#novalise djarin | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

amiedala · 3 months

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 6: Pulse

WARNINGS: angst, explicit content

SUMMARY: “If you’re trying to get me to hurt you,” Din grits out, “you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that.”

Her heartbeat, her pulse—both skyrocket. “Why would I want you to hurt me?” But Nova does. She wants to be annihilated by her Mandalorian. She wants pain from him, pain that drowns out the ghosts inside of her, deep enough that she could rise from the depths anointed. Reborn. Renewed. She needs something holy to cling to, to carve her true self out of.

“You need to come back to me.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! me posting the next chapter within a two week span? WILD! i hope you love this one... it was equally fun and painful to write <3

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

It’s not morning. It’s never morning. Not out here, in the crush of space.

They are in a windowless room. They are in transit, in limbo.

Din’s going stir-crazy. He watches Novalise, steady, eternal. He doesn’t need the mask, not in here, not at all, really, not anymore—the woman sleeping by his side is something so much holier than his Creed. But his fingers are still clutched around it. He’s not sure if that still qualifies as religion. If he can pray to the helmet like he used to. If he can truly pray at all.

When Din does pray, it’s not to the Maker. It’s not a vow to the Mandalorian Creed. It’s to the stars around him, above him, the ones that surround him now, that Novalise’s head will be safely returned to her body. That she won’t slip away. Not into the ether. Not into the pinpricks of light she’s so devoted to. She shines in the dark, his Nova. His locus, his temple, his fixed luminous point.

He wants to believe in her the way she does in goodness—steadfastly. Without question. But right now, she’s… altered. Made darker. Flickering around the edges.

He doesn’t think anyone else has noticed. Wedge probably would’ve, at this point, if he were here. He knew Nova before she was Nova at all, and there’s an inextricable thread that loops them together, that is woven as tight as family. Bo-Katan probably knows, from thousands and thousands of miles away, that something is off. Her sharp eyes are always trained on Nova. Her bloodhound nose picks up signals almost immediately. And Grogu, sweet, eternal Grogu—with his father’s steadiness, with his mother’s heart—touches those little fingers to Nova’s collarbone and can feel it in words that none of them can name.

Din takes stock of all of this. The room is still pitch-dark. He can see Nova’s outline, shimmering. He’s not sure if he actually can, or if he’s just memorized her shape, but the semantics don’t matter. She’s sound asleep, a tiny whistling noise coming from her nose. And his heart, how it aches in his chest.

“Nova’s different,” he imagines himself saying. He can’t figure out who. He needs someone like her to take a look, inspect her, interrogate her in a way he can’t. He doesn’t know what the warning signs look like for a Jedi—when they’ve tipped over into another world entirely. But that’s the problem, and that’s why Din can’t ever picture who he’s saying those damning, strange words to—Nova’s always lived in a different world than he has. She’s made of more—of starlight and shine and magic, magic he has never touched, a kind of divinity he used to thrash for, fight for, kill for, and yet—

She’s haunted. But more than that, she’s taken something out of the dark and transfigured it, transfixed it. She’s made it her own.

And yet, there’s nothing in this galaxy or the next that could keep him from this kind of holiness. Din Djarin has spent this lifetime bringing people to their knees. Cutting off heads of hydras, slashing through blood and flesh and bone, and he’d beg for forgiveness over and over and over and over if it meant he could worship at the altar of Novalise Andromeda Maluev Djarin—savior of worlds, star in the sky, and the holiest thing he’s ever held in his filthy fucking hands.

There’s something off about her. Something different.

And yet.

Din presses his hand into his tired eyes. He’s weary. Beaten-down. He wants to shake something, to take it in his hands and make meaning out of it. To grab the thing haunting Nova by the throat and force it out of her. To cut it down to size, into piecemeal. But whatever it is inside of her, and he doesn’t know if this ghost that’s chasing her around is a Jedi thing, or a Nova thing, and he cannot hurt her or he will blame himself forever.

A tiny, terrible part of him whispers: Ezra would be able to fix it. The earlier version of that sentence is Luke would be able to fix it, but Din knows Luke, trusts him, knows what he lacks in subtlety he makes up for in flamboyance and kindness in equal measure. Luke Skywalker, according to Nova, according to everyone else in these circles—well, he’s kind of a big deal. Luke is to the galaxy publicly what Nova is to Din privately, and he knows enough about the man to trust him with his kid’s training and his wife’s heart.

But Ezra Bridger—Din doesn’t know him. Nothing past visions and reverence; mystery and intrigue. He is a man who exists but doesn’t, and he lives in Nova’s head. And as much as Din knows Ezra is the key to fixing so many things, that he’s good, selfishly, irretrievably, he is jealous. It festers inside of him like rusted steel. Like an open wound. He is not proud of it, this enormous, awful feeling, but he cannot tamp it down.

Din wants to be the only man who lives in Nova’s head. And he is certainly not good. Not pure. Not made out of the light. He is a bullet made of beskar, a steel-sharpened blade. It festers inside of him, an open wound. He wants to be good, to be worthy.

To be deserving of the prayers that leak out of his covered mouth.

And yet, this impossible quest is now close to home, to something Nova considers holy—the remainder of the Rebel Alliance, her legacy, her roots, and he cannot let this feeling rear its ugly head. Can’t let it out of the cell he keeps it in. He is both jailer and prisoner, and it haunts him.

Everyone on the Ghost is carrying their own ghosts. And he’s here again, at the intersection of ghosts and religion, of haunting and the Creed. And Novalise, in the middle of it all, in the middle of everything.

Circles. Din’s thinking in circles.

He needs to get off this fucking ship.

Nova inhales—sharply—once, twice, and then she jackknifes upwards, waking up like she’s fighting a war. One she’s losing.

Din is on her in a heartbeat.

“Did I wake you?”

In the dark, Din shakes his head. Nova can feel it. She could even without any part of their bodies overlapping, even though they are right now, entangled like roots. She moves in closer, trying to shake the dreams from her head. To come back down to earth. Pressing her hand to the metal above her head, reassuring herself she’s safe, she’s okay, she’s herself—

“What?”

That word—it’s so soft. Nova closes her eyes, pressing the heel of her hand to her heart like that can manually stop the racing. She wills it to quiet, for everything to sink back down to normal, but panic is still leaking from her like a sieve, running like adrenaline through her veins. “What?” she repeats back at Din, deflecting.

“What were you dreaming about?”

Nova shifts in the vantablack. “That’s always the question, isn’t it.”

A beat. “Novalise.” His voice is delicate, knowing.

It makes her want to kiss him on the mouth and shove him away in equal measure. It shocks her, the violence of that—the intensity. In the quiet secrecy of their hideaway, she digs her fingernails into her palm, enough to draw blood, to gore the rest of the darkness out. Nova takes a steadying, stuttered breath.

“Teeth,” she whispers. “So many teeth.”

Din is quiet. “Is that a metaphor?”

Nova manages a mirthless, tired smile, even though he can’t see her. “Most nights, I hope it is. This one? I don’t think so.”

“Nova,” he says, so quiet.

Nova sighs, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “It comes in flashes.”

“The teeth?”

The sickening thrash of all of it. That’s her answer. But Nova doesn’t know how to vocalize that—that she, child of the light, has been bathed in darkness, swaddled in it. It’s started to become familiar, and she hates it, but she is so tired of fighting an upward battle.

“Yeah,” she mumbles, unceremoniously, praying that’ll be the end of it. She shifts closer to him, burying her nose in Din’s neck. He smells like metal and cinnamon, like always, but there’s something else on his skin—mint, maybe? It smells foreign, like the interior of this ship, and decidedly not the Crest, and not Kicker, and that makes her heart ache even worse.

Din’s quiet. Pondering. Nova wrestles with wanting to tell him everything—Sparmau leaking back into her dreams like poison; Thrawn’s deep, unsettling voice. The ones where she’s fighting the unnamed villains that slice through her head. And the worst ones, the ones that feel so dangerous and raw that it makes her want to claw her eyes out—where she hurts Din. Where she hurts Grogu. Where Nova is not Novalise at all.

“I can’t… speak it aloud,” she whispers slowly, so quietly it’s just a breath. “I can’t even put words to it. It’s just… darkness.” It’s both the truth, and not, and obfuscating it makes Nova feel sick, but she puts a hand over her stomach and presses hard, forcing herself to swallow it down. “I don’t know what to do, Din.”

Seven small words; the weight of the world. They settle around Din and Nova’s entwined bodies, settling in like snow. Lethal and cold and dangerous, blanketing them in it.

Din’s quiet. Observant. Nova can sense it, the feeling of his brown eyes on the side of her face, tracing it from memory. She swallows, trying to keep the tears at bay. She feels—off-kilter. Sideways. Like the version of herself she used to be able to wear like a shield—unbreakable, indomitable Novalise, rebel girl and starchild—was left behind on Mandalore. Like she’s wearing the version of that Nova’s skin, but the second she embarked on this journey, she left her behind. Like she’s possessing herself.

And Nova can’t undo it. She feels wrong.

“You do what you’ve always done,” Din says, finally, and the words that she used to live and die by feel like a knife now. “You fight back.”

“I am,” Nova manages, heavily, angrily, “so tired of fighting.”

Din doesn’t speak, but she can feel his soft exhale in the dark. He moves closer, always closer. Something in Nova flares. She can’t tell if it’s want or anger, and the blurring of that line terrifies her.

“I need you,” Nova whispers, needing the words to be true. She reaches for Din, tracing down the line of his torso, reaching to cup him between his legs.

A hand shoots out to stop her. Lightning-quick. His grip is unyielding. It cuts so deep. Nova sucks in a wounded gasp. “No,” Din says, and there’s no warmth to it at all. “You don’t.”

Nova recoils, blinking back sudden tears. “Din—?”

“You are using this,” he whispers, stroking a thumb over her cheekbone, “me, as a bandage for what you’re feeling. I want you in every way but this, cyar’ika. Something is wrong, and you cannot use me to drown out that feeling. It won’t make it go away.”

Nova feels a knife somewhere through her heart. It surges into her, white-hot panic. “Please—”

“Novalise.” Her name feels distant, like it’s echoing from faraway, a place that isn’t this ship, a place that maybe isn’t even out in space at all. “Stop.”

She sucks in a breath, shattered. “Din,” Nova breathes, ragged, heartbeat thumping off something wild. “Please touch me—”

“No.”

She pulls away from him. Violently. Nova digs her nails back into her bloodied palm, shaking when she realizes this is real, very much not a nightmare, and the glitter and snap of the jaws of darkness begin crooning at her. She is wrong. Something is definitely, decidedly wrong, and she is teetering on the edge of losing it, and she is exhausted, bone-weary, and there’s flames licking down her throat, between her legs, and she wants to be voracious, to feed, to drown everything else out with the thrush of Din inside of her—

Something snaps. From deep inside of her. A low, keening noise, the one she was making—it dissipates, suddenly. Nova feels—strange. She stands up, stick-straight, sweaty, freezing.

“Novalise.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even breathe. There’s a low scratching sound, coming from inside of her, gnawing.

“Nova, you need to tell me what was in your dream.”

She doesn’t move. She feels feverish, but this is a different kind of fever than the one she felt when she was slick with need, wanton, heavy. Nova feels—unhinged.

“Me.”

But her tongue—her tongue is not her own. The snarl that rips out of it is something else. Nova can feel it, the taste of it, and it’s wrong and bloodied and so awful that she puts her palm to her hand and screams into it.

Din is on her in a second. “Baby—?”

That word—it is not theirs. Not without danger preceding it. Nova thrashes, once, twice—she is undone and desecrated. Her body is not her own, it is a channel, a conduit, and the Not-Nova, the ones from all of her darkest dreams—she is slithering around inside of her, whispering, crooning, seductive, and Nova cannot grab herself, hold the evil at bay. Bring herself back into the light.

Din surges forward, catching her body, holding her, cradling her.

“Novalise.”

She surges back into her body like a crescendo. A wave. An electric thrum exploding. Nova shudders, and Din flips the lights on, and she looks at him in confusion, because they were not on this ship, her soul was on a different plane, like she was caught between worlds, and Din’s holding her in his arms, his bare hands. He is not a Mandalorian, not protected from her in beskar and bullets, not behind a shield. He is a man, and, Nova realizes, sweat-slick and freezing, he is breakable.

He’s looking at her like she’s—a ghost.

Nova can feel the tears welling up in her eyes. She’s thankful for them, this proof that she is herself. She is emotional and undone, yes, but she’s not unhinged. She does not belong to the darkness. Din wipes the pad of his thumb across her mouth and it comes back bloody.

“What,” he repeats slowly, softly, so gently it aches, “happened in your nightmare?”

“I wasn’t myself,” Nova whispers, “and when I woke up, it stayed.”

Din blinks. Fear is so foreign in his eyes. She looks up at him, half-lidded, through wet lashes.

“I don’t know what to do,” she repeats.

This time, he doesn’t tell her to fight. He doesn’t tell her anything. He just stares, and Nova can tell how scared he is. Unshakable, unbreakable Din Djarin—she’s terrified that she will become his undoing.

“Nova,” he whispers.

Something else snaps. Thunders. Strikes like lightning. She stands up, stick-straight—like she’s just been blinked back into reality. “What just happened?”

His eyes, barely recognizable in the dark, widen at her. “You woke up screaming. I asked what you dreamed about. Then you… Leaped out of bed. Onto the floor.”

Nova stares. “What happened in between?”

He goes to reach for her, and Nova flinches. Flinches. Not because she doesn’t trust Din’s hands on her—because it’s the only thing she trusts right now, the only thing that’ll keep her anchored. “I didn’t—I didn’t touch you?” Something flares low in her stomach. She thinks, this time, that it’s danger beckoning.

Din rears back like he’s been slapped. Nova can’t tell if it’s from her flinch—so loud, so bright, even in the darkness—or if it’s from her words.

“You woke up,” he whispers, “and got out of the bed like it was made of fire.”

Nova swallows. She can’t get a grip on reality. It’s seismic, kaleidoscopic—she can’t make out what’s real and what isn’t, and she clenches her fingers harder down on her hand. “What happened in between?” She’s repeating herself. She’s not making sense.

“You told me you dreamed of teeth. That you were scared of yourself. And then you leapt out of bed, away from me.” His voice is low, strained with something. Anger, Nova realizes, anger, and probably confusion, but he’s schooling his tone to be as neutral as possible.

“Away,” she repeats, “from you.”

Din nods. She can’t see much, but if she could, Nova would be watching his jaw clench, the muscle jumping as Din grits his teeth together.

“And you’re mad at me for that?” She can feel the sick swell of anger taking over her own body, and Nova tries to fight it, shut it out, but it feels—good. Alive. More alive than she’s felt in weeks. Since defeating Sparmau. No—since Din chased her down like prey on Naator. “You’re mad?” Her voice is breathy, low.

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.” Nova’s hand reaches out, flicking on the dim light. Din is silhouetted by the bulb behind him, and his face is contorted—with anger, maybe, but also fear. She can smell it on him. She wants to slam herself into him, to have it burn her down, to drown out all of the noise. But she doesn’t move. She just watches him. “I don’t think,” Nova whispers, even-keeled, all ice, “this counts as running from you.”

It’s not fair. That word carries such a weight. She wants to take it back the second she says it. Nova swallows, blinking, that anger de-crescendoing out of her faster than it spreads. She feels sick.

“Din—”

“You want to play it like that?”

“No.” Nova takes a step backward, clenching her nails back into her palm, feeling fresh blood whisper across the new cuts. “No, I don’t want to play at all. I’m sorry—”

“I followed you into the darkness,” Din says, and there’s nothing there, no emotion, and somehow that sluices through her even deeper. The blade of his words is so sharp. “You cannot go anywhere I couldn’t find you. That place doesn’t exist.”

But it does, that monstrous, traitor inside of her whispers, because I belong to something more, and there are places I go that Din cannot follow.

“Din—”

“If you’re trying to get me to hurt you,” Din grits out, “you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than that.”

“You need to come back to me.”

She blinks. That cuts, but not with sweet silver blades. With something serrated. Dulled. She steps back as Din steps forward.

“I haven’t gone anywhere—”

“We both know,” Din whispers, “that’s not the truth.”

“Something,” Nova says, “is wrong with me.”

It’s like those words wake him right up—startled out of a dream. Not the one of her sick reflection in the mirror—something that’s held Din equally as captive.

“Nova—”

But her name and haunted look in Din’s eyes is interrupted by three sharp knocks at their door.

The door unlatches with a cold hiss. Hera stares at both of them. Din can feel her gaze hanging heavy on Nova, her sweat-slicked skin, her bloodied lips, her hair raging like a wildfire around her face. She is barely clothed and he is helmeted, half-armored, and he knows what this looks like, and it makes him feel sick.

But Hera just blinks once, twice, then rights herself. She carries herself like both a mother and a soldier. It reminds Din so much of Nova. “I’m sorry,” she says, both crisp and genuine. “I didn’t want to wake you, but we have a problem.”

Din squares his shoulder. Nova wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. She snaps back into herself—Mand’alor, Jedi, Rebel, all in equal measure. Now that it’s back, written into the code of her DNA, it makes it even more obvious that the Nova he was just interacting with was… wrong.

“What?”

Hera swallows, digging her hands into the pockets of her bomber jacket. “You need to come to the cockpit.” They file after her, Din feeling naked and undone without the rest of his armor. He watches Nova as she follows Hera up to the front of the Ghost. She plucks Grogu—asleep—off the copilot’s chair and settles down into it, eyebrows knitted down the middle.

“Before I play this,” Hera says, “I need you to know that I trust Wedge Antilles with my life at this point.”

Nova recoils. Din can feel his heart sink.

“Me too,” she offers up. Din nods once. Sharply, in assent.

“Great,” Hera says, “but I am also not listening to the warning he explicitly gave me. So.” A pause. She’s watching Nova closely. “And if you want to heed it, you are allowed to. I will walk into this fire alone. I would prefer not to, but I will.”

Din’s frustrated. But Nova—Nova offers Hera a tiny smile, a spark of something he hasn’t seen in days, and he cocks his head to the side, ready to follow her into the flames. All over again. “I,” Nova says, gently, evenly, “have explicitly ignored many warnings Wedge Antilles has given me for the sake of doing something stupid yet necessary. And the last thing I am going to let you do,” she continues, leaning forward to clutch Hera’s hand, which Din just now clocks as trembling, “is jump into that stupid yet necessary thing alone.” She pauses, squeezing down. “What happened, Hera?”

Hera inhales, exhales. It’s shaky. Din watches her, carefully, through the silent safety of the visor. She leans forward, pressing a button on the screen. Din hears what Bo-Katan and Wedge are saying. He understands the situation—Thrawn’s massive Star Destroyer hanging over Bespin and Hoth like a bad omen—but he doesn’t register how dark it is, how deep. All he can think about is that Bo-Katan—Bo-Katan—is shaking in the blue light, Hera’s hand is cinched so tightly over his wife’s that it’s about to snap, Wedge is telling them it’s a lost cause, and Nova—

Nova’s face is not what he expected. Tears, Din would have predicted—lots of them, silently streaming down her beautiful cheeks. An expression of well-earned grief. For the destruction of a planet she’s considered like home, for the last true active Alliance base, for the people that she’s protected her entire life. But Nova’s face has hardened into resolve—true, unadulterated determination.

It’s the one she wore when she fought Sparmau. It’s the one she’s worn in every act of Rebellion, every time she’s been a savior. She is a warrior at her core, and the face she is wearing is nothing but fight and glory. She looks like that version of Novalise—her true self—is slowly waking up.

There she is. Then, quieter: Thank the Maker.

“I know Wedge said—”

“We’re going to Hoth.” Nova lifts her chin. “We’re going to fight.”

Hera looks at her with fear and relief. Din can’t tell which one is winning. “We need fuel.”

Nova nods. “Then let’s get it quickly.”

“I should mention,” Hera says, slamming her finger down on the hyperdrive button, letting the Ghost thud out of warp, “we’re refueling on Corellia.” All of them lurch in the sudden drop, but they’re braced for impact, fortified with the muscle memory of living out in open space.

Quietly, Din speaks through the modulator: “That’s convenient.”

A smile glitters across Nova’s face. A true one.

“I hope you’re prepared to fight Wedge on his warning,” Hera says, lowering the thrusters as they slowly start to sink onto the cesspit named Corellia. “Because when we land, you’re both going to find him and Bo-Katan.”

Din shifts, refusing to display any of what he’s feeling. He is strong and stoic, a bullet made of beskar. He’s a Mandalorian warrior, and he is not afraid. Except the first time he and Nova were on Corellia, he killed a rogue bounty who would have made shrapnel out of her. And the last time he and Nova were on Corellia, he almost lost her to visions of Sparmau and herself. Death, Din has concluded, is in the air on this stars-forsaken planet.

Corellia and Din Djarin are, decidedly, not friends.

He sighs. Nova gleams. She looks over at him—full of knowing, that look, and something else he can’t entirely place—and extricates herself from the chair with the giddy grace only she has ever possessed, slipping back into their room to don more clothes than secondhand baggy trousers and a barely-there tank top. When he turns back around, Hera’s eyes are on his, dead-on, through the visor and all. She doesn’t miss much, Hera Syndulla. Against his permission, Din shrinks and shifts under her gaze.

“Convenient,” he echoes, finally. “That fuel and the Mon Cala vessel are both down on Corellia.”

She blinks slowly. “I wanted this reunion to be in less dire circumstances. But, for better or for worse, these are the lives that we’ve chosen to lead.” She sighs.

Din observes her. Hera carries herself with the same precision, the same rigidity, that he does. What they lack in magic is made up for in skill. “Do you think this is a good idea?” He can’t tell if he means Corellia, or Hoth, or fighting at all, but the sentiment is the same regardless. Wary, murky.

Hera lifts her chin. “I think this is war, and we can’t play it safe.”

Din nods. “I agree.” Hera holds his gaze, uncanny, those blue, discerning eyes, and he turns away, to go after Nova, to right the wrongness that they both held earlier—but Hera’s soft hand lands on his unarmored arm. He jerks away, like he’s been burned, instantaneously, and she rescinds her touch. Nearly as immediately. Din’s respected Hera from the second she rescued them, but even more so now.

But her eyes—they burn with grief and loss and it hurts him to look at her head-on. He knows his own eyes burn with the same demons. It’s part of the reason he keeps his helmet on for the most part now. Din doesn’t know how to school his expression in the way non-Mandalorians do. But, he realizes, it doesn’t matter, because everyone in his life seems to see right through the visor anyway.

“Din,” Hera says softly, “I loved a Jedi, too. It’s…difficult. I know what their world is like, and it’s full of horror and wonder that we cannot understand.”

He stiffens. “Ezra?”

A small, sad smile dances across Hera’s mouth. “Yeah. Ezra, too.”

He pauses, turning back around to fully face her. “What happened?” His question is low, urgent. Probing. He feels like he’s betraying Nova, but he needs to know. “To your…other Jedi?”

Hera swallows. Her face is written with sadness. That’s not something Din normally notices, but it’s like a beacon, like—like the way Nova feels. Full to the brim of emotion, so big that it overflows. “He fancied himself a martyr, too.” A flash of her eyes on his. “Don’t,” she whispers, “let Nova give into that sentiment. The rebellion will live on without her, but it will never be the same.”

“Hera—”

“You love her?” With the weight of this galaxy and the next, he loves her. But Din can’t speak that aloud. He just manages one terse, fervent nod, and knows she understands. “Good,” Hera says, “then you keep that light alive.”

And with that, she releases him, and the spores of terror that have been festering in Din’s stomach spread and spread.

Nova doesn’t have armor. Doesn’t have anything, really, anything other than her own tank top and the pants Hera lent her, which must not have been Hera’s at all, because Hera’s got curves, but not like Nova’s hips and thighs, and these are belted tight around her waist. Her hair is hanging down her back, braided halfway, the rest of her rogue curls hanging loose out of the elastic. Her skin looks sallow, typical from spending so much time in the vantablack of space. Her lips are puffy, her eyelashes long and tangled, her torso wrapped in a shawl and one of the extra jackets hanging on the back of the Ghost. She smooths her hands over the front of the ill-fitting jacket—cropped above her waist, the sleeves too long—and wishes, for one of the only times in her life, that she did have armor. That she was just a Mandalorian, just the Mand’alor. That her biggest responsibility was uniting a people that had been razed and divided, not given to them in fragments—not this leader that was equal part Jedi and Rebel, with Mandalorian sprinkled in.

Her reflection—it looks like her. Nova hitches in a breath, afraid to peer too close, afraid to see the Not-Nova looking back. In her dream, she had teeth that snapped and glittered, a gaping maw of horror and half-ness. But the only thing reflected is her face, her body, her eyes. Nova smiles, and it’s soft—echoing glories and morning, sunlight filtering through the cracks. No razors. No darkness. She feels relief spark up in her heart like an old friend, and she touches her fingers up to her reflection, willing it to stay.

“Good enough,” Nova murmurs, and then she’s out the door. She presses her lips to Grogu’s wrinkled forehead on her way by, squeezes Hera’s hand with a silent promise, and looks up at Din—obscured, always, but she knows his eyes are locked tight on her like a tractor beam, like a place of worship, like… he’s watching her. Carefully. Steadily. Two things she doesn’t feel. “Ready?” For a minute, before he nods, she’s caught in it, suspended, the way he’s holding her hostage, captive. Safe.

“This goes without saying,” Hera murmurs, and Nova’s reverie is broken, “but please don’t take any risks down there. Get out, find the rest of the crew, and get back here.” She swallows. “We don’t have time to waste.”

Nova nods. “Be safe. Getting the fuel. Corellia is…”

“This place,” Hera says heavily, slamming her fist to disengage the hiss of the ramp, “is the least of my fears.” And the gangplank lowers, revealing the gray slush of Corellia’s crime-ridden, grimy surface. Nova inhales, exhales, grabs onto Din’s gloved hand, and walks down the ramp.

Din has the tracking chip in his hand. Nova walks behind him, out into the abyss. His body is tensed, a steel bullet, a weapon of mass destruction. She keeps her face low, obscured from the light, but she can feel the seedy, dangerous gaze of the people that pass by her. She’s got nothing of worth, no pockets to pick, but her sabers are loud and vibrant on her belt. One light, one dark. There’s a metaphor in that, somewhere, but Nova is too busy watching Din as he dances through the low light of Corellia, powerful and precise as a lothcat.

Once upon a time, she tried to barter with him. Back when he was just the Mandalorian and she was still Andromeda, lifetimes ago, ages back, what feels like years and years. To leave her here. On Corellia. Because she felt guilty—guilty that she wasn’t able to fend for herself, that he picked her up in the Crest, that they were strangers. It feels impossible now. To look at the man in front of her and see anything other than the love of her life, her locus, her true star.

“What?” His voice is low, throaty. It filters through the modulator, slipping off into somewhere deeper, and Nova shivers. They step through an alley, a slice through two walls, puddles and brick littering the ground around them. “I can hear you.”

Her eyebrows furrow. Nova takes one step, two, and then Din’s whirled back around, hooking a gloved hand under her chin. It’s bold and determined and vital, and Nova sinks into the black hole of his grasp. Slowly, Din cocks his head to the right and Nova thrills.

“Hear what?” It’s barely a whisper.

Din sighs, an exhalation, coming out low through the vocoder. Nova bites down on her lower lip, blinking up at him through half-lidded eyes. “Your thoughts,” he grits out, “are so damn loud.”

Nova licks out a line over her split lip, and Din sags. Just for a second. Then his arms snap out, bracketing her on either side. She sinks back against the wall, body slamming into the wall with a sick, satisfying thud. “What am I thinking, then?”

Din doesn’t move. “No.”

Nova blinks. “No, what?”

Din blows out a breath, again, low and languid like a smoker. Nova’s heart clenches, then something lower, wetter. “You’re being,” he grits out, low, almost angry, “a fucking distraction.” His words cut through, like a knife. Nova loves the way it sings through her. “We have a job to do, Novalise. And we need to talk about what happened earlier. We have other things to finish first.”

Nova knows. She knows. But frustration and want are pouring free from her, sluicing through her body, desperate and wanton. Din is the only thing that has ever silenced that panic—that’s ever made her quiet. “I know.”

“People to save.”

Reality floods back in. Just a little. Nova doesn’t put words to it, because it’s awful, it’s horrible, it’s venomous, the thought. That she’s so tired, tired of always being the savior, tired of chasing an impossible reality. That she wants to be selfish, to feel Din’s hands on her like a salve, like a resurrection. Like she could open her mouth and let him whistle in, dirty, filthy things exhaled, sweat dripping down to the steel floor. Like it could make the visions disappear, like it could flood out all of the weight hanging over her head.

“I know,” she repeats, dully, but Din’s gaze is still on her, locked-in, seizing her closer and closer.

“I’m not touching you.”

Nova’s gaze flickers over him, to the arms that are clenched hard against the wall. “Not even a little?”

“A little,” Din hisses, “with you, is everything. I can’t stop once I’ve started. And we have a mission to do. I’ll ask you again, Novalise. What do you want?”

Nova bites down on her swollen bottom lip. Reality is running currents through her. She needs to get her head on straight. To remember what she’s here for—there is a planet at stake, there are people to save, and she is being selfish, so selfish, but the monster inside of her head is purring, and Din’s body is like an oil slick, and she is undone and starving.

She knows—in the back of her mind, where rationality still lives, she is whispering to herself—Din will not touch her. Din will not drown her like she’s begging to be drowned. Novalise is starving. Emaciated—deprived of touch, touch she had hours ago, because Din’s body is both her heaven and her hell, and she is addicted to it. Addicted to the fix that is her husband, her Mandalorian, her weapon, the love of her life—she has a mission to do, she has the fate of the galaxy on her shoulders, and she’s hungry like an addict, and all she wants to do is feel Din sinking inside of her, rhythmic, seismic, pushing her down, deep enough where the only pain that exists is him, the only salvation is his hands, his mouth, his letting her breathe—

“Novalise.”

She blinks. “What I want and what I need,” Nova whispers, shaking and undone, “are two very different things.”

She hears the way Din’s breath catches in the modulator. “Nova—”

“You know what I mean. We’ve been through this already.” She leans in closer. Her breath fogs up his visor. With the strength of a thousand stars, she wrenches herself free, ducking under Din’s arm and moving out into the maw of Corellia, needing to put distance between their bodies before she does something rash, before she gets on her knees, before she loses sight of her mission—

“Nova,” Din calls behind her, his voice sharp and heady—needy—and Nova keeps moving, clutching the tracker in one hand, silently blinking out the correct path to Bo and Wedge, away from that dangerous, razor-sharp desire, because she will slit her throat with it if she stays here. She will give into it, into the plunge, and she will not be able to extricate herself. “Hey—”

His hand closes around her wrist. It’s sweet, sweet relief. She snaps back around, so fast that they almost crash into each other, yanked back into the alleyway. “Don’t hide. Don’t run from me.”

“I am not running,” she whispers, everything faint against the feeling of his touch against her skin, “I am losing.”

Losing time, she means. But losing—grip. On herself. On reality. Like she’s been—drugged. Or like she’s living across different timelines, almost identical, but not close enough to match. She blinks, once, twice, and then Din’s surrounding her again, even as she tries to move forward.

“What is going on?”

Nova stops—almost letting Din collide with her, beskar and all—but she looks at him over her shoulder, sirenlike, dangerous—and catches exactly where she knows his brown, deep eyes are locked on her, laser-sharp. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know, and it terrifies her, because she is muddied and violet, pitch-dark with desire and shame, and Nova has never felt indecision like this before, this terrible seam ripped open inside of her stomach. She doesn’t know.

She doesn’t know anything except the basics. She doesn’t want to fight—not anymore. She wants to win. She wants a quiet life with the man she loves, and she wants this galaxy out of turmoil, but the dark thing leaching inside of her stomach wants to be selfish, and it’s terrifying, and she has no idea how to put this into words—to be Novalise, just Novalise, the girl the Mandalorian picked up on Nevarro. Everything flashes before her eyes, lightning-quick, the beats of her life—from sacred touches to low breaths, to commlink calls to tender kisses, to sweat-slick sex to awful rainstorms of tears, to death, to life, to this moment. Can we start over? Nova thinks, reality cold and crisp in Corellia’s mangled air, and then— I feel…wrong—

“I can’t tell what’s real—”

“Wait.” Din steps closer, but the visor is pointed down at the blinking tracker in Nova’s hand, suddenly gone silent. “They’ve dropped off.” He puts his hand to his helmet, and Nova watches him, dazed, shaking, like she’s woken up from a dream, guilt running like ice through her veins. “Bo-Katan? Can you hear me?”

No answer. Static. Silence. Then—Nova hears it, faintly, the incredulous, frigid voice of Bo-Katan Kryze. It’s one of the best sounds in the universe. “Din?”

Din’s body sags, just a little, and Nova feels the same sweet relief coursing through her, overriding the sick sense of awfulness she feels—at letting want overtake need, at wanting something selfish rather than something more—and she swallows it down. This is not the place for want. This is the place for fighting.

Din projects the frequency outward, grabbing Nova and dragging her in close, close enough that the two of them can hear it, but the quickening dark of the heart of Corellia around them doesn’t. “We’re in the middle of the city,” Bo-Katan says, “hiding the best we can. Din, this place is crawling with—”

“I know.” His voice, low through the modulator, vibrates against Nova’s ribcage with her body pressed almost flush against his. “Don’t move, okay? Stay where you are.”

“Not an option,” Wedge cuts in, “there’s troopers and bounty hunters everywhere, and the Mon Cala we were with sold us out.” A blaster fires. “Look, we’ll hotwire a ship and come meet you. Where are you located? Still in hyperspace?”

“No,” Nova says, and there’s yelling and fire through the comm, and panic replaces relief and guilt in equal measure, “we’re on Corellia, we’ll come to you. What’s your coordinates?”

Silence.

“Wedge?”

“You,” he says, sourly, “are a terrible listener.” Someone shouts, and Wedge curses under his breath. “We’re in the middle of Coronet Center. Do not come here—”

It’s too late. Din clicks the radio off, stifling Wedge’s voice, and then he’s grabbing Nova’s hand in his. She looks over at him, silently resolving to figure it all out later, to pull herself together. His hand clenches in hers, and he nods, and then they’re running, entwined, into the heart of the storm.

Din’s thoughts on Corellia hold fast. This place is crawling with unfriendlies—from the stormtroopers armed up to the nines with blasters and weapons to the bounty hunters with blades of steel to the men who keep looking at Nova sideways. The deeper and deeper they crawl, sinking into the pit of Coronet Center, Corellia’s capital city—it becomes clearer and clearer that no one here has good intentions.

His eyes slide over to her. Too much. Enough to take his eyes off the prize. Navigating this city is a hellscape on a normal day, but with their friends trapped in the belly of the beast and his wife unsure, unsteady—Din doesn’t feel in control.

He’s felt like that a lot lately. Out of control. He can’t figure out why. He wants, and that want pulses low inside of him. The desire to get the hell out of here whispers to him, wheedles, croons. It lives under his skin like a parasite. Back on Mandalore, before they left to go find Ezra, before they left for the Unknown Regions, Din told Nova he wanted to just go back to Naator. But that wasn’t possible. That’s not in her nature. She doesn’t abandon things. She doesn’t give into the same selfish haunts. She’s stronger than that. Than anything, really, even while she’s seeping through the cracks. If a woman could be forged from beskar, it would be Novalise.

She’s walking like she’s injured something. Din watches her out of the corner of his eyes as Nova steps—gingerly, carefully—across the grayscale streets, littered with scrap metal and trash and terrible things. Needles. Bones. Corellia is a grifter’s paradise, and she does not belong here. Her hip, he thinks, something’s wrong with her hip. Probably still injured from the starfighter crash, and him sinking to the hilt inside of her hours ago probably didn’t help.

“Stop looking at me with those eyes,” Nova whispers, but it’s playful. Lighter.

Din shoots her a sideways look. “I’m not—”

She lifts her chin, swinging her head around to check the alleys behind her. It’s getting darker, and on Corellia, that means more dangerous. Nova’s hand finds her belt, where her yellow lightsaber and the Darksaber hang. She palms her own, then the Darksaber. Din watches this too. “I know where your eyes are at all times, Mandalorian.” Nova smiles, and, Maker, Din’s stomach lights up with butterflies. “Even under that helmet.”

“You’re hurt.”

Her face shutters. Just a little, but Din’s an expert in Nova’s micro-expressions. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

He tilts his head to the side. “Can you please tell me what your dream was about?”

Her face contorts. “It’s not related.”

“Novalise,” Din sighs, “you are the worst liar I have ever met.”

She narrows her eyes. “Me. Okay? Like I told you. I was myself, and then I wasn’t, and I keep hallucinating things, and the reason I need you to keep touching me is because it’s the only real thing I can hold onto.” Nova licks over her lip, tongue lingering over where it split back in the crash. Din wants out. He wants to gather Nova in his arms, jet out of here with the pack strapped to his back, shoot his way to Bo and Wedge from the air. He can feel eyes on them from the shadows, though, and anger flares in his chest.

No. Not anger. Something worse.

Fear.

“Nova—”

“No,” she whispers, but she grabs his hand for a second, squeezing down, “not here. We’ll talk about it all later, I promise—”

He hears it before he sees it. A blaster, drawn out of his holster. Din ducks and yanks Nova down to the ground alongside him, razor-sharp and quicker than breathing. She doesn’t yell—in fact, she goes quieter, and when the shot ricochets off his armor, Din’s already got his own blaster out to return the fire. He doesn’t have his vibroblade, but he wishes for it; to sink between the notches of armor and sear into the trooper’s skin.

They weren’t shooting at him. They were going for Nova.

Her hand is already at her waist, but Din moves faster. He cuts forward, steel toes light against the Corellian ground, and he’s on the trooper before another shot can even hit the barrel of the enemy’s gun. He fires, once, twice, then kicks the dead trooper to the ground. Nova’s watching him, wide-eyed.

“There’s more.”

He whips back around, ready to fire. He doesn’t need to, though.

Nova’s hand pulses over the sabers hanging on her wrist, and without a second’s hesitation, she’s ignited the blade.

Corellia doesn’t glow yellow.

No. It flickers with the angry, pulsing energy of the Darksaber.

The Darksaber used to be heavy. Like it was resisting her. Not anymore, Nova realizes, as stormtroopers pour out of alleyways like ants, storming across the ground around them. Din’s quicker, a soldier—but she has a weapon in her hands that’s meant to be wielded. Once upon a time, killing was a haunting, awful thing. She still aims to stun, to disarm—not to cut down. But she could. With this blade in her hands, Novalise could bring an entire city to its knees. She moves like a Jedi and fights like a Rebel, and she cuts forward like Mandalorian. Simply. Like it’s written into her DNA.

Din, in her periphery, is dropping trooper after trooper. But there’s… there’s more, coming out of the cracks, incessant. Nova knows that something is amiss. She can taste it in the air, heavy and metallic, the tang like blood. Corellia is crime-ridden, yes, but this is different. And then there’s other people, not troopers.

Bounty hunters.

“Din,” she calls, and he turns to look at her, and Nova can feel the panic flash, white-hot through her veins. They’re surrounded. Completely. She feels like she lost time—she was just cutting them down, cleaving through the air like it was nothing, leaving the troopers’ forces scattered. But she blinks, just once, and she’s surrounded, but white masks and evil eyes alike, and Nova feels adrenaline and fear slice her clean through.

“Nova!”

But he’s choked out by the thrush of troopers, hundreds of them. Nova loses sight of him. She tries to cut through, and then a bounty hunter flashes his teeth at her, and she stumbles, the blade of the Darksaber snarling as Nova falters.

“I thought you looked familiar.”

Nova clenches her jaw. “I don’t think we’ve met.” But he looks familiar. His expression does, at least—darkness gathering there.

He laughs, an evil smile curling across his face. She can feel the ranks closing in behind her. Nova lifts her chin, holding the weapon higher in her hand. “Oh, we’ve met,” he says, cocking his head to the side, a sick glint emanating from his eyes. “You’ve done a good job transforming yourself—Novalise, is it now? Come a long way since you were tied up like a prize on that ship.”

Nova’s stomach clenches. “You—”

“Shame Jacterr didn’t like his things to be touched.” He surges forward, hand outstretched to caress her body. “But he’s not here now, is he?” And Novalise explodes.

Fury swings forward, flooding everything else out. Nova screams out, cutting, cleaving, using the Darksaber as it was intended. A weapon fit for a king—in the hands of something more than that. Something stronger. Nova slices and knifes with the blade until there is blood on the ground and pink mist of a man in front of her, and she feels nothing. Just anger, red-hot, pulsating like lava, and she cuts through stormtrooper after stormtrooper, until she can see Din again, surrounded by bounty hunters.

“Hey!” Nova screams, loud enough to echo across the surrounding buildings, “Mandalorian!”

Din’s head doesn’t fully turn—he’s blasting with one hand and choking out another trooper with the other—but the side of the helmet flashes her way.

She holds up the Darksaber, blade still ignited, transfiguring everything into greyscale, and shouts again. “Catch.” She tosses it through the air, high above everyone’s heads. Din’s gloved hand snaps out to catch it. Perfectly. Like it has been his all along, like it belongs to him. Like it’s craved his touch, like it’s breathing a sigh of relief to be reunited with his hand. Nova offers him one radiant, glowing smile, and then she’s ignited her own lightsaber, turning everything to yellow, then to ash.

Together, slowly, Din and Nova clear a path through the thrush of troopers and hunters, cutting fast and hard and away, and then—

Something happens.

She can’t see it. But she can feel it. Nova stutters—like her body stops working. She can’t describe it—this feeling. A shuddering. It rips through her like fire and shutters her defenses, and even with the saber in her hand, she feels—depleted, suddenly. Hair’s standing up on the back of her neck.

And a second later, she knows why. Din cries out, a noise that she’s only ever heard him make when he’s wounded, a soldier cut down in battle. There’s a bounty hunter trying to pull his helmet off, another one gripping his neck, exposed, now, his tan skin a beacon in the dark. And even though Din is allowed to be Din now, Nova’s anger roars through her, the weight of an exploding star. She surges toward him, troopers crawling over her like vermin, like bugs, but she will not let anyone in this world take Din’s autonomy away from him, not again, not ever—

“Novalise.”

It’s her own voice.

She turns. “Not now,” Nova whispers, cutting through white armor with her golden blade, trying to let everything drip out of her, trying to tap into that sense of magic that runs like a current through her bloodstream.

“Novalise.”

She turns. It’s not the version of herself from the nightmares. It’s the version of herself from the future, the one gilded and saintlike, untouchable—holy.

“Help me,” she whispers. Bring me back, she means to say, and this version of herself smiles, reaching out to touch her face. “Get me closer, help me—”

“Novalise.”

Exasperated, exhausted: “What?”

“You have all the weapons you need.” A beat. “Call it by name.”

Nova closes her eyes, and when she reopens them, it’s like lightning has surged through her veins. Back when she was fighting Sparmau, all the Jedi had told her don’t throw it away. This was an echo chamber of that, a repeated cycle, an endless paradigm—call it by name.

It’s one word. Her name. “Novay’lain.” It’s a whisper with the force of a scream. And all the light floods back into Nova’s body. Everything that was dimmed, covered in gasoline, or nightmared into reality—it stands no chance. To radiate. To shine.

She tears through the rest of the troopers and hunters like an asteroid. She is singular, Rebel girl with the Force aerating through her bloodstream. She’s on Din faster than any of the rest of them can, and she’s swinging and cutting her blade through the air, white-hot and gilded. All of the darkness settles into her bones, the light shooting to the surface. She could wield the weight of the sun if she needed to, to get to him. The hunter prying Din’s helmet off is cut through the middle. Sawed off. Torso in two pieces. Nova doesn’t even blink.

“Come on,” she whispers, dropping to her knees beside him. “Let’s get out of here.”

Din spits something out onto the ground, splattering over the armor of the dead trooper at his feet. Blood. It looks like blood. He yanks his helmet back down, the illusion of the untouchable snapped back into place, and then he shakes his head at Nova, sighing. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Electric, white-hot—that’s how she feels. Illuminated, yes. But on fire. Nova is moving with adrenaline that doesn’t feel borrowed. Not anymore. She is supercharged, a yellow blade, surrounded by silver and nettle, divinity and blood.

They’re firing like bullets down alleyways. Din doesn’t have the tracker out anymore. She doesn’t have a hard and fast map of where Bo-Katan and Wedge are, but Nova doesn’t need it. She feels them, can hear their heartbeats, can sense their wounds. She turns, frantic, down another alleyway, and then Din’s hand slips out of hers.

She stumbles, catching herself on either side of the alley’s walls. “Come on,” she whispers, gently, turning around to face him. “We have a mission to complete, remember?”

“Nova—”

“They’re right on our tail, Din,” she says, blinking rapidly, heart hammering a brutal rhythm out against her ribs. “Come on.”

“Wait, no—”

“Din,” Nova says, out of breath—why is she suddenly out of breath? She sags back against the wall, the light inside of her chest rapidly dwindling. Her vision is flickering. “Din—?”

“Cyar’ika,” he whispers, “stop.”

Nova does. She looks down.

Impaled in her stomach is a blade. “Oh,” she whispers. Her vision blurs further, and then her knees are buckling, collapsing—

“Novalise—” Panic flashes through Din’s voice. “No, don’t you dare—”

And then, like a dying star, everything goes pitch-black.

AHHHH I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!! this was such a headrush to write. i am SO excited to share this one, and i hope you're ready for the next chapter. i've already started writing it and man… i cannot wait to share it!!

thank you, as always and eternally, for reading, for being here, and for sticking with me <3

CHAPTER 7 COMING SOON!!! for day-to-day updates, follow me on tiktok @ padmeamydala :)

xoxo, amelie

#something holy #something holy fanfic #something more series #din djarin fanfic #din djarin fanfiction #din djarin x oc #din djarin smut #din djarin x novalise djarin #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian x original character #the mandalorian x oc #the mandalorian smut #star wars fanfiction #star wars fanfic #amiedala

18 notes · View notes

amiedala · 2 months

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 7: No Mercy

WARNINGS: angst, explicit content, LOTS of blood

SUMMARY: No mercy, Nova had said.

He takes the helmet off. A grin spreads across Din’s face, sickened and bloody, as he rips limb from limb.

At the end, there’s just silence. He stands, covered in crimson and guts, with the blade of the Darksaber flickering in the same pulse as his heartbeat. It is monstrous and wonderful and he feels nothing but adrenaline, coursing through his veins. The helmet hisses back into place like a rattlesnake striking its prey.

Din turns around, wipes the blood marring his visor, and runs back to Nova.

He sheathes the Darksaber. He tries to sink back into his skin, to put the monster back into its cage.

It goes, angrily, snarling, all the way back to her.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! i had such a wicked and exciting time writing this one ;) ENJOY! leave me a comment at the end if you did <3

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

Everything is hollowed. Fucked out. The rest of the world filters away, vanishing.

Nova drops to her knees, then crashes against the ground. Din’s not quick enough. Maker, it’s like he’s been trapped in amber. He’s fast, but he’s not fast enough. He cries out, the sound high and panicked through the modulator. Din sounds wounded, but he’s not the one that’s been stabbed. Nova’s white-faced, all the color leached out. She is held together with whispers and prayers, with nothing but him.

She keeps fucking bleeding. His hands are doing nothing to staunch it all, leaving out of her like an oil spill. Something terrible is flashing in the back of his mind. Something that feels an awful lot like deja vu.

This is how it must have felt, he realizes, horrified, frozen, when he got knifed with Sparmau’s poison dagger, and Nova had to keep him alive and pilot the shattered Mand’alor vessel away from enemy territory. The weight of the world, she holds it up. It slams into him like a Star Destroyer.

Din feels—bowled over. Scraped raw.

“Novalise,” he hisses. Her eyes flutter, rolling back in her skull. “Nova. Wake up.” It’s senseless. She is out entirely, on a different plane of existence, on a different reality. She’s so cold. Her blood pools around his gloved hands. She got hit deep. Somewhere critical. Fear leapfrogs up his throat. It tastes like bile.

This is a fucking disaster. They should have never come here—to Corellia. To the Unknown Regions at all. Everything that’s happened since that damn distress call.They should have stayed in the stars, out there in the darkness, before any of this was real. If he could go back—he would pin her down back on Mandalore, before Nova decided to do this, to run headfirst into a rescue mission where she is within the line of fire.

But that’s not who she is, his Nova. She cannot be caged. So he will be a monster for her. But this time… this time, he wasn’t fast enough.

Din swallows, tries again. “Can you hear me?”

It’s senseless. It doesn’t work. She’s passed out, which is likely a terrible sign, Din’s only passed out—clean, full out—a few times, and each instance, it was when he almost died. He keeps reliving Novalise falling to her knees, on repeat. He shakes his head, trying to clear it, trying to dislodge the memory. He hooks his fingers under the rim of his helmet, exposing his face. He doesn’t care who’s watching. He’s going to burn this entire planet to the ground. “Nova,” he whispers again.

A miracle happens. Her eyes open. Blearily, pained, but they’re open.

There’s something in his eyes. Din wipes the back of his bloodied glove across his face, realizing what it is when it comes back wet and clear. Tears. “Hey. Can you hear me?”

“Ouch,” she whispers, voice croaking. Din almost laughs—laughs—in sheer relief.

“Hold on for me,” he whispers, compounding the wound with his gloves. Maker, they’re dirty. Filthy. But he can’t worry about infection. Not now. Keeping Nova alive is mission number one. Hera will have bacta, needles, compounds—all of it, back on the ship. He’s seen her use up her dwindling supply on Nova already. He just needs to get her okay enough to get her back to the Ghost, then he can go save Bo-Katan and Wedge. He can do that. He can carry that weight. He won’t collapse. “Stay awake, baby.”

Her eyebrows furrow. Nova coughs up blood spatter. Her pink lips are a ghastly shade of white, stained on the insides. “‘M trying,” she slurs. “What—what happened?”

“That lowlife hunter,” Din snarls. His voice is a blade. He increases the pressure of his hands against her wound, and Nova whimpers. He has to steel himself, gritting his teeth down to refuse to rip his hands away. “Stabbed you. Deep. I’m gonna kill him.”

“No,” Nova manages. Her hair is haloed out around her on the ground. Din bites down on his lower lip, fetid wind blowing over the both of them. It’s cold. Corellia’s temperate until it isn’t, but right now, it’s freezing. They’re not far from the makeshift battlefield—they’ve run a couple of klicks into the center of Coronet City, but the remaining forces of their enemy could very easily be on their six. “No need. Already did.”

Love floods him. Din bites out a quick laugh. “Of course.” He shudders in a shaky breath. “Course you did, sweet girl.”

Nova blinks up at him. “It hurts,” she manages, and her voice cracks down the middle. She’s putting on a brave face, his Novalise, but she’s in bad shape. “How much blood have I lost?”

Din leans down, presses a quick kiss to her clammy forehead. He’s deflecting, and he knows it’s apparent. He knows that Nova could see it written across his untrained face, but it doesn’t matter. Not more than evacuating her, now. He’s not answering that question. “I’m getting you out of here,” he promises, putting his helmet back on. “We’re jetting back to the ship. Gonna compress your wound, okay—”

“No.” It cuts clean through. The airlocks hiss as he snaps his helmet back into place. Din stops, blinking at her through the visor. It’s been running her metrics in the absence of when it was last on his head. She’s lost so much blood. That fact keeps cycling through, entirely unhelpful, bringing him back to reality. This is—unfair. Royally so. She was saving him, chasing him, fighting his battles for him. Anger is aerating through his bloodstream, and Din swallows a growl in the back of his throat. Losing it won’t help anything. Won’t keep Nova safe from slaughter.

Maker, he really, really wishes it would. He wants to feel blood pouring out on his own hands. He wants to unleash vengeance. He wants to call revenge by name.

“Nova. I need to bring you back to the ship.”

“Not happening.” Her eyes flutter again, pupils unfocused. “‘M coming with you.”

Din stares. “You can’t—”

“They’re coming.”

It’s so quiet. He doesn’t realize what she’s said at first—and then he hears it. The sound of footsteps. They’re not concealed. Not under the helmet. He could hear the bloodstream of a rodent with the combination of the Mandalorian mask and his fine-tuned senses. And that’s exactly what’s coming towards them right now—fucking vermin. He stands. A blade. His body becomes a blade.

“Here.” Nova’s hand clenches at her side. “Take this—”

“I am not,” Din enunciates, cold and flat through the modulator, “leaving you.”

Nova holds his concealed eyes, just for a second, before she shutters hers in pain. “Take it, Din.” Her hand wraps around the shaft of it, and then she’s unclipping the Darksaber from her belt.

He stares. “It’s not mine anymore—”

“Not the time,” Nova manages, breath uneven, “for saber-wielding semantics.” She wheezes, spitting out more blood, and Din’s panic flares again, a heat-spike, red-hot. “Do it.”

He blinks at her. “I can’t.”

“You can. Cut them down,” Nova whispers. Then she shoves at him—with so much more strength than he would have been able to muster—and it propels him to his feet. “No mercy.” She cracks a wan, exhausted smile. It curves up, half-scarlet, and fuck if it isn’t the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “Then you come back to me.”

Din Djarin disappears. The Mandalorian takes over. It whistles through his bloodstream, the strength of it. He is a weapon, a blade, the thing that lives in the darkness. He hasn’t been this—the beskar bullet, the metallic monstrosity—for years long past. Before Nova. He can still don the mask and pretend, but this is different. Troopers and hunters alike surge around the corner, and he flexes, breathes, unloads.

No living thing stands a chance.

Pain.

That’s the only word that registers, the only feeling Nova knows. It comes on like a lava surge, white-hot and deafening. She looks down, blurry-eyed, at the gash in her stomach, a knife wedged tight into the muscle of her pre-existing scar. It’s almost laughable, the irony of it all.

“Okay,” she whispers. The world shifts around the edges, elastic. The knife squelches in her abdomen, and Nova winces. “You,” she chastises herself, “can do the hard thing.”

She can. Novalise is very good at doing the hard thing. The problem is—she knows the blade is plunged into something bad. Her liver, maybe. Her spleen. In a divine comedy, this knife sliced through her sinew in the same place Sparmau’s poison dagger did to Din, back on Hinari, back what feels like a lifetime ago and is only a handful of months. Nova felt stronger then, but in all reality, she’s stronger now.

It’s facing death for what seems like the umpteenth time, stuck with a relentless blade. She’s here again. She’s always here, it seems.

Novalise has seen so much hurt. This same scar has been carved into her skin like an awful melody, muscle memory. She’s suddenly transported—back to when she was still a teenager, back when she ran right into the hornet’s nest, a viper’s den, danger that didn’t give way to goodness. She’s nineteen and haunted again, chained down in iron to a ship that was a sucking pit of despair, with a man whose kisses were venom and whose hands were made of terror.

She is not there. She is not Andromeda. Not anymore.

And the last time Novalise got stabbed in the stomach, she pulled light from the sky itself. She doesn’t need to do that this time, but she will.

Because she can.

Distantly, very distantly, Nova can hear Din cutting through the rat’s nest of troopers and hunters. Flaying them alive. She knows he will be a pit of a man for her, an interlude of darkness and terror, and he will come back on his knees. He will pray for forgiveness.

He doesn’t need to, though. He’s already gotten hers.

She’s the holy thing granting it.

“You,” Nova levels with herself, “can do this.” There’s no room left but to face it. Nova has spent enough time anthropomorphizing the past, pulling it in layers over her skin. There is nothing another timeline can do for her now. There is nothing that can save her back in her memory.

Nova has spent months fighting against her intuition to do things alone. But this time, she isn’t running away. She’s ripping the blade out of her skin, and she is facing the light, and she is going to save her friends—her family. No more running. Just fighting back.

She does the hard thing. She pulls the dagger out, inch by sickening inch.

Biting into the heel of her hand to staunch the screaming, Nova props herself half-up against the wall. She utters a string of curse words under her breath—ones in Basic, Mando’a , Huttese, and a few more that she picked up along the way. She’s the daughter of a collector of linguistics, and Nova knows how to cuss her way through at least twenty languages. “Okay,” she says, wiping the sheen of sweat from her face, “okay.” She utters the word over and over again, until she’s convinced herself that she is.

The Darksaber is being wielded by her Mandalorian, so Nova unclips her own lightsaber from her belt. It’s covered in crusted blood, the silver handle tinged crimson. She bites down on her swollen lip as she ignites it, feeling power spark to life in her exhausted bloodstream. The blade flickers and trips, but it doesn’t falter. Nova stares into the golden abyss. Her lightsaber gazes back.

“You can do this,” she whispers, calling on the strength of all her past and future selves. They flick through her shuttered eyes like a hologram, like fortification. She sees her parents’ faces. That’s likely not a good sign—stars, she’s really bleeding—but Nova takes that as a good omen. That’s what she does. Takes a black hole and pulls a supernova out of it. She is her own exploding star.

She cauterizes this wound with her lightsaber. Maybe it’s a metaphor for something, but Nova can’t think of anything else but stardust right now. She is not forged by the darkness. It cannot call her by name.

Only Nova can do that.

It’s not the first time Novalise has forged her own scar into her skin, but this one is different. The last time, she was on the brink of death out in the crush of space. This time, she’s planted on the ground. There’s still something cosmic in that, though. Something holy.

Novalise is the only star on Corellia. She detracts her lightsaber’s blade, and the world still glows yellow.

Din Djarin isn’t here. He is hiding, far underneath the mask that he wears and the Creed that he once swore by. He is not bleeding crimson rivers, but if he did, there would be no wound that could cut him down. At this moment, he has ceased to be a man. He is all Mandalorian—all fighter. No, that’s not correct. Even soldier is too small of a word. The definition is closer to warrior, but even that is far below what he is.

He is an oil spill, vantablack in movement, silver in makeup. He is tungsten and steel, a weapon forged from beskar. The Darksaber—decidedly not his—flickers in his hand, pulsing the people he cuts down into grayscale. It’s heavy. So heavy. It is the weapon of something stronger than he is, but that something is laying on the ground behind him. And Din wants them all to pay for it.

He does not know the Empire. Not intimately like the people that surround them. Not personally like Novalise. He does not care. It doesn’t matter who they are. If the troopers are being called upon by the mysterious First Order. If the bounty hunters are reporting to a shadowy figure. Those are not questions he is equipped to know the answers to. The truth is that it doesn’t matter. None of it matters except wielding the weapon in his hands.

No mercy. That’s what Novalise said back there, blood staining his gloves scarlet, pooling over her perfect mouth. She gave him permission. No mercy.

Din Djarin is not answering to his name. He is not taking prisoners. He does not care about life. Every single person in front of him is responsible for the attack on Novalise, crumpled and bloody on the ground. He will stomp the light out of their eyes. He will massacre the evil from the ground around them.

He cuts through the army surrounding him like paper. Not humans. Not anything, not anymore. Nova would mourn their half-lives—because she is good, because she has not become a sucking wound, even in the face of so much horror.

But Novalise is not the Djarin in front of this swarm of evil. They have Din to answer to. And he’s not listening.

He does not stop. He is relentless. He is a warrior, a weapon, the darkest version of himself, and for the first time in years, Din can switch his humanity off. He doesn’t care. He cannot care. Every single one of these people—stormtroopers and bounty hunters alike—were responsible for his heart laying half-dead in the back of a filthy alleyway, stuck with a knife so big it could have cleaved her in half.

No mercy, Nova had said.

He takes the helmet off. A grin spreads across Din’s face, sickened and bloody, as he rips limb from limb.

He sheathes the Darksaber. He tries to sink back into his skin, to put the monster back into its cage.

It goes, angrily, snarling, all the way back to her.

When Din returns, Nova isn’t where he left her. She did that on purpose. She’s propped against the steel of the building behind her, but she’s standing. Her top hangs in shreds around her midriff. She spits a mouthful of blood onto the filthy ground, disappearing into the dust. Her hands are braced on either side of the wall, slung low like an assassin, face grimed with sweat and blood alike.

“What the hell,” Din asks, low and angry, “did you do?”

Nova musters a smile, wincing as another round of pain rips through her. “You were busy.”

There’s silence. Then a low, quiet hiss as he removes the helmet. Her heart catches in her throat when she realizes that Din ran off into battle with it removed, at least partially. That signifies no survivors. He is bloody, crimson splashed across his beautiful, tortured face. Heat runs through her, even amidst all that pain, and Nova inhales, staggering, staring into the silhouette of the man she loves. He is not the darkness he just swallowed and spat back out. He is in front of her in armor, but the face her Mandalorian is wearing is not the Mandalorian’s at all.

“Nova—” His voice is low, flagellating. Another thrill runs through her. “You—”

“Had a problem,” she says, gesturing at her now-exposed midriff, the curve of her belly sucked in and carved with a new scar. “And I fixed it.”

He steps forward. Those footsteps could shake the ground beneath them. They have. They will again. Nova sighs as he catches her swaying, exhausted body and pins it between him and the wall. Safety. She hums, endorphins overriding all the hurt still coursing through her bloodstream. “Fuck,” Din says. No—he snarls it, right into her open mouth, and Nova maps his brown, deep eyes on her own. “You—cauterized your o-own wound?”

Nova offers him a grin, cocking her head to the side, curls blowing in the acrid wind. His hand curls up around her cheek. She knows it comes off bloody. “Not the first time I’ve had to,” she whispers, and then the reality of the situation sets in. She swallows, blinking back sudden, desperate tears. “I’m fine,” she says, damage control. Maker, Din’s eyes are almost black. “I’m okay, Din. I promise. I—well, I’m holding it together.” Then, the real version of the truth: “I’m safe.” She looks up at him. “Now.”

He’s staring into her soul. It feels like a heart attack. Nova’s stuttered breath catches in her throat. “I am doing a very dangerous thing,” he grits out, “letting you stay out here. Do you understand me?” His hand grips her chin, lifting it to meet his. He’s only inches away, and Nova’s newly cauterized stomach flips over—in hunger. Want. Need.

“Yes,” she breathes.

“Should’ve you slung over my shoulder.” He’s muttering. Nova leans closer. “Should take you b-back to the ship. Shouldn’t let you stay out here.” This rambling, forged together of half-sentences and clipped words, sounds like the Din she knew before she knew he was Din at all—when he was just the Mandalorian and she was barely Novalise yet.

“I slaughtered them,” Din whispers into the hollow of her open mouth. “I slaughtered them.” It sounds like a vow. No—a prayer.

“It’s okay,” Nova manages. “You were—”

“Protecting you,” Din growls. “No—avenging you. You said no mercy.”

Nova doesn’t break eye contact, doesn’t look away. “And I meant it.”

His head is slung so, so low. His forehead—rife with gore—is pressed up against hers. “I killed them all, cyar’ika.”

Past-Nova would have been heavy with grief—thankful, but uncomfortable. Not now. She is not a murderer, but there are some forces in this galaxy that cannot be saved. That need to be cut down, cut away from the festering, invading wound of unfixable evil. She saw it back with the cloning tanks. She saw it in Sparmau’s teeth. She saw it in Gideon’s stare. She felt it in the blue, even face of Thrawn. Even just in nightmares, she’s known the evil coming out of them—leaching, bleeding, like an oil spill. She doesn’t need to be her own avenging angel.

She has her Mandalorian for that.

“They would have killed me,” she whispers. “They tried to. They would have gotten to Bo and Wedge, too.” Nova swallows. Two words—what a weight they hold: “I’m glad.”

His mouth slots against hers—timid at first, then coaxing, then a fucking wildfire. He kisses like he’s starving, like he’s been whetting himself on danger and adrenaline while her lips were away from hers. Nova sighs as Din holds her face flush against hers, tongue licking into her mouth like a viper. She wants to get drunk on his particular brand of venom. She needs him inside her like a demon. She wants to be possessed by Din Djarin. Getting fucked isn’t enough.

A moan unfurls from behind her teeth, spilling over into his, and Din freezes. With the strength of something holy, he wrenches himself free. “I am doing a very dangerous thing,” he murmurs again, “letting you stay out here. With me. Rather than bringing you back to safety.”

“Din,” Nova whispers, and a small whimper leaves his lips at the sound of his name, “if you tried to put me back on the Ghost, now, when we still have our friends to save, I would fight you.”

A wicked smile curls across his mouth. “You would, hm?”

She nods, looking up into his eyes like a siren. She reaches forward, for his belt, and his knees sag when she finds it—and then Nova yanks the Darksaber off of it, igniting the slick, spitting blade. Both of them shutter into black and white, and Nova sees Din’s pupils flare so large his whole iris is almost black. “This,” she breathes, “belongs to me.”

He groans. “That’s not the only thing that does,” he murmurs, and then, with a Herculean effort, he pulls away. Nova sheathes the blade, flaring back to the blue-grey dampness of Corellia’s atmosphere. “You tell me,” he warns, “if you feel worse, if you feel anything—”

“I will.”

Holding her gaze for what feels like an eternity, Din nods. When he turns to put the helmet back on, Nova winces, falters, then forces her way through. She is fortified by her Mandalorian and from her own light. Both forged by stardust.

They soldier on.

“Anything?”

Bo-Katan throws Wedge a glare over her shoulder. “If I had the signal back by now,” she says, sourly, “I would have told you.”

Wedge sighs, dragging a hand over his face. His stubble is longer than she’s ever seen it. Wedge’s age doesn’t often show—the four of them are scattered across their late forties and early thirties, now—but it does now. “Okay.”

Bo-Katan softens. A little. “I’m working on it,” she whispers, a shade lighter than the voice she usually uses. “They must have crossed over into the inner rung of the city by now, though.”

Wedge’s eyes are fixed on a hollow point behind her. They’re in what looks like an old shipping container. Bo-Katan didn’t happen to look before she threw both of their bodies inside and locked the door. The troopers were close—too close. Internally, she muses over this as she fiddles with their damaged radio, held together with little more than hope. These troopers—they were far from incompetent, slung onto the field with blunt force and a desire to shoot blaster rounds. They seemed…organized. With older armor. Of the Empire, not of its scattered remains. She swallows, flipping from station to station, trying to root out the static.

“This is bad,” Wedge admits, his head hung heavy. And then, quieter, “I’m scared.”

Bo-Katan catches his eye. He looks exhausted. Neither of them have slept much over the last few days, especially since the cheap, thieving Mon Cala they hitched a ride with sold them out to the troopers. “I know.” She doesn’t try to push the feeling away.

Hell, she’s scared too. Thrawn, back in this galaxy. Thrawn, in his massive Star Destroyer, heading towards Hoth. Bo-Katan hates Hoth. Thinks an ice planet is a waste of space. But she knows how much it means to Wedge. And Nova. They’ve both been displaced out of a home—since the Alliance moved to Hoth, it’s the home Wedge has lived in when not out in the stars. And Nova… it’s one of the last untouched places where her parents once lived.

“How bad?” Wedge’s voice snaps her back to the present. Bo-Katan fiddles with the radio again for something to do with her hands. If she doesn’t, they’ll be curled into fists.

“How bad, what?” She’s deflecting.

“Thrawn.”

Bo-Katan sighs, pinching the bridge of her swollen nose. One of the troopers broke it with the butt of his blaster. Consequently, she ripped off his chestplate and fired the remaining rounds straight into his heart. “Bad.”

Wedge swallows. “I was afraid,” he muses, crossing his arms over his chest, “of that.”

Bo-Katan inhales, exhales. “Wedge,” she manages, “...I’m sorry.”

He holds her eyes, a small smile captured on his lips. He knows what she means—sorry for being this way, sorry for getting him in this situation, sorry that they’re stuck together again, sorry that she wasn’t strong enough to get them out of this mess, sorry that Din and Nova are rushing here and putting their lives on the line for the two of them again, sorry that his home is about to be pulverized. She’s sorry for it all. Even the stuff she doesn’t have control over.

“I know.” A beat. “I’m sorry, too.”

The radio flares to life. “Bo-Katan?”

It’s a female voice. Not Nova’s, though. Bo-Katan blinks, sitting up a little straighter. “Hera?”

“I told Din and Nova to be back here with you both an hour ago,” she says, voice staccato from the static. “I’m assuming something has gone horribly wrong, right?”

Bo-Katan exhales through her sore nostrils, wincing. “It’s likely.”

Hera’s quiet. “Should I wait?”

Her eyes flick to Wedge. He nods. Imperceptibly, but Bo-Katan can read his expressions by now. “Yes.”

“We’re running—”

“Out of time,” Wedge cuts in, moving closer to the radio. “But—”

Hera’s voice comes through again. “I’ll wait.”

Bo-Katan smiles up at the rusty ceiling of the shipping container. Something nasty is dripping off in the corner, and the smell in here is rank, musty, but she can see a tiny glimpse of the night sky, and there’s a star. Bo-Katan Kryze doesn’t usually do signs, but she does do stars.

“What are the odds,” Hera continues, “that the four of you will end up back on the Ghost alive?”

At this, Bo-Katan cracks a wide, true smile. Nova would be thrilled. “General Syndulla,” she says, proudly, “I sure as hell wouldn’t bet against us.”

Hera sighs. “I have their location,” she says. “Maybe, if they couldn’t get to you—”

“We’ll get to them,” Wedge says firmly.

“We don’t have time,” Hera reminds them. Bo-Katan can sense the fear in her voice. It’s the same fear she’s kept close to her own chest. “Be safe. But—”

“We’ll be quick,” Bo-Katan promises. She looks over at Wedge, mustering up all the energy she can. “Ready?”

He gets to his feet—gingerly, carefully, but when he stands all the way up, he’s locked in. Hardcore. All Rebel. “As I’ll ever be.”

Bo-Katan musters up one more true smile. One for her friend Wedge. After all they’ve been through, he deserves it. “Run.”

And they unleash hell on the center of Coronet City.

Nova winces. She recovers, quick enough to hope against hope that Din didn’t catch it—but he is nothing if not observant, especially in that helmet, and he whips around. “Stop.”

She fixes him with a sour look. “I,” Nova proclaims, “am fine.”

Din sighs. “You were stabbed and cauterized your own wound, Novalise,” he says, “you are certainly not fine.”

She exhales and then relents, sagging back against the wall. They’re in another alleyway, now, and this one is considerably cleaner than the last. Less bloody. She hisses out a breath between her clenched teeth, dragging the shredded remains of her tank top up over her bellybutton. She can hear Din’s breath through the helmet, and it fogs her clarity.

“Let me see.”

She does.

They’ve been here before. They’ve been here before multiple times. Blood dripping, the other person silencing it, stifling it. Din rips one glove off with the other—his hands, topographic and so much softer than anything else on his body—are unbloodied. The only thing on his entire suit of armor that isn’t dripping scarlet. That makes love flare up in her chest, suddenly, completely. Nova watches him, carefully, lovingly, as he lifts her shirt higher, breath catching somewhere between his throat and the modulator. “Looks okay.”

Nova looks at him through half-lidded eyes. “Only okay?”

He tilts his head to the side, affixing her with a tired look. She can tell, even through the visor. It’s the only part of his helmet that isn’t sticky, gored with dead stormtroopers. The blood, for once, does not bother her. Want sings low in her injured stomach, and Nova bites down on her bottom lip.

“Novalise.”

“What?”

He sighs again, and then Din bends lower, sinking down on his haunches until he’s level with her on the ground. Nova grabs onto his clean, ungloved hand, needing to feel his warmth. It coils around her with comfort, and she relaxes. Just a little. “You,” he says, irritably, “are distracting me.”

She laughs—the sound is melodic as bells in such a hellish atmosphere. Din’s bare hand finds her cheek, stroking over her cheekbone, her bottom lip. They both melt, a little, into each other. Entwining like roots of the same gnarled tree. Nova feels uncalled tears stinging at the bridge of her nose, flooding in at the corners of her eyes. The air is heavy, thick. Tensioned. She’s suspended here by her Mandalorian. “What?”

“C’mere.”

Nova feels air leave her lungs, air she didn’t have the capacity to give. “I’m here,” she whispers, the sound barely a sound at all.

“This is going to hurt,” Din says gruffly, and fear drops in Nova’s chest like an anvil.

“Nope.”

“Novalise—”

“No needles.”

He looks at her head-on. In the low light of the quickening dark around them, Nova can almost see the outline of his eyes. Maybe she’s just memorized them—the depth of them, where they sit on his face. “You pulled a blade out of the muscle of your stomach,” Din says, shortly, “and the cauterized it.”

“Yes.”

“But a bacta needle is where you draw the line?”

Nova hisses in a breath between her teeth. She can see her reflection in the silver of his helmet. “Yes,” she repeats.

Din sighs. This time, it is wearily. “It’ll be a pinch.”

“I don’t want it—”

“You take everything else, my good girl,” he murmurs, “why not this?”

Nova points a finger in his face, stabbing the nail against the visor. “Hey. You’re not playing fair—”

“Novalise,” he interrupts, holding her cheek in one gloved hand, “just—do this for me, okay?”

She swallows. Relents. Din lifts her chin with one hand and sinks the needle into the lip of her exposed belly with the other. She yelps, a little one, and then the antibiotic seeps in, and Nova relaxes. The needle hurts—but the rush of the medicine helps soothe the sting. And Din’s touch—well, that soothes it, too. She wipes a single pearl of blood away from where the point went in. Din brushes one gloved finger over it, feather-light, and it disappears into the leather.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Din murmurs, “was it, cyar’ika?”

“You distracted me,” she says, haughtily, expecting Din to laugh again. But his grip tightens, his knees sag, and both of them sink back against the wall. Nova blinks up again, grimey forehead almost pressed flush against his metal one. “Din—?”

“You scared me,” Din says quietly. “Terrified me. If I had gotten back there and you were—” he chokes, and the tears spill to the forefront of her eyes. “Fuck, Novalise. I don’t—I don’t know what I would have done.”

She swallows. She wants to touch his face, to ground him against her. To push the fear away. “I’m alive,” Nova breathes. “I’m here.”

Something changes in his body language, although she can’t quite put a finger on what. Tightens. Shifts. Like silver mercury, becoming rigid. “What if—”

“No what ifs,” Nova says, much more decisive than she feels. “I am right here.” And it’s true, she realizes. For the first time since they left Mandalore on this gods-damned failed mission, she feels like herself. Whatever was inhabiting her—the darkness—has quieted. Put on mute. Not gone. She can feel it, still. But for right now—now, the fight has flooded back into her veins—she is starlight, golden, herself. Nova tightens her grip on Din’s hand, still silhouetting her face. “You pulled me back,” she whispers. “Every time, you pull me back.”

It conjures a memory. Not one that’s passed—one that’s waiting for her. Nova feels herself stutter over timelines, lost between what’s happened and what’s to come, and then it’s all drowned out as her husband moves closer. Din’s helmet rests against her forehead, anchoring her in place. Nova can feel the steel of the wall through the protective curtain of her hair—and it isn’t even half as strong as the man on his knees in front of her. She breathes, the cloud of air fogging up the bloodied visor, and then Din’s hand is leaving her, and Nova makes a disappointed noise, low in her throat like an animal.

He chuckles. His laugh could launch a thousand birds out of the sky. “Need to give you something.”

Nova rears back. “Nope.”

Din laughs again. Her heart clenches against the sweet, sweet sound. “It’s not another bacta shot.”

Nova’s eyes narrow. “Don’t know if I believe you,” she says.

Din sighs. Din’s always sighing. But this time, it’s not out of exasperation. “Will you just—”

“No needles,” Nova says. She’s trying to sound brave. She really is. But bravery left with the golden light of her lightsaber, and she has to really muster up the conviction. “Mean it.”

“Novalise.”

