve never felt yourself so wet before. Thrilling, you stare up into your reflection as you glide your fingers over your arousal-plumped clit, shuddering. He watches, intent, as you stroke yourself in small circles, the glistening sound of your fingers loud.
“Like this,” you whisper, your head falling back against the durasteel wall, eyes closed.
He bends closer, reaching his own thicker fingers down, nudging yours aside to take your place. Immediately, it’s better. He’s ever-so-slightly harder than you’d been; the pressure firmer, less teasing, more focused. You whimper, leaning back to try to give him better access.
You bloom under his touch, opening for him, your blood rushing molten through your veins.
When his fingers are coated with your arousal, he gently presses his middle finger lower, testing the tightness of your opening. He pushes forward, sinking smoothly, and your eyes flick open. The stretch skitters a new, low, burning pleasure up inside you, and you hitch out a weak little sound as he eases in a second finger.
His thumb continues working at your clit; a practised, easy movement, as the thick digits buried inside you rock gently against your walls, curled upward, searching for something.
And you feel the exact moment he finds it, as intense as a bolt of plasma; sudden, blinding. It’s an ache you hadn’t even known that you had; a part of you that he’d somehow known was hiding inside you even before you did. “Oh, Gods—”
“I know,” he husks. “I got you.”
The ache inside you is rising to a crest, thundering in your ears. You can feel yourself growing impossibly wetter; the cloak underneath you soaking through as you shift your hips, trying to grind yourself against his hand, maddened with pleasure, circling dizzyingly higher.
And then you’re at the edge of a precipice, tilting into your fall, trusting that he’ll catch you.
Everything tenses. Your stomach, your inner thighs, your cunt—the explicit word bursting into your head even as reality blips out of existence around you—squeezing him, pushing him away, drawing him deeper. A harsh little cry wrenches itself free from your throat.
He parts his fingers gently inside you, stretching you, feeling the way you clutch and ripple around him as you coat him to his knuckles.
You fight to control your breathing. “You…you made me…how did you…”
He eases his fingers free, leaving you empty. “You were already halfway there. Fuck, look at that,” he groans, holding your lips apart so he can see past your swollen folds and into your still-fluttering opening.
The harshness of his groan rickets fresh warmth up into your stomach. You’d like to hear it again, immediately, you decide. You want to know how much rougher his voice can get. You press the heel of your palm against the outline in his pants, and you’re rewarded with another static-gritted curse as he leans back, his hands dropping to his sides.
More, you think. You fumble for the fastening of his pants, your hands too hurried at first, missing the catch. When you finally manage to wrench the front open, he springs free, and you fall still, staring at his cock.
His cock. That’s what the maids would have called it; giggling and shoving one another, gossiping about drink-blurred nights out in the city.
He’s bigger than Rama. That’s the first thing you think. Far bigger. Thicker, and longer, and somehow different, as though less loose skin covers the flushed head. A dark thatch of curls nestles at the base, and, tentatively, you encircle your hand around the length. He catches his breath in his throat, waiting, letting you feel him.
He’s heavy and solid in your hand. The slit at the head shines with a pearl of his arousal, and you bow your head, feeling him twitch in your hold as you press your lips against him.
“Shit, hey, sweetheart, you don’t need to…uh, fuck…”
He shifts his hips forward; a helpless gesture, and you open your mouth, letting your tongue touch lightly into the slit, tasting his salt. Your lips close around the head of his cock, taking him inside your mouth, your eyes fluttering closed.
You have no idea what you’re doing. You’ve heard of this, of course, but you can’t tell whether the soft little licks you’re curling into the underside of his cock even feel good for him. You’re fairly sure you’re supposed to suck, or try to swallow his length, but judging from the harsh little gritted exhalations he’s letting out, you can’t be performing too poorly.
His hand cups your head, his fingers curling around your ear as he gently pulls himself free. “If you keep that up, I won’t last.” You blink up at him, your lips still parted, as he pushes you back onto the cot. “Lie down.”
You do, shifting so your head rests on his thin pillow, your feet braced into the mattress. He crawls over you, parting your legs, kneeling between them. He’s still completely armoured; just his cock hanging free from his open pants. It has a strange, thrilling effect on you; even here, now, he still looks every inch the hunter. He could be anybody underneath the metal.
But he isn’t just anybody. He’s the man you trusted, the one who came back for you.
He grasps himself in his fist, more precum dribbling over his knuckles. You reach up to touch his chest, feeling the diamond-shaped panel in the centre, right over his heart.
“Do you want me to wear a biosheath?” he asks, his voice strained.
You swallow, suddenly shy. “Do you need to?”
“No. I have an implant, and I’m clean. But I thought I’d offer. Just in case you were more comfortable with it.”
You shake your head, your lips lifting. “It’s okay. But thank you.”
He lowers himself against you, cold metal kissing your nipples, and you gasp. His thick, blunt head nudges at your lips, and he strokes himself through your folds, pressing at your clit, smoothing your combined arousal with his own precum.
He holds your lips apart while he presses himself inside you. It’s frictionless; your cunt blooming wet around him, drawing him smoothly inside you. But still, the sudden stretch is enough to suck the air from your lungs.
You grasp at his shoulder, hissing and feeling the shape of his signet under your touch as you swallow another aching inch of him.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” he manages to scrape out.
“No,” you return, “no, no, it doesn’t hurt, it feels… oh.”
He hums a low response, sinking deeper. You spread your legs even wider as the cold metal of his cuisses nudge inside your thighs. You can feel every single ridge of him, right down to the thick vein running the length of his shaft. Shakily, you let out a breath.
