A Good Thing

-brothers-

Part Three

Chapter 20

-brothers-

A/N This chapter is shorter than normal so sorry about that but... well you'll see. *evil smirk* The time in this chapter is a little confusing but Thursdays chapter should clear it up.

She had felt it the moment her brother's life had ended. It wasn't because of the force or anything so asinine. No... that was wrong. As a Twi'lek she understood that the force was very real and powerful. Many of her people were quite sensitive. Just not her. Regardless, that invisible mystery hadn't been what told her that Qin was dead. He was her brother—her twin—and since birth they had shared a bond much deeper than most could understand.

Sitting in a New Republic cell with the other useless morons she'd taken up with, she had felt a part of her very soul leave her body. It had felt like dying herself. And as the other two idiots in her cell watched her writhing and screaming on the cold, hard floor, she knew exactly who was responsible for her pain.

To be fair to Mando, they had double crossed him first. It had been uncharacteristically stupid of him not to expect it but still. Perhaps his little green pet was making him soft. She had begrudgingly admitted that she was impressed with how easy it had apparently been for him to escape and round them all up one by one. He had always been good. But despite that small amount of respect and the desire she'd once had for him, Xi'an would never forgive him for murdering her brother.

It was on this that her thoughts dwelt as she was processed by the New Republic officers. Revenge darkened her mind as she was shipped off to a prison labor planet. Every day spent toiling, every night spent sleeping on hard ground, every moment that she drew breath, Xi'an imagined all the ways she would like to make the Mandalorian suffer.

Languishing for months on that labor planet, she had plenty of time to plot. When she had known him before, Mando had seemed so impenetrable. It had been two years after the Empire purged Mandalore and however he had survived, there had been an anger, a darkness to him that had drawn her. He, of course, had soundly rebuffed her advances but it never stopped her from trying. It had been an amusing few years.

If she had wanted to hurt him back then, Xi'an wouldn't have known what to do. Sometimes it had seemed like he would have welcomed death, the way he constantly threw himself into danger. Pain seemed to have had little effect on him too. A well placed blaster bolt or hard driven blade would have been as interesting as it would have gotten.

Now though. Mando had exposed a part of himself that he'd either not had before or kept well hidden. That little green baby... He had tried to play it off like he was just something to pass the time, but she had seen right through him. He had a heart under all that armor and it was tender and attached.

Perhaps, if she ever managed to escape, she might rip that soft, feeling heart right out of his chest. That had reminded her of her long murdered mother. She had been fond of saying that Xi'an and Qin were little pieces of her heart, walking around outside of her body. It was sentimental drivel but... perhaps it wouldn't require so much effort to destroy Mando.

She needed to escape. Now that her twisted imaginings were more than half formed plans, it was intolerable to imagine him escaping her justice. So she watched—the guard droids, the handful of live New Republic officers that came and went, the rotations and the other criminals. She would need more competent allies this time.

More long months went by as she plotted and chose the best villains her prison had to offer. Fortunately there was no shortage of vile bastards at her disposal who would have no problem hurting children. Team chosen, Xi'an waited for the right moment to strike.

<>

Truthfully it had been too easy. Droids weren't hard to deal with if you knew how and all they had to do after that was wait for the next New Republic shuttle to drop down. She had fashioned rough knives out of the scrap heaps and they had been incredibly effective. Still, it had been wonderful to reclaim her belongings from the prison storage after they'd destroyed the droids on duty there. Holding her favorite vibro in her hands, she was nearly euphoric imagining how it would feel to plunge it into Mando's heart.

Unfortunately, escaping had proven the easy part. Finding a Mandalorian that did not want to be found was much harder than she had anticipated. She and her new crew did paying jobs as they searched for him in all the places she could imagine he might go. Someone in Mos Eisley had seen a Mandalorian a time or two but it had been months.

It had been tempting to kill the mechanic, she knew in her gut that the woman wasn't telling them everything, but she wasn't someone whose death would go unnoticed. Either way, the word around the town corroborated her story. Mando had been to Mos Eisley, more than once since Xi'an had seen him, but the trail was cold on Tatooine.

Remembering how he'd been on the outs with the bounty guild, Xi'an reached out to a few contacts there. The hunters she knew would have been more than happy to kill the Mandalorian, but the man in charge of the guild had forgiven him their differences and was apparently a true ally. A tracking fob would have made things easier but without guild help, they were difficult to come by.

It was fortunate, as she grew increasingly frustrated with her search, that her new crew worked so well together. They might have abandoned her once she'd sprung them but there was little shortage of underhanded work to be had and the promise of a beskar payday was too tempting to pass up.

Finally, she found a lead. Nearly a year and a half after her brother's death. In a seedy backwater planet near old Hutt space, she came across a New Republic officer willing to take a bribe. Since Mando had at one point or another had a warrant for his arrest, now somehow forgiven, they had his chain code. With that information, it would be much easier to obtain a tracking fob. 

A/N *evil laughter*burning elmo meme*