“Mm.” It’s noncommittal, that noise, her hands held up, braced against his pauldrons. “If you’re lying to me—”

“Relax,” Din hisses, and for some reason, some untold signal in his voice, she does.

His hand isn’t in the pocket on his belt that was hiding the bacta. No, he’s reaching into a hidden one, tucked in the inner workings of his beskar, and the protest dies in her throat. Nova’s breath evaporates into the air around them. In his one, ungloved hand, Din is holding a ring. It’s silver, but lighter than the beskar he shines in, lighter than the beskar of his ring she’s worn proudly on her left hand since he first dropped to his knees in Nevarro. But in the middle, mercurial, shifting, is a marbled, swirling grey stone. It looks—alive. Almost like the Kyber that ignites her lightsaber, but not really. Almost like her mother’s pearls that hung around her neck, but not quite. It’s unlike anything Nova has ever seen before, and yet, it calls to her. It sings. Like calls to like.

“Found this,” Din says gruffly, like he’s trying to keep emotion out of his voice, and Nova’s heart swells. “It’s for you.”

She shakes her head imperceptibly, blinking up at him. “Where?”

“I’ve almost lost you so many times.” It’s not an answer to her question. Nova doesn’t care. “I know we’ve been…” he swallows. “Fighting. Arguing. Like we haven’t… been on the same…wavelength.” It’s her word, coming out of Din’s mouth, and Nova’s never loved it more. “I’m sorry.” He clears his throat, and then, huskily: “I’m trying. I love you.”

“I love you,” she echoes, reaching out to touch him, to take the ring. Din moves, stacking it on top of her engagement ring, and it hisses into place. It swirls in front of her eyes, the metal cool to the touch, the stone a pool for her to fall into—swallowing. Consuming. It slots onto Nova’s finger like it was made for her. Like it’s been missing this whole time. It pulses. It glows. It’s obsidian and ivory. It’s silver and not. It is hers. It sings out to her. Nova responds.

“Do you like it?” Din cuts back in, slices through her reverie. His voice is so low, slung deep. Hungry.

Fuck, Nova’s hungry, too. “Yes.” So much weight is thrown behind that one word. She swallows. Need is coursing through her veins, holding her heart hostage. “Come here.”

“Nova—”

“I know, and I don’t care,” she breathes, grabbing the back of his neck, anchoring him lower, closer. “Kiss me.”

He is fighting an unspoken battle, her Mandalorian. Nova can hear his breath deepen, intensify, can feel the heat radiating off him like magma. “You—”

“Kiss me,” she breathes, emboldened, brazen. Desire slams into her, an entire ocean. “Please.” She’ll beg. She’s not above begging. But it doesn’t matter, because Din curls his fingers underneath the rim of his helmet, pulling it clean off, and he blinks at her, brown eyes almost black.

“Fuck it,” he snarls, and then his mouth, hot and wanting, is on hers.

This is selfish. His touch, molded against her skin—that’s selfish. Devouring hers in a dirty back alley, that’s selfish. Spending time, sweet precious time, with their bodies melded together like metal, when their friends are out there fighting—that’s selfish. Nova feels the darkness flood in, take over her body like a superbloom. She sighs out against the lock of Din’s mouth against her.

“Din,” she whispers.

He stiffens like it takes all of his control, all that silver now rigid and unyielding. “What?”

Nova looks up at him, wetting her lips with her tongue. He groans out, the sound choked in the low light of the alley, and want pulses again between her legs. Hungrily. Snarling. “Don’t take it easy on me.”

His eyes are so dark. Maker, she could drown in them. Nova shudders, wanting to, needing to. “That’s not how this works.” He swallows, the sound thick. “Especially now.”

She pushes at him, clawing her fingers into the untouched skin at the back of his neck. Din whimpers—full on, loudly—and a thrill runs through Nova’s entire body. Fire, sparked to life. “It is today.”

He looks at her. “Nova—”

“Fuck it away,” she breathes into the hollow of his open mouth. “Please. Please. You want me to beg? Fine, I’m begging. You want me on my knees? You’ll have to make me.” Din’s mouth falls open wider. Nova wants to shove her tongue into it, make his lips take away all of the pain. “Yeah, it hurts. It hurts.” And it does. But what’s a little charred flesh worth in battle against her Mandalorian? Nothing. “Make me ache. Fuck the pain away.”

Din grips the back of her head, a halo of hair in his ungloved, unbloodied hand. There’s a metaphor in it, in the way he’s clutching at her like his unbecoming. Nova sighs into the space between them—just armor and skin, nothing more.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Nova does not flinch. “Yes. I do.”

She’s calling Din on his bluff. He’s holding himself back. Right now, it’s not Din she’s speaking to. She wants the monster underneath his skin, licking and pulsing like flames. It’s barely contained. It is snarling at her, screaming. He is a tar pit. He is blackened steel. He is all beskar, all blade. Nova knows what she’s asking.

She loves Din. But right now, she needs the Mandalorian.

When he breaks, when he crashes his mouth against hers, it’s not reassuring. It doesn’t taste like empathy, like sweetness. He’s not trying to take away the pain. Din’s doing exactly what she asked for. He’s going to fuck it all away.

Din’s tongue, leaden, is heavy inside Nova’s mouth. It pulses, rolling over her own, desperate. Cloying. Needy. He is all teeth and bone. He growls—really, truly growls—and it’s not a mockery. It’s not anything but desire, coiled so deep it needs to strike. Like a pit viper. Like a rattlesnake. Like venom and honey. She wants to drink it down.

“Novalise—”

“Tear me apart,” she enunciates, the words barely a whisper, already off on Corellia’s fetid wind. “I give you permission.” Then, louder, emboldened, for only him to hear: “No mercy.”

Din’s mouth returns and leaves like a furious tide, biting down on her lips, cascading down her neck, licking tides to her collarbone, over and over. He is rhythmic in his domination. Unyielding. This is not the man she married. This is the Mandalorian she loved first. He takes instruction well, the weapon of a man in front of her. And then he takes control.

Din’s hands—cloying, desperate—rip at the seam of her pants. It burns so bright, his fingers wrenching her clothes away. Nova’s eyes are blackening at the edges, sweet, sweet sensation. “Don’t rip them,” she mewls, and his hand stills. Shame and need war inside of her, and Nova reels back against the metal wall. Her knees—all that’s left standing, at this point, the rest of her body slumped against Din’s metal one—shake on the cold ground.

“So bold,” he croons, and the hair on the back of Nova’s neck stands straight up. His hands dip lower, lower than her belt, low enough to hook around the waistband of her panties, and flame licks at the very core of her. “You’re not in charge,” he whispers, and every word is electric, a live wire, a lightning bolt. Nova isn’t cold, but she shivers. “You gave that up, sweet girl. You don’t get to make demands. But fuck, you sounds so good when you try.”

“Still have—” she pants, “a mission to f-finish—”

“Then shut your pretty mouth,” Din snarls, “and let me finish you first.”

That does it. Nova hums out as he digs low. His fingers are filthy. Not with blood or grime—no, not from the men he felled back on the impromptu Corellian battlefield. No, he kept his gloves on for that. But with her—slick, wet, wanting. Nova’s eyes roll back in her head as Din sinks two fingers inside of her, to the hilt, and curls. He presses, and she feels it building, the crushing crescendo of an orgasm, already, yes, already—but then there’s an absence of where his fingers once were, and her eyes open fully, eyebrows furrowed in frustration—

He’s sinking the same two fingers into his mouth. The moan he emits could fell a nation. An army. Nova’s not sure. She would die on the battlefield if this were her enemy, silver-clad and dangerous. Electric. She blinks at him, eyes half-lidded. “Oh,” she says, distantly, distantly because there’s something buzzing in her ears. “Oh—”

“Taste so fucking good,” he grits out, and Nova shudders, going limp. And then his fingers are back inside of her. “Clench around me. Good girl.” He takes a fistful of her hair in the other bare hand and yanks back. Hard. Nova’s ears are still ringing. “Harder.” It’s rhapsodic, that voice. An echo chamber of filth shudders back at her.

“Tell me,” she whispers. To cum is the rest of that sentence, but stars above, Nova can’t finish it. She’s limp. Undone. And all he’s done is touch her—and then Din’s fingers, that ecstasy, is gone again. “Fuck—” she cries, frustrated, and Din chuckles. The sound is so bright, so perfect, that it dulls the ache of his absence. A little. And then it floods back in and Nova grabs at his wrist. But it doesn’t budge. It trails up from the sucking seam of her pussy, wet with her own slick.

“Stop leaving me,” she whines.

Din chuckles again. Lower this time. It feels like a vibration. Nova hums, and then he’s gripping her face. Hard. Her lips pucker out as he clenches down on her cheeks. It hurts, pain singing out in the best way. “Open.”

Nova tries to comply, she really does, but her mouth is being held captive by the massive plain of Din’s flexed fist. He shoves his fingers inside, wet and dripping. “This is how you taste,” he hisses, licking a line of it off the cleft of her split bottom lip. “Before you’ve even cum for me.” He clicks his tongue. Nova’s thighs clench together. It’s involuntary, truly. “Wanna taste how sweet you are when you have?”

She stutters out a breath, lips puckered in a perfect O, and the way Din grins at her is sinful. Criminal. Dark and lecherous, if it were any other mouth wearing that smile, but he looks at her like he worships her, even now, and Nova’s heart flips.

“Need you,” she manages, through the painful part of her mouth, “please—”

“Who am I to deny my sweet girl,” Din breathes, “when she begs for me?”

Nova can barely keep her eyes open. Din’s grip lessens, just a little. The other hand, previously anchoring her hip in place—which is likely going to be sporting purpled bruises tomorrow, but Nova doesn’t care—leaves the curve of her waist to shove something at her. It’s her shawl. Nova blinks at it. “What—?”

“Cover your stomach,” Din says, brushing the mess of ringlets out of her face. “Don’t get it dirty.”

“It’s—” Nova’s breath catches as he pushes her back against the wall, dragging her body up against the durasteel of the abandoned building they’re up against—fuck, she can’t think straight. “Not a wound anymore—”

“Don’t care,” Din grits out, shoving it against her skin. Nova feels the pain of the contact, just a little. Faintly. Maker. She’s losing it. “No cover, no cock.” Hearing him say it so crudely sparks something bright and devastating in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t argue with me. You won’t win.”

Nova nods. Din’s hand finds her chin again—still slick—and she sighs out into the air around them.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he rasps out.

Nova looks down—he is still, so regrettably, clothed. She pouts. “Wanna see you.”

Din grins again. Devilish. Dark. Her stomach curls. That softness, there just a minute ago, is gone. He is a blade, the pit of a man called into battle. “Then look down,” he simpers, and then his hand slips down to her throat, pushing just hard enough to make her beloved stars explode.

Nova cries out into the open air, stifled by the warrior’s hand clenching around her airway. Just how she likes it. She tries to look down. To see his cock, thick and wanting, pierce her, cleave her in two. She wants to watch—really watch—to see how the Mandalorian moves inside of her—but Nova can’t. She’s trapped in the staccato rhythm of pleasure and pain, equally enticing.

“Look at me.”

Nova hears it, dully. She’s too far gone, already almost on the edge again. Din’s grunting, animalistic, and it’s the sweetest, sickest sound she’s ever heard. She is undone. This is sacrosanct. This is divine. She was standing on holy ground, and her Mandalorian is desecrating it.

“Novalise.” Her name cuts through, and Nova abandons sweet disconnect to look him in the eye. Din’s not here right now. He is the version of himself that kills, that slaughters. She wants him. She needs him. “Look at me.”

“Maker,” she manages, strangled, and Din hoists her higher against the wall to fuck into her harder, deeper, so much deeper, sheathing himself inside her like he would a blade into safety, except nothing about this feels safe. She’s craved danger before. But Nova has never craved danger more.

“No,” Din snarls. “No Maker is here right now. No, cyar’ika. You pray to me.”

Her orgasm rips through her—bluntly. Unyielding. Unfettered, like the pulse of her Mandalorian. He cries out, grunting, fingers curling in her hair.

“Who do you belong to?” Din asks, and the sound is ringing from somewhere far, far away. Nova is a universe of exploding stars. She is slick and sweaty, dangling from the wall like an animal while the man in front of her rips her to shreds in the sweetest, holiest way.

“Mmm,” Nova manages. She is gone. She is over in another galaxy, her body hanging limp in Din’s hands. “You.”

He fists a hand in her hair, dragging her gaze up to his. “I’m not finished with you yet.” And—fuck—he’s not. He snaps his hips into hers. An unending rhythm. Time stops. There is nothing here—nothing on this plane of existence. There’s Din, and there’s Nova, and there’s the want, the heavy thrum of sex, desire pumping amorphous, silty blood through their veins. This is a darkened star, this is the only thing in the world. The divine feeling of her Mandalorian, fucking with abandon, bisecting her. Din tips Nova over the edge, once, twice, three more times. She is a mewling, destroyed mess.

“Mine,” Din is whispering. Chanting. Then, in Mando’a: “ibac’ner.”

It’s a prayer. Or something close to it. Nova’s eyes open, watching her Mandalorian’s face as he comes undone.

“Yours,” she whispers, into the open hollow of his mouth, and then everything contracts. He slams into her, once, twice, three times—and then he’s undone, spurting into her, hot and wet and warm, and Nova feels something settle and crack inside of her all at once. She can hear his heartbeat. Through the armor. Through everything, They stay there, panting, foreheads locked together, and when Din pulls out of her, Nova mourns. He licks his lips as he tucks his cock back in his pants. He wipes the cum leaking out of her away with his bare hands. Nova watches, half-lidded, as he lifts his fingers to her mouth. Nova takes it like communion. She feels wrecked. A ship hurled against rock. Undone. And fortified. That sweet, sweet darkness licks at her edges.

“What do you taste?” His voice is low. Guttural. Whatever Din let out of its cage is not fully back in.

Nova hums, licking it off her lips. “You.”

He smiles, wicked and low, before pulling his helmet back over his head. “Not quite.” Then, modulated, voice duo-toned, flickering like the Darksaber, double-sided like the vessel of his armor and the stature of the man within it, with one finger hooked under her chin: “Us.”

Nova doesn’t have time to contemplate what that means. Two things happen.

One: She just feels the vantablack obsidian curling low in her stomach—seeping back in.

Two: The hologram in Din’s hands flares to life.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!! the filth was FILTHY this time around lmao, but it was such an exciting chapter to write! please let me know what you think <3

CHAPTER 8 WILL BE UP AT 7:30 PM EST ON MARCH 9TH!

xoxo, amelie

10 notes · View notes

amiedala · 2 months

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 8: It Beckons

WARNINGS: angst, explicit content, blood/gore, possession

SUMMARY: They will take on the darkness together. Never alone. Never again.

He takes the blade. They are both soldiers, after all. A battlefield is in front of them; their family on the other side.

Nova touches her forehead to his helmeted one, kissing skin to steel. Din closes his eyes, imagining the feeling of her heartbeat in his palms, her lips against his, his hands closed around nothing but warmth. I would do anything for you, he thinks. I will do everything for you.

“We’re going to make it,” she whispers, and Din doesn’t know if it’s a promise or a prayer, but he believes her.

“On your mark,” he murmurs, stroking a line over her cheek. It comes back bloody. He doesn’t dare think about what that means.

When Nova charges over the hill, Din follows her like a bullet.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! unsettling and weird narrative-driven romance lovers... this one's for you <3

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

The hologram—it pulses. Chitters. Then flares.

Nova is watching the hologram. Din is watching Nova. There’s something that’s plummeted in her stomach. The hologram in his hands is alive. Then dead. Then alive again. Something has shifted, just in the last few seconds. It hangs heavily in the air around them. Nova can taste it, can sense it, can hear it ringing in the sheer, stark silence.

Din curses, slapping at the hologram. “Bo-Katan. Come in.”

Static. Where there was a blue figure before is just air and that same static.

Din tries again. “Bo-Katan. Come in. Can you hear me? Over.”

Nova shakes her head. Once, twice, three times, trying to keep the gnawing in her stomach at bay. She shivers, whispering to it, trying to placate it, hold it. “No,” she murmurs to it, the displacing, unfettered silence. She barely breathes it: “Not here.”

Din’s head snaps to her. “What?”

She swallows, trying to cover her slip. “No signal. Here.”

He watches her like a hawk under the visor. She knows he can feel it, the vantablack poison that’s flowing through her veins, unquiet and undone. But Nova lifts her chin, pointing towards the inner tangle of the city, past the graveyard of bodies she knows Din left in his wake.

“Let’s go—”

“Hell of a fight happening in these parts,” Wedge’s voice blares, clipped through the transmitter, “could really use some backup.”

Nova feels relief and irritation flare through her in equal measure. Relief, because they’re still, amazingly, blissfully, alive. Irritation, because the display surrounding Bo-Katan and Wedge’s tinny, rigid, mid-fight bodies is showing even more stormtroopers.

“Where are you?” She’s over the hologram in a second. Din’s visor is still trained on her, not moving an inch. Nova can feel his eyes boring a hole into her own, and she doesn’t dare look at him head-on.

“Middle—” Bo-Katan grunts, firing a precise round at a trooper, dropping three in his wake, “—of the city center. Hurry up, would you?”

“Got sidetracked.”

Through the azure light of the hologram, Bo-Katan affixes Din with a scathing, unimpressed look, eyes flicking up and down. Unimpressed. Judging. Knowing exactly what he’s hiding in that word. So Bo-Katan. She doesn’t have the time to do any of it, and it makes Nova’s heart ache even more. “I’m sure you did.”

“We’re on our way,” Nova says, fingers fumbling over the hilt of her lightsaber, tripping once, twice, until she latches on securely. “Hold on, okay?”

“We’re—BAM!—cutting through the west side,” Bo-Katan grits out, interrupted by another blaster shot. “There’s a small underpass, past a block of flattened buildings. Can’t miss it. Meet you in the middle. Don’t get lost. And when I said hurry, I meant it.” And she clicks off, leaving Nova and Din in the darkness, with nothing but the wind and the crumbling structures of Corellia and all their ghosts.

Nova swallows, pulling the jacket she loaned from Hera—half-destroyed, now—over her shoulders, tucking the loose mess of her curls into the collar. Din reaches out, lightning-quick, and grabs her chin, hooking one finger underneath the curve of it, bringing her face flush against the visor. “What?” she breathes. The heat of it fogs against the beskar. Something low and hungry snarls inside of her belly. Nova flinches, trying to ignore it. It still beckons. Stretches. Yearns.

“Something is wrong,” Din murmurs. “With you. It wasn’t before. Is now.”

Nova tries to shake her head. Din holds steady. He doesn’t speak, capturing her there, under the weight of his body and nothing else.

“Din—”

“Right?”

Nova lifts her chin, away from his grip. He does not falter. She sighs, sinking back into it. “Yes. But—”

“Can you fight?”

Nova blinks. But it’s not the time. That’s what she was going to say.

But he isn’t coddling her. He isn’t protesting.

She swallows it down. She will fight the ringing in her ears, the drip-drip-drip of venom in her blood. Something is wrong—Din’s right. She is off, now, somehow shipwrecked against the violence and unsettling living inside of her, knocked loose by the fighting or the fucking, she cannot tell.

But she is here. Novalise can fight. And something that Corellia reminded her of was that she wants to.

“Yes,” she breathes. For one earth-shattering, painful second, Din does not react. And then he nods, and then he’s leading her deeper into the entrails of Coronet City. His steps are even, determined. His blaster is notched in one hand and the other is firmly latched in hers. Nova follows where his boots leave, imprinting her own into the ground behind him.

In the utter darkness, she almost doesn’t notice the dead things—the stormtroopers and bounty hunters. They’re scattered across the ground, discarded. Like leaves. Insignificant. Bodies upon bodies. Maker, there must be—fifty. No, seventy. No… a hundred. Maybe more. Nova swallows as Din cuts a clean path through the men he slaughtered, kicking armor and weapons aside with his steel-toed boots.

“Din—”

“No mercy.” The words come out clipped. Dangerous. “I made them pay for it.”

“You…you did this alone? There were so many—”

He whirls around. They’re standing in a graveyard of filth and vermin, of bodies belonging to people that meant them harm. Nova tears her gaze off the armor—strange, these stormtroopers’ armor, it itches at her—to look at her Mandalorian. He is a knife, a blade. He could cut her clean through. He yanks her closer, tighter, until her body is pressed flush up against the armor. “I could have killed,” he snarls, voice heavy and thick, “a thousand of them.” He exhales, languid through the vocoder. “It still wouldn’t have been enough.”

That hunger, dark and twisting, flares again. Nova inhales a sharp, stuttered breath. “There will be more ahead,” she whispers.

Din curls his lip over his teeth. Nova can’t see his smile, but she knows it’s there. It’s palpable, as heavy and imposing as the storm hanging in the air above them, and that too stokes a fire in her belly, igniting a spark that she’s not sure she can control.

“Good.” One word. It siphons through the air. He snarls it, like whatever possessed him earlier is still rattling around inside.

Nova’s mouth opens. “Din—”

She’s not sure what she’s going to say. That this place is ruining them. That they’ve both been possessed, and she’s not sure either demon has left. That she’s terrified of what’s waiting for them on Hoth. That she’s scareder still of the monsters in both of their chests, let out to destroy, unsure if that can be reigned back in. That the good that lit her up, golden and divine, has been corrupted, and Novalise is horrified and alive in equal measure—

But then a blaster flares in the dark, once, twice, and the moment is gone. Din’s visor is secured on hers. Nova allows a small, quiet nod. They both know what that means—later. Like everything else, they’ll address it later.

They push the ghosts and blood aside. There will be plenty of room for that once they get Bo-Katan and Wedge, off this gods-forsaken planet, and try to save Hoth from Grand Admiral Thrawn and whatever destruction he brings in his wake.

In the pitch-dark, in unison, Novalise and Din run in the only direction they know. Towards their friends. Towards that light.

“More.”

“Bo-Katan,” Wedge manages, through gritted teeth, “I’m giving ‘em all I got.”

Bo-Katan snarls, a low, angry thing, and Wedge swallows. He doesn’t have armor to hide under. No helmets, nothing to keep him shielded. He grits his jaw down, ducking and hiding behind pieces of scrap metal, reloading his blaster with the half-measures of artillery he found in the trooper’s discarded one a few klicks back.

He doesn’t have time to consider that it was once a Rebel blaster, the one that he picked up. That’s the only reason those bullets fit in his gun. He swallows, looking at Bo-Katan through the haze and smoke. Her helmet is as blue and dangerous as the low light of the night is, and she’s moving like a weapon, because she is. General Kryze, Mandalorian Princess, Commander of the Nite Owls. His sharp and kind friend Bo-Katan, a double-edged sword, a dichotomy of sorts—right now, she is nothing but that aforementioned blade. She’s exhausted, she’s undone. She isn’t slowing down.

He is. He wants to. He’s old, Wedge. And injured. His leg is bruised to all hell. Probably has a few broken toes, if he were to guess. And he is completely unused to fighting these battles on the ground. He wants to be back up there. In the stars. On Hoth. He’s itching for it—to defend his home. That’s the only battle Wedge Antilles wants to be a part of right now. Even if it’s a losing one. Even if they’ve already lost.

He, like the rest of them, wants the hell off this planet.

Maker, they’re so out of their league in this one. He sighs, reloads, and pops back up, aiming to stun.

“Wedge,” Bo-Katan warns. But her voice is soft, like she’s reminding him, not chastising him.

He sighs again. He resets his blaster to kill.

Years ago, before anything truly holy ever fell in his hands, before anything but the Creed crept into his head, Din Djarin dreamed of a girl. She was a saint of sorts. A queen, but beyond that. Something sanctimonious. She was silver and gilded, something divine. Honey and freesia, lavender and midnight. Laughter spilled from her lips. Sweetness undulated from her hips. She was not a blade. She was not a knife. She was something he did not dare pray to—something holier than even that.

She was his Novalise. She was his salvation.

He did not know that yet. He would not know it for years to come. He watched her in flashes, in supercuts. In intermittent, stuttering pauses when he closed his eyes, in the fleeting moments when he was granted rest. Somewhere, in between killing for bringing in bounties and killing for savoring in the bloodlust, Din dreamed. Sometimes, it was the memory of his parents. Sometimes, it was of the home he left behind. Rarely was it ever about the future ahead. He didn’t allow himself to dabble in that happiness, let it linger on his tongue. He was afraid of believing in something like that. Something good. Something more.

Divinity was not meant for Din Djarin.

Until it was.

Divinity walks in front of him now, and Nova is walking like she did in every dream, every hallucination, every premonition.

Every nightmare. It calls. It beckons.

That’s what scares him. Nova is Nova until she isn’t—where she goes, off into that listing, hollow place, where her eyes are not her own. He dreams of her, she dreams of teeth. There’s a metaphor in that, but she’s the one with the map to all those metaphors, and he’s the one with dark matter and handfuls of blood, and he does not know where hers stops and his begins. And some part of him thinks there’s something pious in that too. Something holy, something he can whisper a prayer to, something he can take to his grave.

But the only graves in front of him are the ones of their enemies. He has the blood smeared across his beskar—that sweet nectar of war—to prove it. Nova is Nova. Right now, when it matters, she is wholly herself. He is watching her like a hawk, like a falcon. Like himself.

Selfishly, he needs her to be Nova. The galaxy needs Novalise, yes, their silver salve, their swinging savior, but he needs his Nova.

In his dreams, that figure—she was called the Sanct’yia. In this lifetime, she is called Novalise.

In all of them, she shines.

“What are you thinking about?”

Her words are so faint, Din barely hears them. He swallows. It’s audible through the vocoder. “You.” One word—the truth, all of it.

Nova turns around halfway, shooting him a glance over her shoulder. “Can’t afford to get distracted, Mandalorian,” she whispers. “Even by all of this.” She gives her shoulders a little shimmy, gestures to her torn shirt, her flowing mess of hair, half piled up at the crown of her head. She’s joking. Din’s never felt more serious. Then, all breath: “Get your head in the game.” It’s so like how she used to speak to him—flirty, light—like she was keeping all the oxygen alive in the air around them by her voice alone—that Din feels himself fall in love all over again.

He grunts in response. She knows how to decode that.

Nova winks. A strange expression flutters over her face. Pain—no. It’s not that—it’s like she’s trying to hear a whisper she’s too far away to hear. He can’t tell if that’s the otherness speaking to her, or if it’s the Force, or if it’s something else entirely, but when Nova’s eyes flutter open, the light in them is full-force, crystal-clear.

“We’re close,” she breathes, and Din nods. Nova’s fingers flutter over the hilt of her saber, then the Darksaber, and then, after a moment of deliberation, she palms it, fists it, and places it firmly in his grasp.

He sighs.

“Take it.”

Din fixes her with the same look he did earlier. The same moment, lived over and over again. Deja vu, how it calls to them. “Novalise,” he whispers.

“I know.” And she does. She knows that he struggles against the blade, that he doesn’t fight naturally with it, that something else takes over. That he becomes an animal. That he slices and cleaves until all that is left is blood and sinew and bone. He will become a pit of a man for her, over and over again, if that’s what it takes. But it takes a toll, wielding the Darksaber, on them both. All of this is to say: Nova knows what she’s asking him to do. Din knows he will do it in a heartbeat.

It is an oil spill, leaching vantablack, whispering poison. And they are swallowing it in equal measure. They will take on the darkness together. Never alone. Never again.

He takes the blade. They are both soldiers, after all. A battlefield is in front of them; their family on the other side.

“We’re going to make it,” she whispers, and Din doesn’t know if it’s a promise or a prayer, but he believes her.

“On your mark,” he murmurs, stroking a line over her cheek. It comes back bloody. He doesn’t dare think about what that means.

When Nova charges over the hill, Din follows her like a bullet.

They’re losing.

That’s the only thing that Bo-Katan registers.

They’re boxed in, and they’re losing, and she’s furious, because she refuses to lose to stormtroopers, and she refuses to die on Corellia. Stormtroopers surround them, flashes and flashes of endless white armor. They’re trained well. They’re trained like actual soldiers—not pawns, but pieces on the chess board. That bothers her beyond just general annoyance. That’s a real, tangible problem. And she’s cut-up, bruised. Bleeding. Wedge is doing the best he can, but he’s faltering. Favoring his left side, and he’s not left-handed. Hell, she’s doing the best she can, but she’s faltering.

“Where the hell,” she seethes, swinging savagely, cutting under a fallen trooper to aim and leverage at another platoon, “are they coming from?”

Wedge doesn’t have an answer. He falls to the ground, hiding and ducking to reload with meager artillery. “Bo-Katan—”

“No.”

He tries to catch her eye. She purposely avoids it. “Bo,” he says, gently, too gently for a warzone, “it may be worth cutting our losses—”

“We,” she says, as definitively as she can while hiding behind a dumpster full of fetid garbage, “are not surrendering. Not to stormtroopers.”

“I meant running.”

She fixes him with a withering stare. Most people cower under that glare. Not Wedge Antilles. He looks beaten, though. Grimy. Tired. “Wedge,” she says, a tiny bit of desperation finally bleeding into her voice, “where the fuck are we supposed to run to?”

“The rendezvous point.” He swallows, loading his final rounds into his blaster. “If we go left…We can try to cut through the alley—”

“We came from there,” Bo-Katan hisses, “and there were even more troopers on the other side. I can try to reach Hera again, but the signal hasn’t gone through.” A beat. Then, angrily: “They must be jamming it.” She slams her fist into metal. It hurts, she registers that, but it’s dully. She has so much rage in her body, rage that’s been simmering, festering, since they left Mandalore weeks ago, and she has nowhere else to put it.

Wedge reaches over to grab her wrist. Her hands are shaking. Badly. Bo-Katan doesn’t shake—not like this. She hasn’t since Sparmau kept her and Din captive, beating and twisting them both within inches of their respective lives. She tries to take a steadying breath, but all she can smell is steaming trash and cold panic, and another wave of it rises in her chest. Wedge’s hand slides into her own. She wants to fight him off, she really does, because tears are rising in her eyes, and she does not cry, especially not in front of anyone, but it’s Wedge, just Wedge, and she squeezes it back, forcing herself to look at him.

“Wedge,” Bo-Katan whispers, as evenly as she can manage, “I can’t be a prisoner again.” She exhales through her mouth, biting down on her bottom lip. His eyes are warm. Sorrowful. “I can’t.” She knows he understands.

Wedge doesn’t say anything. He nods, looking pained. His face is a nasty shade of green. Her eyebrows furrow.

“What?”

He sighs, like he’s conceding a point. Then, miserably: “My leg.”

Bo-Katan looks down. She lets out an obscene string of curses. He’s cut through to the bone. “Maker fuck,” she snarls, ripping a piece of her undershirt—the cleanest bit she can find—to staunch the bleeding. “Why didn’t you say—?”

“We,” Wedge says tiredly, his head making a sick thunk against the dumpster, “were kind of preoccupied.”

Bo-Katan feels a fresh wave of tears rise in her eyes, and she angrily swipes them away. She will not cry. Not on this stars-forsaken planet. Not here. “Okay.” She swallows. “I’m going to be the decoy. Try and shoot as many of them as I can. You try to stand up. Then you grab on to me and I’ll fly us as far away from here as we can. Toward the Ghost.”

Wedge blinks. “That’s a terrible plan.”

Bo-Katan throws up her hands. “Do you have a better one?”

“No,” he says. “Din and Nova—”

“I know,” Bo-Katan says, wiping her traitorous eyes with the heel of one furious hand, “but you’re in dire straits, and I know Hera will have bacta, and likely a better signal than us.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You think I do?”

Wedge sighs. “Can your jetpack even support two people?”

Bo-Katan offers him what she hopes is an encouraging smile. With the way he looks at her, she’s afraid it may have come out a bit more like a grimace. “I couldn’t think of anyone else,” she says, as seriously and kindly as she can muster, “that I would like to test that theory with more.”

“Bo-Katan—”

“Wedge,” she says, gently bracing a hand on his shoulder, trying her best to ignore the increasingly loud blaster fire behind them, “with all due respect, we are running out of time for debate.”

“This,” Wedge announces, “is a terrible plan.”

“We’ve covered that,” Bo-Katan says, sourly. And then, the unthinkable happens. Wedge is smiling. Smiling. “Maker,” she sighs, “I think you might be dying.”

“Assuredly not,” Wedge laughs, toothy grin on full display. It sparkles like stars. Bo-Katan shakes him, a jolt of panic suddenly striking through her. Yep. He’s delusional. Dying for sure. He points to a fixed point beyond her. “Look.”

Bo-Katan whirls, blaster in hand, prepared to throw herself in front of Wedge and go down swinging, if that’s what it takes. But Wedge isn’t pointing at the army of troopers spilling out of the city’s cracks. He’s pointing at the horizon. And there, like a miracle itself, exploding through the advancing line of troopers, are Din and Nova.

They cut. It comes like second nature. There was a time in her life when Nova would have mourned, would have taken a moment to acknowledge the people inside the insidious white armor. But these aren’t just stormtroopers. These are stormtroopers who knifed her deep enough to kill. These are stormtroopers that stand now between them and their family. And these stormtroopers…look different. Act different. Fight different.

Feel different.

They fall the same though. Like anyone that stands against the Light. They tumble down in a storm of white armor and body parts. The sizzle and hiss of the combined sabers, grayscale and golden in equal measure—it singes Corellia’s already awful air into something even worse. It smells like death.

Out of the corner of her eye, in the flashes between soldiers, Nova watches Din cut them down. He moves like an animal. Like a predator. He is obsidian, this blade he has become. The switch has fully flipped. He snarls and stalks his prey. It doesn’t matter that the Darksaber has never fully fit right in his hands. He wields it like it does.

Din Djarin—he has disappeared. The Mandalorian has taken control. Nova used to know exactly where that delineation was, but the line has blurred. Her own has, too. Since they left Mandalore, she—

A trooper rages out of nowhere, shooting Nova straight out of her reverie. She ducks, twists, rotating her wrist to sizzle the shot out of midair. Her own lightsaber—pure sunlight in Corellia’s midnight sky—catches it, disappears it. She cuts him down, cauterizing the cry out of his throat with one thrust of her wrist. She stuns where she can, knocks heads together and cuts limbs instead of ripping hearts out.

She is not a monster. Oh, it beckons to her. That darkness. It sings, like calls to like. The ring on her finger glints, gray and yellow, glancing off the light of her saber as she tries to suppress it, push it down. It calls. But Novalise does not answer. She does not have another persona to step into. Not yet. She is Novalise, and this version of herself—silver Supernova, gilded goodness—that will have to be pried and wrenched out of her cold, dead hands. So she kills, yes, she cuts the troopers down, yes, but she does not relish in it.

She is a Jedi pushed to her limits. She is a Mandalorian forced to be supernatural. She is a Rebel demanded to fight this battle on the ground.

She is Novalise Djarin, and she is not fucking losing.

“Where are they?” Din’s voice is close—too close. It cuts through the open air they’re fighting in, and Nova spins around. He’s closer than she thought—silent in his advancement. Cunning in his strikes. A trooper charges for her, hand on the trigger. Din slices his head clean off. She blinks. He doesn’t move another muscle, a fresh spray of blood coating his beskar. Nova swallows, trying to ignore the nausea and want, both warring for control in the pit of her stomach. “Do you know?”

“I—”

“I know I said, explicitly, ‘don’t come to Corellia’,” a familiar, exhausted voice rings out, and Nova whirls on her heel, relief a rush through her entire, wired body, “but I’m really, really glad you did.”

They’re in bad shape. Even upon first look, that much is clear. Wedge’s leg is a rivulet of red, bleeding through a makeshift tourniquet, jumpsuit muddied to all hell. Bo-Katan’s nose is surely broken, face as crimson as her hair, missing pieces chipped out of her armor. They’re slung together, they’re fractured, and they’re the sweetest thing Novalise has ever seen.

“Maker,” Din breathes, and then all four of them are running, in varying states of ability, to meet in the center, a four-pronged star.

“Three times you’ve rescued me now,” Bo-Katan manages, and her voice is hoarse, shaky, and Nova stumbles through a sea of bodies and white armor to get to both of them before they collapse on this makeshift battlefield, “don’t like owing debts. Especially not to my Mand’alor.”

Nova’s crying. A slobbering mess. “How about,” she manages, through blurry eyes, “your best friend?”

Bo-Katan shrugs, considering. She lets Nova pull her into a bone-crushing hug, both of them wincing at the too-hard contact, both of them refusing to let go. “I’ll allow it.”

“Didn’t know if you were gonna make it,” Wedge says, his voice cracking down the middle, grabbing onto Din’s shoulders like a lifeforce. Din doesn’t flinch, wrapping one arm around Wedge’s waist, slinging the other around Bo-Katan’s. Together, entwined, they hobble forward, Nova’s lightsaber still ignited, leading the way, a four-headed animal. Something out of a folktale, something to be reckoned with. “Really, really glad you did.” He reaches over to Nova to press a kiss into the mess of her bloodied hair. “Rebel girl,” he whispers, through tears, “I have never been happier to see you.”

Nova squeezes his hand as hard as both of them can handle. So much weight is slung behind that gesture—her Wedge, her family—there’s so much she cannot say, cannot manage through the mess of tears tangled in her throat. They are all entangled now, like weeds, grown together over years and years, but the man she’s holding up is the one that kept her alive when no one else did, the one that knew her before she was Novalise at all, who loved her when she was just Andromeda, just her parents’ daughter. What a fraught and full thing it is to be known so deeply. What a terrible and horrific thing to almost lose all of their lives in this awful place.

“Corellia,” Din announces, roughly, thickly, “is not a good planet.”

All of them laugh, through sweat and tears. When the shooting starts again behind them, Nova wrenches free, ready to launch herself in front of the world for the three people supporting each other’s weight, and then the second miracle of the day happens.

A ship, their one blessed Ghost, descends from the sky, dropping between the four of them and the world against them. Hera Syndulla and her one-woman-army lights up the rest of the troopers, extends the gangplank, and pulls them all to the safety of the stars above.

“Thank you,” Nova murmurs. Wedge, Bo-Katan, and Din have all disappeared to clean up—there are separate freshers and bedchambers buried deep in the Ghost’s belly. Hera must have had a whole crew on here at some point. It feels—empty. Like it was full to the brim, once, and now it’s been forcibly deserted, returned to the crush of space without all of its members. Nova doesn’t know any details beyond what Ezra’s said and what Hera’s alluded to, but she can feel it in the stale air. “For rescuing us.”

Hera’s gaze is so searching. Sad. They’re sitting at the same table they were less than a day ago, but it feels so monumentally different. Novalise is bloodied and bruised. Battered. In an altered state. That darkness, chittering, is pulsing somewhere in the back of her mind, and she is pushing it into the corners, trying to compartmentalize. She can’t deal with it right. She can’t deal with it at all.

“What happened?” The words are so quiet. At first, Nova doesn’t recognize that Hera’s spoken at all. “Down there.” Those blue, blue eyes, river-deep—trained on the newly cauterized wound on her bare stomach. Nova appreciates she’s not trying to hide it. She offered her bacta patches rather than injections, and Nova’s letting them set over the gash before she allows the water to wash her clean.

Nova swallows. “There were so many of them,” she whispers. “Troopers. Bounty hunters. Working together. I killed them—Bo and Wedge did, too. Din killed more.” She laughs, low and mirthless. “Din killed an entire platoon, and they kept coming.” She looks at Hera and then away, because it hurts too much. “They looked different.”

Hera leans forward, jaw set. “Different how?”

That’s the thing. Nova can’t place it. She blinks furiously, trying to explain it, but nothing comes. “Older,” she says, finally, but her voice wobbles, uncertain. “Rawer. Like they were made up of something… different.”

“The armor?”

Slowly, Nova nods. “But not just the armor,” she whispers, dragging a hand over her tired eyes, “the way they fought. Those were not the Empire’s troopers. They were calculated. Trained.” Her eyes flash to Hera’s. “Stronger.”

A look of understanding flashes over Hera’s face briefly, so quickly Nova thinks she may have imagined it. Hera leans forward, gently checking on the patches. “These have set,” she murmurs, green fingers tracing soft, barely-there lines over her skin. “You can shower. Take another injection after. We don’t have much time before we reach Hoth—”

Fear ripples through Nova. “How much?”

Hera looks up at her, and this time, the look on her face is equal in both sorrow and determination. “An hour, at most. Do you have a plan?”

Nova shutters her eyes, just for a second. She wanted this—to be the leader, to be the decision-maker. To run headfirst into battle, light flowing out of her skin. But she has been corrupted by something unsettling. She has sunk somewhere she can’t scry through. She wants a break, a beat, a second—to come up with a tangible plan, to reassess. To go back to Mandalore. To go back to Ezra’s initial message, to listen when he said to stay away. He’s been silent—in holograms and in her head—and she cannot tell if that’s a good sign or not. And she cannot speak that to Hera, not now, not before a faceoff with the man or myth that snatched her son away from her for the last ten years, so she rolls back her shoulders, she lifts her chin, and Novalise does what she always does. She swallows the Light.

“I have a plan,” Nova says. A beat. Then: “But which version we take depends on if we beat Thrawn there.”

Hera stands up. “We can beat him there.”

“Are you sure?”

Hera offers Nova a real smile, all glittering teeth—ones that Nova isn’t afraid of, and something settles in her stomach at that. “You haven’t met my droid yet.”

Nova thinks, oddly, as Hera runs to the cockpit—to someone else, that may sound like a threat.

Din isn’t in the tiny bedroom—he’s in the fresher. Nova can hear the water running—he’s under the stream of it, washing everything clean.

It drip-drip-drips off in the distance, and she slinks in, locking the door behind her, stripping her soiled clothes off. She’s going to need to borrow something else from Hera—hers are truly ruined. But she doesn’t think about it. Not now. She needs to wash herself free of her filth, the blood on her hands, the sins trapped in between. She needs to get clean too.

Din is facing the water when she walks in. Nova drops her clothes off her body, silently. She doesn’t make a noise when she steps underneath the steam. It’s running in rivulets over his pockmarked, muscled body. His skin, tan and deep, looks so much warmer under the low lights in here than it ever does anywhere else. When was the last time she got to look at Din? Really look at him? Nova doesn’t know. Can’t recall. She studies him, plastering herself to the opposite wall of the fresher, eyes cartographing the map of his back. She wants to commit it to memory. She wants to have this moment to cling to when everything is cold and barren.

His muscles contract. Hard. He runs his hands through his hair, curling up and jet-black under the steady stream of water. It’s a luxury—they haven’t had a real one, with running water, since they left Mandalore. Mandalore, Mandalore, Mandalore. Maker, Nova thinks, we never should have left Mandalore. The word feels like a hymn or a curse on her tongue—her home, but not quite. Din’s home, but not really. Half-home, to both of them. She was supposed to rule that planet—to move the Rebel base there. To make it harmonious, a place of refuge, where both Rebels and Mandalorians came together to fight a bigger war. Before all of this. Before evil forced her hand.

A war that is all moving parts—Grand Admiral Thrawn just the biggest tip of the iceberg. Her dreams—blue lightning, sinister laughter, evil rising from the dead, cloning tanks, teeth, all those teeth, Sparmau’s hands, the elusive First Order, flashes of the galaxy in years ahead—it’s too much. Nova watches her husband, captive under the water, and all she can think about is that she wants. That darkness in her stomach—it beckons to her for a reason.

Nova feels weak. Behind. Like she’s slipping through an hourglass, like she’s living on borrowed time.

She wants to win—she wants to save the galaxy, yes. That has always been true, Since Novalise Djarin was forged, created out of silver stardust and orange light—she has been a savior. A martyr, in parts—but a savior, true to her marrow. Nova does not give up. It is not in her blood, her DNA, her makeup. But there is something…coiled deep inside of her. Whether it is desire or selfishness or darkness—she does not know. It doesn’t have a name. It just—yearns. She stares down at the swirling ring, notched perfectly on top of her engagement one, on her left hand—it pulses. Calls. She is a dichotomy of a million things, and she is pulled in a thousand different directions.

She wants it to be simple. To pull the darkness’s mouth open. To threaten it with light.

But, Nova thinks, a swirling, insidious thing, what happens if the darkness has become part of me? What if I am the rip current, not the sunrise?

What happens if I get down to Hoth and I am the dangerous thing?

“I can hear you thinking,” Din says, his voice low and languid, muffled by the pour of the shower. Nova swallows, backing up against the wall. Chills have erupted across her whole body at the sound of it. Vantablack. Obsidian.

“Thought I was sneakier than that,” Nova breathes, “by now.”

Din smirks. His head is tilted to the side. His hair is getting long—curls dripping in his eyes, brown warmth flooded out black. “Not with me, cyar’ika.”

“Most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy,” Nova sighs, stepping under the steam. “How could I have forgotten?”

Din turns to face her. “Can catch anything,” he murmurs, dragging a hand through his hair, pushing it back, “caught you, once.” He yanks her in—hard.

“You’ve caught me in every lifetime,” Nova murmurs, as she’s tipped off her axis. The water hits her and she hisses—it feels too hot, too much—and then Din’s pulling her into his orbit, coaxing her under the stream of it, and with his body, slick and warm, entwined with hers, and with the jet of warm water pulsing over her sore, bloodied muscles—she relaxes.

“Does it hurt?”

Nova’s eyes have shuttered, letting the water run over her curls, weighing them down. They reach almost to the small of her back, flowing over her shoulders, long wispy pieces that used to be bangs now hanging somewhere around her chin. She blinks up through watered-down lashes at her Mandalorian—unarmored, all skin, and her breath hitches in her throat. “Does what hurt?”

His thumb skates over the high point of her cheekbone—the magnetic pull that’s always gravitated him there, tugging right back into place. His pinky hooks under her ear, brushing over her pulse point, and even under all this warmth, Nova shivers. “Your scar.”

She looks down, recoiling a little at the brand-new gash in her stomach. It looks—well, still raw, half-formed, angry. Like a freshly cauterized wound should look. But between Din’s coercive injection and Hera’s patches, the antibiotics have worked enough magic to keep the hurt at bay. “No,” she answers, and it’s the truth.

Din’s eyes roam over the map of her face. It burns so bright. “But something does.”

Nova bites down on her bottom lip. “Hera asked if I have a plan,” she whispers, barely audible over the thrush of the water making them both clean.

Din doesn’t waver. “Do you?”

Nova doesn’t move. He hooks her chin with one hand, forcing her to look at him head-on.

“Novalise.” Her name—a warning shot. He knows her tendency for martyrdom—he’s seen the fires she’s been fighting off internally. That oil-slick, that blinking venom. She is a wound, and she is bleeding, and Nova doesn’t know if it will coagulate Rebel orange or something else entirely. She swallows.

“I am not going to do,” she vows, “anything reckless.” It comes out slightly shaky. Like she’s not sure if she entirely believes it.

Din doesn’t move. “What’s your plan?”

Nova swallows. “Evac.” It’s a bitter word. “Get everyone left on base off-planet. To safety.” A beat. Then, softly: “To Mandalore.”

He blinks at her. “Evacuation—? Evac is a good thing, Nova. And Mandalore is the right choice. The safe choice.”

“I know.”

“So what’s the problem?”

A knot gathers, right at the base of her throat. Tangles there, like roots. “The problem is that the Rebels keep getting their home destroyed. That we’ve had to keep scattering. I want to move us to Mandalore, create a hybrid army, but that’s going to cause tensions to escalate on both sides.” She swallows. “I know we’ve all agreed—agreed on unity. I know that we can make it work. But what happens when the Dark Side catches wind of all of us in a singular location? Then Mandalore will be attacked, again, then tensions will implode, again, then we will have to fight for safety, again.”

“One step at a time.” He’s thinking logically. For some reason, it makes Nova’s anger flare.

She turns away, dragging soap over her body, the tangled mess of her hair. She’s buying time. It doesn’t matter. The words slip out anyway. “I want to defend it.” It’s something she can only bite out when she’s not facing Din. “Hoth.”

“Nova…” It’s so soft, her name. It makes her even angrier.

“I know,” she says, teeth gritted. “I know it all, Din. I know this is a losing battle. I know it’s a wasteland of a planet. I know that it’s already been blown up before. I know that barely anyone is left. I know that the Alliance is just scraps, and that something bigger is on the horizon, and that I’m clinging desperately to something that truly died a long time ago.” She swallows. “But I don’t care. I…I think I have earned the right to be a little idealistic. A little selfish. I think I’m allowed the chance to put up a fight. If we have to go down, I want to go down kicking and fucking screaming.” She inhales a shaky, trembling thing, and then she turns back around to face Din, to face his rebuttal.

But all that’s written in his face is love, pride, and stardust.

It knocks Nova off her center, again. She inhales, sharp and dry, blinking through the steam. “What?”

“There you are,” he whispers, and Nova feels something flare in her chest. No—lower.

“You don’t think it’s a bad idea?”

Din takes a step closer in response. He’s boxing her in against the wall—predatory in nature. Nova is his willing, sweet prey. Their eternal roles. She hums as he presses his body into hers. “No.”

“You want me to fight?”

He grins, devilish, white teeth stunning and dangerous in the flickering low light. “Yes, sweet girl.”

Nova sighs, and his mouth closes over hers. For a minute, she is just suspended here—held up by determination and love and the knowledge that she has not gone sideways, that she has not retreated off somewhere she cannot access. Din kisses like a forest fire, all heat, and she wraps her legs around his waist as he pulls her closer. She wants to be torn apart again, to be ravaged by her Mandalorian, to be torn limb from limb.

“Then fight me.”

The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them. Nova bites down on her lower lip, like that’ll rescind them, box them in. Din goes utterly still—silent. She can hear her blood rush in her ears.

“What?” One word, and everything in her tightens.

“I—”

“No,” Din says, pressing her back up against the fresher wall. There’s barely any room in here to begin with—it’s meant for one person, not two, certainly not two people that have hips and muscles and curves and thighs, like they both do—and suddenly, it feels suffocating. “No, you don’t run from me.” He thrusts one hand out, under her chin. It’s not the simple, gentle lift he usually does, trigger finger with his forefinger and thumb—no, he’s grabbing her like he aims to throttle her. There’s something thrumming through his blood—humming, dripping, singing. Nova can feel it, in turn with hers.

Something darker has invaded them both.

“What did you say?”

“I wanted y-you to—”

“If I am fighting you,” Din snarls, “something has gone terribly wrong.”

Thunder rumbles, sounding off down in her heart.

“Novalise,” Din croons, “has something gone terribly wrong?”

The fist coiled inside of her flexes, cracks.

She wants him. She wants him sheathed inside of her—knocking this darkness, this anger, this un-Nova-ness—loose. She wants to fuck away the pain; to make it sweeter.

Lighter.

Holier.

But they are both running on fumes, both quelling demons, both wound so tight. Din’s cock flexes against her, and Nova knows it would be so easy for him to push it inside of her, to bisect her, to let them both sink into poison, but his mouth hovers an inch from hers and stops.

“Novalise.” It’s all Din. Nothing more, nothing less.

“No,” she breathes. “I’m here.” She blinks, and whatever reached up her throat and pulsed is gone now. She blinks, once, twice, red clearing from her vision.

Din grabs her again, chin in the claw of her right hand. Maker, his eyes are dark in here, pitch-black, but they belong to him. The darkness—whatever had a hold on her a second ago—it hisses, recedes.

“I’ve got you,” he says, and Nova nods, pressing her slick forehead to his. Grounding herself there. “You want a fight? You’ve got a fight down on Hoth, baby. Keep your head in the game.”

It is until after he’s kissed her and released her back into the water that Nova realizes that he’s repeating what she said to him back down on Corellia. She can feel his eyes on her back, boring holes right through her defenses, her armor, her facade.

Something peers into her. Nova does not look back.

Novalise washes herself clean. Din watches her purify, sanctify. He kisses her, braids her hair down her back, holds her eyes in the mirror. She smiles at him, looks at him like the Novalise he knows, he prays to. His Mand’alor, his savior, his Sanct’yia.

She’s here, he whispers, she’s okay. like a mantra. Like a prayer.

Like a plea.

He has a bad feeling about this mission. Hell, he has a bad feeling about all of them—but it’s in the air, and Din moves in her footsteps like a kept animal.

Novalise walks into the belly of the Ghost, every inch a warrior. Din crawls after her, Novalise’s human weapon.

When he dreams tonight, he vows, it will be of how to keep her demons at bay. How to burn them to the ground.

Everyone’s armor has seen better days.

Hera looks relatively untouched, but she’s lended out pieces of the Ghost’s wardrobe to most of them, so she’s missing a few of her own. Bo-Katan’s missing a pauldron, her left shin cover, and one of her chest plates. Wedge’s orange jumpsuit is more brown than anything else, and it’s cut off at the knee where he got injured. Din’s armor is mostly intact, but is in severe need of a wash. He chose taking a shower himself over cleaning it, so it’s still streaked with blood and guts from their Corellian detour.

Nova isn’t wearing anything of her own—except her boots, which are a relic, at this point. They’ve survived Jacterr Calican, an X-Wing crash, being left on Dantooine, multiple kidnappings, an all-out fight against Ladmeny Sparmau, becoming Mand’alor, and Corellia. Nova’s pretty sure nothing except a complete nuclear apocalypse could take them out. She has on tan pants, a black thermal shirt, and a brown vest. Her hair is hanging in a singular braid down her back, tied with a piece of Wedge’s ripped jumpsuit. Cliche, maybe, but necessary. She’s not walking onto Hoth’s whiteout surface without wearing something Rebel orange.

They’re all in the hangar—in a perfect circle. Grogu and Chopper—Hera’s feral droid—are up in the cockpit, and Din keeps shooting worried glances through the visor up through the bridge when he thinks no one’s looking. Bo-Katan catches Nova’s eye and rolls her own, and despite everything, a laugh bubbles up in Nova’s throat, the familiar echo of a smile rolling across her lips.

“The ships on the surface look armed.” Hera is saying, as they descend through Hoth’s cloudy atmosphere, speaking through the comms. The four of them are coiled, ready to strike. “Ready to fly?”

“Ready to fly,” Wedge confirms. “Besides, there won’t be many stragglers.” He’s clutching to the grip above his head like a lifeline. “Most of us are scattered. Not living on Hoth. Working for the New Republic.”

Nova studies him. He looks—shaken. Undone. But when he catches her eye, he nods once. Sharply. She had asked him, when they were preparing to land, if he wanted to stay on the Ghost, be Hera’s gunner, and he vehemently denied her. No, Wedge had said, and if it were anyone else, Nova would have described him as snapping, Hoth is my home. I’m defending it.

They’re all on edge. Not just her. Good, Nova thinks, that’ll keep us alive.

Their plan is simple—Hera isn’t grounding. She’ll be hiding in the clouds, flying airstrikes against the Chimaera. She’s also keeping Grogu and her beloved, insane droid Chopper on the Ghost. When it looks dire, they’re jumping to hyperspace and dropping back to Mandalore, equipped with holograms from the Mand’alor and her First-in-Command confirming that General Syndulla and associated children of the Rebellion are free to fly, as well as a mandate to allow any Rebel-marked ships through the shields. Anything else, Koska confirmed via hologram, will be shot down with extreme prejudice. And excitement, Bo-Katan relayed, with a smile across her own mouth, and Nova knows it’s going to be a diplomatic mess, Rebel refugees and Mandalorian soldiers, and she wants to defend Hoth, she wants to make a stand, but she also wants to save as many people as possible, and the only ones crazy enough to make that stand alongside her are the same four dropping to the icy surface.

The four of them will arm the rest of the deserted Rebel command center with everything they’ve got and take off in the ship primed underground for flight—a chunky, near-indestructible starfighter with three shooters and one pilot’s seat. Like it was made for them, really. Wedge has had it ready to go since Nova and Din first disappeared from Mandalore, two years ago, when Sparmau showed up in Nova’s dreams for the first time and nearly killed her.

Everything feels circular. Like she’s tripping over timelines, through portals. Something gnaws at Nova, and she tries her best to stamp it out, focusing on her friends, the mission at hand, and the planet immediately below them.

“I’ll drop you in thirty seconds,” Hera says. “You’ll have fifteen minutes, tops, to mobilize from initial drop to evac. I have a read on the Chimaera, still a parsec away, but nothing else.”

“That’s good,” Din says. Silence. “That’s good, right?”

“No,” Bo-Katan manages, finally, cutting clean through. Her voice is all ice—all Mandalorian. She has snapped back into her skin, back into a warrior, back into a blade. Nova watches her carefully, knowing that there’s something off with her, too—her Bo-Katan is unsteady, that much is clear, even when nothing else is. “No, that means that Thrawn has something up his sleeve.”

“But if it’s a single Star Destroyer—”

“The Chimaera,” Bo-Katan says, flatly, “is not a regular Star Destroyer.”

“And if we have Thrawn’s signal,” Hera continues, her voice slightly muffled through their commlinks, “that means he wants us to know where he is.”

There’s more behind that, too, but no one pushes it. Din sighs, irritated, and Nova squeezes his hand, trying to stifle some of her own nerves, still some of the grayness molting under her skin. Something feels off. Hoth is quiet. Too quiet. It’s always muffled—it’s an ice planet—but it’s too still. The air feels charged. Nova raises her chin as the gangplank begins to lower.

“I outrank you all on this planet,” Hera says. “So when I say this is an in and out mission, I mean it. No martyrs. No funerals. You get in, you get out. You hear me?”

Every single pair of eyes is trained on Novalise. She wants to protest, but she doesn’t. This isn’t like before. She isn’t indestructible. She is faltering. She is already wounded. And there is something darker whispering to her.

And this is already a dangerous mission. A potential lost cause. No one makes a sound as Hoth is revealed, anesthetic and bleached, snow-covered and unshakable. The ice is unyielding. The cold pierces their skin, the wind howling something horrible.

Nova sends up a prayer to the stars above that everyone on Hoth makes it out alive.

“Loud and clear, General,” Nova says, “over.”

“May the Force be with you,” Hera says, “over and out.”

The four of them drop to Hoth’s silent, foreboding surface. Something dark snarls inside of Novalise. Din, Wedge, and Bo-Katan move in towards the base. Something stops Nova—a feeling, a pulse—the same unsettling that flared at her on Corellia. Darkness. It chitters. It calls.

She hears something they don’t. They run forward. Nova stops in her tracks.

That thing. It beckons to her.

It knows her by name. It whispers in the wind—or is it coming from inside of her? A memory, a prophecy, a voice. Either way, she hears it. Nova pauses, cocking her neck to the side.

The thing coils tight around her. It croons her name.

It beckons: Novalise.

And then it yanks. Hard.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!! please let me know what you think if you're so inclined <3

CHAPTER 9 WILL BE UP AT 7:30 PM EST ON MARCH 23RD!

8 notes · View notes

amiedala · 3 months

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 5: The Ghost

WARNINGS: angst, explicit content

SUMMARY: “Would you still follow me anywhere?”

“Into the dark,” Din vows. “Into the stars.”

“What if I go somewhere you can’t follow?”

He stares. Nova can feel the crushing weight of his fury on the other side of that question, even in the dark. But she doesn't speak, doesn’t try to undo it, doesn’t try to take it back.

She’s not talking about leaving. She’s talking about being ripped away. With teeth and silver, a parting from this mortal realm. Something is buzzing low in her head. Nova can’t quite put it to name.

“I am never,” Din repeats, low and angry, “leaving you again.” A beat. “What do you want, Novalise?”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! i am once again asking you to forgive me for my very extended absence (more notes on this at the end). this chapter is a slow thrum with smut and angst (with a dash of plot). i hope you love it <3

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

First—blinding, searing light.

Then—a whisper, creeping in around the edges.

Nova blinks once, twice, trying to shake the exhaustion from her eyes. Everything filters in slowly, like she’s been drugged, in a coma, off floating in another dimension entirely. It all floods in flashes—in and out of the light, like her own eyes shuttering against the memory. She’s drained—down to her bones, she can feel it, the weary, tired seep. It feels like how she did when she slept off three months on Naator, head stuck in a dream, body lost in the void.

That does it. She jackknifes upward, catapulting forward, hand on her belt.

Her belt is empty.

Nova curses under her breath, stumbling around in this ship’s low, grey light. It feels similar in make to the Crest—but it’s not the Crest. It’s roomier, warmer, slightly, and she categorizes all of this while rooting around for her lightsaber, the Darksaber, any saber will do, really, she’s not picky—

“Your sabers are safe.”

Nova whirls around, fists up.

The woman leaning against the wall is grinning at her. Not sadistically, not evilly—just smiling. Also, she’s a Twi’lek. And she’s green. Nova runs through these facts in her head, trying to make sense of them. She comes to the same dividend—she cannot.

Nova blinks. Once, twice, trying to dislodge the sleep in the corners of her eyes. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

The woman’s smile widens, rows of glittering teeth so bright in the dim light of the ship that Nova shrinks back. Her eyes rove over Nova’s body—her tousled hair, her ripped clothes, the cuts she’s sporting. At some point, Nova’s lip split, her ribs are still bruised, and her eyes feel puffy. She’s not sure if that was from the ship fracturing or from blowing up the remnants of the evil laboratory, but she can feel the ache now.

The woman in front of her has blue, blue eyes—river-deep and unreadable. “You’ve been through a lot.” They’re kind, though, Nova recognizes, running the pad of her thumb over the seam of her lip, worrying along the fault line. From her eyes to the smile on her face, the woman in front of her looks kind.

Nova darts her tongue out, then immediately winces at the sharp pain of the still-open wound. She sits up straighter instead. “That’s an understatement.”

“She told me you’d be wary. That’s good. Out here, wary keeps you alive.”

“She?”

“A friend…sent me.”

Nova chances a half-step forward. Her head feels underwater, her body feels bruised. She wants Din, and a hot shower, and to curl up and sleep for another full rotation. But she forces her chin up, tilting her head to the side. “I have lots of those,” she says evenly, “you’re going to have to clarify which one.”

The woman laughs—a hearty, inviting thing. She doesn’t look dangerous. She looks warm. Nova eases up, both physically and mentally. “And I happen to have multiple friends in common with you, and it’s a shame we haven’t met before. Welcome aboard the Ghost, Novalise Djarin. My name’s Hera.”

It sounds familiar, but in her addled state, Nova can’t place it. She relaxes, though. It’s imperceptible, but it filters into the crush of her jaw, easing the tension of her shoulders. “And you know me…how?”

“A few ways,” Hera says, cocking her head to the side. “And you’re safe now. All of you.”

Nova squints at her, dazed. “I think I hit my head.”

Hera sobers, moving to meet her in the middle. “I’m sure you did,” she murmurs, holding her hands out in an invitation. Cautiously, Nova creeps forward until Hera’s green fingers trace across her forehead, looking for the source. “From what your husband told me—”

Nova rears back. “Where is he?”

“Oh good,” Din murmurs from somewhere in the dark, emerging like shadows singing around the woman in front of her, immediately drowning everything else out, “you’re awake.”

Nova leaps across the floor, running into Din’s chest—thankfully unarmored, but it still packs a wallop—and sinks her skin against his. Freshly showered, he still smells like gunsmoke and cinnamon, and the lingering waft of metal, the tang that never seems to leave his skin, his blood, his heart. “You’re here.”

He smiles down at her, one thumb tracing over her cheekbone. “Where would I go?”

Nova bites her split lip, winces. “Down there, we—”

Din’s brown eyes flash with something—guilt, a memory, she’s not sure. All Nova knows is that hers are likely flashing with the same thing. “Not now,” he whispers, a ghost of a thing, and then: “All that matters is that we’re all here.”

“And where,” Nova says, a half-step louder, still muffled against Din’s beskar-clad chest, “is here?”

“The Ghost,” Hera supplies, and Nova reluctantly leaves Din’s tight grip to face their rescuer again. “My ship. And our mutual friend—the one I was referring to, anyway—is Ahsoka Tano.”

Nova’s breath catches in her throat. “You said all of us were safe,” she whispers, heart banging in her chest, hammering against her injured ribs, “but if Din and I are here, then—”

The noise comes from just out of reach, in the cockpit. It fills Nova’s lungs, seeps warmth into her blood before she can recognize why. When Grogu comes toddling around the bend, Nova lets out a cry—part anguish, part relief—and scoops him against her chest, pressing her injured forehead against his green one, three-fingered palm tracing right over the place on her cheek that Din’s hand just left.

“Ahsoka sent me,” Hera says, smiling down at them, “but this little guy found me. Come sit down, Nova. We have a lot to talk about.”

Grogu is safely nestled in Nova’s arms, the warmth of his little green body thrumming against her own chest. Hera is making them tea—real tea, brewed with leaves and flowers, some of Yavin’s purple petals tucked beneath the rest of the scattered ones. It feels like a good omen.

“We have a lot to cover.” Hera says this matter-of-factly, like she’s running through a pre-flight checklist. There’s a no-nonsense assurance to the way she carries herself, the way she puffs out her chest. It’s not arrogance. It’s knowledge. She’s careful and she’s sure—it fractures Nova’s chest, just a little, because even in just this glimpse of her, Hera reminds Nova so much of her mother. “But you must have questions, and I’d prefer we start there.”

Nova slides her thumbnail between her teeth, worrying along the split. A gloved hand darts out to catch her wrist before she can dig in too deeply. Din’s helmeted, obscured from the light, but Nova would bet all of her credits that he’s wearing a neutral expression underneath. The familiarity of this—Nova, unhinged, Din, unbothered—feels so much like their early days traversing the galaxy that she’s lost there for a minute, eyes roving over her Mandalorian, hands clasped around their kid in her lap.

“I’ll start with the worst one,” she mutters, sliding her fingers around a roguish curl instead. SHe inhales, exhales, trying to keep her fear at bay. “How long was I out this time?”

Hera’s eyebrows furrow in the middle.

“Five days.” Din tilts his head to the side. “Well. Five and a half, technically.”

Nova sits back in her chair, sighing.

“Not the worst,” Din murmurs, trying to keep her level. His thumb strokes over her own.

“Not the best,” Nova volleys back.

“We were so far out there,” Din says, voice level, to keep her even-keeled, “that you didn’t miss anything. We just reached the far side of the Outer Rim earlier, about an hour before you woke up. You didn’t miss anything—”

“I missed five and a half days of my life.” Nova swallows, trying to hold onto the sense of calm that Din always embodies in the face of her unsteadiness, trying to absorb some of Hera’s cool. It radiates off her in waves. Nova presses the heels of her hands into her eyes until stars explode. “I don’t care what happened when I was out. I hate losing time like that. You let me sleep?” It’s not meant to be accusatory, but it comes out that way anyway.

“Nova—”

“Excuse me,” Hera cuts in, steady yet warm. “You were just in a crash landing—where, miraculously, nobody died—and you’re…upset because you…” she trails off, blinking at Nova, clearly trying to not offend her, which makes Nova warm to her even more, “...slept?”

Din sighs, trying again: “Novalise—”

“I once lost three months,” Nova says miserably, wrapping her arms around her legs like a little kid, fully aware she’s acting morose and silly, but unable to shake it free regardless. “Three months of my life, gone, because a Sith acolyte found me in my dreams and began to possess the people around me while also siphoning off my life force. Poof. Gone. I was out—not sleeping, dead, but somewhere in between.” She snaps her fingers for emphasis, which is a sound entirely too sharp for the interior of the Ghost, and all of them jump. Just a little. “She also kidnapped my best friend, tried to raze Mandalore—again—stuck Din with a poisoned dagger, almost killed him, seriously interrupted my journey to become a Jedi, found out she murdered my parents, manipulated me into trying to meet her alone, kidnapped Bo and Din, tried to kill them, again, tried to kill me, again, but then I killed her—except, except—she’s still fucking around in my head. I keep having visions, I keep having nightmares, and I cannot figure out where the premonition ends and the dream begins. And since Wedge ran into you on Hoth, I have been running across the galaxy in the search of a lost Jedi that I’ve never met, even though he’s told me not to, over and over again, and that what’s coming is even worse than what already happened.” She swallows, placing a hand over her racing, skipping heart, trying to will it to quiet. Hera is staring at her. Nova blinks, once, twice, a futile attempt to come back down to earth, closing her eyes tight when she realizes just how much that was—to blurt out, to experience. Either. Both. She can’t differentiate.

“Needless to say,” Din says, low and even, “Novalise doesn’t like to lose time.”

Hera’s staring back and forth between the both of them.

“I know you have questions, too.” That’s Din, talking. Nova’s fighting the furious, stubborn tears welling up in her eyes. “Especially after that. Ask them.”

“Didn’t you guys…talk?” Nova asks, when Hera’s mouth doesn’t move from the shell-shocked, half-open state it’s hung in since she began talking, “while I was…out?

“Your husband,” Hera whispers, “is not a man of many words.”

Despite everything, Nova laughs, the feeling of it bubbling up in her chest foreign and bittersweet.

“It must have been very hard,” Hera says, carefully, “to carry the enormous weight of being responsible for so many lives, including your own.”

Nova swallows, looking down at her purple fingers, war-torn with the efforts of the starfighter crash, the destroying of the midichlorian tanks, the days of unconscious and fitful sleep. She feels bruised around the edges, crushed like the Yavinian flowers in her tea. Everything is violet and half-formed. She feels raw—not like she’s been through war, but like she’s at the dawning of a new world, after the devastation of losing her original ones, over and over and over again. “I am not very good at delegating,” she whispers, and Din’s hand finds her knee, anchoring her to the bench of the table, unfurling all the seismic hurt pooling in the center of her chest. Grogu is asleep on her lap, his tiny breaths synching in tandem with her own. “Which is to say,” she continues, barely a whisper, and she’s being melodramatic, maybe, but Nova thinks at this point in her life, she’s earned it, “my name is Novalise Djarin, and I am the patron saint of lost causes.”

Din stiffens beside her, recoiling. The words taste awful in her mouth—but they aren’t untrue. “Nova,” he whispers, and there’s so much weight hurled behind that one small sound, the anatomy of her name, but they can’t do this, not here, not now, not after everything—

Hera’s green hand comes up between them, bisecting the tension, dissolving it. “You are Novalise Djarin,” she says, “and nothing I am about to say makes that unshakable fact untrue.” Nova sees it in her eyes, what she’s going to say. “But I think before you were Nova, you were someone else.”

Nova straightens up a little, wary, even though she’s fully let Andromeda back in, made peace with her hurt, clutched her former self’s strength to her heart like a pearl. But she knows Hera Syndulla ran in the same orange circles of where she originated from, where Andromeda was formed, where Andromeda was unmade. And she is so close to fracturing, so she waits with her swollen lip bit between her teeth.

“I knew your parents,” Hera says softly, extending a green hand across the granite of the table between them, a living shock against the anathema of white. “And I think who you are now is in no small part because you are Piper and Arokel Maluev’s daughter.” Are, Hera says. Present tense. It wraps Nova in like a hug, and she breathes out a sigh of relief. “And I think that the woman you’ve become has the spirit of a Mandalorian and the heart of a Jedi. Resilient. Strong. You live up to every legend that the people we share have told me about you.” Her teeth shine in a sad, eternal smile. “And I am so sorry, Novalise, that you have had to shoulder so much hurt.”

Nova can’t speak it into words, the relief she feels, the safety in this woman who rescued them—who is still holding both her sabers hostage—and she lets out a small noise, a quiet keening sound, wiping the unlodged tears from her eyes with the back of her free hand.

“Thank you,” she manages, and then: “I’m very grateful you’re the one who found us.” And it’s a tiny thing, miniscule in comparison to what Hera has just said, but it shines between them, that understanding, like a star. Next to her, Din’s body shrinks against Nova’s, the tilt of his pelvis closer, his leg, so warm, even clad in beskar, pressed against her own, and when her hand slips out of Hera’s, it finds his gloved one. She looks over at him, and even through the mask, there’s understanding. There’s an apology, even though it’s not necessary. They are the ghosts of every version of Novalise and Din that have come before, and they return to each other again and again and again. His thumb strokes over her exhausted one, and for the first time in weeks, Nova feels a sense of settling. She chooses to name it peace.

“Bo-Katan Kryze,” Hera says, faintly, bringing Nova back to steady ground, “is your best friend?”

Nova nods. Fear stokes up in her chest again like a roused flame. “I don’t know where she is—” But Hera’s already pulling something out of her back pocket as Nova’s heart catches in her throat. “But you said all of us, earlier, were safe—?”

Hera’s green finger thumbs over the button on a hologram. The white disc fills the space between them, suddenly opalescent and painting the atmosphere blue. “Can you please move? Move!” Then, slightly winded and heavily sour, like she’s just been elbowed somewhere soft: “Please. Thanks.” Mumbling and grunting in another language filters off-screen, and Bo-Katan’s beautiful, annoyed face floods the screen, and Nova feels relief seep like a drug through her bloodstream. “I don’t know if this’ll get to you.”

“It will. I memorized the channel frequency before we left for the Unknown Regions.”

Bo-Katan shoves at Wedge offscreen. More grunting, a distant, slippery language on the tongues of assorted people in the background. Decidedly not Wedge, or Bo-Katan, who’s looking off-camera like she’s at her wit’s end.

“Yes. Very smart, Wedge,” she spits, and Nova can feel the smile Wedge is sporting from lightyears away. “Okay. The report from this half of the Victory crew is this: we got picked up by a group of very slow-moving Mon Cala. Their hyperdrive’s broken, so we’re stuck on this medical frigot indefinitely. But we’re heading—slowly—towards Mandalore, where Wedge and I are planning to rally the troops that we can.” She pauses, leaning in, the striking curve of her jaw clenched.

Nova’s breath catches in her throat, tears pinpricking at the corners of her eyes.

“Technically,” Bo-Katan continues, “I’m cashing in on a favor that doesn’t exist yet. But it’s one I’ll repay tenfold when we’re back together again. Listen, Hera—I know this is a big ask. But I also know you’ve been looking for Ezra, and if you’re not flying a mission for the New Republic, you’re out in the Unknown Regions anyway. So I am hoping against hope you’re closer to the rest of the Victory crew than we are. I don’t use this word lightly—please,” she whispers, and her machismo and iciness vanishes in that one word, “please make a pit stop on Lenahra and look for the shattered Mandalorian starfighter. It’s a massive wreck. You can’t miss it.” She swallows. “I have friends there in need of rescuing.” She glances right. “Get in here.”

“Hi again,” Wedge says, as he’s yanked into frame, “General, if Bo-Katan hasn’t already sold you, it would be the favor of a lifetime.”

“You’re being weird,” Bo-Katan stage-whispers, “stop it.” She lifts her chin, with a little bit of hope etched onto her face. “Hera,” she says again, “if that wasn’t convincing enough, there’s more.” She swallows, her gaze again flickering upwards, like she’s not sure if she can speak freely. Wedge squats down beside her, the two of their faces filling the entire space in front of Nova’s eyes, and her heart is still thundering in her ears, even though they’re safe, they’re safe.

“You know the Chimaera is back,” Bo-Katan whispers. “And I know what that means for Ezra.” She holds Hera’s gaze through space and time, even though it’s a message, it’s being played, it’s not in real time. “But that means he’s here, too.” She swallows, raising her chin, the mask snapping back on. “So—be careful. I really, really owe you one. Get the Djarins and meet us on Mandalore. We’ll see you soon.”

The hologram flicks off, leaving all of them in anesthetic silver and white. Din sighs out next to her—in relief, in exasperation, Nova’s not sure. But she leans into him, slowly handing off Grogu into his crossed arms, and looks at Hera.

