[ 04 - CHAPTER FOUR ]

― boba's bounty ―

While Indirys slept, she was pummeled by an onslaught of nightmares.

The nightmares began as dreams, as all macabre things do. She dreamt of the stars in the sky, scintillating whirls of gas and flame that smiled at her through the darkness of the night. She dreamt of Delorian's devious smile, and the way her comments bounced off of Indirys' with a grace unknown to the galaxy since the age of the Jedi. But mostly, she dreamt of Lando, his loud and boisterous laugh being the only constant entity in her past and present.

It only took a moment for the fairytales of her life to turn into something much worse, and it all started with the simplest of thoughts. A thought so horrific that it still haunted the back of her fatigued eyelids, even after the figments of her subconscious ceased to dance.

And from then on, she could see nothing but her own worst fears. Fears she didn't know she was even capable of having. She was trapped in a mindless daze of remembrance and trepidation, yet she could not find it in herself to escape, as if her own free will had been rendered helpless by the shackles of nightmarish visions.

Suddenly, she saw the silhouettes of her parents as they walked away from her and Lando for the last time. The image of an adolescent version of Lando made sure to sear itself into the forefront of Indirys' mind. His cheeks were much pudgier than they were now, the red residue of tears streaming from his eyes acting as a symbol of his lost innocence.

She saw Delorian standing next to the Mandalorian bounty hunter. The dew-eyed girl held a single knife in her quaking hand, and the silver substance glinted in the sunlight, broadcasting one all-too-familiar name: Indirys Calrissian.

It was only when Indirys felt a cool metal brushing against the back of her neck that she realized she had been dreaming. When her eyelids peeled open to reveal gleaming chestnut-colored irises, she could still see vague outlines of the visions of her slumber. They looked so real. How could they only be projections of her distant memories?

Before Indirys got the chance to wipe the remnants of sleep from her eyes, she was jolted out of her comatose state by desperate shrieking. The shouts of resistance pierced her ears so violently that Indirys feared they might bleed, and she crawled to the front of her cells to peer through the bars, hoping she might get a glimpse of whatever creature Boba Fett had acquired.

"Let me go!" the woman cried out, her teeth bared as she yelped for mercy.. "Boba, don't do this! Don't do this, you know who he was to me!"

The woman's hair was loose in tangles of ebony. Her armor resembled that of a Mandalorian, with just enough adjustments to let any onlookers know that she was decidedly not from Mandalore. Even in the darkness of Boba's cargo bay, the curves of her outerwear reflected off of the tiny pinpoints of light that surrounded her, the reflected light illuminating her contorted face. Even so, Indirys had to squint to make out the sharp edges of her cheekbones and the smoothness of her caramel skin.

With how violently the woman was thrashing, it was a miracle that Boba hadn't lost his grip on the binders that were enclosed around her wrists. The leather of her pants wrinkled as her legs rubbed against each other, unable to maintain a strong sense of balance as Boba shoved her into the open cell next to Indirys.

"You must have fallen far," Boba's muffled voice spoke from beneath his helmet. "If the apprentice has finally outwitted his master."

The dark-haired woman groaned as she rolled from where she lied on the floor to her side, and she pressed shivering hand against her ribs as she gasped, "You know it wasn't like that. Please, Boba. Jango wasn't supposed to go like that, and you weren't supposed to be left behind."

Indirys slid her feet out from beneath her and wobbled to a standing position, nearly falling against the rusted bars in front of her as the binders round her wrists provided no aid in stability. She felt odd bearing witness to the conversation between Boba Fett and his prisoner. She had no idea who the woman was, but she could tell by the desperate and pleading look in her eyes that she had a past with the man that towered over her. And, though no one could see through the concealing Mandalorian mask that adorned Boba's head, she could sense the waves of apprehension that were emanating from the bounty hunter's core.

Without knowing either of the armor-bearing soldiers whose eyes were locked in a warfare of their own, it took very little effort to identify the tension that flooded the air between them. She had a feeling that, if two people's past had a personification, the insignia for the past between these two would be an ocean, too dangerous and too deep to look into.

"Vader will see you soon," Boba stated. With that, the ominous man turned, his faded yellow cape whipping behind him as he climbed the ladder to the cockpit of his ship.

His two prisoners were left to contemplate their surroundings, with no sound to trickle in their eardrums but the hushed sobbing of the woman in armor. A wave of shock washed through Indirys' veins.

