CHAPTER 44

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THE WAILING WOLF!

*:･ﾟ✧

Goodbyes are never easy, and mostly when one is not indulged with their own fate. The big eyes of The Child, so full of life, are imprinted underneath Gaia's eyelids like welded iron. She doesn't have to close them in order to memorize his wrinkled face, his small nose twitching. Vall selg, she had encouraged him, kissing his forehead prior to Kuiil carrying him away — mounted on a blurrg steered back towards the Razor Crest.
*Stay strong,*

The pod drifting by her side now is empty.

"Chain code?"

One of the two Scout Troopers guarding the looming arch of Nevarro's town pushes lazily off his speeder bike. His helmet is directed knowingly toward Greef, while his partner's own slowly rears from one side to the other, scanning the whole group. Gaia's fingers contract together, the steel of her handcuffs resonating at the forefront of her mind as she peeks over at Thero, itching and burning. Dawnbringer is swung over his shoulder, one hand clamped down on the worn scabbard.

The blue alien beholds the withdrawn Scout Trooper carefully and locks gazes with him shortly. A jittery shiver wraps around her spine. Her nostrils flare and she clenches her eyes shut for a moment, blue-tinged skin becoming slightly damp with trepidation.

You're here for a reason. You're here for a reason, remember that — she repeats.

Greef gestures loosely toward Mando and Gaia, announcing, "I have a gift for the boss."

"Chain code?" the Scout Trooper presses, his modulated voice coming out as rehearsed.

Greef's intent on strolling right up to the Client has failed. Even though he has a means to pass safely through, he may have hoped to retain it in his pocket and not draw any attention. Fishing the necessary card out in order to confirm his identity, Greef watches the Scout Trooper survey the item, look up, and then back down again, bluntly offering him, "I'll give you 20 credits for the helmet."

Now it's Gaia's time to halt in place, her brows pinched together as it gradually sinks in that he's referring to Mando. A rebuke catches on the tip of her tongue, and she silently — angrily — bites the inside of her cheek. Distracting herself does her good, since speaking up to the reaper in white would've surely held them back from entering. Greef forces a chortle out. "Ha-ha! Not a chance! That's going on my wall."

With much restraint and so very faintly, Mando questions him, "On your wall?"

"Go with it. . ."

"Go ahead," the Scout Trooper affirms suddenly, sticking the card toward Greef.

Gaia spies the soldier out of the corner of her eye as they roam onward, the palm of Thero guiding her further down the dirt path framed with buildings. Just vaguely, she can feel the suspense from his hand connect with her clothed back. The Scout Trooper, however, is observing them long past the checkmark for the beginning of the town, and the flutters of white grazing Gaia's eyes goes completely unnoticed until Cara decides to chime in about it between the group. "You said four," she recounts with accusation at Greef, bitterly. "There are more than four troopers."

"Four guarding the client. Many more here in town," Greef corrects her with measured utterings. "Things got really heated once Mando and Gaia crashed the safehouse."

The explanation is barely reaching Gaia's apprehension of reality. Like a breeze, it disperses all too quickly and effortlessly. Her dark eyes flicker all around, and every single time another body clad in white crosses her sight, the build-up in her head grows tenfold. It's like a swarm — a swarm of insects scrutinizing her, her every movement. One mistake is all it takes for everything to come crashing down, and Gaia cannot refrain from panicking about whether it's even possible to flee the scene once the Client has been dealt with. They might as well have walked into a den of Nexu, waiting for their jaws to shatter around them and mangle them to pieces.

I'm going to die.

"Slip him his blaster," Cara demands.

"Not yet."

I can't breathe.

"Here we are," Greef states, having navigated them to the outside of Nevarro's cantina: the Bounty Hunter Guild's old spot of operation.

I can't—

"I can't do this."

All at once, the group turns to regard Gaia. She's eyeballing the cantina door as if she were about to step onto a pyre, her eyes sprung wide with fear. The murky walls are closing in on her, cornering her as she stumbles backward and accidentally trips into Thero. A lump starts to clog her throat as her lungs squeeze together to cut off the air transferred through, and her heartbeat is the single thing she can register by its repetitive, physical thuds of horror to the rest of her body. Her face is layered with perspiration.

"I—I can't do this. I know I said I could, but I just— I really can't anymore," she stutters, forcing her wrists harshly against her handcuffs, skin biting the constraintment. "Let me out of these! Let me go, please!!"

Greef advances forward, alarmed by her raised voice. "Gaia, you need to calm—"

The blue alien darts away from the man, as if he was threatening her with a blaster to her head. "Don't do that! Don't come near me!"

