{ take this chapter with a spoonful of sugar. it just had to be this way, okay? 'mkay, leggo. }

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023. KISS GOODBYE

( —to be forced to regard as lost, ruined, or hopeless. )

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As insured, an ambush had waited for them at the close of the lava flat; diabolic and well-plotted.

The Ichor that climbed in her was gushing with pleasure, adding to Myra's confusion, as if awaiting the entrance of something. The nerves in her fist toughened as the ferry hovered down gradually, the remnants of IG-11's sacrifice drifted slowly to the sleet of fire.

It was honourable self-sacrifice, even for a being so heartless. Besides, the odds were never in their favour. Mechanized and bound to protocols of its maker, a single move, a divine piece in their escapade, IG-11 had promised to protect them and in the end, stayed to true to his words. For their sake, for a droid, bereavement was not an option. 

Around them, the descending current of lava unfurled to the sunlight of midday. The sky was drenched in a single splash of blue, contrasting with the blackened coal and ivory armoured soldiers that were scattered without noise. Tossed in scalding marks of the fire from IG-11's explosion, they remained unmoving. Dead.

Myra's hand instinctually reached for the Mandalorian's elbow with a breath of surprise, looking away.

"Relax," he cautioned her. 

The shock registered along with surprise, unable to be let off the hook to mourn the unavoidable destruction around them. The rude awakening was because of the black, pearl-shaped TIE fighter pod that raced for them with a strident ringing which fissured the silence. It curved through the cloudless sky, crackled forward and singing a sing of death with its blazing shots that were fraught with danger.

Cara's roar was louder than the racket. "Moff Gideon!"

"Take cover," Myra shouted back, her hands calling for her usual defensive spell which started to weave a hemispherical, protective barrier around the ferry. The Ichor flamed in her, letting the semipermeable membrane to let loose the blasts from inside the bubble.

The pod swivelled as the reflective shots flew, dodging their hits efficiently and soaring for a cliff of ebonized coal. It disappeared for a swift moment, still making its presence known with the hum of its faraway engines.

"He missed," the leader cried out, much too relieved. 

The Mandalorian continued to search the horizon for the potent threat, saying, "He won't next time."

"These blasters are useless against him," Cara grunted, knocking the flat side of the weapon on her palm. 

"You'll be safe," Myra panted out, readying her hands out once again and trembling fingers not willing to give up. "Just keep it steady."

"She's too worn out," Greef sighed out and turned to the baby in Cara's grip with an idea. "Hey, let's make the baby do the magic hand thing?"

Myra scoffed. "Wha—" 

"Come on, baby," he tried to coerce the child with a wave of his hands, "do the magic hand thing!"

What. In. The. Fuck, she inwardly thought. The child, oblivious, held its hand out with coo of composure and mimicking his motions. The leader shook his head in vain and snorting out a, "I'm out of ideas."

"I'm not," the Mandalorian responded in a diplomatic aspect, an unbalanced idea leaching off him to Myra's disbelief. Impressed and in line, she watched him whirl around to grapple the aerial transport he had been gifted with from the Armourer in the covert. A jetpack, was it?

She was proud of the momentum, nevertheless. It was what powered witches, the reckless sense of resolution. Sliding on the jetpack over the cape on his back and elegantly clipping onto the awaiting position over his armour, Myra was easily in awe of the craftsmanship.

"Well, I'm coming with," she crouched to watch the fighter pod swivel around the horizon and a black flash once again disappearing into the distance.

"What?" 

"Reinforcements?" She asked, sheepish. 

"I don't—"

"Here he comes!" Cara yelled in panic, her extensive blaster's aim already readied.

The ebony fighter pod swirled around the horizon once again, out of sight until it tunnelled for a U and started to barrel uninterrupted for them. The Mandalorian, who had accessed the transport from the control panel on his vambraces, awakened the jetpack with a surge of twin flames on either side. He anticipated; cautious and patient.

Myra, prepared before him, had honed her gifted, gold blades on either hand with stiffened fists. She bounced on the balls of her feet to rock off the nerves, knowing what she was about to do was stupid. You're officially insane, she remembered the Mandalorian laughing at her.

Moff Gideon initiated gunfire, mere metres above them while whizzing ahead, and the couple was off. 

While Myra relied on teleportation to aboard the exterior of the aircraft, the Mandalorian had elected for a simpler strategy—a perfidy breach, acting as bait before escaping the advance and using his grappler hook to mount himself unto the surface of the pod.

The harsh drafts pulverised into Myra's face, forcing the hair away and she kept her head low as the dagger's provided her a safe installation onto the smooth panels of the hindside, globe structure in the pod. She knew the screech of the dagger meeting metal would have alerted Moff, hearing his string of expletives in his head as he toiled to pry them off.

Her leg slipped over the satin on her dress as she tried to find a safe fixture for her bodily balance. A cry left her as she dangled helplessly, her only support being the blades. 

She heard the Mandalorian call out for her in tension upon hearing her shriek. He had tried to sculpt his way into Moff's cockpit through the glass panels but in vain, losing his grapple once the pod tumbled into hordes of spins. 

"Myra!" He shouted. "Hang on!"

Her bare feet had dug into the sliver between the obsidian panels of the globule part of the pod, hanging tighter as the loosened grip from the dagger-and-ingot braces. "I'm fine!"

"The panel-side is his engine," she informed in the loudest voice she could muster. "I have to—"

"Stay where you are, I have a plan," he ordered her.

