Vibrant Eyes | Din Djarin

36: beginning.

They returned to town the next day. Din didn't think the attention they received could get any worse. But it did.

Men and women seemed posted at every doorway, latching onto him the moment they walked back into town. Today Ira carried Grogu, clutching the strap of the bag close to her chest under the large brown cloak upon her shoulders (apparently it was a Jedi cloak?). 

The plan was to stake out the town once more, find good vantage places, and then return to the ship to drop the kid off.

When they found the town informant to the local warlord, Ira would use her abilities to do something that would send him running for his leader. They'd hopefully have enlisted the help of the locals by then to ambush the leader and his group upon their arrival. Then they'd force them out of town, giving them the choice to wander into the freezing forests at all sides or out of the one safe entrance, which happened to be the forests where they'd entered.

From there the warlord and his lackeys could find another town or a ship to leave the planet.

But, like most of his plans, it really didn't turn out that way. 

It was of no fault of their own, it was at fault only to their misguided views on the people in town. Because people were notoriously selfish and self-serving everywhere in the galaxy. These were no different.

And Din managed to miss the young man that slipped away from town just as they entered.

They spent the next hour talking to the locals, just as with the day before. No matter how he tried, he couldn't escape the attention of the locals. Even Ira became an accomplice to this unwanted scorn or greed. The only difference between them became the kid at her hip.

When they noticed him, Grogu offered her more leeway from most, if not all of them, and a barrier between whatever danger they could pose to Din. He soon became very glad for it.

Just before they decided to head back to the ship and leave Grogu there, the town fell silent. It was the kind of silent that shouldn't have been, the one he knew all too well. Din's skin prickled with alarm and he turned to Ira to pull her close where she could be safe.

But she wasn't. 

The women she'd been talking to before lunged forward without preamble. They trapped her arms by her sides and held her close, thrashing and looking around wildly. Alarm morphed her expression into something truly horrifying as they dragged her back. They showed no signs of regret or give, but he saw the wide berth they gave the bag hanging at her side. 

The bag from which Grogu began to cry. 

The sound pierced through the air and snapped Din into action.

Din swore everything within him stopped and he lurched forward, his heart beating their names. Beating solely to keep them safe, to take her from their holds and tuck her into his. But then arms grabbed at him, and he was wrestled to the ground, the wood of the store's porch smarting against his knees. As he struggled, they turned him to face the street and away from Ira.

Din swiveled his head to catch glances of the men holding him down, their eyes dark and regretful yet unyielding. One eyed him with that same intensity, the one of greed and desperation.

And it began to dawn on him what exactly they'd walked right into.

"You let her go," he said icily, His voice lowered with anger and fear and intent, made harsher by his modulator. "Or you won't be walking out of here alive."

One of them jolted him and muttered, "Your lady friend'll be alright. The kid, too."

He didn't miss the way they excluded him from that claim.

"Then let her go," he growled.

Din was left facing the street filled with people, all looking at him, as the man fell silent. A moment later he could hear the unmistakable sound of a lulling hum. He relaxed a fraction, straining his ears to listen to Ira murmuring to Grogu and silencing his cries. As well as when she snapped at a woman who tried to touch them.

It made him smile for a brief moment.

Then, the attention turned away.

As if in synchronized movement, the people gathered before the porch they stood on looked to the entrance of the street and cleared a path. Din only had to wait a moment and then a tall, round man strode down the center, flanked by dozens of bandits. Every piece of clothing they wore was nicer than the whole of the city had and each had at least one weapon strapped across his person.

Din's breath grew shallow with anger and fear as the warlord stopped before him.

The man grinned. "Hello, Mandalorian."

Din stayed silent and glared.

"Huh," the man mused, sharing a glance with another at his side. "Are all of you this quiet?"

He said nothing.

"Guess third time's not the charm, then."

Everyone in the square laughed alongside him when he did and Din froze. No. He didn't want to believe it.

He lunged forward. "What did you do?" he hissed.

The laughter cut off and the man raised his eyebrows at him, his smirk cruel and horrid. "So you do speak. Even when I took those precious helmets from your friends, they kept their silence. They didn't say a word until they couldn't," the man crooned, sickeningly sweet. "I was beginning to think that was a thing you did."

The rage and the horror he felt could not be explained. It was a raging fire and a storming tempest, and yet not. More and less, earthshaking all the same.

He removed their helmets. Then killed them in their unwilling dishonor.

Ira whispered something in the background of the silence that befell him.

The warlord ran an eye over him. "Yours will be a wonderful addition."

When Din lunged again, wishing for nothing than to see this man dead, the crowd filled with cruel laughter. He could barely think. Not past the fear and anger and the worry.

But he could hear Ira say in a voice of nothing and everything, "You will kill as many of your oppressors as you can."

A woman scoffed. "As if he would ever—"

"I will kill as many of my oppressors as I can."

Then the world exploded into chaos.

Blaster shots fired from behind him, colliding into the chests of the bandits. They dropped to the ground and the shots continued as men and women alike shouted, ducking for cover and firing back. Some raised blades and did their best to deflect the shots that came at them.

The men holding him loosened their holds enough that Din could twist to see behind him.

Just in time to see a man being tackled to the ground and stabbed through the heart. Just in time to see Ira swipe a hand at those around her and send them flying. Enough to see the fire blazing in her brilliant eyes as they focused on him, and silence fell as heavy as the fog she mastered long ago.

No one stopped her. No one was quick enough. Because in just one moment she'd unclipped her lightsaber from her waist and ignited it.

It burned at the air itself with a threatening hum of violet light.

But none more dangerous than her when she hummed alongside it with a voice of endlessness, "Let him go."