“That message,” Hera says, her voice faraway, “came in not five minutes after Ahsoka’s did. She set up a beacon across every planet in the Unknown Regions, set to trip the second new life forms entered the atmosphere.” She swallows, and for the first time since Nova’s opened her eyes, Hera looks undone—afraid. She licks her lips, knotting her fingers together, bracing herself for impact. Nova leans in, slightly, knowing she’s missing something—a key piece of the puzzle—she just doesn’t quite know what. It’s ringing, dimly, faintly, in the back of her mind—she has all of the information, it just hasn’t clicked into place. “Ezra Bridger,” Hera says, with the ache of a thousand worlds, “is my family.” She swallows. “A long time ago, he disappeared into deep space. And now,” she whispers, “according to the Chimaera’s distress signal, and Ahsoka’s message, and Bo-Katan’s hologram, and your testimony, Ezra is in this galaxy. Ezra Bridger, my long lost, brave Ezra—he is home.” Hera shifts, fear and hope, in equal measure, warring across her face.

“I haven’t found him yet,” Nova whispers, “but I’m going to, Hera—”

“Ezra is not lost,” Hera interrupts, her voice low and thrumming with pain, “because he is back here, against all odds, in this galaxy. After years, after sacrificing himself to save the rest of us, Ezra is back here, hiding again, obscuring himself to protect us.” Her eyes meet Nova’s with startling clarity—the same reflection that she’s seen between herself and Ezra, the parallel lines connecting their spirit, over and over again, alike like only two Jedi can be. “And that is not good luck. That is not possible, not without him.”

Nova blinks at her, still feeling like she’s on the outside looking in, like she’s peering through the looking glass without a solid scope, a kaleidoscope, a mosaic of so many lives, woven together by an exhausted gold thread. “Hera—”

“If Ezra’s back,” Hera says, far more evenly than Nova would have been able to muster, “that means Grand Admiral Thrawn is, too.” That name. Like calls to like. It’s been spoken aloud, for the first time—but Nova feels it resound in her chest—blue skin, rows and rows of glittering, awful teeth. Sharp, that name—razor-thin and infinitely more dangerous. The nightmare in the back of her skull, primordial and real. Hera holds up a finger as Din shifts, as Nova inhales, both too sharp. “And that means,” Hera whispers, “that the entire galaxy is going to war.”

Hera fills Nova in on an entire history. Nova listens to Hera’s account of the Alliance she was never a part of, the wars going on in space she was never privy to. When Hera and Ezra and the crew of the Ghost were running around in the stars, Nova was fighting for her life.

And yet, Din knows, she’s kicking herself for not being there anyway. So Din watches Nova, tuning out everything else.

Nova, his Novalise, his cyar’ika—his beloved, his home, his heart. She is there, alive, filled with mortality and vitality. She feels like a heart attack, too warm, too close. Hera is talking, monologuing about the history of Thrawn, about his prowess, his sick skill, his evilness—and it should absorb, really, Din should be listening, and he is, he’s incapable of not multitasking, but he can’t focus on anything but Nova.

She is sitting, body coiled taut like a live wire, energy radiating off her in spurts. So alike the Nova that used to sit in the cockpit with him, as Din fed her lines of his restricted life, his dangerous thrush, his brutal career. She is unflinching in the face of despair—it shines like a star, like a pearl. Maker, she’s brute strength, his wife—every single part of her tuned into a frequency he cannot access, cannot hear. Before Nova, Din didn’t even try.

He does now.

“He’s going to try and take over the galaxy,” Hera is saying, her hands laced together so tightly that she could break her own bones. Din watches Nova out of the corner of his eye. “And he is terrifying.”

“We’ve dealt with terrifying,” Nova starts, but Hera shakes her head, tightly.

“Not like this,” she manages, letting the words hang in the balance between them. Din watches as she tries to collect herself, gathering that even-keeled composure she’s kept since she first picked them back up in the Unknown Regions and then shifts. It snaps back into place, but Din’s an expert by now at seeing the cracks in the veneer.

Nova’s leaned into Hera, like she’s magnetized in her orbit, teeth gnawing on her bottom split lip, the smell of freesia and coconut still raising off her curls, even after a crash landing and the ship splitting apart. Din inhales through the helmet, not moving a muscle, watching her.

Hera sighs, sitting back. She drags a hand over her face, trying to physically erase the sorrow written there. She lifts her chin, trying to snap that sense of calm and control back into her face. Din watches as her blue eyes flick to the visor, then to where his gloved hand is clenched around Nova’s. A tiny, sad smile flashes across her face, a flutter-cut. If Din didn’t wear that expression like an old friend, he wouldn’t have caught it.

Hera sighs. “You both must be—well, exhausted doesn’t even cover it. Why don’t you lay down. Catch up.” She gestures to Grogu, who’s still sound asleep in the hollow of Din’s arms. “I’ll take the little guy up to the cockpit with me. I could use a copilot, even a sleeping one.”

Din raises an eyebrow under the helmet. Nova looks over at him, and the world cements, crystallizes. He relents, sighing, letting Hera pluck Grogu out of his arms like a berry.

“I’ll get you both up when we land to refuel,” Hera promises, “and we can make a plan.”

“The plan,” Nova says, “is to get out of enemy territory. Get back home.”

Hera cocks an eyebrow. “I was planning on that,” she says, a small grin playing across her mouth. “I’ll program the flight plan towards Mandalore.”

Nova smiles, and it’s like light streaming through the clouds after a year of rain. “No,” she says, chin in the air like the leader she is, “I’m a Mandalorian, Hera, and a Jedi, too, but before that, I’m a Rebel.” Her eyes connect with Hera’s and Din’s chest swells with pride, listening to her talk, to speak, to slot their shattered pieces back into place. “If we’re fighting a war, we need to start at the beginning. I want to go to the base.” Nova blinks away sorrow and pain, shifting back into herself. There she is, Din thinks.

“We need to go to Hoth.”

The room is so quiet. It’s not a room, really, it’s just an alcove, barely big enough to fit a double-person bunk, but it’s tucked into the hull of the Ghost, away from the bridge and the cockpit. If Nova didn’t spend most of her life out in the stars, she wouldn’t know they were hurtling through space at all, but she can feel the vibrations of the metal as the ship soars through hyperspace, getting closer and closer to home.

She touches her hand to the hull, ice-cold. Nova snaps her eyes shut, and for a second, she’s back on the Crest, and she’s falling in love for the first time. Din is not her husband, he is not her anything—he is the Mandalorian, and he’s brought her out of Nevarro and into the stars, and all she has of him is the cockpit they share and the millions of miles of open space. She longs for it, sometimes, the simplicity of their beginning. Din asked her if she wished they could stay on Naator—but before Naator, they had bounties and quarries, they had wounds and silence, and they had the crush of space. It’s always been them, through all of this—but sometimes, sometimes, when Nova lets herself, she yearns to start at the beginning, to blip herself back in time, to touch her hands to Din’s face for the first time.

To feel like a supernova, rather than being Supernova.

“What?” His voice, low and gravelly, holds volumes.

Nova inhales sharply, dragging her hand off the hull, turning to face Din in the pitch-dark, in the vantablack night.

“When you picked me up on Nevarro,” she whispers, afraid to put it into words, “if you had known all of the hurt and heartbreak that would come of it—would you have even looked twice?”

Silence. It crushes her, pulverizes her chest. Din’s thinking, choosing his words, plucking them out of the illuminated pinpricks around them, but it hurts in Nova’s chest all the same, the weight of waiting for his answer.

“Novalise,” Din says, the word—her true name—baring teeth in the darkness, “if you even have to ask me that question, you have no idea how deep my love for you runs.”

Nova swallows. “I am a mess,” she whispers, the words fractured. She drags her knees up to her chest, leaning back against the headboard—or lack of one, really, because all that’s in here is the metal wall of the ship. Her hands press into the hollows of her eyes, hard enough to try and force the tears back. “I don’t feel like my—I don’t feel together,” she whispers. “I feel—wrong. Like I have made the wrong choice, over and over again, and it keeps almost costing us all our lives.”

Quiet. The small rustle of Din shifting closer to her in the blackness. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Nova says, inhaling a shuddering breath, “that we shouldn’t have left Naator. But we shouldn’t have left Mandalore, Din. When Wedge and Bo-Katan said they got the distress signal—when I found out it was Ezra, I should have listened to what he told me. Clear as day, don’t come after me. And you have tried to bring me back to earth, over and over again, since this senseless mission started—to tell me that he didn’t want to be found.” She swallows a sob. “He didn’t want to be found because it was dangerous. And now he is lost, again, while Thrawn—this elusive, evil terror—has made it back to our galaxy to—unmake it.” Nova heaves out another uneven breath, feeling that same knife bisecting her heart, feeling the terror of what’s to come pulverize her stomach. “I made the wrong call,” Nova whispers, a tiny admission the weight of the universe on her tongue, “and you gave me the chance to correct it, and I didn’t.”

Din’s warmth is right next to her, but it feels like he’s a million miles away. In her head, in flashes—the snap of Sparmau’s glittering teeth, the devastation of a starship crashing, the ghosts of her parents in every breath she takes. Thrawn, a vision, nothing more—holding the fate of the galaxy hostage. The midichlorian tanks, the evil running in fault lines that drip across the galaxy. The reflection of Nova’s own face in the mirror—her, but not her—the way she can feel herself unbecoming, atom by atom, the exhaustion in her marrow, the anger still clinging to her bones. Everything is amorphous and ungrounded, and Nova is fractured into millions of tiny stars, trying to fix it, to gather herself up, to pull it all together, to save everyone, to find the fight again—

“Novalise.”

Quietly, barely a breath: “What?”

“What do you want?”

She stares out into the darkness. Somewhere, in the very back of her mind, Nova can’t shake the sensation of the darkness staring back. “I want to save the galaxy.”

Din’s shutter-still, only breathing in the darkness. He smells like cinnamon and metal, and Nova is so exhausted, and so afraid of falling into fitless sleep, and everything is pulsing through her temples like a migraine, like a hex, like a curse. Din speaks softly. His words could rattle mountains. “What else do you want?”

Nova doesn’t put words to what she wants—really, truly wants. It does not exist. It cannot exist. She has become the divining rod for something more, the physical symbol of rebellion. The fight ahead of them—it has the power to shatter the stars entirely. She is the earnest and exhausted savior of the galaxy—for better or for worse. It is a Herculean feat, and Novalise is, decidedly, not a god.

(She wants something more than all of this. She wants to put down the weight of the world. She wants Mandalore to have a truer leader. She wants to learn how to be a Jedi, to live on a quiet planet with yellow trees and purple-pink skies, and she wants to live a life free of violence, to grow old without the threat of war, or pain, or death. She wants to choose love. She wants to choose her family.)

“I want,” Nova breathes, “you.”

Din doesn’t move. “Nova—”

“You,” she chants, like casting a spell. “No—I need you. I need you, Din.”

He’s staring at her through the dark. Nova can feel it radiating through to her, want and need coursing in equal measure through her bloodstream, taking the bite out of all of this hurt. It’s so simple, she realizes—Din and Nova, traveling through millions and millions of stars, how it’s always been, how it always will be. In this moment, right now, she doesn’t have to think about the hurt that’s happened, or the horror on the horizon.

“I can’t save you,” Din breathes, cutting through the dark. “From what pain is living in your head or from the danger ahead of us, I cannot save you. I need you to understand that.”

It’s too big. Nova fights the urge to slap her hands over her ears. “Din—”

“You made the wrong call,” Din whispers, “but you did not force me into battle. Do you hear me? I am not an unwilling soldier. I am not marching to my death. I am following you—my Mand’alor, yes, but more than that, my savior—into the next war.”

“Din,” Nova whispers, and she feels him moving closer, but she cannot sense where he is, and the thrum of her heart starts up like a hummingbird.

“You can save the world,” he whispers, “I know because I’ve seen it.”

“But it’s so much—”

“You are Novalise Djarin,” he whispers, and for the first time, it doesn’t sound like a prayer. It sounds like a question. It scares Nova more than she can admit, but the heavy thump of her heart drowns it out, floods it to the back of her mind, clinging on to Din’s words as he moves in above her, like a predator, like a soldier— “You want to save everything? I am your first in command. You want to burn it down? I am still your first in command. You made a bad call. I’ve made them before, too.” His mouth presses against hers, and Nova flinches at the surprise of it in the dark, then leans into his eternal, magnetic pull, like a tractor beam—inevitable. Her Mandalorian. “My worst call was leaving you,” he whispers, “and that will never happen again.”

“Din—”

“You can do this, Novalise. That has never been in question.”

But, Nova thinks, an awful thunderstorm raging in the back of her mind, what if I become something else in that process? What if I lose sight of something holy?

“Would you still follow me anywhere?”

“Into the dark,” Din vows. “Into the stars.”

“What if I go somewhere you can’t follow?”

He stares. Nova can feel the crushing weight of his fury on the other side of that question, even in the dark. But she doesn't speak, doesn’t try to undo it, doesn’t try to take it back.

“I am never,” Din repeats, low and angry, “leaving you again.” A beat. “What do you want, Novalise?”

“I want you,” Nova manages, through glass and poison, through the insurmountable weight of everything that lies ahead. Then, one word, a shattering, desperate thing— “please.”

His lips are on hers like a siren, like a bandage. It’s loud and it’s everything and it drowns all the hurt out of her. In the darkness, stars explode. Din licks a line over her split lip, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, lapping up everything that Nova has left in pieces. He surges forward, and suddenly, his body—unarmored and tight, corded muscles tensed over the wash of her own—is covering her, crushing her, pulling her back into his orbit.

Nova’s mouth opens wide as Din’s lips latch onto her neck, tongue flickering against her pulse point. He knows her body. He’s memorized it, over and over again, more times than she can count. And every time he latches onto her like a viper, it feels like the first time. She mewls out, the wound wet and low and obscene in this tiny alcove, and Din growls, baring his teeth against her throat.

“Careful,” he warns, low and angry.

“What?” Nova breathes, stars exploding behind her eyes as a rough, ungloved hand comes up hard between her thighs. It knocks her knees in opposite directions, and Nova sings out in the dark, grabbing at his back, his hair, anywhere she can dig her fingers in. Then, lazily, delayed: “...do you mean?”

“Careful,” Din hisses again. His hand comes up, bracketing her throat, fingers squeezing down just enough to send the stars through her eyes again. “You have no idea,” he whispers, but it’s like he’s not talking to her. It’s ragged, a breath, like Din’s praying. Nothing about this feels holy. She is once again begging to be desecrated—to be torn apart. “No idea,” he mouths against her skin.

“No idea,” Nova manages, through half-lidded eyes, her blood molten and heavy running through her veins, “about what?”

“What you do to me,” Din grits out. Nova mewls again as his other hand trails up the inside of her thigh, nails dragging into the threadbare fabric, tantalizing and dark and possessive. Everything has melted away, everything has—run backwards out of her, like water dripping off somewhere distant. There is no hurt here, nothing dangerous. Nothing beside the man on top of her, her hulking Mandalorian, clad in loungewear instead of armor, diamond-hard. Nova wants to feel him bisect her, split her open, give a new name to the hurt. Turn it on its face, inside out.

“I have some idea,” she breathes.

Din doesn’t dignify that with a response. One hand snaps up, quicksilver, pinning both of hers above her head. Nova mewls out again in the darkness, and the hand that was roving between her thighs, teasing against her clit, shoots up to her mouth. Din pinches her cheeks between his forefinger and thumb, puckering her split lip out, and Nova sighs.

“You want me, cyar’ika?”

Nova nods, eyes tearing up from how hard his grip is—unyielding. Unmoving. It is unbreakable, and she’s caught under the weight of it. This is the darkness she wants. This is the darkness she craves. She would die for every version of Din Djarin, but this one? This one, she would pray to. Endlessly. Worship at the altar of his terrifying, impossible beauty. He is the opposite of monstrous, but in this blackness, he can play one so well. It’s devastating—it’s everything. One word, she’s able to eke out. “Yes.”

Din lets go of her in the darkness, and Nova slams back against the mattress, the flutter of her heartbeat ricocheting off her chest. “Prove it.”

Nova blinks up at him, entirely unseeable in the vantablack, and slowly channels all her strength into her hands, pushing back against Din’s unshakable grip enough for him to loosen it. Lightning-quick, she pulls her pants down with one hand and shoves his face towards the apex of her thighs with the other. She’s shaking, from want, from fear—it all feels the same. Din inhales, low and deep, and shivers, pressing the bridge of his nose where his hand once was, dragging it back over her clit.

“Oh, Novalise,” he rumbles, and it reverberates so low it feels like the sound is coming from inside of her.

Nova shivers. She feels feverish, drunk, like her body cannot hold. She forms the shape of a word in her mouth and it wobbles and fizzles before disappearing entirely, because Din’s licking a hot, wet line up the seam of her cunt, and everything inside of her head has ceased to exist.

“You don’t want me.” His voice is simpering. Cruel. It cuts her down to the bone. It’s the voice Din used before he was ever Din to her—just the ruthless Mandalorian, the most feared bounty hunter in the Outer Rim. Shivers dance down her spine at the timbre of his voice. “You need me.”

Nova moans. He slaps a hand over her mouth—hard, hard enough to make her jump, and then he’s soothing it with his tongue, his hands immediately replacing its steady thrum between her thighs.

“Quiet,” he whispers, “or I’ll have to stop.”

“You can’t.”

“I can,” Din whispers, tongue dancing out across the hollow of her collarbone, thready with her hammering heartbeat, “do whatever I want.”

“Din—”

“You’re mine,” he whispers, grinding down on top of her, and Nova almost blacks out. “Mine, mine, mine—”

Nova knows it’ll tip him over the edge. She needs it—she needs him, this unfettered, uncapped version of him, to leech inside of her to the hilt and take everything else away. She is fevered, delusional, grabbing at his hips, trying to loosen the tie around his waist. She breathes out, staccato, the sound of it pornographic and too-loud in the darkness, and then she unleashes her own kind of demon. “Prove it.”

Din goes quiet. Too quiet. The silence falls upon her like a predator that’s just spotted its prey in the wild. Nova doesn’t make a sound. She has just stolen the helm of control and surrendered it in the same two words. She knows he will—he will take, and take, and take, and Nova wants to give him everything down to her bones, until there is no more questioning, no more darkness, no more hurt. Novalise’s light is flickering in the blackness between them, and she needs Din to snuff it out.

He lets out a low laugh—an indecent rumbling chuckle, and then he is shoving his waistband down, far enough to just free his cock, springing free with force, and then he is pushing inside of her. Nova’s back arches off the mattress. It spears her, bisects her, forces her apart. She has been split down the middle—and then he’s gearing up again, pulling all the way out to slam into her. Nova yelps, and Din’s hand is back over her mouth, tears pricking in the corners of her eyes from the size of it, the weight he’s slamming into her.

“What?” He pulls all the way out, a sick tease at her entrance, and then thrusts back into Nova. Hard. Hard enough for her to see stars again, more of them, another galaxy’s worth. There are tears running down her cheeks, now, from Din destroying everything inside of her. She craves it, this sick, sweet release. “You talk a big game, cyar’ika.” Another thrust, Nova’s whole body ricocheting from the force. “You told me to prove it.”

Nova wants to speak, to tease him, to prod him into the Din of her dreams—the unfettered one, the unholy one, haunted and dark. But she can’t open her mouth, can’t form words on her shaking tongue, so she just lets out another moan, hoping he’ll punish her for that one, too.

“Not.” Din says, punctuating each word with a heavy thrust of his hips, “Good. Enough.”

“More,” she manages.

“More,” Din repeats, crooning,” and Nova’s eyes roll back in her skull. “Are you close, Novalise?”

“Yes,” she chokes out, the word split down the syllable, feeling him swell even bigger inside of her, threatening to send her right over that edge.

“No,” Din snaps, and one hand is back on her throat, squeezing down, hard enough that air wheezes out of her lungs, oxygen leaving her tongue. Nova’s unable to suck it back, and stars, that feels good—to be kept in this limbo, to be unmade by Din’s need. To not think about the horror ahead of them, because she is held, imprisoned by this sweet, cloying torture and bliss, in equal measure. “You don’t get to cum until I tell you to.”

It’s harsh, gritted out through bared teeth, his voice low and gravelly, and Nova cries out. It’s a sound that always halted him before—half moan, half sob, all need—but both of them are so deep in the maelstrom of want and desire that it’s choked out by the vantablack room around them, lost in the ether of space.

“Please,” Nova sobs, a desperate, broken—pathetic—thing.” She can feel Din’s lips curl against her neck, purpling the same spot on her pulse point his own shade of violet, and her eyes roll back in her head.

“No.”

“Din—”

“You do not yield,” Din hisses, “not to anyone but me.”

Nova can feel her orgasm threatening to rip through her—a tornado of feeling, of need. She is not a person, here, she is just a coiled, wet vessel of desire. She is begging Din, but the person on top of her is the Mandalorian, silver and bullets, hail and thunderstorm, and he is closer to a god than he is a man. He is ruthless and dark and everything she has ever wanted, and she can feel release building inside of her, even as he refuses to let her.

“Please,” she whispers.

“No.”

“Please.”

Nova can feel Din’s lips curl into a smile. “I love it when you beg.”

“Oh, Maker—”

He drives into her cunt to the hilt. “Your Maker isn’t here, Novalise,” Din growls, “just me.”

“I know,” Nova manages, her head dizzied and spinning, “please, Din, let me—”

Din bottoms out into her again, and it’s so close, so cloying, so desperate, Nova can’t hold it back anymore.

“Cum for me, cyar’ika,” he grits out, hand fisting in her mess of curls, pulling her off the sheets, “Now.”

She does. Nova feels the world implode, one by one, those millions of stars blinking out behind her eyes. Din’s grip on her throat finally lessens, and she sucks down oxygen like it’s water, throat throbbing, already hungry again in his absence. He makes a low, guttural noise, and then he’s tipped over the edge too, spilling deep inside of her, both of their breathing ragged and undone, chasing breath after breath as they lay together, sweaty and entangled in the darkness. The hand that’s fisted in her hair pulls taught again, and Nova inhales, Din’s lips wet against her ear. “Do not,” he chokes out, “ever insinuate you could go somewhere I could not follow again.”

The darkness is there—omnipresent, crushing, but right now, it cannot touch her. And Nova is exhausted, held up by Din and the holiness of their desecration and nothing more, but she links her pinky in his, pulls his lips to her mouth, and whispers silent vows into the gap behind his teeth.

Hera watches the stars trip by, an endless maze of light. She is no stranger to the hyperspace run—and even less of a stranger to the loneliness of it. The stars are her home, but these ones, these pathways, closer and closer to the Rebel base—they cut her, sluicing with regret. She straightens up in her seat, takes the Ghost off autopilot. They’re low on fuel. They’re too low—running in reserve. She usually pays better attention—but usually, Ezra and Thrawn are not back from another dimension, another galaxy, another cosmos. Hera is torn between fear and excitement—Ezra, her surrogate child, her family, home again—that she let herself get complacent. The fuel gauge glares at her.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, patting the dashboard. “I’m stopping.”

And the hologram sensor roars to life.

“Hera!”

She squints. “Bo-Katan?”

“Can you hear me?” She flickers in and out. Hera leans forward.

“Barely. Where are you?”

“Still on this—forsaken ship—”

“Bo-Katan!”

She comes back into screen, sharp and dangerous, the face of a general snapped on. Hera knows it too well. “Hera,” she says, her voice shaking, “we are stuck on Corellia.”

Hera feels relief seep in, anathema in her bloodstream. “Stars, Bo-Katan, I can come get you, I’m not far—”

“That’s…that’s not the problem.” And Bo-Katan, unshakable, ice-princess Bo-Katan has tears in her eyes. “Wedge just got a transmission from the base on Hoth.” She turns away. “Hera,” she whispered, muffled, “I’m so sorry.”

“General Kryze—”

Wedge’s face fills the screen. “Hera,” he says, so somber, so unlike him— “the Chimaera’s signal just popped back up on the map.”

“Ezra—?”

Wedge shakes his head, shell-shocked. “No,” he manages “Thrawn.”

Hera swallows. “Where.”

“Just over Bespin.”

Her heart flares. “We’re heading to Hoth,” she says, “right now, I just have to stop for fuel, we can…I don’t know, blockade him, shoot him down—”

“Hera,” Wedge says, “he is going to beat us there.” Then, barely a whisper: “There’s not going to be a Hoth to save.”

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!! my sincerest apologies as per usual for the literal 6-sh months wait :( 2023 was the wildest and most lived year of my life so far, and unfortunately, it put SH on the backburner. the good news? i sat down over the last few weeks and wrote an entire outline for the full book, as well as a chapter-by-chapter outline through Chapter 16 (for those following along with the Something More Series Lore, that is historically the Nova-Centric Chapter), so while life is still busy with work/living/everything in between, i will be posting MUCH more regularly for the foreseeable future!

thank you all so much for your patience, kindness, and for loving this fic so much. i started writing this series for me, and with how absent i've been, i've made peace with the fact that i may end up finishing writing this series for me, but each and every one of you have proved at every turn how much you care, and the fact that you spend even a few minutes reading my work means more to me than i'll ever be able to say <3

CHAPTER 6 COMING SOON! for day-to-day updates, follow me on tiktok @ padmeamydala :)

xoxo, amelie

11 notes · View notes

amiedala · 1 year

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 1: Start At The Beginning

WARNINGS: explicit sexual content, power play, dark!Din, canon-compliant violence

SUMMARY:

“Mine,” Din is saying like a prayer, “you’re mine.”

There’s a desperation to it, an undercurrent, and Nova unhinges her mouth as Din watches, hard and desperate pressed against her, so desperate that it burns through their clothes. A hymnal, he’s singing, with nothing but the same syllables. It’s desperate, pleading. More than piety. Like a zealot, for her, only for her. Like Novalise is something holy.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: TELL A FRIEND TO TELL A FRIEND... SHE'S BAAAAAAAAAACK! i'm SO excited to share the 11,000+ word Prologue & first chapter of Something Holy with you all! buckle up my friends, and enjoy ;)

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

PROLOGUE:

The story goes like this: Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy moves the entire earth to find girl. Girl moves the stars above to be with boy. Fate intervenes. Life stops for both boy and girl, eventually. Love is the conqueror of all things—except death. Death is always triumphant, always the winner, always the end of everything. Boy and girl are no exception. The stars give, yes, but they also destroy. They supernova. They take.

This is always the story.

There is no other ending to the story.

CHAPTER ONE: START AT THE BEGINNING

The end of the galaxy does not come with a whimper, or a bang. There is no immediate fadeout. There is one supernova, the Mandalorian she loves, and their ragtag band of rebels holding up the sky. The galaxy’s end is not immediate, it doesn’t come in a flash. There’s nothing that shows that the end is inevitable, is on the horizon.

Nothing except Nova’s dreams.

It’s a hurtling—almost like through hyperspace, through that crush of space that only warp can provide. But it’s different. Darker.

Greyscale.

Novalise only dreams in color.

Lightning—not blue—a sinister laugh—resounding. Everything comes in ellipses, like her vision’s been altered. Nova can feel herself teetering between sleep and consciousness. The voices in her head—so real, so tangible—feel like they’ll follow her back into the light. This isn’t like the visions Grogu pulls her into. It’s not like the warped hallucinations that came with Sparmau. It’s not even like her glimpses of Ezra—his face so similar to her own, almost a reflecting pool, almost, almost—but everything is fleeting. Ephemeral. She turns on her heel, her long hair blowing in the wind.

Wind, she thinks, there’s wind here. She looks up, left, right, sideways—it’s like she’s in a funhouse of mirrors. Like the one on the dais—back on Jedha, or the one in the forest on Naator. But she can’t see anything—not the enemy, not herself—just that persistent, unfurling darkness.

Even in her dreams, it settles like a pit in the center of her belly.

“Wake up,” Nova whispers to herself. “Wake up—” And then it comes in flashes. Still in black and white, still in that greyscale, but—clear, all of a sudden. Blips of nightmare fuel, of a tall figure who is somehow both man and not man, of a lightsaber whirring past her face, of Din’s startled eyes, of crying in the background, screaming, someone’s screaming—is that her screaming?—Bo-Katan’s iced-out glare, Wedge flailing in the background, the sound of a ship splintering into a thousand pieces, the pulse and flicker of the Darksaber, Mandalore being bombed, stepping through a doorway, a doorway she’s seen before, and then—

“Hello, Novalise.”

Nova whirls again, toward the sound of the voice, but—silence. And then, the screech, a chittering, awful pulse, and then she’s in the mirror again, staring at herself, and Nova knows what she looks like, but this version is not Novalise, not Andromeda, not anything she’s ever seen. Evil. She looks drenched in it, sweating out something terrible. She holds her fingers up to her reflection’s own hand, trying to find harmony, symmetry, anything to anchor herself to—

“Don’t you dare. Don’t leave me.” Din, suddenly, is as clear as day, as undone and as divine as his bare face. “What if you don’t come out?”

Nova swallows, stepping forward, cradling his cheekbones in between her hands. Delicate enough to keep him steady. Strong enough to shatter bone. She can feel the glow—that constant, utter darkness, pulsating, calling to her. It’s not holy—it’s the opposite, but it beckoned just the same. Nova leans in, lips flush against her Mandalorian’s. So quiet, quiet enough that only Din can hear her: “Then you bring me back.”

Nova hurdles awake, pressing her hands against her hammering heart. She can’t slow it down, can’t force it to steady, but she’s slamming her sledgehammer pulse as if that will shock it back to normalcy.

A beat later, Din’s up, blotting out the moon shining through the gossamer curtains—it’s so rare, Nova marvels, before she’s caught her breath, that anything can cut through Mandalore’s smog—and then Din is back, her single locus, that one, eternal star. She collapses against him.

“Dreams,” she whispers, as his hands tangle in her dark hair, hanging almost to her waist, still smelling of coconut and forsythia after their wedding. “Just—dreams.”

Din’s brown eyebrows furrow, creasing down the middle. “Bad ones?” His voice is still gravelly, stuck with sleep.

Nova considers, inhaling a normal breath. “Urgent, at least.”

Din observes her. “Jedi dreams?”

And Nova smiles at that. She can’t help it. She reaches forward, through the interrupted darkness, punctuated by the rare shine of a full Mandalorian moon, and brings Din’s forehead to hers. “Probably. They’re always knocking around in there, somewhere.”

She can feel Din’s gaze on hers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Nova whispers. “I want…I want one night. One perfect night—our wedding night, Din—that isn’t about the uncertain future, about the–the impending doom hanging over our heads.” She looks up at him, forehead still pressed against his, biting on her bottom lip. “I want one thing, right now, and that’s you.”

She shifts, laying back against the silken sheets, dragging his naked body down with her. Nova can feel him, broad and hers, hard and ready between her thighs, pressed up against her stomach. She doesn’t break his gaze, careful, intentional, hands slipping off his shoulders to caress his cheek, to slip one down to the small of his back.

“Nova—”

“Just you,” she repeats, breathier than she intended, relishing in the feel of his brown, bare eyes against hers, that this is her Din, her Mandalorian. Hers. In this lifetime of so much loss, they’re here, together. “Nothing else matters.” Nova reaches up, kissing the long column of Din’s neck, right at his pulse point, encouraging, coaxing, the dreams already forgotten. “Just for one night,” Nova breathes, “the end of the galaxy as we know it can wait.”

Din moves forward, lips latching against hers, his eyes star-studded and filled with something reverent—

Three knocks at their bedroom door.

Nova clenches her teeth together as Din stifles a tiny laugh against her mouth. A laugh—one that she savors every time it bubbles out, and she can’t even enjoy it, because of the three knocks. Again.

“As your Mand’alor,” Nova calls, anger sluicing through her voice, “unless the palace is being razed, again, I order you to leave until the morning.”

“It’s morning.”

Nova’s head drops back against the pillow, exasperated. “Bo-Katan, it’s our wedding night—”

“The sun will be up in an hour. Listen, I’m—I’m really sorry, Nova—”

“Leave!” Nova yells, again, suddenly furious, “now, please!”

“Nova,” a voice calls, and it’s enough to make Din’s eyes catch hers in the low light, enough for Nova’s heart rate to pick back up. Wedge. “I’m sorry. Truly, I am. But…but we found something, and it can’t wait.”

Nova stares at Din. Din stares back.

“It’s your call,” he mouths, and Nova debates just stuffing a pillow through the crack in the door and muffling them out, but there’s an undercurrent running through Wedge’s voice, one she hasn’t heard in a very long time. One she hasn’t heard since her parents were killed.

So she disentangles herself from her husband, throws her discarded robe on, and strides for the door. Nova wrenches the handle open, Din still in the shadows of the bed, and tries her very best to look menacing, untouchable.

“What?” she asks, low and furious.

Bo-Katan doesn’t even notice, eyes blinking rapidly. Wedge’s knuckles are white, clenched in a fist up against his mouth. At first, she thinks he’s stifling his laughter, but there’s not laughter there at all. Bo-Katan is worried. And Wedge is afraid.

“What?” Nova repeats, but it’s lost all of its fire.

“The Chimaera.”

Nova blinks. “What?” She asks, for a third time.

“I went to Yavin.”

“Yeah, Bo-Katan, I remember. For my wedding dress. And I’m very thankful—truly, I am, but I don’t think that matters right now—”

“I ran into an old friend on Hoth.” Wedge finally speaks, and his voice is as taut as a wire. “Nova, when Bo-Katan was on Yavin, she…she listened to a distress call. And at the same time, I was on Hoth, and I ran into someone—”

“Hera.”

Nova looks back at Bo-Katan, shaking her head, trying to make sense of it. She, decidedly, cannot.

“Hera told me that the Chimaera was picked up on her radio. The distress call, the callsign signature. She—”

“Nova,” Bo-Katan says, strained, “I need to tell you about my—if this ship is back, we are in for—”

“Bo-Katan,” Din says, materializing behind them, as silent as a shadow, “you need to spit it out.”

Irritation flashes across Bo-Katan’s face. Then, pointedly: “Something very bad is on that ship, Nova.”

Nova looks back at her, and that gnawing pit in the center of her stomach comes back, slung with the full force of gravity. She swallows, eyes locking on Bo-Katan, on Wedge, to Din, who’s moved out of the shadows and is standing in line with them. What a strange quadrangle, the four of them are, whisper-yelling in a palace that’s more like a ghost town. Mandalorians, Rebels, all of them in varying degrees—and now Nova’s not listening, just staring at the three people she trusts most in the world, all three of them speaking in glances and riddles.

“What do you mean,” Nova whispers, “by ‘something very bad’?”

“I knew someone once,” Bo-Katan says, her voice faraway, “and he disappeared into deep space. In a ship that’s been presumed missing since—with someone who scared me even more than Ladmeny Sparmau.”

Nova feels thunder. She doesn't realize it for a moment, but it’s coming from inside her chest. “Who?”

Bo-Katan looks at her. “Nova—”

“Who did you know?”

Bo-Katan looks at her head-on. “His name was Ezra Bridger.”

Nova’s not sure how they materialize down in the war room, but they do. Somewhere, between Bo-Katan dropping the bomb that she knew—knows—Ezra, that he’s real, not just someone knocking around the inside of Nova’s head, and the holotable flickering on, Nova, Din, Bo-Katan, and Wedge all descended the staircase. But Nova can’t remember it, the whole journey downstairs completely blank.

She stares upward through the domed ceiling of the palace, and the jolt of realization that she can still see straight through the sky is electrifying, a warning sign. Of what, Nova’s still not sure. But it’s odd, the blue sky—slowly receding into a lighter and lighter color—shining above her head.

Bo-Katan and Din are arguing when she filters back in. “Stop it,” Nova whispers.

“Nova—”

“I need you to run this again for me,” Nova says, evenly, blinking away sleep. “Start at the beginning.”

Bo-Katan inhales, exhales, trying to regain some semblance of composure. She’s a soldier, that much is clear—in the way she gives reports, in the way she gives her delivery. Bo-Katan is so focused on the strained set of her jaw that for a minute, she can’t listen. Bo-Katan stops, observing Nova back, waiting for her to catch up. That sense of softness is in such stark contrast to the girl Nova once met, and despite the entire situation, Nova smiles.

“I have a lot in my history that I’m not proud of.”

Nova swallows, looking up at her friend. Bo-Katan is facing the throne now, instead of her. Tentatively, Nova steps forward, trying to bring her back, but Wedge, slowly, shakes his head. Nova’s hand jumps back like a pulse.

“I… used to be in a group called the Death Watch.”

“You did not.” Din’s voice rings out, unencumbered and clear without his helmet on. Nova shifts back to face him. “You were part of a cult?”

“You’re one to talk,” Bo-Katan snarls, turning on her heel. “Child of the Watch.”

“You and your group,” Din says, evenly, angrily, “were so focused on returning Mandalorians to warriors that you killed thousands of them.”

“Hey—”

“You and your group,” Bo-Katan counters, “were religious zealots that ostracized anyone who adapted to our modern ways.”

“Stop,” Nova whispers, but it’s Wedge that cuts in.

“We are on the same side,” Wedge yells, so foreign from his normal tone of voice that everyone stops. “I know the two of you have your differences. But I thought we were past this.” He gestures at the tensioned air between them, pulled taut and ready to snap. “We have a mutual enemy here. Aren’t you tired of the infighting? You’re friends. Bo-Katan, you’ve told me as much, so don’t deny it. Din, Bo-Katan just said she’s not proud of it. Stop. We’re not arguing about this anymore.” Everyone stares. Sheepishly, he turns to Nova. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to steal your thunder.”

Nova smiles. “Steal it anytime. Well said.” Carefully, she positions herself between Din and Bo-Katan. “I know none of this is simple,” she says, looking at both of them. “There’s a lot of history here, and it’s not going to be smoothed over in one conversation, especially with the differences in how both of you were raised. But that isn’t the focus, not tonight.”

“It’s morning,” Bo-Katan mutters, and at Nova’s exasperated look, she shrinks. Barely, but it’s enough. “I was a commander in the Nite Owls, a subsect of the Death Watch. I believed in what I was doing. I thought that I was…returning Mandalore to its former glory, that anyone who opposed me was wrong. I was young, and I wasn’t exactly naive, but I was headstrong. It put me at odds with my sister.” Her eyebrows are clenched together in pain, clouding her expression. “Satine,” Bo-Katan says, like it burns her coming out of her mouth, “was peaceful in every way I wasn’t. When she ruled Mandalore, she wanted us to be pacifists.” Bo-Katan stops, considering. “I disagreed.”

“Where does Ezra fit into this?” Din asks.

Bo-Katan glares at him. “I’m getting there. We were exiled to Concordia.”

Din stiffens.

Wedge clocks it first. “What?”

Din sighs, running a hand over his exhausted face. “I…also grew up on Concordia.”

Bo-Katan gives him a look, but doesn’t press it. Like she recognizes it, like their history may have overlapped. “Listen, my history is… it’s complicated. Complex. I’m trying to give you the important stuff.”

Nova nods. “I know.”

“My sister and I…we fought, and Death Watch was… relocated. But while all of this was happening here…there was unrest in the Senate. In the rest of the galaxy.” She looks at Nova. “The Empire was on the horizon. And I met Maul.”

Nova’s eyebrows furrow. “Who?”

Bo-Katan looks appalled. “Darth Maul?”

Nova shakes her head, genuinely lost for the second time today. “I don’t know who that is.”

Din nudges her with his elbow. “You sound like me.”

Nova rounds on him. “Do you know who this Maul person is?”

Din peers down at her, puzzled. “Nova, I’m a Mandalorian. Of course I do.”

Staring, Nova prompts him to go on.

“He overtook Mandalore,” Din sighs, “Not well. Not for long. But for a while there, someone other than a Mandalorian—by blood or by Creed—held the beskar throne. It’s a big part of Mandalore’s history.”

Bo-Katan sighs. “I helped him do it.”

Din looks back at her, stricken. “You helped—”

“To reinstate the Death Watch,” Bo-Katan interrupts, sourly. “It was a coup. I didn’t want him on the throne any more than I wanted my sister to be.”

“Right,” Din scoffs. “You wanted to be on the throne.”

Bo-Katan raises her chin, clenching her jaw. “It is no secret that I wanted to be on that throne, Din Djarin,” she whispers, deadly and cool. “In fact, I helped you find Ahsoka so that you would return the Darksaber to me.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

“Things change,” Bo-Katan spits. “I changed. Is that so hard to believe, after everything we’ve been through?”

Nova bites down on her bottom lip, ready to hurl herself between the two of them again, but—amazingly—Din shrinks back, looking chastised. And apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, genuine, brown eyes shining through the dark.

“Maul killed my friend,” Bo-Katan says, “decapitated him. Right in front of me. And he became the leader of the Death Watch. I began seeking out other ways to retake Mandalore. So I met Sparmau. I thought I loved her.” She swipes her hand across her bottom lip, angry. “She was so bright. So vivid, and dangerous, and I thought she had enough compassion to help me. But she never loved me. She took and took everything that she could, and cut me down until I was the basest version of myself.” Bo-Katan swallows, her face simmering, like she didn’t mean to reveal all of that. “Obviously, that went south. And I went to try and break Satine out of prison. For redemption, maybe. But I wasn’t thinking about anything other than Mandalore.”

Nova stares at her, feeling worry carving a scar through her own heart. She’s seen Bo-Katan vulnerable—but this is offering up information in front of both Din and Wedge. Information Nova didn’t need to pry out of her.

“It went badly.” Bo-Katan stares off somewhere in the past, eyes unfocused past Nova’s shoulder. “Maul killed Satine.”

Nova knows this part of the story—barely, but enough—and she strides across the distance, taking Bo-Katan’s trembling hand in her own. Surprised, stunned out of her reverie, Bo-Katan looks over at Nova as if she’s materialized in front of her, but squeezes Nova’s hand back.

“There’s more to the story,” Bo-Katan sighs. “But I wanted revenge. I wanted Mandalore back. So I teamed up with the Jedi. That’s how I met Ahsoka. And Kenobi. They fought alongside me to capture Maul. I wanted to kill him. Obi-Wan, for some reason, said no.” She shakes her head. “Ahsoka told me that I could be a great leader. That Mandalore could change. But I didn’t want change. I wanted to rule it in the way I always thought it should be—I never shared Satine’s idealism. And I thought I would finally have the chance to rule the planet.” She sighs. “But Order 66 happened. And the Empire rose.”

“Bo-Katan—”

“I was rash. And violent. But I refused to do the Empire’s bidding, Nova,” Bo-Katan says, her voice almost wobbly. “I swear.”

Nova squeezes down on her friend’s cold hand. “I believe you.”

“Clan Saxon took their chance and forced me off the throne.” Bo-Katan casts a glance up at where it sits on the dais, resetting her jaw. “Eventually, I met a friend. Sabine Wren. She tried to gift me the Darksaber, and I said no.”

“Is that when you lost it?” Din’s voice isn’t goading, or combative, but Bo-Katan’s eyes flash with anger, and as soon as it appears, it vanishes. She looks unsettled—sad, Nova eventually quantifies. Bo-Katan Kryze has been a lot of things, but Nova’s never seen how poignant and powerful sadness looks on her face, like it’s held back by floodgates, raring to be released.

“That came with the Great Purge,” Bo-Katan says, “and it’s a story for another day. I did gain the Darksaber, eventually—but I was gifted it. I declined, originally, but I…I was assured that enough people thought I earned it. And some Mandalorians accepted me as their leader, but others—” she shoots a pointed, but not unkind, look at Din “—did not. When the Purge came, I lost. Again. And Gideon got the Darksaber.”

“Ezra,” Wedge reminds her, softly, like he doesn’t want to disrupt her speech. This is, Nova realizes, the longest Bo-Katan has consecutively talked in front of all of them.

“Oh,” Bo-Katan says, faraway, distracted. “Sabine introduced me to Ezra.” She turns away, like she’s swiftly dismissing herself.

“Ezra Bridger,” Wedge steps in, relieving Bo-Katan, “was a part of the crew of a starship called The Ghost. It was piloted by General Hera Syndulla, who I saw on Hoth. She, along with her crew—including Sabine, and, eventually, Ezra—were Rebels, too. But they didn’t fight in the wars we did, Nova, and they didn’t ever cross paths with you or your parents. I know Ezra was—is—a Jedi, like you. I only know Hera in passing. But she stopped me when she saw me on Hoth and told me that she heard the distress call—”

“Ezra disappeared into deep space with a man I’ve only heard about,” Bo-Katan interjects, shooting a slightly apologetic look at Wedge, “but he’s certainly the stuff of nightmares. On his ship. The Chimaera. And neither of them were heard from since, until Wedge saw Hera. So we’re facing something…massive.”

Din sighs, leaning back against the holotable.

“Am I boring you,” Bo-Katan says, eyes glittering with ice again. Her voice is flat. It isn’t a question. “Because I can stop. But I would advise you to listen to me, because I’m the only person in this room who was on Mandalore for all of this. And if we’re going to fight this—if we’re going to make Mandalore the center of a war again, which we are—I think you should shut up and listen.”

“All of this matters,” Nova cuts in, letting go of Bo-Katan’s hand to draw a line through the air. “I don’t think I need to remind anyone in this room how we don’t know what’s coming next. Sparmau is dead, but the First Order is still out there, gathering in the dark. Gideon is gone, but whoever he was involved with is still lurking. Grogu’s still terrified every time he sees a stormtrooper. There’s something off about Leia’s kid. The darkness is in every dream I have. And Ezra is a real person—a real person—and he’s trapped out there with someone who scares Bo-Katan more than Sparmau.”

All three of them are staring at her. Nova swallows the tide of rising emotion in her throat.

“I’m exhausted,” she whispers, “and I know you all are, too. But there’s something out there, and the only way we’ll be able to stop all of it is if we listen to each other. Piece together our past. We can’t win this fight if any of us are on different sides.” She swallows. “None of this is easy. But we have a hell of a battle ahead of us. I’m tired, but I’m exhausted of being one step behind them all. We’re going to win this war.”

Din looks at Nova, a tiny, proud smile whispering across his mouth. Everything is solidified by that one look, that forever, eternal locus. “I’m in. And, Bo-Katan, for the record, I was only sighing because I was trying to keep all of the people straight.”

Bo-Katan rolls her eyes, but the set of her shoulders drops. “I’m with you all, whatever comes next. Even you, Din.”

“Rebel by nature,” Wedge grins, stepping closer, closing their circle. “Count me in.”

Nova smiles at all of them. “What did the distress call say?”

Bo-Katan and Wedge exchange a look. Wedge speaks. “Just that the Chimaera is back in detectable range. But someone—presumably Ezra—turned a beacon on a shuttle, which let the Rebel base know where it is.”

“Where what is?”

This time, it’s Bo-Katan that speaks. “Ezra’s relative location.”

Nova nods. “Gear up.” She surveys the faces of her confidants, her Rebels, her Mandalorians, her family. She tucks her long curls behind her ear, extinguishing the azure light of the holotable. Above them, the sun is—miraculously—still shining. “Meet me in the docking bay in a half an hour.”

Din looks over at her, familiar, quiet love sparking in his eyes. “Where to, Mand’alor?”

Nova smiles, adrenaline rushing back through her veins, breaking through the floodgates. “We’re going to bring Ezra home.”

Din and Nova ascended their staircase alone. Bo-Katan and Wedge are stationed downstairs, Grogu sleeping in his carrier in the corner, tiny mouth open in even smaller snores.

Silently, Nova peels off the robe she’s wearing, Mandalore blue. Through the dark, she can feel Din’s eyes on her, lazer-sharp, lustful. They track her every movement—the curve of her hips, the way her stomach twists when she bends to pull on underwear, tan pants a few shades lighter than her skin tone. He’s still watching as she clasps her bra, gaze hungry, full of the moment stolen from them earlier.

“Din.”

“What?”

“You’re staring.”

A slow, wicked smile spreads across his face, glittering in the early-morning blue of their room. “I won’t apologize for that.”

Chills spread across Nova’s body. “We have a mission at hand,” she whispers, ignoring the way she shivers as Din moves closer, closer. She loves to be hunted by her Mandalorian, willing prey.

“My mission,” he says, reaching out, a phantom limb at first, and then the rest of him appears. His open hand rests against the extension of her open throat, and Nova sighs, pressing into Din’s touch, “is to devour you.”

Nova moans, the sound of it breathy, like it’s been coaxed out of her mouth. Din’s still only weaning his underclothes—no armor, nothing to shield him from her touch. Transfixed, she arches closer to his body, pressing her torso against his. She hums when he growls, low and primal, free hand skating over the small of her back. “Now?”

“Always.”

Nova shudders as Din’s hand clenches down—not enough to deprive her of air, but enough to make the stars shoot into her vision. Nova always welcomes the crush of space, the shuddering blackness of it, but this kind is her favorite. Buzzing, she presses her windpipe into the crest of Din’s hand, the sound of her sigh glittering off somewhere starward.

Din murmurs something she can’t hear, trailing his hand up her back to fist in her hair. Nova knows she has a few seconds of pure bliss before danger sets in—that’s where she and Din live, that fault line. But this is the danger they chose, the danger they crave. She opens her eyes, sage green into dark brown, locked on Din like a laser beam, refusing to shy away.

He lessens his grip, and Nova sags against his taut, hard body, the apex of his shoulders wider than hers, welcoming her in. Nova sighs, feeling that buzzing in her ears hum back to normal. “Mine,” Din is saying like a prayer, “you’re mine.”

Nova steps back.

Din stumbles forward, and they both tumble into where the sun is rising in the east, blue, soft light forcing them into the day.

“What?” he asks, genuinely concerned. Nova blinks, tracing a line over the map of Din’s face—her Mandalorian, her husband, her beloved. The thick, coarse hair of his mustache, the bow of his upper lip, the ridge of his beautiful hooked nose. “What’s wrong?”

“What was that, back there?” Nova whispers, afraid to take her touch away this time. Something haunted and terrible is skirting the corners of Din’s eyes. “With Bo-Katan?”

Din sighs, blinks, and the expression shifts, but doesn’t disappear. “Her group and mine have been enemies for a long time.”

Nova brings her other hand up to cup Din’s cheeks in equal measures. “Your sects of Mandalorians, sure, but you’re friends, Din.”

His eyes cloud, uncloud. “Yeah,” he says, unconvincingly, and Nova squeezes down, trying to bring him back. “Yes,” he corrects, much stronger. “We are. But it’s beyond that. Being here…it’s strange.” He clears his throat. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Nova tilts her head to the side. “Din. It’s me.”

“There’s so much history here,” he says, carefully. “And when it’s just us, it’s one thing. But…with war on the horizon, we’re going to have to unite the Mandalorians. You will, as reigning Mand’alor. They will follow you. You’ve proven yourself as a warrior, and they respect you. But…”

“This is a larger war than they’ve ever fought,” Nova fills in when Din trails off, eyes slightly unfocused. “This is bigger than one enemy, and it’s going to force all of us to be on the same side, regardless of their history.”

Din nods, once.

“There’s more, though,” Nova breathes, circling her thumbs around his temples. “What’s going on?”

Din’s gaze snaps back to hers. “I’m so tired, Nova.”

Something fractures along her heart. Another fault line, cracking and bisecting. Small until it isn’t. Nova tries to brace herself against her racing heartbeat, tracing her fingers over Din’s cheekbones. “I know, my love.”

Din’s jaw clenches. “Do you wish—”

Nova tips her head closer when he stops short in the middle of the sentence. “What?” she whispers, barely air at all, trying to coax it out of him.

“That we just stayed on Naator?”

Nova blinks. “Din—”

“You have the galaxy to worry about,” he says, a weight behind the word, a heaviness that Nova never noticed before. “And we have a duty to Mandalore. I don’t want to run away.”

Observing, Nova moves closer, tipping her forehead against his.

“But,” Din whispers, so quietly it’s like there’s nothing there at all, “what if we ran away?”

Novalise is speechless. For a tortuous, long second, she doesn’t speak. Whatever haunted thing was lingering in Din’s eyes breaks away, hides like it was never there at all.

“Wishful thinking,” he mutters, trying to pull away, but Nova anchors him in place.

“One day,” Nova vows, “one day, we will save the world, we won’t fight another war, and you and Grogu and I can live the rest of our lives under Naator’s pink sky. I promise you, Din.”

He gives her a sad smile, hand grasping her chin, tipping it up to meet his eyes. “But you’re a fighter. It’s who you are. You aren’t…just going to leave. It’s not in your blood.”

“You’re a Mandalorian,” Nova whispers, repeating his own words back to Din, “and fighting is part of your religion.”

“Yeah,” Din says, kissing her on the mouth, lips lush and full against her own, “sure, it is.”

It’s not until they’re both dressed, Grogu in tow, and heading towards the ship bay, that Din whispers something so quiet that Nova doesn’t hear it.

“But I don’t worship the fight anymore. Just you.”

“For the record,” Bo-Katan yells, over the hum of her ship’s engine starting up, “I still think this is a terrible idea.”

Nova squints, long black braid swinging over her shoulder. “What choice do we have?”

Climbing into the cockpit, Nova and Bo-Katan take the helm. Wedge and Din disappear as they take off from Mandalore’s surface, the atmosphere clouding with every second they rise towards the stars. Wedge is likely going to eat. Din, Nova knows, touching his helmeted cheek as he disappears into the bowels of the ship, is going to try and sleep.

“I don’t know,” Bo-Katan sighs, pushing all the thrusters up high. Her ship is made of the same metal and steel that Din’s was, but it’s older, less flashy. More utilitarian. Very Bo-Katan. “We’re going after an entire Star Destroyer. We can’t beat them.”

“We are the galaxy's mightiest heroes,” Nova says, tossing Bo-Katan a grin.

Bo-Katan gives her a sour look in return. “Yeah. But the four of us have almost died a lot.”

“Grogu and I have the Force.”

“Novalise,” Bo-Katan sighs, “no offense, but when has that ever really worked in your favor?”

Nova mimes getting struck in the heart, throwing her head back. “Ouch.”

“We should have brought Koska and Axe. At least. Maybe a few other warriors.”

Nova studies Bo-Katan as the ship ascends above Mandalore’s atmosphere. “You usually don’t share the fight.”

Bo-Katan’s jaw clenches. “I’d share this one,” she mutters, flicking switches until the ship levels. A furrow in her eyebrows appears as she leans forward, trying to calculate exactly where the Chimaera’s signal was pulsing from. “Shit.”

Adjusting, Nova brings herself closer to the nav system. “Where is he?”

“Way out there.” Bo-Katan’s long, lean finger taps against the tracking beacon.

“Primea?” Nova asks, squinting at the planet. “That’s not in the Outer Rim. That’s…”

“The other side of the galaxy,” Bo-Katan supplies. “The Unknown Regions.”

“Luke’s out there,” Nova counters, trying to fight the rising anxiety in her stomach. “Luke’s on Ahch-To. That’s in the Unknown Regions. So, maybe, Ezra found—” But the impossibility of the entire thing catches up to her, flutters in her throat. It would be a couple days of journeying, even at full warp. They might have to stop somewhere to refuel. And Ezra was trapped out there, trapped with someone Bo-Katan was actually scared of… Maybe they are in over their heads. Nova realizes she stopped abruptly in the middle of her sentence. Now it’s Bo-Katan’s turn to stare at her. “I guess it’s too much to hope for,” she whispers, “that Ezra is anywhere close to Luke. That… that he might have found safety.”

“Well,” Bo-Katan says, checking the fuel gauge as she fires her ship into hyperspace, “If Luke’s anywhere with Leia’s freaky son, maybe he’s not safe either.”

“Bo-Katan—”

“That kid’s a weirdo,” Bo-Katan says, a mirthless laugh rising in her mouth.

“You haven’t even met him.”

“Do I need to?”

Nova purses her lips, considering. “No,” she admits, quietly, and Bo-Katan barks a laugh. “But he’s…he’s troubled.”

“Troubled like he’s a troublemaker? Or troubled like he’s a little Sith lord in the making? Because I think you and I both know the answer to that one. And he’s not a troublemaker.”

Nova stares out into the crush of space, thinking of Din’s hand on her throat, Bo-Katan’s words echoing in her mind. “He’s…he has the power to be terrible,” she says, carefully. “I know he’s Leia’s son, but there’s a darkness in him. Something awful. I’ve seen visions. I know who he’s destined to be.”

“Kill him,” Bo-Katan shrugs. “Now, before he has that chance.”

Nova stares at her. “I’m not going to kill a child. Leia’s child, no less.”

Bo-Katan shrugs again, unaffected. “She’d thank you in the long run. If he turns into the monster you’ve seen he will.”

“Bo-Katan—” Nova sighs, pressing on her eyes hard enough to see stars. “I can’t kill him. I won’t. I… It would be wrong.”

Bo-Katan eyes her. “I’ll do it.”

Nova blinks. Once, twice. “Maker above.” She bites the inside of her lip, looking at her friend. Bo-Katan’s rigidity is back, her ice queen persona snapped and frozen into place. Din looks haunted, permeated by something torturous he can’t bring to light. And, as always, Nova is oscillating between the both of them, orbiting their morality, trying to find the will to either bend or break. For once, that black hole in the pit of her stomach just feels too massive, too full of possibilities. “No one is killing him. Besides,” she says, hoping this will prod at Bo-Katan’s facade, “this is bigger than Ben Solo. This is bigger than just Mandalore, or the Order, or the Rebels. This is bigger than all of us, Ezra included.” Pointedly, she stares at Bo-Katan, wielding Ezra’s name like a weapon.

It works. Bo-Katan’s front doesn’t shatter, but she falters.

“Who is he with?” Nova whispers.

Bo-Katan’s spine goes straight. “Nova—”

“Why are you so afraid? Is…is this other person a god, or something?”

“No,” Bo-Katan bites, “something of nightmares and legends, but absolutely not a god.”

Nova offers her a tiny smile. “So…they’re killable?”

“If Ezra couldn’t—didn’t—then I don’t know. Genuinely, Novalise, I do not know. This…man, if you can call him that…is terrifying.”

“How?”

Bo-Katan is staring out into space, a tiny crack in her armor showing.

“Bo-Katan,” Nova whispers, just as desperately as she tried to get through to Din earlier, “it’s me.”

“I don’t know,” Bo-Katan finally spits, seething. “I don’t know, Nova. I don’t know anything about him, really. Hera Syndulla would know more. Ahsoka would too.” She turns her burning gaze to Nova. “Where is Ahsoka, Novalise?”

Nova blinks. “She’s…she’s out there. She told me she’d show up when I needed her next. That our paths were destined to cross again.”

Bo-Katan snorts. “Typical Jedi nonsense, then.”

“I thought Ahsoka was your friend—”

“I have no friends!” Bo-Katan yells, “Not anymore.” She swallows. “Except you. And Wedge, when he’s not getting on my nerves. “And Din. I guess.” She gives Nova a glance out of the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the words still sound so foreign coming out of her mouth. “Of course you’re all my friends. I don’t…I don’t know what’s going on. I’m… Things are getting…wrong.”

It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. Nova reaches out, grasping her friend’s hand.

“If I wasn’t so vehemently opposed to the notion,” Bo-Katan says, sniffing, “I would say Mandalore is cursed.”

“How can it be?” Nova asks, voice quiet, tucking her half-braid and curls underneath behind her shoulder, giving Bo-Katan an earnest, tiny smile. “It brought me to you.”

It’s the type of quip Bo-Katan would typically roll her eyes at, but instead they flicker, her lips quirking up at the edges. “There’s something off about all of this,” she whispers, finally, clutching Nova’s hand back, “Nova, can’t you sense it?”

Nova doesn’t say anything.

But that’s the problem. She does. And it’s seeped under her skin. It won’t scrub away.

Bo-Katan eventually disappears to sleep. After she’s beaten Nova seven times at Sabacc, effortlessly. Nova took over the helm hours ago, listless, afraid to fall back into sleep. She doesn’t want to have nightmares. She can’t fathom the fact that so much of the galaxy is disintegrating in her fingers. She’s always thought of saving the world colloquially, like a metaphor, even. But this…all of this feels too big. Bo-Katan is scared. Din is becoming unhinged. Nova has made herself an enemy out of so many people—Ben Solo, the First Order, Gideon and his cronies, the sinister laughter, the blue lightning, the myth that Ezra’s been missing in action with. They’re all congealing, coagulating like blood, staining her skin, her mouth, her heart.

“Hey.”

Nova jumps. “Stars, Wedge, you scared me.”

A small smile lights up her old friend’s face. “I thought I’d relieve you.”

Nova blinks. “How long have I been up here?”

Wedge cocks his head to the side, holding out his hand to help her off the pilot’s seat. Yawning, Nova takes it, sliding out of the chair. She cracks her neck to the side, realizing how tired she is. “Hours.”

Nova blinks. “Where are we?”

Wedge looks at the nav system. “Somewhere cresting through the Outer Rim. I don’t know where the—” he squints, “—Primea system is, but we’re not even close to the Unknown Regions yet. A way to go until we find where exactly the Chimaera’s distress call is coming from.”

Yawning, Nova nods. Her head is pulsing. “And then what?”

“Well,” Wedge says, crossing his arms over his chest, that familiar orange jumpsuit so warm in stark contrast to the blue and grey of Bo-Katan’s Mandalorian ship, “then we find Ezra.”

“Wedge,” she says, and then closes her mouth. “Do…do you think this is a stupid idea? Going after Ezra with no idea what’s out there waiting for us?”

Wedge studies her. “I think it’s a Rebel thing for us to do,” he says, grinning.

“I’m serious.” Nova’s voice almost wobbles. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispers, so softly, the truth of it laid bare. It’s something she would have admitted to her parents—she can picture Arokel’s troubled eyes, so like her own. She can feel Piper’s determination, coursing through her blood. But Novalise is tired, and the ghosts of the people she’s lost are just that—a specter, a haunting. Not a fortification, not a lifeline, not right now. “Wedge, what if we’re walking into a trap?”

Wedge studies her. “Nova,” he says, sighing, resting a strong hand on her shoulder, thumb clasped right against the curve of her neck like her father used to do, gently bringing her back down to earth, “we’ve walked into plenty of traps. You always come out swinging.” He stoops down to catch her eye. “I’m old. I’ve seen a lot of things, now. And I know this—even exhausted, even confused, you are a leader. Even when you don’t feel like one. Even when you don’t want to be. And that crown hangs heavy on your head, rebel girl.” He smiles softly, so much like her father that it makes Nova’s heart ache. “Go give your mind a break.”

And there’s so much Nova wants to say—so much, but she’s exhausted, and Wedge has given her permission, so she just sways into his hug, turns on her heel, and sinks into the belly of the ship to find her husband.

The room is so dark. Almost entirely blacked out, Nova stumbles through the door after the hiss has resounded, arms out in front of her as she fumbles toward the bed. Bo-Katan isn’t a lavish person, so the rooms are sequestered and small, with only a cot for the bed. It’s big enough for two bodies—if Din isn’t wearing his armor, which he decidedly is not. Nova feels around and locates the curve of his hip, fingers skating underneath the hem. His skin here is so soft—one scar travels up the bone, slightly raised against her touch.

Nova unhinges, pulling her jacket off, pushing her hair back behind her ears, closing her tired eyes. This is primal—folding her body against Din’s in the dark. It’s what she’s done since before she learned his name, since before he gave Nova her true one. Shivering, she draws her legs up, facing Din in the dark.

Slowly, she traces the bump of his hooked nose, gorgeous and hers even in the vantablack of the sleeping chamber. How familiar and foreign this feels at the same time—tracing the man underneath the Mandalorian, discovering everything that makes Din the man he is. She feels her heart turn over, drawing him closer, closer still—

“Nova?”

Her eyes fly open. “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” she whispers, “but I’m here.”

His arms reach around to enfold her. They rustle in the dark. Nova’s enclosed against his chest, feeling Din’s heartbeat flutter in tandem with hers.

Din’s hand comes up, lazily, sleepily, to stroke through her hair, unraveling the top half from its braid. “Where’d you go?”

“I was keeping Bo-Katan company,” Nova whispers, inclining her head into the curve of his neck, “up in the cockpit.”

Din’s quiet for a moment. Then: “That’s not what I mean.”

In the dark, Nova feels her cheeks flush. “I’m nervous,” she admits, “about what this means. Bringing someone back who’s been missing for years. Whoever Ezra was with. Everything just feels…so much deeper. Bigger,” she corrects, licking her bottom lip. “Like we have more to lose.”

Din sighs into the dark. “We do have more to lose.”

Nova’s heart sinks, just a little bit.

“But,” Din says, exhaling through his nose, “it means we have more to fight for.”

Nova wraps her free arm around his back, skating under his shirt, taking careful note of the little groan he lets escape in the dark. Quietly, so quiet it’s like her words aren’t there at all, she breathes: “I thought you were tired of fighting.”

Nova’s almost asleep when Din’s answer floats out, right into the shell of her ear. “I am. But I’ll never get tired of following you into war.”

Nova’s dreams are in black and white again. Greyscale, like she’s seeing something ancient. Primal. Back before the galaxy existed.

Nova falls through the glimpse of this other side, this vantablack reality. And when Din appears, he’s wrong.

It’s palpable, the way he radiates. Metal, gunsmoke, danger—that sweet scent of cinnamon gone. Locked away, hidden behind beskar and steel. It’s everything she needs, everything she doesn’t—fear and desire, locked up together in ecstasy. She knows she’s dreaming—but she still needs him, craves him, feels him, everywhere—

“Din’s haunted,” a whisper cuts through the dark. Nova doesn’t know if it’s her own voice or something else entirely.

All she knows is that she doesn’t care.

Everything in this place is primal, attuned to a frequency only they can walk along. Nova watches, everything obsidian and mottled, hidden in shadow. Obscured. He’s obscured, too. His helmet—it’s visceral, his face underneath it all. Nova can feel it in the silence, in the dark.

Limbo. They’re both in limbo.

She needs him like a prayer. Something whispered into all that darkness, pleading for a higher power. He’s haunted, this version of him—the version of Din where he becomes the Mandalorian, nothing more.

In the dark of night, on a bed of velvet and honey, Nova watches him. Moonlit, shining only by the stars that surround them. They glitter and refract off the beskar like a million tiny shards of glass. He stands in the doorway while she rests, listless and unable to submit to sleep. He stalks her in the night like an animal, primal and terrifying.

“Do I scare you, cyar’ika?” he asks one night. Croons, like the taste of fear is tantalizing. Sweet. Nova shivers, her body only half-covered by the gossamer sheet. They’re both spinning, lost in this nothingness, equally bisected by all this darkness. It would be devastating if Din wasn’t here to share it. Even though he’s haunted. Even though he’s not himself.

Even though this is a dream.

It is a dream, right?

“Din—”

Gloved hands grab her ankles, throwing off her center of balance. He yanks her to the foot of the bed, throwing the sheet away. Nova tries to cover her body, but she watches the helmet slowly shake back and forth. An order.

“Do I,” he whispers, velvet and tungsten, “scare you?”

“You’d like if it I answered yes,” Nova whispers. “Wouldn’t you?”

It’s not really a question.

She can feel his teeth glint in the dark, white-hot, even underneath the visor. This Din doesn’t take his helmet off. Not now. Not ever. It comes to her in flashes, little vignettes—what he used to look like, what warmth used to live in his eyes. Now, he’s more Mandalorian than man, and she wants him to bisect her, to halve her, to tear her into shreds. Even if it’s just for a moment. Even if none of this is real. She wants him, low and desperate in her belly, and it drives her up to the stars. His gloved fingers are trailing up her legs, predatory.

“Do I scare you?” Visceral, through the modulator.

“Yes.”

His hand stops.

“Novalise.” It sounds like absolution, a prayer. A reprimand, sure, but something holy. Proof that he hasn’t forgotten who she is. Nova bites down on her bottom lip as Din’s rough, gloved hands start dragging up her thighs again. “Do you like it?”

He leans in closer. Nova feels something slide across her wrists, keeping her anchored in place. She doesn’t know what it is. She doesn’t care. “Din,” she whines, and his helmeted head is a knife through the air, landing an inch away from her cunt. Nova clenches down as he sniffs, inhaling through the modulator like he’s devouring her already, and her moan comes out broken in two.

“I can smell you,” he whispers, strangled. “You want me so bad, it’s killing you.”

“Yes,” Nova manages, her entire body shaking with want—with desire. She wanted it, then—yesterday, a million years ago—back on Naator. She’s always wanted it—to be Din Djarin’s prey.

But right now, he’s not Din Djarin. He’s the Mandalorian. And the distinction is blackened and honeyed, a dangerous, terrible thing. She doesn’t know where they are, what this place is—just that they were plunged into this vantablack and have become forged by it. Trial by fire, trial by desire—the circumstances change, but the story always remains the same.

“I want to devour you, sweet thing.”

That word again—it, too, feels divine and sacrosanct, living in the light, belonging to the dark.

Nova moans. “Do it.”

Din inhales again, a raggedy, wanton thing, and when Nova squirms, the blackness tightens around her wrists. She’s on display for him, this haunted man, and she’s an offering to whatever demon lives inside of him.

When he leans forward, fingers digging into her hips to draw her closer, Nova’s mouth opens into a starstruck O, pulling the sound clean out into the air. “Louder.”

“Maker,” she gasps—and then—

“Don’t pray to him,” Din grits out, his other hand snapping out of nowhere, clasping around her neck. “Your Maker’s not here. You worship me.”

Stars above. Nova doesn’t look away—she looks into that blinking, leaching blackness. He’s slick like an oil spill, her Mandalorian, and she’s caught in his gravitational pull. It’s inevitable. It’s everything.

Nova gives in.

“I worship you.”

“You’re a miracle, sweet thing,” he whispers, and through the modulator, it vibrates. His head is face-to-face with her pussy. Nova can’t really feel his breath—the helmet prevents it—but the memory of it is just as strong. “But in here, I’m your God.”

“Din,” she whispers, fallow and weak, hips jerking underneath his light touch, “please—”

When he pushes a finger inside, it’s thick. Unyielding. Without warning. This is what Din’s like inside of here, this husk of a man—something beyond material and metal. He’s both divine and sacrosanct. It’s stifling. Din’s head cocks to the side, considering. Outside the window—is it a window?—the stars are brutal and clear. Without remorse, he cocks it, curling it up inside of her, and Nova shudders.

“I want your words.”

“Feels—fuck, so good—”

“Is this enough, cyar’ika?” He leans closer, and Nova can still feel the imprint of his tongue from before, before the darkness swallowed them both, before this—and he pulls her closer, driving that gloved finger in deeper. Nova sobs. “Is it enough?”

“No,” Nova mewls, finally, “no, I need more—”

“Greedy,” Din interrupts, and then she’s being stretched open with two fingers, and she’s so close to the edge, tasting it, dancing on it—and then nothing.

“Please,” she manages, and when she looks up, Din’s helmet is obscured in shadow. He’s standing between her legs at the edge of the bed, staring down at her—she can feel his eyes, under there. They haven’t disappeared. A jolt strikes Nova, deep in her stomach. Deep brown, she reminds herself. Deep brown, like reflecting pools. The color of wet soil, the feeling of home.

“What do you want?”

Nova’s mouth falls open. “For you to come back to me.”

It’s not what she meant to say. Not what she intended on saying. But still, it’s here, and she can’t take the words back. For a second, the veil ripples—color floods back, color other than black and grey, other than that dulled starshine, and they’re back somewhere where the earth felt warmer. It rips through her like a lightning strike, sudden and unforgiving.

“I’m right here,” Din whispers, and then the hiss of the helmet disengaging. “I never left.”

Nova swallows. “Prove it.”

She can’t see him. She can’t see anything, and for a moment, it feels like he’s going to slink out of that darkness unrecognizable, and then she hears the unmistakable sound of Din popping his gloved fingers in his mouth, sucking every drop of her off of them. The moan that follows is so loud—it could shatter bone. Nova feels like it does, for a second.

“You’re so fucking sweet,” Din pants out. “So fucking—”

“Yours,” Nova manages, wanting to reach up to stroke his face, to move her thumb over his cheekbone, to anchor her back in reality. Her heart pounds, obsessive and unfettered, and her vision drops out as Din crawls over her.

“Need to fuck you,” he grunts out, and then his hands are fumbling at the clasp on his pants. Nova reaches up, trying to help, but that darkness keeps her anchored down. She kicks up, trying to get leverage— “Don’t you fucking leave me.”

Nova moans.

“You can’t go anywhere, Novalise.” One strong, gloved is anchored on her bare stomach, pushing down hard enough to keep her locked in place. “You belong here.”

Nova gasps, wanting to buck her hips up—not to run away, not to leave—but to get closer, and Din’s hands free his cock from his pants, and for a second she stops struggling, just staring at it. It’s always big—the bulge of it always swells in her belly—but in the half-light, it looks like it will spear her, split her in two.

“You can take me.”

“I need…” Nova writhes against the heat, staring at the head of Din’s cock, bead glistening, and her mouth waters.

“I know. I know, baby.”

“Please,” she begs, stars threatening behind her eyes, “please—”

“You don’t even know what you’re begging for,” Din croons, and his free hand slides off the base of his own dick to shoot around her throat, those same stars now supernovas, bleeding out obsidian, “do you?”

“For you,” Nova manages, “for you, always you, always, always you, Din—”

“You’re holy,” Din whispers, squeezing down once, “divinity.”

“Yes,” she manages, sweet tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, “but you—”

“I’ll drag you down to the darkness with me,” Din says, voice low and guttural, and then he pushes inside of her. No give. No take. Nova moans, a ragged, tortured thing, and Din slides all the way in, pounding into her, and she can’t take it, it’s everything, it’s devastating, it’s— “Look at me.”

He lets go, stars receding back to the dulled state outside that window. Nova tried, eyes attempting to find their locus in the darkness, but when she sees Din’s face, it’s just the darkness looking back.

It makes her cum so hard she sees black.

“Novalise—”

And she wakes up.

Nova thinks she yelps—a noise works its way out of her mouth, it’s devastating and dark, guttural, leftover from the dreamland.

Din, only a second’s delay, is up and taut next to her, his body tensed into warrior. “What?” he gasps, arms braced against her, breath hot in the obsidian of the tiny room. “What’s wrong, cyar’ika?”

When she doesn’t answer, trying to bring her heartbeat down to normal, to make it even-keeled, he repeats the words. A mantra, a prayer. Tears spring to life in her eyes, this desperate, fantastical dream. It felt real, so real—

“Dream,” she chokes out, finally, dragging a hand over her flushed, inflamed face, hands shaking from his mouth in between her thighs, the way he pushed into her, unyielding, relentless.

She knows he’s cocking his head to the side, considering. Nova doesn't need to see Din to know the way he moves. It’s ingrained in her—everything about him, grounded in muscle memory.

“Bad dreams?”

A laugh hitches like a hiccup in her throat. “I’m not sure.”

“What—” Din struggles, sitting up straighter. His bare hand trails up between her legs, and Nova thinks he’s still talking, but when he finds the apex of her thighs, he stops in the middle of his sentence. “Oh,” he says, low, pulsing, like it’s knocked the air out of his lungs. “Oh. What did you dream about, cyar’ika?” She can hear the proud smirk in his voice. She shivers, despite the heat of his touch.

“You,” Nova manages.

Din’s hand clenches down. It’s not enough to hurt, but right now, Nova wants it to bruise. She wants Din in every single reality, every single iteration—but this one, right here, this is the basest, realest version of him. She doesn’t need to resort to dreams. She doesn’t need anything except him.

“Is that all I get?” he croons, leaning in to lick a line up the column of her neck, stopping to flutter his tongue at her pulse point. That, enough, knocks her undone.

