CHAPTER 23

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THE SHAMBLING NIGHT!

*:･ﾟ✧

Gaia and Mando are watching the stars together, and they have done so for some time now. Every now and then, Gaia will lift a finger and point, tracing the outline of a cluster of twinkling stars and share her thoughts of an image in them. She would then indicate different patterns to Mando, rambling on about how fond she is of stargazing and how she hasn't done it in such a long time. He listens to her every word, clinging to it all without interrupting her even once while being as invested in the observations as she is, and he loves it.

Gaia lowers her arm at last, the dark creeping further and further over them like an omen.

"Thank you for listening to me," she acknowledges, trying her best to blink the haze away which is gradually keeping her from staying awake. "Not many people do."

Mando is about to say something but Gaia never hears it. Claimed by immense fatigue, her head sinks onto his shoulder suddenly. The reply Mando had for her is seized and locked in his throat. He tenses, though only for a moment. Gaia has inattentively placed herself on the tip of his armor, and before she can be jerked awake by sliding off he gently dips his shoulder so that she's better positioned against the crook of his neck.

Gaia is far too gone to have noticed it, and Mando hearkens to her breathing; the steady rhythm tousling his thoughts and attention. In the end, it pulls him into a very similar sleep although the depth is not as great.

The sky is now entirely rid of the calm cyanic from earlier. It has turned incredibly dark, so dark that the outline of Toro's person can just barely be seen by eyes that have yet to adjust. Night dangles above the trio like a honed knife, and Toro's watch is finally concluded.

"All right, suns are down. Time to ride."

Toro rears around to find Mando and Gaia asleep, the latter being curled snuggly against the quiet Mandalorian. "Come on. Wake up."

Toro approaches the pair when they fail to respond, standing in front of them with a thoughtful expression. "Look at you guys, asleep on the job." He chuckles softly and casts a glance over his shoulder before quickly drawing his blaster pistol. It's playfully aimed at Mando, its unaware wielder squinting his eyes and hunching himself in continuation of the make-believe. Confidently twirling his weapon, Gaia cracks a single lazy eye open.

"Don't make me kill you," she deadpans.

Toro's composure drops. "Yeah, yeah. I was just, you know, waking you up. . ."

Mando stirs. "Didn't look much like it."

Toro, embarrassed and clearing his throat, waves them awkwardly forth. "Come on."

Gaia expels a sigh and rises to her feet, dusting the sand off her uniform. She turns to Mando then with a rueful smile. "I'm sorry I fell asleep on you. Hopefully I didn't snore."

"You're good," Mando assures in earnest, swiping a hand down his cape and such. "Although you did drool on the beskar."

"Really?" There's a hint of panic in Gaia's voice as she hurriedly grips his arm and inspects the reflecting steel with a nervous eye. Though, upon seeing the surface free from any saliva, she gazes inquisitively up at Mando who tilts his head in amusement. Even with his helmet on, she can still feel the mischievous grin and perky demeanor shine through. "You're such an idiot," she mumbles with a smile of her own. "Poking fun at me."

"I try my best."

Gaia shoves a harmless fist against Mando's chest, right on the main part of the Beskar Steel as she pushes him playfully away although he just barely moves. She cuts an embarrassed face afterwards and turns around with a demure chuckle, facing Toro who is waiting for them with a bored look.

"Get on your bike," Mando instructs the gunslinger, brushing past Gaia on his way and fiddling with the bag he brought along. Diligently, he plucks four flash charges out. "Ride as fast as you can towards those rocks."

Toro complies, faintly scoffing, "That's your plan? She'll snipe us right off the bikes."

Mando glares at Toro before pitching him two flash charges which he easily catches. "It's a flash charge," Mando is prompted to reveal when Toro examines one of them with a critical, intrigued eye. "We alternate shots, it'll blind any scope temporarily. Combine that with our speed and we got a chance."

Toro's eyebrows reach upward. "A chance?"

"Hey, you wanted this." Mando climbs atop his assigned vehicle as he speaks with Toro, noting Gaia taking a seat behind him. He inhales sharply as it begins to remind him of the way that she slept against him a few minutes ago, of the teasing warmth that had progressively sprouted from within his chest and heart, trailing his body and mind in riveting patterns and designs. Mando clears his throat, feeling weak in the knees as his voice almost trips on its way out. "Get ready."

Gaia's arms are circled around Mando's torso once more and she holds him tight — just as he remembers it. She observes Toro pull his goggles and scarf on again, closing her aching eyes and placing her chin on Mando's shoulder blade, lips nearly grazing the side of his helmet as she talks to him. "I have a bad feeling about this," she whispers quietly.

"Me too," he confesses after a moment, limbs as stiff as the bark on a tree. "Stay safe."

"You too."

Gaia settles herself against Mando's back properly this time with a fleeting smile as they start ahead. Her stomach drops, and although the suns of Tatooine are long gone the sand is no different as it sprays across her legs when they scale the small hill, landing much further down. Gaia holds her breath and she squeezes her eyes shut when Mando activates the first flash charge. A small missile is directed to the murky sky and a blazing light erupts above them like a display of fireworks — one that brightens even that of Fennec's keen eyes, depriving her of sight.

A heated shot from Fennec's rifle strikes the sand between the two speeder bikes after the light has died down, sand rocketing off the ground with the sheer force from the fired bolt as they're pressured to split up. The strength of the shot seeps into the marrow of Gaia's bones, deepening the chasm of anxiety within her heart and quiver of her fingers. So much so that the occurrence of Toro triggering his own flash charge goes unnoticed until a second shot from Fennec drives her eyes open. The two speeder bikes are separated farther, and right before Toro may activate his last flash charge, the bounty hunters ascend yet another ridge of sand.

