CHAPTER 4

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A GLIMMER OF HOPE!

*:･ﾟ✧

The oxygen within Gaia's lungs is no more. She's gasping for breath, struggling and trying to suck in small slivers of air to grant herself another moment to feel the cool touch of life. The building is thick with shadows and sun-soaked rays of light, the bed of poor construct yet serving as her sanctuary, the beings stationed outside calling themselves people — clad in white armor like that of freedom and salvation — chattering amongst one another despite her skin peeling with sweat and her wits broken by sheer delusion.

Cresmira would never have been this unjust to her. It wouldn't have waylayed her like this — to fight for her life and feel the hot air of the environment stick to her like an injury.

I can overcome this, Gaia would motivate herself between glimpses of sanity, despite her armor strangling her, I have to. . .for her.

A gasp is ripped from her teeth as Gaia's eyes flutter open to the ceiling of Kuiil's home.

The blue alien is momentarily confused by the peaceful quiet as well as her functioning lungs, and inspiring a breath once fully registering her surroundings. She wipes a hand over the back of her eyelids as if convinced that would help chase the nightmares away. Though gone they are for now, and the fact that her back is pinched with stiffness only serves to verify that fact while she removes herself from the floor. The tempered night sky of Arvala-7 is pleasantly soothing, bringing unexpected relief to her as she delves outside, hearing the frogs croak. A new dawn is about to break over the horizon.

"I'm sorry for hurting you the way that I did." Gaia strokes the blurrg's healing forehead outside of Kuiil's abode as it settles on the sand, watching the beast slacken in trust. "I never got to tell you that until now, huh?"

"You are upset."

Gaia flinches suddenly. She breathes a sigh of relief once recognizing the approaching form of Kuiil, deciding to ignore whether or not he actually heard her. She feels embarrassed, if not entirely caught off guard by him. "Sorry. I just came out here to talk to the blurrg. . ."

Kuiil is wholeheartedly unconvinced. "Nobody 'talks' to the blurrg without a reason," he concludes to her. Gaia bites the inside of her cheek as her palm remains pressed to the beast's forehead, shifting on her feet and observing him near them both. "The Mandalorian's absence worries you."

"Bold of you to assume that a man in a helmet has my concern," Gaia quips off-handedly. Kuiil merely raises a questioning brow at her, and if there's one thing she dislikes about the Ugnaught it's his natural intuition. Mando's leave weighs heavier on her than she believed at first, and the thought of him failing his commission would make her feel partly responsible since she left him to face everything on his own. They agreed to rendezvous here, so that makes things more difficult for her agitation. Settling for something else than the truth, she averts her eyes to the sky. "I hate deserts," she confides in Kuiil. "A disdain I have been reminded of."

The ugnaught is beside her, standing equal. "Fear thrives on isolation, and never trust."

Gaia regards Kuiil for a moment. He's only trying to help, although talking has yet to be a friend of hers. Regardless, she grits her teeth in encouragement and jumps for the small chance to be honest. "I was familiar with a remote desert like this one many years ago. . . but I wasn't there by my own free will," she reveals, petting the blurrg in comfort. "It made me miserable. It was everything that I hated and the longer I was kept there, the less I felt like I could actually breathe." Poking her throat with her fingertip, her eyes well up by the memory. "I can still feel it in my body. . ."

Kuiil offers her a nod, placing a hand also upon the blurrg as if to summon strength. "The Empire was not kind to us," he says.

"You mean, you. . ."

"I was a slave to them," he resumes, clarifying and looking at Gaia with all of his attention. "It was harsh, and the smell of torched oil has yet to fade from even my deepest memories."

Gaia had no idea that someone like Kuiil would fall victim to the Galactic Empire, though she supposes that even the whole galaxy was subjected to its wealthy hunger and gluttony, ultimately. "Did you escape?"

"No. I bought my freedom." Kuiil lowers his gaze, caressing the blurrg. "But you did not."

