Chapter Text
You’d been running for most of the morning, since you’d spied that glimmer in the marketplace. The marketplace had been a mistake, you should have stayed away until sundown. This entire plan hinged on the details but you were so close; you couldn't help wanting to be near people when the sun set, even if they were strangers.
He couldn’t move as quickly through the dense undergrowth as you could and you knew the trails that wove through these hills, they’d been your home these past several months.
Nearly six months. You reminded yourself. But why was he following you? It didn’t make sense; you knew his standing with the Guild was higher than this; he had his choice of bounties and it gnawed at you that he was here, chasing after a runaway slave-- the lowest of the low quarries.
Not for much longer, though. You smirked and jumped across a stream, powering up the steep hill on the opposite side. You glanced back to make sure he still trailed you and saw a flicker of movement in the trees. Your mind trailed away to the first time you’d met him.
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Geonosis. You’d been with Darien almost five years at that point; the man who’d salvaged your contract after you’d been separated on Tatooine from your previous owner. He’d recognized right away the resource he’d found in you. Salvaging an abandoned slave’s title was basically free and he’d found new and inventive ways to reap your value. He wasn’t unfair, simply crude and physical and… okay, abusive.
Times were hard and Darien often dropped you at the Dorm, a dormitory and cafeteria for slaves abutting a popular cantina, where you could have lodging and food-- always scraps and leftovers from paying patrons-- in exchange for labor. It wasn’t hard labor and you enjoyed the time you had to socialize with the other slaves; plus the Dorm owner had a soft spot for slaves. The Dorm served as a safe location to deposit slaves where they couldn't be abducted or salvaged during periods of absence and for Darien it was a way to save money and food while never risking his claim on you.
You’d been in the laundry one hot day, mopping your brow once again with the hem of your already drenched shirt, moving linens from one vat to another for soaking, soaping, and rinsing. It was your least favorite chore and your shoulders burned from heaving those wet bundles around.
“Y/N! There is a man here!” whispered a young girl slave, Eyrie. She’d just started her slave internship and was the lowest status of any of them in the room. You turned, pushing back a strand of your hair that had escaped your braids.
“A man…. Mandalorian!” Your brow furrowed, wondering what anyone would be doing in the slave laundry, let alone a Mandalorian. You wiped your hands on the steaming bundle of linens and walked to the doorway where he stood, the slaves nearby scattering to the edges of the room.
“This is the slave laundry.” You said simply, hoping he’d realize his mistake.
“Yes.” he replied. His voice was mechanical, hollow.
Must have a modulator in his helmet. Interesting.
“Do you… need something?” you asked hesitantly.
“I asked this one,” he indicated Eyrie, who ducked quickly behind you. “If I could pay for my things to be washed.”
He glanced around the room, sending nearly every slave into frantic activity to avoid eye contact-- every slave except for you and Yakka, who had been blind and nearly deaf for years now. She continued to wring handfuls of cloth and drape them across a line before cranking a handle to move the drying line further along. It hung suspended above them all, dripping and dribbling on them as they worked, like the room was raining.
It never simply rained on this planet. It was either dry or there were flash floods. Most people and businesses had water tanks that gathered the floodwater for use during dry periods, but it seemed like you were always wet when Darien dropped you at the Dorm. There was always washing to be done.
“They can’t talk to you.” You said stiltedly.
The helmet tipped back to you. For a moment, you weren’t sure where to look but you chose to stare at the warped image of yourself that lay above where his left eye would surely sit.
“You’re talking to me.”
“Yes, well I’m a higher standing than most of them. But I’m sure I’ll pay for it somehow.”
The Mandalorian clasped his hands one over another in front of himself and sighed through the modulator.
“My water reclamation unit is under repairs at the hangar.” he said finally, bringing the conversation back to his reason for standing in the humid building.
“This isn’t a public laundry, that’s not what we do.” You informed him, wiping a drip of water that splatted on your forehead from above.