White silhouettes overlap her perception of motion, her legs about to spasm out until Thero blocks her from running elsewhere.

That's when an inner scream rips through Gaia's sinews, and she snaps around to the thwack! of metal and joints lunging together once the sensation of someone grabbing her shoulder drags throughout her bones. She comes face to face with a helmet, and the image of white headgear is steadily replaced by steel. Grey, memorable steel. Somewhere in the recesses of her memory, she might've heard someone call out her name, when her knuckles had flushed an embarrassed red.

"Djarin," Gaia reminds herself. Tears are stinging her vision as she exhales a sigh out from behind her chapped lips. "I don't want to go back there; they'll take me away again."

"That's not true. They'll never have you, Gaia—" corked in the same manner but much more grounded, Mando does not hesitate, "because I'm here for you. I'm your first line of defence and you know it." He soothes her, tenderly grasping her forearms to the best of his ability once she's fully acknowledged him. Her hitched breathing slips everywhere, and allowing her to take the moment in, he calms, "It's all rushing to your head, but you have to remember that they can't hurt you anymore."

Gaia shakes her head. She's bolted in a fixed stance with him. "They just won't go away."

"Then you'll have to make them. Gaia, shove them out with all you've got," Mando whispers. His perseverance for her situation as well as the support, is rather comforting. He affords a glance with Greef and Thero who are keeping a bundle of stormtroopers lured to the commotion occupied, conjuring up a false story in order to evade their overall curiosity. Mando grips Gaia's arms more profoundly this time, urging, "Breathe with me, okay? Focus on the tempo, nothing else."

"How? I can't. . ."

Mando pulls her closer. "Focus on me."

Gaia would want nothing more than for the pounding of her chest to diminish, and she therefore tosses herself into it. Matching her companion's pace is difficult at first; the tears race down her cheeks and hooks on the edges of her mouth, the drops of salt mixing in with her tastebuds. But after a while — with Mando's rhythmic breaths and Gaia not once tearing herself away from the inky abyss of his helmet, she can no longer sense the aggressive thudding against her ribcage, as stable as the facet of untouched lakes; as refreshing as the snow-capped mountains.

The effect softens. "Do you remember what you told me the last time we were here?"

Gaia shakes her head, quietly adding, "No."

"I ordered you to stay out of harm's way aboard the Crest, and then you told me. . ."

"I claimed I was a lot safer in harm's way rather than out of it," she replies sheepishly, scrambling to recall the colors and flow of that specific day, that one particular line.

"Which is true," Mando assures her in a heartfelt manner. "You're one with danger, you know it by heart and you live in it. Those inside this building here are aware of it but you've changed a great deal, and you're not who they think you are. You're free, Gaia."

"You're right," she nods. "I am." Whisper resounding in her head, stroking her teeth, Gaia permits herself to finally relax. Mando's hands are still seized around her arms, and the assistance from him consoles her enough to think that everything is going to turn out fine, perhaps even better than they had originally planned. It spurs her to believe that she can go through with it, march inside the cantina and scowl in the face of the Empire. She's done it before in the past, chased after remnants for 3 long years, precisely 1 year after she managed to flee her station and establish herself once more as Gaia Ascena.

▲▽▲

During times like these, Gaia is eternally appreciative for the presence of Mando. She's painfully accepting of the fact that she would've burnt out someday had she not persisted accompanying him to Arvala-7 back then, and succumbing to the hope of wishing, she would like to believe that they were meant to wander the galaxy together, that the universe had its stars propel them in each other's directions and ushered them forth.

It's the nicest thought she can muster as she eyes the stormtroopers in passing, the space of the cantina hissing corruption and death.

"You see?" Greef remarks soundly, "four."

Gaia has counted the bodies already, lingering close to the side of Thero who has a hand rooted to her upper arm. It's meant to look as though he's attempting to manhandle her, when in reality she finds it alleviating more than anything else — reminded that she's not without allies and an avantage.

Gaia flinches when she's met with the individual whose permission and insatiability with obtaining The Child had targets painted upon their backs. Her focal point is abruptly settled on the medallion resting against his chest, gaping at her with its golden-carved emblem of the Galactic Empire, as if to mock her all the way to the pinetrees of her home and back again. The Client unfurls to his feet as soon as he interprets the group, hooded eyes lifted with a hunger for dignity as he vacates the booth off to the side. He has just stepped past a pillar when goosebumps begin to litter Gaia's skin in a collection of dread.

