CHAPTER 26

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THE HUMBLE TOUCH!

*:･ﾟ✧

Come on. Let's do it; you promised. I need to get this tension out of my system, anyway.

Gaia had insisted, looking at Mando with actual pleading eyes which had made her sharp features go pleasantly soft; posture slacked in anticipation. He couldn't resist, even when her wound was still swathed in gauze which Peli had helped wrap around her three weeks ago back on Tatooine. Gaia's injury is healing although Mando fears it might reopen if he were to go too hard on her. She had dismissed his concern with a lazy gesture and told him that she's a lot tougher than she looks, that he's well aware she is. That, paired with his promise of taking her on in a fight as he had vowed back on Sorgan, made him unable to refuse her small request.

"You're going to get yourself hurt."

"No, I'm not," Gaia scoffs. "But I am going to throw your ass across the field. Unless. . ."

Mando tilts his head, wandering around in circles across the vast sand. "Unless what?"

"Unless you admit defeat right here, right now." Gaia sweeps her arms out, indicating to the desert around them. The Child murmurs off to the side and is observing the two adults.

"No chance," Mando objects. "I promised you a fight and that's what I'm going to give you."

"Good answer." Gaia offers him a gentle smile. She begins to move then, the brown jumpsuit Peli gave her shifting tightly around her body. After the whole mess with Toro betraying them and all, her armor was damaged beyond repair and she had to get rid of it much to her annoyance. Not much else was available and she therefore had to settle for Peli's spare work-clothes in return. It's definitely not the best, but just doable.

"Scared, Djarin?"

"Me? No. But I am worried about your wound. You need to be careful, Gaia."

"Oh, I will. . . Right after I win!"

Gaia charges forward suddenly, her ankle boots stomping across the dipping sand. She nearly trips on the way yet she persists and attempts to go for a punch to Mando's face. As she had suspected, he dodges it. Though, instead of going for an attack seeing as she's open to the opportunity, he merely swerves out of the way and watches her intently. Gaia regains her composure, playfully lifting an eyebrow in question. He shrugs. She chuckles in amusement, taking it as her cue to take the lead and go for another hit, and another, and another — commencing a flurry of attacks which he once again evades. All of them. Gaia huffs, her attention sharpening.

Her focus hones in on Mando's body language. She deciphers his moves with precision and braces herself for another chance to go in, yet Mando breaks his defense formation before she's able to, swiftly striking at her until she blocks it with her forearm. Mando staggers, retaliating by successfully catching Gaia's fist next and withholding.

The both of them falter and are locked in a moment of apprehension. They're both breathing sharply, even as Mando pulls Gaia to him and locks her in a firm chokehold.

"Give up!" he prompts, feeling her clothed back squirm against his flexed muscles.

"Alsik!"
*Never!*

"Wha—"

Gaia steels herself and plants her feet stiffly against the ground. She groans, heaving Mando over her shoulder in a fluid motion and gracefully following him onto the ground with all of her might and strength. He grunts, shocked.  Gaia is shoved to the bed of sand alongside him, reversing their roles by keeping him in a defiant chokehold herself. Mando won't stand for it. He rolls around to the best of his ability, and it's enough. Gaia's grip is instantly loosened as she slides off of him and to the side with a pressured 'oof!'.

Gaia is up and crawling in no time, tackling and forcing Mando to the ground while she struggles to maintain her control on him. With his front facing her, she pins him in place, panting as she's clutching at his wrists.

Gaia looks down while she's hovering over him. He's become relatively still all of a sudden, breaths clashing against his helmet.

"I. . .I give up," Mando finally declares, as if lost in thought for a moment. "You beat me."

"About damn time," Gaia says with a teasing grin. "I thought you'd never back down, Hush. I must be quite the exception, huh?"

Gaia's prodding and poking is merely for fun and entirely stemming from a rather frisky intention of hers, although it steadily fades over time — the longer she's staying above him with her mellow touch on his rapid pulse. Her earnest smile lingers on the farthest edges of her cheeks yet she gradually hesitates. A flustering tremble clings to her limbs and heart, subtly turning her blue skin pale purple near the tips of her ears. Mando has said nothing the whole time. The only indication that he's alive are the thick breaths clawing their way out of his throat. His supposed stare makes her feel important in some way, and it's honestly overwhelming.

Gaia pulls away, releasing Mando from her hold. "Sorry," she mumbles in a whisper.

"No, that was. . .that was fine."

". . .What?"

"I don't know."

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Gaia hisses, standing at the bottom of the Razor Crest that's drifting through the gripping cosmos, silent like a hunter. She's attending to her wound that's partially streaked from her abdomen, up toward her side, and bending slightly around to the edge of her back, now donning a fragile scabbard that is hard to maneuver. The upper half of her beige jumpsuit has been pulled down and she's currently exposed in her bra — ivory branches of scars trailing her cerulean skin.

"O-Oh, I—"

Gaia's eyes flicker upward. She's met with a gaping Mando who's standing by the stairs leading up to the cockpit, where The Child is hopefully occupied. Her lips part, words lost.