“Do him laundry, girl!” cackled Yakka from the back. Everyone turned to her in surprise; it was impossible that she’d heard the conversation from across the room. Wasn’t it?
You sighed. Darien couldn’t technically punish you for speaking with someone-- that had been a right you earned years ago-- but he’d find some other minor transgression to give him permission to punish you.
“Alright, fine.” you held out your hand in concession.
He reached behind him and grabbed a tall duffle that had been sitting in the doorway. He slung it heavily to your side and nodded.
“What’s…”
“My uniforms…”
You both spoke at once and halted at the same time.
“Your uniforms…”
“Clothing…”
You spoke over one another again. He jerked his head in frustration and you rolled your eyes. You pointed a finger at him and said: “You first.”
“It’s mostly armorweave, base layers.” he said simply, pointing again at the duffle bag in question.
“Okay.” you said simply but he continued to stand there.
“Anything else?” your voice hitched up at the end, as though the bag at your side contained some surprise he didn’t want to tell you about.
“There may be… bloodstains.” he shifted his weight from one foot to another.
“Do him laundry!” Yakka’s voice sung out again, a little laugh at the end. You looked automatically over your shoulder and saw the milky eyes squinting in your direction.
“When…”? The modulated voice brought you around again.
“Uh, a couple hours if you don’t need it dry. Tomorrow otherwise.”
He nodded and was gone, leaving you blinking at the place where he’d stood. A drop landed on your nose and you swiped it away with frustration, snatching the heavy bundle and lugging it back to the wash station.
Darien returned for you that evening-- after your meal, conveniently. There’d been enough talk of the Mandalorian in the laundry that he simply assumed you’d been involved and he took to smacking your thighs and back for walking “too slowly” and then “too quickly” as you returned to his plot of land outside of town.
That night Darien came to your thin pallet tucked into a corner of the shack and gripped your neck, above the slave’s torc you always wore, whispering those hateful things you knew he was saying to someone else. You were his conduit to his past, giving him the chance to have the upper hand in the hurtful experiences of his life. You didn’t know who he hated so much but he poured it into you just to relieve himself of the burden.
Your mind was on the armorweave, Darien’s voice fading into background noise. Indeed there were bloodstains on several pieces-- of a variety of colors-- but you were thinking of the yellow dust crushed into one shirt, the smears of green from vegetation, mud ground into the thighs of a pair of pants, signs of distant planets you’d never see.
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You tucked one leg and fairly slid down a muddy embankment to the ravine bottom, where you trotted swiftly downstream, knowing this would likely throw off the Mandalorian’s ability to track you. You wondered for a moment if this was what it was like for him, trailing after quarry as they led him through the wringer trying to escape. It was kind of thrilling for you, a real throwback to your old life on your home planet where you trained as a teenager to both seek and evade.
He had to know it was you, didn’t he? You picked up the pace and slid down a boulder face into a pool of water set in a grotto with a trail you knew well which led into the rocky mountainside above. You pulled yourself, soaking and breathing a little heavier, from the water and strode into the thick ferns, shaking your braids over your shoulder.
Why was he after you? The others you'd evaded over the past months had been low-tier Guild members; newbies vying for their first official quarry. They’d been easy to lose in the dense jungle and sprawl of swampland. You knew Darien’s bounty for you couldn’t be enough to interest the Mandalorian so… he had to know it was you. Right?
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For months, you and Darien worked his land from sunup to sundown, sweating irritably in the heat, hauling buckets of tepid water from the tanks to the rows of sprouting plants. Harvest had always been difficult on the planet but Darien must have been under more pressure than usual as he planned out extra rows, which took even more time to tend and water reserves, which he didn’t have. You fell into bed at the end of the day as bone tired as you’d ever felt. The beasts of burden Darien had owned to help with farming had been sold off earlier that year and the manual labor fell on you both.
To be fair, you never starved without him. Darien was cruel but he shared what he had and dropped you at the Dorm when you grew hollow-eyed.