A certain loudness fills Gaia's head suddenly, leading a gasp from her when Toro's aim is badly altered by a bump in his path, causing the missile from the flash charge to skitter madly across the ground instead of the air.

"JUMP!" she shouts at Mando.

"What?!"

Gaia secures an iron grip on Mando using both arms and instantly tries to haul him off their speeder bike before he has a chance to even resist. She grits her teeth together, using all of her available strength as she yanks Mando off the vehicle first. She quickly follows along, her body rolling across the smooth sand when — not even a second later — the shriek of a rifle bolt colliding with rust and metal rumbles the desert, as well as the inevitable clatter of a destroyed engine.

Gaia lifts her head as her body comes to a stop, removing her arms from her head just in time to see Mando recovering faster than her and triggering the fourth flash charge. The dazzling light flares to life. It helps Toro in bringing him safely across the remaining distance while he's closing in on Fennec's position high above, stashed between the looming cliffs that seem to reach for the sky.

With the reflecting light of the flash charge thinning out, Mando reacts more rapidly than his partner, getting up on his feet and feeling his heart strangle his ribcage as he runs toward Gaia on instinct. He can just barely feel her hands tremble as she grasps strongly at his arm, seeing her lips part in the dark as if to ask him something. She watches him intently in the same moment the final bolt from Fennec that night slams against Mando's chest as he turns around. The impact sends him crashing against Gaia who yelps in alarm, pushed fast and roughly to the sand when Mando becomes totally unmoving.

Gaia waits with bated breath, sweating.

When no other shot is resounding, she thrusts her hands against Mando's back and nudges him off, pulse stretching to a new high as he begins to slowly move on his very own.

Mando groans. "Did you. . .did. . ."

"Your armor," Gaia stammers.

"Did you get hit?" he finally wheezes out, facing her and brushing her cheek in worry as his hand leaves the scorched beskar; when she doesn't reply back. "Gaia, answer me!"

"Mando, there's smoke comi—"

Firmly cupping her jaw with both hands now, Mando grows urgent and desperate for an answer. "Are you hurt?" he demands.

"No," Gaia declares breathlessly, gazing tenderly back at him as she grabs his hands in craving reassurance. "I'm fine. I really am. You blocked the shot — all of it, I think."

Mando lowers his head in halting relief, and Gaia spares a heavy sigh on her part — her posture slouching forward just slightly.

The respite is cut short.

The two bounty hunters' attention are both divided and directed toward the cliffs further ahead, a scarlett hue flickering against the rocks with each blaster bolt Toro fires in their absence, and after a while they cease altogether. Gaia and Mando detach from one another and swiftly begin to make their journey over the magnificent Dune Sea.

Gaia secures her weapon safely across her back, panting as she and Mando race for the cliffs. They eventually clamber up the mountainside. The terrain is undoubtedly rough just like a blistering storm, but not impossible, and they're soon met with a foreseeable sight at an established level of a cliff's summit. Toro was left to his own devices against Fennec, and perhaps Gaia shouldn't have been so surprised to find him struggling on the ground, choking and sputtering in a leg chokehold with Fennec nearly succeeding in throttling him to death.

Mando intervenes before it may happen.

Both he and Gaia have made their way over to the flailing mess, his blaster pistol drawn and aimed down at the assassin garbed in a dark outfit made entirely out of dependable fabric. "Nice distraction," he drawls, triumphantly.

Fennec glares up at the pair as she spits out a curse, admitting bitter defeat a second later as she releases Toro who has gone red in the face. He coughs a bit, scurrying away from the assassin as Fennec raises her hands in surrender. "Ow! Yeah, good work, partner," Toro approves while massaging his throat.

Mando grasps a pair of handcuffs in one hand. "Cuff yourself," he orders, slinging the object to the dusty ground in a flat motion.

Fennec eyes the steel for a brief time and she's surprisingly cooperative as she leniently picks them up, securing them around her own wrists. Her gaze roams all of a sudden, coming to rest on Gaia who is glowering.

Mando shifts, calmly suggesting to Toro, "Why don't you go find your blaster?"

Toro says nothing but agrees silently. He trudges past Fennec, providing her a glance. Fennec, considering it as an opportunity with the "rookie" gone, regards both Gaia and Mando with great interest. "A Mandalorian," she muses wickedly before switching her focus onto Gaia. "And a Crenata, of all things. It's been a long time since I've seen either of your kind." She rises to her feet nonchalantly and Gaia watches Fennec with scrutinizing eyes. "Ever been to Nevarro?" Fennec resumes knowingly when neither of them answer her. "I hear things didn't go so well there, but. . .it looks like you got off easy."

Gaia's hands are clenched with the delicate revelation, formed into fists by her side. She knew Fennec would be caught up on any circulating news or limited information pertaining to her employment — she's a professional after all, yet it still sways the roots of Gaia's composure and it's parlous above all. She cannot begin to even guess what's going through Mando's head as he keeps quiet just like her, reenacting the same stance he held closely to himself on Arvala-7. A blunt side of him she's all too familiar with.

"You don't have to worry about gettin' to Nevarro," Toro chimes in, collecting his blaster pistol from beneath a fine layer of sand, "or anywhere else, once we turn you in." Mando starts to guide Fennec away, even as Toro proceeds with his overly arrogant attitude at her. "You know, I really should thank you. You're my ticket into the Guild."

"You're welcome," Fennec replies dryly, led by Mando and screened by Gaia who offers Toro a steady look on the short way down.

— Author's Note —

Mando, completely disregarding the fact that he just blocked a whole ass rifle bolt and was shot to the chest: are you hurt?!

Gaia: haha smoke go brrr

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