Vibrant Eyes | Din Djarin

25: A

Din followed Kuiil outside, glancing back worriedly. 

He turned around the corner to the image of Venus hunched over another steaming cup of tea. Of course, he'd advised Kuiil not to leave her alone, but the creature had waved him off and left without another word. Which left him with no choice but to follow and leave Venus to her own devices.

A terrifying thought.

Din followed at a respectful distance, compensating for the Ugnaught's meandering pace, as they approached the blurrg corral. He slowed to a stop and looked out into the sky, once again marveling in the dusky hues of blues and yellows that dusted the horizon. A hand rested lightly on one of the ropes surrounding the approaching blurrgs. They stopped before their owner with enthusiasm and he reached in to give them affectionate pats between their eyes at the forefront of their large heads.

Din tilted his helmet down at him. "I'm sorry about your blurrgs."

Kuiil grunted. "As am I."

"I wouldn't have asked you to come if I knew."

"Knew what, exactly?" Kuiil asked, leaning down to reach a hand into the pen. One of them began to eat from his palm.

Din didn't have anything specific in mind. Actually, he was just sorry about all of it. The blurrgs, the threat on his life and freedom, the fear that engulfed the past two days. All of it.

He shrugged and shifted on his feet.

"It makes no difference."

Din paused and turned his way. "How so?"

"I would have come regardless." Kuiil withdrew his hand from the corral and stepped back to look up at Din. He nodded to himself. "I have seen the other side. Serving of my own will against that which entraps the unfortunate in servitude and slavery proved worth any pain of my own."

"Even if we lost?"

"We did not."

"But if we did?"

"No difference," he repeated resolutely with a hum. He pulled something from his pocket and then paused. "To give my life to it in a cause against them would be to dishonor the servitude my clan was placed under. The greatest honor of my long life."

Din nodded, thinking it over. He admired Kuiil, more than he thought he ever had anyone apart from the Armorer. It would have been a waste of many talents and sentiments if Kuiil really had died back on Nevarro. If he remembered correctly, he almost did.

He just didn't recall anyone saying why he didn't.

Kuiil stuck his clenched fist out. "Give me your hand," he ordered.

Din hesitated.

"Now."

Hesitantly, he did.

Kuiil grasped it in his other hand to hold it steady and settled his fist into his palm. Slowly, like sifting sand, he transferred whatever he held to Din. When he pulled back, Din looked into his palm to find a sort of grain collecting in the grooves of his orange-tipped gloves. 

Wordlessly, he lifted his visor back up to Kuiil.

The creature grunted.

Din glanced at the grain in his hand again. "What do I do with this?" he asked, unsure and lost.

"You feed the blurrg."

"Why?"

"You wish to apologize about those lost on Nevarro."

"Yes."

"Apologize to their sisters."

"With grain?"

"Food is a resource. It keeps one alive in a way the lost are not. You will repay with life for life."

Din glanced at the blurrgs that might have been eyeing him. Except he couldn't really tell. Their eyes were humongous, they kind of reminded him of frogs, and their bodies were just one misshapen lump. And was that one shuffling its tiny front legs?

"I'm not—"

Kuiil cut him off, standing taller with a lifted chin. "I have spoken."

That usually meant the conversation was over.

Din heaved a sigh and reluctantly turned to face the blurrg. One shuffled his way, and he watched its open mouth warily, hand clenching around the grains. Slowly, hoping he wasn't cutting off his hand in doing this more or less willingly, he put his hand in its mouth and let the grains fall into its throat. The moment he finished he wrenched his hand back, just barely avoiding getting chomped as the blurrg began to chew happily.

Din took a step back and turned to Kuiil.

The Ugnaught nodded his approval.

He just looked out into the horizon once more.

After a moment, Kuiil broke the hesitant silence. "Ask," he said.

Din looked at him. "Ask what?"

"The question you wonder."

"How did you know?"

"Why did you join me out here?"

Din gestured to the blurrgs. "To apologize."

Kuiil paused and gestured in the opposite direction towards his home and the woman within. "Where she cannot hear?"

Din didn't answer, falling into silence.

He hadn't even realized it himself entirely but... yeah. It was so she wouldn't hear. So he could ask without her infuriating vagueness muddying any answer he managed to glean. Too many things had slipped past him in the past couple days.

He intended to get at least one answer before they moved on, whether she came along or not.

"Ask."

Din sighed. "How did you survive?"

What exactly transcribed leading up to the moment that IG-11 and Venus came tearing into the square?

"Do you know what happened that day?"

"No."

"Then you wouldn't know that the Child was captured."

Din froze. "He was?"

"Yes." Kuiil nodded, crouching down to feed another blurrg. "What did you know of my safety?"

"IG-11 said you were... compromised."

"And your friend?"

Friend? Did he mean Venus? Was she... maybe. Yes? No. 

He didn't know.

"Vague."

"How so?"

"Your heart was still beating."

"That is Ira."

"Yeah," Din breathed, the faintest sensation of heat crawling up his neck. A similar, less aggravating warmth engulfed his ears. "It is."

Taking a breath and turning to face him, Kuiil said, "I was attacked. Two troopers on speeders approached from behind and took the child when I fell. IG and Ira followed. I stayed behind to heal."

"Why didn't they kill you?"

"They tried."

Confusion flooded his chest. "What stopped them?"

"I was saved."

"IG-11?"

Kuiil simply shook his head.

Din froze and stared at the home in the sand. At the woman within. At the mystery that was ever unfolding before him.

Venus.