"They never offered us anything in return for our service," Gaia affirms, strongly, "but I do remember. . .some reports of classified adjournment. They never told us how or why they were dismissed from their duties though, so I figured they were all either transferred someplace else or had somehow gotten themselves killed." Gaia permits herself a breath. ". . .Perhaps they just got off easy."

Kuiil takes her following silence as a conclusion to their conversation. His touch withdraws from the reptilian beast, and he nods to himself. "He will return," Kuiil remarks, obviously referring to Mando, "if not, you're welcome to stay. I have spoken."

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"It's nothing too serious, right?" Gaia inquires up at Kuiil from below, watching him tinker with one of the many scattered evaporators.

"Yes," he affirms in a plain manner, "weekly maintenance is required. You can rest easy."

"Good thing you're the farmer, not me."

Gaia is heeled against the pole with a dwindling smile. The sky is beautiful as a painting and it's slowly getting late, spiraling her unease with it. Mando has yet to show up. Given how long he's been gone — approaching two full days, she's becoming anxious of the fact that she could've gone with him and helped him. What if that were the defining factor in him failing? How would she even explain it to the rest of his covert on Nevarro without them thinking she stabbed him in the back and then left him for dead?

Borrowing one of Kuiil's blurrgs and setting out to find him has crossed her mind before.

Maybe he left you? a trivial voice sings, causing her to still. No, he wouldn't. . .

"Holy stars," Gaia whispers all of a sudden, tracing the fatigued silhouette chafing the skyline. The perception of a helmet strikes her vision against the pink hues. Clearing her throat, she straightens her back, collecting her jumbled posture as Mando draws closer.

"I thought you were dead," Kuiil greets.

"My thoughts exactly. I'm glad to see that you still have all of your limbs attached though," Gaia hums, tilting her head once Mando evokes a sigh for himself, looking as though he'd been lugged away from a fist-fight. Her gaze strays to the round pod hovering beside him. Intrigued, she trudges closer with her hands supported by her hips, raising a brow down at the little green creature gripping the edge of its refuge. Its ears are elongated, eyes big and brown while its body is stuffed into a matching oversized garment. "Is that. . . ?"

Mando provides her with a nod as Kuiil joins them both on the ground. "The bounty. Yes."

"I haven't seen anything like it before." Gaia's focus is directed down at the green creature once more. It is observing her in return, cooing and steadily moving towards her. "Don't," she orders in a hurry. "Stay there."

"Gaia," Mando butts in, "are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

". . .There's been a casualty."

"Who died?" she frowns, subtly grimacing.

"Not 'who'. 'What'."

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"For the love of Stagia. . ." Gaia has barely blinked ever since she was informed of their ships being scavenged by thieving Jawas. Apparently — and as Mando had told it — while they've both been gone, local Jawas discovered the starships and had plundered Gaia's down to the last bone, meaning nothing except the skeleton was left behind. It's been rendered completely useless and is now incapable of flight. Mando could've been lying although fact checking for herself would've been too long of a journey, so she gave him the benefit of the doubt. And as he explained it, not even the best ship mechanic of the universe could put it back together.

Mando's own starship, however, was fortunately left half-intact. It was out of function but with a loving hand and its corresponding parts back, it may take flight.

The Mandalorian brushed shortly over other such details pertaining to his adventure. Gaia was privy to most of it: how he had been assisted by another bounty hunter who turned out to be a droid, the ambush of the Trandoshin, and the ordeal of their ships.

"Holy stars, this is bad," Gaia mumbles, pacing back and forth. "This is so, so bad."

"Muttering to yourself will get you nowhere."

Gaia whips her focus unto Mando who's in the process of repairing his vambrace. Irritation is honing her, a fire in her eyes. "Says the guy whose sword wasn't stolen."

"Hey, I was robbed just as well as you," Mando retaliates, lightly shifting. "What's so special about this sword of yours, anyway?"

"Well," she huffs, looking up at the sky and listening to the green creature babble as it wanders around outside of its pod, "to start off then it's made out of Argent Steel, which comes from a natural resource only found on my homeplanet which makes it pretty rare, and on the other side then it's sort of a family heirloom. My father carried it before me, and therefore, I have to get it back somehow. . ."

