RISE AGAIN ─ star wars

V. Mandalorian Sob Stories

Chapter Five
Aylin

Bo Katan and Holly fly the ship while Iris and I sit in the back, trying to make up for several weeks apart. We're sitting side by side, our hands linked between us, with my head resting on her shoulder.

"Is it difficult? Seeing Leera again?" Iris asks me after a beat of silence.

I was wondering when she would be brought up. "Yes and no. It brings back a lot of memories, but I'm mostly glad to see her. I feel like it was meant to be."

"How so?"

I lift my head from her shoulder and sit straighter, looking down at our linked hands as I dive into the complicated story of Leera and I.

"We had both been fighting for the same bounty, that's how she and I met. We decided to work together to complete the mission, and since it went so well, we decided to work together permanently. We were excellent partners, and it was because she and I were so much alike. Our parents were both from Death Watch, we both escaped Mandalore, we had the same temper, same drive, same stubbornness, and the same outlook on life, the same mentality of just focusing on ourselves and not meddling with the galaxy."

"Because you didn't want to end up like your parents." Iris finishes for me, her fingers tightening around mine.

I nod, continuing on after a sigh through my nose. "Our similar backgrounds and personalities maybe made us good partners, but it didn't make us a good couple. We fought all the time, and it just kept getting worse and worse. It got to a point where we couldn't be in the same room without arguing. One day I just couldn't take it anymore, I broke up with her and left."

"Did you love her?" She asks quietly.

"I thought I did," I bring our combined hands up and kiss the back of her hand, then her cheek. "But the truth is, I didn't know what love was until I met you. I would be lost without you...like Leera is now. That's why I think us meeting again was meant to happen. She's me if I had never met you, and I think her spending time with us, being apart of this rebellion...it can do for her what you did for me. She deserves the same happiness I found with you."

Iris lets go of my hand and cups my cheek, brushing her lips gently with mine. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her closer, deepening the kiss, feeling her hands slip down to my shoulders, which she uses to gently tug herself away, but only a little, her nose still brushes mine. "I love you, too. And I admire you trying to help Leera, it's a testament to your large heart."

I kiss her again, rubbing my hands up the length of her spine. "I just hope she sees this opportunity for happiness and takes it."

"She will, she just needs time."

"We may not have a lot of that left. Taking back Mandalore will be difficult, it's possible none of us will make it out of this."

"That's quite the optimistic attitude you have."

I push against her forehead gently and kiss her nose. "I'm not the one to go to for optimism, that's Holly's job."

Iris chuckles gently before dropping her voice into a whisper. "It will all work out. With Leera, with Mandalore, all of it. I won't accept any other outcome."