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audrewrites · 4 years

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chapter one: the bounty

a/n: hi friends! this is my first attempt at writing literally anything since i was like 12 so please let me know what you think! this could definitely be a series if y’all wanted it! with each chapter i’ll include a few of my fave songs that had an influence on the chapter (even if they seem irrelevant lol)

chapter song (s) : you should see me in a crown - billie eilish, elastic heart - laura dreyfuss & noah guthrie, carry me away - john mayer

The air in the cantina was sticky, far too sticky for the young women’s preference. In that moment she was thankful for the yellow strip of fabric that kept her hair pulled from her face and neck. It was crowded, but that’s what she wanted. Needed. The only reason she was in the cantina was to hide, maybe get a drink, and find a place to sleep other than the streets.

The music was mediocre at best, but it was far better than the one-sided conversation the man next to her was attempting to have with her. However, the conversation in the room seemed to dull significantly and she quickly glanced behind her. In the doorway of the cantina stood a Mandalorian in all his glory, his masked eyes gazing around the room. Her blood ran ice-cold in her veins.

She wasn’t positive that he was there for her, but nonetheless, she was out of her seat in an instant and running for the back exit, praying that maybe she had gone unnoticed by the Mandalorian’s prying eyes. She knew she had no such luck as soon as she heard the clanking of his armor and weaponry behind her, his heavy footfalls almost in perfect time with hers. She ducked into an alleyway and continued to run, hoping that she could lose him. She had only been on this planet for a few days and in the village for a mere few hours so she truly had no idea where she was going or where any of the winding streets ended up.

After trying to throw off the Mandalorian by ducking into a few more side streets, the young woman found herself unlucky enough to have turned into a dead-end alleyway. She turned to face the Mandalorian in pursuit of her and held her hands up in surrender as she slowly back towards the wall at the end of the alley.

“Hello Mandalorian...”she quipped, a sight smirk on her face, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Turn around.” He barked, emotionless.

“Okay, metal man. Calm down.” She responded quickly as she turned around and offered her crossed wrists behind her.

He immediately shut the cuffs around her wrists and tugged her to face forward. With a huff of breath, the young woman attempted to blow her hair out of her face, her yellow hair fabric lost during the chase. She found her heart aching at the thought of losing it, for that fabric had been her trademark accessory since she was a young child back on her home planet.

As they began the trek back to the Mandalorian’s ship, the young women eyed the civilians around her. They all stepped out of the way as the Mandalorian marched her through town, on purpose she wasn’t sure.

When they arrived at the Mandalorian’s ship, the young woman took a deep breath anxiously. Her end was near, she was just lucky the Mandalorian finding her wasn’t her end. The Mandalorian nudged her up the ramp and she found herself complying without second thought. It was easier to do as he said than to risk a blaster bolt in her head.

She was lost in thought; thinking about her past, her family, her village. She hadn’t thought about it in a long time. She thought about what was to become of her. She was bound to be caught eventually, she just didn’t think it would be this soon. She thought she had more time. When she snapped out of her thoughts, she realized the Mandalorian was readying to freeze her in carbonite.

“Wait!” She fumbled over the single word. It fell messily out of her mouth and she cringed at how desperate she sounded.

The Mandalorian halted in his motions and looked up at the girl. The desperation in her eyes struck a cord within him. The look reminded him of one his mother gave him, one of the last looks she gave him. He felted his hardened heart ache at the memory of his mother, a women he loved dearly.

“I promise you, whatever that bounty is for. Whatever they told you. It isn’t the truth. None of it’s true. I’m not a bad person. I’m not a criminal like they say I am.” Once agin the words tumbled from her mouth before she had a chance to think. She had never been this inarticulate in her life.

“I don’t care about the truth.” He lied. He cared about the truth, about justice. But he had a job to do. He needed the credits.

“Please...please just let me tell you the truth. Let me tell you why I did what I did. Why I have a bounty over me. I need someone to know. I need one person to know what really happened before they kill me.” She pleaded with the Mandalorian. She knew as soon as they arrived to her home planet, she would be killed.

The Mandalorian eyed her curiously through his helmet. Her request was odd to say the absolute least. It got him to thinking. Why was the truth about this bounty so important to her?