“I can’t explain it,” she gasps, feeling his teeth graze over the same spot, stars shooting out behind the back of her eyes. “I—just need you, please, Din, please—” she’s begging now, begging like she was in the dream, that alternate reality, where Din was razor-sharp and married to the poison. She wants to sink into his skin, here, now, and that’s not enough.

It’ll never be enough, she thinks, and then Din is maneuvering in the dark, with precision that only he’s ever had, notching his entire broad body between her legs, breath catching as he rips the strap of her top away from her collarbone. His teeth never leave, latching over and over as he makes his way down her body, bunching up the fabric of her shirt in his fist, yanking it away from the terrain of her stomach. Nova cries out, biting into the back of her fist to stay quiet—Bo-Katan’s ship is big, but not that big—

“Don’t you dare,” Din hisses, low and dangerous, “you scream for me.”

High and breathy, a moan works its way out of the open O of Nova’s open mouth. Din flutters his tongue somewhere below her bellybutton, desperate and spurred on. “Please,” she cries out, half delirious, not sure what she’s even pleading for—

Din grabs fistfuls of her pants and yanks down. Hard. Nova yelps as she’s exposed down to her knees, still shaking from her dream, shaking even more from the way Din’s unfurling here now.

“Louder,” he goads, and she can’t stand the blood rushing in her ears.

When he brushes his hand against the tender flesh of her inner thigh, Nova quakes. Desperate, pleading up to something high and holy above her, something she’s not even sure she believes in, Nova’s eyes roll back into her skull when Din’s mouth finally meets the apex of her thighs.

“Oh,” she cries, and he licks a line straight up to her clit. It’s everything. It’s devastating. It’s like her dream, but so much better because this is real, he’s real, and he’s devouring her like she’s that something holy, like she’s the only locus he’s fixated on.

His tongue feels alive, animalistic. Devour is the word Din used earlier—and devouring he is, bisecting Nova with his tongue. Desperate, she clutches her hands in his hair. Din moans at her touch—no matter how many times she’s done this exact thing, touching him in the dark always brings out that lust, that want. Nova can feel it as he’s trembling as hard as she is, tongue jittering as he licks her clean, over and over again. The tip of his tongue swirls around her clit again, and she’s so close, so close to the edge—it’s undone and divine. They’re sweating out confessions together—Nova’s in her head, Din mumbling them between her legs. Neither of them can vocalize it, make the words come aloud, but Nova knows they’re both pleading, crying, confessing—to whatever higher power they believe in, to the stars above themselves.

“Cum for me,” Din rasps out, and it’s both a demand and a plea, and Nova can’t take it anymore. When his tongue latches down, fingers plunging into her, desperate—she does. She lets go, loud and warbling, her moan just as shaky as she is. Over and over again, she does, stars supernovae in the back of her eyes, blood thundering in her ears.

She barely comes down to the earth when Din does it again, again, again. He fucks her with his tongue like it’s an apology, like it’s divinity—Nova can’t decide which. Only when they’re both falling from it does he stop, climbing up her body to kiss her on her open mouth, smearing her lips with her own taste, and Nova kisses him. She wants to crawl inside of his teeth, be swallowed down, and live in his heart. She can’t explain it, this longing, this despair. It owns her.

It knows her by name.

“Thank you,” she whispers, finally. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.

Din doesn’t say anything, just lurches forward to bury his face in her neck. On the comedown, both of them flutter off into sleep again, and the only thing Nova can think is that Bo-Katan was right.

Something is off. Something is bigger than they are—like they’re beginning a slow descent right into the eye of the storm.

Knocking on the door brings both Nova and Din back awake. Nova opens her eyes, bleary, remembering that her trousers are still somewhere around her knees, or maybe by now her ankles. She shivers, the warmth of their cocoon refusing to rise up and meet her. She pulls on her sweater, folding her arms against her chest.

A small sliver of light leaches into their darkness. Nova squints. It’s Bo-Katan. Her hair is askew, mussed from her own sleep.

“What’s going on?” Nova asks, yawning, and then something hits the ship.

Bo-Katan’s eyes are panicked. “We—we fell out of warp.” Another blast sounds, and the hull shutters. Din jackknifes up from the cot behind her. Nova wrenches open the door.

“Are we under attack?” he yells, loud and panicked, and adrenaline and fear jolt through her with equal intensity.

“Yes. Nova, you gotta pilot the ship,” Bo-Katan screams, over the noise, and Nova runs, grabbing hold of anything in the hallway she can to keep herself upright, seeing Bo-Katan lurch forward and grab Din’s forearm, dragging them both back down the hall to where the ship’s artillery is located.

“Wedge!” Nova screams, hurdling into the cockpit. His face is covered with a sheen of sweat, and he looks at her, panicked for the first time in years. She reaches forward, grabbing the controls, helping him anchor it back in place. “What the hell is happening?”

“Trap!” He yells back, the sound of gunfire too loud to hear anything but a whisper. “We crashed out of hyperspace, and all of these ships were—waiting for us.”

Nova, wild-eyed, jumps up onto the seat next to Wedge, whose arms are shaking. “How is that possible?”

He shakes his head, trying to regain control of Bo-Katan’s shaking vessel, but Nova bumps him with her hip. “Co-pilot,” she manages. “You’ve been up here for hours. I can hold her for a minute.”

Wedge’s mouth is set in a thin, firm line, but his eyes hold relief. Nova’s never flown this ship before—it’s decidedly not an X-Wing. But she can handle Kicker, so she can handle anything. She straps in, kicking the thrusters up as high as they’ll go, trying to get the warp to catch.

“Come on,” she whispers, and she feels the ship shake as Bo-Katan and Din find their footing, shooting back at the armada of ships that are firing at them. Large sharded pieces of asteroids fly into her vision. Nova plays the offensive, swinging and dodging, trying to keep them on a clear path as Din and Bo-Katan shoot their way to safety.

She looks down at the warp button, bleating a defeated cry. It’s broken—or damaged. A pulse of panic shoots through her bloodstream. “We can’t get out of here!” she cries. “Wedge!”

But as soon as they appeared, the ships encircling them pull back, disappearing behind the giant moon hanging on the horizon. Nova looks at the hyperspace drive again, and dives, lurching over the edge of an asteroid, ears still ringing in the sudden silence.

“We have to try,” she whispers, pushing at the button again. “They can’t have disappeared—Wedge!” She stops short as he slaps her hand away. “What the hell?” she asks, low, surprised, startled.

“Stop!”

A giant bang resounds. Nova flinches, realizing the bottom of the ship scraped across the asteroid.

“What?!”

“Stop!” Wedge cries again, finger stabbing at the navigation. “Stop, Nova—”

“I’m not doing anything!” she screeches, near hysterics, heart pumping out a million beats per minute. “Maker, Wedge, what?”

“We’re here!” He roars, and Din and Bo-Katan reappear at the cockpit’s edge. Nova stares down at the pixelated planet on the screen and back to the one appearing in front of them. It’s not a moon at all—it’s a cratered, white planet. Slowly, the noise from the rest of the ship filters back in, loud in the absence of all of the fighting outside.

“Primea,” Bo-Katan whispers. “How are we at Primea? This journey should have taken us at least three days—”

“Where’s Ezra?” Din asks, and Nova’s heart is in her throat.

“It cannot be this easy,” Nova breathes, shaking her head. That distress call—still from the Chimaera’s mothership, still blinking her callsign—is coming from a shuttle craft a few klicks down on the planet’s surface. “It cannot—”

“It’s not,” Bo-Katan says, her hair still in disarray, her face pale, discolored. “We’re walking into a trap.”

“Bo-Katan,” Nova whispers, uneven and erratic, “what choice do we have?”

Primea is a ghost town. It’s quiet. So quiet. Everything is salty and dusted in white—like snow without the chill. It’s so eerie here. The four of them walk in formation—Nova and Din in front, Wedge and Bo-Katan in tow. Four sets of boots crunch across the crystalline ground, eyes scanning the skies, the craters, waiting for the army to materialize, waiting to be swallowed up by whoever took Ezra.

“This is wrong,” Bo-Katan mutters, under her breath. “This is wrong.”

“Bo-Katan,” Din hisses, both of their voices modulated under their helmets, “keep it together.”

She doesn’t so much as shoot him a furious look. They’ve all seen–or felt—it enough times to know what it looks like under her helmet. Nova feels unsettled. She’s right. They’re walking a fault line, and no one can tell exactly where the crack is.

Nova skitters to a stop. “There.” She whispers it, but it sounds like a yell. Nature should not be this quiet. A tiny escape pod, grey like the Star Destroyer it was borne from, is splayed out across a crater, an overhang disguising where the color meets the sky.

Her heart is in her throat. She feels like she’s going to throw up.

“We should have an attack plan—” Wedge starts, but they’re already running. Novalise first, then Bo-Katan, then Din behind them, in quick succession. The four of them cross the open terrain, Nova’s hand on the Darksaber in her belt. With one glance at Din, Nova throws the saber to him, igniting her own—yellow, warmth seeping out sunlight onto this greyscale planet. Bo-Katan arms her wrist rockets, fists out to meet the air. Wedge’s blaster has been unholstered since the second his feet touched down on the ground.

Smoke is billowing out of the ship. Nova didn’t see it before, camouflage against the backdrop of the sky—but it’s impossible to miss now. Fear lurches into her stomach. When they reach the hatch, she leans forward, opening the pressurized door.

“Ezra?” Nova whispers, her voice shaky and childlike in the dark hull of the escape pod.

Frantically, they look around the ship, inside, outside, searching every tiny cranny, every impossible nook. It’s clear immediately, but they keep looking. Ezra isn’t here.

“Where is he,” Bo-Katan manages, panic ripping up an octave in her voice.

Wedge’s eyes bulge.

“What?” Din murmurs, looking over at him.

Blaring, on the dashboard, are two things.

The timelog reads the date—five and a half days after they left Mandalore. The four of them have been out of space and time for the better half of a week.

And the hologram button is blinking.

“What the fuck,” Bo-Katan states, angry and flat.

Shaking, Nova presses the hologram. His face—the shape of this phantom Jedi that’s visited her, warned her—blares up, azure and tiny. Din’s hand is at her waist, keeping her weak knees steady. Nova leans back into his gravity, hands trembling, heart terrified despite his anchor.

“If you’re watching this,” Ezra says, his voice tinny and distorted, “that means I’m too late.” He looks over his shoulder, panicked. The hologram glitches, flickers, and then it’s just his face—so like her own, Nova feels like a knife in her gut, almost like she’s looking into a mirror—and Ezra lurches closer. “And you guys need to run.”

WE'RE BACK BABY!!!! i hope you all loved it!! i am SO excited to bring this next and final installment in the Something More Series to life. thank you for being here, for staying through all my absence, and for reading—regardless if this is your first journey with Nova & Din or if you've been here since day one, you mean the world to me. <3

CHAPTER TWO WILL BE UP IN TWO WEEKS, SATURDAY, MARCH 25TH, 2023! (hoping posting every two weeks is an easier schedule to stick with this time).

LOVE YOU!

xoxo, amelie

48 notes · View notes

amiedala · 1 year

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 2: Fault Line

WARNINGS: explicit sexual content, power play, canon-compliant violence

SUMMARY: "When I say devour, cyar’ika,” he says, pressing down until the stars multiply, “I mean destruction. Can you handle that?”

“Yes,” Nova squeaks, breathless, air taken right out of her lungs.

“I don’t think you can.”

She feels dizzy. This is exactly what she wanted, this devastation. This devastation that loves her. This devastation that’s carved out a place of its soul for her, this devastation that she knows by name.

“I can take it,” Nova whispers, whines, into the shattering green dark of this place around them. “I can take anything.”

Din smiles down on her, bright enough to shatter the stars above. “That’s my girl.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! a little late, but she's got the spirit ;) hope you love it!

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

The fault line glimmers and cracks, swallowing pieces of them all. Nova can feel it—a seismic, vantablack change, desperate and leaching. She grabs hold of Din’s arm, stumbles toward Bo-Katan, just trying to reunite all of them, to hold onto pieces before they fracture.

Ezra Bridger’s frantic message is playing and replaying in front of them, azure, desperate.

“What,” Bo-Katan states, just as plainly as before, “the fuck.”

“I don’t know,” Nova murmurs, but the hair on the back of her neck is standing up, full tilt. “Play it again.”

“It’s playing on a loop,” Bo-Katan hisses, low but not angry. Nova ignores her.

“If you're watching this,” Ezra repeats, for what may be the tenth time, “that means I’m too late.” He pauses, hair swinging in his face before he looks over his shoulder, “and you guys need to run.”

Nova swallows. That frantic, frenetic expression on his blue face—she’s worn it. She’s seen it in her head. She’s seen it in the mirror.

Something moves at the corner of the hologram. Nova watches it blur and obscure, then disappear entirely. A blaster shot, maybe? The sharp gunsmoke of light flits by, fleeting, going, gone.

Primea is so quiet. The silence is so loud, pressing into their eardrums like an oil slick. There’s no frequency here—like the planet has been glassed and reduced to nothing, yet is still masquerading like there’s life. Nova shivers, even though she’s not particularly cold.

“‘Too late’,” Din mutters, and it’s the first thing he’s said since they found the hologram. Three sets of eyes find him, silver and reflective, helmet cocked to the side. “What’s too late? To save Ezra’s life?”

Panic jolts across Nova’s heart, bisecting it, dropping it into her belly. “No,” she says, but it wavers, coming out more like a question. “No,” she repeats, stronger this time, “I would have felt it if he were gone.”

“Was there more with the ship?” Wedge murmurs, hand on his chin, thumb brushing over his bottom lip. It’s a repeated action, one that reminds Nova so much of her father that she has to look away. “Was it just Ezra who… escaped? Or does that mean that the Chimaera and her forces are still out there?”

“They’re out there.” Bo-Katan’s still staring at the hologram. “But there are no forces. Just them.”

At this, everyone’s expression shifts. Wedge looks surprised. Nova’s eyes narrow. And Din’s head snaps over to her.

“I thought you said you didn’t know who—”

“I lied,” Bo-Katan says, and the word cracks in half. “I—”

But the earth beneath them shifts, and all of them move. Forward, together—tossed against each other like a moorless ship, heaving over the waves. Nova yells as she’s pitched into Din, as the smoking escape pod’s floor cracks beneath them. It’s such a physical manifestation of how she's feeling that at first, Nova doesn’t quantify it as true, as reality. A giant, gaping maw opens up through the steel floor. Nova screams, grabbing an arm, a leg, wrenching her people back, away from the mouth coming out of the silt and salt, suddenly immobilized with fear.

“Grab the hologram!” Wedge roars, kicking off the sideways wall to reach it, a blinking thing—almost like a bounty puck, Nova muses, like her mind can’t focus on the danger at hand.

Together, with Herculean effort, the four of them sift through the cracking ship, avoiding teeth as massive as their forearms, running for the opening that once used to be a door. The escape pod is tiny, and they fall out of the wreckage—one, two, three, four, in quick succession—and shoot towards the hills where they came from. Wedge is still holding that beacon in his hand, blinking softly, a satellite unaffected by the seismic change.

Something is wrong. Nova can feel it in the air, a chittering, screeching pulse coming from the creature behind them—underneath them. Is it entirely from the creature? She can’t tell. The white, salt-cracked ground is fracturing still, and Nova stares down at it shuddering underneath her, completely unmoored.

“Faster!” Bo-Katan roars through the modulator, and they all try, feeling the earth shake beneath them. Nova isn’t a fast enough runner—her legs are too short, her hips are too full—and the rest of them outstride her. Bo-Katan is built, but lithe; Wedge is still tactically trained from the days the Rebellion was active, and Din—well, Din is an optical illusion, a bullet made of beskar. Hulking, tall, yes, but nimble, still built for running like it’s aerosolized in his blood.

Suddenly, something wraps around her waist, and Nova shrieks, a loud, guttural yell that splits the air in front of them.

“It’s me,” Din yells—no, he’s not yelling, they’re just soaring through the air and his voice is cutting through the sound of the wind, propelled up by jet fuel strapped to his back, “it’s me, sweet girl—”

Nova sobs, fractures, feeling completely unhinged, unglued. She sinks into Din’s steel grip, an iron trap, burying her face in the beskar. They’re flying horizontally, alongside where Bo-Katan has plucked Wedge off his feet, trying to gain velocity and move vertically, but her small jetpack isn’t strong enough for two people.

The monster behind them is sneering, huffing—a scaly, terrible thing, made entirely of shards of ice and salt, a predator designed to blend in with its wasteland. Nova can feel the way the ground is still shaking, even though they’re off of it.

“Maker,” she says, the word ripped straight out of her mouth, and then panic seizes her again. “Grogu—” she cries, and she pounds against Din’s pauldron. He’s so tiny, so impossibly small—he wouldn’t even register as food to this hulking creature, he wouldn’t even be a snack—

And then they’re rounding on the ship, Bo-Katan and Wedge lagging slightly behind, and Nova screams out, looking down at the creature again—

“Let everything run out of you backwards.”

They’re Luke’s words, but in Ezra’s voice, and it’s like the two of them materialize and possess her. The answer is so simple. Nova can’t believe she didn’t think of it back there. She does, closing her eyes, tuning out the rattling of her skull, the fear in her bones. Slowly, carefully, she reaches out a hand from over Din’s shoulder, pointing it at the monster still shaking the ground, and pushes it forward until the earth stops threatening to fall apart.

She’s not strong enough—not alone, not by a long shot—but it slows the creature down, letting the four of them close the distance between them and the ship, enough for Bo-Katan to storm the cockpit and lift them up out of there, enough so that Nova can pry Grogu from his crib and press the scent of his skin to her nose, enfold him in her arms—

They get out, but just barely.

It’s a blur. Nova’s heart doesn’t peter back down to a normal range until they’re out of the atmosphere and off of Primea’s surface entirely, and even then, panic still lives inside of her, gilding that fault line, licking at the cracks.

None of them speak for an abnormally long time. Fighting off a monster—a true monster, one made of salt and bone and teeth, not one who walks the galaxy on two legs—was somehow entirely unexpected. Nova’s still cold, clutching Grogu to her chest. Bo-Katan and Wedge are silent in the cockpit. Din’s quiet is otherworldly, pressing—but he doesn’t dare breach that silence, the one that all of them are suddenly slaves to, the hologram of Ezra’s panic still blinking on the dashboard.

For what feels like seconds—or days, time isn’t solid out here—no one speaks. No one speaks at all. Then, finally, Wedge breaches the barrier between the cockpit and the back, outfitted in orange, lines in his face pronounced. “We have to stop for fuel,” he says, gently.

“Where?” Nova asks, and it comes out pleading. They’re so out of their depth out here. Ezra is nowhere to be found. It’s the five of them against impending doom, and right now, Nova feels like the impending doom is winning. Grogu coos against the swell of her chest, and she smooths a hand over his ears like her mother used to over her hair.

“Soon.” It isn’t the answer to the question she asked—it was the one to the hidden, obscured question, the one hiding from the light. They’re running out of fuel. They’re running out of time. And the Unknown Regions are a wilderness pit, someplace destitute and unlawful, and there’s no information on where fuel even is, or if this hole of blank space is devoid of anything except crushing, complete darkness.

Nova reads in between the lines. They’re really low.

She cracks her sore neck to the side to relieve some of the pressure, trying to regain control like she’s in the pilot’s seat on Kicker. She rolls her shoulders back, considering. “I don’t know where to go,” she says, finally, coming up with nothing. “Ahch-To is out here, somewhere, but it’s just… mountains and ocean. What little fuel Luke has, he needs for his own X-Wing.”

Nova doesn’t miss how Wedge stiffens, blinks, readjusts at Luke’s name. “We need fuel, Nova,” he says, lowly, “soon.”

Swallowing, Nova regards him in the half-light. That prick on the back of her neck is back, like eyes she can’t see are watching her. “I don’t know where to go.”

Din’s voice, sighing like honey through the modulator, stops them both in their redundant conversation. “I do.” He exhales, low and despondent. “But none of you will like it.”

They land on a planet called Parnassos. Nova can feel the anxiety, taut against Din’s hulking frame. It’s curled inside his belly in the same way it’s curled inside of hers. The atmosphere is toxic, not enough to kill you, but enough to hurt. Din and Bo-Katan have pressurized air in their helmets. Nova and Wedge aren’t as lucky.

“You should stay here,” Din expresses as Bo-Katan drives her ship down to the planet’s smoggy, smoky surface.

“Absolutely not,” Nova hisses.

Din’s helmet is still on, but if it wasn’t, Nova knows that he’d be shooting her an exasperated expression. “Novalise—”

“We need someone to get fuel,” she whispers. “And we need to get food, too. That means two groups of people. And I don’t think any of su should go off alone.”

“I’ll stay,” Wedge volunteers, nudging his way into the conversation. “I’ll stay here with Grogu. That way, if all of you need a fast exit… I’ll be here.”

Nova eyes him. There’s a stiffness to Wedge that she hasn’t ever seen before, a rigidity that’s seeped in like poison. Primea was so unsettling—a ghost town with something scarier lurking under the surface—and it’s affected all of them in different ways. This is Wedge the war general, not Wedge her friend. “Okay,” she agrees, softly, wrapping her shawl around Grogu’s sleeping body, swathing him in orange. Reluctantly, she hands him off to Wedge, cooing in his sleep.

Bo-Katan emerges in the doorway after she’s landed the ship on Parnassos’ rocky, unyielding surface. “Ready?”

Nova’s breath hitches. If the atmosphere is toxic—they can’t be out there for long. She can’t be out there for long. Not without armor, not without a failsafe—

Bo-Katan tosses a blur of orange and grey through the air. Nova catches it—her helmet. Her Mandalorian helmet, the one she initially said she couldn’t don, the one that made her feel like an imposter instead of a leader. She stares down at it for a second, considering, and then slides it over her head, the airlock hissing her into safety. Din grabs something off the dashboard, blinking. Ezra’s hologram.

“Wedge, if anything happens—”

“It won’t,” he says, firmly. “Just get out there, get fuel, get food, get back. Four easy steps.”

“What if we run into something?” Nova asks, her own voice distorted through the modulator. Chills erupt across her arms, down her spine.

“We won’t,” Din says, sighing, “You’ll see.”

Parnassos’s surface is war-torn, haunted. It’s the first thing Nova feels—not sees, feels. Visceral and raw, like no one is supposed to be here.

She shivers, stepping carefully over the terrain, rocks and glass crunching underneath their feet. For what feels like hours, the three of them walk in tandem silence, a multi-headed animal, a desperate triumvirate. Bo-Katan is precise in her movements. Din is walking like he’s hunting something. Nova hangs back, eyes tracking their heat signatures, their movements, trying to forget the feeling like she’s the dividing line come to life, the physical representation of where Din and Bo-Katan stand.

For miles, they walk, traversing difficult terrain. Large geyser pits spit clouded, toxic steam.The planet is red, but muted, like whatever anger used to be held in the atmosphere left a long time ago. Din steps on ahead, a man on a mission, knowing where he’s headed. Bo-Katan stumbles and Nova catches her arm, latching onto her the second she falters.

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not.”

Bo-Katan stops to study Nova, cocking her head to the right.

“What the hell did you mean back there?”

Bo-Katan clears her throat through the modulator, moving on. Nova walks in lockstep, heart hammering wildly. “I know that the Chimaera wasn’t fully armed. It was just Ezra and who he disappeared with.”

Nova blinks, brow furrowing. “How do you know that?”

Bo-Katan doesn’t speak for a long time. “Nova, I wasn’t intentionally keeping it from you.”

Running her tongue over her teeth, Nova tries to read between the lines. “Why didn’t you say something sooner, then?”

“I did.” Bo-Katan stops. Nova can feel her stare. “I told you Ezra disappeared in the ship with someone who sounds terrifying.”

“Who?” Nova asks, pressing down, trying to hit Bo-Katan’s pressure point, to get past the guarded exterior, to pry it free. “I don’t understand—you told us so much back on Mandalore, Bo-Katan. If you know who he disappeared with—”

“I didn’t know him myself,” Bo-Katan interrupts, “I just…heard stories.”

“What stories?” Din is so far ahead of them at this point, Nova fears losing him to the smog. “Please, Bo-Katan, I understand he’s…scary, but we have no hope of beating him if we don’t work together.”

“He’s not human. Near-human, maybe, but something completely…different. He doesn’t have a conscience, but he’s not unhinged. He’s brilliant. Ruthless. Taking apart the Rebellion one piece at a time.”

Nova steps carefully around a geyser, considering. “How do I not know who this man is?”

Bo-Katan steps up over a boulder. Din’s armor glints in the reddish haze in front of them. “He ran in different circles than you did. Orbited your Rebellion, but never touched it.”

“Why?”

“He disappeared with Ezra into deep space before any of the big battles happened.”

Nova stops.

“Keep moving,” Bo-Katan says, harshly, “we can’t linger.”

Nova’s legs are so tired. Her mind is exhausted. She wants to rub her eyes, but she can’t reach under her helmet, can’t breathe in the tainted air. She can feel a threat hanging against the horizon, and it’s not just the haunted setting of the planet. She feels watched, like whatever they’re doing is ten steps behind, like someone’s eyes are assessing their every move.

“Everything he’s done, though,” Bo-Katan continues, once they’re through a rock outcropping, “it lived in the Empire. And I can still feel it.”

Nova blinks. “Wait, what do you mean?”

Bo-Katan stops, just for a second, and Nova can sense the uneasy expression on her face. “I think whatever the First Order is, whatever they’re trying to do, it’s out here. In the Unknown Regions.”

“Bo-Katan—”

“Everywhere we’ve been has been wrong,” Bo-Katan says, finally, gaining speed. Nova can’t keep up, physically or mentally, “and I think there’s something bigger at play here.”

“Like what?”

Bo-Katan considers. “Like we’re walking into a trap.”

A terrible, awful beat of thrumming silence. “Whose trap?” Nova asks, her voice small, scared.

“That’s the problem,” Bo-Katan sighs, “I don’t know.”

They’ve only been out here for an hour, but it feels like days. Nova’s sweating, chilled to the bone by the unsettling planet they’re walking, the threat literally hanging in the air. But she doesn’t dare unzip her jacket, doesn’t try to let any of the poison in. She keeps moving, trudging after her two experienced Mandalorians, thinking about anything other than that feeling of being watched, of playing right into someone’s trap.

Get out there.

Get fuel.

Get food.

Get back.

Four easy steps. Nova repeats it silently, like a mantra, like a salvation. When Din and Bo-Katan finally stop, it takes her a beat to catch up. They’re talking low and hushed. When she approaches them, Bo-Katan raises her helmeted chin. “We’re splitting up,” she declares.

“No,” Nova answers, immediately. “Not a good idea.”

“You and Din go get food,” Bo-Katan says, ignoring her entirely, “I’ll get fuel.”

“Bo-Katan,” Nova says, low and desperate, “there’s no edible food here.”

“There’s a town center,” Din says, “and inside, there’s a greenhouse. Right at the center.”

Nova looks at him. “How do you know?”

Din shifts uncomfortably. “I… I’ll tell you on the way.” He looks back at Bo-Katan. “Fuel is at the outpost, down the main road, to the left. Be quick. If you run into anyone—”

“Shoot first,” Bo-Katan says, nodding. “Ask questions later.”

They have an unspoken agreement, one Nova isn’t privy to. She watches as Bo-Katan disappears into the smog, the straight ramrod of her back dematerializing until she’s completely gone. Swallowing, Nova turns back to Din. “I don’t like this,” she says, trying to sound derisive, clear, but her voice shakes.

He brings a gloved palm up to cup her helmeted cheek. “I knew you wouldn’t.” He sighs. “I don’t either, but the rest of the planets out here are either wastelands or… worse.” He turns on his heel, making his way to the center of the decaying, toxic city. Nova follows him, outlining the shape of the man she loves under the armor, trying to uncover what lurks in his silence, what’s buried underneath.

“Din,” she chances, after a handful of minutes descending deep into the ruins of the city, “how do you know this place?”

He sighs again, long and languid. Nova waits, patiently.

“I used to live here,” he says, finally, sourly.

Nova stops in her tracks. “What?”

“It was for a short time,” Din continues, scaling a small boulder. His boots crunch as he lands, lifting up an arm to help Nova climb over the obstacle, visor trained ahead instead of on her. “Back… back when I was with—”

“Xi’an,” Nova supplies, softly. Din flinches. She doesn’t miss it. “You… lived out here? In this wasteland?”

“It was only for a few weeks,” Din says, turning left, right, in quick succession. The buildings around them are crumbled, in ruin. Nova doesn’t know if it was from the atomic devastation or if it was simply from disuse. “I never took my armor off. Her skin—her brother’s, too—they aren’t affected like humans are. It didn’t bother them, living in a radioactive zone.” He huffs a laugh, mirthless, so unlike him. “Guess that’s because they were radioactive, too.”

Nova looks up at him. “Din,” she starts, completely out of her depth, “how long?”

He cocks his head to the side, refusing to look at her. “What do you mean?” Together, they twine deeper into the city center, the buildings less and less destroyed. Nova can glimpse glass in the distance—the greenhouse, she assumes, but she doesn’t mention it aloud.

“How long were you trapped here?” she asks, softly, and with that, he turns, abrupt, enclosing Nova against a crumbling brick wall.

“I wasn’t trapped,” Din spits, and it’s totally unlike him, a crack straight down the middle, that Nova’s breath catches in the hollow of her throat, body slamming into the brick. “I liked it, Nova. I was a machine back then. I wasn’t—I wasn’t who I am now. I loved the hunt. I was as ruthless as they were. I liked it.” He steps forward, body flush against hers, and Nova swallows, her mouth running bone-dry under the helmet. “I am not good, Novalise.”

Tears spring to Nova’s eyes, warring with the dark plunge of excitement that hungers low in her belly, desperate, unhinged, voracious. “You are now,” she manages, “and whatever you’ve done doesn’t scare me—”

“I did what I needed to survive,” Din snarls, “and I liked it.”

“Din—”

“Your lover was a killer,” Din croons, and Nova stares up at him, that vantablack, desperate feeling unhinging once more, threatening to consume her like it did in her dream. “Does that scare you, cyar’ika?”

Nova lifts her chin up to meet his, throwing her shoulders back, stepping forward. “You could never scare me.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” Din says, and Nova can hear the wicked smile in his voice, “you just like to be scared.”

Want is a desperate, knifing thing. Nova reaches up, wanting to pull Din closer, needing to have his body against hers, even in this torrential wasteland, even in this place of radioactive air—

“Novalise,” Din says, but he’s not pressed up against her, he’s not crooning, he’s not haunted. Nova blinks once, twice, then—the smoke clears, and he’s a few feet away, head cocked concernedly, arm stretched out to pull her forward. They’re at the greenhouse, glass gloomy and reflective against the clouded red sky.

“What—?” Nova looks back, back at the place Din had just had her anchored against the wall, but they aren’t there. Nothing that just happened was real—or if it was, it was minutes ago, not right before—the flash cut scares her, sends adrenaline rocketing through her veins. She shakes her head, trying to clear it, looking back up at the man she loves, warm concern written all over his hidden face.

“Are you seeing things?” Din asks, low and worried, and Nova’s cheeks flare with heat. “It happens, it’s the air, you need to keep your helmet on—”

“No,” Nova says, trying to sound convincing, pointing up at the greenhouse. “Can we get in?”

Din nods, leading her around the back of the building. Nova looks over her shoulder, half-expecting evil to materialize, for something horrible to show its face to her, glinting in the awful amber haze. Nothing does.

They’re alone out here, alone with each other and all their ghosts, alone with the fear of something happening. Against a razor’s edge, both hidden and glinting. Alone with want, with hunger, with fear.

Nova doesn’t know what scares her more.

The greenhouse is exactly what it’s advertised as—green, lush, sprawling. A tiny sanctuary in the middle of a war torn city, a ghost town, a wasteland.

It’s beautiful, the greenness of it, the life growing here. Tiny white flowers dance across the ground, even without a breeze. Nova marvels at that, at the little life still growing here, after all the devastation.

“Look for things we can eat,” Din says, the toe of his boot softly nudging her calf. “Divide and conquer?”

Nova nods. “How much should we take?”

Din looks around, visor trained on the reddish haze of the outside world against the frosted windows. “Everything we can.”

Nova swallows, looking at the expanse of greenery spread across the floor in front of them. Large vines crawl up a staircase, spiraling up to another level. Those tiny, white flowers, signets of peace, lean back and forth in the windless greenhouse, driven by something other than the breeze. Tall grasses grow every few feet, guarding the pockets of edible greenery, of carrots and radishes and things that grow in the rich, deep soil, undisturbed by the horror here.

“Shouldn’t we leave something?” Nova asks, “for anyone else who travels here?”

Din regards her for a second. “No one else will travel here,” he says, finally, his voice quiet, “and if they do, they’re someone who deserves to starve.” He turns away to gather his own food, letting that red line tethered between the two of them go slack. Nova swallows.

Her dream was right, she concludes, as she starts to gather—peppers, mushrooms, lettuce—Din is haunted, possessed by something she can’t put her finger on, cannot name. She slips her gloves off to root through the soil untouched, and the glint of her ring catches in the low light. For a second, Nova stares down at it. It’s a testament of love, but it’s more than that—the band made of beskar, the embedded crystal glowing like a Kyber, white and glassy, otherworldly. The engagement belonged to a Nova in another universe, where the only evil she knew was Gideon, where the only love she knew was as Novalise.

Softly, she swallows a sob, tucks it away for later. It used to be so simple—she fell in love with a Mandalorian who was a bounty hunter, between missions and quarries, out in the crush of space. This life they live now—all this, and heaven too—is desperate, wanting, belonging to forces beyond tangible reach. Before all of this, they were just a Rebel and a Mandalorian—and now the Rebel is the Jedi ruler of Mandalore and the Mandalorian is worshiping the Jedi Rebel. Things have changed—in cosmic, drastic ways—and they’re hunting for something more, something deeper, something holy—something Nova doesn’t even know exists.

She would like it too, though. Stars, she wants it to.

Tucking her ring with the stone down, she gathers food, stuffing it into the small pack Bo-Katan gave her before they disembarked the ship. She layers the smaller vegetables within the leaves of lettuce and cabbage, unfurling them enough to tuck them in safely. Din has disappeared over the other side of the greenhouse, form rustling in the tall grass. Her section is picked clean, and Nova turns to head up the spiral staircase, metal preserved in this tiny safe haven, but creaking with disuse.

Din doesn’t turn as she rises, but Nova can see him, on his knees, sifting through soil for more food. Love springs to life in her heart as she watches him, the hunter—gathering, bending to the earth below them. She forces herself to keep moving, keep rising, keep going upward—want seizes in her belly again, and she would rather ignore it than find out it was never real at all.

The second floor is darker, even though it’s closer to where the sun would be, if the sun could shine on Parnassos at all. Large panels cover the roof, but they’re not to let the light in. They refract in the darkness, like a funhouse of mirrors, something Nova’s read about but has never actually seen. She makes her way through the thick vines and trees above them, navigating the haphazard maze of boxed-in gardens, flowers and thorns overflowing and running into each other. Freesia, marigolds, tulips, carnations, rhododendrons—thousands of flower species from planets all over the galaxy tumbling together, hidden from the sunlight but shining just the same.

Nova’s breath catches in her throat as handfuls of Yavin violets, impossibly purple, spring up from between the vibrant oranges and deep blues, blooming just for her. She leans down to smell them, forgetting that she’s wearing her helmet, forgetting why she’s wearing her helmet—

Nova disengages the airlock, completely focused on the flowers calling her home. She doesn’t think about the toxic air, the radioactive wasteland outside, if the greenhouse is safe enough to breathe in. She touches the tips of her bare fingers to the skin of the flower, the petal recognizing her by name, that ultraviolet light pulsing through the stem, so utterly alive against all this wreckage.

It calls out to her. It knows her by name.

Nova falls sideways into a vision. It’s slippage, so seamless that she doesn’t realize it at first—but then that unsettling feeling materializes, slips back in, making itself a home underneath her skin.

Insidious, Nova recognizes, that’s the word. Creeping into her bones, her marrow, until she herself is tainted.

A doorway. In the vision, there’s always a doorway. It’s so familiar, something ancient, something brand-new. It knows her all the same. Everything in the greenhouse fades away, shearing into something dark and deep-blue. Laughter echoes in the background, not like a whisper—like she’s too far away to hear it up close. Nova shivers, turning, trying to get back to that open doorway, trying to step back towards reality.

But she doesn't want to relinquish her grip on this otherness, not yet. She wants to scry into it, wants to find its absolution.

Nova spins, feeling herself drip through space. Suddenly, everything is black and white. She’s on a dais, but it's not the one back on Jedha, and it’s not the one from the woods in Naator. It’s a reflecting pool, in disguise as a mirror. She looks at herself, expecting to see Andromeda, Novalise, something she’s been before.

She doesn’t.

The woman staring back to her is Nova with all of her Nova-ness missing. Her eyes are haunted, black, obsidian. The color has seeped out of her face, everything in grayscale. She flickers the fingers on her left hand—in possession or in recognition, Nova’s not sure. She feels her own hand come up to meet her vision, her alter-ego, to touch the looking glass and reconcile the differences.

Her shadow-self pulls Nova straight through the mirror.

“Hello, me,” she croons, hand traveling up to Nova’s face, skating across the expanse of her cheeks, tucking dark ringlets behind the shell of her ear. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I am not you,” Nova manages. She feels like she’s moving through amber, or honey—suspended in place, unable to run. She has been planted into this black, rotting earth. “I will never be you.”

Her shadow-self curls those wicked lips up into a smile. It’s devoid of emotion, shattering, a destroyed star, a thousand knives pointed in her mouth, glittering like teeth. “Don’t be so sure,” she whispers, like a hex. She shoves that same left palm into the center of Nova’s chest, sending her spiraling back through the doorway, unspooling the haunting as she goes.

Nova thuds on the ground, hearing laughter echo and dance in the back of her skull. Like, now, it’s coming from inside her head. When she looks up, she’s in the tall grasses of Yavin, back home. Her parents are smiling down at her—Piper’s long, black hair catching in the sunlight, Arokel’s freckled face tipped back to laugh.

“We caught you, Andromeda,” they’re saying, teasing, gilded, laughing. “We caught you!”

It morphs, and her mother’s teeth snap into Sparmau’s, clicking so close to Nova’s face. She cries, skittering backward on her hands, needing to get away, to escape—Sparmau’s palm comes up and clutches her ankle, yanking Nova back to her. “I caught you, Andromeda.”

“You’re dead,” Nova manages, kicking her heel into Sparmau’s stomach, hard, sending her ghost sliding back to the ground, barren and dark under a thousand shining stars, winking in her favor. “You’re dead, and you can’t haunt me anymore.”

Sparmau grins. “I don’t need to. You’re doing an excellent job of it yourself.” Her teeth are so white, so poisonous. She snaps them at Nova again, once, twice. “And he’s coming for you, Novalise. He will destroy everything you love and then some.”

Nova blinks. “Who?”

“He’s baaaaack,” Sparmau goads. “And he will tear you apart.”

Nova rushes forward, anger surging in her chest like a live wire. “Who?” She spits again, clawing at Sparmau’s exposed skin with her nails, wanting to scissor her into ribbons, wanting to draw blood. Sparmau slips away like she’s just a ghost, disappearing like vapor in Nova’s hands.

“You already know,” Sparmau says, her disembodied voice floating higher, higher. “You’re already losing.”

“I have not lost!” Nova yells, but her voice sounds unhinged, dark. When the vision changes, she’s here. On Parnassos. Confused, she blinks, wiping her sleep-crusted eyes, trying to make the stars fade back into reality. Cautiously, she steps forward. There’s a giant ship in front of her—a Star Destroyer, but decidedly not the Chimaera. She doesn’t know how she knows it, but she does. Nova peers in, stepping through the metal doorway, as quiet as a whisper.

It looks broken, worn-down. This entire planet feels haunted, she realizes, and this ship even more so. It’s reduced to an exoskeleton, but Nova can sense the evil gathering here in the dark, a schematic of what will be, rather than what once was.

She steps forward, once, twice, and the scene shifts. It’s nothingness, just the crush of the Unknown Region. Nova turns, looking over her shoulder, certain she can feel something lurking, skittering towards her in the dark. Watching her.

This entire place is haunted.

Nova feels haunted, too.

It shifts again. Nova peers into a tank, where a creature is curled inside. Like a fetus, but it isn’t—it looks older, a mesh of purple skin, light and violet, a terrible feeling. The tank bubbles and multiples.

Out of habit, Nova looks over her shoulders, and there’s Grogu—terrified, in chains, staring up at the tank, too, quivering. She moves forward, wanting to shield him, to protect him, to cover him from this unsettling creature—

He presses his tiny, three-fingered hand against her temple. Nova gasps, pitching backward. She sees the outline of a vision, something that looks so uncertain it has to be futuristic, has to be something that’s yet to come, not something that once was. She sees the flash of lightsabers—one that effervescent Skywalker blue, one that’s an awful angry scar of red—and that purple creature on the throne, one that’s a grown, morphed mutated version of the tiny thing in the tank, laughing high and angry.

He peers through the vision, this creature, locking eyes with her. “You,” he whispers, reaching out a clawed hand, seeming to rip Nova across the sidelines, bring her across the room to him. “You have something we want.”

“No,” she manages.

He smiles. “Then we’ll take it from him, instead.” He points that awful hand at Grogu, summoning him—

And Nova shrieks, breaking the scene.

Now, Novalise stares down at her hands, her own hands—she knows them. They have fought off evil. They have belayed threats. They have killed and loved and tortured and saved. They’re imperfect, desperate, horrible, wonderful, a lifeline. She examines her palms, like tracing maps of the stars, finding truth in every ridge, every map.

Nova has fought off the darkness. She can close the fault line.

Desperately, she punches forward, trying to get her hands to ignite, to summon light, to feel the grasp of her lightsaber in her hands, to bring herself back down to earth.

Ezra’s face materializes through the dark. Nova abandons the tether, tripping toward him, arms outstretched.

“Where are you!” She cries, and she sounds tiny, so little, like a petulant, emotional child. “Ezra!”

“I am in every star,” he says, dreamlike, in a trace. His purple eyes are clouded, like the frosted glass of the greenhouse windows. Like he’s possessed. “I will find my way back home.”

“Ezra,” Nova says, panting, trying to hold his wrists between her hands. He keeps slipping away, amorphous, liquid. “I need to find you. Please, we’re trying to find you—”

Lucidity snaps back into his eyes, and Ezra snaps his hands, clawed and determined, to Nova’s shoulders. “Don’t come after me.”

Nova blinks. “Ezra,” she says, as steadily as she can manage, “we already have.”

Panic seized his face. So close to hers, so similar. Close, but not exact. “Then we’ve lost.”

Fear lurches up in Nova’s chest. “What do you mean?”

“I kept him away as long as I could,” Ezra says, “but he’s back, and that means the galaxy is in danger.”

Nova swallows. “The galaxy is always in danger,” she offers, trying to get him to smile, trying to coax them back from this cliff edge, back to reality.

Ezra looks straight through her, onto some other plane of existence. “Not like this.”

Shivering, Nova tries to move forward. Ezra’s iron grip keeps her in place. “Don’t throw it away,” he says, and all the times he’s said the same four words before are like a shock to her system, defibrillating her panicked heart.

“I didn’t,” Nova says, gently, gesturing behind her like that can encapsulate everything that happened with Sparmau.

“This is a different kind of danger,” Ezra says, haunting, like a spell. “This is a different kind of danger.”

Nova feels sick. “Why?”

“Can you feel the evil there?”

She stares at Ezra, so distant, so close. “Yes.”

“Then you’re aware of what’s coming.”

Nova can feel herself trembling. This is not what she was expecting—ever since the ground opened up underneath her to reveal rows and rows of awful, giant teeth, she’s had the feeling she’s been pulled into that open mouth, that gaping maw, that black hole. “I don’t know what’s coming,” she whispers, “do you?”

Ezra looks at her, considering. “It’s all connected,” he says, and then he’s spinning her around. A dematerialized blue face appears in front of her, red eyes, dark eyes. Nova is paralyzed with fear. He smiles at her, with the same kind of powerful, awful rows of teeth that Sparmau had, all aiming to kill.

“Hello, Novalise,” he whispers, his voice rumbling in the dark around them, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Nova screams.

“Not yet,” he croons, “save that until I can hear it for real.”

“You’re not real,” Nova whispers like a mantra, a litany, something to protect her. “None of this is real.”

That smile, devastating, dangerous, shines on. The rest of the stars have striked from the sky. Just Nova and this blackness and the terror in front of her. “It’s not real yet,” he says, his voice like a caress, “but it will be.”

And Nova crashes out of the sky.

When he grabs her, Nova yells.

“It’s me!” Din yells, panicked, desperate, repeating himself over and over again until she’s grounded, until she recognizes the voice in front of her. “It’s me, cyar’ika, it’s just me—”

Sobbing, Nova lurches forward, launching herself into Din’s arms, desperate, wanting, reduced to nothing except herself.

“What happened,” Din murmurs, hands roving over her body to check for damage, for injuries. “I saw you disappear up here and a second later, you started screaming—”

“A second?”

Din stops, staring down at her under the helmet. “Yes.”

“I saw everything,” Nova whispers, her voice shaking, coming out chopped through the modulator, “in pieces.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s all connected,” Nova says, shaking in Din’s arms, shivering with the weight of it all, the horrible place that she’s stuck and moored in, remnants of the vision dueling in her head, desperate, fragmented,. “It’s all connected. Ezra, and who he brought back with him. Sparmau, and the man Ezra’s with. This planet, the Unknown Regions, Gideon, the First Order, all of it—” she stops, a sob threatening to rip her chest open, an awful shard of truth, “Maker, Din, there’s so much we have to fight—”

“We will.”

He’s so resolute. It makes Nova ache.

“What if we don’t?” she whispers, still so unsteady. She feels disconnected from herself, unanchored, like she’s not fully back yet. “What if we just… leave?”

Din goes deathly still. “It’s not in our blood to run from a fight.”

“But—”

He shakes his head. “You can’t abandon everything now. You can’t run when it gets hard.”

Tears prick at Nova’s eyes. “Din, I—”

“I once wanted to protect you from the fight,” he says, voice deep and guttural. “But I couldn’t, because you always throw yourself into it anyway.”

Nova swallows. “I don’t want to fight,” she whispers, “not all of this.”

Din clutches her tighter, desperate, cloying. “That’s not true,” he whispers.

Nova stares up at him, her ungloved hands grabbing at the rim of his helmet, trying to pry it off. “Then bring me back,” she whispers, and the words sound familiar, but she can’t explain exactly why. “Make me see the truth.”

“How?” Din whispers, and Nova pulls his helmet clean off, like she’s haunted, like she’s possessed by something else. Want knives through her like it did back at the alleyway, like it did once in a dream.

“Fill me up, Din Djarin,” she breathes, fogging up the humid greenhouse air around them, “make me whole again.” Concern and desire war in Din’s eyes. Nova knows which one will win. She’s been here before. “Please,” she moans out, hungry, ravenous, nails clawing at the open expanse of his neck, “I need you.”

Three simple, little words, and Din comes unglued.

He moves forward like he’s been possessed. His eyes flutter closed as he pulls a kiss from her open mouth, ready and wanting, desperate and unhinged. Nova sinks into his skin, leaning back into the green, open ground. This is dangerous, the air in the greenhouse obscured from the wasteland outside but still not safe—and that lurch makes Nova want it more, deeper, stronger, her fingers prying off pieces of Din’s armor as he kisses her, hungry, wanting.

“More,” she mewls, in the dark, lush danger of the greenhouse, “more, Din, more—”

“I’m giving you everything,” he hisses, mouth latched onto the pulse point against her neck, making the mirrored glass above them refract and reflect with a thousand versions of Nova’s expression, dressed in ecstasy, eyes rolling back in her head. “Be patient.”

Something stills, for a second, and Nova decides it’s not enough. She reaches underneath his armor, prying more and more off, leaving beskar littered around their entwined bodies, fearless, heart thumping in her chest.

“Do you want me,” she whispers. It’s not insecurity—it’s the opposite. But it comes out breathy and high anyways, desperate.

Din stops to stare down at her. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted,” he says, his voice clipped, almost angry. “I want to devour you.”

“You say that every time,” Nova sighs, bucking her hips up to feel him, to latch around his armored waist. Something about this place is goading her, making her want to hurt, riding that line between pleasure and pain, perfect, determined.

Din’s lightning-fast. He reaches out to grab her neck, balancing it between the fingers of his hand, thumb pressed down to that sweet pulse point, the curve between pressing against her hairway, sending Novalise back up to the stars. “I would tear you apart,” he croons, “is that what you want to hear? That I’ll be on your scent, ready to destroy the world for you. When I say devour, cyar’ika,” he says, pressing down until the stars multiply, “I mean destruction. Can you handle that?”

“Yes,” Nova squeaks, breathless, air taken right out of her lungs.

“I don’t think you can.”

“I can take it,” Nova whispers, whines, into the shattering green dark of this place around them. “I can take anything.”

Din smiles down on her, bright enough to shatter the stars above. “That’s my girl.”

It was all a trick—to bring her her strength. To bring Nova herself back. She grins back up at him, love pumping through her veins, vital, strong.

“What if I want you to destroy me anyways,” she whispers, into the hollow of his neck, licking her tongue along his collarbone. “What happens then?”

Din’s eyes flash as she pulls away, smiling up at him, teasing him, testing him. “Is that what you want?”

“I want you,” Nova whispers, “need you, Din, please—”

“Stop talking,” he growls, and she shuts up.

His lips on her neck feel like devotion, divinity—if this is destruction, it’s desecration. Din moves closer, closer still, pinning Nova’s body underneath his own, pieces of beskar littered around them, the other half still glittering on his body. It’s desperate, it’s reckless, it’s everything Nova needs. He moans out into the dip of her throat as she rakes her bare nails against his back, fingers clenching at the waistband of his pants, begging to pry him free.

It's so different from the wasteland outside, than the wasteland in her dreams. Nova feels that same hunger, that want calling out to her. But what was once vantablack and obsidian is green and honeyed, is her something more. This feels like it’s something else entirely, something saner—but not safer. She can feel her breathing get marred by this wasteland air, by the apocalypse waiting outside.

“Life your hips,” Din pants into the shell of her ear. Nova’s entire body erupts in chills. She obeys. She feels it, now, the same crush that he used to pin her down with, the desperate claw he used to use on her all the way back on the Razor Crest, undone, divine. Nova feels air hit her, flush against her exposed skin, at the apex of her thighs. Din pulls everything down in the same yank, fingers scraping against the humidity of her skin, worshiping her in a way that feels sanctified instead of pious. He doesn’t give her a second of give before he pushes inside of her, all give, all take.

“Oh,” Nova moans, the sound of it ricocheting off the open air around them, off the mirrors on the ceiling reflecting their entangled bodies. “Oh, Maker, Din—”

“Your Maker,” Din grunts, “isn’t here right now. Just me, cyar’ika.”

Nova moans again, high and refracted back at her. She would be embarrassed if he didn’t feel so good. He’s bisecting her, driving into the hilt, using his cock as a weapon. Devastation yes, desecration—something holy between them in all this sin, all this danger.

“Give everything to me,” he whispers, like he’s pleading. He’s no longer demanding. Somewhere, buried deep within her cunt, the roles have shifted. Now it’s Nova in charge, even as she’s being speared open by the man she loves, even as they’re doing something. Give and take, this power, this divinity unspooled between the two of them.

Equality.

That’s what it’s always been, with Nova and Din—push and pull, ebb and flow—but both of them are equal in measure, in power, in lust, in love.

“More,” Nova cries out again, and Din obeys.

“Nova,” he sighs, fisting her hair, yanking her head back. When it opens again, Nova feels her eyes roll back. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Yours,” she whispers, as he repeats it like a hymn, a prayer. Something beyond what she’s ever heard before. Something holy, a confessional of the flesh.

“Gonna cum,” he whispers, and it’s ragged and split down the middle, and her legs shake as she becomes undone, too. “Gonna–”

And then they’re both painted and panting, woven together, inextricable. Nova feels everything in her skin flush, come back to life.

“What do you want?” Din whispers, “Now that you’ve already had me.”

Nova runs her fingers over the slope of his nose, the high points of his cheekbones. “To win.”

Din smiles back at her, the rest of the room fading out. “I know.”

“We’re going to find Ezra,” Nova says, tracing a finger over his eyebrow, “we’re going to figure out who he’s fighting, and we’re going to win.”

“There you are,” Din says. “Don’t you dare lose that again.”

Nova looks over at him, raising her eyebrows before they both put their helmets back on in tandem, ready to face the world outside, the apocalyptic wasteland on their way back to the ship, and the expanse doesn’t seem so terrible. That fault line shifts, cracks, but it right now, it feels surmountable.

“Lose what?”

Din reaches forward to brush his hand across her heart. “Hope.”

He clips Ezra’s holopad to his belt, reaching out for Nova’s hand, ready to descend out of the greenhouse, to meet Bo-Katan, and return back to the ship.

Neither of them notice the new message light blinking blue.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!!!! i'm so happy to be posting regularly again :') lemme know how you like it <3

Chapter 3 will be up at 7:30 pm EST on Saturday, April 8th!!! <3

xoxo, amelie

19 notes · View notes

amiedala · 9 months

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 4: Wreckage

WARNINGS: canon-compliant violence, mentions of PTSD, ANGST!

SUMMARY: Nova blinks. “What are you saying?” Her voice cracks down the syllable.

“That neither of us are safe,” Din whispers. “That I cannot protect you. And that you are still a martyr, just waiting for her chance.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! i am once again asking you to forgive me for going dark for 3 months. this chapter is told in vignettes and it is deeply personal to me. i hope you love it <3

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

The feeling of falling is impossible to get used to.

Fighting—that’s what Din Djarin knows. But this unfettered, unhinged fall? It terrifies him. The lurch in his stomach is the same one when he first fell for Nova, back in the stars, lurching toward an unknown destination, leaving his heart boundless and open in the wreckage. But that falling felt like hope.

This falling feels like fear.

The ship crashes through dead space. Bo-Katan’s sleepless face is deathly white. Grogu is—thankfully—still asleep in his cradle, nestled into a crook of the ship in the corner. Wedge is clinging to the wall. Nova is looking over at him, terrified, afraid to tear her eyes away.

Din rushes forward, lunging at her. “Hold on to me, baby,” he whispers, cradling her head in the cage of his gloved hand as he spurs them rattling toward the wall, the floor, somewhere relatively safe in the grand scheme of this uncontrolled falling. Logically, he knows there’s failsafes—mechanisms that keep this particular starfighter from exploding on impact. Bo-Katan ordered it specifically—it’s why her ship’s shell is forged in part by beskar, melting old helmets and pauldrons and chest plates down for repurpose, to protect new Mandalorian warriors.

He didn’t like it at the time. Thought it was a waste. He sure as hell likes it now. Nova’s eyes are wide, open, terrified.

She mouths something. He can’t make it out. It’s desperate, her face frazzled, that rift between her eyebrows knitted tight. The ship chitters and grinds, screeching out into the crush of space around them, as they fall, fall, fall.

When the impact comes, Din does something he hasn’t since he was a child.

He prays.

Nova wakes up with dust around her. It feels like a tomb. Immediately, she splutters and kicks, away from the armored weight on her legs. Her ears are ringing, loud and unsettling. She can’t hear anything but the pulse of her own blood through her veins, and that tinny echolocation that comes with crashing. Her mouth is so dry. She blinks, taking stock of her body. Her right side feels bruised, like she has a rib or two broken. Her left wrist is wrenched at a painful angle, trapped beneath some wreckage. Nova takes a deep breath before she yanks it free, feeling her bones crunch together, settling back into place.

Stifling a small cry, Nova sits up, disoriented and damaged. She licks her tongue around in her mouth. It’s as much of a desert as Tatooine is. For some reason, that fact makes her tear up. Around her are giant, hulking pieces of beskar, scattered across terrestrial, midnight blue, terrain. Nova inhales a stuttered, hollow breath, wincing as her ribs cry out.

“I’m up,” she whispers sourly to the ringing in her ears, willing it to quiet. It’s a stupid notion, but she does it anyway, blowing air out of her pursed lips to move her messy hair out of her eyes. It’s dark. Nighttime. There’s no moon, which should be unsettling. But it’s the least unsettling thing out here. Nova looks up at the stars, trying to remember what happened, why the starfighter is laying in pieces around her.

“Nova.”

The noise is coming from the metal blocking her legs. Nova kicks again. A low groan echoes out of the metal, and, panicked, Nova scoots backward, hauling the beskar off of her shins.

“Ouch.” It’s pointed, gruff. Nova’s heart accelerates, and she scrambles forward across the ground, through the wreckage she just kicked away. The metal on the ground belongs to Din, not the starfighter. He sighs through the modulator, garbled and strange, when Nova pries the helmer free of his neck. Nova’s tears well up again as she skates her fingers across Din’s face, savoring the familiar shape of his lips, his nose, his browline. “You kicked me.”

Nova stifles a small sob. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize it was you.”

Din squints up at her through the darkness, then up further to the blinking, milky stars above them, then back to Nova with concern jolted across his bare, beautiful face. “Are you hurt—”

“Wrist is injured,” Nova interrupts, but circles it around. It hurts—probably sprained—but it’s not broken. “Ribs are likely fractured,” she continues, wincing as she tries to sit up straight and immediately dropping her shoulders back down. “And my ears are ringing. No head injury, though. You?”

“I’m fine,” Din says immediately, leaning forward to run his hands over Nova’s face. His touch feels like a live wire. She shivers, even though it’s not cold out here.

“What happened?”

Din looks at her strangely. She can’t read the look on his face. “The ship failed. We—we crashed, Nova. You passed out on the way down.”

Nova swallows. “We—” But her sentence is paused by Din’s panic. It comes up from the depths, seizes in his eyes.

“Grogu.”

Nova looks around. There’s so much dust. It swirls in the air, invades her lungs. The same panic is contagious. She hurls herself to unsteady feet, trying to sort through pieces of metal to find his crib. The corner of the ship he was tucked away in is gone, like the starfighter was bisected as it was coming down. Din and Nova were on one side, Grogu, Bo-Katan, and Wedge on the other. If they can’t find the two of them, either—hope and terror war in Nova’s chest. She winces, bracing her own hand against her ribs. “Din—”

“Where,” Din says, low and dangerous, “is he?”

“Din,” Nova tries again, “the ship isn’t all here.” She meant it to be reassuring, but it comes out horrified, something terrible.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

Nova blinks. “I have no idea,” she whispers. Both of them stare at each other in the silence. “But Bo and Wedge aren’t here either. So if they’re with the rest of the ship, Grogu is too. He was on their side. He was in his crib. Statistically,” she says, trying to emulate confidence even as her voice shakes, “he’s probably fine.”

“Statistics aren’t good enough, Novalise,” Din says, and Nova cringes away from his tone. It’s not angry. It’s panicked, upset. But it hurts all the same. “We have to find them.”

Nova checks her pockets. Empty. Nothing but lint and dust. “I don’t have Ezra’s holo message—”

Din’s face is razor-sharp and Nova’s heart lurches. “Ezra’s not the only one who’s lost out here.”

Nova swallows. “Listen,” she whispers, but he looks destroyed. Hollowed out. “Din,” she manages, stronger this time, “Grogu’s new crib is made out of beskar. And he has the Force. He once got our ship down to safety. On Dagobah. Remember? He could do it for himself.”

“You have the Force, too, Novalise,” Din says, and his voice is cutting, cruel. “Look how that helped us.”

Nova blinks. Once, twice, trying to urge her heart back to resting level. “That’s not fair,” she whispers, her voice shaking, and the look on Din’s face nearly breaks her heart again. Regret swells up in his eyes, blooming in that shade of brown that still feels like home, but he doesn't move toward her, doesn’t let the poison out. “You just told me I passed out. What was I supposed to do if I was unconscious?”

“It’s a fucking wasteland out here,” Din spits, “and we’re chasing after someone who doesn’t even want to be found.”

Nova looks at him head-on. It’s like looking at a dead star, all vantablack rage. “That’s not fair, either,” she breathes.

“I didn’t want this,” Din snaps. It’s violent and so quiet, and it sends her reeling backwards, ankle rolling as Nova stumbles away from him. “I wanted to stay on Naator.”

“The galaxy needs my help—”

“The galaxy doesn’t deserve it,” Din says, his words a knife. Nova swallows. It’s so opposite to what he said hours before. She reels back, like whiplash. Everything around them feels cosmic and huge, devastating. The air itself cracks and glimmers with a force that they can’t access. It makes Nova dizzy. High. She feels high. She has no idea where they are, but wherever she and Din landed isn’t stable. Everything about it is affecting him, whispering poison in his ears, leaking venom into his marrow. “Have you thought about that? You’ve done enough.”

“It will never be enough,” Nova whispers, through shards of glass. “Do you understand me? I have to save everyone from the darkness that’s coming. And you’re supposed to believe in me. You swore to me that you would be by my side—”

Din surges forward. It’s all-consuming, a collapsing star. Nova finds herself sucked back into his orbit, his armor thrashing in the low light, his eyes black and powerful. “I will be by your side until all the stars burn out, Novalise,” he hisses. It’s angry. A sucking wound. “But I will not let you die in your hedonistic mission to save people who don’t want it.”

Nova blinks, his skin on hers, his hands laced through her hair. “This isn’t just about Ezra,” she manages, “is it?”

Din’s so close. It feels like a heart attack. Suddenly, everything is aching and hot. “This is about us,” he cuts, his breath warm so close to her mouth. “Our family.”

Nova blinks. “Din,” she says, slowly, carefully, “I belong to you. But I also belong to something…more.”

“Well, that’s where we’re different, Novalise,” Din bites, “you are my something more.”

Nova’s heart races, burns a hole through her chest. Everything feels disorienting, desperate. Alive, in a strange, sucking way, like the air here is devoid of oxygen. “Look at me,” she whispers. He already is, but she means something deeper than that. “Look—”

Din’s eyes roll back in his head. And then, just like their starfighter, he crashes to the ground.

On the other side of the wreckage, Bo-Katan is seething. Wedge has her furious, lithe body slung over one shoulder, carrying her away from the crash, to higher ground.

“This is stupid.”

“It’s our only—option,” Wedge says heavily, wincing against Bo-Katan’s furious fists pounding against his sore back, reinjured in the fall, permabruised from years of being a Rebel. “Stop hitting me.”

“It’s not our only option. You’re being—purposefully obtuse.”

“I’m getting us a better vantage point. You, on the other hand, are acting like a child.”

“I am a Mandalorian!” Bo-Katan screeches. She must hear herself, because she does indeed stop hitting him. “I don’t give up. And I don’t walk away.”

“We’re not walking away,” Wedge says evenly. “We are getting to higher ground.”

“Fuck higher ground,” Bo-Katan growls.

Wedge looks skyward, trying to tether his patience. “You’re being super mature, Bo-Katan. So mature, it astounds me. You’re acting like an adult, not at all like a sullen teenager.” He sighs. “General Kryze, ma’am.”

“Shut up,” Bo-Katan snaps, shoving his shoulder again. “Wedge, put me down.”

“Are you going to run back down the mountain?”

“No.”

“You’re lying. And Grogu is okay.” He sounds a hell of a lot more confident than she feels. “He got us to the ground safely. He’s probably going to find Din and Nova right now. So we need to get up higher,” he grunts, hauling both of their bodies over a moss-covered boulder, “so we can see where their half of the ship landed.”

“We need to go back in case they’re looking for us, too—”

“This is protocol.”

Bo-Katan’s eyes narrow into slits. “Who died and put you in charge?” Both of them stop, immediately. Wedge’s feet don’t budge. Bo-Katan’s fists don’t lift. “Wedge,” she says, softly, “put me down.”

He listens, this time. She slides off his shoulder, as gracefully as someone who’s been slung over someone’s back can manage. “No one died,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like a statement. It comes out raised at the end. “Right?”

Bo-Katan looks at him. For the first time, she takes stock of the grey hair sprouting at his temples, the laughter lines carved in his face. Wedge isn’t that much older than her, but right now, he looks it. “No one died.”

“She’s—”

“Nova is fine.” Bo-Katan lifts her chin. “She’s fine.”

Wedge gazes down back at the wreckage. Their half of the ship split in the sky and landed in the canyon. Bo-Katan, whose legs were locked in his, had already passed out from the altitude drop. Grogu was waving his tiny little arms, trying to get their mess to the ground without losing any more pieces. And Wedge was curled against the chair, clinging onto Bo-Katan for dear life, trying to think of anything else than how scared Arokel and Piper were when they plummeted to their deaths the same way, nearly exactly thirteen years before.

“No,” Wedge whispers, staring down through the smog at the crash, feeling the weight of the stars above them, “she’s not.”

“Din,” Nova whispers, her voice shaking. And then, like her chest is being split open, she screams. “Din!” Panic is white-hot in her chest, alive and pulsing. It whispers to her, sings her melodies, threatening to spill the pulverized pieces all over the dusty floor. “Wake up,” Nova whispers. “Wake the fuck up.”

He doesn’t stir.

Nova screams, pulling him closer, closer. She tears armor piece by piece off his unconscious body, trying to find a broken bone, an open wound, something to signify why and how he just dropped. Something she missed before.

“I mean it,” she hisses, into the moonless night. “I can’t—” she stops, hauling a pauldron over her shoulder, ignoring the angry clang it makes against the broken wreckage of the ship scattered around them. Finally, she reaches his neck. Nova inhales, bracing herself, trying to steel herself for what comes next if she can’t find a pulse. “I can’t do this without you,” she whispers. “You want to be angry at me for things I have no control over. Fine. I can take it. What I can’t take,” she says, exhaling through her teeth, “is you being angry in death. So wake up.”

With one terrible, sharp inhale, Nova presses two fingers against his pulse point. Din doesn’t stir, but she can feel it, thrumming and thready, but there. She closes her eyes in relief, trying to calm her rocketing heartbeat. It doesn’t listen.

Gently, she removes the last piece of armor—a reinforced steel plate over his liver, his spleen. Once, a stormtrooper Sparmau sent had wedged a poison dagger between his ribs. Now, Nova realizes, staring down at her husband’s unconscious body, she’s worried this poison is already in his lungs.

A flash—to a wisp of a thing, a dream of a wasteland. Her spread out on velvet bedsheets, his spearing hands vantablack in the night. That wanting was dangerous, a viper in her belly. Coiled tight enough to strike. Nova tries to bring herself back to center. This planet—wherever they are—isn’t that grayscale universe, where morality isn’t just a memory, where desire wars with danger. Din is not dead. Nova is in one piece.

Wherever Grogu and Bo-Katan and Wedge are—that’s on the other side of the wreckage. Nova chews on her bottom lip, willing it to be true. It’s a prayer, a true prayer into the beyond—not to the spirits of years past, not to the Jedi of her own heart. To the universe itself.

Nova isn’t sure if she’s praying on behalf of herself or Din.

It’s an exercise in futility. It’s the same soul, anyway.

The night is low and heavy around them. Nova finally dragged Din to shelter in the mouth of a giant, nearby tree. Gnarled roots reach down into the earth below, somewhere beyond sight. The sky, devoid of any light, smells like rain is going to pour down, to unleash itself upon them.

Nova doesn’t have any tinder or flint to make fire, no flame in this wild. It’s hard to tell the shapes of the planet in the dark, but with so many trees, it’s still green, still alive. So different from the anathema wastelands of Primea and Parnassos, so opposite from the eternal crush of the Unknown Regions’ starry space. She rubs her palms together. It’s not quite cold out here, but it is alive, palpable. The air is charged, and when the wind kicks in, it’s unsettling. Not like a normal breeze, but something else entirely.

She looks down at Din. His eyebrows are slightly knitted, even in his unconscious state. She tried to give him mouth-to-mouth, to gently clean his face with water and her now-grubby shawl, but he hasn’t budged. His breathing has gotten louder, she realizes. It’s a tiny victory, but it’s a victory nonetheless.

Nova’s Mandalorian armor is back on the ship. In her bedroom, the one she shared with Din. It’s useless, now, gone down with Bo-Katan and Wedge’s side of the starfighter. Inwardly, Nova kicks herself for not wearing it constantly like the other Mandalorians in her life do. It would be nice to have a little extra protection in the fall. Her bruised ribs howl every time she moves.

Sighing, Nova hauls herself to her feet. Before the skies unfurl, she starts collecting the pried-off pieces of Din’s armor like gold, combing through the dirt in the dark until she can’t haul any more beskar. She gently dumps it at the open mouth of the giant tree—a redwood, she thinks, like the ones on Endor—and goes back for Din’s helmet.

It’s sitting, discarded, at the bottom of a small rockpile. She tossed it, haphazard, when she was trying to get to the root of Din’s injury—one that she never figured out. Nova, by now, has inspected every inch of his skin. There was barely anything torn, and no bruises or welts to signify that Din’s bleeding internally. She’s become an expert in brute strength, now, but with him unconscious, there was nothing stopping her from taking her time in the dark, with only Din’s tiny flashlight to roam over the vast expanse of his tan skin.

Nova lifts the helmet. Something in the air shifts. Slowly, like she’s being watched, Nova carefully notches the helmet over her own head. It’s not calibrated to her; the metrics and measurements are off. The helmet startles awake like it senses an intruder. It smells like Din inside—metal, gunsmoke, heat, winter, and, as always, the slightest touch of cinnamon. Her knees weaken, taking one tiny beat to feel the ache of it all, before she realizes what she has on.

Din’s helmet.

Din’s helmet, which has a commlink built in.

Nova raises her fingers to the button on her right side—the ribs that feel slightly less injured—closing her eyes as she presses it.

Please, she thinks, and then repeats it aloud. “Please.”

Static. And then, something else—it warbles, low and anguished. Proof. Proof of what, exactly, she’s not sure—just that something’s there.

“Uh,” Nova breathes, “This is… I’m Novalise.” She pauses, unsure of what to say. Nova’s just now realizing that Bo-Katan’s comms could be on a different frequency if she woke up before they did. If the planet has an interceptor. If they’re both out of range. She doesn’t know how to work this one—it’s different from her own, more complex, much newer. “I’m trying to reach—” she stops. This could be dangerous. Nova releases her hold on the button, taking a beat to collect her thoughts, her wits.

“This is Novalise,” Nova tries again, with a stronger voice than she thought she could conjure. Steadfast. “Orange Leader, Rebel Alliance. The starfighter Victory crashed on this planet’s surface earlier today. Five on her crew; at least two alive and relatively unharmed.” Nova pauses. “In search of the remaining three. I do not have landmarks or a location name, but we are here, at the last transmitted location,” she says, “surviving the wreckage. If any of our crew is out there—” Nova’s voice breaks, just a little, “—so are we.”

It’s nothing. There’s no identifying information in there, nothing except her name and her voice, reassurance that she and Din are alive, and hope that the rest of them made it out, too.

“Maybe we should go back down.”

Bo-Katan glowers. “Excellent idea. Almost like we never should have climbed up here in the first place.”

Wedge sighs. “Bo-Katan,” he says, evenly, carefully, “we don’t know—”

“We know enough,” she snarls. Everything inside of her is coiled tight, taut, like a live wire. Everything hurts—her ribs, her knees, her ankle, her heart. Her heart most of all. “We know enough,” she repeats, slightly softer, more blunted. Wedge can handle her spikes—one of three people left alive who can tolerate the serrated blade that Bo-Katan Kryze has become. “We know the ship split. I saw Din tackle Nova before we lost consciousness. They’re on the other side.” Wedge’s eyes open and then shutter slightly. It’s miniscule, but Bo-Katan knows him well enough by now. “What?”

“You…you lost consciousness?” His voice is small. Not bold and sure, not the tone of a Rebel leader. Not the easygoing timbre that Wedge usually carries, level where the rest of them are uneven.

Bo-Katan studies him. To his credit, Wedge doesn’t flinch. She softens. A little. “Yes.”

Wedge nods. No. He doesn’t nod. It’s just a motion upward, a sharp jut of his chin. Something is—off. Bo-Katan can still feel it, hanging in the air. “Wedge,” she says, slowly, “were you…awake the entire time?”

He swallows, the bulge of his Adam’s apple appearing and receding in the nearly-there light. “Yes.”

Bo-Katan regards him. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. It comes out clunky, disjointed. She surges forward, reaching her arms up to gently brace them on his shoulders, tense and held close to his chest. “I can’t imagine… what that must have been like for you.”

Tears, thin and avoidant, well in his eyes. “I’ve been in crashes before.”

Bo-Katan cocks her head. “Not like that,” she says, softly.

Wedge swallows. “No,” he concedes. “No, not like that.”

Bo-Katan sighs, aware she’s been holding onto him for too long, aware that she doesn’t yet want to let go. Carefully, she presses her lips together, down to a thin line. It looks scary, venomous, especially paired with her eyes narrowed into slits, but behind the mirage is fear. “I know you probably wish the ship didn’t split the way that it did,” she manages, finally, “and that you were stranded with Nova instead.”

Wedge regards her carefully. “I wish the ship didn’t split at all,” he whispers.

Bo-Katan exhales through her nose, licks her dry lips. “No. But if it had to happen, I…understand that you would prefer being with her. Your best friend’s kid, who also has the magic ability to tap into the Force. Or Din, who is an expert at navigating hostile territory.”

Wedge manages a weak smile. “You make a good point.”

Bo-Katan feels her guarded heart sink. Just a little. “Yeah, I know.”

“But,” Wedge says, “You have the uncanny ability to make the world begrudgingly bend for you,” he says, a tiny twinkle in his eye. “And I trust you.”

Bo-Katan’s stomach drops, burns. “Why?” she asks, a desperate plea of a thing. It slips out before she can rein it in. She’s spent so much of her life pretending no one else’s opinion matters to her. But Wedge is her friend, her friend that wasn’t thrust into this with her. Who chooses to keep being her friend, even amidst how sharp and dangerous she is, the poison she’s spit at him.

“Because, despite what you tell yourself,” Wedge says, “you’re a good person, Bo-Katan. You’re also a smart and deeply terrifying one. And I have faith that, with all those resources, we can find them and Grogu.”

Something seizes in Bo-Katan’s heart, but she can’t tell if it’s reignited panic or the thrush of friendship. Both, she supposes.

“What does protocol say to do next?” she asks, instead of returning the words themselves. Wedge knows what her concession means—she trusts him, too.

“We wait until light,” he says. “Go to sleep, I’ll take the first watch.”

Bo-Katan would typically argue with him—she’s a night owl in the same way she was once a Nite Owl—steadfastly, without exception—but she’s exhausted, and Wedge is showing her kindness. An out. With a curt nod, she finds a divot between the mountain’s range of boulders, trying to find a comfortable position. Under concealed cover, Bo-Katan tries her comm again, too afraid to get Wedge’s hopes up.

All she hears is static.

In the dark, one thing moves along the planet’s surface. It’s weightless, gravitational pull paused by sheer will, or engineering, or the Force, or something more.

A small, ceaseless crib; the baby inside it. Speeding faster, faster, through the night, cutting the halves of this planet to find someone.

“When I was fifteen,” Nova whispers, “my parents died.”

She pokes at the sad clump of sticks and leaves she’d been able to scavenge from the general vicinity. In between checking Din’s pulse, regulating his breathing, she’s been telling him stories. He knows all of them—words and secrets exchanged in the dark, always transcending currency, always signifying something deeper.

“They died on a Friday.” He knows this, too. Her voice is hollow. “Bad things,” Nova sighs, “aren’t supposed to happen on Fridays.” She brings one knee closer to her chest, looking up at the sky above them. It’s not visible now, the cloud cover thick and obfuscating.