You’d broken a tool today while using it-- no fault of your own; most of the tools and pieces of equipment were held together by optimism-- and Darien snapped, taking out his anger and anxiety on your body. He didn’t often break the skin but today he split your lip and left you with a growing bruise under one eye. And that was just what could be seen outside of your clothing.
It was no worse than you’d had growing up. You’d done it tough but it was to make you tough. And you were. That didn’t make Darien’s treatment right but it did mean you could take it better than anyone.
The Dorm owner, a kindly Rhodian whose skin yellowed with age, brought you a plate of food with a smattering of items from the buffet he’d had out earlier. He rested a hand lightly on your shoulder before leaving you in peace. You picked at the food thoughtfully, running your tongue over the split on your lip.
A flash from outside the open door caught your eye.
“Hey!” you called without thinking. “Mandalorian!”
His steps faltered in the dusty street and that T-shaped black visor turned to look directly at the doorway. Any other person wouldn’t be able to see into the dark interior through the searing sunlight outside but the Mandalorian turned his shoulders in your direction with a slight nod. You stepped away from the rough table and stood in the doorway, shading your eyes.
“You look clean.” you said with a smile, though he’d surely gone through the clothing you’d washed months ago. Actually, his armor was quite a bit shinier than when you’d seen him last; he'd had several upgrades in the past few months.
“Thank you. You were gone when I came back.”
“Yeah, domestic slave.” you shrugged casually.
His helmet fixed on you and you suddenly felt conscious of the markings on your face. You tilted your head down, staring at your feet.
“Y/N!” The Rhodian called from deep in the Dorm. There was no way he could miss you talking to the Mandalorian and, knowing what had happened to you last time, was trying to call you back before Darien had cause to repeat the treatment.
“Well, good to see you.” your eyes flicked up to the black T again. You reached up and fiddled with the end of one of your braids.
He nodded and turned to go.
“Mandalorian?” you stepped out of the doorway, just one step into the street.
He turned fully to face you, people passing between looked at the two of you curiously.
“Go somewhere… beautiful.” Your voice tilted up hopefully at the end, almost a question.
The Mandalorian hooked his thumbs along his waistline and leaned on one hip, kicking out a lazy foot as he stared at you. You remembered your black eye and drew a hand up to cover it, trying to pass the action off as shading yourself from the sun.
“Y/N!” The Rhodian was insistent and you turned to look over your shoulder.
“Coming!”
When you turned back to the street, the Mandalorian was already walking away, his cloak swinging behind him, the hem picking up powdery dust kicked up by his feet.
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Darien held you, weepy and drunk from alcohol he didn’t have the money to purchase. You couldn’t begrudge him that small comfort but you wondered once again who he was speaking to with his mumbled words and soft kisses against your bruised eye.
Your mind wandered to the Mandalorian and you wondered where he was, what people he saw, the horizons he walked towards. It wasn’t him so much as what he represented, you thought. The freedom he had to simply walk into anywhere and have no one question his right to be there. The freedom to leave when he wanted to, the conductor of his own destiny. At least one of you was free and your mind walked with him.
When the food ran low and the crop demanded all your attention, you buoyed yourself by thinking of his shining helmet and dust covered cloak stalking through the forest or crossing the sand seas, fluttering through streams of rushing water and you felt it. That little corner of your mind that still hoped was alive and well.
You were washing next to Yakka a few weeks later when your mind flipped a thought into your consciousness: the five year abandonment clause.
“Yakka, did your owner ever leave you for long?” you asked in a conversational tone, mostly convinced she wouldn’t hear you but not wanting to risk being overheard. You’d been with Darien almost six years at this point, resigned to the routine and his predictable behavior.
Yakka’s story was something the younger slaves romanticized and fawned about. She’d come under the ownership of a young man in a prominent family when she first started out as a slave. They had fallen in love and stayed together for decades; for all intents and purposes appearing to be any other married couple. He had died a few years ago and Yakka chose to wander to the laundry almost every day from her daughter’s home nearby.
She’d never changed hands, a luxury of predictability that was rare for most slaves. She'd never been abandoned or left to fend for herself. Yakka’s life was steeped in certainty and predictability, for a slave.