On the one hand, she seemed non-threatening. She was cuffed. She was exhausted. Mentally more so than physically, but her epic sprint in an attempt to evade the Mandalorian had obviously taken a toll on her.

On the other hand, though, was the fact that her epic sprint had taken a toll on him as well. She was strategic in her evasion, more so than any bounty he’s ever had. He was quite tired as well. She had a hefty bounty over her head. If he let his guard down for even a second, he could end up dead. He had no idea what this girl was capable of, but judging by the size of the bounty, she was capable of something terrible.

“Fine.” He hears himself speak the short, affirmative word before his mind could even catch up. Though the exhausted gleam in her eyes when he said it eased his anxiety over the situation.

He nudges her towards the cockpit of the Razor Crest and she slowly begins making her way towards the front of the ship. She walks slowly, eyeing everything around them. Though, the Mandalorian couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed with her. Perhaps he was thankful for the short change in pace from his normally high-speed life style.

She takes a seat in the co-pilot’s chair and looks around, admiring the technology before her. Though she had seen many ships in her days, this was the first time she had sat in the cockpit and truly seen a ship. Seeing all the lights and buttons made her feel like a child again.

The Mandalorian takes a seat in his pilot’s chair and begins readying the ship to leave the planet. He notes that she had yet to begin speaking, and he started to wonder if she had a change of heart. He wondered if she had accepted that her truth would likely die with her.

“You can talk. I’m listening.” He said in a short, gruff way. To the untrained ear, he seemed angry, annoyed. But deep down he was showing the young woman that although he seemed preoccupied, he was invested in her story. In her truth.

She inhales deeply before she begins, obviously preparing herself for the story that only she seemed to know.

“A crime syndicate invaded my village. They took over everything. Politics, education, resources, everything. All the resources were piled into one building, the ‘Resource Center’ they called it. To get anything, and I mean absolutely anything, you had to put in a request. Sometimes they would review it right away, if you could give them something they wanted. Other times it would take days or weeks to hear back from them.

The Mandalorian stayed stoic as he listened to her. So far there were no indicators as to why she had such a large bounty on her head. Just a sad backstory that hit a little to close to home as he knew how deeply violence effected villages and cities and planets.

“My younger brother fell ill. Very ill. So I put in a request at the resource center for medicine and made sure they reviewed it right away.”

“What did you give to them?” The Mandalorian couldn’t help himself as he interjected into the young woman’s story. She had said herself that they only reviewed supply requests right away if you had something they wanted.

“They would only accept one thing from me. Men like that think that’s all a woman is good for. I did what I had to do.” The way she sneered was enough for the Mandalorian to understand what she meant. He felt a pang in his chest as her took in the weight of the words that had come out of her mouth in a stream of fire.

“Anyways, they denied the request. I went home empty handed. As time went on though, my brother got worse. I put in another request for medicine and got denied. So my family put in a request to travel to a different planet for medical attention. Denied.”

He could sense her pain. People often thought that the Mandalorians had no feelings, but that was far from the truth. The Mandalorian felt something for her, though he was unsure what. Anger at the people who tortured her village, maybe. Empathy, perhaps.

“I was fed up. He was going to die soon. So I broke in. I took what we needed. Only what we needed, and it wasn’t enough for them to notice. I made sure he survived. Word got around that I was able to get into the Resource Center and people started to offer to pay me to smuggle supplies to them. I could have said no, but they needed me. My people needed me and who was I to leave them to suffer? So I did it. I smuggled supplies for weeks. Months even. But the head of the syndicate found out and started to look for the person who was stealing. My people would hide me in their homes for a few days at a time before passing me to the next home to protect me.”

The Mandalorian was shocked to say the least. She had stolen, but to save her brother. Was this what made them so mad? This was too large a bounty for stealing supplies.

“It went on like this for a few weeks until they were able to figure out who I was. Immediately my village loaded me on to a transport ship so I could get out of there. So I could be safe. I ended up on some sand planet, Maker knows where. I did some odd jobs around there until I heard that they were after me. So I hopped another transport to a new planet. I’ve been doing that since the day I left. Hopping transports and smuggling ships. I haven’t been home in years, I have no clue if my family is even alive anymore.”

Her voice began to waver, though she tried to cover it up with a cough. The Mandalorian could sense that she was beginning to feel emotional.