'Vader?' she thought as her gaze drifted to the woman in the other cell, her shoulders having hunched at the mention of the Empire leader's name. The name of the people's bane. Those two syllables, short but powerful enough to petrify any man who knew them. 'He couldn't possibly mean...'

But who else could he be talking about? Indirys had only ever known one man to go by the name of 'Vader', and she considered herself lucky to never have met him. She'd only seen him in holograms. His billowing cape, resonant of the very same night he claimed to possess, had frightened her even at a young age. Now, after she'd grown old enough to understand the evils of the galaxy she lived in, it was his mask that scared her. The big, black circles that were bolted over his eyes, a magic trick in itself that fooled the rest of the universe into thinking his malice could be hidden.

But Indirys knew better. She knew of the devilish nature of the Empire and its leaders, of the terrible things they'd done to the very people they declared their protection over.

Perhaps it was her fear of the Empire that prompted her to speak to the shivering woman next to her. Or perhaps it was the fear that she, Indirys Calrissian who had never harmed a single thing in her life, aside from the pride of gambling men, would come face to face with the lord of darkness himself. If the other prisoner was destined to meet him, then who was to say Indirys wasn't either?

"Psst," Indirys hissed between her teeth. "Do you know him?"

The woman's shoulders jumped, as if she hadn't realized anyone else accompanied the space in the cargo bay. Her eyes settled on the petite silhouette of Indirys Calrissian, pupils dilating in the darkness of her cell, and she pressed a cheek against the bars that kept her caged like a bird.

It was then that Indirys could see the wrinkles around the woman's eyes. She couldn't have been that old - forty or so, with many years left in her future to provide the aftertaste of old age. Yet, as Indirys wrapped her thin fingers around the bars to her own cell, she was shocked at the difference between her own skin and the skin of the woman opposite her. Where Indirys' hands were smooth and thin, the woman's were shriveled and swollen at the same time, like some abominable act of nature was playing a prank and dealing the cards of old age too soon. Where the woman's face should have been soft and beautiful, it was warped like the hull of a ship that had been left in the sun for too long. What sort of torment could do that to a person?

"Do you know him?" Indirys questioned. She pointed a finger at the ceiling above her and breathed a sigh of relief as the woman's gaze followed, the lifting of her eyebrows signifying that she knew Indirys was speaking about Boba Fett.

The woman nodded. "I do."

"Do you know..." Indirys paused, hesitant to so much as utter the man's name. "Do you know Vader? Is that where Fett is taking us?"

The woman's chin jutted slightly forward, and she pressed her cracked lips against one another. Indirys had to refrain from wincing. It seemed that, by bringing up Darth Vader, she'd plucked a string that sung too close to the woman's heart.

Nonetheless, the woman offered Indirys an answer that rang with chords of sorrow, saying, "I did, but when I knew him he was not Vader." The woman's eyes lit up with a shimmering beam of nostalgia as she added, "He was merely a boy, too young and innocent to know the evil that he knows now."

Indirys' face fell flat. She knew Vader in his childhood? Of course, somewhere in the depths of her mind, she'd known it was possible. No one, not even the destroyer of planets, had begun as a malicious dictator. Everyone had to be bred from the naivety of childhood but for some reason, Indirys thought it unnatural to think of someone so iniquitous in that way.

Despite her astonishment at the woman's words, she found herself repeating her question to the old woman. Vader's childhood was an interesting topic but, Indirys had to admit, it wasn't one she liked to dwell on for too long. There was no use in romanticizing a wicked man, and it was more of a priority to her to find out whether she would have to meet Vader or not.

"Boba...the bounty hunter, I mean," the woman started, the gleaming nostalgia fading from the flecks in her irises as quickly as it had appeared. "He's taking me to Vader. As far as I know, Fett works exclusively for the Empire now, so I can only assume he's taking you to Vader, too."

"Blast!" Indirys cursed, slumping back to her seat on the mite-ridden ground.

She'd done everything she was supposed to on Coruscant. She'd heeded Lando's warning, and began her journey to the docks as soon as she'd left the bar. So how had it come to this? Why had the Empire even concerned itself with someone of Indirys' stature?

"What is your name, girl?" the woman inquired. Her voice still contained remnants of her crying and screeching, its tone carrying rasps that Indirys doubted would have been present otherwise.

"I'm Indirys," the young girl said, her fingers tracing the spot on her pants where her blaster holders used to be, before Fett had taken them. "Who are you?"