"When you said you were headed downsta—"

"Man— Djarin, it's fine," Gaia quickly assures, noting his messy words. Having Mando stand here, watching her in this bare state, is not as embarrassing as she thought it would be. "If I have to be honest then I could use some help if you're willing. I'm sort of stuck, in a way."

"I — I couldn't possibly," he stammers. "I mean, you don't know me that well. . ."

"It's all right, Djarin." Gaia nods, looking towards him. "I trust you, and it looks like you have something important to tell me."

Mando is frozen, standing as if he were a lone icicle on the lip of a cave draped with snow. It takes a while before he says anything. "Only if you're comfortable with it," he alludes kindly.

"I am." Gaia extends her arm, offering Mando the damp cloth in her grasp. It's soaked in a concoction that's entirely made of the herbs and whatnot found in the bag that Thero gave to her a long time ago. It came with a list in which the plants and possible mixtures were all named with their corresponding properties. She simply followed a specific blend that was stated to subdue any blistered or damaged skin, and here she is — eagerly waiting for Mando to take it. "I've dipped the cloth in a basic remedy, courtesy of Thero."

Gaia can easily tell that Mando is nervous as he approaches her. Nevertheless, he still takes the cloth. "I can't get to the underside of my wound properly, near the back," she clarifies, tracing the aforementioned skin in order to guide him through the procedure. "I'm scared that I'll accidentally hit or touch some of it."

"So, here, right?" Mando kneels at her side.

"Yep." Gaia nods, glancing down at him. "So what was it that you wanted to tell me?"

Mando eyes her briefly. "How did you. . ."

"I could sense it."

"Right," he says quietly, beginning to clean her wound with a careful hand. "While you've been down here, I contacted a man I once worked for. His name is Ranzar Malk. He runs a space station while also leading a crew of mercenaries, and he happened to disclose that something has come up recently — that he's willing to hire us if we're available."

"So, it's a job?"

"Yes. How do you feel about it?"

"Well, if you're asking me if I'm ready to get my hands dirty. . .then I'm in." The blunt announcement earns her a questioning glare from Mando, which almost seems stern in nature. Gaia answers it with a side-look that's directed down at him. "Credits are credits, and before we broke the Guild's code, bounty hunting wasn't always how it seemed — even when it appeared legal. One always had to find a way to lure and capture the bounty, that's how it was." A reluctant frown is sent her way, and she merely shrugs it off. "You know how it is, Mando, I know you do. It's never just smiles and rainbows. Never was."

Gaia's words are left up in the air. A grisly silence takes over in her stead, and it's broken by Mando in the end. "Your scars," he mutters after a while, glimpsing up at her as he does so, "what's the story behind them?"

Gaia hesitates, brushing her finger over a few of them which line her body like the rivers back on Cresmira. She shifts and points to a vague one adorning her cheek. "Well, this one was from an angry Bothan I was once tasked with bringing in." Next, she's aiming at a pair stretching across her lower back and right arm. "These two are from a cantina fight — a drunk patron that came after me. Can't remember why." She then moves on to her thigh, nudging her jumpsuit a little bit further down. "This one I got from the time I met another bounty hunter while out on a job and he mistook me for the mark. And this one. . ." Gaia trails off suddenly, slowly tapping and following the uneven outline of a jagged scar beneath her collarbone, "was from not following orders. I've got a handful of those."

Much to Gaia's dejection, a hefty silence takes over once more. It's uncomfortable, to say the least, as she immediately decides to not let it take root in-between them. "What about you? Do you have any interesting scars, Djarin?"

Mando's reply is nothing short of cautious, yet it still manages to comfort her. "I do."

"Maybe that's a story for next time. . . ?"

"I would say that it is," he agrees, resuming his task of cleaning her fresh wound. Calmly, he inquires, "Earlier, when we were brawling in the desert, you said something to me that I've never heard before. What exactly was it?"

"Oh." Gaia laughs shyly. "It was a slip of the tongue, to be honest. It translates to 'never' in Galactic Basic, but in my species' language which is dubbed Crenatese, we say 'alsik'."

"Crenatese," Mando recites. "You've never spoken that to me until this morning."

"I know," she murmurs, watching him with a sad look. "When the Empire enslaved my people, we weren't allowed to speak in our language anymore. I guess they were afraid we would conspire against them if we did, which we totally would have." She provides a smile although it soon withers. "I'm not proud to say that I've forgotten some Crenatese words over the years, and I rarely speak it nowadays since no-one can possibly speak it back to me. . . I miss it, though."

Mando falters and so does his attentiveness. He views up at Gaia with an empathetic expression, slowly standing and fiddling with the cloth in his hands. "Maybe one day you could teach me? Frankly, I would love to learn the language of your people, Gaia."

"I like the sound of that," she appreciates, looking gratefully toward him. "Thank you."

— Author's Note —

Ehm. . .so I think we can all agree that when Gaia overpowered him in that first part and gently held him to the ground while smiling Mando was all like: 😳 o shit queen my bad!! let me just ✋😍✋ admire you and yeah it's totally ✋😍✋ okay i'm perfectly fine here—

And then later he just went: 🥺 don't worry i'll take care of you ✨ watch me ✨

(but seriously, they make me so happy🌼)