“But what I haven’t told you,” Nova continues, “is that the morning they died—probably an hour before Sparmau struck, if that—I had the strangest dream.” She traces a tip of her finger over the familiar hook of Din’s nose, willing her touch to bring him awake. “Tanks. Rows and rows of them. Not like the ones that the Rebel base used to have in the medical center. Not…simple bacta tanks. These were…almost cryogenic. I looked inside one, and I saw this…thing. I didn’t know what it was. I still don’t. But it scared me to the bone. I woke up yelling, out of deep sleep.” She swallows, closing her eyes. “No one was there to check on me. My parents had left that morning, kissed me goodbye for the very last time, and I didn’t wake up.”

Nova kicks at the dust with one toe, sullen, forlorn. “So much has happened to me,” she whispers, “to me—to us—and it’s been in such quick succession. Since I met you, everything has mattered in these…massive, unshakable ways.” She inhales a stuttered breath. “But…I had forgotten so much about how large my world felt when I was still Andromeda.” It’s barely-there, a ghost of a whisper. Nova feels like saying it too loud will cause cataclysm. Everything is so close to wreckage already. It’s scattered around them like dust, like stars.

“Until everything happened with Sparmau, I locked it away. I soldiered on. But it’s like…this whole mission, finding Ezra, moving towards something so much bigger than myself…it feels like it connects back to myself. Not the person I am now. The girl I used to be.” Nova closes her eyes. “It’s like I am stuck in this time loop, and I can’t figure a way out, I can’t move past the obstacles. All I can do is… return.” She stares down at Din’s unmoving form. “I am not leaving you,” she whispers, and it’s both a mantra and a promise. “I am not leaving you. I feel like I have lost myself. Like I am lost out there, in that—” she gestures upward, to the stars she cannot see, “—blinking blackness, and the only way back to myself is remembering.” Nova draws her knees into her chest, folding herself smaller and smaller. “The problem is,” she whispers, “I think I’ve forgotten what to remember.”

A noise pierces the air. Nova starles forward, panicked—until she realizes what the sound is. It’s coming from Din’s open mouth. He wheezes, coughs, and opens his eyes.

“Maker above,” Nova stutters, heartbeat racing. “You scared the life out of me.” Sobering, she crawls forward, pressing her forehead against Din’s in the dark.

“Where—”

“We crashed,” Nova whispers, stroking her hand over his face, “the starfighter crashed. Bo and Wedge and Grogu—they’re out there somewhere—”

His eyes are a lightning bolt of panic. “Are you okay?” His voice is so concerned, so frenzied, she feels tears prick in the back of her eyes. Slowly, she nods. Din studies her. “No,” he says, finally, “you’re not.”

Nova looks down at the pieces of armor she’s scattered around them like bullets, like roses. “I—”

“What’s wrong?” Din isn’t expecting an honest answer right away. Nova will hide it behind her smile, her teeth, and wait for it to seize in the night. She always tells him the truth, eventually—but she tends to bury her hurt in the bottom of her chest, sinking it to the ocean floor until it erupts. Volcanic, her feelings. Wild, white-hot—always everything, all-consuming. But she can live in that silence until it threatens to burst.

Not now.

“I thought we were going to die.” Her face is impossible to read, but fractured.

“But we didn’t.” There’s something alive, pulsing, in the undercurrent of his voice. But this isn’t the place to press it. This isn’t the place to press anything. So Din just stares, reaching out across the stars through the lifeline in her eyes, and hopes that she can feel it.

Wedge stares, too. Up at the clouds, storm-heavy, gathered above them. Rain has held off, but it teases, lingers.

To the silence around him, nothing more—he can admit it. He misses Luke. That hope—that eternal, epic stardust that lives behind blue eyes—it’s desperate, magnetic. Luke has grown so far beyond the boy he once was, but he still has that gentleness, that hopefulness, held like something precious inside of his heart.

Wedge Antilles, right now, needs a little hope.

Bo-Katan is wide awake. “I can feel you sulking.”

Wedge’s heart accelerates, shoulders jumping upwards. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”

She moves into position behind him, poised and graceful in her silence. He almost can’t sense her—it’s remarkable, really. “I slept plenty. It’s your turn.”

Wedge’s shoulders relax. He is exhausted. “Bo-Katan—”

“Are you thinking about Nova?” She asks, not cutting, not cruel, just a plain question. “Or Luke?”

He stiffens. His cheeks burn. No one knows about this—the love he’s spent years harboring; hiding down in his chest. No one except Nova, and she doesn’t know the full story—how his own adherence to the rules left Luke behind in the dust, how he dreams every night of the love he lost, how he has visions of losing Luke to flashes of angry, red light. That the reason Luke has relocated to Ahch-To in the first place is because of words he said in anger—words Wedge didn’t mean, never meant at all. His fear—it lives on him, palpable. He knows someone as sharp as Bo-Katan can suss it out, smell it on his skin, who he is. “I—”

“I won’t tell.”

Three little words—what a universe they hold.

“Besides,” she sighs, slinging herself down on the boulder beside him, “I get it. It’s not easy to be… different.” She swallows, shrinking smaller. For a second, she looks like a little kid. Wedge’s heart has already softened so much for the woman warrior dressed in Mandalorian blue, but now—now, he sees himself in her. The way they love—even in this galaxy, going on and on—isn’t always accepted, and isn't always treated as pure. Wedge watches Bo-Katan deflate with that admission, sinking beside him. It’s a blip, and then she’s puffing her chest out, looking as indestructible as ever. “That man still carries a torch for you.”

Wedge blinks. “You’ve met him all of three times—”

“Nothing,” Bo-Katan says, gently, “is subtle about Luke Skywalker.”

Wedge’s laugh slips out, palpable in the night.

“Wedge,” Bo-Katan continues, softly, “we’re going to be okay.”

And for just this moment, this tiny star of honesty laid bare, because it’s Bo-Katan the realist, he believes her.

“Let’s go.”

Nova stares at him. “Din, go where—you just woke up. You were barely breathing, we’re not going anywhere—”

“I was tired.”

Nova’s eyes open wider. “You didn’t go to sleep,” she whispers, moving toward him, “you were passed out. I thought you were going to die on me.”

“I didn’t die.” The words are clipped through the modulator.

She wants to argue. She wants to cry. But Nova just concedes with one terse nod. She’s picking her battles, and this one is not the correct one.

“We have to find them,” Din continues, no-nonsense, beginning to collect pieces of armor scattered around him like strewn stars, wincing only a little. “There’s no telling how long we’ve been here. Where are we, by the way?”

Nova dusts off her pants. Leaning against Din, both of them haul themselves to their feet. “I have no idea,” she whispers, brushing ashen ground out of his hair. It’s such an intimate gesture. It swells up between the two of them, after all the harshness they knifed out earlier, and she swallows it back, the enormity. “I think something is wrong with the air.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Take my helmet,” he insists, voice gruff. “Put it on.”

Nova catches Din’s hand mid-air. He doesn’t even have his helmet in his palm yet—and something about that makes her chest tighten. “No,” she says, softly. “It’s not…toxic. The air is perfectly breathable—I ran metrics through your helmet when you first went down, just to make sure. It’s not like Parnassos. I mean… I think there’s something in the air that’s making us angry. Unhinged.” Unfettered, is what she means, but there’s an awful ache behind that word, something she can’t quite name but feels enormous all the same. “I think it’s meant to keep us at odds. We have to fight against it.”

Din’s eyes crinkle, pained. “What did I say,” he breathes. Nova has to look away. He reaches out, seizing her jaw between his gloved fingers, keeping her suspended in his orbit. Nova feels her breath leave her mouth, loud and languid. “What did I say to you, before I passed out?”

She blinks, swallows, stalls. “You don’t remember?”

He shakes his head. That look in his eyes—haunted. It’s filled with ghosts, terrible ones, ones that threaten to swallow them both.

Nova clears her throat, forces herself to meet his gaze. “It’s not important,” she says, sounding assured, determined. “Let’s keep moving.”

Din’s grip tightens. Something like hunger swells in her lower body, heat flooding deep and intentional. “Tell me.”

“That the galaxy doesn’t deserve my help,” Nova whispers, as flat as she can. There’s more, but that one is the most dangerous gut punch.

Din closes his eyes, pained. “I didn’t mean that.”

“But you did,” Nova manages, “or you wouldn’t have said it at all.”

For what feels like an eternity, neither of them move. Suspended, as if in amber, unmoving, locked to this strange, fallow ground; their love the only thing alive, only thing electric.

“Let’s keep moving,” Nova repeats, taking his hand. This time, Din lets her.

Nightfall descends. It had already been night, stars glittering like motes of dust above them and the thin cloud cover, but there’s a significant line in the sand. It’s like the air is thicker, heavier, the skies above them darker. Nova moves forward, always forward, thumbnail slotted between teeth and tongue as she walks, ignoring the pain in her ribs, her feet, her heart.

Din doesn’t speak. He’s catlike and sharp through the night. If Nova didn’t know he was behind her, she’d be convinced she was alone out here. For someone as built and strong as he is—adorned in all that armor, to boot—he makes virtually no noise. It’s unsettling. It’s endearing.

They walk multiple klicks in that impending silence, the two of them so consumed in the battle inside their respective minds that words don’t resurface. As they move on, weighted by the armor and their injuries and the strange feeling of the air around them, the silence becomes palpable, loud. Unbearable.

Nova turns around. Din isn’t paying attention. He walks smack into her.

“Ow,” she says, pointedly. Din cocks his head to the left, reaching forward to smooth a hand over her face. Nova feels a flush rise to her cheeks, warm and rushing. “Listen—”

The skies open. All those stars above, hidden by the thin expanse of the cloud cover, are visible for a millisecond, and then the thrush of rain descends upon them, sweet-smelling like a hyacinth summer. Nova’s mouth gets stuck in an O, watching as the rain dances down Din’s armor, pooling over the silver.

“What?”

Nova swallows. It’s like when the ship crashed, they did too. Both of them on either side of the wreckage, a line drawn in the sand. She doesn't know how to undo it, how to move them through this valley of suffering, this mass descent.

“I didn’t crash the ship.” It’s not what she meant to say. She was going to apologize—for what, Nova isn’t sure. This chasm between them, maybe, this unholy ground they’re standing on. The past two weeks have been a time warp—one they’ve all almost died in. Now, Grogu is missing, Bo-Katan and Wedge are fractured off elsewhere, and the five of them are stranded on this planet in the middle of nowhere, with only a memory of a hologram to guide them, a hologram of a person who doesn’t want to be found. It’s cosmic, this situation, a cosmic sort of comedy, a humor that Nova doesn’t find funny but can’t help to laugh at regardless. “I didn’t do this.” Now she’s certain there’s something wrong with the planet, something in the air that itches at their skin, getting underneath, searching for the right chords to pull on to create that tension, that ache, that eventual snap. “Maybe it’s my fault we’re out here. Maybe we should have just stayed in bed. Maybe we should have turned around when we could, when Ezra first told us to. But we didn’t, and yes, it’s awful that we’re stranded here. It cuts me to know Grogu is out there, that Bo and Wedge are somewhere else, but Din, this isn’t my fault.”

He stares, immovable in all that silver. “I never said it was.”

They’re both shouting over the rain, now.

“Oh, but that doesn’t matter,” Nova spits, hair heavy as the skies pour down a deluge. She feels her words boil in her blood before they come out, an incineration. She doesn’t want it. She can’t seem to hold it back. “It doesn’t matter if you said it, because you’re blaming me for it anyway.”

He sighs, low and languid. Anger sparks up in Nova’s veins. She can’t explain it. In the base of her skull, in the basin of her heart—she’s screaming. The rational version of herself, the person she actually is, shrieking at herself to stop it. She can feel that line unhinge, the one that separates her from the Not-Nova she was in the dream, clicking those glittering teeth, blinking those black eyes.

“I don’t blame you.” His voice is flat through the modulator, brimming with a kind of fury that hasn’t been set into motion quite yet. “For the ship failing.”

Nova lifts her chin. “But you do blame me for something.”

“Yes!” The singular word is cutting, a knife. “Ezra told you he doesn’t wait to be found, Novalise. That it’s too dangerous. And, quite frankly, I believe him. So why are we out here,” he enunciates, gesturing at the planet around them with a closed fist, “when you’re having visions of how everything is connected? We could be home, on Mandalore—”

“You don’t think Mandalore is home.”

“It’s a hell of a lot more of a home than this cesspit is.” Din’s yelling, now. “It’s where we’re safest, in a palace full of beskar and Mandalorians, instead of out here, looking for someone who has repeatedly asked you not to be found.”

Nova stares at him. “Are you jealous?”

Din snarls. It’s filled with vitriol. Nova stumbles backward. “Not of him.”

Suddenly, Nova feels weak, like her knees are about to give out. “Then what?”

“You are the patron saint of lost causes.” He says it so flatly. “And one of these days, it’s going to get you killed.”

Nova blinks, staggering backwards like she’s been shot. “Din—”

“I was your lost cause,” he says, stabbing his chest with a finger as thunder strikes above them. “And then you saved me. And when I tried to keep you out of danger, you ran into it anyways, Novalise. Do you understand what that does to me? To watch you run into it, over and over, knowing that there’s only one of two ways it’s going to end?”

“I usually win!”

“What happens,” Din thunders, “when you stop winning?”

Nova’s mouth is struck open as the rain intensifies. She wishes she couldn’t see Din’s form in front of her. This might hurt less. “You’re supposed to believe in me,” she whispers, barely audible over the crush of water around them, “you just told me that you wouldn’t let the darkness get me—”

“And then we crashed out of the sky,” Din interrupts, and the anger is gone. He sounds stripped away, bare, “and I realize now that I cannot protect you.”

Nova blinks. “What are you saying?” Her voice cracks down the syllable.

“That neither of us are safe,” Din whispers. “That I cannot protect you. And that you are still a martyr, just waiting for her chance.”

Tears well in Nova’s eyes. Desperation and frustration war in her mind, and she presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, hard enough to see stars. “I don’t know how to prove to you by this point that I am not trying to die.”

“I cannot lose you.”

Nova closes her eyes, against that admission, that prayer, that plea. “Please don’t give me an ultimatum. I cannot choose between you and fighting evil. Especially when we’re all in this deep. We can’t stop. And I can’t lose you either. Please.”

Din watches her, palpable and unreadable under that visor. “I need you alive,” he whispers, “and I am not convinced that you need that as much as I do.”

“Din—”

“What?”

Nova stares behind him. “There’s a cave—back there.”

He whips around, hand poised on his helmet, focusing in on the entrance. “Has that been there the whole time?”

Nova’s mouth opens, listless. “I don’t know,” she manages, and then they’re running towards it, towards shelter, out of the storm.

It’s not a cave. It’s a building.

The building is cavernous, though—more mineral than architecture, like it was built off the open mouth of a cave. Like it was built before anything modern existed. It feels ancient in a way that seeps through Din’s skin, sinks into his blood. It’s freezing in here, and something is off. Din can feel it, even through the armor. He looks at Nova, soaked through, shivering down to the bone. Shame and regret pools in the basin of his stomach. He meant it—what he said, the fear at the base of it all—but, as usual, it came out wrong, all wrong. Fucked sideways. The air on this planet is heavy with unspoken words, ones that he never meant to say, ones that he wishes he could take back.

Nova forges forward, arms wrapped around herself, one hand at the hilt of her lightsaber, like she could pull it out to defend them, poised to strike. But she’s freezing. He doesn’t have a spare cloak, he doesn’t have anything he can wrap around her. Her own shawl is currently wrapped around his body, trapped under the armor. Her body is taut like a live wire, and Din doesn’t trust himself to touch her.

He can’t make up for the lack of faith he just spoke aloud. Not with his hands. Not with anything. It is unforgivable, it is—

“Which way?”

He startles. Nova’s looking back at him, her green eyes gray and hooded in the dark. She’s looking expectedly at him, at the fork in the road ahead of them. If Din Djarin was the kind of person who noticed metaphors, this one would smack him in the face. “Right.”

She studies him. He can’t decide if it’s a test. Nova simply turns around and walks off to the left, grip tightening around the base of her saber. Something about the notion usually looks strong, like she’s a warrior—right now, she looks small, uncertain. Din can feel his heart fracture, and then the anger builds up even higher—nothing has gone right since the second they stepped off Naator. He wants to take it all back, everything he said. It was true, his fear—but not like that.

The tunneled hallway comes to an end, abruptly, opening into another cavernous room. Din watches Nova stop first, her shoulders tighten.

“No,” she whispers, and the word is a lightning strike. The Darksaber lights up in his own hand, jumping forward to defend her, to protect her, to do something— “Look.”

Across the wall, there are rows and rows of empty, identical tanks.

“I don’t understand.”

Nova closes her eyes. She knows this room. She’s dreamt about it. This is the place from her dream—the one she had the morning her parents died, these rows of horrible tanks. Everything is running together—the images from visions, both of hers and others’—but she knows this place, somewhere deep in her memories.

It doesn’t feel like a coincidence. She doesn’t believe in coincidences.

It comes to her—a jolt. “Grogu,” she whispers, and the word holds the weight of an entire world. Behind her, she can feel Din recoil. “This—these tanks. They’re cloning tanks, midichlorian tanks.”

“I don’t know what that means—”

“It’s what Gideon was trying to harvest from him,” Nova whispers, sickened, distraught. “To take from him, what he would have taken from me. Midichlorians—I don’t understand, exactly, but they’re something anyone who’s Force sensitive has. In our blood. It’s powerful.” She swallows, feeling violated, just standing in this place— “Maker,” she manages, her voice shaking, nausea rising in her stomach, “there are hundreds of them, Din.”

“What is this place?” He whispers, pained and awful through the modulator. “Is this—?”

“Mass extinction,” Nova interrupts, bile swirling in the base of her throat, burning a hole in her esophagus. “This place—this place was used to kill Jedi. Strip them for parts and use those parts to create something…evil.” Her stomach twists. She closes her eyes against it, can feel the horror ringing through here, can feel the pain, the fear—it’s alive in her in the same way it was for all of them. She suddenly cannot bear it, the weight of discovery. It’s a metaphor for everything she’s been shouldering, carrying around so no one else has to. “This place is evil, Din.”

He reaches for her. She pulls away. Nova can’t see his face, but she senses the betrayal. But it’s not about him. It’s about the fact that death is surrounding her, chasing her, hunting her and her people down—over and over again, there is a slaughter, and she is the lamb. She is not trying to die. But this place feels like the world is ending, over and over again, and suddenly, Nova doesn’t want to fight it back. She cannot hold this, she cannot fight back against an evil this deep. Defeat faces her, weary and comforting. An old friend.

“Novalise,” he says gently, evenly, and even as Nova shrinks away, curling into herself, away from the tanks, “there’s nothing here.”

Nova stares up at him, jolted. She stares at the wall; the tanks stare back. “That’s low,” she whispers. “I am not crazy.”

“No,” Din says, and he reaches towards her again, hands lifting her chin, catching the bend of her arm, anchoring her against him. “The tanks are here. This place existed. I believe you—your vision, what Grogu showed you. I mean whatever evil that was once here is long gone.”

Nova blinks. “It’s not,” she whispers. “I can feel it.”

Din doesn’t move. He doesn’t try to wrench her away. He seems to be battling something, warring something deep within himself. And then he stoops down to one knee, then the other. “I believe you.” He is lowering himself in front of her, making himself smaller. This hulking Mandalorian warrior—her Mandalorian—is shrinking, on his knees. This, too, is a plea—but it’s one that Nova is familiar with. He’s giving himself over to her. It’s a prayer.

“What are you doing?”

“Destroy it.”

Nova blinks. Once, twice. That’s not at all what she was expecting. “What?”

“You said there’s horror here. Raze it to the ground.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You belong to something more,” Din whispers, through the darkness, “something I don’t understand. And I’m sorry for that, Novalise, I am. But just because I don’t understand it doesn’t make it any less real. I told you I’d get the kerosene. But you are perfectly capable of burning this down yourself.”

Nova stares down at him. The helmet is so opaque. She licks her lips, darting her tongue over the parting, then lifts her hands to either side of the helmet, hooking them underneath the rim. Din doesn’t resist. He lets her pull it free. Something settles between the two of them as their eyes lock, that dark brown on her sage green, meeting somewhere in the middle.

“There’s something wrong with me,” he whispers, his face fracturing, just a little. Nova knows the fault line. “Something…wrong with this planet. But you—”

She shakes her head. “No. There’s something wrong with me, too.”

Din’s breath hitches. He grabs at her hand, yanks it to his face. His eyes shutter as she traces the shape of his jawline. There’s something holy underneath all of this, still—under all of the horror, under this uncertain ground. “Call it even?”

She looks at him. “Until we get off this planet,” Nova whispers, “I won’t hold anything against you.”

Din swallows. There’s a spark of something in his eyes—self-loathing, a flagellation—but he blinks, and it dissipates. Nova aches all over. She wants to take it all back, the words they hurled at each other out in the rain. She doesn’t understand any of this, how it all went so wrong. But she doesn’t say any of this aloud. There will be time for it later. Nova anchors one of his hands over his heart.

“Whatever’s wrong,” she says, stronger now, “we will survive it.”

Din nods.

“Get up.”

He does, obedient. Nova points to the mouth of the entrance they just come out of, and Din moves back into the shadows, helmet slotting back over his beautiful, tortured face, resolute. She takes a breath, igniting the lightsaber. “Stay back,” she warns, “and don’t get caught in the crossfire.” And then she cleaves the yellow light through the tank in the center.

It should feel more cathartic. Like a release.

It doesn’t.

Nova feels hypnotic, dangerous. In her mind, she is not here. She is in the clutches of Sparmau’s grasp. She is looking herself head-on in the vision of Yavin, corrupted and awful. She is a wildfire. She is standing in the pouring rain. She is watching her parents’ ship crash over and over and over again. She is losing everyone she loves, slipping through her hands. She is being left on Dantooine. She is the chittering pulse of a sinking spaceship. She is tracing the lines of betrayal on Din’s face when she returned to him after promising never to leave in the first place. She is watching Grogu’s terrified visions of leaving the Jedi Temple as it is being sieged. She is witnessing every single person she’s ever loved be cut down for their proximity to her, this Jedi light, this bright abomination. She is removing the crown on her head. She is not Novalise. Not now. She is not Andromeda. She is every Force sensitive person that has ever come before her, ripped to shreds, stripped down to bones and gore.

Nova is Novalise until she isn’t.

Right now, she can’t find her body. She can’t find the tether to come back to. There is something haunted here, something she knows in her bones, something that knows her, too. She is looking into a mirror, and it is peering back, stepping into her body. She wants to be inhospitable. She is exhausted of being a conduit, but right now she is electric. This darkness, the horror here—it cannot survive Novalise.

It cannot survive the light.

She is ripping this place to shreds, incinerating it. There is fire all around her, the yellow pulse of her lightsaber spitting in tandem with the light of the flame. Over and over, Nova slashes, cleaving each tank in two. She hacks at the hissing, spitting water as it meets her ignited blade. She butchers the pieces of metal and glass until they’re splinters on the floor, something that cannot be magicked back together. There will be no evidence left of the danger when she is done. No one will enter this cavern and see the pain that the Dark Side caused. And maybe that’s selfish, erasing history, but Nova doesn’t care. People don’t need any more proof how evil the darkness is, how it takes and takes and takes.

The galaxy has seen it, over and over again. It has born witness to the Sith, the Empire, Palpatine, the First Order, Sparmau, the man Ezra was trapped out in deep space with. It repeats itself.

Novalise will not let this particular horror survive. Gideon is dead. His ideas will die with him. And there’s a beauty in that, a satisfaction. She drags the yellow blade of her lightsaber through the last standing piece of equipment—the control panel in the middle of the floor.

It explodes. Nova has ripped absolutely everything to nothing, to shrapnel, herself included. She closes her eyes, engulfed in the avenging light.

And then she comes back to herself. With a roar, she propels herself backwards, out of the fire, out of the flame, out of the firing zone. The horrific place she stepped into is razed to the ground. She does not die. Novalise is running from the danger, hand clasped in Din’s, both of them hurtling towards that gaping maw of an entrance, right before the flame swallows the entirety of the building whole. On the ground, Nova reaches towards Din, always towards Din.

“I don’t,” she heaves, coughing splinters and smoke from her lungs, “want to die.”

He stares at her, under the helmet. “I believe you.” Neither of them can tell if he’s telling the truth.

Right now, Nova doesn’t care. She believes herself, and that’s enough. Her eyes close. She doesn’t see the ship descending upon them.

Din does, though. He feels her lose consciousness again, this horrible day splayed on an endless loop. Everything hurts. Regrets pool like acid in the pit of his stomach. This whole mission—it’s impossibly fucked sideways. They never should have come here. It opened a wound he never though existed in the first place.

The starship creeps closer and closer, searchlight panning them in a perfect circle like a beacon. Din has no idea who this is—if it’s Wedge and Bo-Katan, come to save them both. If it’s an enemy. If it’s Ezra Bridger himself, descending upon them to close Nova’s loop of self-destruction. If it’s someone from Mandalore. If it’s someone who means them harm. Din braces himself on his knees, curled over the woman he loves, refusing to let her get caught. Not while she’s unconscious. Not when she’s not herself. He shields her from the incendiary floodlight of the ship above them. “Nova,” he says, urgently.

She blinks up at him. It’s a beautiful, tortured sight—her sage green eyes spark in the warmth of the glow above them.

“I’m fine,” she insists, but her face shutters like a slamming door.

He stares at her, a blaze of light in the enclosing darkness, holding strong—even after all this.

His Novalise—honey and vigor, danger and starlight, his divining rod. She’s flickering around the edges.

And for the first time, Din lets himself think of the scariest thing he can imagine. In this dying thrash, her hand reaching up to the ship descending upon both of them—to hold or to fight, he’s not sure—Nova is not nearly as steady as she once was.

i hope you loved it!! i sincerely apologize for disappearing again. for the first time since i started writing the Something More Series, though, it wasn't because i ended up in the hospital! i began a new full-time job, i've gone to see Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour, i've been traveling, reading, writing my own novel (gasp), seeing friends, spending time with my partner and our families, and overall living my life for the first real time since i was 18. i promise i am going to finish SH, but updates might be slower and shorter from this point forward. i'm not going to promise an upload date, but my hope is that it's very, very soon. thank you so much for still being here, if you are. i appreciate each and every single one of you!!!

CHAPTER 5 COMING SOON!

xoxo,

amelie

7 notes · View notes

amiedala · 1 month

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 9: Burn

WARNINGS: angst, blood/gore, canon-compliant violence, possession

SUMMARY: “How much time is on the clock?” Nova asks, and she can feel Din’s reassurance seep back in, lockstep. In unison, like soldiers, the two of them bullet down the hallway. Nova’s breath clouds in the air in front of them. The base is eerie, quiet, muted.

“Eleven minutes,” Din murmurs, barely air, and Nova feels something strange in the air around them. Almost like gunpowder, but not quite. Something like—stardust. Like what happens after a supernova, an asteroid burst, an exploding star. It tastes hollow, burnt. She swallows it whole. A premonition.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! this chapter, while lacking on any smut, has my favorite scene i've ever written—the first one from Din's perspective, if you're curious. it's truly the culmination of this story and everything it's been built to become over the last four years, and i cannot say enough about how much it means to me—and how grateful i am that anyone cares about it even a fraction of that <3 thank you for reading!

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

Hello, Novalise. I’ve been waiting for you.

It’s the voice in all of her nightmares—darkened, scathing, ice-cold. Even Hoth would seem hot in comparison. It is an anathema. Putrid. Evil. It’s the voice she heard in Sparmau’s glittering teeth, in the strike of that ominous lightning, in her imagination of what Thrawn’s words would settle out like—crystalline and poisonous, turning the very air around her into stone.

But it’s not a villain tugging at her. It is not something dark, something crawled out of the depths, something she can calcify or crucify or cut clean through.

It is herself—gnawing, dripping. Smiling. Rows and rows of teeth, dripping black blood—spatters of it falling out of her mouth, the sunken corners of her mouth, the hollows of her eyes.

“You’re not real,” Nova breathes, and she recoils. Snow is falling all around her—hailing sideways. It’s obscured the entrance of the base, and even though she’s walked every inch of this place a thousand times over the last few years, even though she’s memorized the schematics, she has lost her way. “You’re not real,” Nova repeats, to this imitation, to this thing, a half-step stronger.

It grins back, tar peeling through her teeth like venom. Everything inside of her runs cold. Nova swallows, taking another step backward, but she doesn’t know which direction she’s running in, doesn’t know which way is up. And if she’s running towards safety, towards the open mouth of the Rebel base—it means that this thing will follow her, will trace her unwitting steps, and can infiltrate it. Can bring the danger right inside—can force every person she loves to swallow it whole.

Nova blinks.

The Not-Nova in front of her takes another jagged step forward. Her neck is tilted at a strange angle, her eyes open wide—pitch-dark, vantablack. Not green. No iris to be found at all—just a black hole, the absence of where the light once was.

“I am as real as you are,” it whispers, still grinning, and chills erupt across Nova’s skin. She feels feverish—dizzy. Sick. “As real as you are.” It sounds like a chant. A corrupted prayer. “As real,” she whispers, the words a dull ache, “as you are.”

“Go away.” It’s desperate—and childish—but it’s all she can muster. Then, slightly more convincingly: “Get out of my head.”

Not-Nova takes a chilling step closer. “Oh, I’m not in your head,” she croons, and then her voice morphs into Din’s, “sweet girl.” More blood sluices through her teeth, turning the snow beneath her staggering, zombie crawl to black. “I’m as real as you are.”

“No,” Nova says, and then fight or flight finally kicks in, and her hands are on her lightsaber before the thought has even traveled through the map of her nerves. She swings it up, blade igniting yellow—golden, a halo of warmth in a place like this, and she slices forward, screaming out a cloud of hot steam in the frigid air between her and this other self, ready to tear her own self apart, she will, she will, if that’s what it takes—

“Hey!”

It cuts through like a bullet. Like a lightning strike. Nova falls—mercifully, her lightsaber dislodged from her grip as she does, yellow retracting into nothing. She’s expecting Din—Din her anchor, her Din, it’s always Din—but it’s not. Bo-Katan is standing in front of her, helmet off, short red hair whipping furiously in the snow-driven wind, eyes wild.

“Bo-Katan,” Nova says, weakly, and Bo-Katan is heaving her up with a strength neither of them currently hold. She leans forward into her grip—thankful, relieved—and then Bo-Katan is grabbing Nova’s braid at the crown of her neck and yanking it up until their eyes meet.

Tears spring forward, desperate and sudden.

“Ow! Bo-Katan, what the—”

“If you cannot keep it together,” Bo-Katan hisses, “I will send Hera back down here to retrieve you. Right now.”

Nova blinks at her, wide-eyed. “I’m fine—”

“Cut the bullshit.” The words are pointed, wielded like knives. “Din and Wedge are already inside, but I saw. I saw, Nova.”

Nova stares, throat suddenly dry. “You saw her—?”

Bo-Katan’s eyes narrow to slits. She doesn’t speak for a minute, but her grip tightens, and a single tear falls. It turns to ice nearly immediately, a glittering memorial frozen to Nova’s brown cheek. “I saw you fighting with the wind. With nothing.” One howling second of wind and utter, stark silence. Nova grasps at straws, then nothing. She closes her shocked, parched mouth. “This is not—you…I need you to keep it together.” Her voice breaks a little on the last word, and finally, finally, Nova sees the furious facade slip, the icy mask crumble.

She blinks, swallows. She nods, and Bo-Katan’s grip on her hair recedes, enough to feel tender instead of threatening. Enough to bring her back to the surface. Level them both down to evenness.

“I can do this,” Nova promises, and Bo-Katan searches her face for a fake, a half-truth. After what feels like ages, she lets go, shoves her helmet over her windblown face, and nods. Nova follows after her—the open door of the Rebel base suddenly reappearing, like it was always there—like she was the one that went elsewhere—and tries to convince both Bo-Katan and herself that it wasn’t a lie.

Din’s visor is trained on Nova like a hawk.

Bo-Katan pushes past him, into the frigid tunnel, boots crunching against packed snow, into nothing, as she follows after Wedge. They’re headed into the center of the base—if anyone’s here, they’ll be centralized in the innermost chambers. They’re big on conserving heat on Hoth. The war room, the central hub, the bunks, the mess hall, the comms center—all smack-dab in the middle. If anyone’s here, they’ll funnel them right back out. Easy.

It should be easy.

Din doesn’t move.

Nova shivers. She’s sorely underdressed for anywhere remotely cold, let alone the ice fortress that is Hoth, but the chill has seeped past her skin, sunk straight into her bones. Into her marrow. She stares up at Din, through that impenetrable visor, trying to suss out what expression he’s wearing underneath.

“Nova—”

“I’m here.” She winces. She meant to say fine, but they both know damn well that’s a lie. And, a stealthy, horrible voice whispers, the word here is technically a lie, too. “I’m holding it together,” she whispers, patching it up with another half-truth, and Din cocks his head to the side. Nova swallows.

“There is enough,” he says, voice hard, thick with emotion, even through the modulator, “of a fight here already.” He pauses. “There’s something wrong on this planet. I need you to stay…here with me, Nova. With us. Please.”

Nova winces at that, too. With Din. With them.

With the Alliance.

With herself. Both versions—Novalise. And Andromeda.

She feels—shaken. All of that fight that flooded back into her on Corellia has been knocked loose. Exhaustion is sluicing through her. Black tinges the corner of her vision—like she cannot trust even that. She blinks, once, twice.

Novalise, the voice calls. It beckons. It taunts.

Something inside of her snaps—glowing, hissing. Rebel orange. You called, Nova retaliates, I’m answering.

Nova comes back into herself like a lightsaber, her body reigniting, her shoulders squaring. Her chin lifts up, braid swinging straight down her spine. Din’s visor tracks her movements, watches how she moves—like herself. Not slinking, not desperate, not undone.

Novalise Djarin—Rebel Girl, here to save the day. The darkness, even the kind that’s taken up a home in her skin, can fucking wait.

“How much time is on the clock?” Nova asks, and she can feel Din’s reassurance seep back in, lockstep. In unison, like soldiers, the two of them bullet down the hallway. Nova’s breath clouds in the air in front of them. The base is eerie, quiet, muted.

“Where is everyone?”

Din raises a finger to his helmet as they stalk in, closer and closer. Nova’s saber is raised, but unignited. Din’s other hand is curled off-kilter around the base of his blaster. An expert’s hold—lazy to the untrained eye, but Novalise knows better. She’s seen Din drop a thousand men with that blaster alone. She swallows, kicking in doors. Abandoned, that’s the word for what they’re looking at. Most of the base has been abandoned.

“Where is everyone?” she murmurs again, more to herself than to Din, but he responds anyway.

“I don’t know.”

It doesn’t feel right. The base is always quiet, yes, but not…empty. Not like this.

Nova peers around the corner, to her old quarters—where Wedge let her stay, gave her a home again when he found her, abandoned and destitute on Dantooine. There isn’t much there—everything, like an omen or like a metaphor, Nova can’t decide which—has already been relocated to Mandalore. But she goes inside anyway, curling her fingers around a forgotten schematic of one her parents’ combined maps—one that was wrong. One that never encompassed the fullness of the galaxy. She pockets it, blinking away tears she’ll cry later, closing the door behind her.

As if that’ll stop destruction. As if that’ll stop annihilation.

But it’ll preserve it in my memory, Nova thinks, and maybe that’s what matters.

They snake in closer and closer to the center of the Rebel base. Din follows Novalise like a soldier. Like a bullet.

Like an omen.

He blinks, and the scene shifts—the first time he laid eyes on her. Not snow, not ice. Lava pits, cracked earth. The same soul he’s tied his heart to, the same path he’s following now, save for one thing.

When Din found Novalise, on Nevarro, she wasn’t Novalise at all.

She said her name was Andromeda. She crashed an X-Wing. It wasn’t her X-Wing—that, she was very adamant about, she would never crash her X-Wing—but it was the only ship she could pilot, and she was in a bad spot, and she had to get out of there. She was a girl made of stardust and laughter and the biggest fucking heart he’d ever seen. She was all warmth—all brown skin and green, green eyes, and teeth that shone brighter than starlight, and Maker, she bowled him over. He didn’t need a pilot, and he certainly didn’t need trouble—and she was trouble. Trouble, because she was running from something that left her haunted; trouble, because she was the kind of beautiful that made people think they had ownership over her; trouble, because she was the purest light he had ever witnessed and he was absolutely terrified of her.

The first time Din touched Andromeda, he had to go lay down. She shocked him—straight through his clothes, his armor—and he grappled with his Creed and with his own anatomy for hours until he realized it wasn’t electricity. It was just her. He couldn’t believe she existed—her kindness. Her warmth. Her goodness. He couldn’t believe she fit into his life—dropped into it from the skies, literally—and made him realize everything he was missing. He couldn’t believe that he had lived thirty-six years without her. Without a lightning strike. Without her touch. Without her light.

The thing was—he didn’t.

Din Djarin dreamed. He dreamed of Nova. He dreamed of the Sanct’yia—this mythical, saintlike goddess, forged from sunlight and silver and the stars above, and she held Nova’s face. And when she told him her chosen name, Novalise, he came closer and closer to salvation. But he didn’t put it together until he made the biggest mistake of his life—leaving her on Dantooine, leaving her at all—and when she came back to him, she came back with something more.

And he came back with the origins of her name. Novalise. From the Mando’a Novay’lain. To radiate. To shine. To survive.

The Nova in front of him—she is not just Novalise. She is equal parts her past and her future—Andromeda and Sanct’yia—and there is something dark trapped under her skin. But as she moves through the Rebel base with one hand on her lightsaber and the Darksaber hanging from her belt—she is everything but a monolith. She is everything. She shines, his Supernova. Even now.

Din swears an oath to whatever higher power is listening that he will not let that ever burn out.

“Anything?”

Nova moves through the next set of rooms. She shakes her head, signaling to Din, whose fist is clenched tight around his blaster, the other fiddling with the comms signal filter in his helmet. Her own, nestled into the crook of her ear, crackles with static and an eerie, low thrumming. She tries to shake the noise loose.

Bo-Kaan’s voice crackles through—curt, even. “No.”

“I don’t like this.” Nova shivers at the closeness of Wedge’s voice—like he’s inside her ear, whispering to her. He sounds unmoored, too. She blinks down a flickering, darkened hallway. The Not-Nova reappears, too-sudden, a flash, a lightning strike. She snaps her teeth, and Nova recoils. She reacts like a knife, swinging her saber up, breath catching like a struck match in her throat.

Din’s on her in a heartbeat. “What?”

She shakes her head. Shakes it off. “Nothing.” Nova pushes past him, deeper, after Wedge and Bo-Katan. They’re running out of time. She presses her comm, the hum of electricity sparking in her ear before it pulses through. “Wedge, I need you to fire up the base-wide comms system.” She inhales, exhales. None of them are going to like this. “We’re going to make an announcement.”

“Nova—”

She keeps striding, deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. An ice maze, hanging wires and durasteel floors, peppered with rock salt and grip tape, toes frozen solid in her boots. Nova breathes a cloud of air and feels the darkness calling to her again. It creeps at the edges of her vision, curling spores and tendrils around her iris. Like poison. Venom. Fire licking. But cold, utterly cold.

“Novalise.” That isn’t on the comms. The reprimand—or warning—is for her, and her alone.

Din’s striding after her, his footfalls heavier, his legs infinitely longer. But she’s furious, and she’s jittery, and she’s undone, and Novalise is outpacing him because she knows every inch of this base. She ducks and moves through Hoth’s outpost like an expert. Her Mandalorian is playing catch-up. Bo-Katan and Wedge are trying to hail them both through the comms. The Djarins ignore them both as they weave closer and closer to the central hall; the war room. The four of them—their pronged star, their multi-headed animal—they’re used to living in a command center, around a holotable. They are their own concentric circle.

Novalise.

Nova bares her own teeth. Not now. “I know what it’ll do, Din—”

“The plan was to get in and out. Quickly. Quietly. Under cover. No one is here. Making an announcement over the base-wide comm—”

“Will alert anyone with access to our air-comm to exactly where we are. I understand.”

“That is a terrible idea. For all we know, the Chimaera already has access to our system—”

“Okay, maybe the idea’s a reckless one, maybe—”

“No, not just reckless, Nova. A terrible—”

“And we only have minutes before the Chimaera shows up, and then what? Then what, Din?

“Hothian Squadron, come in.”

Nova stops. Din nearly collides with her. That’s not any of them—not on the ground. That’s Hera. Her heart, kept surprisingly calm until now, is ricocheting off her ribcage. It’s loud—cacophonous. Nova breathes, and the darkness inside her snarls. Laughs.

She blinks, and Din’s outpaced her, finally. He stops her, bracing her, and she sags in his grasp, letting her lightsaber blade detract. The golden light disappears. Vanishes. It leaves them both in Hoth’s anesthetic whiteness, stark blue interior. Every hair on the back of her neck is standing up.

“We hear you, General,” Wedge says. His voice is so much steadier than Nova feels. Her knees—they’re shaking. She cannot look Din in the eye. Not even through the visor. She feels small and hungry and beaten.

I want to fight. I want to save Hoth, Nova had said, so determined, so vital, less than an hour ago. How quickly that was bled out of her.

“The Chimaera,” Hera says, somberly, “is about to penetrate Hoth’s airspace.”

Nova grits her teeth together. Din’s fingers clench around her forearms, tight enough to bruise.

“Come on,” he whispers, and slowly, slowly, like they’re moving through an hourglass, through sand, through amber, they drag through the final doorway to the war room, where Bo-Katan and Wedge are braced against the communications center and holotable. Bo-Katan has her head hung, helmet slung low against her chest. Wedge has his hand over his hurt leg, as if in prayer. Neither of them look up as Nova and Din join them—tightening ranks, a sorry, woeful formation. The galaxy’s mightiest heroes, Nova thinks, and then tears threaten at the corners of her eyes.

“Okay,” Nova says, trying to rally the troops, trying to rally herself, “let’s go. Let’s man the trenches.”

She glances at Bo-Katan, whose head is still slung very low. Her eyebrows are knitted down the middle. Nova tries to catch her eye, but Bo-Katan is looking at something—very, very intensely.

“Hey,” Nova whispers, “let’s go, we have a planet to defend—”

“Novalise,” Bo-Katan spits, harshly, “are you stupid?” Nova recoils. Everything goes shutter-silent. “‘Man the trenches’? They tried that here already. That’s how an entire battalion of Rebels got lost.”

“Take it down a notch,” Din snarls, pouncing on her like a panther. Bo-Katan doesn’t flinch. “Are you listening to me? Don’t you dare take this out on her—”

Wedge blinks off in the distance. “I was there,” he whispers.

Nova’s breath catches in her throat. “What?”

“The last time. When Hoth was attacked. I was there.” He laughs. “And here I am again.”

Sadness chokes Nova like a sieve. “Wedge,” she says, surging toward him, “Wedge, we can fight, we can go–I don’t know, to the front lines, and shoot the Chimaera, we can fight—”

“Wait. Hera,” Bo-Katan interrupts, “I have a read on one Star Destroyer.”

One awful, silent second. Static crackling. Then: “Yes.”

“And,” Bo-Katan says, her voice jumping an octave, “...more.”

Nova looks to Din, then to Wedge. All of them, at once, move over to Bo-Katan’s screen—where smaller ships are starting to blink into existence on the radar. Nothing as large as Thrawn’s titanic Star Destroyer, yes—but TIE fighters, bombers, defenders, frigates, freighters.

“Oh,” Hera says, and it sounds like she’s been punched in the stomach.

Bo-Katan’s eyes snap upwards. “What?” Her voice is hoarse. “Hera, what?”

Hera doesn’t speak.

“General Syndulla?” Wedge leans forward. “Hera!”

Static. Then, slowly, “...Stars. He’s…It’s not—it’s not just the Chimaera.” Bo-Katan’s eyes connect with Nova’s, and for the first time, Novalise sees what complete and utter despair looks like on Bo-Katan Kryze. “He has a whole fucking fleet.”

Nova turns away.

“We have no chance.” That’s Din. “We have to go. Now.”

“The rest of the base—”

“Wedge,” Din snarls, “there’s no one here.”

They’re arguing. Nova knows they’re arguing, but it fades out. It fades out, because the chittering, clicking noise is back, and her eyes are closed, because she knows if she opens them, the Not-Nova is going to be in front of her, choking the life out of her, and the last thing she is ever going to see is this place. This Rebel base, where she was born again, after she died, after she died and came back to life. After she remade herself, again. After she became Novalise, again. Her life—it has been a series of rebuilding herself up from ashes, from ruin, and Nova is so, so tired of being a savior. Of being an alchemist. Of forging light from darkness. And now, even that ability has been corrupted—her shine, her light. The villain—whoever it is—Jacterr Calican, Moff Gideon, Ladmeny Sparmau, Grand Admiral Thrawn, it does not matter—the villain in her story is going to make it burn instead. And all Nova wanted was a chance. One chance—to defend Hoth. To keep one home alive.

It was a slim chance when it was Thrawn and his entire Star Destroyer.

But with an entire reanimated Imperial Fleet, conjured from Deep Space?

Hoth won’t just burn. It will be obliterated.

Novalise, the voice calls.

Yes, Nova snarls, I am.

Nova opens her eyes. “Hera,” she says, stalking forward, wrenching the comm out of Bo-Katan’s hands, “get the fuck out of here.”

“No—”

“You may outrank me on Hoth, but in a grand total of ten minutes, Hoth will cease to exist,” Nova interrupts. “Mandalore is hosting all Hothian refugees and Rebel Alliance members until further notice. Therefore, as the Mand’alor, I am ordering you to take my son out of dangerous territory and to safer ground. Once you are there safely, and only when you are there safely, you are to contact General Leia Organa and inform her of what has happened to Hoth. Tell her Mand’alor Novalise Djarin is requesting her immediate aid.”

“Novalise, I want to—”

“I’m not done. There is a holopad in the bag I left on my bed. In it is a message—” Nova swallows, inhales, exhales, “—for Luke Skywalker. In the event that he shows up and we…do not, he needs to get it. That’s imperative. Is that clear?”

“Nova—”

“Hera,” Nova says, “please, please get Grogu, and yourself, and your insane droid to Mandalore.”

Silence. Nova can feel her family behind her staring holes into her skull. She can feel the darkness in front of her pulsing, waiting for a second of weakness. She does not yield to either. Not until Hera—strong, unbreakable Hera, turned vulnerable, staring down the mouth of an entire disappeared Imperial fleet alone—is out of the gaping maw of danger.

“Message received, Mand’alor,” Hera says, and Nova hears the unmistakable whoosh of warp powering up. “Ghost over and out.”

Nova turns around. Slowly. Painfully. “This base,” she whispers, “is not empty.”

Wedge shakes his head. “Nova—”

“I can feel them,” she says, and a sob finally wrenches itself free from her throat. She stabs her chest with her forefinger, forcefully. Hard enough to bruise. “There is something here. Souls. If there are people left on this base, I am not leaving them behind.”

Bo-Katan’s eyes flash. Stony. Hard. With the glint of a weapon. “You are not suited to be making decisions right now.”

Din growls. “Bo-Katan—”

“She’s right.” Nova doesn’t take her eyes off her best friend—a blade, this version of Bo-Katan, but her best friend all the same. “I’m not.”

One long, terrible second. Then, finally: “What do you want?”

“I want to make one, singular base-wide comm announcement. Code red. Evacuation. Anyone on-base will know what that means, and anyone intercepting it will guess, but not know where people will evacuate to. Once we’re clear of Hoth’s airspace, we can beam Mandalore’s location to Rebel vessels to avoid interception.”

Bo-Katan exhales through her nostrils, a cloud of smoke. “Okay.”

“You both start moving toward the ship,” Nova says, “Din and I will be right behind you.”

And they go. There are a million words to exchange, but no time. They go, and Nova breathes, closing her eyes. Din is staring her down, she can feel it, but Nova doesn’t face him until she’s placed on every alarm and Hoth is swirling in red, alert blaring our in staccato rhythm, and she looks up at her Mandalorian, feeling the danger get closer and closer as the sirens blare, as the darkness calls.

“Novalise—”

“I need,” she whispers, her voice ragged, uneven, “a second.”

Din is strong, unyielding. Nova feels like she’s standing on ice, on something about to shatter. Around them, the alarm shrieks. Novalise is shredded—sluiced through in a million emotions. She is choking on poison. She is hallucinating. She is vantablack. She is dancing, laughing. She is dying. She is tipping forward into an inkwell. She is naked with the sun on her skin. She is on Naator. She is alone in a world between worlds. She is nowhere. She is everywhere.

Novalise.

“I’m here.”

“No,” Din says, worriedly, forcefully, “you’re not.”

Something snaps inside of her. Something dark—raw. It takes control. Nova blinks.

“Nova,” he says, squeezing her, thumbs digging into her cheekbones, dragging her back to reality, “we have to run.”

“I want to fight,” she protests, and Din starts dragging her towards the exit. Nova screams. A guttural, bloodcurdling one. “No! No! This is my home! I want to fight!”

“This is not your home,” Din says, tiredly, pulling her back from the nightmare, pulling her away from the ice, “not anymore. Come on, baby.” She can hear the words that he isn’t saying, loud and clear. Come back to me.

“He’s going to annihilate it,” Nova says, and she feels like she’s tumbling. She’s stumbling, swaying, tripping over her feet. Are people rushing around her—she can’t tell. She cannot tell. She thinks she’s in the cargo bay—her breath fogs out in front of her. Distracting her. She can feel the thrash, the cold, unflappable danger of Thrawn and his unkillable fleet. It flushes through her veins like fear. Burn it. Burn it. “He can’t. He can’t.”

“Nova—”

“No.” They’re almost on the ship now. The engines fire up—full flash. Nova can feel the sudden heat. But she pulls free. Somehow—out of Din’s iron grasp. She yanks herself free. He stares at her. Wildly. Under the visor, she can feel it. Betrayed, that stare. She has power. She has the Force. She has the darkness. “I will not let him wipe Hoth out.”

“Novalise.” Not right now, Nova thinks. My name does not mean to shine. It means something stronger than that. More destructive.

And she runs out of the hangar and into Hoth’s unrelenting cold.

Wedge watches through the window as Nova slips out of Din’s grip and runs out into the snow. He wrenches himself free from the seatbelt, but Bo-Katan slams him back into the seat. She’s stronger than she looks—no, he thinks, dully, as the wind is knocked out of his lungs—Bo-Katan Kryze looks like she could take down an entire army single-handedly, but Maker, that hurt.

“Nova’s—”

“That,” Bo-Katan says, lowly, all of the life drained out of her, “is not Nova.”

Wedge feels sucker-punched. “What?”

Bo-Katan forces him back into the chair. “Buckle up.”

Wedge blinks. “What the hell are you talking about?” His voice is ragged. Wheezy. They never should have come here. “No, I–I’m not buckling anything. We can’t just—we’re not fucking leaving her here—”

“Of course we’re not,” Bo-Katan says, pointing, her finger a blade out the window. Through the storm, Wedge can barely make out Din’s beskar hurtling after her. Bo-Katan flips all the switches, getting the ship ready to jet down the runway, which is nonexistent, covered with slip ice and snow, but they’ve flown in worse conditions. “He’s getting her right now.”

Wedge, dazed, buckles in. “What is happening,” he whispers, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. “What do you mean that’s not Nova?”

Bo-Katan doesn’t look at him. Purposefully. She pulls the thrusters back, letting the ship’s engine warm up. On Hoth, even with the ships specifically designed to be weather-resistant for ice and cold, every so often, the engines can short-circuit. And if they are stuck here, now, with an entire Imperial fleet headed their way, about to blast Hoth into nothingness to—well, Wedge still doesn’t understand the details, cannot fathom why Thrawn wants to destroy the Rebel base other than to send a message of general death and despair, especially because everyone is so scattered, and perhaps to incite another war—they’re fucked. He feels—feverish. He thinks his wound is infected. The ship makes a grinding, whining sound, and it jolts Wedge back into the jittery pit of fear that was Bo-Katan’s first sentence.

“Bo-Katan.”

“Wedge, buckle up—”

“What the fuck do you mean,” he snaps, leagues angrier than he ever gets, “that is not Nova?”

Bo-Katan, rightfully, recoils. “There is something,” she whispers, “wrong with her. There has been ever since we landed out in the Unknown Regions. Can’t you feel it? She’s—not herself. No. Not herself at all. Haunted.”

Wedge blinks. “She’s—she’s losing her home, again, she’s getting chased down by someone evil and dangerous again, she’s having to save the galaxy from a massive threat, again—”

“Yes. And something is seriously wrong with her. Fucking around in her head for parts.”

Wedge laughs. High and mirthless. “So, what—Nova’s possessed? Really? We are not having this conversation.”

Bo-Katan glares at him. “You have,” she whispers, “absolutely no idea what I have seen, Wedge.” And something about the timbre of her voice, low and wobbling, exhausted and undone, makes his stomach pierce through like a knife. “You’ve spent your life in the stars, flyboy. Shooting at TIE fighters and knocking idiot stormtrooper skulls together. Fixing ships on Rebel bases. While you and your Jedi friends were celebrating saving the galaxy, Mandalore was getting razed and pillaged and glassed. Burned to the fucking ground. I lost my family. My sister. And I have seen people come back from the dead. I have seen magic, Wedge—and it’s not what you think.”

Wedge feels like all the air has been sucked out of the starfighter. “Bo-Katan—”

“We’re not talking about good versus evil,” she whispers. “We are not talking about strategy, or war games, or being warriors. The second we went after Ezra, the game changed.” She stares at him like she’s begging him to understand something—something Wedge fundamentally cannot. “Something…unholy has Novalise.”

Wedge takes a shallow breath. The ominous blinking of Thrawn’s fleet creeps closer and closer. “Fly,” he says. “Bo, we need to get in the air.”

“Wedge,” she says, “I’m sorry. About Hoth. I really am.”

It’s not the time. It’s the worst timing in the galaxy, really. But that’s Bo-Katan—terrible timing for genuine feelings, and Wedge musters up a tiny smile before she’s hitting the thrusters and he’s saying a small goodbye to the place he’s called home for the last twenty years of his life.

“We’re bringing her back,” he says, more to himself than her, but then panic flares in his chest and he needs to confirm it. “We’re bringing Nova back, right?”

Bo-Katan affixes him with a sour look. “Only Din can bring her back,” she says, “but we’re picking them both off the ground.”

Wedge swallows. “Gonna be tight.” On the screen, the fleet blinks closer. And closer. “Getting them.”

Bo-Katan narrows her eyes, punches the thrusters, and leaves the docking bay in the dust. “Gonna be a fucking miracle.”

Nova’s fast.

She’s fast, and she’s motivated by something Din cannot fathom, cannot wrap his head around. She promised, is all he keeps thinking. She promised that she wouldn’t be a martyr. Never again. She promised she wouldn’t run from me. She promised. Anger is wearing him like a carcass, like an animal. Like the bullet he became down on Corellia, a blade, a weapon of destruction. He’s seeing red.

A predator. He’s tracking her like a predator. Din’s clenching his fists, trying to regulate it, keep it under control, because—he cannot. She is not a bounty. She is not a target. She is the love of his life, the holiest thing he’s ever held in his hands. But she is—she is…

“Novalise!”

The storm is bright—white-out. He can barely make out anything, even through his visor, even with his heat sensor mapping. Terror runs through him—Nova doesn’t have armor on. She doesn’t have anything on other than Hera’s borrowed clothes and her own boots. No helmet, even. Just clothes. Not even suitable for the inside of Hoth’s base, let alone the tundra out here. Maker, if Thrawn doesn’t incinerate the planet first, she’ll die out here from exposure alone.

He tries to regulate himself. What is she chasing? What could she possibly have seen?

Not the fleet. They entered airspace—what was that, six minutes ago? Seven? They’ll be entering the atmosphere soon. Within firing distance. If they have a planet destruction device, then they’re all fucked. Bo-Katan and Wedge will be airborne within a minute if they aren’t already, Din’s been ignoring his comms to search for Nova, and even with the starfighter having both of their locations, it’ll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Worse. Worse, because there’s also an Imperial fleet trying to bomb the place into nothingness.

“Novalise!”

Novalise.

“I’m here!” Nova roars, into the whiteness, into the whipping storm. Into the whistling, unsettled silence. Something is so, so off. “I’m here. What do you want from me?”

She appears. Her mirror-image. Her awful self, this alter-ego. Flickers into place like a hologram. Smiles with a mouth full of black blood, like tar. “Novalise,” she sighs.

Nova screams, loud, earth-shattering. It echoes off of nothing. Evaporates into the storm.

“Good. Anger.”

“What,” Nova whispers, “do you want from me?”

Not-Nova steps forward, lifting a hand like she’s going to stroke her hair. Nova recoils. “I want you to fight.”

Nova throws up her hands, incredulous. “I WANT TO FIGHT!” she screams, into the storm.

Not-Nova flashes closer. Before Nova can stop her, she presses a thumbprint to her forehead, right between her eyebrows.

A flood—a feeling. Resonance. Blue lightning. A thread. Let’s follow it: Thrawn has to be close, now. He is not in her head. He has appeared in no visions—no dreams. He does not have the Force. He is just cunning. Just terror. She is standing on the precipice. The darkness drip-drip-drips. She turns on her heel—there is lightning. There is the sizzle-flash of a red lightsaber. There is laughter and happiness, too. There is the Mandalorian war room and Din’s mouth against hers and the belly of a ship and the gaping maw of darkness. There is a basin full of silver liquid. There is Nova plunging headfirst into it. Her lightsaber. The darksaber. A world of charged lines, paths leading off in a thousand alternate universes. Her parents. Andromeda. Her future. Novalise, Novalise, Novalise.

Nova opens her eyes.

Not-Nova’s eyes are open wide, eerie and unblinking, smile plastered on her face. “Let me in,” she croons. “Let me fight.”

“Let me fight,” Nova repeats.

The air around her rumbles.

She raises her palm, touches it to Not-Nova’s.

“Let me in. Let me in.” Something yanks at Nova—deep, deep inside of her. It unsettles her, that thread. She cannot quantify it, cannot put it to name. Cannot—the rumbling. The air. The snow. She blinks. “Let me in.”

Everything orange and golden and silver, everything that makes Novalise Novalise—it quiets. Goes mute. Like a line falling slack. She closes her eyes, listened to the snow falling, trying to find her own pulse.

Novalise.

Everything vanishes.

Above her, suddenly, through the ever-permanent haze of white clouds—the unmistakable, faraway, descending shape of an imminent Star Destroyer.

Nova inhales, and she feels like she’s taking something out of Hoth’s air—or maybe like she’s stepping back into herself, snapping back into place, waking up—Maker fuck—and she collides with something hard.

Din’s helmet is off. “What,” he says, voice frantic, panicked, “the fuck were you thinking, Nova?”

Tears freeze on her waterline. “I don’t know,” she whispers, and it’s the truth. She feels another sob rising in her throat, pressing a shaking, frozen hand to her mouth, everything in her body trembling, undone. “Din, I—”

He grabs her head with one hand, her collapsing waist with the other. Together, they sink knee-deep into the snow. He pulls her head back. An anchor, a pain point. Just like Bo-Katan did. Less than twenty minutes ago. It feels like a lifetime. “You trying to take on an entire Imperial fleet by yourself?”

“No, I—”

“You’re not fucking invincible,” he snarls.

“No.”

His teeth clench. “Or powerful enough for that.”

Nova shutters her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking—”

“That much,” Din spits, “is clear.”

She stifles a sob. “Did–did you see what I—?”

“Novalise,” Din says, yanking her braid back, hard enough to force her to open her eyes, and she does, and she has never seen him so panicked, so wild, “the only thing I have seen today is you running off like you are either possessed or have a death wish.” His voice is vivid and clear. It would hurt less if he slapped her. “We are about to be annihilated. Get up.”

“There’s something wrong with me,” she whispers, and she cannot tell if it’s loud enough, if he hears it, but Din picks her up, off her feet, carries her, shoves his helmet over her head, instead of his, and starts running.

“I know, baby,” he says, lost in the wind. “I know.”

A ship materializes out of nowhere. It swoops out of the sky like a bird—a glorious, clunky, strange bird. Nova is half-conscious when Din stumbles them both aboard—she’s buckled in, dazed, his helmet taken off her head somewhere along the way, discarded in the corner. She feels like she’s missing something vital.

“Did we get everyone off-planet?”

Wedge looks back at her. “Yeah,” he says, distant, faraway. “Yes.”

“Good,” Nova murmurs, head off elsewhere, eyes unfocused. Bo-Katan pulls the thrusters up, and they’re going, going, gone—

They’re not.

The Chimaera and its fleet are spanned out across the entire mouth of space in front of them.

Din swears in every language he knows how. “Bo-Katan,” he whispers.

She does not flinch. “I know.”

“Let me shoot.”

“If any one of us,” Bo-Katan hisses, “could take on an entire Imperial fleet, Din, it would be Novalise the Jedi, not you and your unwitting ability to use this clunker’s gun. And the former is currently incapacitated in the back if our vessel. You want to shoot a round at Thrawn? You’ll get us blow to bits. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Sitting here is doing us no good either—”

“We can jump,” Wedge says. “Just jump.”

“I’m not leading them to Mandalore.”

“Don’t jump to Mandalore.”

“It’s preloaded in the nav system, Wedge, and we’re staring down the barrel of a fleet. Where else,” Bo-Katan whispers, “could we possibly jump to?”

Silence. Then, from the back of the ship, a gasp.

Novalise.

Nova’s eyes fly open. She is not in the clunker from Hoth. She is not anywhere she knows—She is on an Imperial ship. Her heart flips over. “This is not real,” she whispers. “This is not real.”

“Novalise.”

She whips around, exhausted, fight-or-flight flooding through her veins yet again.

“Oh, stars,” she says, her voice breaking down the middle, “Ezra.”

He looks terrible. His hair is overgrown, one of his brilliant purple eyes is black, and he’s severely emaciated. He flashes her a grin. “I owe you one,” he whispers. “Think I can cash in on that right now?”

Nova blinks. “Where are you?”

Ezra points. They’re back on the Rebel starfighter. His finger traces straight to the Chimaera. Nova shakes her head.

“No.”

“Yes. Well, not in the Chimaera. I took over one of the frigates. It’s a really long story. I’ll tell you everything soon. But right now? Now, I’m going to create a diversion. It’ll be chaos. I can block their tracking completely, but only temporarily. You’ll have about fifteen seconds to jump, so the second you see the explosion, you hit hyperdrive, okay?”

“Ezra,” Nova says, weakly, “I am not in control of this ship.”

Ezra looks over his shoulder, then, worriedly, dazzlingly, flashes her a smile. “I have full faith in you.”

“Are you sure,” Nova whispers, “this is going to work?”

“No,” Ezra says, “but I am sure Thrawn will lay siege to your ship and then Hoth if we don’t try.”

Nova lifts her chin. “Okay.”

Ezra smiles. “On the explosion.”

“On the explosion.”

Ezra disappears. Nova opens her eyes. “Bo-Katan,” she calls, half-strangled and woozy, “we’re going to jump.”

“No,” Bo-Katan snarls.

“Bo-Katan—”

“I am not leading Thrawn to Mandalore—”

“In about five seconds,” Nova interrupts, voice ragged, slumping back against her seat, bracing for impact, “one of the Imperial frigates is going to open fire on the Chimaera, disabling their tracking, giving us fifteen seconds of chaos to disappear. We jump then. To Mandalore.”

All three of them whip around to stare at her, with varying levels of incredulity on their faces.

“How do you—”

“Ezra Bridger,” Nova says, hoarsely, “is back on the map.”

They are backlit by an explosion on the Chimaera. Bo-Katan, with only a second of hesitation, punches them into hyperdrive. They slam forward, tunneling through space—it feels like a wormhole, in this ship, not intentionally made to handle intergalactic travel, not at this frequency, not at this carved path, specifically forced between Hoth and Mandalore, and when they empty out into Mandalore’s airspace, and onto Mandalore’s solid ground, none of them speak. They are welcomed back by Mandalorians. By Hera and Chopper, by Grogu.

In the war room, everyone watches in shattered, eerie silence as the battered Chimaera burns Hoth’s ice planet to the ground. Burn is too small of a word. It sieges it. It razes it to nothing. Hoth becomes holocene. Hoth is nothing—not a shard. Nothing but dust.

No one speaks. There is no funeral. There is nothing to gather, nothing to say. Everyone looks, expectantly, to the Mand’alor, a Rebel herself, to incite a great speech about overcoming and fighting and swallowing that stardust to pave the way for the future.

“Novalise,” Din says, softly, so softly.

Nova turns on her heel—silently. She moves away from the Mandalorians, from the Rebels, from everyone she is expected to lead. She is carried by a force that is not her own. She floats through the palace like a ghost, like an apparition, like an after-image of herself.

Novalise—exhausted, alone, locks herself behind the impenetrable door of the Mand’alor’s bathroom. She stares at herself in the mirror and tries to find something to cling to. Something to fight for. Something to burn back.

Nothing answers the call.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!! please let me know what you think if you're so inclined <3

i have a very busy few weeks coming up (a business trip, my anniversary with my partner, my 27th birthday, and a visit from my best friend) so i'm aiming for a three-week turnaround for the next chapter! CHAPTER 10 WILL (hopefully) BE UP AT 7:30 PM EST ON APRIL 13TH!

xoxo, amelie

4 notes · View notes

amiedala · 1 year

Text

SOMETHING DEEPER

CHAPTER 27: Something Deeper

WARNINGS: explicit sexual content, power play

SUMMARY:

“Hi,” Nova whispers, holding the weight of the world in that one, desperate confession.

“Hi,” Din echoes, and everything else fades out.

This, right here? This is something deeper. This is the best kind of karma. This is coming home.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

IT'S ME, BACK FROM THE DEAD, WITH A 13,000+ WORD WHAMMY OF A FINAL CHAPTER!!!

this is where i apologize, for the infinite time, for promising to be more consistent and then consequently dropping off the face of the planet. 2022 has, quite literally, tried to kill me. please take this final installment of Something Deeper as much of an apology as i can muster. i'll go into more depth at the end, as always, but for now, please know that i waited this long to put this finale out until it was as polished and perfect as it could get. i hope you love this final chapter, and while the word "soon" might not mean anything coming from me anymore, i promise Something Holy, the final book in the Something More Series, is already being written. it will be yours soon. thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sticking with me, Nova, and Din until the very end. it means more than i can say. <3

In the morning, Nova wakes up first.

The sunlight, streaming in through the windows, is the polar opposite of Mandalore. There, everything is blue—muted, cool, soothing even in its holocene. Here, the warmth seeps in through the curtains before the sun even rises, the sky already pink and toned and gorgeous. Both mornings offer different things—steadfastness versus serenity—and yet, both planets feel like home.

For the first time in what feels like an entire lifetime, Nova doesn’t have a nightmare. No Sparmau. No blue lightning. No Ezra, desperate and lost in another mortal plain. No visions of her parents’ ship being dragged out of the sky. No ominous, creeping warning that the First Order–or the looming villainous nothingness—is coming. Just dreamless, restful sleep.

When she wakes up, it’s slow. The pink light streaming in through the windows is the first thing she notices, the way it warms the floorboards and spills over the mess of their bedding. The off-white comforter is turned orange by the glow. The second thing she notices is the way her body aches, familiar bruises swelling over the map of it. But Nova grins with the hurt of it all, marveling at the way Din’s fingerprints are embedded in her thighs, over the grasp of her hips, pressed into her throat. It’s familiar and nostalgic—it’s been so long that the bruises that line her body were from love instead of war.

The third thing she notices is Din.

His mouth is parted slightly, the pink light of Naator cresting over the rugged contours of his face. It slopes over his nose, and Nova resists running her finger over the bump in it. She doesn’t want to wake him from his sleep. He looks peaceful, rested.

“I love you,” she whispers into the open air, barely making a sound. “I love you so much.” He doesn’t stir, just takes in a quiet inhale. Nova stares at him in his sleep, memorizing every single atom that makes him up. At the beginning of all of this, before she knew Din as Din, she wanted him. A gravitational pull anchored her to his side, the Mandalorian who intrigued her. His depth, his kindness—they were shown in small doses, through the cracks in his armor, both literally and figuratively. The way he refused to leave her behind on Corellia. The way he protected her when Xi’an came back to the ship. The way he chased her down when her heart told her to flee. And now—now, even when she betrayed him, even when she ran after promising she never would again, here he is, tangled in her arms, ready to marry her all over again.

Nova can’t help it. Her eyes well with tears.

Din stirs under her watchful eye, and Nova bites her lip, trying to swat the tears away. His eyelashes flutter open, and when they come to rest on hers, there’s nothing but love. And then, immediately after, concern. She swipes one away with her fingernail, but Din catches her wrist midair.

“Novalise,” he says, slowly, carefully, “did I hurt you?”

Nova swallows, stroking the line of his jaw with the hand he isn’t holding captive. “No,” she whispers. “No. I’m just being emotional.”

His eyebrows furrow, his eyes sharpen. Din for you’re lying.

“I’m not lying,” she protests. “I’m not hurt. I promise. I just…I can’t believe we’re here. I’m so happy that we’re here. After all this…it feels like a dream.”

At that, he softens. “I know.” Silently, Din pulls Nova against his chest, and she crumples against the safety of it. For a few minutes, neither of them speak. Din traces shaky but certain circles across Nova’s bare back. “You did…so well evading me.”

Nova pulls away, grinning up at him. “I told you I’d give you a fair fight, Mandalorian.”

Din cracks a genuine, rare smile. “You did,” he says, shifting against her to face her head-on. “I…I believed you, you know. I was just trying to rile you up. I knew you could the whole time. I didn’t doubt you.”

Nova squints. “You doubted me a little.”

Din sighs. “I’m an expert,” he murmurs, dropping his lips to his collarbone. “Hunting bounties was all I ever did before I met you.”

Nova hums, leaning into his touch. “Did you ever fuck your bounties?”

Din stops, pulling away. “No,” he says, immediately. “Only you.”

Nova smiles, biting down on her bottom lip. “I know,” she whispers, lazily running a hand through his hair. “I remember what you told me, the first time you kissed me, back on Dantooine. You didn’t really do anything before you met me.”

Din nods, his eyes on her lips. “Nothing of consequence. Nothing that mattered.”

Nova meets his gaze, giving him a gentle smile. “I know.” The repeated assurance hangs between them. “Next time you catch me,” she breathes, her eyes roaming from Din’s to his mouth, “you should handcuff me.”

She can feel him harden against her leg. “Were my hands not good enough?” In response, one slides up to bracket her neck. “Do you need more of a reminder?”

He squeezes down, just enough for the edges of Nova’s vision to bottom out, and she gasps into the open air. “A reminder,” she stutters out, “of what?”

Din shifts, pinning her legs under his, and once again, Nova feels like divine prey. “You know what, cyar’ika,” he breathes into her open mouth, “that was the last time you’re ever running from me.”

Nova sighs as he straddles her. “Who said anything,” she manages, meeting his sharpened, lustful eyes, “about running?”

The sky has bled through violet to magenta to salmon to pale pink by the time Din and Nova eat and get outside. The door, thrown open last night, never got closed, so when they walk out into the open air, they’ve spent the morning already breathing it in. Nova steps over the vestibule to the sky, so gorgeous that even the highest level paints couldn’t capture it correctly. The morning, there’s a hint of fall in the air, a chill that persists even with the sun high in the sky.

It’s perfect. Naator, in all its beauty, is perfect. Being here, after everything they’ve endured is perfect.

She feels Din come up behind her before she sees him. The smell of leather and gunsmoke and metal and earth and something more than all of them. Cinnamon, ever-present, even though the spice doesn’t even exist on most of the planets they’ve journeyed to since. It still smells like home. She turns, slowly, reveling in it. He’s back in the beskar, covered in reflective silver. His helmet, though, is trapped against his hip and his hand.

Nova beams. Din smiles back. “You’re out in the open,” she breathes. He did the same thing on Sorgan. He’s shown his face to everyone that he considers family, now. But this is different. This isn’t in grief, or in a controlled space. It swells in Nova’s throat.

“Until we reach town,” Din confirms, pulling her into his armored body, slinging an arm around her jacketed shoulders. They walk, in unison, around the bend in the little clearing their cottage is dropped in, through the crunch of the yellow leaves that keep dancing down to the ground.

Nova savors everything around her—the feeling of the leaves beneath her boot, the air singing with honeysuckle and soil, the mild pink skies above the gaps in the trees. Naator feels sacred, like something holy. To her, it is. Untouched, a relic. So far away from the war and violence that’s seemed to follow them all around over the last year. She’s determined to keep it that way. Nova’s jaw clenches with the unspoken promise.

“What?” Din murmurs, low enough that it just resounds next to the shell of her ear.

Nova swallows. “I…while we’re here, I want to pretend. Pretend that the First Order isn’t lurking in the darkness. Pretend that Ben doesn’t turn evil. Pretend that Ezra is safe, or that he’s just a dream.” She bites down on her bottom lip. “Pretend that war isn’t coming,” she whispers, quieter. “But—”

“But,” Din interrupts, not unkindly, “that’s not how you work, Novalise. That’s…not who you are.”

Nova nods. “Exactly.”

Din regards her carefully. “Do you remember what it was like?” He asks, and then echoes, “before?”

Nova blinks a few times, coming to a standstill. The leaves drop wistfully to the ground around them, but the trees never become bare. It’s like they replenish every time one falls. The woods around her aren’t silent, but they seem to hold their breath as she stops. “When the Empire won?”

Din nods.

“I couldn’t forget even if I wanted to,” Nova whispers. It’s the full truth. “I wasn’t alive when they came into power, but I know…I remember how dark everything was. Uncertain. Horrible.”

“The First Order doesn’t seem as…”

“Obvious?” Nova cuts in.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Din muses, “but yes, actually.”

Nova sighs, rubbing her eyes. Even though she had her first night of restless sleep for the first time in what feels like years, she’s suddenly exhausted. “I think…I think they’re in their infancy,” she says carefully. “I know when all of this started, when you became Mand’alor, that we thought they were a more…present threat. I think the pieces that I know about—Gideon not being in charge of everyone, Sparmau’s connection to ‘him’ and the Dark Side, visions of Ben Solo as someone evil and unhinged—they’re all…futuristic, almost. Like maybe the First Order isn’t in existence yet. But I know they’re coming.” Nova punctuates it with a double-fingered tap across her heart. “I can feel it, Din, in here. But it’s not just the First Order ahead of us to fight. It can’t be. There’s a million restless pieces hidden behind the scenes, and the evil that they are might just be the tip of the iceberg.”

Din watches her, curious, awed. “Do you think…do you think that there’s anything to fight against? Right now?”

Nova chews on her bottom lip. “I mean, there are things to fight, after we get home. I don’t…I don’t know if they have a fleet of starships or that they’re ready to attack us. But I know there’s something wrong with Ben. I know the visions I’ve had will become real someday. I know that Qi’ra and the Crimson Dawn, whatever the hell they are, want political capital and to run spice through Mandalore.” She looks up at him. “I kind of wish they—whoever they are—had a fleet of starships ready to attack us, though.”

Din offers a small smile, and as always, it makes Nova’s heart flip over in her chest. “Something concrete,” he allows, hooking an arm around her shoulders, steadying them both. “I know what you mean. But…Nova, there’s no war here.”