Though she'd withheld her last name from the older woman as a safety precaution, she couldn't deny that it felt good to speak with someone after spending an entire day in silence. It would make her a liar to claim that Boba Fett was a talkative person. Since he'd apprehended her from the streets of Coruscant and thrown her into his ship nearly twenty-four hours prior, she hadn't come into contact with any living being other than the mice that ran circles in the corners of her cell. Fett hadn't even descended into his cargo bay to provide her with food, and the deafening rumblings of her starving stomach made the silence infinitely worse.

"I'm Tilar," the woman responded. One end of her mouth tilted upwards as she presented herself. "Tilar Mateescu."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Tilar. Even though our circumstances aren't exactly what I would call ideal," Indirys laughed, earning a wisp of a grin from Tilar.

"I don't suppose they are," Tilar mused, an onyx lock of hair falling over her shoulder.

The harmony between the two females was broken as two boots appeared on the ladder rung, and the vibrant song of camaraderie was replaced by a simmering fear. The bounty hunter was back, but instead of channeling his attention toward Tilar, he channeled it towards the Calrissian descendant.

Though Boba's steps toward her cell sent an alarming current of fear down her spine, Indirys refused to cower. She planted her feet firmly atop the dusty floor beneath her, refusing to move in the face of her captor, as she'd learned was necessary from her many adventures through the galaxy. Granted, she hadn't been captured by a man of the Empire before, but she figured the same rule applied.

She was wrong.

As soon as Boba unlocked the door to her cell, the row of bars swinging wide open in time with the squealing whine of its hinges, he grasped the chains of Indirys' binders. She should have run. She should have squirmed to the back of her cell like the cowardly worms she despised, not the bold and cunning snake she thought herself to be. Or, at least she should have put up a fight. But now, because of her boldness, she had to stand mere feet away from Boba Fett as he ordered, "You're coming with me. I have an assignment for you to complete before I deliver you to Vader."

Indirys shook her head and swallowed her fear as she quipped, "I don't think so, buddy."

Boba Fett said nothing, but the increase in his aggressiveness towards Indirys spoke for itself. He was hostile as he yanked on her binders, causing her to stumble long behind him, and to say he was forceful and he jammed the button for the ship's ramp to open would be an understatement. The hunter's boots resounded in clangs as he stomped down the ramp with Indirys in tow.

When Indirys stepped off the white ramp and onto a cluster of green grass, the droplets of morning dew on the spring flora still fresh, she had to fervently blink to regain awareness of her surroundings. The bright sun rays were blinding in contrast to the dimness of Boba's ship, and it took her by surprise when she'd stumbled into the warm atmosphere.

"You're going to get credits for me," Boba Fett's brusque voice spoke. "I've seen you gamble before; you should know what I'm suggesting."

Indirys knew exactly what he was suggesting. He wanted her to do what she did nearly day: invite someone to play a game against her, and hustle credits from them. The only problem was, he wanted her to give her earnings to him, and that's not how she worked.

"Eat this," Boba ordered, his hand curled around something that resembled a cracker. Indirys resisted, but when Boba suggestively reached for the carbine rifle that was strapped to his back, she obliged.

"There's a tracker in that," the bounty hunter stated, causing Indirys to blanch. "It should be on its way to your digestive tract by now, so I'll know if you stray beyond the borders of this city. If you do...well, I think you know what will happen."

Indirys clenched her jaw. She should've known better, but frankly, there's nothing she could have done to avoid swallowing the tracker. She had no doubt that Boba would have shot a laser through her skull if he hadn't seen her swallow.

"I expect to see you here in three hours. Make sure you come back alone, with my credits in hand," Boba announced, and with that final verbalization, Indirys was left with nothing but a tracker in her gut and a mission she dreaded completing.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey! I hope you all are enjoying the story so far!

I just wanted to take a moment to address Tilar Mateescu, the woman Indirys met in this chapter. She does appear in the cast list for this book, but some of you may be wondering who she is. The details of her past were suggested at in this chapter, but I assure you I will go into more depth about them in the future, and in my Anakin Skywalker fic(which may or may not be published, depending on when you're reading this). Also, before any of you wonder why Luke hasn't appeared yet when this is a Luke fic, he will appear very soon! I just have to build up to it.

Feel free to comment any questions and concerns!

( the gorgeous new sign-off for 2020, seen below, was made by remuslupout! )