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THEMANDALORIANFELT as if he had dropped into zero gravity. His heart seized in his chest, playing like a harp across his body, filled with some smoke-blistered terror that never let go of him as he watched Tess fall under the water, her hands reaching up, eyes wide. The world was crumbling around him, and he was falling into a black abyss. Layer by layer he dropped, first his body, pulled in all directions by the thought of Tess under the water. Next, his lungs, no longer functioning properly, collapsed under his skin. Then his heart and soul, broken, shattered, held by a tight fist that crumbled them to dust.
Under his helmet, the Mandalorian's face was frozen, caught in terror and fear and something more beneath the Beskar. His eyes, panicked beyond measure, scanned the water. His mouth opened in a silent scream that could have rattled stars. His entire head was imploding, closing in on itself as the Quarrens around him laughed at what they'd done, sending a little girl to her death.
"NO!" the Mandalorian cried out, and the pain in his hoarse voice was enough to shake even the roofs back in the port town. Without hesitating, he dove into the water, hands up by his head. The child, still watching from on the boat, was sent back in his pram, hiding under nets while the Quarren's called to each other. Mando didn't hear their voices as his head was dunked underwater, the sea immediately filling up the inside of his helmet.
He didn't care. He couldn't care, because somewhere underneath the ocean, Tess was drowning. Only he couldn't see her. His eyes stung as the water continued to bat against his helmet, his hands growing heavy under the weight of his armor. Out of the corner of his eye, a flash of red snaked through the sea like a serpent gliding under sands. The Mandalorian struggled against the pressure as he dove down and down, his eyes searching frantically for a curly haired girl with electric eyes.
He couldn't see her. No, No! He yelled through the empty caverns of his mind, Tess! The girl did not answer. She was nowhere to be seen. The world exploded around him as his already dead and blistering lungs threatened to give way. Mando cursed himself with every punishment and penalty he could think of, condemning himself to the pits of this careless ocean. If she was gone, if the girl who had only ever known sand and heat had perished under the depths of unforgiving waves, Mando didn't know if he could live with himself.
I did this, he thought as he gave in and swam back up to the air, where he vaguely saw the grate closing down. I did this to you, Tess. Whether it be from the water filling up his mask or the realization that the girl was gone, a drop of salty water came down from his cheek, pooling with the rest. Mando pushed himself up and grabbed onto the bars of the now closed grate. He gasped as air filled his lungs again, as the breath of life renewed his body with energy he no longer wanted.