Myra rolled her eyes with a growl, hating his order. She plucked out the dagger from the metal, taking a large step onto the hull of another panel to propel herself onto the side where she had sensed the scent of fuel. She pierced the dagger back into the panel to yank it off its hinges and regarding an assortment of wires.

"What do you see?" He sounded out.

"Cables," she yelled back, most of her voice muffled by the screaming winds.

"Just cut them all!"

Fitting a dagger between her lips, Myra used her free hand to conjure an orb of thick vapours, her fear invoking the Ichor quicker. It shaped toughly, changing its colour as she aimed it for the wirework.

Come through the glow, the Ichor whispered a delightful croon in her ear. Come to us, child. We wait.

With a bang, the debris of the failing engine smashed into electrocuted before her eyes. She cried out again as the impact acted against her. 

And staying true to his statement, the Mandalorian steadied his spurred, armoured stance over the link to the streamlined panels which enabled flight, unhooking a capsule from his hip. 

An explosive, she perceived. He had let one loose with a slip of his fingers, reaching for two more with a strained grunt. The spurring winds sliced through them, almost making it unable for Myra to see through arid eyes. 

"Let go!" He yelled at her as he allowed himself to plummet off the grenade-alerted wing. Upon his call, the other side had floundered into million pieces, rubble floating to the ground like confetti. She concealed a scream when the fighter pod vaulted forward in crests of bisque flares into the hoarse azure.  

"Let go," he shouted again. "I'll catch you!"

On cue, Myra let her grip loose. Come to us, she heard the Ichor croon again.

Din never thought he would see himself in this situation. Striving yet, incapable. Seeing the loss and unable to make a move. For a full fifteen seconds, he dove forward only to see Myra plummet to the buff magma flowing river below, at a speed that left him constricted in his throat so he could barely draw a breath. 

The air pushed against Myra from the back, hair and arms flailing as if trying to clutch the transparent firmament above. A scream dislodged in her throat, finding it hard to defeat the inevitable.

A fist caught hers at her moon-glyph tattoo on the wrist, tight and secure. 

"I got you."

She couldn't make out his relieved whisper. While suspended in the air, every perception of time and space distorted. His dark visor looked down at her, pounds of relief leaving him. A panting grunt left him, unable to lift her up higher into his arms. Purposely weighing herself down.

"I can't—" He ventured to lift her up. "I can't hold on—Myra, please. No, please."

It was as if time has slowed. All he could see between the ocean of basaltic rocks were the two drops of gold in her eyes, the compensation and the ease of the climactic moment she was absorbed in. 

"Din," she attempted on her lips. "My love, it's okay."

In a devastating moment of surprise and deliberation, she let her grip slip from his wrist. Without looking into his head, he could tell that hearing his name from her lips was as blissful as the first time he had voluntarily touched her. Despite the chaos around them, he was satisfied. They both were.

"You're insane," he struggled out in a fissured voice of emotion.

Myra and Din had succumbed to the integrity of the glass. A glass that was meant to be shattered for the balance of all ideas of evitability. Sunk into a reverie of perfection, the aura, the expanse and the adventure of the merciless galaxy—living off a love which knew how to rise and not to set. A fog of affection which knew how to spread and never to vanish. Because once the penchant for emotion came to a witch, only a trial would absolve her.

Come to us, the Ichor called out louder. A twisting, seductive croon which she was obliged to abide by. A dragon's roar rang through her mind, a fiery menace of amber that blinded her for a second. Come and endure.

"Let go," a barely perceptible smile had twisted upon Myra's lips. "It wants this. Please."

"Myra, please—please—"

"I want this."

"I'm not going to—no!"

An impact against his chest had caused his grasp to falter. The pain was mere fingerbreadths away from his heart as her eyes shut in a peace she had surrendered to. 

She was a golden blur, the brightest star, soon enough, a blur that started to eddy out of continuation to the flaming rivers that abode to swallow her. They were onyx and flaming with her arrival as if sensing the approach of a metal-imbued witch. 

One last glance could do so much. He heard it all; the sound of the first time she had laughed; the feel of the single finger down his spine and the brilliant onyx light her eyes reflected despite any darkness. 

Come to us and look within.

Yet, Din couldn't give up. He dove faster, willing the most rapid as he sank in deeper. Inwardly cursing the Ichor, the Ways, her thankless Sight and Fates. 

All, to no avail.

Jangled sound of descending flesh meeting wrathful coulee hit his ears. A trough of magma ignited up around her, swallowing her in with its xanthous tentacles of combustion. Coiling around her and burning her into a place of no return.

A plume of fire stormed up skyward, symbolizing the cessation of the witch's life. And for once, no heartbeats sounded in the life as Death stalked the basaltic grounds of Nevarro. 

Din's emotions were veiled into nothing, tossed into obscurity and as if there was no heart to beat in his skeletal chest, except the one had burned with her. As his eyes widened out in disbelief under the helmet, the Ichor played.

Din began to explode; as if withering from the inside out.

The spirited waters bore down their sickle, cleaving the fervent bond that bound them together. With no forgiveness or mercy, terminal energy that the witch had believed in would burn ravenous hearts into nothing but ashes on fruitless specks of dirt, and transpose cognisances into a sodden, glacial grotto of sickly emptiness; the offensive adumbration that was bowed to had one name—

The Ichor.

X X X

{ one more chapter, will undergo editing promptly. }