A Life Without Meaning

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕤𝕙𝕒𝕝 (𝕀)

Ellia hissed slightly in pain as one of the wires she was holding in her hand sparked, shocking the pad of her fingers. She was currently elbow deep into one of the wall panels of the Razorcrest's cockpit.

Huffing in frustration, she continued on with her work.

"I swear to god, this compressor is going to be the death of me." she mumbled, stripping the end of another wire. "The amount of times I've had to fix it."

From the pilot's chair, there came a scoff.

"Maybe it just doesn't like you." Din's voice sounded nonchalantly as he flicked some switches on the control panel.

Ellia paused, looking over her shoulder pointedly towards the Mandalorian. In her silence, he turned his seat around to face her. The corner of her lips twitched upwards slightly involuntarily,

"Cute" she muttered sarcastically in response to his joke. Rolling her eyes, she quickly went back to rewiring the compressor, mainly to lower their chances of exploding into a thousand pieces the next time they made a hyperspace jump.

It had been quite a while since the events on Nevarro, and the odd group had spent the entire time traveling, searching all corners of the galaxy for any scrap of a lead that could help them on their way to bringing the child to his people; the Jedi.

With no more bounty hunters on their tail, Ellia would dare to say that things were a little bit more...peaceful. While they did spend most of their time on board the Crest, only making occasional stops for fuel and food, it was still the most normal Ellia had felt in, well, as long as she could remember.

From the front of the cockpit, Ellia heard Din stand up from the pilot's chair. He made his way to the door, presumably to clamber down into the hull. But with the space so- unspacious, he was forced to brush past where Ellia was standing working on the compressor. His hands absentmindedly holding onto her waist as he shuffled on by.

Ellia was frozen where she stood, but at that point, Din was already far gone. She blew a strand of hair out of her face, taking a short break.

Ever since Nevarro, the masked warrior had been a lot more liberal with the way that he acted around her. If they were inside the Crest, his gloves were never on. He was a lot more conversational, a lot more open with stories of his past, and he laughed a lot more too. Most notably however, he seemed a lot less hesitant to touch her.

And every time, without fail, every time he so much as bumped her shoulder, it felt as if her entire body was on fire.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts before they began to spiral again, she was quick to get back to her work.

. . .

Din had come to the conclusion that if he found other Mandalorian's, they could help put them on the correct path. And after jumping from system to system, they had caught wind that an Abyssin named Gor Koresh had information on where one might be located.

They docked on the outskirts of a gambling-ridden spaceport in the dead of the system's night.

The Razorcrest needed some work, so Ellia opted to stay behind and sort out some of the repairs herself.

"Are you sure you want to bring him along?" Ellia called down from the top of the ramp as she watched the two other members of her clan heading for the planet's surface. "I can always watch him."

Din looked back up with a shake of his head,

"I think it's better for him to breathe some non-recycled air for a while."

Ellia sighed, but nodded her agreement,

"Alright." she said, "Be careful" she added, a phrase she frequented now more than ever when the Mandalorian was to leave her gaze for a moment too long.

He sent his own nod back to her, before turning back around. He and the child, floating safely in his cradle, disappeared into the shadows.

Sighing to herself, Ellia threw her cleaning cloth over her shoulder before turning to walk down the ramp herself and check on the landing gear.

An hour or so passed, and when she cleared the mechanics outside the ship, which were not perfect, but would certainly set them down safely enough, she moved on to re-oil the gears of the ramp.

Knelt down at the top of the incline, she heard the distant sound of a high pitched scream. She lifted up her head a moment, just in time to see both Din and the child re-emerging back into the light of the port, walking casually as if they were somehow deaf to the screams behind them.

Pressing her lips together, she closed the cap on the oil can before slowly rising to her feet, just in time to greet the two as they walked and floated up the ramp.

"I don't suppose-"

"-that I had anything to do with that?" Din finished for her, coming to a stop directly in front of where she stood.

Elia rolled her eyes, grabbing the rag off of her shoulder to clear her palms of oil spots.

"Did you get the information at least before...whatever it is you did this time?" she asked intently.

"I did" Din replied, moving past her and into the hull. "Setting course for Tatooine." he called out over his shoulder.

Ellia let out an unintentional groan as she hit the button on the wall panel to close the ramp, which it did with much less of a painful squeak than before.

"Of all the planets in the galaxy..." she muttered to herself as the ramp sealed shut.

. . .