Vibrant Eyes | Din Djarin

11: of

"Wanna make a bet?" Cara asked.

"How much?"

"Twenty credits."

Din clasped her gloved hand in his. "Deal," he said.

On the count of three, they began.

For minutes they teetered back and forth and his arm began to shake. Cara was strong, much stronger than he'd thought she would be. The tattoo on her bicep called to the dim lighting and called attention to itself as the muscle became prominent with every passing moment. He was so focused on their hands, the pressure on his elbow, and the burn in his bicep that the heat on the back of his neck faded away.

He forgot entirely about the infuriatingly useless woman watching him, knowing him, and didn't even notice when she left her seat.

Cara grimaced and her arm shook. "I got you, Mando," she grunted.

Wishful thinking.

His arm shook, too, when he huffed back, "Care to double the bet?"

Her eyes went wide before she could say anything else, and her grip loosened. She blinked rapidly down at the surface beneath their elbows. Din paused, watching her dark brows draw close together in confusion and... discomfort? But of what?

Then there was movement at his side and, just as Cara released him, Venus flicked the Child's ear.

Cara's hands fell before they could clutch at her throat and she huffed in relief, like she'd been choking. Din focused on the Child who lowered a small hand half-curled into a fist, the wrinkles on his face defined more than normal just before they faded along with his concentration. Concentration which Venus broke.

"What—" coughed Cara. "What the hell was that?"

Din just stared at the pair.

Stared as Venus scooped the Child into her arms and met its eyes dead on, nothing but absolute certainty and seriousness in the set of her lips and her lowered brows. The kid had the decency to look a little ashamed, big eyes staring at her and then Din. He didn't look long when she gave him a little jolt.

Instead of the usual hushed murmurs Venus spoke to it with, her voice was loud enough for all of them to hear. And solid enough for all of them to notice. 

Sure enough to believe. 

"You know better," she said.

The kid babbled incomprehensibly.

Venus shook her head, strands of dark hair settling over her eyes and yet she paid them no mind. "Never."

The other three simply looked on, too shocked at the solidity of her mind, her movements, and her words to dare say anything to break the spell.

The kid squirmed in her hands. The only reason Din let her keep him was because he saw the soft touch she retained. She obviously knew how to hold a child and he... trusted her. In that moment, he trusted her entirely.

He also realized he was doing an awful job of actually ignoring her. Not that he ever could.

"Even still."

"What was he..." Din trailed off, regretting breaking the silence when pale eyes landed on him.

She didn't answer him, gesturing her head to Cara instead.

"He... choked me?" she said, unsure and a little outraged.

Kuiil wandered up to their sides, peering at the Child as Venus wordlessly transferred him from her hands to Din's. Din leaned his helmet down closer to him to peer into those big, confused eyes. He was still a baby, after all.

And based on their history, maybe... maybe he...

"He's protective of you, Mando," Venus breathed, stepping back as he looked up at her and then back to the kid.

He didn't know what to say for a moment. "Cara is a friend. A friend," he reiterated seriously, urging the kid to understand. It seemed he did to an extent, at least.

"Hmm. Very curious," Kuiil remarked.

"Curious?" Cara exclaimed. "It attacked me!"

Kuiil ignored her and looked up at Din. "The story you told me of the mudhorn now makes more sense."

Din looked between the Child, Kuiil, and even Venus whose surety slowly looked to be fading. "What is it?"

"What it is, I don't know. Your friend seems to know more about it than I do," Kuiil admitted, rocking between his feet with a shrug. "But what it does, this... this I've heard rumors of."

"What? When you worked for the Empire?"

Venus swiftly moved out from between them, going to lean against the ladder and stare at the far wall behind Din's head. 

Even as he listened to the other two bicker, he couldn't take his attention off of her. When she seemed to think no one was looking, she looked as solid and sure as any warrior he'd ever seen. There was a sag to her shoulders under the threadbare off-blue fabric of that Sorgan village and a glimmer in her eyes that might have been haunted.

Studying her then, he realized how much of her thoughts he could see in her eyes when he dared look past the pale coloration and the constant cloud. They were open and... in pain. Or, at least, reliving it.

What pain did she call her own?

"When I was sold to the Empire, in indentured servitude."

"Yet, somehow, you walk free."

"I bought my freedom through the skill of my own hands and the labor of three of your human lifetimes." Distracted as he was, Din could not miss the clack of metal as IG-11 stepped forward to stand in silent support at its master's back. "Do not cast doubt upon that of what I am nor whom I shall serve."

As Cara stared down the droid with growing animosity, even more than he held towards it, Din tore his attention back to the Child and slowly lowered it into the container, racking his mind for ideas. He wasn't one of many words, so the very fact that he was trying to think of something to say to break up the tension made it that much harder.

"Tell you what," he managed, pointing at Kuiil. He turned away to maneuver the kid into the container to distract himself from the turn of tension onto him, as well as those pain-filled eyes floating back into the present. "I could really use your craftwork right now."

The kid cooed at him.

"Can you pad this container so the Child can sleep better?"

Kuiil contemplated it as he gave the kid a pat. "I shall fabricate a better one. Then perhaps this Dropper can see how one can win their freedom with the skill of one's hands."

Having said his piece, Kuiil turned his back on them, and Cara watched him walk away with a dark glower.