This is her first time encountering the Client.

"Look what I brought you," Greef declares when they're at equal level, "as promised."

The Client appears calm and collected. His elderly features differ from what Gaia had envisioned him to be within her head. A tall, brooding gent with sharp characteristics and a taste for violence is what she had imagined him as. She's able to bear witness to a man long past his prime, though, she knows far better than to underestimate him regardless.

Gracefully, and without cultural courtesy, the Client reaches out to gently caress the upper part of Mando's breastplate, and then to the gleaming edges of his helmet. "What exquisite craftsmanship," he praises audibly, the note of an acute accent probing through his voice. "It is amazing how beautiful beskar can be when forged by its ancestral artisans."

Gaia's innards shrink up and down in disgust. Grinding her teeth, she's far from capable of suppressing herself this time and therefore comes to weakly mutter, "Don't touch him."

The Client's poisonous gaze swerves down at Gaia, and she is sure to have forgotten how to breathe as he studies her. Gaia tries to swallow, although it generates a lump-like brick and only succeeds in bothering her, all the while the Client shifts over to fully assess her. He becomes unnecessarily touchy-feely again and delicately wipes her side-swept hair out of her face. Gaia averts her head, hearing him dictate, "The blade may have rusted, but that does not mean it cannot be restored to its former glory with sufficient time and effort. A sword is a sword, after all. It has its purpose."

"I am not some damn weapon," she sneers, astonished by the wrath piercing her sorrow.

"Not anymore, no," the Client agrees quite nonchalantly. "It would seem that discipline is in order here. We will make sure of that."

"You son of a—"

"Enough." The severe adjustment of the Client overwhelms the room. Gaia abides by it, her eyes darkening in the process and her lips curling: travelling here to simply argue with some old man would defeat the goal of their mission, and she therefore extracts herself from the conversation. The Client is content with her silence and turns to address Greef. "Can I offer you a libation to celebrate the closing of our shared narrative?"

"I would be obliged."

The Client signals the droid overseeing the bar. It nods in return, and the elderly man motions towards the designated booth as it resumes going about its business. "Please sit." Gaia is the first to hit the cushions, then Mando, and lastly Greef. Cara and Thero stall on the sidelines, watching them nervously.

"It is a shame that your people suffered so," the Client resumes, and a few more stormtroopers pile out to join the rest on cue, strengthening the tension within the once-lively cantina. "Just as in this situation, it was all avoidable. Why did Mandalore resist our expansion? The Empire improves every system it touches. Judge by any metric: safety, prosperity, trade, opportunity, peace. Compare Imperial rule to what is happening now." Gaze swaying between the three of them, he indicates to the left with a nod. "Look outside. Is the world more peaceful since the revolution? I see nothing but death and chaos. . . I would like to see the baby."

Greef interferes hurriedly and obstructs the empty pod with an arm. "Uh. . . It is asleep!"

"We all will be quiet. Open the pram."

Shit, shit, shit!

Mando, tensed up in his seat, is not far off from bolting out when Gaia buckles her hand around his beneath the table. Her fingers are trembling as if influenced by an earthquake, and right away he clasps her hand hard with his to suffocate their shared tremors, conjoined in the fanfare of dried tears and pressure. It becomes strenuous with the handcuffs but they make it work somehow, on the brim of dashing out of the booth until a stormtrooper approaches the Client in order to relay a message to him, for his ears only.

The elderly man rises to his booted feet and Greef imitates the activity with accordance.

"Don't think me to be rude," the Client proclaims, calmly. "I must take this call."

The aged man removes himself from the table, and Mando addresses to his left, "Give me the blaster." One swift flick of the hand later, he has unlocked the handcuffs and aided Gaia out of hers as well, now receiving back his weapon from Greef as Gaia's hand remains alive with their shared warmth.

"You get one shot."

"This is bad," Cara says briskly afterward for the entire group to hear. "You said four."

Gaia inhales sharply for the hundredth time. The Client is busy up at the bar, obscuring both view and voice as he converses with someone unknown to them, surrounded by a mass of both stormtroopers and blaster rifles. Thero is engaged with both sides. Not only is he listening in on Cara and Greef but also keeping an eye out for the Imperial associates, even as Greef shrugs up at Cara, "Well, there are more. What can I tell you?"

"Wait." Gaia is inspecting the Client. Her eyes are implemented with suspense, and she fearfully states aloud, "Something's wrong."

— Author's Note —

Gaia: *body-tackled with obvious trauma*

Mando, ready to comfort and defend his soon-to-be girlfriend: