AN: hey y'all, so happy for the reviews and follows/favs! I have mapped out the first season with EJ and Din and working on a plot for past that. She'll be written in most of the episodes, however with a few more pitstops along the way, just so EJ has some original content for you to get to know her a bit better in. Lmk what you think about this chapter!

BaconBabe, I can't private message you, but thanks for the review!

Out of the Story Books

I didn't look back, scared that maybe Mom tossed off the baby in her arms to one of the guys and jumped on a bike herself, and now I was in a high speed chase with the most terrifying human being in the universe- yeah, still talking about my mother. Moments later, clouds of dust surrounded me and I was thankful to see it was Mando and Toro riding next to me, not the tiny lady with the screeching voice that could wake the dead.

We drove in silence for a while, which was good because our voices probably wouldn't've carried through the wind and dust around us. Then suddenly, as if comparing which dicks were bigger, both Mando and Toro were in front of me, fighting for the lead. I had no doubt Toro started it, but Mando was probably done with his cockiness… I knew I sure as hell was. I rolled my eyes and stayed back, letting them hash out their dominance.

Soon, Toro's hand cramped and he fell back, his head quickly hanging in shame. I glanced back at him, and forced my eyes not to turn up in their sockets. I looked at Mando when I realized he was slowing down and saw his hand signal to stop. Once our bikes were in place, our feet dropped to the ground.

"What's going on?" Toro asked, turning to Mando, but I'd already moved on from him. I had followed Mando's helmet to the desert before us, seeing four definitely-not-sand-dunes in the distance.

"Look. Up ahead," Mando muttered to him and Toro finally saw. He climbed off his bike and pulled binoculars from his satchel.

"Tusken Raiders," Toro announced, looking through the lenses. "I heard the local's talking about this filth." Disgust colored his voice and I prickled at those words, knowing from a traveler or two, that they were here before us.

"Tusken's think they are the locals," Mando replied, causing Toro to let out a heh. "Everyone else is just trespassing." Then Mando looked over at me, "No offense."

But I was looking at him, impressed by his history knowledge. "None taken."

"Well, whatever they want to call themselves, they best keep their distance," Toro threatened them with a smirk.

"Yeah? Why don't you tell them yourself?" Mando quipped back, but my eyes widened in excitement.

"Are we really going to talk to them?" I asked, eagerly. Mando once again swung his helmet towards me and I could just feel he was giving me a look. "I've… I've heard stories about them." Toro looked back at us, but the way he stiffened and suddenly swung himself around caused me to quickly do the same, my mouth falling open with a gasp.

There they were. Right behind us. Right there, close enough for me to see the thread stitching of their face covers and the etchings in the weapons they carried, that the sunlight gleamed off when they rose them- when they rose them and I took a few steps back.

Mando raised his arms at us, to calm us down. "Relax," he said, walking to us. He stood next to Toro and I hid myself behind them, peeking through the space between them. At this angle, I could see Mando's shoulders move and his right hand form some sort of sign language. I slid from behind Toro to beside him, so I could see what Mando was doing.

He was signing to them, but he was going too fast for me to understand what he was saying.

"What are you doing?" Toro asked, and my earlier thoughts of him being an idiot echoed in my mind.

But Mando simply said, "Negotiating." He paused, waiting for a response, and I looked over at the Tuskens. I couldn't read any sort of body language off of them, their tiny little eye goggles reminded me of the eyes of a demon. At least, how illustrations in my books portrayed them to be.

One of them began responding back, again too fast for me to comprehend.

"What's going on?" Toro questioned again.

Mando began to speak, but I knew the answer, and it fell timidly out of me, "We need passage across their land."

The conversation continued, the air feeling thick with tension to me, but Toro just stood there, looking clueless. He obviously knew nothing about this primitive species. When Toro and I first noticed them, I heard them screech something out in the Tusken language, but no traveler I've come across could speak it and really just made a fool of themselves trying to imitate them. It was just all so fascinating.

Finally, Mando turned to Toro, his hand outstretched. "Let me see the binocs," he said, but Toro hesitated, before rising them up from his side.

"Why- hey!" His question turning into an indignant yelp, as Mando snatched the binoculars from his hand and tossed them over to the Tuskens. "Those were brand new!"

"Yeah. They were," Mando responded, returning to his bike and swinging his leg over it.

I looked back at the Tuskens, still standing there. I couldn't tell where they were looking, but in case they were looking at me, I awkwardly bowed my head and squeaked out, "Thank you." I kept my head bowed and hurried to my bike.

Mando took off before I even had mine started, before Toro had even gotten on his, and suddenly we were back on track. On our way to hopefully only get our asses partially handed to us by Fennec Shand.

There was a whole lot of nothingness out here. Just miles and miles and miles of sand and at all different levels of height and I was beginning to get sick of it. The only thing I heard was the roaring of the wind, the only thing I felt was the sand cutting little slits all over my face and arms. My butt was starting to hurt on this hard seat and my legs were cramping up from gripping it so hard and so long.

And all I could see was sand. Sometimes Toro and Mando passed my peripheral vision, but even the billowing cape of Mando's had lost my interest and Toro was already close to my last nerves.

However, suddenly, Mando's hand shot up, signalling us to stop. Toro and I complied but before we had even stopped, he was off his bike.