And the weight doesn’t lift completely off of Nova’s shoulders, but it feels lighter, more tangible. Enough to push away the darkness. Enough to put in on pause.

The town is as serene as it was the last time they were there. Nova watches as Din pulls his helmet over his face, turning from man to Mandalorian. When they step out from behind the trees, it feels like something shifts. Nova’s hair is still a disaster from the night before, but no one gives her a second look after greeting both of them with a smile. Everything is glorious in the morning light, sifting through all the gorgeous yellow trees.

It moves at a sleepy pace, this town. It’s a comfort after spending so much time running for her life. Nova passes through the gauzy curtains fluttering in the light breeze, breathing in the scent of the leaves. Everything here feels safe, colored a perpetual state of goldenness.

“Are you hungry?”

“Hmm?’

Din gestures toward the restaurant in front of them. “Hungry?”

Nova’s eyes glitter. “You satiated that need already.”

Din cocks his helmet at her, and Nova laughs into the open air.

“No,” she concedes, swinging out in front of him to wrap both of her arms around his neck. “No, I’m not hungry. But I want to go somewhere. Come with me.”

Din doesn’t move until Nova’s hands slide down from where they’re clasped at the nape of his neck, gliding across the individual, seamless pieces of beskar, down until they grasp his gloved hand. He lets Nova pull him onward, through the idyllic little town, with no resistance, without any quarrel.

The little flock of trees where they stood once, preserved under the perennial, falling yellow leaves—it’s not distinct enough to stand out. But Nova remembers walking over the gnarled roots in the ground, the branches that curled up and over the others, like they’re dancing, trying to hang perfectly in the air. She weaves in and out of birch trees, small, flowered bushes, until both her and Din are back in the spot where they started. A lifetime ago, the first time they fell together on this planet, when it was love before the word.

Din observes, silently, from under the visor. When Nova turns around to study him, she catches herself in the tiniest blip, a singular supernova of deja vu. She inhales, breath shuttered in the valley of her throat, chewing on her bottom lip. Around them, the leaves dance down, a lulling melody in the gentle, sweet wind.

“You told me,” Nova says, in a whisper so quiet that Din has to lean in to hear her, “that I was your home once. In this very spot.”

He doesn’t move. Slowly, agonizingly, his hand snakes up across the fabric on her arm, up to the bare, exposed dip of her collarbone, anchoring finally against the back of her neck. Nova falls into his gravitational pull—the same way she did the first time, the same way she always has. “Novalise.”

“Listen,” she mouths, and Din falls silent, obedient, waiting. “You’ve been my home since I met you. Since I walked on the Razor Crest. Since you trusted me enough to let me in, but if I’m being honest…long before that.” She stops, trying to keep her voice steady. “But this is where I admitted it. This is where our lives, together, really started.”

Din nods, just once, the beautiful warmth of Naator reflected dully in his beskar.

Nova reaches up, hooking her fingers under the rim of the helmet. “Do you trust me?” she asks, and this, too, vaults her back in time.

“Yes.” The permission is there in his voice. Nova takes a sharp, solid inhale, and lifts it off. He’s staring at her, love in his eyes, half-lidded, star-studded. Like even in all of Naator’s gorgeousness, Novalise is the only thing in the entire galaxy. Nova’s heart catches in her chest, as it always does, as it always has.

“I love you so much,” she breathes, and then repeats it in Mando’a. Din echoes her, and as Nova watches his lips curve around the contours of the vowels, everything explodes.

Nova recoils, skittering backward as if she’s been struck, her head and her heart split open by lightning. She holds both her palms over her eyes, trying to shut it out—the immediate weight of it all, the heaviness of holding the world on her shoulders. All the peace that Naator usually offers suddenly dissipates, and doubt seeps in like fog, like poison, like venom. It holds her captive, whispering in her ears like a death rattle—Sparmau may be dead, but Nova put her in the ground. Blue lightning. Ezra trapped in an alternate dimension, one that may not even be real at all. The look of pure evil simmering in Ben Solo’s eyes. Something ocean blue and dangerous, lurking on the edges. The impact of her parents’ ship fracturing off into a million awful pieces. Cara’s death. The darkness coming in from every angle, shaving off every single piece of her until the only thing left is a weapon. The wound Jacterr carved into her stomach. The scars she wears every day. The look on Din’s face when she left—again—the resounding echo of I don’t forgive you.

“No!” Nova screams, and it reverberates through the trees. She has no idea how the chasm opened, but now that it’s been carved, she can’t escape it. She’s going to fall in. So she does the only thing she can—run.

Not alone, though. Never alone, not again. She reaches forward and snatches Din’s gloved hand, unsure if she’s able to manage any apology, pulling him behind her. Din stares at her, stunned. Nova can see it out of the corner of her eye. But panic comes up and threatens to swallow her whole, and despite all of her promises, she keeps running.

“Nova!”

“Follow me,” she cries, a choked, visceral sob. It’s too much. It’s not enough. She feels like a false idol, like she’s been masquerading. The love she feels, the love that she’s lost. Her home on Yavin. Her parents, killed by an enemy she wouldn’t meet until ten years later. The man she thought she loved, how his punches felt like knives. Giving up the Rebellion. Nearly losing her life in space. Cauterizing every single wound she’s ever had with a shimmering, vital blade. Trading happiness for disaster. Din walking away from her on Dantooine. Having to fake her death on Mandalore. Looking pure evil in the face and winning. Almost losing Din and Bo-Katan in the same stroke of horror. Every awful thing Grogu’s had to endure. Surviving and nearly falling over the edge. Not being forgiven. Looking in the mirror and seeing a split between Novalise and the saint and Andromeda. Past lives and lives yet to come. Ezra’s panicked face. Blue lightning. Horrible laughter. The certainty that darkness will rise again. The future, shimmering but uncertain. The longing for something more pounding inside of her chest, finally laid bare. Wanting to be holy, to live forever. Wanting a quiet life here, on Naator, with no more hurt ahead of her. This is what hurts the most—a glimpse at a future that still hangs uncertain. All of it collides, a horrible kaleidoscope.

“Novalise!” Din’s voice is unobscured now, sharp, sudden. Nova can hear it register, faintly, barely, over the incessant pound of blood in her ears. She runs across the flower field, up the barely trodden path towards the cave in the maw of the mountain, open and waiting for her. Neither of them are attempting to remain quiet this time, disrupting the forest’s peace. Nova can’t find it in her to care, to bring herself down to the earth. Her heart is still screaming. She’s following the sound, how it coaxes her toward the cave. Her name, a chant, three times.

“Novalise.”

This time, it isn’t just Din’s voice–it’s a triumvirate. Nova can feel it calling out to her, whispering through the sage, amber glow of the forest. She climbs, over and over again, until she’s standing at the cave’s open mouth. Din’s only a few steps behind her, but Nova hurtles through the opening. Like it’s making a choice. And Din follows, right on her heels, like she knew he would.

“Nova!”

She turns.

“I’ve had this dream,” she whispers, “over and over again. A vision, maybe. It’s me, looking in this mirror at the top of a dais. Almost like the throne room on Mandalore, but different. And I’m wearing this dress, Din, silver and shimmering, with this—halo on my head.” She swallows. “And I see her everywhere. This version of myself, this saint. I see Andromeda, too, her innocence, her determination, her brokenness. For months, it’s replayed on a loop in my head. I’ve been trapped in this alternate dimension with two timelines in opposing directions. It’s crazy. I know. I know how that sounds.” Nova steps toward him, reaching her hand out. A plea. “Come with me.”

Din stares at her, helmetless. His hair is a mess. His eyes flash with worry. “What?” A single word with such care, such concern. “Novalise—”

“I don’t know what it means,” she whispers, broken in half. “In every dream, either of them will tell me they’re—me. That I can’t throw it away. When I saw Ezra, he told me I can’t throw it away. None…none of it makes sense. They’re glimpses. Force visions are like that too, especially the ones Grogu makes me see, when he presses his head to my forehead. And I didn’t understand. I never understood. But,” she says, pulse racing, the realization that it’s the truth warming her belly from the inside, “I do now.”

Din just cocks his head at her. “What do you mean?”

Nova grabs onto his hand, which latches perfectly into hers. “I need to show you something.”

Din lets himself be led. He doesn’t argue that she said the same thing back down the mountain, that she’s not making sense. He trusts her—wholly, implicitly.

Nova carefully retraces her steps, following the trickling, shimmering stream to the center of the cave. On top of it, still impossibly, sits the dais with a mirror. Din’s breath catches in his throat, an impossible thing. Nova swallows, leading him closer, closer, closer. Slowly, carefully, she walks up the stone to the center of it. There’s barely enough room for the two of them on the same pedestal, but they make it work. Nova’s leg draped over Din’s, her foot notched against his boot to keep them in place.

“Do you trust me?” Her mouth is only a few inches away from his, her hair flowing in an invisible breeze into his face, tangled in his beard. Din swallows, eyes glancing off her lips, and then he nods. Resolute. Complete.

His answer is the same as it was before. The same as it always is. “Yes.”

Nova dips her chin, chewing on her lower lip. “It might be scary,” she whispers, just a breath, nothing more. “I’ve never—Grogu is the only one I’ve been able to do this with. Others have put visions in my head, but it’s only people who can use the Force.” She swallows. “But…the mirror. I think the mirror will help me show you.”

Din’s eyes flit across hers. “Nova,” he says, quietly, “I don’t understand.”

Nova huffs out a tiny laugh. “I know. I know you don’t. But you will.”

Din holds her gaze. “I trust you.” Unwavering.

Nova swallows. “I love you.” Absolute. She reaches up, snaking her right arm around so that it latches onto Din’s temple. She matches the placement on her other hand, the other side of his head. A tether, a lifeline. Slowly, she turns his head to face the mirror. “Open your eyes.”

He does, but only in theory. They’re still closed, but Nova can feel them moving, flickering, tracking. She appears in the mirror, the saintlike version of herself. Her face is impeccable, a portrait. A world crackles to life within her gaze. The image flickers. It’s her at fifteen, lips half-chewed and not nearly as pink as they are now. Her hair, shoulder-length and messy. That same gleam in her expression, her chin jutted upward, her eyes on the stars. The rest of it comes in flashes, two ends of the continuum. Her parents: Piper tall and statuesque, Arokel with his crooked smile. The way her mother’s hands match and create her own. The flicker of her father’s eyebrow, his constellations charted across her nose. The smell of springtime on Yavin. Seeing space for the first time behind the pilot’s seat. Flying Kicker for the first time Din’s breathing through the modulator. Flying in the Crest. Swimming in a sea so blue it hurts to look at. The glittering of the stars above. The sound of a lightsaber igniting. The sharp cliff edges of Ahch-To. Landing on Naator for the first time. Din’s face, bare and unrestricted. Din down on one knee. Din on both knees, face between her legs. The hook in Din’s nose reflecting in the low light of the ship. Din leaving her on Dantooine. Din finding her again in the double suns on Tatooine. Din’s mouth on hers. Din’s warmth radiating across the void, bringing Nova back home. Din giving Nova her name all over again. To radiate. To shine in silence. Sparmau’s catlike gaze locked on hers, knives in Nova’s heart. Her blood full of poison. Her anger like venom. The vision of Piper and Arokel’s ship crashing down into nothing. Andromeda. Jacterr’s fist connecting with her jawbone. The scar he ripped up her stomach. Nova taking her first life—Jacterr, then her own, right after each other, in succession. Seeing Wedge again by chance, and letting him bring Andromeda back. Meeting Luke in person, even more magical than she ever could have dreamed. Leia’s lightsaber lighting up in tandem with her own. War on the horizon. Din, Din, always Din. Grogu’s tiny little hand pressed into hers. The crystal cave on Ilum. Boba and Fennec letting her hug them, embrace them. Cara’s knowing, sacrificial smile. Bringing Din back to life. Being ready to sacrifice herself over and over again, the martyr complex that somehow refuses to die. Meeting Sparmau as Andromeda back on Yavin. Sacrifice, eternal sacrifice. Her lightsaber hanging off her belt, the Darksaber in her hand. The feeling of karma, of justice, of triumph over evil. Din’s hand in hers, over and over again, making Novalise Nova. Saint. Andromeda. Novalise. Over and over again, Nova spills her lifeline over into lifetimes, showing Din every incredible, agonizing piece. Of who she was before. Of the woman she is now. And of the holiness she will be someday. Only with the vision of the two of them tied together on the cliff’s edge when he proposed does Nova let everything recede, fall back into place, and takes her hands off of Din.

It’s his choice, now, if he wants to give her his in return.

For what feels like an eternity, Nova doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t do anything, terrified that she’s broken some rule of what she can and cannot do, using the Force for something corrupting, something dangerous. Her heart hinges in her chest. In, out. In, out.

“Oh,” he breathes, and Nova doesn’t dare move. “Oh.”

She swallows. Din’s eyes fly open.

“You—” he cuts himself off, breathing heavily in the cathedral ceilings of the cave above them. Nova feels dizzy. “That’s what it’s like? Being in your head?”

It’s so gentle. Nova can feel the tears coming. “I—More and more now, it’s all the time. It’s every single waking moment, everything that’s brought me to this one. And everything that’s yet to come.”

Din stares.

“I know I’ve been a disaster,” Nova breathes. “I know I’ve made mistakes, Din, over and over again. But I’m trying to fix it. I’m going to fix it. I’m going to save us, and the galaxy. I don’t know how. But I know that I will.”

“I would say you’re just one person,” Din manages, slowly, carefully, “but—”

“But I’m not,” Nova admits, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip again. “And now you know it. You know it all.”

“When you left to fight Sparmau,” Din says, still tentatively, like he’s trying to fit it all together, “you really were doing it because you didn’t think you had another choice.”

Nova’s eyes well with tears. “Yes. I didn’t. And it’s not an excuse, Din. It’s not an excuse for running from you, or not giving you a chance to make the decision with me. But for as long as I can remember,” she stops, hitching in a shallow breath, “running has been the only way to keep me safe. To bring me home. You’re the only thing in ten years that has ever made me stop. And when I had the choice to stand my ground or to run to protect you, I ran. Muscle memory. Because it’s kept me alive. And it was my biggest mistake.” She swallows. “This time, when I ran up the mountain, I knew you’d follow me. And I knew I could show you this. Because this is what it’s like to be—”

“You,” Din manages, raggedy but strong. “You, Novalise. You.”

Nova swallows.

“I love you so much,” she whispers, a breath of a thing, moving as close as their tiny proximity will allow. “Darasuum. Forever. And I want to spend the rest of my life—this lifetime, last lifetime, and the next lifetime—with you. But, Din—” Nova’s breath catches, and she closes her eyes, trying to find the center, “—I don’t know if I can marry you in front of everyone—after all of this—without you forgiving me.”

He stares. She grabs his hand, holding it flat against her chest.

“I know…I know that might not be fair. I didn’t tell you I forgave you right away, either. And I know forgiveness is hard. I know betrayal is the worst wound. I felt it when you left me. But I need you to believe that I am never, ever going to run again. You loving me, it’s penance. It’s—it’s karma, in the best kind of way. And I understand if it’s going to take time. I don’t need your forgiveness right this second. But—”

“Novalise,” Din interrupts, and Nova stills. “I forgive you.”

Her heart wrenches upward. What a terrifying, magical thing. “Din, I just said—”

“I forgive you.”

Nova presses her lips together. “You mean it?”

Din nods. A vow. “I…I don’t know if I can live multiple lifetimes like you can. I will love you in this one, and I will try to carry it…into the next. But,” he says, tipping his forehead against hers, his gloved hand lacing in her hair, “don’t you dare ever leave me again.”

“Never again.” She’ll learn how to say it in Mando’a. She’ll say it in every language the stars know. But it’s the truth, regardless of what tongue it’s spoken in. So when Din presses his lips to hers, Nova feels forgiveness. This is the karma that led her here. And this, too, feels like coming home.

Three more days pass. In every one of them, Din shows Nova every single piece of the parts she thought she’d lost in the battle. They lay in the middle of the flower fields, mapping out the constellations, tracing the stars. They climb trees like children, laughing in midair. They fly Kicker around, across the ocean, up into the stars. Nova watches as Din learns how to pilot an X-Wing, grinning and giddy the entire time. They eat food in the village, and in the back booth, away from everyone else, Din eats, unarmored. In the evenings, in the mornings—their bodies find the same rhythm they’ve invented and reinvented, every moment a brilliant, shining star.

The night before the wedding, Nova falls asleep in Din’s arms. Above them, the night sky shines purple and pinpricked to let the light through. The cool, flowery breeze filters in through the open windows, letting the wind dance the curtains around and around—like they, too, have been swept off their feet.

“Thank you for bringing me back,�� she mumbles, barely awake, and as Din’s hands stroke over her head, Nova doesn’t know what she means—bringing her back to Naator, bringing her back to her senses, or bringing her back to life.

He folds her in even tighter, and whispers I love you over enough times that those words, too, hold multitudes, a vow.

Bo-Katan crash-lands in the middle of the field the morning before their wedding. With a gleeful, unnatural smile on her face, she shoves Din out of his own house, stacking his arms high with Mandalorian blue colored clothes. The ship—Bo-Katan’s ship, Nova guesses—has been completely renovated. Its belly is gleaming silver and wide enough for Din to spend the entire day as the guests start arriving. Bo-Katan, however, gives him a strict order to not see Nova again until she’s walking down the aisle, and even though Din huffs off, Nova sees the glimmer in his brown eyes as he walks away, memorizing every inch of her until he gets to hold her again, scooping Grogu off the ground as he walks away.

“You’re excellent at literally everything else,” Nova says, as Din and Grogu walk off across the field to Bo-Katan’s awaiting gunship, “why can you not fly a ship to save your life?”

Bo-Katan fixes her with a withering icy glare. “We all have our flaws.”

Nova grins at her, pulling Bo-Katan and her full armor into a hug. “A year ago, you never would have admitted that.”

Frustrated, Bo-Katan pushes Nova away, up and over the vestibule, and manhandles her into a chair. In the mirror, Nova watches the light in her best friend’s eyes, hiding her small smile against the rogue curls that drift into her face. “A lot can change in a year, Novalise.”

Nova sighs, letting Bo-Katan brush through her hair, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I know.”

“With us,” a voice from the doorway sighs, “a lot can change in twenty-four hours.”

Nova grins. Wedge, for practically the first time in his life, isn’t wearing his orange jumpsuit. He looks unfinished without it, mildly uncomfortable. He keeps running his hands over the hem on his jacket, like he’s increasingly aware he’s not supposed to be wearing it.

“Hey.” Bo-Katan snaps her fingers. “No men allowed.”

“That is not Naboo tradition,” Wedge says, ignoring Bo-Katan’s order and the sour look on her face. “Just the husband-to-be. I’m allowed to see the bride.”

“How would you know,” Bo-Katan grumbles, but she moves off towards the fresher to run the tub anyways, and Nova stands up and settles into the notch of Wedge’s arm.

“You look beautiful, kid.”

Nova raises her eyebrows. “I haven’t gotten ready, yet, Wedge.”

“Still,” he grins, pressing a peck to her temple. “You always are.”

Nova swallows. “I wish—”

“Me too.” She doesn’t need to finish the sentence for Wedge to understand. Today—and every day—the two of them feel the loss of Piper and Arokel. Out of the corner of her eye, Nova can see the grave, sad expression on Wedge’s face. Long ago were the days that it didn’t exist at all. For a second, Nova sees it in flashes—him carrying her around on his shoulders when he was a teenager and her parents weren’t much older, back when Nova was still Andromeda, back before this life existed at all. But she blinks, pulling away, and Wedge looks the same as he always has—the smile lines on his face are so much more prominent than the wrinkled ones. “They’d be so proud of you, Nova,” he whispers, and Nova lets herself sink into the sadness of it, the regret she has. “I am, too.”

Nova looks up at him. “It’s still weird,” she manages, sounding like a little kid again, “remembering they’re not here. Fighting this war without them. Especially with whatever comes next.”

A strange, pained expression flits across Wedge’s face, but it passes as quickly as it appears. Nova’s eyebrows furrow, but before she can ask, Bo-Katan reemerges without speaking and points one impeccable finger towards the doorway. “Later,” he says, and the double meaning isn’t lost, even as he disappears into the pink sunshine of the early afternoon.

The day fades off into a brilliant, shining salmon. Nova can feel the heat leaving as Bo-Katan sits her down, braiding white flowers into her long, curly hair.

“How’s Mandalore?”

Bo-Katan meets Nova’s eyes in the mirror, finishing the last strand of her hair. It’s beautiful—long ringlets cascading down her back, two strands framing her face, a braided crown across the base of her skull. Nova bites down on her bottom lip, raising her eyebrows in question. They’re perfectly even, except for the scar that cuts through her right one, a few shades lighter than the deep brown of her skin. Nova asked Bo-Katan if she should fill it in, and Bo-Katan had given her a very definitive no.

“Ready to have you back,” Bo-Katan says, her voice guarded. More so than it usually is, and Nova raises that unfinished eyebrow in question. Bo-Katan sighs. “Not thrilled about joining with Rebel forces, but rallying behind their Mand’alor.” She straightens up, shoulders back. “They’ll come around.”

“You’re so sure about it,” Nova says softly, and Bo-Katan nods, resolute. “How?”

“Because,” Bo-Katan answers, smoothing the silk collar of Nova’s robe over her shoulders, “Mandalore is a planet of warriors. And you’re the strongest of us all, leading us into whatever battle comes next. They might not love you, but they trust you. And respect you. And, besides,” Bo-Katan sighs, “War is always coming. That’s something you and all of Mandalore have in common.”

Still, there’s something weighted there, but Nova doesn’t push. There’s a whole lifetime of the next fight ahead of them. This moment—this is for love, for peace. For war to be laid bare.

“I’ll be right back,” Bo-Katan says, abruptly, and Nova smiles at her receding in the mirror. Only then does she look at herself head-on. Her face has been made up—not in armor, not in war paint—but in the same simple makeup that Piper Maluev once wore for her own wedding. Her lips are pink, her eyes are delicately lined in black. Nova feels Andromeda here in equal measure, glittering just like her parents are, alive in memory and in her. Arokel’s eyes, Piper’s beauty, Andromeda’s smile.

Nova stifles a sob. Bo-Katan walks through the curtain into the corner of their bedroom, alarm immediately catching on her face.

“What?” Bo-Katan asks, immediately, moving swiftly into position. “Did Din do something? I’ll punch him, would that help—”

Nova shakes her head, willing the tears to keep at bay. “You chased him out of here upon pain of death, Bo-Katan.” She swallows through shards of glass. “No. I…I just…I can’t believe my parents aren’t here.” She swallows. “I know Din and I are technically already married, and they weren’t at that either, but…this is a Naboo wedding. The kind my mom and dad had. And it just hit me that they’re gone. They’re never going to see me get married. They’ll never meet Din, or Grogu, or you, Bo-Katan.” She touches a hand to the beskar Rebel symbol hanging from her neck. “I’ve been running for so long,” she continues, quieter still, “that I forgot how much it hurts when I’m not.”

Bo-Katan doesn’t say anything. For a long time, she just stands there, at attention at Nova’s side. And maybe that’s enough, Nova thinks. Bo-Katan’s love language isn’t words, anyway, it’s action. The fact that she’s here, facing it all with Nova anyway—that’s enough. And then, with the stealth only a Mandalorian can possess, she turns around to one of the bags splayed over the bottom half of her bed. Silently, she unzips it, pulling something white and gorgeous out of it.

Nova watches, backward in the mirror. It’s not until she turns around that she understands what Bo-Katan brought her. “You made me a dress?”

“I,” Bo-Katan says, so carefully, “did not. It would look like armor if I did. But I helped. Creative direction. Whatever you want to call it. The stitching on the outside is silver.” She points at the gossamer thread that laces the gown together. It’s glorious. It’s long and flowing, with miniscule stars scattered all over the train. The sleeves are silky lace that catches Mandalorian blue when it hits the light. The top of it looks structured—like wisps of beskar—like it’ll fit Nova perfectly. It’s so beautiful. “Some of it is thread from Mandalore. But…not all of it.” She looks at Nova in a way Nova can’t quite decode.

“Where’s the rest from?”

Bo-Katan swallows. “You’re allowed to be mad.”

Nova startles. “Why would I be mad?”

“Because…I kind of…stole something.”

Nova raises her eyebrow.

“From you. Well, not you, really, but something that was—yours.”

“Bo-Katan. I have no idea what you mean.”

Bo-Katan sighs in frustration. “I went to Yavin. I went into the old base and found your family’s quarters. In the corner, there was a pile of bookbinding materials. In there…I found thick silver thread.” She clenches her jaw, looking uncomfortable. “It was your father’s. For his linguistic books. I wanted you to have something. Of his. For your wedding.”

Nova’s eyes go glassy. Her throat tightens even more, and this time, she can’t stifle a sob.

“Oh, Maker,” Bo-Katan says, dropping the bunch of fabric in her hands. “Nova, I’m sorry, I thought you’d like it, that you’d—I don’t know, feel like your parents were here with you—”

“You went to Yavin?” Nova manages. “You went to Yavin, for me?”

Bo-Katan stops, her shoulder sagging. “Of course I did,” she whispers. “You’re my best friend.”

Nova gingerly lifts the dress back onto the bed and then promptly launches herself into Bo-Katan’s arms. Well, against her armor, because Bo-Katan’s arms aren’t open. But slowly, as if she’s adjusting to the shock, they come up, closing around Nova’s back, patting her gently—if awkwardly—between the shoulder blades.

“I, uh,” Bo-Katan says, muffled against Nova’s thick, never-ending curls, “I have something else, too.”

Nova dislodges herself the best she can, wiping her eyes frantically with her fingers. “What else could you possibly have?”

Bo-Katan slowly reaches back into the bag, rustling around until she pulls it free. Nova watches it glitter in the low light before she can blink into focus. Immediately, she recognizes it. It’s the headpiece her mother wore in her own wedding. It’s the halo of stars that Nova wears in every vision of herself, saintlike and untouchable.

“Bo-Katan—”

“I put everything back,” her friend says quickly, cutting Nova off. “In the place it came from. The room looks undisturbed. I promise.”

“Thank you,” Nova says, in one breath of air. “Thank you so much. I don’t know how you found these things. I don’t–I don’t know where you even got the idea. But you…you don’t know how much this means to me.” She swallows. “I’ll have a piece of them there at the wedding, after all.”

Bo-Katan’s lip wobbles, and that’s enough for Nova to yank her back into a bone-crushing hug. “I know what it’s like to lose your family,” she whispers. “I wanted you to know that…you still have one.”

Nova swallows, her throat constricted. She’s trying very hard not to cry, to keep her makeup intact, to save the tears for the ceremony itself, but as usual, the tears threaten anyway. “I love you,” she manages, through all the emotion. “I know you don’t like gushy speeches of emotion, but I do, and you need to hear it. And…Bo-Katan, you’re my best friend. I had no idea when I first met you that you’d become this person for me. But I need you to know that I couldn’t do this, any of this, without you.” Nova’s hands glance off Bo-Katan’s cheeks, warm and full between her palms. It’s so different from the icy exterior that once seemed impenetrable. Up this close, Nova can see the light smattering of freckles stubbornly scattered across her nose. “You’re a good person, Bo-Katan of the clan Kryze. You’re the best kind of person. You’re the one I need in my corner. You’re the person I trust in a fight. And whatever’s coming for us next is going to be a hell of a fight.”

“I know you and Din are Mandalorians,” Bo-Katan says softly, “but I sincerely hope your wedding doesn’t turn into a fight, Novalise.”

Through her tears, Nova tips her head back and laughs. It’s blurry when Bo-Katan comes back into her line of sight. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Bo-Katan sobers, picking the dress back up. “But that’s not what’s important right now.”

Nova splays a hand over her heart. “Bo-Katan Kryze focusing on something other than an impending war? Say it isn’t so.”

“Shut up,” Bo-Katan says, but there’s no malice behind it. “Get dressed.”

And so Nova does.

The entire procession is gathered outside. Nova shivers in anticipation through the crack in her front door, looking at the magenta sunset hanging on the horizon. She swallows, catching a glint of light against the beskar, and her mouth runs dry. There, at the end of the aisle, decorated with yellow leaves and flower petals, is Din. Her husband already. The love of her life.

“Are you ready?”

Nova whirls around. As if in a trance, Bo-Katan reaches forward and straightens her veil, the starry crown encircling her head. Nova swallows. “It’s stupid to be nervous, right?”

Bo-Katan considers it. “You’re already married.”

“I am.”

“It’s Din standing at the end of the aisle. Not some…enemy.”

“Yes. Din.”

“Realistically speaking, walking down an aisle in front of all your friends is the least scary thing you’ve done in…months.”

“Realistically speaking, you’re right.”

“Well,” Bo-Katan says finally, “it may be stupid. But I think you’re allowed to be irrational. Just for today.”

“Right.” Nova exhales. “I’m still scared. Just, you know, for the record.”

“Well,” Bo-Katan says, simply. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel, so in my book, I suppose that’s fine.”

Nova chews on her bottom lip, stalling until her heartbeat runs back down to its normal beat. “Were you ever in love?”

Bo-Katan affixes her with a sour look. “I know you remember my dating history, Novalise.”

Despite everything, a laugh bubbles up in the back of Nova’s throat. “And you know mine. You can easily love someone who turns out to be a monster.”

Bo-Katan sobers. “Not like this,” she answers, softly, and Nova knows she’s laying everything bare. “Not the way you love Din. And certainly not the way he loves you.” It blooms in her chest like the honeysuckle and clover growing in Naator’s gorgeous fields. “When Sparmau took us to Coruscant, there were hours when he wouldn’t talk to me, you know.” Bo-Katan swallows. “He was furious at me, Nova, for letting you escape. For helping you go off to fight Sparmau on your own. If she didn’t kill us, I knew I could lose him anyway. Not because I kept your secret. But because he was willing to sacrifice everything to make sure you were the one who came out of it alive.”

“If she killed you, either of you—”

“I know.” Bo-Katan’s eyes flash in the low light. “I know, because I would have felt the same way, Nova.”

Nova tries to keep her composure.

“Sparmau left, once, after torturing us for hours.” Her voice is barely there. “My throat—it was swollen, almost shut. Din was beaten half to death. And he looked at me, helmetless, with that anger in his eyes, and I tried to tell him it would be okay, that you were coming, even if I didn’t know if she’d even let that happen.” Bo-Katan swallows. “And he looked at me with one good eye and said, ‘Nova’s job isn’t to save us. It’s to save the galaxy’.”

Nova stops breathing.

“And I tried to tell him he was being stupid. Because he was. As if you’d let us stay there. But he yanked me close with the chains keeping us knotted together and whispered, ‘But she’s going to save us anyway.’”

Tears well up in Nova’s eyes. “He did?”

Bo-Katan nods. “I told him some bullshit about how he couldn’t stop believing. I didn’t know where it came from. It was like you possessed me for a minute there, or something. He was still so mad, but he listened. And then he said, ‘Nova’s the only miracle I’ve ever believed in.’”

Nova exhales, a shaky, rattling thing. I don’t believe in miracles, but I believe in you. “Bo-Katan—”

“That man hasn’t known faith in the same ways you have. He doesn’t hold weight in higher powers like you and I do. But Din Djarin has looked a miracle in the eye every single day since he met you and knew that was something holy.” Bo-Katan steps forward, grabs Nova on the arms of her glittering, silver-white gown. “Whatever war we go into next, that man will be a zealot for you. He will defy every single person who tries to tell you no. You’ve brought him back from death more than once. I’m telling you this now because I need you to know that if you are scared walking down that aisle, you are an idiot.”

Nova startles. It brings her back down to earth, a lightning strike.

“Every single person standing out there would walk into battle with you. We have before. We will again. But the one at the end of the aisle, Novalise? He’s had a crisis of faith for the last two years. And you’re the only divine thing that’s pulled him out of it. He’s not afraid. He’s standing there, helmetless, in front of people that have somehow—” Bo-Katan punctuates this with a begrudging eye roll, “—become our family.” She stops, adjusting the starry crown atop Nova’s head. “He’s not scared of any of this. That’s a man who’s all in.”

Nova straightens her shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispers, the words wobbly. She wants to cry, to give Bo-Katan a sappy speech about how the only miracles she’s made happen are because of the faith people have in her, about how her best friend is something holy herself—but she reigns it in. Bo-Katan went out on a limb to give Nova these words. She owes it to Bo-Katan to give her sweet, meaningful silence. So she just squeezes down on Bo-Katan’s grip, letting her friend take one arm instead, fisting the curtain in the other hand, and gives her a nod.

She’s not afraid anymore. There’s a war ahead, sure. There always will be.

But this love burns so much brighter. It shines so much deeper.

The music starts to swell, stars pricking to life in the magenta dusk.

Nova’s sage eyes meet Din’s brown ones—emotion marrying warmth, over and over and over. Everything shimmers and sparkles. Something deep inside of her chest comes to life. Slowly, Nova and Bo-Katan make their way across the aisle, strewn with flower petals and yellow leaves. Around them, the people they love—Grogu, Luke, Leia, Wedge, Boba, Fennec—beam as Nova and Bo-Katan pass, but Nova doesn’t take her eyes off of Din’s, that beautiful, singular locus.

When his hands clasp around hers at the end of the aisle, everything in the universe shifts into place.

“Hi,” Nova whispers, holding the weight of the world in that one, desperate confession.

“Hi,” Din echoes, and everything else fades out.

This, right here? This is something deeper. This is the best kind of karma. This is coming home.

Bo-Katan moves around behind them, orbiting the two of them like a singular star. Only then does Nova look out at the small, mighty procession—the people gathered around them in a semicircle, strewn across flower petals and yellow leaves, the sky shining a deep, warm pink above them as the sun slips over the horizon. All of them, gathered here, putting their individual fights to bed, to share in this radiant, brilliant moment. It thunders in Nova’s veins, makes her heart grow three sizes.

“On Mandalore,” Bo-Katan begins, “weddings aren’t a ceremony. They’re simple, private events. Two Mandalorians remove their helmets and say their vows in Mando’a. Those are the kind of weddings I grew up with.” She looks at Nova, then over at Din. “But we’re not on Mandalore,” Bo-Katan continues, with a ghost of a smile spreading across her face, “and Nova and Din are something other than Mandalorians.”

Din narrows his eyes slightly. Nova grins.

“Love,” Bo-Katan says, rolling her shoulders back, “used to be a four letter word to me. The people I loved were my sister, and the most evil woman in the galaxy.” Nova meets Bo-Katan’s eyes, which glimmer with just a lapse of momentary grief. “Both of them are dead now, for better or for worse.” She swallows. “But love,” she continues, into the pink night, “is not. Not here. Not ever again. You know, Cara was supposed to do this part. She was supposed to stand up here in front of the entire crowd and perfectly proclaim why Novalise and Din are perfect for each other, why their love is so special, but Cara is dead now, too.”

Nova sneaks a furtive glance at Bo-Katan, raising her eyebrows. Bo-Katan shoots her back a chilling glare, perfectly clear—I know what I’m doing. Nova looks at Din, who imperceptibly shakes his head, a small smile splayed across his face, and Nova relaxes.

“I hated Nova when I first met her,” Bo-Katan says, and both Luke and Fennec laugh out loud.

“Bo-Katan,” Nova interjects, “seriously?”

“I hated Din more,” Bo-Katan continues, serene and unperturbed. Din presses his lips together as Bo-Katan tilts her head towards him, undeterred. “Really. I thought you were a zealot, and I thought Nova was too hopeful for her own good. I didn’t want to spend a second with either of you. I wanted Mandalore for myself.” She stops, looking up toward the three peaks in the distance. “I don’t want that anymore.”

Everyone settles back into silence.

“My whole life, I’ve judged people by the way they’re able to hold their own. Especially on the battlefield. And since I’ve known Nova and Din, there’s never been a second of peace. Both of them, in their own ways, have fought back. Back against tyranny, back against evil, and most of all, back against me.” She moves a half step closer. “Not with weapons, but with determination. Care. Anger, sometimes, sure. But most of all, with love. There’s been a hell of a fight since Nova and Din met me. And a fight even before that, when it was just Nova and Din against the galaxy. Before they brought us in on any of it.” She stops, and Nova catches her eye, and for the first time, Nova sees something that could be tears reflected back at her. “I once thought there was one way to be a Mandalorian. I didn’t think someone raised as a Child of the Watch could be a Mandalorian. I certainly didn’t think that a Rebel pilot—a Jedi, at that—could be a Mandalorian. But both of them have sat on that throne, and I’ve never wanted to fight alongside two Mandalorians more.”

“Nice save,” Din mutters, and Bo-Katan shoots him a death glare.

“To Novalise and Din, though,” Bo-Katan says, ignoring him entirely, “fighting isn’t a way of life. It’s to have a life, after the battle is done.” She stops, watching as a shooting star streaks across the sky. “The battle might be done, but this war isn’t,” Bo-Katan whispers, more to herself than to any of them, “but I know at the end of that one, too, the love that the two of them have will outlast all the fighting. The rest, though,” Bo-Katan says, “and everything in between, is up to them.”

Nova beams at her. Din smiles, too, and Nova can feel the eyes of the family they’ve chosen gleaming back at the three of them, the unlikely triumvirate, as Bo-Katan steps back.

“Neither of you are wearing helmets,” Bo-Katan says, “but—”

“I want to say the Mandalorian vows anyway,” Din interrupts, and Bo-Katan nods, pleased. He looks at Nova, and the entire galaxy shines back at her in those brown eyes, trained just on hers. “Repeat after me. Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde.”

“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde.”

We are one when together, we are one when we’re apart, we will share all, we will raise warriors.

At Din’s feet, Grogu coos.

Nova grins, tears sparking up in her eyes. “On Mandalore, they exchange words in Mando’a. On Naboo, they read vows aloud. On Yavin, marriage was mostly made in the skies. And on Naator,” she says, carefully, “we’ve done all three. Din Djarin, you’re already my husband. In name and in love, in war and in peace, you’re the one I love. From Andromeda to Novalise to the woman I will be, you’re the one I need by my side. I’ve loved you since you saved my life the first time, and I will love you long after my bones turn back to dust.” She swallows. “You know every inch of my soul—every horrible, fractured, glowing inch—and you’ve never once looked away. I am yours in love and in life. I will be yours in death. You are the only one,” Nova mouths, her hands squeezing down on his bare ones, “who brings me back. To you, this I swear.”

“Novalise Djarin,” Din begins, carefully, eyes flickering over to their very captive audience shifting under the bareness of his words and of their gaze, “Andromeda Maluev. I think you saved my life more times than I’ve ever saved yours.” His grip is tighter, stronger, swearing every chosen word down to the marrow in her veins. “I once said I don’t believe in miracles, but I believe in you. Now, more than ever, I think they’re the same thing.” For a second, Nova thinks he’s done talking, but Din’s mouth unhinges from where it’s been pressed down to the quick. Speaking in this much succession, unmasked, his words heard by more than just her ears—it means volumes beyond what she could ever say. “Your name, Novalise, comes from the Mando’a word novay’lain. To radiate. To shine in silence. And you shine, but never just in silence. And I will follow you,” he says, the words barely above a whisper, “into the dark, into the storm, and into every war. Without question.” His eyes blaze, and then Din sighs—not out of boredom, but out of love. “To you, this I swear.”

“Din Djarin,” Bo-Katan says, and even though she’s fading back into the night, Din eclipsing everything else in Nova’s line of sight, Nova knows this, “you may kiss your bride.”

“Way ahead of you,” Din murmurs, and he crashes his lips to Nova’s. Above them, surrounding them, everything explodes into stars. Later, after the light completely leaves the sky except for the galaxy hanging, all of them dance and sing, twisting around each other like there’s nothing left to fight, like celebration is all any of them know. They build a bonfire in the night, their smiles and the flame keeping the warmth around them. The mountains surrounding them embrace the people here, standing sentinel, keeping watch. The stars glitter and dance. The leaves, yellow confetti, line the ground. Here, on Naator, there’s only family and friendship, and love, so much love. In this moment, this shining, glittering moment—it’s only Nova and Din and the family they’ve made, this home they’ve built out of starshine.

After the celebration, the group fragment off their own separate ways—Luke back to Ahch-To to teach, Leia back to Hosnian Prime to lead, Boba and Fennec back to Tatooine to guard, and Wedge, Bo-Katan, Grogu, Din, and Nova back to Mandalore to plan. There’s a war building—none of them have said the words aloud since the wedding, but plans have been made. They’re a garrison, all of them, and each of them have a part to play to make that garrison into an army. For now, everyone is gathering resources. When morning comes, Mandalore will become everything it needs to be—birthplace of their blended army, solace to the surviving Mandalorians, a truce between populations that used to be enemies, newfound Rebel base, and home to Nova and Din. But for now, it’s them in the blue darkness, newlyweds getting ready for the life ahead of them.

Walking into the palace on Mandalore feels right in a way that it’s never felt before. Nova moves up the marble steps, into the open doors of the place they call home, and she feels the rightness in her chest, something finally laid bare.

“I’ll take Grogu to bed,” Bo-Katan murmurs, squeezing Nova’s hand as she plucks him out of her tired arms. “Don’t stay up too late.”

“Thank you,” Nova calls after her, throwing the weight of her gratitude into it. Bo-Katan just nods in acknowledgement and lets Nova and Din press their own kisses onto Grogu’s big green forehead, disappearing up their staircase.

“I want to take you to bed, Mand’alor,” Din whispers into the crook of Nova’s neck, his breath rupturing goosebumps across her entire body, lighting up under the silk of her wedding dress. She lets him push her against the blue wall, lips ravenous, divine, pulling her into his gravity.

“That’s a fantastic idea,” Nova murmurs as Din’s tongue slides against her jugular, her hands knotted in his hair, “but I want to fuck you on my throne, Mandalorian.”

Din stills. Nova grins against the feeling of his tongue on her neck, flickering, halting. “You know,” he says, carefully, intentionally, “you’re the leader of this planet, Novalise. You could order me to do anything. I’d be helpless, without a choice. Needing to comply.”

Nova’s moan goes directly upward, into the vaulted cathedral ceilings. “That sounds familiar.”

She can feel the low grin stretch across Din’s mouth from where it’s anchored against her pulse point. “I may have…stolen it.”

“You make a habit of stealing things, Din Djarin?”

“For you?” Din’s hands travel lower, lower, until they’re cupped under the curve of her ass. Nova sighs as she gets lifted off the center of gravity, falling helpless to Din’s dictation. “I’d steal the stars.”

“Well,” Nova concedes, high and breathy, “if anyone could.”

With a long, languid noise, Din’s mouth pulls—regrettably—off of her neck. But when Nova sees the look on his face—hungry, wanting—she doesn’t miss the press of his tongue against her skin. “Are you going to rule with an iron fist, Mand’alor?”

“Not Mandalore,” Nova whispers, tracing the outline of his pink, bitten lips with the tip of her finger, “but you, maybe.”

A groan falls out of his open mouth, and Nova grins.

“You’re fucking devilish,” Din grits out, and Nova can feel how hard he is as his grip slips, watching the silhouette of her tongue swiping over her top lip. “The galaxy is lucky you use your power for good.”

Nova winks. She has him here, in the palm of her hand, fully enraptured. It doesn’t ever get old—the allure that comes with holding the Mandalorian’s heart, mind, and soul between her fingers. How lucky she is to have him, to love him. How lucky he is to know her, to adore her. “For the galaxy, I’ll use my power for good. But for you, Din Djarin, I’ll use my power however I damn well please.”

For a second, just a fleeting, blip of a moment, Nova wishes he had the helmet on. She wouldn’t trade the look in Din’s eyes—pure, unrestrained lust—for anything, but to be able to hear the moan that just passed through his lips through the modulator would make everything inside of her molten and wet. “Use me however you damn well please.”

Din’s looking up at her like she’s something holy. And in this shining second, Nova feels like holiness is just that—divinity, not a burden to bear. Everything inside of her is shimmering, glinting silver. The beskar he’s adorned with. The stitching that structures her dress. Everything here is shiny, eternal.

So is Nova.

“Let me down.”

Din whimpers. “But—”

“You had your turn to be in charge. That’s my throne now.” Nova hooks her finger under Din’s chin, pulling his brown eyes, reverent and half-lidded, up to gaze into hers. Slowly, she unhinges her grip and points instead to the gleaming beskar throne on top of the dais. “Do you understand me.”

It isn’t a question.

Din’s grip relinquishes as he lets her go, sliding up from the curve of her spine, over her hips, settling into the crook of her waist. Poised, ready to snap into action, but waiting for Nova’s orders.

When her feet are on the ground, solidly, Nova wets her parted lips. Din’s fingers hitch into her sides, but he doesn’t move, resolute and unyielding. Even without the helmet on, he’s acting like the Mandalorian—ready to strike, but waiting for the signal. “Get on your knees.”

Din’s eyes, dark and hazy, flash at her request.

Nova raises a singular eyebrow—the one sliced through with the scar. She watches carefully as Din’s irises flick up to it, back down to her own. All reverence. All delight. Nova steps forward, refusing to break eye contact, until she’s flush against his body. Din’s hands slide up her ankles, cupping the backs of her calves, until they anchor to the backs of her knees. Nova knows how much strength he holds, how Din could cut the sides of his hands towards his body and tumble her down to the floor. Like a knife, poised as something other than a weapon. A willing one.

Everything stills as Din looks at her. Nova bites down on her lip, lust pooling between her thighs, running like lava through her veins. She knows how much willpower she has left—it’s an hourglass counting down to nothing. If Din moves a singular muscle, she’ll crumble, relinquish every semblance of power, and beg him to fuck her here, on the floor, the throne be damned. But she watches as his lips part, tongue hanging in the open chasm of his mouth, and she has another idea.

Slowly, silently, Nova reaches up the back of her dress. In a stroke of genius, Bo-Katan’s design choices for this wedding dress included a silver zipper instead of pearly buttons up the back. In one solid, smooth stroke, Nova yanks the zipper down her spine, goosebumps erupting all the way down. Gently, she steps out of the cathedral of a dress, swiping it to the side, away from damage across the blue floor. Din watches as it slides away, Nova standing in her silver slip and nothing else, still holding all the power.

“You’re still wearing your beskar.”

“Yes, Mand’alor.” Din’s voice is so thick. It makes Nova’s blood thunder in her ears.

“Take it off.”

Din’s eyes don’t leave hers as he starts prying every single piece of it from his body. First the pauldrons, then the gilded plates on his arms, and then, finally, the chest. Dully, Nova recognizes the significance of it—his heart, too, completely in her hands. The palace is dark and quiet. Everyone else is either gone or asleep—and hopefully, for Bo-Katan’s and Grogu’s sakes, well out of earshot.

When the final piece of armor clatters ceremoniously to the floor, Nova steps forward and grabs Din’s face on either side, possessive, hungry. It’s the same way he’s grabbed her since the second they first collided—with the want of someone starving, with the weight of a collapsing star. He falls into her touch, heavenstruck, possessively.

“Do you want me, Mandalorian?”

“More than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Din manages, choked and distorted. Nova strokes a thumb over his cheekbone and Din’s eyes close, committing her to memory.

“What if I told you I wanted to fuck you on the floor?”

“Fuck, Nova—”

“Or on the holotable?”

“Anywhere,” Din vows, the words thick with lust, “Maker, any way—”

“Do you trust me?”

Din’s eyes fly back open. “If you don’t know that by now,” he whispers, “I think we might have a problem.”

Nova’s smile spreads across the entirety of her face, and the giggle she lets out bubbles up in the air around them, melodic, butterfly-winged. She leans in closer, swiping her thumb across Din’s mouth. “Protect your head,” she whispers, and as his hand comes up to shelter the back of it, Nova plants her bare foot against his chest and sends him backward.

The breath knocks out of Din’s lungs. Nova waits a beat for him to recover and then slowly sinks to her knees, the ghost of that smile still flitting across her mouth. “Good boy.”

Din groans. “I thought,” he says, words ragged, “you wanted to fuck me on your throne.”

Nova shrugs, hiking the slip up as she drops her panties to her knees, straddling Din’s chest. His breath hitches in the hollow of his throat as she gets closer and closer, sliding up across the smooth marble of the floor until she’s hinged just above Din’s mouth. “Oh, baby,” she murmurs, hooking her fingers inside of his teeth and pulling his tongue free, “I am on my throne.”

Din moans so loud that Nova can feel his body beneath her spasm. She waits, the words hinging on her mouth, but he shakes his head so vehemently that his hair moves. His hands, so obediently pressed to the ground a second ago, snap to her hips, bringing her cunt down low enough that Nova can feel the hot heat of his breath blowing up into her. “Don’t you dare.”

“What?” It comes out as breathy as Din’s does.

“I’m not having just a taste,” Din says roughly, “I’m going to fucking devour you.”

Nova squirms as he brings her down closer. “I’m in charge,” she protests, but it’s so halfhearted that Din’s laugh echoes against her bare pussy as he licks a line clean up to her clit.

“Whatever you say, Mand’alor,” Din concedes, hot and wet against her, and then he sinks her all the way down.

Nova moans as she adjusts to the rhythm and warmth of Din’s mouth. It’s only been a handful of hours since the last time he went down on her, but it feels like years. He takes his time, careful with it, and until Nova adjusts to the shock of it, he takes it slow. Agonizing. The power in his tongue is unparalleled, unlike anything she’s ever felt. Her pulse thunders in her ears as Din’s grip tightens around her hips, tongue playing everywhere but her entrance.

“You’re going to leave me bruised—”

“Good,” Din growls, and the absence of his tongue for the split second it took him to say it makes the building orgasm flutter and shake just for a second. “Don’t you dare run away. Let me drink from your cunt.”

Nova’s eyes roll back in her skull. “Oh—”

Din’s tongue finds her clit again, and Nova’s whole body thunders from the impact. She reverberates as he traces it with his tongue, once, twice, three times—and she’s a goner. Nova cries out, unintelligible. He doesn’t let up, as insistent and thorough with her pussy as he is with the bounties he hunts down. Panting, Nova tries to pull away from it, every single nerve in her body firing on all cylinders, but Din grinds her down farther.

“What did I say about running?” he croons, breath hot and intense against her.

“Not—running,” Nova pants out, “fuck, Maker above—”

“Don’t pray to the Maker. I’m your god now.” When Din’s tongue finds her entrance, he thrusts up and inside of her, and Nova screams out, a far cry from a singular moan. She’d send the entire palace thundering towards the throne room if anyone was listening, but right now, the entire galaxy fades out. Nova folds in half as Din brings out another orgasm, then another, and her thighs are shaking, ruined, by the time he’s decided he’s finished, gently placing her back down against his chest.

“Holy shit,” Nova breathes.

“Something holy, that’s for sure,” Din says, lifting his chin to meet her eyes. “I meant it when I said you weren't allowed to run from me ever again.”

Through half-lidded eyes, Nova tries to catch her breath. “I wasn’t running—”

“And I wasn’t finished, Mand’alor,” Din breathes. “How could you deprive me of tasting you until I’d drained you?”

Nova grins down at him, heart pounding against her ribcage. “Drained me? I haven’t fucked you yet.”

Din raises an eyebrow, breathing ragged and uneven.

“We still need to break in the throne up there,” she says, pointing up at the beskar on top of the dais.

“We’ve broken it in,” Din murmurs, letting Nova use his hands to brace up against as she rises, shaking, to her feet. “Or do you not remember the first time I fucked you in this room?”

“Oh, I remember it,” Nova says, grinning, grasping Din’s throat in her hand as she slowly leads them backward, towards the steps to where the dais is raised. “But that was when you were Mand’alor. It’s my turn now.”

Din’s knees sag as Nova’s hand travels down the valley of his throat to the silken blue of his underclothes. Slowly, they climb up to the top, the metal glinting even in the low light. Nova lets go of Din, just for a second, to slide both straps of her slip down over her shoulders, watching as it sparkles as it drops to the floor. On the step below, Din gathers up the fabric in his hands and tosses it off the dais altogether. It’s just Nova and her star-studded halo on the throne now.

“Holy fuck,” Din says, reverently, and if Nova coulmd’t taste divinity on his lips before, she can sure as hell see it in his eyes. “You’re—perfect, Novalise.”

Nova crosses one leg over the other, and Din’s eyes travel down her naked body, ravenous. “Take your clothes off.”

He complies. In the dark, even under midnight skies, he shines. The contours of his body—memorized, well-loved—are so familiar, equally as holy as the look of love in his eyes. Din’s eyelids flutter. “I have a confession to make.”

Nova raises her eyebrows.

Slowly, he slides the waistband of his trousers to the floor. In it, though, Nova can see the wet spot there, sticky, still gleaming on his skin. “Din,” she whispers, pussy clenching, “did you cum from eating me out?”

Silently, he nods.

“Just from that?”

“I could taste you every day for the rest of our lives,” Din breathes into the hollow of her ear, bending forward until his hard cock is flush against her bare thigh, “and cum every time from that alone.”

Nova moans.

“But I’m selfish, Nova,” he whispers, “and I want to fuck you, too.”

“I’d make you beg,” Nova pants, “but I don’t have the patience.” She reaches up, grabbing him buy the neck again, and Din’s knees lock into place as Nova pulls herself off the throne and spins them around, pushing Din’s chest so he lands back against the beskar. He looks so regal here, even without the silver adorning him, especially with nothing on at all. Nova moans as he drags her forward, kicking her legs open so that she can straddle him. “Tell me you want me,” she whispers, into the open air behind them.

Everything stills. “I’ve never wanted you more,” Din manages, and then he’s thrusting up into her as Nova sinks down. Her eyes roll back in her head. Nova cries out as he ruts into her, feverish, devilish, desire coursing through his veins like he’s never fucked before.

“Din—”

“I know, sweet girl,” he murmurs, teeth sinking into her neck, “I know.”

For a moment, neither of them can speak. Nova moans, the sounds higher and higher, floating clean up through the vaulted ceiling to the stars above. On Mandalore, it’s a rare, starry night—the fog disappearing long enough for every single shining locus in the sky to hear their worship.

“I’m—yours,” Din slurs, breath hot and heavy in her ear, “fuck, Nova, I’m all—”

“Wait for me,” she pants, already cresting on the edge of her orgasm. She wanted it to last forever—the sex on their wedding night—but as Din cries out into her ear, Nova’s ready. “I’m gonna—”

“Don’t make me wait anymore,” Din growls, hips slamming into her as he pounds her, relentless, both of them unanchored and edging towards a supernova.

“Cum for me,” Nova manages, and stars above, he does. Right as he erupts, spilling hot, pearly ropes into her, Nova clenches down, and they go over the edge together. As they always do. As they always will.

And on the comedown, foreheads pressed together, the words fall from Din’s swollen lips: “We have all night for more.”

Nova grins, leaning in to press her mouth to his. “We have forever.”

They stay like that, intertwined together, bodies hinged into a two-headed animal, until both Nova and Din can catch their breath. Finally, with a disentanglement of limbs, clothes collected off the floor, Din holds out his arm.

“Let me take you to bed, Mand’alor.”

Nova laughs, low and long, her smile sleepy and eternal across her face. “Don’t think I can walk up the stairs, Mandalorian.”

Din’s arms scoop her up, collapsing her body in a roll down the middle, and Nova links her hands around his neck. “This is something newlyweds do, anyway.” He notices her furrowed eyebrows, a small laugh bubbling out of his mouth. “Carry you over the doorstep.”

“We’ve slept in this room a thousand times before, Din,” Nova whispers, but she lets herself be swept into his arms anyways, carried up the steps.

“Tradition,” he mumbles, half-asleep, and when he carries her over the vestibule of their bedroom, Nova grins up at him. It’s not a Mandalorian tradition. It’s something else entirely. “I love you,” he says, silhouetted in the moonlight. “Did you know that?”

“Vaguely,” Nova yawns, crawling into the silk of their bedsheets, settling right into the crook of Din’s arms. “You’ve given me a few hints.” He laughs out loud, an unrestricted, melodic thing, and Nova’s heart sings in her chest. “I always wanted for something more,” she whispers, against the warmth of his chest. “More meaningful, more…more like home. I don’t need to wish anymore.”

Din folds her into his arms, like he’s always done, like he always will. “It’s deeper than that word can hold,” he agrees, fading off into sleep, Nova’s heart beating in tandem with his, “but yeah, Nova. We’re both home.”

And when Nova dreams tonight, it’s with her lightsaber in one hand and her husband’s in the other. She can feel that something deeper, the eternal pulse for more, saiated, full. The people that stand next to her—Rebels and Mandalorians and Skywalkers and everything in between—they’ve become her new family. Her parents are somewhere in the great beyond, fortifying her, keeping the orange that forged her alive. There are thousands of people that have become Rebels, united in resisting all the evil that lives in the underbelly of the galaxy. This isn’t like last time. This isn’t going to plunge the universe into something insurmountable. And, sure, whatever darkness is coming—and there is a multitude of evil, murky and midnight, uncertain but forming—will be strong.

But Novalise Andromeda Maluev Djarin is stronger. And the army next to her, the people that have become her family, they know how to beat the darkness.

Pull its mouth open. Threaten it with light.

EPILOGUE

“You’re up early.”

Bo-Katan affixes Wedge with a tired—yet somehow still withering—stare. Earlier, after she was certain Nova and Din were done desecrating the throne room, she had snuck back into it, powering the holotable on. Everything in the room is lit up azure, that incessant, never-ending blue. “I never went to sleep.”

He smiles, but it’s fleeting, taut around the edges. The night has clouded back over, but the grey is fading into something warmer. Above them, any minute, the sun is about to rise. “What’s wrong?”

“Before the wedding,” Bo-Katan sighs, moving around the blue glare of the holotable to meet Wedge on the other side, “I went to Yavin.”

Wedge just raises a bushy eyebrow.

“I…I went to Nova’s old barracks. Where she lived with her family.”

“I know the place,” Wedge says, sadly, and Bo-Katan feels her chest squeeze, just for a second. She can’t get distracted, can’t get deterred. She wipes her exhausted eyes, trying to shake the sleep loose. “What did you find?”

“What I needed for Nova’s dress. Thread, that veil she wore. But before I left to go to Naator, Grogu would not follow me. He kept running off down the main hallway, and he refused to come back—or let me pick him up—until I followed him instead. Into a…into a war room. It looked like—”

“A ghost town.”

“Like it hadn’t been used in years, yeah.” Bo-Katan nods. “But there was a…distress signal. And I thought it was new, maybe. But all the distress signals, everything in communication—they’re all regularly rerouted to Hoth. And all of them will be rerouted here, now, to Mandalore. So this one—”

“Must have been old.”

“Stop interrupting me,” Bo-Katan snarls, and then realizes what Wedge is saying, clocks how calm his face is. Suspicious, she raises an eyebrow. “Why…why the hell aren’t you surprised?”

“I came from Hoth.”

“Yeah, Wedge. I know.” Bo-Katan sighs through her nose, a heavy smoker’s exhale. She turns around, flicking through the thousands of old Mandalorian and Rebel files on the holotable in front of her, letting Wedge filter out so she can bring up the distress call.

“I came from Hoth,” Wedge repeats, watching Bo-Katan carefully as she taps out her password on the holotable, trying to bring the distress call up, “where I ran into General Syndulla.”

“Mhm,” Bo-Katan says, half listening, still running through the archives.

“She told me about this Star Destroyer.”

Bo-Katan rolls her eyes. “Who gives a fuck about a Star Destroyer, Wedge, there’s a million of them. Did she give you an identifying number—”

“Bo-Katan—”

“Yeah. Quite frankly, I don’t need the identifying number right now. I need you to hear this distress call—”

“Bo-Katan, listen to me—”

“Wedge, just shut up—”

“General Kryze!” Wedge yells, and both Wedge yelling and using her formal title is so wildly out of character that Bo-Katan shuts up and listens. “I spoke to General Syndulla. On Hoth. About a missing Star Destroyer.”

Bo-Katan’s eyes narrow. Her heartbeat picks up, rapidly, dizzying. “Did you say—”

“General Syndulla. A missing Star Destroyer. Are you listening to me?”

And suddenly, with the force of a tractor beam, Bo-Katan realizes her and Wedge are talking about the exact same thing. “You don’t need to listen to the distress call,” she whispers, slowly, as everything snaps into place, “because you don’t need the identifying number.”

Wedge nods. “It’s the Chimera. It’s back.”

Bo-Katan stares from Wedge to the holotable, then back at Wedge. Silently, suddenly awake, she slides her helmet back on. “Wedge,” Bo-Katan says, her voice ringing out even and clear, “someone needs to wake up the Mand’alor.”

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!! i'm so, SO sorry that it took me ~3 months to give you this final chapter. i was in the hospital for the fourth time this year, had multiple work-related breakdowns, had to have surgery (again), dealt with more UTIs (again), and have not been by best self. my 2022 started out with sepsis and nearly dying, and truthfully, i've been fighting tooth and nail for almost a full year now to fully come back from it. i've been emotionally, mentally, and physically unable to write for so much of this year, and it's devastated me. i haven't felt like myself in a very long time, but slowly writing this final chapter allowed the parts of me that i'm proudest of to shine through again. i'm so sorry for being so wishy-washy and disappearing and always having an end-of-the-world excuse every time i've popped back up on the map. it's been so hard. i don't want to spend forever lamenting, but just know that Something Deeper is such an integral part of me, and the reason why its been gone is inexplicably tied to why i've been gone. you all mean the absolute world to me. thank you so much for caring, for your loyalty, and for being so wonderful to me and my chronically ill body every step of the way. this chapter is a love letter to you. you mean more than i could ever put into words, but i promise i'll keep trying.

xoxo, amelie

25 notes · View notes

amiedala · 1 year

Text

SOMETHING HOLY

CHAPTER 3: DANGEROUS THINGS

WARNINGS: explicit sexual content, canon-compliant violence

SUMMARY:

“The darkness will not get you,” he says, his voice fervent and husky. “I will not fucking let it.”

“This galaxy is filled with dangerous things,” Nova whispers.

“Yes,” Din grits out, hand braced against the column of her throat, “so let’s destroy them.”

“You think I can do it?”

For a beat, neither of them speak. And then Din is on top of her, breath warm on her neck, his hand cresting against her cheek. “I know you can.” She can hear the smile in his voice. “And whatever you don’t will have to go through me.”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HAPPY SOMETHING HOLY SATURDAY!!! this chapter is more setup than action, but if you love character-driven storylines, this one is for you.

This chapter is dedicated to the lovely anon in my inbox. You know who you are.

If you're new here, Something More & Something Deeper are the first installments in this series, available on here & ao3!

Nova can feel something pulsing. It lives in the ground underneath them, chittering in the open, toxic air. Everything here is hollowed out, scraped down to nothingness, a fungus growing in the dark.

They don’t talk on the way back to the ship. Din pulls Nova behind him. She feels moorless, without an anchor, tossed to the wind. She holds onto his hand, her own lost in his iron grip, tugged along by his current, happy to be in his orbit.

No one speaks. The planet is hissing, angry, giving off a frequency that isn’t meant to be heard. They head for the rock outcropping cresting over the hill, planning to meet Bo-Katan where they first left her. Over her shoulder, Nova can almost see something moving through the smog, ghosts that aren’t real, here to haunt and nothing else.

The only other living thing out there is the five of them, like guiding points of a compass, like a multi-headed animal. Nova moves forward, always forward, folding her own arms around herself like it will keep the chill out, like it will fend off the darkness.

Bo-Katan can feel something pulsing. It travels through the air, gets absorbed through the helmet, gets pushed back out again. Her oxygen is not poisoned, but it feels like wreckage all the same. When she originally found her way back to Mandalore, the atmosphere had been like this. Razed, down to nothing. Glass in the place of where home once was.

The rubble matched how she felt. Desperate, nothing, in shards in the place of what danger lies ahead. She vaults over large pieces of destroyed buildings, careful to avoid the geysers filled with toxic steam, threatening to invade the barrier of her armor.

Bo-Katan adjusts her gloves, once, twice. To carry enough fuel for the ship, she can’t be reckless. She needs to be smart, measured, and ice-blue. A soldier.

Bo-Katan Kryze knows how to be a soldier. She was a soldier before she was a princess, before she carried the full weight of being a Mandalorian. She was raised the same way Mandalore was—on being a warrior, on fighting back. That same drive oxygenates in her blood, fortifies her down to her bones. She’s at the city center. Din was right. There’s a small fuelpost here. A sign hangs from a singular, rusted nail off the evaporator in the center: KEEP OUT.

She doesn’t listen. Carefully, precisely, she reaches forward to fill an empty tank, praying to something she doesn’t believe in that the gas hasn’t run dry, that she can gather enough to get them off this forsaken planet.

The fuel runs rapidly for a few moments, then the tap dries up.

“No,” Bo-Katan says, like she’s scolding the fuel.”Come on.” With a grunt, she pushes the lever all the way up. Slowly, painstakingly, a trickle of sludgy fuel runs through the pipe again, tinkling into the pail like wind chimes. Everything about this place is completely unsettling, raw and undone.

She can feel the unsettled air around her shift and crack. Bo-Katan takes a glance at her blind spot, the hair on the back of her neck standing up underneath the armor.

Mandalore isn’t haunted. Bo-Katan knows this.

Parnassos might be. Nova could tell her for sure.

Bo-Katan doesn’t believe in ghosts.

But if they did exist, it would be out here in the Unknown Regions, where there’s swallowing blackness, a hole with its mouth open wide.

Wedge can feel something pulsing. In the low, deep light of Bo-Katan’s vessel, he sits with his legs crossed in the cockpit, peering out at Parnassos’s foggy, war-town surface. Whatever died here didn’t stay dead.

Luke said those words once, curled up against Wedge’s chest. It was after the power went out on their ship, and the two of them huddled in silence in the corner. To preserve body heat, Wedge had suggested, but Luke’s blue eyes bloomed with the hint of something more.

Something more has followed Wedge Antilles around since then, yapping at his heels. He’s ignored it for this, for the mission, for the Alliance, but it’s restless. It has a name, this something more. Wedge just can’t verbalize it, can’t put it into words.

And then his friend’s daughter crashed into him on Dantooine, rebel girl gone rogue, all grown up, and the light came back into Wedge’s life for the first time in years. This is what fighting back feels like—not just going through the motions.

Outside, the air is still pulsing. Everything here is foreboding.

But in the corner, Grogu is sleeping, his small green body still. He sighs, turning over on his tiny side, tucking one of those big green ears under his head. And in here, Wedge is safe, on the other side of the door, in the liminal space.

Wedge, preoccupied with the past, doesn’t notice that Ezra’s blinking hologram is no longer on the ship.

Din can feel something pulsing. It seeps under the beskar, chilling him to his core. As the Mandalorian, he doesn’t get ruffled. Not easily. No, that’s not right. Not ever. Back when he was a bounty hunter, there was nothing that could shake him. He was a killing machine in silver, tempered metal—pushed to the edge, a live wire. Before Grogu, there was nothing that could rattle him. No star, no vessel, no person.

He made a rule of it, after Xi’an and her ruthless clutches, her purple fingers clasped tight around his own throat. Not literally.

Din never took his helmet off for anyone. For anything.

When Nova ran into his path—into him, really—everything shook and shattered. Opening his heart to the little green bounty and killing anyone who stood in their way—that was easy. Like breathing. It was part of his Creed to protect, to defend.

But Din Djarin never planned on falling in love. It was out of the cards for him. Before the kid—he was a lone ranger, traversing the galaxy in the Razor Crest, bringing in people who had committed crimes. He didn’t think about it twice, the act of it. Dropping them, freezing them, taking the reduced price on bringing the quarries in dead rather than alive. It wasn’t about the morality of it. It was about doing the job, and doing it well.

And even when Grogu showed up, when Din’s focus shifted from killing to protecting, there was still a wall built around his heart. Built of beskar and steel, not out of sheer necessity, but out of something he created himself, reinforced with the love he had once lost, before the word Mandalorian meant anything to him.

And then Novalise ran into his path, and that wall shattered.

Din chances a look back at her, out of his periphery. In the helmet, he can look beyond her, but his eyes are laser-focused on his girl. Everything she is radiates magic. Something beyond what he ever was. Something good.

Something so much holier than his Creed.

They’re waiting at the outpost for Bo-Katan. Nova’s inhaling through the helmet, the air harder to hold onto if you’re not used to it. She cocks her head at him, listing to the left like he always does. He wants to climb down inside her heart, breathe his own air into her lungs.

She glances up at him, visor locked on his own. Neither of them speak, but Din holds out one gloved hand, taking her own in his palm. Nova’s not that much shorter than him—a head lower, but not much more—but she looks up at him, obscured by her Rebel-streaked helmet, and his heart surges, pumping faster.

“You okay?” It comes out low, hungry.

“I’m alive,” Nova says, and her voice sounds wrong all modulated. Not like honey and salt, like she usually does. Din would hate it if it wasn’t the woman he loves behind that helmet, sending vibrations through their interconnected hands. It reminds him of darker days, of things he’d rather not think about. Stars, he hates it here.

“That’s not what I asked.” It’s harsh, too deep. Din winces.

Nova sighs, the sound barely registering through her own helmet’s modulator. “Din, I—”

“Hurry up.”

Nova’s visor connects with something over Din’s left shoulder. He exhales, turning to face Bo-Katan. She looks like a lothcat, something in her posture rigid and poised. Like something ready to strike.

“Waiting for you,” Din mutters, regrettably letting go of Nova’s hand to offer it to Bo-Katan, wielding three giant fuel cans. “We could have made it back by now.”

Bo-Katan stands still, like she’s listening to the planet’s frequency.

“It does that,” Din says, flapping his open hand until she relents and gives him one of the cans. “Parnassos. It has a…noise. It always emits it.”

Nova looks at him. Din can feel her eyes burning through the back of his pauldron.

“What happened here?” Bo-Katan grunts, slinging one of the other cans over her shoulder, jutting her chin up to signal them to keep moving. “Why does the planet feel—”

“Haunted?”

Bo-Katan affixes Nova with her visor’s withering stare. Nova doesn’t budge, jutting her chin up. Something has shifted between the two of them, something DIn doesn’t know about. Under the helmet, Din presses his mouth into a thin line.

“It was beautiful,” Din answers, feeling the fuel slosh around in the can as he shifts it to his other hand. “Once.” Over the foggy horizon, he can almost make out the outline of Bo-Katan’s ship. They’re not far away, but Din moves like they are, refusing to be out in this radioactive non-silence any longer than he has to. “Nuclear disaster. Wrecked the planet.”

“How do you know that?”

Din doesn’t answer Bo-Katan’s question. Instead, he soldiers on.

Behind the two of them, Nova follows, silent, observing.

“I’ve spent time here before.”

Bo-Katan cracks her neck, matching her pace to Din’s long strides. “Why would you ever choose to spend time on this wasteland?”

There are so many reasons. Din used to be a glutton for punishment. Din had been stranded out here. Din lost contact with his covert. Din met Xi’an, and thought her ruthlessness was something he could adopt, wear it like armor. But he glances back at Nova, hips swinging as she climbs, a lone black curl hanging down her back from the airlock of her helmet, and his heart burns.

Because I thought I’d never have this, he thinks. Because I thought I didn’t deserve something more.

“Because,” Din says, finally, the outline of their starfighter revealing itself through the muted smog, “I was stranded out here. And the Unknown Regions are much worse.”

When they get back to the ship and take off into the air around them, the memory of Parnassos’ wasteland filters out of his mind. Space welcomes them with its blackness, its inevitability.

Even wrong, it feels right. Whatever danger out here must wait.

Wedge refueled the ship back on Parnassos after Bo-Katan silently slung the cans into his hands. Now, they’re listless, floating through outer space, with enough fuel to slowly traverse the stars.

Nova is trying—and failing—to sleep. In the corner are Grogu’s tiny, fluttering snores. Down the hall, in their own separate compartments, Wedge and Bo-Katan are, too. Din is piloting the ship, moving through the stars. He pulls her in like a magnet, like a tectonic plate shifting. Nova turns over for a third time, trying to clear her mind, trying not to think of the dizzying memory of Din’s weight on top of her, of the visions she’s fallen into, of the galaxy’s end hanging on the horizon.

In her head, Nova replays the moment she first stepped on the Razor Crest. Bo-Katan’s ship is utilitarian, made of beskar and not much else. The Crest was like that, too, at first, but there was home lingering in the silence, a life to be made within its walls.

Selfishly, hungrily, Nova longs for those moments—when Din was still the Mandalorian, when the three of them traveled through the stars, aimless except for the bounties Din brought in, drifting, content.

This is too much.

The pressure, the heavy press of responsibility. Nova sighs, shoving back the blankets, suddenly sweating. She gathers her hair on the top of her head, loose and wild, trying to feel the air on her skin, the sweet, safe oxygen of the starfighter. Her hands ache from fighting off the danger in her visions, but it’s pitch-black in here. She can’t see if they’re bubbled up from Parnassos’s toxic surface or scratched from clawing away the evil in her head, but they hurt just the same.

Bottom lip trembling, Nova stands, pulling on a fresh pair of pants, a new top. Her Mandalore blue shawl is draped over the tiny outcropping on the wall, and Nova wraps it around her shoulders, the door hissing as she opens it.

She moves down the hall, silent, the light growing bigger as the cockpit sprawls open in front of her. There, in the center, is Din, arms crossed over his steel chest, visor trained on the stars.

“Hi,” she whispers, and he turns his head to the side as Nova pads forward into the room, settling down on the copilot’s chair. For a brief, fleeting moment—she can pretend they’re back where they were nearly three years ago, traveling the cosmos in the Razor Crest.

Her chest aches.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping.” It comes out gruff, like he’s arguing an inner war with himself. Nova offers Din a small smile, pulling a knee up close to her chest.

“Couldn’t,” Nova murmurs, tracing over him with her eyes. The armor is foreboding, sure, but it glitters with the remnants of the space around them. “My head’s too full.”

Din sighs, leaning to the right, like Nova’s presence is magnetic. Her teeth find her bottom lip, studying him. “What are you thinking about?”

How monumental and overwhelming this all feels, Nova wants to say, but when she opens her mouth, something completely different falls out. “How badly I want to win.”

That catches more than Din leaning into her. He turns his full body, swinging his armored legs around to face her head-on. “Win.” It isn’t a question.

Nova nods. “To wipe out all the evil, yes, But… this is different. Every other battle we’ve fought together felt…limited. Like there was still danger outside, but that some of it was compartmentalized. Contained. This, though…” she trails off, looking at the stars glinting back at her outside the window, “this feels…different. Like all the pieces of the puzzle are leading us to a bigger threat.” She swallows. “I saw it. In my head.”

Din studies her, careful. Even through his helmet, Nova can feel his gaze burning a hole through her, straight down to her soul.

“I want to win, Din,” she whispers. “Not just beat them. The Order, the people rising in Gideon’s place, the man Ezra disappeared with, the threats waiting to come. I want to send them back where they came from. I want to make them hurt.” Her hand clenches down at the last word, and Nova unfurls it, finding nothing on her skin but the impressions her fingernails left. Underneath though—underneath, it’s like fire has swept in, consuming her bones, her throat, her lungs.

Nova closes her eyes, trying to chase the desperation away, to make it recede. Her heartbeat is still off-kilter, wrong. When she flutters her eyelashes open, Din’s gaze is trained on her—a locus, a perfect fixture.

“You can do it,” Din says, so quiet. He reaches his gloved hand forward, stroking over her cheekbone. “Make them hurt.”