Your question was met with silence and you pushed the thought back firmly, reaching into the depths of the wash basin to retrieve the linens at the bottom. It would be a technicality anyway.
“Me had all the freedom me wanted.” came a reedy voice lined with steel. “You, not so much.”
You turned in surprise and met her milky eyes. She smiled, the wispy whiskers on her upper lip curling around her mouth.
“You must not be his for six months.” she whistled softly through the gap in her teeth. “Or him can claim you and you will pay for disobedience.”
“Yakka, does it count if he hasn’t abandoned me?” you murmured, eyes darting about the room nervously.
Those white eyes stared at you fully and you had the impression she could see as well as hear much better than she let on.
“Him left you in the street, eh? No say when him return!”
Your spine went cold. Were you really considering this? Technically, the owner was supposed to drop you inside the Dorm and confirm your stay with the owner but you and Darien had been through this routine so many times that he'd simply parted from you in the street, assuming you'd do it yourself. But technically...
You’d been furious to be sold into slavery after the spice mines and had gathered any and all intel you could over the years which might possibly help you break free. The five-year clause established a slave’s dedication to service-- basically absolving them of fault if their owner died or otherwise abandoned them for a period of six months without written permission, after which time the slave could file for freedom. It didn’t technically say where they had to be abandoned.
You were silent the rest of the day, fighting to still your jittery limbs and calm your stomach. Yakka took you by the arm as she toddled off from the laundry and you called back that you were going to walk her to her daughter’s house; it wasn’t uncommon for her to commandeer a chaperone. The old woman took a right turn when she should have gone left, to home.
“Yakka,” you said loudly, slowing your steps. “Yakka, your home is the other way.”
She growled and tugged your arm sharply, dragging you with her down the street toward the hangar. Where did old people get that strength from?
You walked slowly, trudging along to the shuffling steps of the old woman next to you. She’d lived here nearly all her life so perhaps she didn’t need to see to know when she arrived at the hangar on the edge of town. There were several ships in port, their crew milling around the bays and strolling through town.
“Choose one and go.” the old woman pointed a gnarled finger at the hangar.
You took a sharp inhale, your heart beat so quickly you thought it would flutter up your throat and out of your mouth. Yakka released your arm with a little toss, as though pushing you forward.
“Go. Go now!”
Dank ferrik.
You took a few hesitant steps and turned again to face her. She shuffled forward, finger pointing again to the hangar behind you.
“You don’t come back before six months. Go!”
Your head spun and you took a shaky step to steady yourself.
“Yakka…” you began, glancing at the crew members trickling past.
“Yakka knows.” the wrinkles deepened on her face as she sobered. “Now go.” Yakka turned on her spindly legs and tottered in a shockingly straight line in the direction of her home, back bowed with age but still strong as ever.
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You’d stowed away on the first ship, bought passage by agreeing to rewire the cooling system on the second, and won a bet in a seedy bar for passage on the third ship, which had dropped you on Dagobah, in the Outer Rim. The humid climate took some getting used to, you’d felt like you were drowning for the first few weeks but you had to be grateful for the plentiful fresh water.
You lived as far outside of civilization as possible, only skirting towns when you really needed something; never drawing too much attention to yourself and hardly speaking to anyone lest you reveal your accent. Your clothing was worn through in places, ragged, but still hanging on somehow. You’d come across a hooded cloak that had probably blown off a drying rack somewhere but it wasn’t technically stealing, you reasoned as you tossed it over your shoulders. It didn’t stop the rain but it was warm even when wet.
The hill you were climbing was long, steep, and full of rocks that slid out from underfoot if you stepped too heavily. You smiled, imagining the weight of Beskar on the Mandalorian’s body. It would slow him down significantly. Just a few more hours.
Dank ferrik.
The Mandalorian had a new toy, apparently.
A jetpack.
