Chapter Twenty-Five: The Ethereal

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Warning: This chapter is mature. Ummmm...Also it involves an adult club, as well as spice (you know, Star Wars' version of spice). Hopefully wattpad don't shut me down.

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Din was snoring.

He rarely did so, it was only when he was sleeping particularly hard. Evangeline still heard the rain falling, a background framing them. She hadn't been able to fall asleep, so she had just laid there. She was surprised he had managed to do so, and that Grogu had remained asleep for so long but maybe the darkness helped with that. Evangeline laid on her side, staring at his bare back as his body expanded with each breath and shrunk with each exhale. He was lying on his stomach, his arms under his head, a pillow squished between. Evangeline looked at the glow of his skin, slightly illuminated and she pushed herself to her elbow, resting her head on her hand.

She had noticed some time ago he had scars, but she had never focused on them much. There seemed to be more on his back. There was a particularly long one, near the lower portion of his spine and a bit disappeared under his sleep pants. Another was between his shoulder blades, another at the bottom of his ribs. Evangeline reached out between his shoulders, sliding her finger along the jagged line, running her index finger along the raised skin. It didn't surprise her when the snoring stopped rather suddenly, but he didn't move – he was a light sleeper, she had noticed...Maybe for the purpose of being vigilant. He just laid there as she continued to trace it gently.

"What are you doing?" His voice was muffled by the pillow and thick with sleep, rough and hoarse all at the same time.

"What are these from?" Evangeline questioned curiously.

A sigh, "I was sleeping."

"I know," Evangeline smiled a bit, "I'm bored though."

There was silence and Evangeline put more pressure on the one between his shoulders as she repeated, "Well? What's it from?"

"An arrow."

Evangeline's eyebrows went up, and she blinked in the darkness at the back of his head that was still buried in the pillow, "An arrow?"

She saw his head nod. Evangeline licked her lips, "How?"

"Some bounty was hiding on a primitive planet," Din explained through the fabric on his face, "I didn't have much armor at the time...Only a bit of beskar, and it didn't cover me there – it was...early on, I was a teenager I'm pretty sure."

Evangeline frowned, "You've been collecting bounties since you were a teenager?"

"Late teenager," Din confirmed, "When I came of age."

She considered how their lives had been so vastly different. When she was a teenager, she had been dancing in the forest with her friends during their spare time, stealing liquor and all around just being carefree. Having the usual make-outs with other teenagers. The usual village drama of people stealing each other's boyfriends and girlfriends. But whilst Din had been a teenager he was already being shot at. She bit down on her lip, and she slid her hand to the one at the bottom of his ribs just a little further down...

"This one?"

"From another Mandalorian," Evangeline caressed it. It actually sounded as if there was regret in his tone, "Another example of why we're dying out and why we couldn't stop the Empire from destroying us. There's even fighting within clans."

Evangeline questioned in a whisper, "Someone from your own clan did this?"

"It wasn't a killing stroke," Din replied, "I was younger...mouthy and overly confident. They were teaching me a lesson."

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