Wrest Pin | The Mandalorian

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Hunt

Note: This chapter is very mature. Also, I don't think I told you guys on here but I made a tumblr! It's under my same username that I use on here, in case people have questions or anything. :)

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When he had originally gone to her home planet, he had only been there an hour tops before they had to escape Imperials.

When he arrived the second time, he didn't know what he expected. Mostly, he had thought to find her, and to find Grogu...Maybe that Kent guy that Cara had mentioned but he wasn't sure. However, he found none of that. Instead he found that same village he had strolled through, searching for her that first time...He found faces that weren't familiar to him. He found more anxiety, but he did not find Evangeline. That in itself made the clock inside of him tick faster...thinking and imagining what Gideon was doing at that very moment, fearful that he had already begun his search even though he told himself logically, Gideon would start on Nevarro...But it had been a few days since he had spoken to Cara, it had taken that time for him to get to Purshia IV.

He had asked a few people in town if they had seen a girl resembling her with a tiny green child, and pregnant. But no one had. Eventually, he started asking by name – and that got him funny looks until an old woman had whispered to him quietly...

"The imperials came for that family months ago...Slaughtered the lot of them."

Through her though, he had been able to track down Evangeline's old home...Outside of which he currently stood, staring at the open door. He imagined her coming back here as he walked inside, and he saw the destruction the Imperials had left behind – the gruesome scene in the upstairs hallway. A part of him hoped she hadn't come back in here...That she hadn't subjected herself to that, but he knew she probably had if she had made it to the planet and had left. Stains covered the floor, but soon he found a bedroom that he assumed to be hers, dead flowers in vases and on the walls...An unmade bed. It was strange, seeing her childhood room, the home in which she had grown up. Before the incident, he imagined it was probably peaceful and quiet, filled with happiness. While he had been happy growing up in his clan, it hadn't been like this...He had been raised a warrior, had been expected to show strength, and they had lived in hiding for their protection.

Especially when their armor had become so valuable.

He took a moment, there in her room. There were books...Old, paper kind. Hand sketched pictures of trees and flowers were stuck to the wall, and he hadn't even known she could draw. Her desk was strewn with paper, and he imagined her life before that night...Her life before he had come and taken her. How settled she must have been, and how traumatizing of a change he had probably induced...Even if the Empire probably would have made it much worse. A small music box sat on the shelf above her desk, and he took it gently into his gloved hand, opening it. Inside there was a girl, in a long dress and Mando turned the lever, causing her to spin – as music played softly.

Mando murmured to himself, "Damn it..."

He swallowed, pocketing the small item. He turned and left the room...It felt wrong snooping through the things she had once adored, had loved enough to stick on her walls to look at every day. He made his way back through the blood-stained hallway and down the stairs – outside into the sunlight, dimmed by the overhanging trees. Birds sang in the branches as he hurried along, his pace brisk as he headed back to his ship.

New plan. Call Cara.

Mando figured if she had left the planet, he didn't have much to go on...Apparently no one had seen her, which led him to believe she had probably just gone to her home and had left straight away. A part of him had hoped she had planned to stay on the planet a few days before going back to Nevarro like she had apparently told Cara she planned to do – hence why Cara had let her go. But Cara had made no other attempt to contact him in the past few days it took him to arrive on the planet, so he figured...she must not have returned.