Nova takes in a shuddering breath. “Does that make me…as bad as them?” Her voice sounds derealized, hollow. Small. Like an open wound. “Does that make me worse?”

“No.” A single word, so much power behind it. “You want to burn them all down, Novalise? I’ll get the kerosene.”

Nova stares back at him, so obscured by the helmet. For a second, his grip tightens, desperate, and Nova’s breath gets knocked clean out of her lungs. The lines blur, and she’s back in her dream where Din was the shadow version of himself—hungry, pulsating like the planet they just escaped. She blinks, and it’s gone. It’s just Din—the man she loves, the one who would tear the galaxy apart to find her, the one who will watch her raze it to the ground.

“I don’t want it to get me,” she murmurs, “this feeling.”

Din closes the space between them, standing between Nova’s legs in a flash. Blink, and she’d miss the whole thing. His voice is a cloying, consuming thing. “I won’t let it.”

In the dark, Nova sleeps.

In the dark, Din watches.

His eyes are exponentially better at seeing through the darkness. He doesn't know if it’s from years spent under the helmet, or if it's because he has a preconceived likeness to it. The low light in the ship has faded over that line of nothing at all. Pressed up against his body is Novalise, his Novalise. In the dark sprawling silence, she’s inhaling even breaths.

For weeks, now, he’s laid beside her in the darkness, trying to get her inhalations to register as normal. Nova’s sleep is filled with restless, fitful dreams—nightmares. Some of them are Force dreams. Din has taken stock of which ones are nightmares and which ones are full of want. It fills the air around them. It makes the oxygen heavier.

Want is a pulsing need. Din knows the way it feels, low in his own stomach. He can smell it on Nova—the helmet has many perks, but picking up on her arousal is a special one. For days, when they first met, Din tried to stifle the want in his belly, twisting tendrils around his logical, rational mind, turning him into a madman. Weeks passed with Nova sleeping on his ship, eating his food, gentle and kind and so different from anything else he’d ever encountered.

Pure. Novalise is pure.

Still—deep inside, she’s depraved. She feels like honey and heaven, like the darkest temptation. But it’s the sweetest kind of sin, every time Din sinks deep inside of her, every time his bare skin gets to brush up against hers. And no matter how troubled she is, no evil lurks under her skin.

Din would stomp it out if it existed. But Nova would beat him to it.

Everything Nova radiates is magic. Din Djarin never believed in anything holy, not really. Not until Nova ran into his life, changed his world. Before, the stars above were just something to travel through. Now, he sees them light her eyes.

Nova sighs in her sleep. Din watches as her mouth parts, closes. He pulls her closer, against his unarmored chest, draping his arm over her hip. His hand palms flat against her lower belly, an anchor, a vow.

The entirety of the ship is blissful and quiet when Din finally crosses over into sleep.

In her dreams, Nova is back on Yavin.

It’s gorgeous, as always—sweet and warm, with a gentle breeze swaying across the greenery. The last time she was here, she was fighting off Sparmau—a physical manifestation of her anger, her pain.

Her refusal to let the light leave the sky.

Above her, there aren’t any clouds. The sky is a pale, pale blue, the sun shining off somewhere in the distance. Flowers dance on the horizon, climbing up the trees like vines. She turns to the right, and the pyramid-like structure of the base stands resolute, all stucco and sienna.

It still feels like home.

“Novalise.” She turns. Din is unarmored—not just without the helmet, but altogether. Without beskar, he seems smaller, lighter. Even though there’s no danger here—Yavin may be altogether mostly abandoned, but it’s still a safe haven—Nova feels fear seize in her chest, rushing towards the man she loves, anxiety kicking her heart arrhythmic.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, stroking her thumb over his cheekbone, reveling in how soft his skin is for the millionth time, untouched my air, untouched by time, untouched by anyone else but her.

Din laughs—a long, loud thing. Nova wants to bottle it up, to drink it clean down, to savor it for every time she feels the familiar fault line cracking. It’s not a sound she hears frequently. She’ll take all she can get. “You’re here,” he says, a gorgeous smile splitting across his face, “so I’m here.”

Nova looks beyond him. There’s nothing—just Yavin, just serenity, just greenness. Bringing her eyes back to Din’s deep brown ones, she traces over his face reverently, drinking it in, soaking every inch she’s spent the last three years of her life committing to memory. “But what about the darkness?”

Din looks taken aback, panicked. Usually so unflappable, so resolute—the expression looks strange on his face. No, Nova realizes, it looks wrong. “The darkness?” he repeats, his voice a small, untethered thing.

“The darkness.” Nova nods, sliding her thumb down his cheek, so light, so gentle. “It’s coming for us, Din Djarin.” Her mouth splits open, revealing rows and rows of sparkling teeth. Vaulted from her own body, Nova spills outside of herself on Yavin’s green floor, watching in horror as her shadow-self grins back at Din, glittering and horrifying.

“No!” She screams out, reaching one hand forward, trying to return to herself, the original vessel, to wrench this darkness out of her eyes, her mouth, her lungs. Din stands, immobilized, a Mandalorian without his armor, as shadow-Nova wraps her hand around his throat, squeezing hard. “Stop!” The syllable is split down the middle as a sob wrenches its way free from her mouth, undone, a lightning bolt.

Looking over at her, Nova’s reflection grins. So many teeth—like Sparmau, like the creature back on Primea, like the nightmares that haunt her every dream. Her eyes are black—hollow, blank blackness. There’s no light left. Like there was no light ever there at all. Nova tries to move forward again, sobbing, but it’s like she’s grown roots, tied down to the battle ground she used to call home. Terrified, screaming, she fights against the invisible force, against all this danger, but Din still stands, wheezing through her own fist.

“Let him go,” Nova manages, tears streaming down her face, trying—and failing—to wrench herself free. “Take me instead.”

“Oh Novalise.” Her name sounds perverted coming out of this self’s mouth—so much like her, but so completely different. “I already have you.” Her voice is so unsettled, so wrong. “You’ll become me, destroyer of worlds. It’s been prewritten.”

“It,” Nova snarls, “has not.”

Her shadow-self snaps, the sound ringing out loud in the air. Like a bell ringing in the silence. Like thunder threatening to split the sky in half. Nova is transported back into her body, staring in a mirror she’s not sure is even real, held captive by her own reflection. Her fist is still curled around Din’s throat, squeezing so hard she can feel his heartbeat bursting through her fingers. Crying, transfixed, she stares at her own self, so unlike the person she is, so completely opposite.

“I will never be you,” she whispers. “Do you hear me? I will never give in.”

“Look what you’re doing,” her mouth whispers, “you already are.”

Nova screams, loud enough to shatter bone, angry enough to explode the stars. Everything turns black and white, shot into grayscale. The glittering of space surrounds her. For one awful, terrible second, Nova’s afraid she’s done too much—that by banishing this version of herself, she’s damned Din, too, but then her fingers unclasp from his neck and they both topple to the ground.

“Cyar’ika,” Din pants, and despite all of it, despite the horror here, he still sounds reverent. He touches his hand to her cheek, wiping away tears with his thumb, “you saved me.”

“I nearly ruined you,” Nova sobs, “Din—”

“You saved me,” he whispers again, finger tracing over the soft heart her mouth makes, “I won’t let the darkness get you.”

Nova pulls him against her chest, hearing him rattle out deep, unsettled breaths. In the familiar green of Yavin, her head pressed against the hollow of his heart, she whispers something that neither of them can hear.

“What if it already has?”

Nova wakes up. Her breath is stolen straight out of her mouth. In the darkness, a soft light blinks on and off, and in stuttered, shuttered frames, she catches glimpses of Din’s beautiful, sleeping face. He looks at peace—like the weight of the world has been removed from his shoulders, like he’s been absolved of a burden.

Silently, Nova chokes back her sob, gently tracing her fingers across Din’s face. Over the beautiful prominence of his nose. Over his thick browline. Over the ridges at the corner of his mouth—new, gentle wrinkles, proving Din Djarin has smiled more than he’s frowned. In the near-blackness, the danger subsides, and Nova soothes her heartbeat back down to normal rhythm.

The visions—they’ve been of tangible, fleeting images. Evil blueness. Sinister laughter. White stormtroopers. Sparmau’s teeth. The Order. Everything contained within two words, simplicity—even if the danger here is multitudinal, even if everything is connected—it’s easy to quantify, to put into words.

All of the danger Nova has fought and dreamed over the last few years have been real. Sitting in the future, on the edge of the periphery, yes, but a tactile, real evil. It hasn’t seeped under her skin, it hasn’t rotted away at her heart. This is different—the light stomped out of her green eyes, her hands splitting what she loves most down the middle. It’s terrifying, this danger. This is Novalise coming undone.

Swallowing, she draws her knees against her chest, staring down at her hands in the dark. Soft, blue stitches of light cut through the blackness as she looks down at them. Her fingernails, medium length. Her long, elegant fingers descended directly from her mother. Peppered freckles, drawn like a constellation across her right wrist. Her engagement and wedding rings, ice-white crystal and enduring beskar. The lines that map out her life—as Andromeda, as Novalise, as the woman she has not yet become.

“I will never choose the darkness,” Nova breathes out. A promise. A vow.

Beside her, Din stirs. Nova presses her lips together, trying to remain quiet, to stay silent enough for him to fall back into much-needed sleep. He turns over, facing back to her, and through the gentle strobe of the faded blinking light, Nova sees his eyes open.

“What’s wrong,” he whispers.

It isn’t a question. It’s like he already knows. In the dark, Nova presses her lips together. “I keep seeing things in my dreams. Things that are…after us. Dangerous things.”

Din shifts closer to her. Reluctantly, Nova drops her knees, sliding back down. The second she’s anchored against Din’s chest, that sharp panic melts away, slides into the background. In the cocoon of his arms, the danger dissipates. Not gone entirely, but it reduces, slinking away to the corner of her mind that Nova locks the hurt away in.

“You’ve faced dangerous things before.” Din’s voice is half-formed, still eroded by sleep.

Nova swallows. “This is different. This is…more personal.” She doesn't want to cast it into the light. She doesn't want to call it by name. This is the darkest part of her, a razor’s edge. At the forefront of her mind is her vision from what feels like ages ago—just over a week, in reality. Din asking her not to leave. Nova telling him to bring her back. “You have to promise me something.”

Din stills.

“Anything.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

Silence. Then, Din turns over to her in the dark, gripping her cheeks with vigor. His palms are rough, hardened. Nova sways into his touch, tangling her legs in the scratchy sheet, pressing her forehead to his. “What?”

“If something happens to me,” Nova whispers, “and the darkness…gets me, you have to be the one to end it.”

Din is so rigid, so still. “No.”

“Din—”

“We have gone too far to not have a happy ending. You promised me first. You said you weren’t going to be a martyr, Novalise.” He swallows, and when he starts again, his voice is ragged, unyielding. “Do you understand? I will not forgive you this time.”

Nova’s heart stops. “That’s not what I mean,” she whispers, five little words with so much weight. “I’m not talking about sacrificing myself. I’m… talking about if the darkness swallows me.”

Beside her, Din’s grip loosens. Not enough—just a hair. But Nova doesn't dare speak until Din draws in a ragged, dangerous breath. “Nova,” he breathes, “what did you see in your dreams?”

Nova doesn’t want to speak it into existence, to bring it back with her into the light. “I’ve been seeing visions of myself. And it’s not me, Din. It’s not me.” Tears well up in her eyes. “But I’m terrified of her—of me. And I don’t know what I’m capable of.” Under the covers, against Din’s chest, Nova squeezes her hands together, trying to conjure the memory of light, to trace the silhouettes of her own hands, to be a peace-bringer.

“I’ll tell you what you’re capable of.” Din’s hand finds the back of her neck, squeezing down tight, anchoring her in place. “You survived your parents’ deaths. You killed the man who abused you for months. You struck down the woman who wanted to tear me apart. You got Grogu to trust in the Force again. You wanted to reason with Gideon—not show him the same unspeakable violence he tried to show you. You united the Rebels and the Mandalorians after years of irreconcilable differences. You showed Ladmeny Sparmau that nobody can fuck with Novalise Djarin.”

Nova shudders, tears welling up in her eyes.

“You saved me, Novalise,” Din whispers. “Over and over again, you save me. You fight back against all the darkness. I don’t know what’s coming, but I don’t give a fuck.” His voice is low, dangerous, a live wire. “Because I know you can beat them. We can beat them. You hold the Darksaber. You’re becoming a Jedi. You belong to the light.”

Nova feels Din’s hand stroke through her hair.

“The darkness will not get you,” he says, his voice fervent and husky. “I will not fucking let it.”

“This galaxy is filled with dangerous things,” Nova whispers.

“Yes,” Din grits out, hand braced against the column of her throat, “so let’s destroy them.”

“You think I can do it?”

The danger is still at the tip of Nova’s tongue—threatening to consume her, to gut her from the inside out. But She reaches up to find Din’s mouth and crashes her own to it, wanting to expel all of it, to drown herself in violet and honey, to taste the man she loves on her tongue. Out here, in her crush of space—this feels so familiar. It feels like coming home.

Everything fades out as Din’s lips find her own, thrashing against her tongue. Nova tangles her hands in his messy hair, pulling him closer, closer still. His mouth latches onto the pulse point on her neck, and Nova strangles out a sigh. Din Djarin fucks like a man possessed, but that want has a name.

“Novalise.”

She wants him to split her open, to bisect her. The Din from the dream—the one haunted, the one held captive by demons neither of them can name—he isn’t here. This Din is desperation, happiness, want, need. Nova tears at their clothes, frantic, shoving her panties down to her knees so he can push inside of her and spear away the hurt. The panic has disappeared, given way to something lush and dangerous, maroon and wanting.

Din still smells like cinnamon and gunmetal, even without the interior of the Crest, even without the armor. He is not her Mandalorian right now. Din moans as Nova pulls his own pants down, too, hard and ready against her exposed core. Nova wants to talk to him, to whisper sweet nothing in his ear, but she still has herself captive. Din is here, on top of her, nearly inside of her, ready to resuscitate her from ruin. Ready to bring Nova back to life.

“Please,” she whispers.

“What are you pleading for?” Din asks, low and gravelly, his voice laced with poison.

Nova swallows. It feels safer, in the dark, to admit it. “For you to take me.”

“Take you,” Din grits out, his weight heavy and hard as he grinds into her, sending stars through Nova’s eyes, “or worship you?”

The room stills. “Do you want to worship me?” Something dark flutters around her heart, dives deep into her belly. She can feel her pulse jump, ricocheting as Din’s fingers bisect her legs, teasing at her entrance. She inhales a tiny breath, dizzying, dancing. “Would you get on your knees for me, Din Djarin?”

Din swears under his breath. “To pray to you, cyar’ika?” His words come out silken and barbed, pleasure and pain in equal measure. “Or to pleasure you?” He licks a line down her body, swirling his tongue around her bellybutton as he gets lower, deeper. Nova bites back a yelp as his tongue meets her clit, pressing flat against her cunt, like a viper ready to strike. She arches up, not away from his mouth, but into it. Din holds steady. “Answer the question.”

“Would you pray to me?”

“Oh, Novalise,” Din sighs, “you’re the only holy thing I believe in.” But before Nova can digest that—can think anything else, his tongue is inside of her. She screams out, unable to clap a hand over her mouth in time. It just spurs Din on, licking a line clean up, teeth scraping against her clit. This is want in its purest, depraved form, cloying and desperate. Nova writhes in the stuttered light as Din moves inside of her, hips digging into the thin mattress, too crazed with her taste to keep from bucking up against anything.

When he’s driven her to oblivion—once, twice, Nova pulls at him, yanking hard, until Din’s body collapses on top of hers, cock twitching.

“Fuck me,” she whispers, “please, Din.” Nova thinks she’ll shatter if he doesn’t, want hungering low in her pelvis. He doesn’t waste any time, doesn’t need to wetten his cock before he pushes into the hilt, sinking in until they’re intertwined.

A long, low moan falls out of Din’s mouth. It’s the sweetest divinity Nova has ever heard. He sinks his teeth into her shoulder as he fucks her—snapping his hips up, down, an unyielding rhythm, a desperate need. This is how it’s always been with them—star-crossed, love burning so loud it lights up in the darkness. Din’s breathing hitches as Nova pulls him closer, closer, both of them moving toward oblivion, framed against the low, blue light.

The low blue light, emitting from Ezra’s hologram. With a yelp, Nova tries to sit up, but Din doesn’t stop, doesn’t yield, and she surrenders to his desperate want, burying himself inside of her until both of them reach their shuddering, unanimous end. Din presses his forehead to Nova’s, breath choppy and uneven, cupping a hand to her warm cheek. “You,” he breathes, “are everything, Novalise.”

Nova’s eyes flutter back down until the warmth of his words subside, edging her arrhythmic heart back to groundedness, to clarity. “Ezra,” she breathes into the darkness.

Immediately, she regrets it. Din twitches inside of her.

“Dangerous thing,” he grits out, “saying another man’s name while my cock is still buried inside of you.”

Nova’s face burns. “That’s not what I meant—look, Din, there’s a new message.”

He turns, staring at the blueness, and immediately, the two of them are scrambling to get up, to get dressed, to leave their tiny bedchamber that smells like sex and sin, to wake the others.

“I should be jealous,” Din mutters, as he pulls his helmet back on, “that there’s another man in your head.”

Nova grins as she pulls her shirt over her head, opening the airlock to the mainframe of the starfighter. “You’re the only man in my heart, Din Djarin.”

Obediently, he follows after her, an eternal star.

“Well,” he grumbles, letting the door hiss closed behind them, “I still don’t like it.”

“I’m awake,” Bo-Katan slurs through a sleepy voice, rubbing at her eyes. Wedge appears a second later, still in his orange jumpsuit. He doesn't look like he slept at all, purple rings under his eyes. Nova watches him carefully, knowing Primea got under his skin, but Wedge doesn’t speak a word about it.

They convene in the cockpit, the four of them huddled around the center, Gorgu silently observing with wide eyes from the side in his cradle.

“Play it.” Bo-Katan watches Din hold the hologram out in his hand, eyes trained on the azure figure in front of them, blue and distorted.

“Wait,” Wedge says, stopping Din’s thumb from hitting the button. “Let’s just… stop for a second.”

None of them move.

Wedge sighs. “I want to bring Ezra back,” he says, and his jovial voice has lost its luster, “I do. But… we’re walking into uncharted territory, and none of us are equipped to handle it out here. I think maybe… if he’s somewhere we can’t easily get to, that we at least call in reinforcements.” His gaze snaps over to Nova’s, distant and longing. “There’s so much we have to fight,” Wedge says, carefully, “so we need to do it carefully.”

Still helmeted, Din cocks his head to the side. “Who do we call in?” He asks, visor studying Wedge, “Rebels or Mandalorians?”

Nova opens her mouth to speak, but it’s Bo-Katan that beats her to it. “Both. We’re on the same side.”

All of them appraise her. Wedge has a tiny smile on his face. Din’s head is still to the side, even more tilted than it was a second ago. And Nova is biting back her own grin.

“What?” Bo-Katan asks, exasperated.

“Nothing,” Nova says, quickly, before anyone can antagonize her further, “Bo-Katan, play the hologram.”

Ezra crackles through static, leaning into the camera. Again, Nova is stunned by how similar they look—the same coloring, the same ridge of their eyebrows. Their eyes are different, even though Ezra’s currently washed in blue—Ezra’s purple, Nova’s sage-green. Right now, though, they could be mirror images of each other,

“I don’t have much time,” Ezra says, his words garbled by the sound of the hologram. “I don’t even know if I’ll be here when—” He turns around, looking at something beyond a wall, obscuring his view and their own. He turns back to the hologram, a haunted look in his eyes. “Don’t follow me. Do you understand?” The hologram chitters and pulses, the sound so familiar to the frequency Paranssos frequented that Nova shivers. “Do not come after me. Everything has changed—” The static cuts in again, dangerous and tangible. “Do not follow me.” He looks right into the recording. It sends a knife through Nova’s heart. “You will be too late. It’s not safe—”

And the recording cuts out. Nova’s breathing is all shallow. Everything in the ship flashes, once, twice, three times, and Nova feels Din reach out and grab her in the blinking blackness. He whispers something in her ear, desperate and low, caging her and the hologram against the durasteel floor. Nova cries out, reaching for Grogu, for Bo-Katan, for Wedge—

All she feels is Din, beskar and cinnamon. Out of the front window, the stars pulse and stream, moving down, down, down.

No, Nova realizes with an awful jolt, the stars aren’t moving. The ship is.

The starfighter chitters and pulses, one last death rattle.

And when the light leaves the starfighter, so does all the gravity, sending the dead ship and her crew down to the swirling, awful blueness of the planet underneath them.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!! thank you for being here <3 please leave a kudos or a comment if you're so inclined!

Chapter 4 will be up at 7:30 pm EST on Saturday, April 22nd!

xoxo, amelie

10 notes · View notes

amiedala · 2 years

Text

SOMETHING DEEPER

CHAPTER 26: Ru(i)n

WARNINGS: predator/prey dynamic, explicit sexual content

SUMMARY: “I,” Nova levels, voice a hell of a lot steadier than she feels right now, “am reigning Mand’alor, Jedi in training, Rebel royalty, and Her Highness Pilotess of the Outer Rim. You may be the bounty hunter, Mandalorian, but I’ve got power. This is going to be a fair fight.”

“Oh, Nova,” Din sighs, sliding his hand up her waist, her arm, to her neck, fingers closing so gently around her throat, light and restrained. “I don’t want to fight you. I want to fuck you. And even when I give you a head start, that’s all I’m going to think about. I will chase you down across Naator, I will find you, and then I will destroy you in every way you’ve been begging for.”

If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLOOOOO EVERYONE AND HAPPY SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY!! i apologize a million times for the wait but i hope this chapter, in its 16,000+ word glory, makes it up to you ;)

Nova’s heart flips, skips a beat, and then hammers. The flood of adrenaline is in her ears, the static dizzying and disconcerting. She swallows, shaking her head, trying to make sure she heard Din right. “You want me to run?”

Din nods. There’s something dangerous in the depths of his eyes. It’s like fire is looking for a place to catch, and he’s just lit the wick. “We’ll make it even. We’ll go on Kicker. And when we touch down, I’ll give you a head start. You’re going to run, Novalise. For the last time.”

Nova swallows. “You—you want me to run?” It’s the same sentence that she managed before, but higher and breathier. Everything sounds utterly distorted. “You still haven’t forgiven me from the last time I ran, Din. And now you’re—what, giving me permission?”

“I’m leveling the playing field.”

Nova stares. Din stares back. There’s no mirth in his voice, nothing to indicate he’s joking. Or being sarcastic. Nova doesn’t think he has the capacity for either, not with this. But she studies him, trying to analyze every single breath out of his lungs, the way his mouth shapes around the words. “You think that if you let me go,” she starts, “that I’ll come back to you?”

It doesn’t come out like she wants to—in sheer disbelief, not in challenge—but it doesn’t matter, because Din nods. Immediately. “I know you will.”

Nova gapes at him. Acutely, she feels the bark of the tree against the thin fabric of her clothes, the sounds of the people gathered just around the corner, the way the forest barely shields them. She’s drowning in Din, the way she wants to, the way she needs to, filling up on his oxygen because he’s already taken his own. “Din—”

“But let me make something very clear,” he says, and his gaze drops to the shape of her lips. “This will be the last time you run from me, Novalise. You are going to run, and you’re going to try to keep me at bay for as long as you can, but I will find you. This is what I do. This is who I am. And I know where you’d hide. I know where you’d go. I could find you in a galaxy neither of us have been to. I could find you in death.” He presses closer. Nova’s breath hitches in her throat. “If it hadn’t been for Sparmau taking us both, I would have beat you to Yavin.” Din’s mouth dips down to the hollow of her throat. His tongue lashes out and licks her, and Nova gasps as the cool air swallows up the place where his lips just were. “You think you can evade me?”

“You’re…” Nova swallows. She can hear how close the villagers are. Everything inside of her body is running molten and in flames. Wet, hot warmth seeps from between her legs, every single nerve inside of her body a live wire. Her heart is still arrhythmic. She meets Din’s eyes. “You’re terrifying.”

A slow, dangerous smile cracks across his face. Nova bites her bottom lip. “You’re scared of me, cyar’ika?”

“No,” Nova says, forcefully. “I mean, as a bounty hunter. You’re…inescapable.”

Din leans in, pressing his mouth to hers. Before Nova’s knees get weak at the kiss, Din’s hand snakes out and grasps the base of her throat. He squeezes. Not hard enough to do anything except show her he’s there, that he could. But it doesn’t feel threatening. Nova feels alive, like everything inside of her has finally awoken. “Don’t you dare fucking forget it.”

Nova looks up at him through half-lidded eyes. Here, he towers over her, pressing her back into the tree. “You’re forgetting something,” she whispers, barely audible over the ambient sound of the forest.

Din raises a thick eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“I lived another life before I met you,” Nova says, slowly lifting her chin. “I became an expert in hiding in plain sight. Naator isn’t Coruscant. It’s built like my home.” She lets her tongue slide out, catching a glimmer in Din’s eyes as he stares at her open mouth. “There were times on Yavin when my parents sent the whole base out looking for me. I didn’t get lost. I wasn’t deep in the trenches. I was right there.” She swallows. “I’m an expert in running, but I’m pretty damn good at hiding, too.”

Din’s hand catches under her chin, and Nova pulls back into his orbit—intentionally, teetering on the edge of forceful. But the only thing it does is explode heat deep in her stomach, heartbeat quickening with excitement rather than fear. “I’m an expert in finding.”

“You’ll find me when I want you to find me.”

“I’ll find you, and when I do, I’m going to fuck that cocky little attitude right out of you.”

It makes Nova feel fluttery, weak, like willing prey—but she doesn’t show it. She clenches her jaw, rolling back her shoulders, pushing off the tree trunk. Din’s large—towering, all-consuming, especially in the armor—but she’s mighty. “I’d love to see you try.”

She sneaks out under an opening in his arm, hurtling through his grasp. He’s quick, determined, but Novalise Djarin has all the power of Andromeda Maluev, and when caught off guard, Din is no match. She grins, fleeing back into the firelight, flushed and out of breath. When he reappears, Bo-Katan gives both of them a sickened look, but as Nova rejoins the stragglers, the remaining group of people gathered around the pyre, she catches a tiny smile in the corner of Bo-Katan’s mouth.

“You disgust me.”

“Hey, Bo-Katan,” Nova says, the words falling out of her mouth, colliding with Bo-Katan’s pride thinly disguised as annoyance, “I know it’s not the way of Mandalore, but will you be my maid of honor?”

Bo-Katan’s mouth falls open, gaping. Grogu squeals from her lap. He looks gleefully between Nova and Bo-Katan, big bug eyes lit up as bright as the flames dancing in front of them. “I just insulted you.”

Nova shrugs, unfazed. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

Bo-Katan studies her. “I thought—” Her voice catches, as if she’s suddenly unsure. “I thought you wanted me to be your officiant.”

“I do,” Nova says, low and earnest. “But I want you to be my maid of honor, too. You don’t need to do anything else. Just a title. But an important one.”

Bo-Katan blinks, and it’s like something softens. Not just around the edges, like how she usually does, but like she’s eschewing something cold and dark with it. “Yes,” she answers quietly. “Of course I will.” Her hand finds Nova’s, and she squeezes down hard.

“Good.” Nova swallows the emotion bubbling up. “But I have another favor to ask first.”

Bo-Katan sighs. “What is it?”

Hours later, after the pyre has burnt out, after the stars are in full shine, the moon hanging serenely across the celestial splashtop of Sorgan’s skies, the group has whittled back down to the Rebels and Mandalorians and Skywalkers. They’re gathered around the fire, sharing in the quiet of the night, watching as the smoke trails back up into the heavens. Nova can feel the weight of missing Cara, the heaviness of it, but it feels like something has shifted back into place. The grief, while still lodged in the pit of her stomach, isn’t a knot anymore—it just exists, constant and tumbling.

“She would have liked this,” Din murmurs finally, breaking the silence. “I know…I know she’d hate that we were still here, instead of fighting the next enemy, but Cara would have loved this.” His voice is rough, and Nova’s hand finds his gloved one, lacking her fingers through his. No one needs to speak their assent out loud, though, because they’re all in agreement. Cara would have loved this. And Cara would be gearing right up for their next fight alongside them.

Luke and Leia exchange a look—knowing, with trepidation. Nova knows it immediately, because it clenches in her stomach, too, the part of her that’s connected to something deeper, but none of them speak it aloud. Danger is coming, yes, with darkness to follow, but there’s time. Whoever they are, however strong they’re standing, Mandalore is resolute, resounding. And its people—Mandalorians, Rebels, and Jedi alike—are standing tall, a multi-headed animal, ready to beat it all back.

“What are you thinking, rebel girl?” Wedge calls across the clearing. He’s right next to Luke—his orange clad thigh flush against Luke’s black pants—and Nova bites back a smile at the two of them, still orbiting each other, after all this time.

“I’m thinking,” Nova says, “that I know what comes next.”

Fennec raises a sharp eyebrow. Leia takes a half-step forward. Boba’s face hasn’t changed, but his stature stiffens. Bo-Katan is flashing a rare, smug smile. Nova doesn't need to look at her to prove it. It hangs in the air.

“I think we need something joyful before the war calls us back,” Nova says, trying and failing to stifle her own grin. “Din and I are having a wedding. A real one. On Naator, in five days. Please join us.”

Grogu squeals. Wedge’s smile is so brilliant, it could light up the entire forest. Leia’s eyes shine with sadness and excitement. Luke looks thrilled. Karga, who’s been standing in the background, gives a jovial laugh and clap, shaking the ground. Even Boba and Fennec are smiling.

“Good call,” Wedge says, coming over to embrace both of them, tears shining in the back of his eyes. “We need something more than all this darkness.” And even now, even after all the death and loss and grief, he’s right.

Everyone makes their way to their ships long after the fire has gone cold. Luke and Leia leave in the Falcon, but not before they pull Nova into a bone-crushing hug. “We’ll come,” she promises. “We’ll be there. Five days.” They take off first, that iconic blue blaze shooting through the sky, and then they’re gone.

Boba and Fennec are already in Slave I. Karga is buckled up somewhere in the backseat. Koska is long asleep. Bo-Katan stands outside of the gangplank, arms still wrapped around Grogu. “You trust me with him?”

Nova nods. “There’s no one else I trust more.”

Din scoffs behind her, but Nova can hear the joke in it. Bo-Katan fixes him with a sour look. “Five days is a long time to keep him entertained. Or fed. Mandalore doesn't have frogs, Novalise.”

“That is,” Din sighs, “for the best.” He leans over, plucking Grogu out of Bo-Katan’s lithe arms. “You be good,” he warns, waggling a gloved finger in Grogu’s face. “No crimes. Your aunt isn’t as forgiving as we are. She’ll put you to work.”

Bo-Katan’s face holds the shine of pride. “I mean it, kid. There are rules you have to follow on Mandalore.”

Grogu makes an affronted noise, and Nova leans down to press a kiss to his soft, warm, green forehead. He reaches out a three-fingered hand to her temple, and Nova pulls away before it’s fully realized. Just flashes. Not urgent ones, nothing dangerous. The good kind, the sweet blips of life she wants to live in forever. When Slave I finally pulls away, the excitement, running wild through Nova’s veins, returns with a vengeance. She turns to face Din, heart thumping quicker and quicker, flame running rampant through her body.

“So.”

Din doesn’t say anything, just watches her intently.

“How much of a head start are you giving me?”

He steps forward. “It doesn’t matter.”

Nova narrows her eyes, smile spreading slow and steady across her face. “You really think you’re gonna win, don’t you?”

Din studies her carefully, dark eyes sparking up with lust, with hunger, and Nova lets herself be pinned under his stare. “I told you once there’s no place you could hide from me. I know you, cyar’ika.”

At this, Nova moves forward, one step closer to his entire armored body. It reminds her so much of the first time they met, back before she knew the man under the Mandalorian, back before she had fallen in love, when her life was darker and sporadic and hidden. Even without all the beskar, Din makes her utterly shine. Nova’s never felt anything like his gravitational pull. And when she’s here, magnetic, stuck to it, she can’t remember anything before it.

“And I know you, Mandalorian, she whispers, voice charged. “I know where you’d go. I know your habits. I know which dark alleys you go down. I know the way you feel when I’m a million parsecs away. Don’t be so sure you’re going to win.”

Din’s on her in a flash, body colliding with Nova’s. It makes her stagger backward, lost in the sheer magnitude of his body, his grip, his face, his mouth slotted against her own. She doesn’t have time to inhale before he’s sucking the very air from her lungs, piercing something deep down inside of her that hasn’t belonged to her in years. She’s caught herself in this endless, voracious love. It keeps her steady even as it invades her. Nova’s dizzy on it, even now, even after all this time.

When he pulls away, Nova leans into it, both of them stumbling, drunk on it. The thrill of it keeps shooting through Nova’s stomach, pink lipstick staining Din’s mouth. “We’re going now,” he says roughly, pulling her towards Kicker.

Nova yelps as she’s dragged behind, running for a few steps until she’s steady on her feet, Din’s hand clenched around hers, vicelike and determined. “Why?”

He stops. Nova doesn’t. The momentum sends her sailing towards Kicker’s outer structure, reinforced in bright orange paint that blares out even in total darkness. She careens into the wall, but Din catches her, the centrifugal force of his body keeping her in place. The cold metal of Kicker presses against Nova’s hot neck, and she gasps until Din’s mouth is hovering an inch away from hers again. Every cell in her body is so, so alive.

“Because if we don’t leave right now,” he says, his voice low and gravelly and dangerous, “I will not let you go. I will keep you here until I’ve fucked the fight out of both of us, and we will miss our own wedding. Get on the ship, Novalise.”

Nova falls into the gravity, over and over, stars exploding in the back of her eyes. She can’t get her feet to kick up and move until the weight of Din’s words settle into her veins like fire, and then she’s moving, running up the ladder, igniting Kicker back to life, and setting course for the Mid Rim.

It feels like magic to be back in Kicker. Din is strapped into the copilot’s seat. Nova could put her ship into autopilot, but she knows she needs the distraction. If she didn’t hold tight to the controls with both of her hands, they would be all over Din, and she’d forget to put the nav system on, and they’d outshoot the Mid Rim by parsecs entirely. And, besides, even if she wasn’t actively trying to keep herself distracted, Nova wants to hold Kicker up in the skies again. She’s beautiful, an entire disaster, this ship. Lovingly, Nova runs her hands over the dashboard, the control, everything that she missed when Kicker was grounded.

Home may now be on Mandalore, but there’s home here, too. Nova watches over Din in the pilot seat, helmetless and beautiful, catching a rare moment of deep sleep. His mouth is parted slightly. She can see his tongue in the cavern of his mouth. His eyelashes flutter every once in a while, like he’s caught in the netting of a dream. He’s strapped in, pieces of armor discarded across the pathway up to the hull, and Nova watches him as the ship hurtles through hyperspace.

She traces the tips of her fingers over the controls, worn down from years of use. Kicker belonged to someone else before it was hers, years and years of love written into a starfighter that was made for war. The last X-Wing she had, she had crashed unceremoniously to the surface of Nevarro. It was dilapidated and ran into the ground long before that became its final resting place. She’d grown up in the cockpits of X-Wings, of Rebel starfighters on the base, and Nova could fly one in her sleep. She flew one half in death. It’s familiar, always—that blueprint, the shape of it—but Kicker feels like hers, unequivocally.

Smiling, Nova settles into her seat, bringing her knee up close to her chest. She watches, silently, as Din inhales and exhales, remembering the time he took her to Kashyyyk and tried to get Nova to shoot him out of the sky. It was glorious, the thrill of it, being back in a starfighter again, letting muscle memory take over. Nova relives it, the whole day, down to her bones. How sure Din was that he was going to win. How hard he was when she did indeed shoot him out of the sky.

“What are you smiling about?”

Nova blinks, startled out of her reverie. But that slow, easy smile spreads itself back across her face as she looks over at Din, sleepy-eyed and gravelly-voiced. “How certain you were that you could evade me on Kashyyyk.”

“And you shot the Crest down,’” Din says, the same grin reciprocated on his face. “Like it was nothing.”

Nova tucks a lock of rogue hair behind her ear. Din watches her carefully, tracing her every move. “I could do that in my sleep,” she taunts, lowering her voice to something huskier and addicting. “You better be prepared for a fair fight, Din Djarin.”

Din’s eyes flash. He leans in closer. “Oh, Novalise,” he sighs, skating his gloved fingers over her thigh, “I didn’t want to evade you. That was just the lie I told you so I could get to fucking you quicker.”

Nova narrows her eyes, trying to keep composure. Her heart is knocking up a storm on the left side of her chest. “You better be prepared to concede in the possibility that I win.”

Din shifts, moving his face closer and closer to Nova’s. She can’t hear anything but the thrush of blood pumping through her veins. It’s dizzying, being this close to him again, with the promise of electricity in the place of sheer anger. It’s making her drunk. She inhales, carefully, to try to steady herself.

Din moves his hand up higher on Nova’s thigh. Novalise is unable to steady herself. He tips in closer to her, lips hovering an inch over her ear, and chills explode down her spine. “You might be able to keep me at bay, Novalise,” he breathes, “but you haven’t seen me stalking my prey.”

Nova gulps. “You think I’m your prey?”

Din nods. Nova can hear the rustle of his movement, relishing on his hot breath on the side of his neck. “I’m a bounty hunter, cyar’ika,” he simpers, sickly sweet, “it’s what I do.”

“I,” Nova levels, voice a hell of a lot steadier than she feels right now, “am reigning Mand’alor, Jedi in training, Rebel royalty, and Her Highness Pilotess of the Outer Rim. You may be the bounty hunter, Mandalorian, but I’ve got power. This is going to be a fair fight.”

Nova gulps.

“You asked me,” Din whispers, licking a line up the right side of Nova’s neck, “back in our bedroom, if I wanted to hunt you. I told you that when I wanted to hunt you, you’d know.” He quiets for a moment, and then his grip tightens. Everything inside of Nova unhinges. She can feel the warmth coursing through her body, threatening to flood out from between her legs, but she holds on, refusing to give into another orgasm before she can give it to him, too. “Do you know now, cyar’ika?”

Kicker crashes out of the sky.

As usual, it’s a bit of a rocky landing. Nova grins as Kicker punches on the way down. Even under her expert grip, the ship still puts up a fight. It’s greedy, like it can’t be grounded fast enough. She’s strangely proud of it, the way Kicker misbehaves. That even the star mechanic on Tatooine couldn’t wrangle her beloved ornery X-Wing into place. Kicker’s a Rebel, too.

The descent to the planet’s surface has Nova’s adrenaline back up. Both of them slept through the night, or at least as much of the night as they could. It’s dawn on Naator, and the usually faded pink sky is nearly magenta. It casts the planet’s atmosphere into a hazy glow, hanging over Nova, Din, and Kicker. It’s invigorating, the sweetness of the air, the yellow leaves dancing down from the perennial trees. They cover the ground in swathes, shining golden in the sky’s bright light. Nova swallows as she looks around, heart wanting wistfully to just stay here, at the little cabin they have to call home someday, get in bed with Din, and not get out.

But that’s not why they’re here.

When Din follows Nova down the ladder and onto Naator’s beautiful surface, she can feel him. The hair on the back of her neck stands up in equal parts electricity and longing. Nova doesn’t need the helmet to track him, to know where Din goes, to categorize his every movement. For a regular bounty, sure, they’re hunted, stalked like prey. But as much as Nova might want to be, she knows that she has something Din doesn’t, even with all of his fancy technology—the Force. That’s all hers. She swallows, turning around to face him.

He’s fully outfitted in armor. Nova has to actively try to keep her breathing steady, and when he cocks his head at her, Nova knows he sees it. Din doesn’t say a single thing, just stares at her in silence, hanging onto her every movement, tracking her with eyes she cannot see.

It feels, just for a second, a fraction of a moment, the same way that Din was when Nova first met him. Not Din Djarin, the man she knows and loves, the man who married her in the darkness of her X-wing, the man who wants to remarry her here, the man who showed her his face, the man who broke his Creed for her, the man who loves her—the Mandalorian. A myth, maybe, a legend, definitely. The top bounty hunter in Nevarro’s Guild, respected and feared across all of the Outer Rim. And he’s here, standing in front of her, with a vow to hunt her, find her, and catch her.

It’s thrilling. It’s terrifying. Nova wants him so badly she can’t breathe.

“What are you thinking about?”

You, Nova wants to scream, but she doesn’t. Instead, she raises her chin. “Ground rules,” she says instead, and Din moves enough for her to know he’s processing it. “You have a whole suit of fancy armor, with built in tracking technology. I have my own wits.”

“You have the Force,” Din counters, and Nova grins. “You can sense every living thing, me included. No suit of armor or operating technology is any match for that. No deal.”

“You do think that you might not have the upper hand.”

“I think,” Din says slowly, moving closer to where her feet are rooted to the ground, “that you’re a good match for me. I didn’t say I think you’re going to win.”

Nova sighs. “What else?”

Din’s silent for a moment, but when he speaks, it’s slightly more gravelly than it was before. “No ships.”

A knowing smile spreads across Nova’s face. “You don’t think I’m going to really run, do you?”

“No,” Din enunciates, “but I also where my strengths are, and with only one ship between the two of us, a ship that seems to only listen to you, you’d obliterate me before the twenty-four hours are up.”

Nova raises an eyebrow. Din cocks his head. “So, this twenty-four hours. Is that including my head start?”

Din nods. “I’ll wait for three. I’ll stay at the cabin. I won’t follow you. I won’t know what direction you’re heading in.”

“So you’re not going to have the full twenty-four hours to find me?”

Nova can’t see Din’s face, but she can hear the cocky grin in his voice through the modulator. “I don’t need the full twenty-four hours.”

“I say,” Nova proposes, closing the distance between them, shoe dragging through the canopy of yellow leaves on the ground, “that when I win, you’ll have to fuck me on my throne.”

She can hear Din swallow. It’s audible, even through the vocoder. She bites down on her bottom lip, and he sighs, long and languid. “Whatever my Mand’alor wants.”

“Your Mand’alor is going to run from you now,” Nova says sweetly, reaching up to stroke Din’s helmeted cheek. “And when she wins, you’ll be eating your words.”

“One more thing,” Din says, hand flying up to capture Nova’s wrist, keeping it anchored against where it’s pressing against his helmet. “Keep your comm on. I deactivated the tracker linked to mine and the honing beacon in Kicker. But I want you to be able to call me. If you need to.”

Nova narrows her eyes. “You’re not lying about disconnecting them, right?”

Even hidden under the helmet, Din looks affronted. “I’m not a cheater. Even when I’m hunting down a bounty, I fight fair.”

“Comm on,” Nova repeats, stroking her thumb over where his cheekbone would be. “You got it.”

“If there’s trouble,” Din warns, his voice dropping in volume and tone, “you hail me. Immediately. If you have a vision of Sparmau—or whoever’s not Sparmau. If Ezra…pops into your reality. If someone from the First Order shows up. If—”

“Din.”

“Yeah?”

“I learned my lesson,” Nova whispers, willing his covered eyes to meet hers. “I’m not going to try and fight an entire war on my own anymore. If something bad happens, I’ll let you know. I know my word doesn’t…mean as much anymore, but I swear to you on every single star above that I will call you.”

Din doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, the words hold volumes. “I’m believing you.”

Nova leans forward to press her lips over where the outline of Din’s mouth should be. He releases her wrist, he moves forward to hold her for a fraction of a second, and then he’s letting her go. He moves away first, heading into the tiny cottage, locking the door behind him, drawing all the curtains. Nova watches him disappear as panic sets in.

“Shit,” she mumbles under her breath, “Where do I go?”

The entire trip there, all Nova was thinking about was the aftermath. Her and Din colliding, over and over, celestial and eternal. The way he’d feel inside of her after weeks that have felt like centuries apart, and maybe, just maybe, his forgiveness in the hollow of her mouth. She didn’t think for a second about a game plan, where she’d go. Even when she was teasing Din about evading him, about winning, she wasn’t scheming. She looks forlornly at Kicker, like maybe her stubborn starfighter will give her a suggestion, or maybe a wish that she could jump back on and get in the sky, but Nova’s not a cheater either. She could just sit out here, in the wide open, and wait for Din’s three hours to be up, but she’d never hear the end of it.

With one last look at Kicker and the cottage, Nova turns on her heel. The pinkness of the sky has reduced in intensity, but it’s still morning. She wants to head back into the trees where she and Din walked together when they were first here, but that would be a dead giveaway. Din said he could find her in death. He could easily find her lost in a memory.

Instead, Nova turns in the other direction. There’s a vast field of wildflowers, some of them sprouting up to the height of trees, and she decides that’s the best place to go. The cottage is hidden by the trees and the yellow leaves, but beyond the forest, there’s nowhere else to go. Just miles of rolling fields until the mountains gather up into tall peaks in the distance.

As she moves through the first line of flowers, the smell of them floats up to greet her. Nova forces herself to keep pushing, keep moving, because if the scent of forsythias and freesia and lilies wasn’t distracting enough, the breeze that tickles the petals as it passes makes her feel like peace is possible here.

“You know,” Nova whispers to herself, “maybe the First Order and whoever Sparmau warned me about wouldn’t be so keen to kill me if they just came to Naator.” A breeze tousles the flowers as she moves through them, deeper and deeper into the tangles of stems and trunks, and Nova giggles. It’s impossible to imagine Sparmau relaxed. She’s only met Ben Solo as a scowling, sharp-eyed kid, but from the premonitions and visions she’s seen of him as Kylo Ren, she can’t imagine him relaxed either. Gideon, before he got the Darksaber plunged through his chest by Bo-Katan herself, was the opposite of relaxed. Strangely calm, sometimes, but with a raging temper and evil calamity.

But, Nova muses, moving thicker and thicker into the field of wildflowers, Bo-Katan might have a lovely vacation here someday. If Nova could ever convince her to leave Mandalore for longer than a mission. Bo-Katan would be forced to enjoy the wildflowers and the scent of them in the wind. Bo-Katan would begrudgingly trek through the yellow leaves alongside Nova and Grogu if she asked really nicely. Bo-Katan would, at the very least, love the sunset against the pink sky, seeing the whole world lit up in something other than Mandalore blue.

Nova doesn’t pay much attention to the thinning of the flowers until she’s on the other side. One second, she’s thigh-deep in stems, the next, she’s stepping onto a grassy knoll. Startled, she trips over herself, and when she looks up, she’s on the other side.

“Oh no,” Nova says, heart sinking, realizing her mistake. Behind her is the very clear and determined path of where someone trudged and tramped through an entire field of flowers. She sighs, squinting up at the sun. “I may have been talking a big game for someone who’s good at running, but never actually succeeded at staying hidden.”

And then, right on cue, as if the universe plucked Novalise from a star and chose to grant her one wish, the same breeze that carried the flowers through the air rips across the knoll, over the plains, and through the field, disguising the fact that anyone had been there at all.

Nova blinks.

“Well,” she says, out loud, “thank you, Naator.”

She keeps moving.

Three hours later, Nova’s made it through the field of wildflowers, over the bigger plains, and is at the base of the mountain. She stops, exhausted, taking a swig of the water strapped to her back, trying to catch her breath. The comm crackles to life as she perches on a boulder, and she lets out a small yelp, looking behind her to ensure Din isn’t there already.

“You far away?”

Nova smiles. “Not telling you.”

The telltale chuckle through the modulator sends Nova’s stomach reeling yet again. “Good girl.”

“The jury’s still out on that one,” Nova says, taking another sip of water. She’s under the treeline, barely hidden by the brush and fallen leaves. The forest over here isn’t encased in yellow—they’re big, sprawling willows with leaves shaped like teardrops. A breeze, the same one that rippled through the field, spurs her on, encouraging her to keep going. “Where are you?”

“On your trail.”

Nova makes sure the comm falls flat, looking around for anything significant enough to hear across the line. There’s a tiny stream that runs through the rocks, but it’s nothing significant, nothing loud enough for her to hear. Songbirds swoop up through the trees and across rosy skies, but their chirps can be heard here and the forest near their cottage, so Nova doesn’t think they’re a dead giveaway. She’s not wearing her usual boots with their telltale tracks, either—the ones she brought to Sorgan are sleeker, the bottom less detailed. “Your three hours were just up,” she says, checking the tiny watch built into the comm on her wrist, “two minutes ago. You can’t be on my trail yet.”

She can hear the smile in Din’s voice. “Can’t I?”

“You can’t get into my head, Mandalorian.”

Din sighs, low and charged. “No,” he concedes, “just other things.”

Nova hops off the rock. “I’m running again.”

“Okay, cyar’ika,” Din says, voice dropping, “I’ll see you soon.”

Equal parts scared and thrilled, Nova jumps to her feet, leaving the rock behind. She loves the water, so she’s tempted to follow Naator’s tiny babbling brook wherever it leads, but she knows Din will clock that from klicks away. So she keeps moving deeper into the forest, keeping track as the weeping willows transform into thicker, deeper oaks, ones similar to the woods on Kashyyyk. At the top of the mountains that surround the area, ice juts like skyscrapers into the sky, but right here, the weather is temperate. Warm enough to not need a jacket, but the breeze is tinged with the feeling of fall. It might be the only planet in the Mid Rim that actually has seasons.

Deeper and deeper she goes, careful not to step into any mud or make dents on mossy grasses to indicate she’s going this way. She had stretched the truth for Din a little earlier—Nova did indeed once go into the forest and send the whole base on her tracks when she lived on Yavin, but she wasn’t right at the treeline. She had followed a butterfly into the forest, one that glowed violet like the bioluminescent flowers that lined the trees, and she got so entrenched in the woods that she couldn’t even remember which way she came from.

“Nova.”

Nova whirls around, hand on the lightsaber hanging from her waist, ready to ignite the yellow blade, but there’s nothing there. No person. No vision. No Din speaking to her via comm. She blinks, turning around and around, making sure there’s nothing lurking in the trees, but Naator stays as silent and serene as ever. She sheathes the lightsaber back into her belt, moving deeper and deeper into the tangled forest, trying to shake the sound of her name free.

She’s lost track of time when she reaches the clearing. It’s a perfect circle, carved into a thick ring of trees. If she hadn’t stumbled straight into it, Nova would never have known it existed. Grass and flowers grow in the middle, and when Nova peeks out at the pink sky, the sun is high. Orange and nearly iridescent, it hides behind clouds, changing the green interior of the forest into something much warmer. It’s beautiful. It looks almost like it’s been carved from a memory, one Nova knows exists but is obscured by something else entirely.

Carefully, gingerly, Nova steps forward.

“Novalise.”

Again, she whirls around, this time the lightsaber flying out of its pouch and into her outstretched hand like a reflex, and again, there’s nothing there. No birds, no forest creatures, no light on her comm, no visions in her head.

“I’m going crazy,” Nova whispers, and for the first time since she got here, to this beautiful safe haven that feels like home, she can feel the darkness creeping up her spine. It infiltrates, hissing and licking as it grips her tighter, luring her back into fear. “Am I going crazy?” she asks, a little louder, talking to Naator itself. This planet feels sentient in a way that humanity doesn’t. It pulls her back from the edge.

“Nova.”

This time, it comes from the comm. Nova swallows, falling relieved into the patch of green grass. The salmon skies sing warmth across her skin. “Having trouble finding me, Mandalorian?”

“Never.”

Nova smiles, wanting to lay down here in this patch of grass and flowers, and sleep some of her trek away. And then, as the warmth of the meadow cals to her, threatening to caress her into dreamland entirely, she jolts awake. Din’s voice sounds weird.

“Din,” she says slowly, “where are you?”

“Like I’d tell you,” he says, but he sounds muffled. Like he’s standing near something…rushing. Not a waterfall. Naator doesn’t have waterfalls. It doesn’t have an ocean, or a river, or anything bigger than the stream she walked by a few hours back. Nova’s eyes dart back and forth, trying to put her finger on it. A really strong wind? Laying close to the brook to distort his voice?

And then it hits her. Din isn’t at a waterfall. Din is in his full suit of armor, made of Mandalorian beskar and steel, and included in that impenetrable fortress is his jetpack.

“Hey!” Nova yells, scrambling off the grass, raking through it with her fingers to obscure any trace of her being there, running back under the canopy of the forest, “you said no flying!”

Din laughs, and it still sounds like a miracle, even when it’s muffled by the rush of the air. Nova’s still panicked at the knowledge that he’s airborne, but she can’t fight the smile off of her face either. “I said no ships,” Din clarifies, and Nova darts through trees and brush and rocks to get deeper and deeper into the forest. “If you’d worn your Mandalorian armor, you could be flying, too.”

“This isn’t fighting fair,” Nova whispers, trying to keep her voice level. Din was right. He probably could have given her a full twelve hour head start and still be right on her tracks the second he started. She’s crashing through the underbrush, not focused on anything in particular except staying hidden. “Low blow.”

“You could just let me catch you.”

Nova blows the hair out of her eyes. It’s knotted in a braid that hangs down her back, but the curls that frame her face fell out somewhere back before the forest. “You should know by now,” she says, vaulting over a boulder, “that I don’t give up that easily.”

“C’mon, sweet girl,” Din croons through the modulator, and it takes all of the strength in Nova’s body to not turn around and catapult back into his arms, “you know you want to.”

“I’ve waited this long,” Nova manages, through gritted teeth, “I can wait a little more.”

The whoosh of flying through air halts, and Nova keeps moving, refusing to be distracted by it. Carefully, she looks upward, scanning the sky through the trees, but she doesn’t see her Mandalorian in beskar, no pink light glinting off the silver. “Are you sure?”

“Do you play with all of your bounties like this?” Nova asks, moving deeper into the mossy brush, landing on her toes to hide full footprints.

“I’ve never needed to,” Din answers. “They don’t want me to catch them. You, on the other hand…”

“Goodbye,” Nova sings into the comm, undeterred and melodic. She powers it down, smiling, trying to get her racing heart to settle down. Without Din’s voice invading her rational mind, it’s much easier to think. She does so easily and effortlessly, clearing her head like she does when she’s using the Force—letting everything run out of her backward.

She’s not anywhere she recognizes. She knows that when she darted back into the forest, away from the familiar circular meadow, she was heading toward the base of one of the mountains. By the way the sun’s hanging in the sky, Nova can calculate that she’s been running for about five hours. Maybe six. She’s starving, and she didn’t think to bring food with her. Scanning the forest floor, the moss jumps up at her again. Beyond the moss, there are tiny violets swaying in the breeze that never seems to hold still, and beyond the flowers, there are ferns.

“Thank you,” Nova exhales, extending her gratitude to Naator itself, thankful that the planet’s seasons gave her a time where the fiddleheads are crisp and edible. She rushes over, plucking them from the fern’s tip, foraging until she has enough to fill her hands. The stream seems to wind out of nowhere, and Nova settles in at the tiny river’s edge, plunging her cupped hands underwater. It runs clear and beautiful, and all the dirt and debris from the forest floor runs downstream. It would be better if she could crisp them up over the fire, but she doesn't want to risk it. Smoke is a dead giveaway for anyone, let alone for a bounty hunter as experienced as Din.

For a minute, Nova just sits. Her legs are still banged up from the fight against Sparmau. Under the grey clothes she wears, leftovers from the funeral, the bruises mottle against her brown skin. They’re a strange, haunting reminder about all of it. The way they still ache, even now. The entire ordeal only took place over a week ago, and when Sparmau kidnapped Din and Bo-Katan, it was only a month before that. So much loss and devastation in such a short span of time—Sparmau’s wrath, losing Cara, letting her friends back in, seeing Ezra for the first time, getting her Kyber crystal and lightsaber, killing Sparmau, getting Din and Bo-Katan back, accidentally becoming the Mand’alor. Nova downs the last fiddlehead, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. The exhaustion seeps back in, replacing adrenaline and excitement. She could fall asleep right here. Orange sunlight streams through the cracks in the trees, and Nova yawns as she uncovers her eyes, letting everything filter back in.

A butterfly flutters above.

Nova looks at it once, twice, and then she’s hauling herself to her feet. It looks exactly like the one she followed into the wild back on Yavin, back when she was still Andromeda, back when she was still a kid. Bioluminescent and violet-blue, the hue electric against the warmth of Naator. She stares up at it.

“What are you doing here?” Nova breathes. The butterfly flutters down and encircles her head. Nova can’t tear her eyes away. It’s everything she remembers it to be—ethereal, not of this world. It gives her the same holy feeling that the Jedi Temple did, the cave on Ilum, the cathedral back on Jedha. She lifts her fingers up to the butterfly, coaxing it down against her skin. Novalise rephrases ehr earlier question. “What are you?”

The butterfly doesn’t respond. It does land in the outstretched palm of her hand, though. Nova feels warmth, then nothing at all. It flaps its wings at her, lazily, gently, and then it’s taking off, moving up and down across the tree cover, and Nova abandons all reason. She follows it.

There’s no guarantee that she’s being led in the right direction. It might, in fact, be the same path that she made to get here, and this beautiful creature might be leading her right back into Din’s grasp, but Nova finds it incredibly difficult to muster up the energy to care. It doesn’t matter. The hunt, running from Din in the first place—what was she thinking? Nova abandons all reason, all feeling that she should try to stay hidden. She doesn’t want to run away. She wants to run right into his arms.

The butterfly flaps its wings harder and harder, an electric shock of color. Nova bounds over small rocks and mini mountains of moss, getting led somewhere she’s never been. Not back to the meadow. Not back to the cabin. Somewhere else entirely, the sprawl of Naator both familiar and foreign. her surrounding blur around her as Nova follows the butterfly. It drifts higher and higher, and she climbs over fallen trees and unfamiliar terrain and what could be graves, but everything is obscured in comparison to the butterfly. It flies higher and higher, eclipsing her vision, until Nova stops, whirling around and around, trying to catch sight of it again.

“No,” she whispers, turning again in desperation, and when the butterfly flits beyond the canopy of the willow and pine trees, Nova’s forced to look back down and realize where she is.

She blinks. Once, twice, three times, trying to clear her vision.

“Novalise.”

Nova turns around again, but she knows it’s useless. It’s the trees singing to her, the flowers whispering a lullaby, her own imagination. Besides the gatherings of villages on the flat surface of the planet, Naator is empty. It’s just her and this planet and the man she loves chasing after her. But this time, it’s coming from somewhere she can pinpoint.

Hand on her belt where the lightsaber and Darksaber hang, Nova moves forward, stepping gingerly across the uneven forest floor. There’s an open mouth of a cave, the gaping maw of grey rock and granite. It seems to have come out of nowhere. Nova forges forward, toward the open, jagged O hanging open, inviting her in.

“Novalise.”

Nova pushes forward. She forgets about the butterfly, of Din right on her tracks, of the time. She forges on, moving into the cave, toward what she thinks is the sound of the call. This isn’t a coincidence. It can’t be a coincidence.

She doesn’t believe in coincidences.

The cave calls to her. Like the crystal cavern on Ilum, like the cathedral on Jedha. She swallows, moving carefully across mossy rock, trying to keep moving. There’s a thrumming coming from the center. She can feel it—not hear it—feel it, like it’s coursing through her veins, consuming her very soul. Deeper and deeper she descends, slipping over damp rocks, not caring that it’s soaking through her thin clothes. It’s freezing in here, but the air doesn’t seem to be touching her.

“Novalise.”

Nova moves quicker. Desperate, searching. She can’t put her finger on the voice. It sounds so familiar, so unbelievably distant. She wants to get inside it, feel its warmth.

Her name. A chant, three times. The beacon of it, calling her home.

She gets to the middle of it all. In the middle of the cave is a gilded intricate mirror. Nova stares. Her reflection stares back. The overwhelming feeling of deja vu settles in her bones, thumping in her heart. She’s been in this moment before. She’s had this vision. She’s come alive in this dream. She looks like herself—brown skin, pink lips, green eyes—but there’s something wizened and melancholic about her expression. And then it shifts, and her smile lines lessen, her eyebrows unfurling, her teeth gleaming. Nova sees herself—Andromeda, Jedi, Rebel, Novalise, Mandalorian, Saint. All her identities, all out of order.

Nova swallows, lifting her fingers to the mirror. Immediately, she’s vaulted somewhere else—a memory, maybe, or something yet to come. She’s looking at herself from outside her body. There’s Nova, on the floor of the ship she escaped Coruscant on. Laughing with Bo-Katan in the fortress of her bed. Flying an X-Wing that she couldn’t quite reach the controls of. Sitting on the beskar throne. Holding Grogu in her lap and floating him his little silver ball. Kissing Din for the first time, obscured entirely in the dark. Getting left on Dantooine. Mapmaking with her mother. Singing karaoke on the Rebel base. Getting fucked in the Razor Crest. The festival she stumbled into on Balnab. Meeting Luke. Walking through the halls of the base on Hoth with Wedge. Seeing Din’s face for the first time. Looking at herself with grey in her hair, still hanging in ringlets down her back. Slashing her yellow lightsaber through the pouring rain. Dancing in a circle with Wedge. The heat of Tatooine’s double suns. Smelling the meadows on Naboo. Unearthing languages with her father. Defeating Sparmau. Blue lightning. Sinister laughter. A hand reaching through the veil and pulling Nova through reality. Laying with Din in the wildflower meadow, half-clothed with purple twilight settling in around them. The scratch of his beard on her neck. The permabruise of his fingers clenched around her thighs. The grip of his arms around the small of her back. Safety and surety and a place to call home. Her own reflection in this same mirror, like a piece of her was here from the beginning of time, like a part of her will be there at the end. Din’s lips on her neck. Her heart meeting something more. Her body feeling something deeper. Her soul being something holy.

Novalise is vaulted out of her reverie. Like she’s being resuscitated, she can hear Din’s voice flooding back in, the evergreen breeze, the scent of flowers, the warmth of the breeze. Nova blinks, and there’s no mirror in the cave. Just a hole where she projected herself, and brutal, stunning clarity.

Like a woman possessed, Nova hurtles back out of the cave. She’s careful but quick, planting her feet on dry patches, reaching up towards the light. The second she hits the air above, Din’s voice blares.

“Oh, Novalise.”

Nova’s heart is pounding. The butterfly—imaginative or real, it didn’t matter—was a distraction. She has no idea how long she got lost in the cave, but when she comes back out, the filtered, slightly sepia tone of the forest is hanging in dusk. She gulps. “Yes, Din?”

“I see you.”

Nova’s heart stops.

“No, you don’t.” She leaves no question in her tone, but she knows he’s not lying. As quietly and nimbly as she can, Nova slips between foliage, running and moving with her heart pounding arrhythmic in her chest. She’s fast. The exhaustion that pressed her down to the earth earlier is gone, replaced by the spark that her own reflection gave her.

Behind her, incredibly, unbelievably, Nova hears a twig snap. A yelp rises in her throat, seeing a flash of silver in the corner of her eye. She panics, jumping over a small ridge. She gulps on the way down, crossing her fingers, letting the Force guide her way to the ground. Running is what she built so much of her life on, and even though Nova has learned how not to fall victim to her first instinct, it still comes to life in her marrow when she needs it. And right now, she needs it. Behind the wall, there’s a small opening between boulders. Against the tree is a fallen log. Her eyes oscillate between the two, trying to make a split second decision. She can’t hear Din anymore, but she can feel him, residual, haunting, present. She dives for the tree, barely making it around the corner before a suit of silver beskar materializes out of nowhere. Quickly, silently, Nova slams her hand against the comm, the blinking red light disappearing from view. She holds her breath, willing her heartbeat to steady itself, for everything to quiet.

“Where are you?” Din asks, smug like he already knows, and a pool of warmth rushes through Nova’s stomach at the sound of his voice, modulated and gorgeous. It’s gravelly with want. She could hurl herself at him right now, at this very moment, and all of the need pent up inside of her would be gone. They could destroy this patch of forest and no one could hear a thing. “I can smell you, Novalise.” Another small twig snaps. “I want to make you come undone.”

Nova presses her thighs together as tight as they’ll go.

“Come out, come out,” Din croons, voice low, “wherever you are.”

Nova squeezes her eyes shut. She can feel him getting closer, the vibrato of his breath through the modulator.

“You want to be hunted,” Din continues. “I know you love the chase. But you love getting to cum more, don’t you, my sweet girl? Come out of hiding.”

Nova inhales a ragged breath, clamping her legs together.

“I can’t promise I won’t ruin you,” he taunts, his voice closer and closer, “but I can promise you’ll be begging me for more.”

Nova mewls. Din’s head snaps in her direction. She can’t see him, not inside the hollow of the tree, but she knows the sound it makes. She wants to be found. She wants to be ruined. She has become the something holy that is begging to be desecrated.

“I know,” Din simpers, and the tone of his voice is electric, inviting. Alluring. Tantalizing. Dragging her down deeper and deeper, until the rest of the world fades out. “It’s okay. You don’t have to hide from me.”

Nova presses the comm back on. “I know,” she parrots, and Din steps backward at the sound of her voice so close, “I don’t scare easy.”

She lifts her hand as much as her hiding spot will allow, closing her eyes, letting everything drain out of her backward, and makes a bush rustle in the distance. Din snaps to attention, darting after the sound. Nova feels her eyelids flutter, and she makes another tree rattle, sticks snapping, way off, back down the mountain. Silver beskar armor streaks up the hill, and then disappears entirely. Nova keeps making the planet bend to her will until she feels something snap from pure exhaustion, and she plasters both hands against the trunk of the tree, bracing herself. Her breath is ragged, uncertain, and when she collapses to the ground, there’s a smile on her face.

Nova stays there, on the serenity of the forest floor, for a long time. Twilight comes, and night dawns over the horizon, milky navy. Above her, visible only as a smattering under the tree cover, are stars. The energy she expended getting Din away from her—the physical exertion of it combined with the mental war of wanting him closer—returns, but by the time she sits back up, night has almost completely fallen.

She checks her time. There’s only six more hours until sunup. She’s evaded Din—with a very close call—through eighteen hours. A bunch of them were swallowed by the cave, although it only felt like minutes. She has six more, and she wins.

Carefully, Nova pushes herself to her feet, breathing in the smell of the soil and water that runs like veins through Naator’s gorgeous earth. She’s exhausted, and she’s also exhausted all her options. She has no idea where she is. She has even less of an idea where to go next.

And then, all at once, it hits her, colliding like a shooting star.

Din thinks she’s running from him. Din thinks that she’s heading down the mountain. Which means Din thinks that he’s still tracking her.

And Nova meant it when she said she was done running. He thinks she’s going back down the mountain. And she will be, but this time, she’s not going to be hunted. She’s going to do the thing he’s least expecting, the Mandalorian that she loves—she’s going to chase him right back.

It’s much harder to navigate the mountain in the dark.

Nova’s used to rugged, tree-lined terrain, especially after growing up on Yavin, but Naator’s nature is blossoming, constantly shifting. If she hikes too far north, the temperature drops and the ground gets rougher. If she runs down the mountain, the moss springs up, plush and roving, and holds much more moisture. She grits her teeth, holding onto the brush for a better grip, trying to make it back down the hill she hiked up in a daze earlier.

In the middle of the night, there’s still pink in the sky. It’s a very muted purple, but Naator’s nights don’t turn vantablack and obsidian like the other planets do. There’s still a resemblance of midnight, but it’s hazy around the edges, like the day has just been put on pause instead of turning over into night entirely.

Nova sighs. A yawn works its way out of her mouth before she can stifle it, and with her eyes closed, in the dark, her foot rolls over a fallen stick and she crashes to the ground.

“Smooth,” she mutters to herself, blowing hair out of her eyes. She sits up, wincing, acutely aware of how quiet the night is around her. There’s the sound of the constant breeze, and the rustle of dancing trees, and the bugs and frogs that chirp, but other than that, there’s nothing. Just wide open air that Din is so trained for, the expert bounty hunter that he is.

A twig snaps down the mountain and Nova’s heart stops.

“There’s no way,” she whispers, and immediately claps a hand over her mouth. Even that tiny omission, barely loud enough for her to hear alone, could be caught by the experienced bounty hunter immediately on her trail. Nova’s heart flip-flops as she waits in the silence, pounding out a staccato rhythm that only Din can evoke. She feels like prey, even though she’s flipped the script, even though she’s the one doing the hunting.

She doesn’t move. Her heart pounds in her ears. Something bounds through the brush—something small, and decidedly not covered in beskar. She exhales, stepping so carefully across the forest floor. It’s hard, painstaking work, keeping this quiet, but she’s determined. It doesn’t matter if her bones ache. It doesn’t matter that she’s barely slept in two days. She knows what’s waiting for her at the bottom of this mountain, what she’s going home to. That’s enough adrenaline coursing through her body to keep her awake for days.

“Novalise.”

Nova stops. “You’re not making this easy on either of us,” she growls, too pent up to play the game anymore.

She can hear the smirk in Din’s voice. “Just tell me where you are, and this can all be over.”

“You came so close earlier,” she breathes, moving through the wistful willow trees, all twisted together. From the breeze, even at this distance, she can smell the flowers in the fields. “And you didn’t find me. So maybe it’s time to start admitting that I could beat you at your own game, Din Djarin.”

Silence.

Then: “What do you mean?”

Nova swallows. She may have just let on a bit more than she intended to. “Think on it.”

“Novalise—”

“See you soon,” she whispers, drawing the last syllable out, and then she turns off the comm. The night blinks on around her. Nova wrestles the giant smile off of her face. She stops, draining the last of the water she took from the stream earlier. She stretches, cracking her vertebrae all the way up her spine, rolling her neck side to side. What she needs to do next is get inside Din’s head. She’s nowhere near as strong of a tracker as he is, and even if she had worn her armor and her helmet, he’s had years of practice on her.

But Novalise is scrappy. And she also has the Force.

At the base of the mountain, where the willows bleed into pines, Nova sinks down behind a boulder, right at the root of a giant tree. It hangs over her like protection, and she knows with the combination of the night and the leaves, she’s hidden in obscurity. She closes her eyes, rolling sore shoulders back, letting everything run out of her.

It drained her, earlier, simulating her footsteps back down the mountain. She doesn’t feel as connected to the world around her. Nova pauses, focusing on her breath. In and out, even and steady. Din’s face keeps popping into her mind’s eye, but it’s not the version she needs. She can hear his flesh slapping against hers, feel the rumble of his moans in his throat. She knows the exact noise he makes when he’s coming undone. It’s distracting, spreading heat through her entire body.

“Focus,” Nova breathes, but the only thing she can visualize is the way he cornered her in that cell in her dream. The hungry way his body crashed into hers, the way he made her repent. She shivers, but it has nothing to do with the air around her. Carefully, she sidesteps the memory, as visceral as it is, focusing on Naator and the space Din’s in.

It comes to her in a blur, like her focus is shifting in and out. Nova blows out air, trying to find him in the ether. It’s not easy. She’s only ever explored around where the cottage is, there and the little village down the lane. All of the mountains are made up of the same flora and fauna, so the environment he’s in won’t be easy to identify. Nova shuts out the rest of the forest, trying to pinpoint his location.

Just when she’s about to give up, give in, make herself known so that Din will come here and feed her hunger, Nova finds him. He’s sitting at the base of his own willow tree, helmet tipped up to drink water. Her heart skips a beat then stills, like it can’t make up its mind. Seeing him, covered in armor, unmasked only for her, on this planet—it’s the best kind of deja vu. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Nova lets out a tiny sigh.

He’s so beautiful. It hurts to look at him, and hurts even worse when all she wants is to be right there beside him. To take the rest of his armor off. The need pulsing through her veins rivals her want to win. Hearing his voice is bad enough. Seeing him is even worse.

Without thinking, Nova raises the comm to her lips, pushing down until it starts to blink. “Where are you?”

Din’s eyes dart around, and then he smirks into the night. “Why? Getting desperate?”

Nova sighs, trying to stay in the vision, to stay connected to him. “Because I’m breathing down your neck.”

Din turns, and Nova catches sight of him, clocks where he is. He’s not far at all. But she recognizes where he is, because his willow tree is facing the wildflowers.

Like liquid, completely fluid, Din springs to his feet. “No, you’re not.”

Nova grins. She’s being pulled out of the vision, but she blows him a kiss he’ll never see. “Watch out, Mandalorian. I’m on your trail.”

She falls out of the vision sideways, but it doesn’t matter. Leaning down to run the water bottle through the stream, Nova pops back up, buoyed by her tiny victory. As the terrain shifts to flatter, grassier sections, she skates close to the line of willow trees. Din’s in here somewhere, and he’s the expert. Her little head start could be entirely screwed if he even gets a whiff that she’s as close as she is.

Carefully, painstakingly, she presses on. Vignettes of Din dance through her head—all filthy, all permanent. The way his mouth tastes after he goes down on her, devouring her for hours. The rough brush of his mustache against her upper lip. The grip of his hands, squeezing whatever part of her that needs to be throttled. The growl deep in the base of his throat when she wraps her lips around the perfect head of his cock. The feeling of him inside of her, moving desperately as she grips him. How long it’s been since he’s fucked her. How badly she needs it right now.

Nova shivers, trying to shake the want loose. More than anything, more than she’s aching, she wants to win. Din’s made it perfectly clear how easily he can find her. The odds are tipped in his favor, even right now, even while she has the upper hand.

She watches the forest floor under the bruised night sky, skirting around any branches or fallen, brittle leaves. Novalise is a lot of things, but a hunter has never been one of them. Still, she takes note of the breeze, the particular rustle as it dances through the trees. She knows there’s a giant pine tree near where Din is—one that the woods fades into up the mountain, but it’s alone around here. She swallows, pacing her breath.

Come on, Nova, she thinks, this is your one shot.

She stalks forward, prey turned predator, ready to—she’s not sure what exactly. Pounce? Maybe. Prove to Din that she can find him right back? Definitely. But a nagging voice seeps into her head, the one that’s competitive, the one that wants to win, and it’s only saying one thing.

You’re still running out the clock.

Nova stops. This wasn’t part of their deal. The directive was to avoid, evade, not hunt Din back. A flash of beskar, camouflage in the night, catches her eye at the same time that the moon comes out from under the clouds. She darts behind a giant willow tree, the trunk three times the size of her.

Nova closes her eyes, thinking.

“I can feel you, cyar’ika.”

They shoot back open. Her heart picks up its arrhythmia. Nova swallows, clapping a hand over her mouth, afraid to breathe too loud. She feels him, too—knows his movements, even without seeing them. He may be a hunter, but Nova has her own strengths.

“You may be able to feel me,” she breathes, barely moving her lips, which are pressed up against the comm, “but you can’t catch me.”

The pounding in the left side of her chest rackets up in intensity. Din’s utterly silent, evaluating the challenge, and then he moves, lightning-sharp, whip-quick. Instead of being stuck in indecision, Nova closes her eyes, letting her intuition take over.

She still has to be quiet, nimble, ten steps ahead. Especially with Din on her tail again. But this time, Nova doesn’t think. She doesn’t agonize. She keeps moving, refusing to let the swaying trees ahead of her outmaneuver her path through the trees. She doesn’t have the same kind of stamina that Din does, but right now, in this moment, she doesn’t necessarily need it. She’s no longer moving like Novalise. She’s letting the Force use her as a conduit, and she streaks through the trees, careful to stay out of sight.

Even though Din is right on her heels, Nova doesn’t give into the war between heart and head, or the voice begging between her legs. She keeps on moving, running through brush and weaving through tree trunks, thinking about nothing except the pulse inside of her that’s keeping her steady. The trick is to get to somewhere with more cover, but as she reaches the very end of the wooded area, she realizes there’s a flaw in her plan.

