tritanopia | The Mandalorian

twenty

Fae thought that if she relaxed her body, she'd fall apart. She had lived that way for most of her life, and it was the only way she knew how to keep on living. If she relaxed for a second, she was afraid she'd never find her way back. She would shatter into pieces, and the pieces would be blown away.

Why couldn't people see that?

Eventually Fae became fatigued of way the entire village looked at her. Word had gotten around, likely due to Omera, about what had happened, and had led to every solitary soul treating her like fine china. Which had, in turn, led Fae to avoid them whenever the opportunity presented itself. Each sympathetic, what-a-shame, glance, and every whisper behind cupped hands, meant more to Fae than the people actually intended. All in all, they treated her as though she was weak — needed protecting. But Fae wasn't allowed to be weak; wouldn't dare settle for being regarded as something that needs protecting. So, she stayed away from them. After all, they can't stare at her if she's never there to be perceived in the first place.

"I'm tired," Fae muttered, her gaze unmoving from where they attempted to make shapes out of the clouds far above her head. "These people make me feel like I have a hole in the middle of me. And not even just in the way that they stare as if I'm missing a limb — it's as if they all having something I don't, and simply by being around them has finally made me notice it's absence. Like when you can't feel a wound until you look at it." 

The breeze rustling the leaves was the only thing to fill the silence which followed for the next few seconds; it was perfectly peaceful. And then-

"What are you...talking about?"

When Mando had began his mission of seeking out Fae, he had very much expected it to be a one way conversation — well, at the beginning anyway. In fact, he hadn't heard her talk for as long as she just had in weeks, and especially nothing that personal.

"What we would eventually circle around to, no matter what I tried," She drawled out matter of factly from where she lay, "You would ask what I was doing, I'd say nothing; you would ask what was wrong, I'd say nothing; you would get angry and try to force it out of me, and then I'd start talking simply to shut you up. And honestly, I just wanted to get it over with — so here we are."

It was quiet again, Fae running the fingers of her right hand through the overgrown grass of the clearing she had discovered. As for the fingers on her left hand — we don't talk about them. It was so quiet that Fae would have presumed Mando had left, although he was not often a light footed man where it was not necessary, so she would have heard him if he had.

Eventually he moved, to sit down beside her. When he didn't talk even then, Fae could've sworn she physically felt his gaze on her injured hand — and the guilt which radiated from him immediately afterwards. As nonchalantly as possible, she took that hand and placed it behind her head to rest on, and where it couldn't be seen.

"And what do they have that you don't?" He asked carefully, like he was trying not to scare off a small creature.

Fae sighed, features taken over by a hint of sadness, before weakly replying, "I don't even know. They just seem so...happy. Not even just happy, they're emotional in general. All of them...feel things, so easily. Why can't I?" Her eyes found his visor, pleading and fearful. "Half the time I don't feel anything at all...and whenever I do it's always so...painful. Even happiness, it's painful and it burns my brain and all I want is for it to stop. Why don't they feel the same?"

She wasn't crying, surprisingly — her voice did not crack once. It wasn't sadness she was feeling, it was confusion and exhaustion and absolute desperation. Fae didn't want tears, she wanted answers and reassurance.