“How did you know I was after you?” He asked. Usually people with bounties on their head were none the wiser, easy catches. She was easily the hardest bounty he had ever taken, after the child.

“Mandalorians don’t often come after people of the likes of me unless there’s a sizable bounty.” She chuckled sadly. He could hear the tears in her voice and granted himself a glance back at her.

Her tired eyes were wet with tears and he could see the remnants of one trickling down her face. She raised her cuffed hands to wipe at her eyes, attempting to mask the hurt.

“Mandalorians do not often allow bounties to escape either. How did you manage to get away?”

His question came out more harsh than he had wished.

“A woman never reveals her secrets.” She jeers, the playfulness evident in her voice, though it could have been easily missed due to the wetness of her remaining tears and the obvious exhaustion that was setting in.

The Mandalorian considers this for a moment. He considers her story, her truth as she had called it. Her bounty was so large because she had escaped the hands of many bounty hunters, of many Mandalorians at that. Though, she was not a bad person. She was not a criminal. And as rude as it sounded, not worth such a large bounty, especially considering what she had done for her family. For her people.

She had made a great sacrifice, the Mandalorian could see that. That’s why he found himself standing and closing the space between them. The tension was palpable as she looked up at his mask. Her heart caught in her throat at the Mandalorian approached her. He was tall and the Beskar armor made him all the more imposing. The look in her eyes made her heart leap into he throat and he began to feel slightly nauseous. She looked defeated, like she had accepted her fate, but behind the defeat was a small glimmer of hope. He hadn’t taken a chance to really look at her, but he found himself admiring her beauty.

She wasn’t beautiful like the other women he had been with, and there had been a handful. Her hair and skin seemed permanently dirty from years of running, but was indicative of her hard work. Her skin was splotchy with red spots, probably from spending too much time in the sun. Her hands were rough and calloused like his. The small gem in her nose glimmered in the dim light of the Razor Crest. She was unconventional in every sense, but to him it was everything. And he hated it.

“You’ll stay and work with me. Lay low until I can get your bounty cleared.” He grunted as he removed the cuffs from her wrists, revealing the screaming red indentations beneath them.

She looked up at him in shock. She felt like she was going to throw up. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes and her hands began to sweat as her heart rate increased tenfold. Before she could even think she was on her feet and throwing herself into the Mandalorian’s arms, wrapping him in a tight hug of thanks.

Jumbled words tumbled from her lips as tears fell from her eyes. The Mandalorian felt himself go stiff. He couldn’t quite believe what he had just done and it had been a long time since he experienced any contact like this. The girls shaking form in his arms, however, brought him back to reality and he found himself relaxing slightly. He gave her small pats on the back in a way the he hoped was comforting.

The young woman could sense his apprehension and slowly stepped back and quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeve as she corrected her posture, obviously wanting to keep up her front she had put on earlier, though the Mandalorian could sense that she was tired and broken. He began to silently walk to the small sleeping area on the ship, it would have to do for now. She quickly caught on and followed behind him. He did his best to make sure she was settled on to the small cot before he began to make his exit.

“Hey. Since I’m going to be living with you...well working with you, or for you, I’d really like to know your name.” He heard her call after him. He turned to face her.

“Mando.” He said simply, though there was a slightly playful lilt to his voice that almost gave away the smirk he held under the mask.

“Well, Mando. Thank you. For...you know...”she trailed off, not really sure what she could call what he did. Sparing her? Maybe. Saving her? Yes, but that seemed too extreme and she was tired of sounding weak and desperate.

He examined her for a second more as he took in her tired eyes and the way her body was slowly giving into the exhaustion of a life on the run. Her hair fell in a frizzy, tangled mess around her face, her signature hair piece long gone. He could see that she was somewhat comfortable, she felt safe with him, otherwise she wouldn’t be slowly lowering herself to lay on the flat pillow that sat just behind her. The Mandalorian quickly turned on his heel and returned to the cockpit before he could allow himself to feel anything for the remarkable young woman that was now sleeping in his bed.

As he sat down in his pilot’s chair once more, he couldn’t help but think about his choice. How was he going to get the crime syndicate to pull the bounty? Possibilities of the future blurred through his mind as he glanced back to the sleeping area. The modulated sigh that left his mouth was indicative enough of the feelings he felt for her: he was in deep.

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