Then don't go. Aviina shook her head to try and manually clear Din from her head. She'd left him weeks ago, but he still invaded her thoughts and set up camp. Aviina saw him in everything; in the breeze that kicked up the Tatooine sands and coated everything in a fine dust, in the whir of machinery in Hangar 3-5 at Mos Eisley Spaceport, and most of all in the clear night sky unsullied by light pollution. Her mood had been less than cheery, and the fact she was so affected by Din and Grogu's absence didn't brighten her spirits in the slightest.
"Are you done recalibrating that motivator yet?" Peli Motto called to Aviina from the other side of the heavy cruiser.
"I said I'm working on it," Aviina snapped. Her back was sore from how long she had been lying underneath the huge transport on the concrete floor of the docking bay. Her hands weren't trained in this trade, and so (much to Peli's dismay) it took her twice as long to complete the task.
"A blind Wookie could have done it by now," Peli muttered not so quietly.
Aviina pushed herself out from under the ship and onto her feet. She was covered in a sheen of sweat and smudged in engine grease. She glared at the older woman with frizzy hair in aggravated exhaustion. Her black tank top which did little to protect her from the sun, a fact that was evident in the pink tinge decorating her shoulders, stuck to her damp skin like a leech and it was all Aviina could do to not tear it off herself.
"Then go have a blind Wookie do it, then!" Aviina slammed the wrench in her right hand against the metal of the cruiser with a bang.
"Oh cut the theatrics. You're throwing a tantrum, like a child." Peli crossed and snatched the wrench out of Aviina's hand and placed it back on the work table. She made a clucking noise with her tongue as she inspected the sizeable dent Aviina left on the side of the ship. "You're going to fix that."
Aviina crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the work table. She stared down at her boots, the same boots that tracked thieves and murders across the galaxy. They were now covered in Tatooine sand and engine oil and seemed to stare back at her in betrayal.
"I'm sorry," she murmured to Peli. The older woman ran a hand through her frizzy hair and sighed.
"At this rate, you'll never earn enough credits to make it to Carajam," Peli said. Aviina barely had enough to feed herself, let alone make it to the outer rim. She had a bounty lined up, but no way to get out there to capture them. Aviina ran her hands across her face. "Why don't you ask Boba Fett for transport in exchange for a percentage of the credits?"
Aviina scoffed. Great idea. Let's go beg another Mandalorian for help. No, she refused to do that. Boba Fett would help her, she knew that. But he was too noble and too loyal to not call Din and tell him exactly what she was up to. Especially if she showed up like she was: dirty, exhausted, and anxious. Boba Fett would be too concerned to not call her former partner. She'd used the last of the credits she earned by killing Varlo Keene to get passage here, and she was far too prideful to rely on anyone else's help. Not after she had depended on Din so heavily for the last two years.
"So Boba Fett can turn right around and call Mando? No. I need to do this on my own."
"You don't need to be so prideful," Peli said as lowered herself to the ground and slid under the cruiser to recalibrate the motivator herself. "How you know I won't call Mando to come and get you?"
"You won't," Aviina said with a soft smile and she nudged Peli's leg sticking out from under the cruiser. "Give me something else to do."
"If you think you can manage, there's a box of parts I bought off the Jawa's last week that needs sorting," she answered from beneath the ship. Aviina pushed herself up from her work table with a slight smile at the change of pace and set off to find her task.