There was nowhere else for you to go besides up the trail or down. Up was decidedly slower than down. You turned on a heel and fairly threw yourself back down the trail, kicking up rocks and causing a minor landslide to follow your churning legs as you pelted down the mountainside. Above you, the Mandalorian banked, attempting to cut you off before the trail disappeared into the impenetrable forest below.
He descended toward the trail below you, cutting you off from that line of escape.
You went off trail and half tumbled through ferns and vines that twisted around your feet, which ached after being on the chase for so long. You fell forward once and tumbled head over toes several times, sprawling up against a tree trunk before you could scramble to your feet once more. You could hear the jetpack above you but you were closing in on the forest floor.
No sooner had you vaulted a log into the treeline than the Mandalorian landed and joined in on foot pursuit. The thrill of the chase coursed through you, your legs stretched long and pummeled the earth as you shifted into a new gear and pulled away from him. You risked a glance over your shoulder and spied the Mandalorian in full sprint behind you. This was your element; on foot, you could beat nearly anyone.
A left turn at the horizontal tree with ferns growing off the top. A right at the hollow stump. And straight into the mud flat.
Your feet squelched into ankle-deep mud and you skidded a long strip before righting yourself and digging your bare toes into the earth for purchase. The mud should slow him down enough for you to pull away again.
Only a few more hours till sunset!
A flash of movement caught your eye as an elephoth turned heavily and, missing you by a hair, caught the struggling Mandalorian full on with a thick foreleg. He bounced off the animal’s appendage and landed sprawling on his back in the mud. You could have laughed-- it was the first completely graceless movement you’d witnessed from the Mandalorian-- but the elephoth advanced. Though usually not a threatening beast, the elephoth was large enough to cause a lot of damage if you frightened it, or if it had young-- which this one did. It was already picking up its thick legs to trample the Mandalorian, who was slithering to his feet too slowly.
“Fuck.” You spat, skidding to a stop and sprinting instead toward the Mandalorian mired in the muck.
The helmet jerked up at you as you launched yourself at him, tackling him into a roll that carried both of you just out of the elephoth’s first stomping frenzy. You craned your neck back to follow the beast as it wavered, swinging its head ponderously in an attempt to find you with its tiny red eyes.
Wham!
A hand latched onto your neck and threw you onto your back in the mud. The Mandalorian, no longer shiny, shifted to pin you with a forearm and knee, his helmet staring directly at you. At you! The elephoth turned and stamped several times, lumbering its way toward the two of you.
“Look out!” you attempted, but only managed ‘ook ot’ due to the forearm pressing on your neck. You wound your leg around his and stuffed one foot into the crook of his hip and flipped him over your side, rolling with him as the elephoth stomped through the mud where you’d been laying a moment before.
“Move, Mandalorian!” you took a handful of armorweave on his arm and hauled him to his feet-- or at least slightly upward. Maker, he was heavy!
He slapped a hand onto your arm, pinning a chunk of your half-braided hair, leveraging himself the rest of the way to his feet and didn’t let go. The two of you slid and slipped to the edge of the muddy plain and collapsed behind a large tree trunk. You pushed yourself up and glanced backwards over the log to see the confused elephoth turning in a slow circle, its tusks moving to and fro as it waved its head angrily.
“Oh man, that was close!” you laughed and lowered yourself to your rear on the ground, breathing heavily. The Mandalorian’s visor was inches from your face. “Whoa.”
You watched your face transition in the mud-splattered black T visor, from laughter to the sober realization that you’d been caught. Early. The Mandalorian reached behind his waist and grabbed cuffs, wrestling with the grip he had on your upper arm.
“Hang on, hang on!” to your surprise, he paused a moment. “We couldn’t wait like…” you glanced up at the sky. “Five hours or so before we do this, could we?”
Without a word, the Mandalorian clapped the handcuffs onto one hand and wrestled for the other, finally straddling your torso, which had wiggled its way onto the wet grass and leaned hard on your head. He ripped you to your feet.
“No.” he spat.
You wilted visibly. Time stamp on capture: five hours early. It was all about the details when playing with a technicality.