Breakaway ---The Mandalorian

Chapter 7: Balance

The end of the year on Alpha Cetus was rapidly coming to an end. Decorations had begun to appear in the shops lining main street near the refugee hospital. The hospital was located in the North of the planet, in an isolated area away from the capitol city. It was a small town called Crater Valley and the celebrations for the new year were quite spectacular. This meant that the hospital would wind down to a skeleton crew, discontinue new patient orientation and send most of their staff home. Clara often offered to work over the holidays, but this year she decided she needed a bit of a break. If anything she could catch up on the mountain of books she had on her reading list and spend some time skiing in the mountains. Clara had to attend the local new years' celebration, due to the fact that she was a high ranking hospital worker, but she would try to be alone for the remainder of the holiday.

Preparing for the New Years party was always a hassle. The party was a notorious drunken debacle with everyone in town letting off steam. The drink of choice was a sour fermented beverage from a local berry. It was harvested in early spring and spent the summer months fermenting in pots underground. By the time the dead of winter rolled around the process was complete and the Punsch was ready to be consumed. For the past two years Clara was forbidden from imbibing in the beverage and had to attend the party sober while everyone else sank deeper into intoxication. She often would attend during the early hours and then slip away at night back to her home. This year Clara was uncertain how she wanted to attend the party. Her mandatory attendance in AA kept her under a close eye, but her gut was telling her that she wanted to partake in the party. Clara decided to shelve those decisions for later and see how the party was going. The first order of business was finding a costume.

Din had fallen into a rhythm in the refugee housing. He woke up every morning in the tiny apartment to a dark sky above. The moon was bright in the morning but the sun didn't rise until later in the day. He made breakfast for Grogu and himself from the food rations. He had started to grow attached to a new hot brewed beverage called coffee. On Nevarro, the thought of drinking anything warm felt impossible. Here on Alpha Cetus in the dead of winter, hot beverages had become his favorite. The kick of caffeine in the morning and the smooth flavor had won him over. He found himself looking forward to drinking it each morning. After dropping off Grogu, Din would set out in search for parts for his ship or work on his armor. He had acquired a new, but lower quality, winter jacket and had become proficient at bartering for what he needed. It seemed that at the refugee camp there was little to no money that changed hands. He learned to trade his work for parts, and how to repair parts to trade later. He found he had some qualified mechanical skills that made him quickly valuable at camp. Initially, the other refugees were wary of him and his head covering, but soon they got used to not seeing his face. He had earned many of the residents' trust over time and had started to look forward to seeing them.

The dynamic at the camp was very different than the covert. The covert was a family but fiercely competitive. Every day was spent training and battling. The constant fighting was tiring and members of the covert spent much of their down time alone. Since they couldn't remove their armor in front of each other, they would retire to their private rooms at night instead of socializing. Here at the camp, he lived in very close quarters with many people. They often ate together, went for walks, and the children played games in the streets. He was invited over to other camp members houses to drink and socialize. He found the desire to remove his head covering was becoming stronger each day. He had regularly begun to question the nature of his creed and to what benefit it provided him in this situation. The revelation of his first love's death, Elena, had also made him question his devout beliefs. At a point in his life Din had chosen love over his covert. However, after her death he had thrown himself wholeheartedly into his creed. The conflict was weighing heavily on his mind and distracted him from his work. He had yet to find a way to get into the collectors ball and the date of the event was fast approaching. He decided to begin to ask around the camp for someone who may know about it.