"Get down!" He called out

"Wha-" Toro began, but I tuned him out and bent low, continuing to run towards Mando. He got on his knees and quickly crawled up the sand dune in front of us. I mimicked him, laying just a few feet away on my stomach, peering over the edge of the dune. Toro ended up on the other side of me.

There was a huge, fleshy beast. It walked slowly and let out a cry. A rope fell off his saddle and… my breath caught. And the rope was wrapped around a body. The dewback continued to drag him along.

"All right, tell me what you see," Mando suddenly said, like this was a lesson in school.

"Dewback. Looks like the rider's still attached," Toro answered. He paused, hopefully, "Is that her? Is that the target?"

"I don't know," Mando answered, but my eyes were still on the body, dragging through the sand. So lifeless… like a dead body would be, because obviously the body was dead. Or it could just be unconscious, I told myself, but there was no hope in that thought in my head.

I felt Toro shift beside me, but Mando moved as well. "No, I'll go," he said, and Toro didn't protest. Mando pulled a gun from his holster and turned to me, reaching for another weapon at his waist, but I shook my head, and revealed the gun I had hiding under my tunic. He grunted, but I was honestly a bit too scared to decipher what that meant.

I looked away, back at the body dragging through the sand. I swallowed and took a breath, because I couldn't be honest. I couldn't act like I was scared. I'm not liable if you die, he told me before we took off. But I would be if he did, because I wasn't meant to be here.

Mando took off, running through the sand towards the dewback. He slowed down as he approached, hands raised. The beast called out, but Mando kept muttering, "Easy." He kept his movements cautious as he got closer, till he was close enough to flip the body over.

"Is it her, is she dead?" Toro yelled at him, probably hoping against hope that it actually was, but he had to have known it wasn't. It wouldn't have been so simple.

"It's another bounty hunter." Mando's answer momentarily caused Toro to slump in defeat but he recovered quickly.

"Hey, I hope you don't plan on keeping all of that for yourself! Can I at least have that blaster?" My ears perked up at that… let's just say my gun wasn't an officially manufactured one. He grabbed it and stuck it in his empty holster, his blaster still in his hand. Then he stilled, his eyes catching something, before abruptly shooting up.

"Get down!" He exclaimed, twisting around to run back to us, but too soon a red streak filled the air, hitting him in the back. He fell into the sand and my mouth opened and screamed outside of my control, before I flung my hands up to cover it.

Mando quickly got up and booked it, but another streak filled the open space, hitting him in the shoulder. He was close enough this time to fall down the dune, protected by any more shots from wherever they were coming from.

He rolled on his stomach, and at the same time, Toro and I asked two different questions: "What happened?" and "Are you okay?" Surprise, surprise, the concern came from me, but Mando didn't answer me, instead labeled the device the shot came from.

Finally, panting hard, because apparently watching someone get shot took a physical toll on him, Toro asked, "You all right?"

"Yeah, it hit me in the beskar, and at that range, beskar held up," He answered this, still looking over the dune.

Okay, I shouldn't be judging Toro, as I just realized I was gasping for air too.

Toro took a deep breath, before saying, "Wait, I don't wear any beskar!"

"Nope," Mando replied, matter of fact.

"Then what do we do?"

"We don't get hit," I murmured to myself, truly for myself, but Toro bristled.

"No shit, Captain Obvious," He snapped back.

"I was talking to myself!" I hissed in response, though that seriously sounded worse than me giving a sarcastic reply in a moment like this.

Mando turned to me then, "Screaming isn't a good response when someone gets shot."

I blushed, furiously. "You heard that?" But I wasn't going to let him shame me. I'm going through a lot of firsts right now. First dead body, first witnessing getting someone shot, first adventure. I was in way over my head. "Okay, but like, you were training for this stuff when you were 8 years old and it was one of your parents that encouraged you to do it. I am a nearly 30 year old woman who cried when a wrench fell off the work bench while I was fixing something last week and broke my droid's head off with an adopted mother that didn't let me use a welder till I was 20 years old."

"That's what you're going to say in defense for yourself?" Toro asked, with an incredulous expression.

But Mando had stilled. "How do you know that?" His helmet was turned to me and for the first time since I met him, I felt his undivided attention.

"I, um, I've heard stories," I answered with a shrug. "They weren't suppose to be secrets, were they?"

He didn't answer, glancing back over the desert, and then he changed the subject completely.

"Did you see where the shots came from?" Mando asked, not addressing either one of us in particular.

"Yeah, it came from that ridge…" Toro answered, gesturing with his head what direction he was talking about. Finally, he was good for something, because I was definitely currently good for nothing, nearly pissing my pants over the things that have transpired over the past five minutes.

"Okay, we're gonna wait till dark," Mando said, as he turned on his back and began sliding down the dune.

"Well, what if she escapes?" Toro put in, cutting off Mando sharing the plan, but it didn't seem like it fazed him. Perhaps he really didn't mind all of Toro's questions.

"She's got the high ground, she'll wait for us to make the first move," was his informed response. He then continued, "I'm gonna rest. Toro, take the first watch. Stay low." After those instructions, Mando went back over to the bikes and sat in front of one, leaning his back against it. His head fell back on the bike next and he presumably shut his eyes to do that resting he'd said he'd do.

"You should rest too. Maybe you'll be less scream-y then," Toro told me with a smirk. I glared at him, but I did want to rest, so without another word, I slid down the dune, and tried to make myself comfy on one of the other bikes.