Ahead, there’s only two options. The field of wildflowers, or a straight shot cut across the grass.

She skids to a stop, feeling the chase. Nova gulps, knowing Din is only seconds behind her, and then she lets herself fall back into the thing that’s driving her. The field of wildflowers provides more cover. But the path cut through the edge of them, one she completely skipped over earlier, is the straightest, quickest point to the flock of trees where their cottage and the village hides.

She can feel Din before she sees him.

“Hi, Nova,” he breathes, and Maker, a rush of wetness pools between her thighs. She catches a flash of silver out of her peripheral vision, and then she knows he’s lunging. Nova has a split second to decide if she wants to give in, if she wants to get caught—or if she wants to win.

Adrenaline decides for her. Just as a full body in beskar is about to land on top of her, trapping her to the spot, Nova dives forward, tucking and rolling before she hits the ground. She somersaults up with precision, using the momentum from her movement to keep running. Tearing across like birds streaking into the skies, she runs toward the straight path cut between the flowers. She doesn’t look back, but she knows the second Din’s after her again, his stride will eclipse hers. She can’t slow down.

This rush, this adrenaline—it feels like everything she’s been running from since her parents died. The feeling of being trapped, of being hunted, it used to sit like a pile of rocks in the shape of panic in the middle of her stomach. But, she reasons, as her feet tear against the short grass, she was always running from something awful.

She didn’t want to get caught.

This time, she does. Stars above, she really, really does. Lust thunders in her ears the same way the drive does, and Nova fights it off, feeling Din’s stride shake the ground behind her. She has her plan. It materializes in the middle of the haze, and she grits her teeth and runs faster. This would be so much easier if they were in the sky, the Crest versus Kicker, but Nova can’t fly. She can’t be a pilot down here.

So she goes on autopilot instead.

It took her hours to canvass the field earlier. If she had seen the shortcut, she would have been through the thick of it in just a few minutes. The opening is way on the side, approaching the flock of trees where the village rests from the left flank instead of head-on.

“Stop running,” Din pants through the modulator, and fuck if the command isn’t storng enough to make Nova consider it.

“Make me,” she responds, trying to keep her shaky voice level.

She can hear the growl before it fully comes out of his mouth. Din’s not a growler—he’s a rasper, a grunter. This noise is different and guttural and ten times as intense as the one he let out earlier. Nova squashes it down, relaying it to replay in her memory for months afterward, stashing it away when she feels like making Din scream.

She only manages to stay a breath ahead of him, but it’s enough. He lunges again, and Nova tumbles off into the high grass, somehow, thank the Maker above, staying on her feet. She keeps moving, legs burning, lungs heaving, spurred on by the fact that she’ll be in full cover in a matter of seconds. And the knowledge that she’s evaded the most feared bounty hunter in the Outer Rim for almost a full day.

The same bounty hunter who knows her inside and out. The Mandalorian who could find her in death. The one that could probably resuscitate her, too.

“Novalise,” he bites out, and it’s surreal to hear it in the comm and behind her at the same time, but Nova doesn’t stop. She crashes into the treeline, leaving grace and finesse behind, heading towards the cabin, desperate to get ahead just a little bit more. She’s waiting for something in particular.

It’s pitch-black in here, in contrast to the mountain. The trees and brush are much fuller, robust. She knows any second, a big gust of wind is going to whip across the field, and it’s going to disseminate through the yellow trees. It’s what she needs, exactly what she needs. Nova swallows air as she streaks through the forest, feeling the breeze pick up, and as it does, she whips around the corner of a huge oak tree. As the wind shakes the tops of the trees, Nova closes her eyes, holds her breath, and jumps.

She doesn’t like heights. It’s ridiculous to admit, especially since she’s a Rebel, a fighter pilot, but if she’s not encased in the steel stability of a starship, she hates them. Nova pushes all fear aside as she leaps, disappearing into the open mouth between thick, wiry branches of a tree, and she crosses her fingers as she grips the branch and the wind dies down.

“Where are you,” Din grits out. It’s not a question. It’s a demand. Nova grins, wanting to slump back against the branch and catch her breath, but she doesn’t dare. Summoning what’s left of her strength in reserve, she raises her hand and shakes the brush, willing the breeze to follow with her scent. Din has his jetpack on. He could easily find her up here and snatch her out of the sky. But from this vantage point, if she pretends she’s seeing things through the dashboard, Nova’s in control.

“Come find me,” she breathes, “but you can’t disturb the village. They’re sleeping.”

She can practically see Din’s eyes flash. “That was a mistake.”

Nova purses her lips up to the side. She can see him, barely, through the trees. The way he’s standing is so charged—taut, hungry, controlled. She mouths out a silent prayer to Naator, and the planet pulls it off. Again. After Din swings around, visor canvassing the entire area, he turns in the direction of the village, running off.

Nova exhales, gulping in lungful after lungful of air. She’s feeling the burn of running now—it’s in her bones, her muscles, her sinew, her organs. Her heart is still pounding an obscene amount. Her calves and thighs ache like they’re falling apart. She settles in on the branch, creeping as close to the tree as she possibly can, knowing that if she has any chance of making it to the finish line, she needs two things—to keep Din distracted, and to close her eyes.

The village is perfect. It’s quiet, but there’s always a person or two making noise in the silence of the night, and there are so many places to hide. Nova feels a tiny pang of guilt for siccing an angry, horny Mandalorian on the people of Naator, but she knows they have spunk. They can handle it.

And it’ll kill enough time for her to rest. Not sleep, Nova reasons with herself as she settles in, because sleeping is dangerous, but rest. She can rest for a few minutes, breathe normally, let her body relax, and then she’ll execute the final step of the plan.

Catch Din Djarin before he catches her.

“Novalise.”

Nova’s eyes pop open, terror flooding through her veins. For a second, she forgets where she is—on Naator, actively being hunted down, perched up in a tree like a lothcat—and her heart hammers against her ribs as she plasters herself to the branch she’s leaning on, gripping with arms and legs like she’s never held onto anything before.

Everything is diluted through shades of pink and warmth. Nova gasps, realizing the sun is cresting up over the horizon.

The comm on her wrist is blinking, and Nova hurriedly rubs sleep from her eyes. She can’t have nodded off for more than a handful of minutes, twenty at the most, but when she checks the tiny clock counting down the hours, she startles.

There’s only twenty-five minutes left on the clock.

“Novalise.”

“What’s the matter, Din,” she whispers, lips skating off the device, “still can’t find me?”

“Oh, I know where you are,” he says, easily, “up in a tree. You didn’t think you were going to keep me off your trail for a full day, did you?”

Nova’s heart sinks. “I—”

“Come down,” Din says, “and let me catch you.”

Nova swallows, mouth dry. “No.”

Din’s voice gets closer. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”

“That,” Nova says, looking around to find him, “has a double meaning.”

“I’m not going to fuck you up in that tree, cyar’ika. So you can either come down now and keep running, or I will fly up to you and drag you down myself.”

That absolutely should not turn her on, but it does. Nova breathes out, stuttered and cloying, and tries to clear her head.

She sees him. He’s on the ground, staring up at her, head cocked to the left. Her chest burns. She wants him, just Din, and she’s so close to giving in and letting him ruin her in all the ways that he promised, but another idea blossoms up, and Nova hides a smile against the branch.

“Okay,” she sighs, sounding resigned, “come up and get me, then.”

She hears the propane in the jetpack ignite, and then he’s lifting off the ground. Nova tenses up, rolling her shoulders forward, and the second Din gets close enough to touch her, she backflips off the branch instead.

It’s terrifying. And high. So, so high, but she doesn’t let herself think about it for too long. Nova hits the ground, staggering back over a root, feeling the full impact vibrate through her legs, and then she’s running again.

She’s so close to making it. So close, and the adrenaline combined with the euphoria of winning spurs her on to what is hopefully the final lap. Nova sprints in the only direction she can—she runs towards the cottage. The timer on her wrist has counted down even lower. Fifteen minutes, then ten, then seven, as she runs through the trees, skirting through alleys and dusty side streets near the village, hurtling down the path, sending yellow leaves skittering up in her wake.

Nova knows Din’s on her trail. She’s winded, even with the rush of almost making it, and he’s not even slightly affected. Her comm is still on, and she can hear his steady breaths as he chases her down. Her heart flips over when she looks over her shoulder. He’s so much closer than she anticipated, so quick, so agile—but Nova knows what to do.

She’s going to run like hell and dive into the cottage, and then she’s going to escape out the back window while Din is tearing it apart looking for her.

“Scared, Mandalorian?” she tosses over her shoulder, voice uneven.

“You have no idea,” Din says lowly, “what I’m going to do with you.”

“Oh,” Nova manages, breathless, “I have a few ideas.”

And the cottage bursts through the tree cover, into sight. Nova takes the chance, springing toward it, hand turning the knob on the door as she’s flying through it. Din’s caught a few paces behind her. It’s enough time to execute her plan. She slams the door behind her, flying into the tiny fresher off to the side, prying open the window.

She feels Din in the house before he can make his presence known. Expert, heavy feet cross the floorboards, knowing exactly where to apply the right pressure. Enough to make the movement foreboding, sinister. Hidden enough to not be a dead giveaway. The cottage is only one floor, and there’s only so many places Nova can hide, so the second the window opens, no screen blocking her escape, she’s vaulting through it and sprinting around the side of the cabin. She knows Din will come out in a second, but the clock is down to less than a minute. Sneaking around the side, staying out of sight of the other open windows, she sneaks back around to the door.

Din makes a noise of anger, frustration. It coils deep in Nova’s stomach, rolling through her like a wave. She looks at the timer on the clock.

Fifteen seconds.

Carefully, she places her hand against the holster for the Darksaber on her belt.

Ten seconds.

She puts the other one on the open door, palm flat against the wood.

Five seconds.

Nova sees where Din is. Her breath is still held, hoping against hope he doesn’t feel her presence.

Four seconds.

She steps carefully, praying, over the vestibule.

Three seconds.

One step forward.

Two seconds.

Her heartbeat, hammering, lightning-quick.

One second.

Nova bends her knees.

The clock runs down to nothing.

Nova pounces.

Colliding with full-body beskar is painful, knocking the wind out of her. She ignites the Darksaber in her free hand as she moves forward, the whoosh of the blade crackling through the static in the air, charged and intentional. Din braces himself for impact, but Nova’s already got him in her grasp, electric and alive. Everything inside of her is filled with adrenaline or lust. She stares up at him, triumphant, grin plastered across her exhausted face.

“Gotcha,” she breathes, staring up at the visor.

Like it’s nothing, Din shakes her off. Nova lets the Darksaber drop out of her hand, reining it in before it cuts through the wood of the floor.

“That,” Din says lowly, “was not the deal.”

The smile flickers and falters. “I caught you,” Nova breathes, “I win.”

“You were supposed to evade me, cyar’ika. Run for twenty-four hours.”

Nova blinks up at him, trying to categorize it. She was supposed to run, not catch him back. Her heart pounds as he moves closer, grabbing her chin roughly and forcing it up to meet his eyes behind the visor. She swallows, everything wired taut, staring.

“I did,” she whispers, “and then I caught you.”

“I found you three times,” Din grits out, so much stronger through the vocoder, “or did you forget so quickly?”

Nova raises her eyebrow. “You may have found me three times,” she says, voice high and thready, “but how many times did you actually catch me?”

If she could see Din’s face right now, Nova’s positive that his nostrils would be flaring, his teeth clamped down tight, something dangerous in his brown eyes. It should terrify her, being at the mercy of her Mandalorian, but it doesn’t. It just makes her wet.

Her lips part. With a low growl, Din moves forward, closing the little distance between them, pressing her heaving chest against his armored one. Nova lets herself be pushed backwards, stalked like prey, all the breath leaving her body.

“I’ve got you right here,” Din says, voice low and gravelly. His hand tightens against her chin. Nova lets him slam her back against the wall of the cabin, only dully registering the way it knocks the remaining air right out of her lungs. “Are you going to fight back?”

Nova licks her lips, staring back at him, knowing what his eyes look like under the modulator. “Do you want me to fight back?”

For a moment, neither of them speak. There’s something dangerous between them, charged and wet. Like the way the sky feels before a thunderstorm. Like the best kind of devastation.

“If you run from me again,” Din says finally, “I will drag your body back here and fuck it out of you.”

Shivers shoot down Nova’s spine. She can feel how close she is, already, how she loves to feel like Din’s prey, even though she was the one that caught him. Again, the war of wanting to prove that she won and wanting her body to be ravaged sits in the middle of her chest. “Try it,” she breathes, and then she’s yanking her chin down, out of his gloved hold, and trying to dart out between his body and where his other arm is plastered against the wall beside her.

She’s quick. She expects it to be easy, like the same move was back on Sorgan, but her body is already exhausted from the full day she spent running, and Din’s entire form is covered in a suit of armor that only enhances his strength. His hand shoots out, vicelike and expert, and Nova yelps as it closes around her arm.

In disbelief, she looks back at him, trying to yank it free. Once, twice, and then on the third, Din lets her go. But even as she moves like a firecracker, trying to traverse the floor and make it back outside into the pink air, Din’s hand fists in her hair, pulling her back against his body. It sings out in pain, but he soothes it immediately, gently holding her against his body, gloved hand pressed against her stomach, anchoring his back against him.

“Good try,” he says, and his voice is absolutely filthy. “You like running from me, Novalise?”

Nova’s voice comes out breathy and strangled. “Yes. And I like getting caught.”

Din’s hand travels up her stomach, over the peak of her chest, gloved fingers snapping out to pinch her nipple through the thin fabric of her shirt. Nova squirms, but it just makes Din hold her tighter, hand palming her tits, the other traveling from the nape of her neck down her stomach. He’s rock hard against her, and the more Nova wriggles against him, the harder he becomes. His other hand inches down to the waistband of her pants, and when she twists her hips, trying—with absolutely zero urgency—to break free, he slips his gloved hand into the line of her panties, dragging the leather across her bare skin.

With an impossible grip against her chest, Din slips his other hand further, thumbing down on her clit, hard. Nova mewls without being able to control the volume of it, and with the door still hanging open at the hinges, the noise travels out into the open air. Din dips his fingers lower, dragging them through her slit, and right when she’s about to beg for him to go deeper, he pulls them out, releasing his grip.

Her knees buckle as she’s released back to her own volition, but before she can react, or try to run, Din’s hand is on her hip, flipping her around to face him.

She swallows. He’s holding her firmly in place, and pushes his other hand into her mouth. She tastes herself against the leather of his glove, and her eyes flutter back as she moans around his fingers.

“You’re so fucking filthy,” he grits out, and Nova opens her mouth wider, letting his fingers go deeper into his throat. “Why did you run away from this, cyar’ika?”

He punctuates each word with moving his fingers down to the hilt, and Nova can taste the gunsmoke and forest against the glove. Her knees sag again. She mumbles something, muffled against his hand.

Nova whimpers as Din’s fingers pop out of her mouth. “Wanted to be hunted,” she slurs, licking her lips.

Din’s hand comes to rest against her chin, and Nova tips her head back, silently goading him to clench it around her open throat. She’s dizzy, drunk with how badly she wants him—needs him.

“I told you back on Mandalore,” he breathes, “you’d know what it would feel like when I was hunting you.”

Nova looks up at him through half-lidded eyes, extending her neck back. “Feels so good,” she croons, using her free hand to guide his down to where she needs it. “Make me stay.”

And then she wrenches free from his grasp, the only hold Din still has on her the hand bracketing her throat. She gives him a devilish grin, and yanks herself free, getting ready to run. Din stares at her under the visor like he can’t believe what she’s insinuating, and then, as she runs towards the open door, a snarl leaves through the modulator.

The sound alone is enough for Nova to cum right there, but she doesn’t.

Din’s gloved hand closes around her neck, ruthless and unyielding. Stars flicker at the edge of Nova’s vision.

“You want me to possess you, cyar’ika?”

All she can manage is a moan.

“You have no idea,” he whispers through clenched teeth, dragging her back against his body, “how possessive I can be.”

Nova lets him manhandle her against the wall, vision tunneling from the grip he has on her throat. Combined with being confined, caged in against the wood, it’s everything she needs. She’s strung-out and high on it, the feeling of being hunted, held. Din’s grip against her throat loosens, just enough for her to suck in a ragged, desperate breath.

He presses himself into her. This isn’t the man she loves, the one under the armor—it is, but he’s encased in beskar, the full-on Mandalorian. This is the Din that would kill any man that looked at her. This is the Din that would fuck her into nothingness. This is the Din that screams danger. And she’s never wanted him more.

“You smell so good when you’re running from me,” he whispers, cloying, dangerous. Nova moans again, and she can feel the helmet press in the crook of her neck, giving her no room to escape. “So sweet.”

Nova swallows as Din releases his grip around her throat. His arm is pressed flat against her chest, and even up against the wall, he paws at her tits, tracing a single gloved finger against her nipple.

“Is this hard because you’re scared,” he says slowly, flicking at it, tweaking it between his fingers, “or because you’re turned on?”

“Oh, Maker,” Nova pants, as his hand travels back up and squeezes her throat, “both.”

Din stills for just a second. Long enough for her to feel like he’s evaluating her answer, and Nova freezes. For the first time, a hot flush of embarrassment shoots up her neck, and then she’s being spun around so that Din can look at her, study her, pin her body facing his.

“That’s the wrong answer,” he grits, one hand on her thigh, the other tracing circles around her collarbone. “You’re going to lead me down a very dangerous path, cyar’ika.”

Nova swallows, looking straight through the visor, refusing to back down. “Good.”

Din sighs, low and languid. “If I fuck you like this,” he says, “I might ruin you.”

Nova lifts her chin. “I’ve been a very bad girl, Din Djarin,” she breathes, tracing her fingers along the top of the plate on his thigh, cupping him between his legs. “I deserve to be ruined.”

Din groans as Nova slides her hand up the entire length of his cock. “Nova,” he says, strained, the pretense dropping for just a second, “I don’t want to hurt you—”

“I know,” she croons, feeling his fingers tighten against the skin of her throat as she palms him, “and you won’t. I want it.”

Din exhales so loudly through the modulator that it consumes her.

“Ruin me, Mandalorian,” she whispers, and she can feel the last visible shred of hesitation snap, as she lowers her voice, whiny and moaning, “please.”

That does it. Din tears at her shirt, his gloves shredding the material. Nova moans as he grips her, so desperate, so strong. The material of her bra snaps as he yanks it off of her, gloved fingers back on her tits, pawing and squeezing. She moans again when he tweaks her nipple, wet and languid.

“You gonna cum just from me playing with your tits, cyar’ika?” Din mumbles, and the sound of it through the modulator shoots Nova right to the edge.

“Maybe,” she manages, and then he’s lifting the helmet just enough to wrench his mouth free. When his lips close against it, she cries out, not giving a single fuck that the door is wide open, that anyone could stop by and hear her crying out in pleasure, could stand there and watch. “Oh, fuck—”

“It’s okay,” Din says, hand traveling down to crawl between her thighs. Nova grinds down, desperate, and he shakes his head from side to side with her nipple in his teeth. “No,” he growls, “no touching my hand until you’ve already came.”

With a shaking, stuttered breath, Nova nods, and then his tongue is swiping over again, and she’s gone. She clenches down, hard, and that’s as much as she needs until her orgasm rips through her, cresting and waning far too fast, and then she’s shaking and undone, held up only by Din.

“Din—”

“Shhh,” he says, and then he’s ripping her pants down to her ankles, and Nova inhales through her teeth as his gloved fingers roam across her panties, already soaked clean through. She yelps as he thumbs over her clit, still so sensitive from how hard she just came, but he doesn’t do anything but tease her. Even with him on his knees, Nova registers dully, he still has all of the control. He traces a line up and down her lips, and Nova sobs out, needing more. “I decide,” he snaps, and Nova’s blood thunders in her ears. “You’re at my mercy. Do you know how fucking hot it is,” he breathes out, teasing with the lace on the underside, “to have you here, dripping and ready, stripped out of your clothes? To know that I can just take what’s mine?”

Nova whimpers.

“Your pussy smells so fucking sweet,” he growls. “I’d have you like this all the time if I could.” He circles her clit again, and Nova’s in heaven, already so close. “With those perfect tits on display, the smell of you in the air. And then I’d fuck you in front of anyone who dared to look at you.”

Nova’s eyes squeeze shut as his thumb presses exactly where she needs. This time, she doesn’t care how desperate she is, how wrong everything Din’s saying is—because right now, in this moment, it just feels right. She’s addicted to it, the filth on his tongue, the way he’s possessing her, and on the comedown, her eyes open just enough to see him remove the helmet. Helplessly, she claws at it, hooking her fingers under the rim, pulling it clean off.

His eyes are black with want, with lust. His hair is an absolute mess, and he tears at her underwear, ripping them in half. Before Nova can warn him just how overstimulated she already is, Din’s giving her a devilish grin, dripping with sin. He slams her back against the wall as he notches his tongue between her thighs, drinking, devouring.

Nova’s a goner. She goes blind with it, exploding all over his tongue. She’s riding the same wave he’s lapping up, drinking like she’s the last water in the world. She grabs at his hair, trying to drag him away, but his eyes pop open in question. She can tell immediately what he’s asking: do you want to stop?”

“Fuck, no,” she breathes, and that same steely glint returns, and he’s diving deeper, tongue running in circles around her clit, swiping and lapping lower. Nova yelps as it teases her entrance, and then it slips inside—and she’s lost in ecstasy. This is better than when she rode his thigh on Korrus. Better than the first time he made her cum. Better than riding him into submission. Better than absolutely anything she’s ever felt. This is what people kill and die for, and she’s living it.

She cries out as Din pulls away, but it’s only for a second. He’s standing, roving up her body, and then he’s anchoring both of his hands down on her shoulders, pushing her over across the floor to the bed.

They don’t make it that far.

Nova drops to her knees, not caring if she cuts them against the floorboards. “I love to be on display for you,” she croons, tearing at Din’s waistband, “but it’s your turn.”

Din’s eyes flash. “No.”

Nova raises her eyebrows, stopping immediately. “No?”

“If you put your sweet mouth on my cock right now,” he grits out, his voice so dark and gravelly it sounds like it’s still coming through the modulator, “I will cum down your throat. You won’t get fucked.”

Nova shrugs. “Worth it,” she says, and then she’s pulling it free and licking over the tip.

Din moans so loud that it shakes the foundation of the house. “Cyar’ika—”

“It’s,” she says, her tongue roving down the underside of it, “my. Turn.”

Din doesn’t protest. His hands tangle in the mess of her hair, groaning as she swallows. He’s huge—thick and long at the same time—but Nova’s had plenty of practice, and she takes him down to the hilt. With one hand, she pulls him even closer, begging to have every single inch, and as he pistons out of her, Nova’s eyes flood with tears.

It hurts so good. She wants more, needs more, and her free fingers find her clit, begging Din to fuck her mouth. He’s undone, unhinged with it, and so is she. This is the kind of high she’s been chasing, the one they both need. Ruination feels so good when it’s this kind of desecration. Holiness being corrupted. Nova cries out around Din’s cock as she crests close to the edge again, and then he’s snarling, pulling her off.

“Hey—”

But before Nova has a chance to protest, Din’s scooping her off the floor like she weighs absolutely nothing. The sheer force of him knocks the wind out of her, his hands closing around her ass, carrying her over to the bed.

“It’s been so long since I’ve came,” he grits out, throwing Nova down on the sheets. She yelps with the force of it, feeling it down to her molecules, her bones. “Not doing it if I’m not inside you.”

Nova stares up at him, pink light streaming in through the windows. She wants to stay right here, in this moment, in this kind of love, forever. It’s addicting. It’s haunting. It’s everything she’s ever fucking needed.

Din doesn’t move, waiting for permission. He stands resolute until Nova sits up enough to bring him down on top of her. “Fuck me,” she whispers, breathless, “hard.”

Din inhales and then he’s pushing inside of her, cock still dripping with her saliva. Nova moans as he sinks in, painstakingly slow, careful, clawing at the small of his back, and then he’s snapping his hips, driving inside her so deep. She’d forgotten how good he feels, how big he is, how badly she wants him, needs him. Three strokes and she’s on the edge again. He buries his face in her neck, and Nova arches her back against the feeling of his teeth on her skin. He’s relentless. She’s so in love.

“Your cunt is so fucking tight,” he manages.

“How wet am I?” she breathes back, and Din’s fingers trail down her body to dip in. Somewhere between the floor and the bed, his gloves were ripped off, and when he pushes his wet fingers into her mouth, Nova hums around them.

“Soaked,” Din manages, and something in his voice completely unhinges. “Oh, fuck, Nova, I’m gonna—”

“Cum for me,” she interrupts, and then his eyes are rolling back in his head. “Ruin me.”

As if he was just waiting for her permission, Din does. Nova clenches around him, both of them coming apart at the same time. Even with the ceiling above her, Nova only sees stars in her eyes. For what feels like both a blip and an eternity, they stay there, sharing the high. When Din finally comes back down enough to pull out of her, he takes two fingers and plunges them back inside of her, an unspoken reminder that he’s possessed her.

Nova’s exhausted, sweaty, happier than she’s been in weeks. This was worth the chase. This was worth the wait.

When both of them have recovered, at least enough to breathe evenly again, she turns on her side, gazing at Din through the rays of pink light. “So,” she says, still breathless, “who won?”

The way Din looks at her is more than just love. It’s reverence. “Me.”

Nova glares at him. “I caught you,” she says, punctuating it by pushing a finger into his still-armored chest.

Din grins at her, and it’s divine, the bareness of it. “You did,” he concedes. “Always, it’s you catching me. I—I meant that I won. Loving you, that’s winning.”

Nova smiles, tears threatening at the edges of her eyes, letting him pull her in. It’s safe here, the feeling of it radiating through her entire body. Sleep tugs at her. “I’m never running from you again, you know,” she whispers against Din’s neck. “And I love you. So much.”

He doesn’t say anything, just strokes a hand over her hair. He doesn’t need to, not this time. He knows. Before sleep takes Nova, the last coherent thing she thinks is that sure, Din may ruin her. But he always resuscitates her, brings her back to life.

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!!! i know Chapter 26 was a whole novel, and i so hope it was worth the wait <3

with my original outline, the next chapter (27) was supposed to be the end of SD, but now i'm not so sure if it will be. we still have a few plot points to go before the third one (a hint for the title of the third and final in the SM trilogy was hidden in this chapter, let me know if you catch it) ;)

with how life has knocked me around, i don't want to promise that 27 will be up within a week, but i DO promise it'll be SOON!!!

i love y'all so much. thank you for sticking with me, Din, and Nova. it means beyond words <3

37 notes · View notes

amiedala · 2 years

Text

SOMETHING DEEPER

CHAPTER 25: An Unshakable Thing

WARNINGS: angst, sexual content

SUMMARY: “I want to marry you,” she admits, finally, speaking only to Din, trying to hone in on him, trying to put enough conviction in her words to convey the intensity of it. “Now more than ever. Do you—do you want to marry me?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Nova can see Bo-Katan shift. Back into the obscurity of shadow, trying to eclipse herself from the intimacy of the moment.

Din doesn’t break her gaze. He doesn’t let Nova’s question sit in silence. He nods, solemn, serious, a promise. “Yes,” he answers, the word an unshakable thing. “Now more than ever.”

If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLO EVERYONE AND HAPPY SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY!! i'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth yet again but i hope you love this one! i'm hoping to be back for good now!!!

The word “wedding” hangs in the air, and both Nova and Bo-Katan do a double take.

And, somehow, in this moment, Bo-Katan is the first one to speak. “I’m sorry,” she starts, tucking her hair behind her ear, squinting back and forth between Din and Nova in the dark, “I thought you were already married?”

Nova swallows. “We are,” she enunciates. Din’s face is unclouded, clear. The moonlight still shines through the gossamer curtains, but it splashes across only the foot of the bed, now, illuminating none of them. “We took the vows.”

“We took the Mandalorian vows, yes,” Din says. His voice is still that strange sense of calm. “We swore them to each other. But, Nova, you wanted more than just a private exchanging of vows. You wanted to get married with all of our friends on Naator.”

Nova nods, reeling. “Months ago,” she clarifies, her voice quiet. “Before Sparmau, before this war, before all the Jedi in my head. I still want to,” she continues, quickly, because Din’s eyebrows knit down the middle. “In front of all our friends and family. A bigger ceremony than the one on my X-Wing. But I don’t know if now is the time.”

Bo-Katan surprises both of them yet again. “Yes,” she says, and her usually cool voice is wavering with something colored like emotion, “it is.”

Nova inhales a shuddering breath. The curtains flutter in the breeze. The night feels alive, strangely so, charged with an energy she can feel but can’t yet put a name to. “I want to marry you,” she admits, finally, speaking only to Din, trying to hone in on him, trying to put enough conviction in her words to convey the intensity of it. “Now more than ever. Do you—do you want to marry me?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Nova can see Bo-Katan shift. Back into the obscurity of shadow, trying to eclipse herself from the intimacy of the moment.

Din doesn’t break her gaze. He doesn’t let Nova’s question sit in silence. He nods, solemn, serious, a promise. “Yes,” he answers, the word an unshakable thing. “Now more than ever.”

Nova feels tears well in her eyes. The significance of it, of his surety—it burns like a bursting star. After all this, the war, the heartbreak, the division, Din Djarin wants to remake Nova into his wife. That’s a feeling Nova can’t ignore the weight of. “Cara was supposed to marry us,” she whispers, and grief comes crashing back in through the open window.

Din swallows, and for the first time since he looked at Nova head-on, he averts his eyes. They drop off somewhere dark and full of mourning. “I know,” he manages, staring down at the pooling of the silk sheets in the middle of the bed. Mandalore blue, they form an ocean. “She was.”

Nova hears the nasal exhale from the corner, and she startles, remembering Bo-Katan’s still there. “I could do it,” she offers, her voice small and half-formed, “if you want me to.”

Din glances up at Nova. Nova glances back, biting down on her bottom lip to not let the smile slide out. Back when they first discussed the real wedding, put on paper with the million other to-dos in their life, it was when Nova was proclaimed dead on Mandalore and Bo-Katan was a hinderance, not a friend. She was sour and sculpted from ice and spat venom every time she got too close. Nova had felt that shell cracking, even all those months ago, but it hadn’t given way to the person standing in front of her—bruised, softer around the edges, a mess of usually impeccable red hair, putting more weight on her left foot. Bo-Katan Kryze isn’t a hardened iceberg anymore. Bo-Katan Kryze is Nova’s best friend.

“Or not,” she amends, after a few seconds of prolonged silence. “The offer’s there.”

“The offer,” Din says, and the intensity of his voice carries the volumes of everything he and Bo-Katan endured when Sparmau had them, “is accepted.”

Bo-Katan’s smile, wide and unencumbered, gleams. Happiness wears her like an old, estranged friend. Nova wants to hop out of bed and crash into her arms, make Bo-Katan feel that gratitude right down to her bones. “I can’t promise I’ll be as good as Cara.”

It’s sobering. “Not many people would be,” Din concedes.

“She’d be proud of you.” The words fall out Nova’s mouth before she realizes they’re her own. Both of them look over at her. Nova’s fingers are embedded around her necklace, pressing down until the Rebel symbol imprints on her thumb. “Offering to marry us means you like us. Enjoy our company, even. All Cara wanted was for us to be on the same team.”

Bo-Katan nods, looking like her head’s off somewhere else. “I do, you know,” she says. She’s looking at Din, not Nova, and Nova knows that it’s because Bo-Katan has made this part perfectly clear to Nova already. “Like you.”

Din nods, his eyes holding the full knowledge of it. After a second, after he’s made it known, a small smile snakes its way across his lips. He turns his head to left and right, moving his hands rapidly across the bedspread as if he’s desperately searching for something.

“What,” Bo-Katan sighs, voice already stretched thin to exasperation.

“Looking for the end of the world,” Din deadpans, hand shaking Nova’s wrist. A laugh bubbles out of her throat, and Nova lets it. It cuts through the darkness of the room, wiping the heaviness clean. “It must be coming if Bo-Katan Kryze admits to liking us.”

“I take it back!” Bo-Katan shouts as she turns on her bare heel, stalking towards the door. Nova laughs again, letting Din rattle her body. It’s been months—years, even—since he’s acted this free. “I hate you.”

“Liar!” Nova calls at Bo-Katan’s retreating footsteps, and when Din wraps his arms around her again, Nova feels like she’s finally come home.

When morning comes, the sky has clouded over. The moonlight that sprawled all over the room last night is gone, replaced by the usual Mandalore fog. Din’s not in bed. Nova wakes up slowly, feeling around for the shape of him under the covers, but by the feel of the blankets and the absence of warmth, he’s been gone for a while. Nova’s heart sinks. The memory of last night is still full and clear in her mind, but it burns. She rubs sleep from her eyes, trying to decipher if Din’s desire to remarry her was just her imagination or if it was real.

“Hey.”

Nova jackknifes up, pulling the covers up over her naked body. Din is propped in the doorway, holding a mug of something hot. He holds it out to Nova in offering, and she sheepishly pulls on her discarded clothes as he waits, walking over to him.

“You weren’t in bed.”

His eyebrows furrow. “It’s midday.”

Nova blinks. She looks out the open window and back again, the words traveling through her hazy, sleep-fogged head, and then she startles, wrapping her hands around the mug. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Din tilts his head to the side, the gesture somehow as endearing as it was when he was obscured under all that beskar. “Because you needed the sleep?”

Nova’s mouth goes wobbly. It’s the simplest answer, the easiest one, and yet, she had assumed the worst. Still stuck in fight or flight mode, her body shakes on the comedown. “Oh,” she says, softly, sheepishly, and Din leans in to press a kiss against her forehead.

“We’re all downstairs,” Din murmurs. He feels so strong, even still emaciated and bruised from the fight.

“Planning our attack?” Nova asks, pulling away from the embrace to give Din a smile.

His face is unreadable, but there’s still sadness in the lines of his mouth. “No,” he says quietly, and he’s looking at Nova, but something’s missing. “Planning the funeral.”

There are Mandalorians, Rebels, and Skywalkers alike gathered in the throne room. Nova feels like the sanctity of it still prevails, even though all of them have worked together in some capacity for months now. Grogu is, inexplicably, in Bo-Katan’s arms. And he looks like he’s enjoying it, which is even more bizarre. She’s leaned against the holotable, talking with Fennec. Luke and Wedge are together on the steps, and Leia keeps sneaking knowing, furtive glances at them. Koska is talking with Boba, which surprisingly doesn’t look heated, and the throne—Nova’s throne—sits above all of them.

For a minute, Nova doesn’t disturb any of them. She doesn't want to. This moment, this grand gathering of all the family she’s recruited along the way—this is what she’s been missing since she was fifteen and left alone in the world. It sticks in her throat, the emotion of it, and she has to swallow before she steps forward.

“Good morning.”

Wedge grins, saluting her. “Good morning, Mand’alor.”

Nova allows one full smile before she turns her attention to the matter at hand. “Where are we in planning?” she asks, and just like that, the energy in the room stills, goes quiet. Everyone gathers in a circle around the holotable. Something about all of them, united, makes a lump stick in Nova’s throat.

“She wouldn’t want fanfare.”

It’s Fennec who speaks first. Nova raises an eyebrow.

Fennec looks defensively at them all. “What? Am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” Din says slowly. “She wouldn’t want a big funeral. Nothing fancy. A good, honest lay-to-rest, and then she’d want us to stop moping about it.” A small smile flits across his face, and then it’s gone.

“She lived on Nevarro.” This is Wedge. “She spent most of her time out patrolling and catching the slimy criminals in the Outer Rim, but Nevarro was her home base.”

Nova nods. “Does Nevarro have any specific…rituals? Anything she’d want at her funeral?” The word still caught in her throat and left a sour taste in her mouth. Nova swallows, trying to appear level, like she’s not still shattering to pieces inside.

“Cara may have lived on Nevarro,” Leia says, her voice sustained and clear, “but she grew up on Alderaan.” Her words are calm, measured, senatorial. Nova feels the urge to stand up straighter as Leia speaks. She contains worlds. “She may not have wanted a huge ceremony, but it’s tradition to gather in a beautiful place to bury the body.” Leia looks up. “We have no body, but we can put her to rest somewhere beautiful. No matter what state the galaxy is in, there’s no shortage of those.”

Din nods. “Sorgan.”

The name stirs something in the pit of Nova’s belly, but she can’t put her finger on exactly what.

When no one contributes, Din sighs—more to fill the silence than anything else. “I met her there,” he says finally, his words careful. “She called it her early retirement.” A small smile turned up at the corners of his mouth. “She tried to shoot me. I tried to shoot her. A fight ensued. Then the kid toddled in with a cup of bone broth and Cara was declared a friend, not an enemy.” Grogu babbles in assent, still nestled in Bo-Katan’s lithe arms. “She’d like to be laid to rest there. If she could choose…I think that’s where she’d go.”

Nova nods. “Then we go to Sorgan.”

Luke’s brow shoots up. “Today?”

Nova knows what he’s thinking. The vision still lives in her head, haunts the rest of her mind. The sinister laughter. The blue lightning. Ezra’s warning. And, even bigger than all of that, Nova’s nightmare of Sparmau not really being Sparmau is snarling on the precipice, angry at being compartmentalized and locked away. There’s a war coming, the First Order is still in the shadows, and there’s evil yet to be eradicated. This moment might feel like an ending, but it’s the beginning—the beginning of something so much deeper and darker than the hell they’ve already been through.

But she nods. “We can’t move forward into the war without grieving what we’ve lost,” she says quietly. “I can’t, at least, and we all owe our lives to Cara’s sacrifice. I know we need to prepare,” Nova continues, not dropping Luke’s gaze, “but this is fighting back, too.”

A boyish grin spreads across Luke’s face. For a second, all Nova can see is the kid he was when he fought against Vader, back when the Empire had won, back before all of this. He’s full of light, even outfitted in those black Jedi robes. It radiates out of him, from every single place. It’s ebullient and magical and exactly what Nova needs. “Damn right it is.”

They all move to the exit. Nova hovers in the throne room, still trying to take it all in. Somewhere, in town, the rest of the Mandalorians are living their lives. The ceremony of Nova becoming Mand’alor was only a day or so ago, but it feels like an eternity. She brushes a hand over the beskar throne. Bo-Katan lingers with her.

“You don’t need to tell them all where you’re going.”

Nova startles. It’s like Bo-Katan plucked the thought straight out of her head. “How did you—”

“Heavy is the head,” Bo-Katan sighs, walking over to where Nova’s frozen by the holotable. “I’ve been very close to multiple Mand’alors, for better or for worse. I know you feel like you have to lead every second, because it’s who you are. But we are very self-sufficient people, us Mandalorians.” She smiles. It warms Nova’s heart. “They don’t need to be led every second, no matter what Din told you.”

Nova swallows. “Din told me…I need to be all in. That I can’t abandon them.”

Bo-Katan raises her chin. “You are abandoning no one,” she says curtly, her eyes flashing. “You’re going to grieve your friend, and you’re going to send her off, and then you’re going to come back here to be the Mand’alor. It doesn’t get much more Mandalorian than that, Novalise.”

Nova swallows. She needs to put on something other than glorified pajamas, and she still can’t shake the sleep from where it fogs across her head. “I need,” she sighs, choosing her words very carefully, “to do it right this time.”

Bo-Katan has an odd look on her face, something Nova can’t quite identify. Finally, she extends a gloved hand. Nova takes it, letting Bo-Katan drag her away from the center of the room. “Hard to fuck up,” she shrugs, as both of them exit the ornate beskar doors, “when you have me by your side.”

Luke, Leia, and Wedge opt for traveling in the Millenium Falcon. Nova would have preferred Kicker, but she was still on Tatooine’s stuface, getting whipped back into shape by that eccentric mechanic, and besides, it was a tight squeeze when it was just Nova, Din, and Grogu. Slave I fits Bo-Katan and Fennec, too, and it hosts more than a nest of blankets masquerading as a bed, so it was the obvious option.

“What?”

Nova startles, looking over at Din. His bare face is just as beautiful as it was when she saw it for the first time, and seeing it here, in the hull of a ship that’s not their own, still sparks up low in her belly. “Just thinking,” she murmurs, thankful for the semblance of privacy the inner hull of Slave I is. Bo-Katan is up front with Fennec, and Grogu’s asleep.

“About what?” Din shifts, moving closer. He’s in the bunk opposite Nova, staring at her through the breath of space between them.

“I’m scared,” Nova admits. It’s not what she expected to come out of her mouth, but it’s the truth all the same. She swallows, her mouth dry. “This whole time…I’m used to knowing who our threat is. Sparmau made it abundantly clear. And before her, it was Gideon. Before Gideon, it was the Calicans. It’s easy when you know what—or who—you’re fighting.” Nova inhales, shaky and off-center. “I know nothing about what’s coming for us, Din. I know the First Order is something bad, constructed in the wake of the Empire. I know they’re gathering, and I know we have to stop them. But that’s pretty much my ceiling.” She pauses, considering, and then leans forward. “How did you feel about Ben?”

Din’s eyebrows furrow. “Luke’s nephew?”

Nova nods.

“Uh,” Din says, considering, “fine?”

Nova’s heart sinks. “You didn’t feel it?”

Din leans back, crossing his arms across his chest. Nova tries her best to stick with the thread of the conversation, but she gets distracted as he moves. “He’s…odd,” Din says finally, watching Nova like he’s afraid he’s going to say the wrong thing. “Strange.”

“He’s tied to them. The Order.”

Din recoils. “He’s a kid.”

“I know. But he won’t always be.”

“Nova, I know you feel things I don’t—I can’t—but…he’s a Skywalker—”

“Skywalkers aren’t always good,” Nova interrupts, looking down at her hands. She’s sitting with her legs crossed, her fingers laced together in her lap. “One turned into Vader, remember? And besides, he’s not a Skywalker in the way Luke and Leia are, Din. There’s something off about his energy. Corrupted. I’ve seen visions.”

Din stares at her. “Nova,” he whispers, and the careful way he says it makes something angry ignite in the pit of Nova’s stomach, “I know you—you see things. I don’t know how, or why, but I know the kid does, too. And I trust you, both of you. But sometimes—sometimes, they don’t always come to life the way you see them.”

Nova holds his gaze. “I’ve seen him. In every vision, he wears a mask, he has a red lightsaber that ignites like a sword, and he calls himself Kylo Ren. He will be on Takodana. I felt him there. I saw it. He will try to stop the Resistance. He’s connected to the First Order. I’ve seen his portrait in the crystal cave on Ilum. It’s not just me. Luke sees it too. And so does Leia.”

Din blinks. “Leia?”

“Yes.” Nova raises her chin. “That kid is going to turn into something horrible. And when he does—not if, Din, when—he’s going to be our enemy.”

A long sigh falls out of Din’s mouth. He rubs his forehead, trying to make sense of it. “So if you know that piece of the puzzle, why don’t we—?”

“Stop him?” Nova interjects glumly. “Because he’s not our biggest threat, and because he’s Leia’s kid. When it comes down to that, we’ll do what needs to be done. But I can’t do anything now.” She swallows. “None of us can.”

They’re both quiet for a minute.

“Are you still having visions of Sparmau?”

Nova looks back at Din and immediately away, turning the Darksaber over in her hands. “When I sleep. They’re nightmares, until they’re not.” She sighs, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes until she sees stars. “She shows up. She can still hurt me. I don’t think it’s her. Not really. But there’s remnants of her in whoever the person we’re up against is, and he’s—he’s terrifying.” Nova shudders. “I haven’t seen him. I don’t know his name. But Sparmau always said she was nothing in comparison to the pain and havoc he could wreak. And Ezra knows him.”

Din watches her carefully. “What has Ezra said?”

“Nothing concrete.” Nova runs her tongue over her teeth, considering. “He—it’s like he’s not fully there. When I see him, he’s blurry around the edges. Like he’s in limbo. No one else appears to me like that.”

Din nods. “Is he real?”

“Yes,” Nova answers, immediate and concrete. “He’s real. His reality just…isn’t ours. I think it used to be, but not anymore.”

There’s something resigned in Din’s eyes. Nova watches him, studies him, trying to place it. He looks haunted still, from Sparmau, from all the loss. He’s emaciated and thin and unarmored, and it’s strange to observe him in this form, like everything has been stripped bare. Anxiety hammers in Nova’s heart, dangerous and incessant.

“I know, it sounds crazy—”

“No,” Din interrupts, leaning forward. Their faces are only a few inches away. “It doesn’t.” He sighs, reaching forward. Nova lets his bare hand swallow hers, basking in the safety and security of it. “Maybe it does. But I’ve had a front row seat to this for a while now, and I know better than to doubt you.”

Nova’s throat constricts. “I think you’d like him.”

Din squeezes down on her hand. “Maybe he’ll come back someday. Out of your head.”

Nova runs her tongue over her teeth, then nods. “Maybe.” They share a look, a long one, and then Nova hops off her bunk and uses her hands to push herself up on Din’s. He moves over to the wall, letting her curl in around him, and Nova closes her eyes, listening to the thrush of Slave I’s coast through hyperspace, breathing in Din. Metal and gunsmoke and fire and cinnamon, and something different underneath all of them. It’s the lack of armor, the smell of the air hitting his skin. She snuggles up against him, getting closer and closer until they’re one cohesive form, a multi-headed animal, limbs wrapped around limbs. “Sorgan,” she whispers.

Din makes a noise reminiscent of a “yes.”

Nova looks up at the metal interior of the ship. “There was a woman there,” she says, trying to keep her voice level, devoid of any jealousy, “if I remember correctly.”

Din nods against Nova’s head.

“She wanted you to stay,” Nova repeats, stringing together the concurrent stories that both Din and Cara had told her. “You wanted to stay.”

Din’s quiet for a minute. “Nova—”

“That’s true, right? Did you want to stay?”

More of the quiet. Then, smaller: “Yes.”

Nova considers this. “Was she Cara’s friend?” This is a genuine question. Nova can hear the tha-thump of Din’s heartbeat. As usual, it’s steady and strong, and it doesn’t quicken under pressure. “Should we invite her to the funeral?”

Din shifts. “I think we should invite the whole village,” he says, finally, after spending a moment lapsed in silence. “Cara saved them. I helped, but she…she was the power behind most of it. They’d want to come.”

Nova nods against his chest. “Okay.”

The familiar lull of space, and the feeling of being intertwined with Din again, make Nova sleepy. She’s been chasing sleep in small doses for what feels like years, and still, she’s not rested enough. After a few minutes, she’s forgotten she’s asked about the woman on Sorgan.

“Novalise.”

Nova shifts, looking up in the darkness of the ship. She can hear Grogu’s tiny snores next to their beds, and even though she can’t see the stars from back here, she feels their presence. “Yeah?”

Din’s hand pulls her even closer, running his fingers through her hair, and already, Nova feels more at peace. “Sorgan’s not Naator. And Omera was never you.”

Nova’s not sure how long it takes to get to Sorgan from Mandalore. She sleeps through the whole thing, and she’s woken up by the rough touchdown onto the planet’s surface, rattled in the bunk like she’s getting thrown around in a cage.

“Sorry,” Bo-Katan calls, the single-word apology angry. “I don’t have the landing down in this thing yet.” Nova hides a small smile as she gets down off the bunk, pulling her armor and lightsaber from where it’s scattered across the ship’s floor. She makes her way to the cockpit, bracing herself in the door.

“Where’s Fennec?”

“Not here, obviously,” Bo-Katan says sourly, tucking her hair behind her ears. It’s still longer than it usually is, the red shock of it hitting almost to her shoulders. Nova loves it, the wildness of it. “She conveniently went to use the fresher before warning me the ship does not land like a normal ship.”

Nova presses her lips together, and Bo-Katan catches a glimpse of it out of the corner of her eye, shooting Nova a look. Nova raises both of her hands as proof. “I come in peace.”

“Yeah, yeah. Where’s Din?”

Nova looks around, still dragging from sleep. “I don’t know. He was with me.”

“Out here.” Din’s voice rounds the corner, and Nova and Bo-Katan climb down the gangplank, tracing its origin. Nova glances up at the treeline, and does a double take. It’s beautiful here, with towering pines and yellow-green grasses that dance and rustle in the breeze. It looks like Kashyyyk but more populated, and the smell of the air reminds her of Yavin. Nova can feel her heart in her throat, and she swallows, looking out at the mountains.

And then, out of nowhere, a desperate frog immobilizes in the air. Nova yelps, recoiling, and Grogu stands in front of her, his tiny face screwed up in concentration, his three-fingered hand wobbling. Before she can do anything, Grogu drags the frog down to the level of his mouth and swallows it whole. Din looks appalled. Bo-Katan looks strangely proud.

“Don’t play with your food,” Din grumbles.

Grogu blinks his giant eyes in response. Wordlessly, Din concedes, grabbing him gently off the forest floor and holding him close to his chest. Nova wraps her jacket around herself, grinning, propped up against the side of the ship, the hull still warm from the long travel. She smiles at Grogu as he extends his little silver ball toward her, and the two of them float it back and forth, wordlessly, reflexively.

“There you are.” That’s Bo-Katan’s voice, splitting the air behind her, but Nova’s concentration is entirely focused on keeping Grogu’s ball in the air. “Can you take your ship back? She doesn’t listen to me.”

Nova smiles, expecting Fennec’s dry response, but the voice is someone else’s entirely. “Happily. You were under strict orders not to touch the controls. I could have you killed for that.”

“Maybe you could,” Bo-Katan mutters, “but your jurisdiction is only good on Tatooine.”

Nova whirls around. Standing in front of her, tall and broad, is Boba Fett. And behind him, stubborn as ever, is Kicker. Nova cries out, letting Grogu’s ball float back down to his hand, and before he can protest, she’s hurtling toward Boba and grabbing him in the fiercest hug she can manage. After a moment of stunned silence, he chuckles in her ear and carefully hugs her back.

“You came.”

“She’s not ready to go into battle,” Boba says, jerking his head toward Kicker as Nova releases him, “but she’s airborne.”

Nova’s chest tightens. “You came,” she repeats.

“I couldn’t make the fight,” Boba says, and even though his voice is even, she can see sorrow in his eyes, “but I like to keep my promises.”

Nova nods, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Boba’s smile is directed entirely towards her. He squeezes her shoulder. “I assume there’s going to be a Skywalker here.”

“Two.” Leia has her hair braided in a crown over her head, her face set in a no-nonsense scowl. “So. You survived the Sarlacc.”

The warmth slowly slides off of Boba’s face. “Not easily. You survived the Hutt.”

Leia nods, a sharp thing. She’s wearing an expression that doesn’t belong to Luke. Nova’s seen it in her visions. Leia may be an Organa, but she has her birth father’s face. “It’s what I do.” She holds his gaze. “You’re lucky Han’s not here, or this would be a different conversation. Don’t try anything. Not with me, and not with my brother. We’re here for a funeral.”

Boba looks from Nova to Leia to Fennec, who seems to have materialized at his side. “I know. I knew Cara. I liked her. That’s why I’m here. And,” he sighs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “I brought someone.”

Greef Karga climbs out of Kicker, and Nova sighs. Besides Din, he was probably the person here who was closest to Cara. His usually easy, jovial face is saddened. It’s written into his smile lines. “Hello, gorgeous.”

“She has a name,” Din says gruffly, standing up. Karga stares at him for what feels like an eternity before he recoils, realizing who it is.

“Stars above,” Karga cries. “Mando!”

Din blinks, like he forgot that he was unarmored until now. Nova moves closer into his orbit, ready to be his armor in the absence of it, but Karga smiles, extending his hand. “Good to see you, old buddy.”

Din still doesn’t know how to make normal facial expressions, especially around people who have never seen his face, so it takes him a painfully long time to meet Karga’s grasp. “You too,” he says, finally, and Nova knows it’s the truth.

Nova looks around at the group of them—three Mandalorians, in varying stages; Skywalkers; a tiny green baby stronger than most of them; the slightly slipperty head of the Guild; two bounty hunters; an experienced Rebel. They’re a ragtag group, an army without any sort of collective training, but they’re all here for one thing—Cara. And she’d be happy. She’d have drunk her spotchka and laughed at all the tension, and she would have made it so much easier to bear. Nova can feel her, here, on this planet. It’s serene in all the ways Cara wasn’t, but it’s exactly the kind of place where Nova can picture her being happy.

“Let’s have the ceremony at sunset,” Nova says, breaking the silence. “We can have it right here, at the forest’s edge.” There’s a small smile on Din’s face, and seeing that in public is so rare that it startles Nova out of her speech. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, looking where the trees meet the open sky, eyes traveling over the small town below. “It’s—this is the place where we fought. This was the town we protected. Cara shot down an AT-AT right here.”

Nova smiles. It’s so fitting, so Cara, that for a second, it takes away the heaviness of her grief. “Here it is, then. Fennec and Boba, can you move the ships? Not far,” she warns, and Fennec winks. “Karga, you and Bo-Katan can start gathering stumps and logs for people to sit on. Luke and Wedge, will you stay with Grogu?” Bo-Katan gives Karga a side eye, vicious and glaring, but when she catches Nova’s eye, Nova knows Bo-Katan understands. Nova wants someone to watch Karga, who looks sullen and strange, and that Bo-Katan could use the physical release of doing something difficult. Luke nods, grinning at Din as he plucks Grogu easily out of his arms. “Din, Nova says, “you know the town. Will you go ask them if they’d like to attend the ceremony?” Something sad and conspiratorial passes between them, and his hand squeezes down on Nova’s for a second before he retreats back into the ship to gather his armor. “Leia,” she says, finally, after everyone else is accounted for, “will you tell me about funerals on Alderaan?”

Everyone divulges, set off on their respective missions, and after a flurry of movement, it’s just Nova and Leia standing at the forest’s edge. Leia finds smaller sticks and logs, gathering them up in her arms like she’s lived in these woods her whole life. Nova follows in her footsteps, and after a few minutes of silence, both of them are standing in front of a hand-built pyre. In traditional funerals, the body would be wrapped in a shroud, but they don’t have a body to bury or a body to burn.

“I did this for my parents,” Leia says, as the flames roar to life. Both of them are in shades of blue, illuminated by the dancing orange. “After Vader blew up Alderaan. I did one alone on Yavin, but Luke and Han and Wedge didn’t let me go through with it. I yelled at them and told them to leave, but they’re stubborn when they want to be.” She smiles, lost in the memory, staring at the fire. “Especially Luke. He held my hand and stood with me as we burned the wood down to nothing. I don’t know if this is an Alderaanian tradition,” she confesses, looking over at Nova, “but it’s what my family has always done. When Vader died, when Luke saved him, Luke brought his body back to Endor. I didn’t want to mourn him, but we lit the pyre anyway.” She’s quiet for a moment, deep brown eyes studying the fire. “I’ve been to a lot of funerals, Novalise. Too many. But for the ones that matter, we light these pyres.”

Nova chews on her bottom lip. She doesn’t know what to say, how to shoulder the sadness. Leia is so fiery, so intentional, that seeing this emotion—raw, not in an outburst—feels strange. After a minute, she reaches forward and takes Leia’s hand. “I haven’t burned a pyre before,” she says finally. “When Sparmau killed my parents, their ship imploded on impact. I mourned them by running.” She swallows. “I haven’t had an actual funeral for anyone I loved. I’ve just held onto the grief and hoped I could put it to rest in my mind. But Cara deserves more than that. My parents deserved more than that.” The fire crackles, and Nova and Leia stand hand in hand, captivated by the flame. “She sacrificed herself for me. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I ever going to repay her?”

Leia’s quiet. “I had a friend once,” she said, “who sacrificed himself for me. And Luke, and Han, and Chewie, so we could get away. So we could make the rebellion matter. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid, but he kept saving my life, and Luke’s, and Anakin’s.” She clenches her jaw. “He loved Anakin once. He loved Padme, my birth mother, too. And he was so good. Exhausted, retreated into himself, but good. His whole life was about making sure we stayed alive.” She stares into the fire. “He came to the Death Star for me. It had been ten years since I saw him, but I told him I needed him, and Obi-Wan came for me. I didn’t even get to see him before he died.” She inhales, exhales, and even over the roar of the fire, Nova can hear her breath shaking. “For a long time, Nova, I was furious at him. I held onto anger because I thought it would protect me from the grief. I wish he didn’t come. I wish he had stayed on Tatooine. But he didn’t. He died,” she says, her voice wobbling, “for me. I didn’t know how to reconcile it. But then I do this,” she says, punctuating it by waving her hand through the air, “and I get why he did it. I built the Senate back up. I fought for the Rebellion. I helped save the galaxy. Obi-Wan couldn’t have done it at that point in his life, but he knew I could. So I did.” She looks over at Nova.

“You make it sound so simple,” Nova whispers.

“It is,” Leia enunciates. “Cara told you why she did it. She sacrificed herself so that you could kill Sparmau. So that you could keep saving the galaxy. So don’t you dare throw that away. Be loud and fierce and cut down any evil that stands in the way. You’re something more, Novalise Djarin. Something closer to holy than any of us. So take the second chance Cara gave you. Don’t you dare throw your life away.”

Nova’s mouth runs dry. “Leia—” she starts, but the words evaporate with the smoke. She wants to tell Leia about the nightmares that wear the face of her son. She wants to talk about Ezra, the warnings he brings, the need to bring him back from the void. She wants to prove to Leia how sorry she is about all the loss she’s had to endure, her friends killed, all four of her parents gone. But Leia just holds her hand, squeezes it twice, gives Nova a look, and that’s enough. It’s not, it’s nowhere near it, but for the moment, it’s everything Nova needs.

As darkness begins to descend over Sorgan, people trickle in. There’s enough ships now that everyone has a place to rest, and before Din brings the town to her, Nova sneaks into the cockpit of Kicker, needing a second of peace before the grief comes back in. She folds herself up in the pilot’s seat, running her fingers over the worn dashboard. There’s the flower she pressed back from Naboo, before she and Din were together. There’s the map that Piper and Arokel made together, the cluster of stars shining even in the darkness. There’s the messy nest of the blankets on the floor. There’s random tchotkes hanging from the ceiling. There’s home here, made in between all the strangeness and brokenness, and Nova sits in the middle of it, knees drawn into her chest, looking up at the stars.

It’s beautiful, this universe of hers. Dangerous and all-consuming, sure, but beautiful. Novalise shines in the silence, all the stars, standing on the precipice of everything her life has led to. She’s Mand’alor, Rebel Girl, on her way to becoming a Jedi. She’s seen the worst of all of this, gone face to face with evil, but here she stands, ready to take on the darkness. It feels insurmountable if she thinks about it for too long, but she’s not alone. She’s here, alive. What a strange thing.

“Nova.”

She turns, expecting to see Din, but it’s someone else entirely. Something else entirely.

“Ezra?”

“Have I caught you at a bad time?” he asks wryly, and even though she knows he’s exhausted, she can see the smile in the corners of his mouth. It’s a ghost of one, but still, it’s there.

Nova smiles, too. “Darkness is coming, my friend. It’s kind of always a bad time.”

Ezra’s face shifts. He looks off into the distance, somewhere Nova can’t see. “The Order is coming, too. Not soon. Not anytime specific. But I can feel them building.”

Nova nods. “I know.” She screws her lips up to the side. “But, Ezra—”

“The Order is like the Empire,” Ezra interrupts. “Evil, yes, but not insidious. No, this is different. This is—who I’m fighting, whatever else we’re fighting—that’s different.”

“Ezra,” Nova says, standing up. Wind comes whipping around the both of them, and Nova forgets she’s indoors. “Ezra, who is he? Who are you with?”

Eza disappears for a second, then reappears. “The people who took your kid, that man, he was trying to harvest something from him. Just because that man is dead doesn’t mean it’s over.”

Nova feels a chill run down her spine. “Gideon?”

Ezra nods. “They’re doing something dark with the Force. Corrupting it. Twisting it.”

Nova feels a headache coming on. “Ezra,” she tries again, “where are you? How can I help?”

Ezra crackles in and out. Nova stumbles back. “They haven’t mobilized yet. they’re not strong enough. but they will, and they will come for you. I’m holding the floodgates back. You need to tell me when you’re ready.”

“Ezra, I—”

“Goodbye, Novalise,” he calls, drowned out under the wind, “I’ll see you soon.”

Nova falls back into the pilot’s seat, reeling. Part of her is still lodged in the vision, the memory of it sticking to her like a dream. She shakes her head, once, twice, and when she stands up, she collides with Din. She yelps, ricocheting off the armor, and Din lunges forward to grab her, controlling Nova’s fall back into the chair. “Hey.”

Nova blinks up at him. “How long have you—?”

“I walked in on you talking to nothing.” Even under the helmet, Nova can see Din studying her carefully. It’s mapped into his body language. She doesn’t need to see his face to know there’s concern written all over it. “I assume it wasn’t nothing.”

Nova shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. She can't tell if she’s erasing the vision or if she’s trying to make Ezra stay. “Something is happening. Wherever Ezra is, Din, the…the veil is shattering.” She swallows, looking up at him. “It’s coming down, and the Order is…it’s after us for something other than just revenge.”

Din’s helmeted head tilts to the side. “What do you mean?”

Nova takes a breath, trying to steady herself. “When Gideon took Grogu, he wanted to harvest something from him. Midichlorians. I said that, but I had no idea what it meant. I think it has to do with the Force. So if Grogu has them, I do, too. And Luke, and Leia.” She closes her eyes again, the vision of Ezra’s face, so similar to her own, haunting her. “And Ezra.”

Din doesn’t say anything.

“He told me he’s holding it off,” Nova whispers, her fingers vicelke around Din’s armored wrist. “But he can’t for much longer, and when it comes, we’re looking at something even more dangerous than Sparmau.”

Something about Din’s appearances becomes steely, unyielding. “Is that possible?”

Nova nods. She can feel it in that sinister laugh, the blue lightning, the warnings, the way Ezra looks off into the distance like he’s shielding her from whatever danger he’s holding off. “I can feel it,” she breathes.

Din stares. Nova stares back. There’s so much they need to talk about, all of them. They need to plan, to prepare, to pull the fight together. But they’re stretched thin, and they’ve all had to shoulder so much grief. Nova’s heart wrenches. She wants to lay down here, to pause, to let someone else handle the weight of the galaxy for a change. But then she remembers Leia’s speech, her determination, her refusal to give in. It strengthens her. It lights a spark. So Novalise does what she does best—she sits up straighter, she braces herself, she finds the light. Nova reaches out, touching a hand to Din’s face. The feeling of the beskar underneath her bare fingers is nostalgic, familiar. She gives him a small smile. “You’re wearing your armor.”

Din shifts under her touch, moving closer. “I am.”

Nova bites down on her bottom lip. “You wore your helmet down to the town?”

Din nods. “I…I’ve gotten used to having it off, with you and the kid. And Bo-Katan,” he adds. “And the rest of us. It’s still strange, but it’s…easier.” Nova can hear him swallow through the modulator. “But the rest of the galaxy—”

“You don’t have to,” Nova interrupts gently. “If you don’t want to. You’re allowed to put it on, and you’re allowed to take it off. Those rules, that part of the Creed—you don’t need to live by it if it doesn’t feel right anymore.” She leans forward, pressing her lips to his armored forehead. She rises, silently, pulling on pieces of armor. Her clothes, Mandalorian blue, won’t show up under the orange light of the fire and the darkened night around them, but it feels good to wear something that represents who she is. Nova steps into the tiny fresher, brushing her hair carefully, trying not to disturb the ringlets. She’s planning on braiding the top half back, but when she looks at her reflection, long dark curls hanging in her face, she sees Andromeda. And Nova sees the person Cara helped er get rid of, all those months ago, when Sparmau had put a bounty out on her head. She can’t get rid of her now.

So Nova just wraps her shawls around her shoulders, offsetting her blue underclothes, her dark armor. She doesn’t cover herself in her helmet. She doesn’t try to erase Andromeda. When Nova looks at herself, she just sees Novalise. And it’s what Cara would have wanted.

Nova reappears into Kicker’s main cockpit, and to her surprise, Din’s helmet is off. He looks at her, sadness written into his face, but when his beautiful brown eyes meet Nova’s, they light up. “You’re not wearing your helmet,” she says, softly, bracing herself in the doorframe.

Din shrugs, reaching forward to her. Nova falls into his arms, letting all of her fear and anxiety melt off into the background as he holds her, happy to just live right here in this moment. “When I met Cara here, she wanted to know why I didn’t take it off. Why I didn’t leave my cohort, why I followed the rules that I did. She wanted me to settle down, to be happy, to show my face. I just didn’t find any of that worthwhile until I met you.”

Nova’s heart flips over. She pulls away from Din’s armored chest, the beskar warm against where her bare skin had touched it. “Din—”

“I could have stayed here,” he continues, “and maybe I would have been happy. But none of it mattered until you walked into my life, Novalise. So I’m going to wear the armor, but not my helmet. I’m going to stand out there with our friends, our kid, this town we once saved, and I’m going to make Cara proud.”

For what feels like the millionth time since they landed, Nova’s eyes prick with tears. “You’re making me proud, too.”

Din gazes down at her, hands snaking up to hold each cheek, capturing Nova’s face in his palms. Her stomach fills with butterflied, and Nova leans into the thrill. “Nova, after tonight, before we go back into the fight, I’m going to—”

Bo-Katan raps on the door three times before she lets herself in. “Everyone’s down there,” she says, softly. “I think it’s time.”

Din’s hands drop from Nova’s face, and his left finds her right.

“What are you going to do?” Nova whispers, heart hammering, as they follow Bo-Katan down the gangplank.”

“Later,” Din murmurs, squeezing her hand. “I’ll tell you later.”

Outside, the sun has set entirely over the mountains. The forest is dark, but with the people gathered around them and the fire lit, light dances. Boba and Fennec parked all three ships under the tree cover, and when they emerge into the clearing, Leia catches Nova’s eye and gives her a smile. Nova forges forward, her hand caught in Din’s grip, trying to steady herself. This is about Cara.

In the middle, there’s an open space before the fire. Nova makes her way over to it, looking around at all the people here to grieve their friend—Karga, Bo-Katan, Boba, Fennec, Luke, Leia, Wedge, Din, Grogu. The townspeople looks sorrowful and determined. Din lets go of her hand with a squeeze, and he moves towards Bo-Katan, plucking a rapt Grogu out of her arms.

“Hi,” Nova begins, her voice small. She clears her throat, feeling fortified by the rush of the flames behind her. “Thank you for coming,” she continues, much more self-assured. “Carasynthia Dune was nothing if not a fighter, and knowing an army she built is here to send her off would make her proud.” Nova smiles off in the distance. “My name is Novalise,” she continues, trying her best to meet the eyes of everyone in the crowd, “but a long time ago, it was Andromeda. I was ashamed of the person I was. I thought she was weak, and when I took on my new identity, I tried to bury her entirely.” She swallows. “When I met Cara, she was my friend instantly. She’d heard of me from my husband, and she didn’t reserve any judgment. She hugged me, told me she was happy to meet me, and that was it. When Cara learned I used to be someone else, it was because an enemy put a bounty on my head, using my old name. She didn’t treat me like a criminal. She didn’t interrogate me. She fiercely and unequivocally fought by my side to make sure I survived.” Nova swallows. “She died to protect me,” Nova continues, carefully. She meets Din’s eyes, then Leia’s, and forges on. “She sacrificed herself so that we all survived. That’s the person Cara was. I know she was that person for all of you, too.” Nova lifts her chin. “Before she died, before she threw herself in front of the danger for us, she told me that I needed to stop martyring myself. That it wasn’t fair. And when she did finally make the sacrifice, she told me everybody needs a martyr. And that it wasn’t going to be me.” Nova can feel the tears building up, and when she blinks hard, one falls. “I can’t thank her for that. But I can repay her. And knowing Cara, the person she was? That’s what she would want anyway.” She turns to the fire, closing her eyes, imagining Cara’s face. “Thank you,” Nova whispers, just to the flame. “I promise you, I’m not going to throw it away.”

The crowd opens up, letting Nova back into its fold. She falls into Din’s arms, and she can feel eyes on her, but they only last for a minute. She watches, held up by Din’s strength, as the rest of the gathering takes turns. Karga tells a rousing story about Cara’s time as Marshal. Boba and Fennec go up together, as they always are. Bo-Katan’s speech is to-the-point but heartfelt in the kind of way only Bo-Katan can manage. Even Luke and Leia take brief turns. Wedge’s eulogy is brief, but so endearing. Grogu babbles in Din’s arms, and Din presses the tiniest, briefest of kisses against Nova’s temple before he passes their kid to her to take the stand. Nova swallows, standing as tall as she can, trying to stay upward without him.

For a minute, Din just stares out at the crowd, unblinking and awkward. There’s no noise besides the crackle and roar of the fire, and Nova meets Din’s eyes, whispering a silent affirmation, holding his gaze.

“I,” Din starts, and then the words fall off. He swallows, looking back at the fire, then to the crowd, then to Nova. “My name is…Din Djarin. Some of you only knew me as the Mandalorian. Mando.” The people from the town whisper to one another, the rustling noise sweeping through all of them. “About…two years ago, I met Cara Dune here. She held a gun to my head. She did that a lot.” A tiny smile spreads across his uncertain face. “The two of us were always competing to see who would die. She…she came here with me, to this town, to help fight back against the last of the Empire. She brought down a whole walker right here.” Din swallows. “Cara was…probably my best friend. She refused to leave me alone, even when I wanted her to. Shed saved my life on Nevarro once, refused to let me die down there. And she led me back to Nevarro, the day I met Nova.” His eyes snap to Nova’s again, and the butterfly menagerie comes to life in her stomach. “My wife.”

She bites down on her lip, eyes still teary, beaming back at him.

“Cara was tough. She was from Alderaan. She was a shocktrooper. She became the Marshal. She killed evil things, and she fought off criminals for a living. But she loved my kid, and she told me when I was being stupid, and she…taught me being alone wasn’t always the best thing.” Din swallows, and the rest of his sentence is strained: “And I’m going to miss her very much.” With that, he moves away from the makeshift podium, making a beeline for Nova and Grogu, and when he reaches them, Nova bursts forward to hug him. Din, still adverse to showing his face in public, let alone any sort of unhindered emotion, stiffens for a second, and then falls into it, letting Nova hold him up.

More of the townspeople go up and make their own speeches. Little kids talk about Cara’s muscled arms, her Alliance tattoo on her cheek. Nova just stays in Din’s embrace, a buffer against it all, when one of the women from the town makes her way to the front. Her voice is gentle and kind, and when Nova sees her over Din’s shoulder, her gaze meets Nova’s. She’s beautiful, and a small smile graces her face. “Hello,” she says, and the crowd responds. “My name is Omera.” Nova swallows, staring up at her, but there’s nothing on Omera’s face except grief and gratitude. “Cara Dune helped save me and my daughter and our town. I didn’t know her well, but we wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for her. So I want to thank her. I want to celebrate her. Sorgan will always be in her debt.”

When the rest of the ceremony dwindles down to nothing, people gather and drink and laugh. Nova keeps looking over at the fire, wishing Cara was here, startling in the knowledge that she’s not. She holds onto Grogu, and Din stands behind them, talking about something with Wedge. Nova can see Luke looking wistfully over at Wedge, so she beckons him over, and then she feels a tap on her shoulder.

Omera is standing in front of her. Nova blinks, once, twice, and then Omera smiles and extends her hand. “Your eulogy was beautiful,” she says, smiling. “You had a lovely friend.”

Nova nearly crumples. “I did,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “Your planet is wonderful. I’m so glad the peace has kept since Cara and Din left.”

Omera looks over at Din, then back to Nova. “I’m so happy he’s happy,” she says, and squeezes Nova’s forearm. “That man was incredibly conflicted when I met him. You were exactly the kind of person I had in mind to help him.”

Nova swallows. “Thank you,” she whispers, wanting to say more, but Omera just gives both of them another kind, genuine smile, and disappears back into the gathering to find her daughter. Bo-Katan picks up Grogu from where he toddled off towards the swamp, assuredly in the search for another frog to gobble down.

“The child,” she says, with perfectly measured disdain, “is hungry. I’ll feed him.” She sighs, like it’s an inconvenience, but with the smile on her face, Nova knows she’s delighted. Din comes up behind her, snaking his armored arms around her waist.

“Come with me,” he murmurs, pressing himself into Nova’s body, and her stomach flips over in anticipation. He closes his hand around her wrist, dragging her behind him, off behind a clump of trees. Nova exhales as he walks her up against one, bracing his arms on either side of her on the trunk, impossible to escape from. Something warm and wet snakes through Nova’s body, humming in anticipation. “You,” he says, voice low and thick, “are the only person who I would do this for.”

“Do what for?” Nova breathes, the air cutting through her voice. Din’s head dips in to her neck, pulling away the shawl to trace a gloved finger over her collarbone.

“All of this,” he whispers, his tongue licking a line across the hollow. Nova shivers, hearing the sadness and laughter of the people only a few yards away, chills exploding across her wanting body. “Showing my face. Following you around. Falling in love. Wanting to fuck you out in the open. Needing to prove that I belong to you.”

Nova barely stifles a moan. “Din—”

“I gave you this ring on Nevarro. I proposed to you on Yavin. We made our home on Mandalore. But the day I realized I wanted something more was here. On Sorgan. And when you walked into my life, I wanted you so badly it…consumed me.”

“I want everything with you,” Nova manages, her head sparkling with static, every nerve a live wire. “Then, now, for the rest of my life.”

Din pulls away, just for a half second, and then his mouth is on hers. It’s everything, dizzying, wanting, and Nova lets herself fall into the chasm, wanting more, needing it. But then Din pulls his mouth away and looks at her, still pinning Nova in place. “You said you're never running from me again, cyar’ika. Is that true?”

Nova startles, nodding. “I—yes, yes of course—”

“No,” Din says, tantalizingly, slowly, “it’s not.”

Nova blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I’m taking you to where I fell in love with you. Naator.”

Nova’s stomach flips over, staring from Din’s plush lips to the hunger in his eyes. “And then what?”

“Oh, Nova,” Din groans, leaning forward to tuck a lock of loose hair behind her ear. His finger follows down to her pulse pint, skating across it, then pressing. “And then I’m going to chase you. No bounty pucks. No Sparmau to call you away. No visions. No distractions. Nothing but you and me and the planet. You evade me for longer than a day, a full twenty-four hours, you win. If I hunt you down before then, and I will, then I win.”

“And what,” Nova asks, staring at him, “does the winner get?”

“Whatever the fuck I want.” This is the Din from her dream, the Din who chased her down and fucked her in the palace. Nova thrills with it, drips with it, everything inside of her electric and so, so alive.

Nova swallows. “How are you so sure, Din Djarin,” she breathes, leaning into his touch, “that you’re going to win?”

Din presses her back into the tree. She can feel every inch of him, even through the beskar. Nova knows that live wire inside of her is about to explode, edging her closer and closer to the edge. This right here is tangible—an unshakable thing. “Let’s find out. “Go ahead. Run from me, cyar’ika. One last time.”

I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!! i'm sorry again for totally disappearing, working full time has already been so consuming, but recovering from surgery and COVID on top of it all has been… exhausting. i am going to finish SD even if it kills me!!! i promise!!!! and i don't want to give you a set date on when the next chapter will be up, but i promise it will be soon <3 thank you all so much for your kind words. i'm going to be catching up on comments tonight and tomorrow!!!

I LOVE YOU ALL and chapter 26 will be out soon!!!

xoxo, amelie

41 notes · View notes