Gaia resumes her perturbed pacing, hearing Mando sigh for the hundredth time. He's currently preoccupied with his vambrace and it continues to crackle with occasional static. Kuiil has taken his time to listen to them both banter back and forth, refilling the water trough for the blurrgs and eventually regarding the green creature playing around with a frog. The scene of the bounty whining excitedly like a kid has him point briefly at it.

"This is what was causing all the fuss?"

"I think it's a child," Mando says, quietly.

Gaia exhales. "A child? It's a very old one then, Hush. Fifty years. What do they even want with it? It's not dangerous in any way."

"I don't know," he answers back, watching The Child leap friskily after the frog. "The Guild Code prevents me from inquiring."

"Of course it does." Gaia's attention is entirely snatched. She gazes toward The Child in an uninterested manner, watching it catch the frog it has been incessantly playing with. The green creature coos happily and makes its way towards her afterward, the frog clutched in its tiny, three-fingered hands — basically dragging it with it. The Child stops by the very bottom of her feet and peers up at her with an innocent proudness tinting its big round eyes.

"What?" Gaia arches an eyebrow.

The Child responds by extending the frog in her direction. She goes stock-still. Is she supposed to pick it up, or. . . ? With great reluctance, she grabs the offered frog, its smooth, swamp-colored skin diligently pinched between her trembling fingers. The frog croaks unexpectedly as she does so, causing her to cut a scowl. "How nice. . ."

Gaia returns the frog and wipes her hand on her coat jacket as The Child toddles away, immensely content with its achievement.

Unbeknownst to Gaia, Mando had caught sight of the whole exchange amidst his conversation with Kuiil. He honestly half-expected her to kick The Child away when it approached her as it did, given how menacingly she had glared at the green creature earlier. It was a pleasant relief, however, when she at least acknowledged it and compliantly followed its interests despite clearly not being approving of any of them.

Kuiil advances past Mando. He tends to an outdoors table, retrieving a tool for the Mandalorian to use on his vambrace. "It is better to deliver it alive then," he speaks up.

"Our ships have been destroyed," Mando reminds him bitterly. "We're trapped here."

"Which is just what we needed," Gaia fumes.

"Stripped, not destroyed," Kuiil amends gently. "The Jawas steal. They don't destroy."

"Stolen or destroyed makes no difference to me." Mando's vambrace complains while he repairs it, "They're protected by their crawling fortress. There's no way to recover the parts."

"You can trade," Kuiil suggests.

"With Jawas? Are you out of your mind?"

Gaia yields a huff. "Well, it's not the worst thing I've heard in my life," she complies.

"I will take you both to them," Kuiil states in finality. He takes no account to the Mandalorian's heated tone. "I have spoken."

There's a short pause. Mando leers at The Child, and his next words catches Gaia off-guard. "Hey!" he exclaims, "spit that out."

Gaia rears her head, immediately gaping at the green creature swallowing a live frog whole and then giggling. She's staring — her eyes wide, not having anticipated The Child eating one of the frogs it had enjoyed playing with as a kid earlier. It's definitely not like any other child Gaia has come across throughout her life so far, regardless of species. Nonetheless, it must have been hungry and Gaia cannot blame it for consuming a meal its kin most likely lives off of. It doesn't necessarily mean, though, that she's not allowed to be a bit appalled by it.

— Author's Note —

Writing this chapter was a delight.
Gaia and Kuiil bonding with each other is the best thing ever; they're like a retired father and his troubled daughter but with Angst thrown into the mix, and thankfully our blue alien is slowly warming up to Baby Yoda as well which makes me wanna cry with joy! I was ecstatic when he waddled up to her and was all like: blue lady, LOOK!

Also, I don't know if you guys can tell yet but Gaia is not a fan of children. She definitely doesn't hate them, she just thinks they're a bit unpredictable sometimes (^^)