The Beauty Found In Silence

The One Where You Scared Me

When morning came around, the only warning of Mando leaving was the sound of the hull's gate opening. He didn't say anything before leaving for the town and hadn't even mentioned the child he had left lying on my stomach. The little booger was already playing with my necklace, chewing on it with an adorable gnawing sound.

"Good morning," I groaned, and the child tilted his head. He cooed joyously and threw his hands out for my face, planting his clawed hands on my cheeks and squishing them. "It's good to see you too," I joked.

I sat up with the child in my arms, and he quickly came to rest in the crook of my arm. Standing, I brushed off my clothes, already regretting not changing before I had gone to bed. I needed to clean up, but I didn't want to traumatize the kid by bringing him with me. I set him down in the furthest end of the hull, only hoping that he would stay in place for a long enough moment.

Taking the chance, I washed quickly in the refresher. Only once did I have to contemplate running outside completely in the nude. I had opened the door to an empty hull and panicked when he was gone. He was simply toying with one of my belt buckles in a corner, so I had a few seconds to spare before he wandered to toy with something else.

I changed quickly into fresher clothes, running my dirty ones under the refresher water and scrubbing them clean. I hung them near the door to dry, and thankfully the wind wasn't too strong to blow them away.

For not knowing how to properly shoot a blaster, or throw a punch without breaking a thumb, it wasn't the smartest idea for me to drag the kid along inside his cradle. Mando had been to this planet a few times—as well as currently—so the floating metal egg wasn't exactly unrecognizable. He fit in Mando's satchel just fine, though, so it wasn't a problem.

The walk into town was terrible on the ankles. The constant moving sand beneath the weight of my feet was making me step at odd angles. Each time my heel landed, it felt like my shins were being stabbed by my ankle bone. The idea of the Razor Crest's grated metal floor had never sounded so enticing.

The small shops lining the streets were quaint but perfect enough to have enough food to restock the Razor Crest before our next haul. The kid had a lot of fun collecting all of the stuff in his arms, but keeping him from eating it all was difficult. It wasn't too much to last us over a week, but it was enough to snack on until we could stop and gather what we needed (information, food, clothing, etc.) for the next bounty.

The people of Tatooine gave me odd looks out of the corners of their eyes, surely noticing that I was not from this planet. I made sure to keep the child tucked close to me, just in case. But I couldn't help but let him stick his head out of the satchel to have a look around.

I was walking back to the Razor Crest when I heard yelling.

Abruptly, a gloved hand clamped over my mouth. An arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me into an armored body and dragging me behind a column. I tried to scream, but the leather glove muffled any sound that tried to escape from my mouth.

"Quiet," a voice hissed into my ear. It was modulated and raspy, and my heart started beating again as I realized who it was.

"Mando?" I tried to force out, but it only came out as a muffled gasp.

The hand over my mouth tightened in answer.

A fight was happening down the street. Two individuals were brawling—one of them looking like the local law enforcement of this planet—and three others were hurrying away.

They were just a few paces away when Mando's arm around my waist tightened, pulling me closer into his front and my head further back onto his shoulder. It was oddly intimate, but I knew he was doing it to keep me and the kid hidden from the ones looking for him. If that wasn't the case, I would've been a flustered mess.