“You’re so soft,” he rasps, dipping his head to the crook of your neck. “So tight, and warm…fuck, you feel good.”
Your face is burning up; every part of your body tingling its response to his words, his thickness, his closeness. You press your hot cheek to his icy one, and feel immediate relief.
He’s in no hurry to begin moving. Once fully sheathed, he grinds gently back and forth; less a thrusting movement than it is a slight rocking. It feels heavenly. You toss your head to the side, digging your fingers beneath the edges of his armour for a better grip.
“That good?” he says, and you drag your eyes open as you nod up at him.
Your reflected eyes are glassy; your lips swollen. Your face shines with sweat. You wish you knew what he was thinking, looking down at you.
“This is a first for me,” you whisper. He grows still inside you.
“You said…” You realise in the shock of his voice that you’ve made a clumsy mistake, and you shake your head.
“I just meant, not being able to see your face. It’s strange. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.” You hadn’t been asking him to tell you, really; just musing to yourself, but he answers you all the same.
“I was thinking…you…” he clears his throat. “You look beautiful.”
Your brows draw together. “Really?”
He tilts his head fractionally to one side, brushing his thumb over your lips. “Yeah.”
You’ve been told so before, of course, plenty of times; polite society demands such a sentiment from its suitors, even for girls who aren’t. You’ve never put much stock in it, watching the way the speakers’ gaze had drifted over the finery of your gown and jewels, and the intricacy of whichever hairstyle you’d been tied into that morning. The compliment might as well have been paid directly to your father, for the effect his money had brought about.
But here, like this, you have no adornment. You’ve cried away your makeup; wrenched the pearls from your hair. You have nothing, anymore. Just yourself. Your eyes blur as you consider how wonderful it is to think that you, alone, are enough.
He resumes his rocking, withdrawing further before driving slightly deeper.
You can actually hear how wet you are as he drags himself with a quiet squelch through the remnants of your earlier orgasm. He’s stroking against that same, secret spot; and you can feel your limbs growing boneless underneath him as he steadily eases you back into a melting rhythm. This time, though, you’re stretched far wider; the feeling infinitely more intense.
Your breaths grow shorter, higher in pitch. You dig your fingers into the unarmoured space in between his shoulder and neck, feeling cords of lean muscle.
Then, reaching down between your legs, he circles your clit over the place where you’re split open around his cock.
The sound that escapes you is strangled, inelegant. You clap your palm over your mouth to swallow it, your skin tasting of metal and sweat and faded perfume.
As though he can feel you tightening around him, he groans, adjusting his angle slightly upward. “Are you gonna…?”
“Yeah,” you whimper, your eyes rolling shut. “Yeah, yeah, yeah…”
“Yeah?” He strokes deeper, holding you tighter, anchoring you to him. “Good.”
And as you shatter apart, you aren’t sure whether it’s his thick, devastatingly precise strokes, or the sound of his rough, breathy words so close to your ear that send you over the edge.
Either way, you’re ruined.
Everything whites out. Your face contorting, your eyebrows pinching together, you cry out, broken. It’s far too much; you’re overwhelmed but unable to escape, speared open around his cock, pinioned by his weight and his metal as you contract and squeeze around him.
He bites out his own harsh curse as you pull him down with you, your pleasure overtaking his own, his next thrust uncontrolled and sloppy.
You convulse, still coming, your thighs shaking as though charged with electricity. He feels impossibly deep inside you, as deep as another organ, when he spills his own release; spurting hot, filling you.
He pants brokenly over you, matching your own higher gasps. His cock slips free, slapping heavy and wet against your thigh.
You feel like you’re floating. Damp with sweat and sex, and far too hot, but weightless all the same. He slumps to the side, the length of him pressed close to you on the cramped cot.
Gradually, your heartbeat begins to slow.
You wonder whether you’ll still be able to feel him, in the days to come. Will there be an ache in the ghost of his shape inside you, when you’re planets away from him? Will you be able to close your eyes and conjure him, when you’re alone?
Warmth dribbles between your thighs, and you shift them together. He reaches down, gathering a fistful of his cloak and pressing it gently between your legs, leaving a sticky-drying streak on your skin.
“Did you have anywhere in mind?” he asks, and it takes you a moment to understand his meaning.
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. The most urgent part was just…getting away.”
He nods. “I figured.” Artificial light drifts down from overhead, slanting through the fine hairs on the back of your arms, catching the shine of sweat. “I punched in coordinates to Tatooine. I have…friends there. They’ll help you get something arranged.”
You trail your fingers across the edge of his vambrace. Tiny, shining darts are laid into a pattern over his forearm. “You trust them?”
“I do.”
His breathing is slow and even. You try to match it, and feel your body sink lower into looseness. You could sleep for weeks. You curl closer toward him.
“How long have you been doing this?” you ask, your voice quiet.
“A long time.”
“Is it lonely?”
A beat. “Not always.”
You’re nearly asleep when he moves, slipping out from behind you and pulling his pants closed. There’s a rustle, and a clink, and then he’s placing your hairpin pouch into your hand.
“I took this from your room before I came to get you.”
You blink tiredly at it. “I’d almost forgotten about that. It’s yours.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want it. This…wasn’t really a job. I can’t accept payment. And…I don’t think you’ll have enough. Even with the credits. Not to start over properly.”
Sleepily, softly, you let your eyes drift closed. “I will. Once I’ve unpicked every pearl from that dress. I’ll be able to buy your ship, three times over.”
He huffs something that could be a laugh. He leaves the pouch where it is, his footsteps fading in the direction of the cockpit.