He could already tell he would regret taking this job. All Karga had told him was that the job was on Neridiaam, which meant the job involved Imperials. He hated working with Imps, especially in Empire territory. The Mandalorian preferred working in the Outer Rim, where most were smart enough to keep to their own business. Worst case he had to deliver a bounty to one of the Hutts, maybe risk being thrown to a hungry pet when the Hutt took offense to some aspect of his character. But he'd rather fight a hundred Rancor than deal with the Empire.
He needed the money though, and the job promised to pay well. The Razor Crest was badly in need of repairs, and he couldn't justify working out in the open like this with nothing to bring back to the tribe and the new foundlings. So he knew no matter how risky the job was, he'd be taking it.
He would not be taking the job.
"I'm a bounty hunter, not a babysitter."
The Mandalorian wasn't about to spend any more time in Imperial territory than he needed to, and looking after some officer's spoiled brat was not exactly his line of work.
But Marshall Gideon, as he was rapidly learning, was not the kind of man who took 'no' for an answer. "If you take issue with the title of bodyguard I will put out a bounty on anyone who threatens my niece. 20,000 credits a head sounds fair?"
"Fine. Point me in their direction."
The Marshall gives him a hard stare, lips thinning into a severe line. "If I knew who was threatening her I would have taken care of them myself a long time ago."
He should have known this mission would be complicated when the Marshall himself met him at the shipyard. The Imps usually made you come to them, escorted by a cadre of trigger-happy Stormtroopers the entire time. Gideon came alone.
"I wouldn't have brought in outside security if I could rely on our own intel. There's been intelligence leaks all over the compound - we've had smugglers getting through checkpoints, government shipments raided, prisoners breaking free of their transports. I previously had several Stormtroopers looking after my niece but one was killed by an Imperial blaster. I can't even trust our internal security - someone here is clearly working against the Empire's interests, and it's putting her at risk." He pauses for a moment to let his speech settle in, while the Mandalorian suppresses a scoff. So much for the mighty Empire, if it can't even maintain control over this tiny planet. But Gideon finally gets to the point, "I need someone free of allegiances to anything except the money I'm paying him. And Karga tells me that man is you."
"I'm not good with kids." He feels the need to state.
"I'm not paying you to play nursemaid. You don't even need to speak with her, I simply want you to keep her out of harm's way when I am not there with her."
"For 10,000 credits a week?" It wasn't bad money with the way things were going lately.
Taking the question as a sign he would be accepting the job, Gideon starts walking them towards his land speeder. "For up to twelve weeks, yes. After that I'll be leaving this backwater hellhole and taking her somewhere safer."
"And all I just have to do is take out anyone that threatens her until then?"
The Marshall turns back to face him, his expression hard. "Don't misunderstand me, Mandalorian. This is a full time job. And I expect you to defend her with your life. If you wish I can stipulate in our agreement that in the case of your demise your full payment will go to your next of kin. If you have any left, of course."
The Mandalorian doesn't let himself react to the pointed remark, stepping into the speeder without another word. The offer is too good to pass up for some Imp saying what everyone already believes about his people - a belief that benefits them for the time being. The Marshall might be somewhat volatile and more than a little paranoid, but he had worked with worse for less money. He could survive a few petty remarks and a few months of boredom.
Neridiaam didn't look like most Imperial territories he had seen before. On his rare journeys into the Mid Rim and Expansion Zone he had found the planets either home to a sterile metropolis or desolate wastelands turned work camps, nothing in between. Here all of the buildings were much older, and while not particularly impressive they were fairly well maintained. The planet's inhabitants must not have put up much of a fight when the Empire showed up, though many of them could be seen milling around the streets and marketplaces. Aside from a few temples and old government buildings it didn't look like much had been demolished in the takeover. It also didn't look like much had been built by the planet's new rulers, either. Which made it easy enough to spot the Marshall's compound, even from a distance. The imperious looking durasteel towers stood out aggressively amongst all the smaller pourstone buildings surrounding it. It looked nearly impenetrable from the outside, though the Mandalorian thought to himself that his very presence here proved it wasn't.
The Marshall scans them past several blast doors to enter the compound and strangely no one bothers to check the Mandalorian or his weapons. Inside, the buildings formed a maze of starkly monochromatic hallways and lifts that he did his best to memorize as he is swiftly led to their destination. They travel up several floors before stopping at an unremarkable door.
Inside was an apartment, exactly as he expected from the Empire - all sleek lines and uncomfortable looking furniture, broken up only by a few slashes of green from the potted plants that littered empty tables and otherwise bare alcoves. Other than this the place boasted only a small sitting room with a large window looking out towards the mountains, a utilitarian kitchen, and three more doors further from the entrance.
"You will be in this room." Gideon points to the nearest door. It's the first words that have been spoken since they stepped onto the speeder. "I will remind you now that you're expected to be at her side at all hours, unless she is with me."
The Mandalorian enters the small room, which looks as though it had formerly been a small office or storage space that had been converted into a temporary bunk. He sets down his pack at the edge of the cot and considers it's roomier than his usual accommodations. That doesn't go too far towards warming him to this job, however.
"And then my niece should be in - " The Mandalorian hears the slide of the furthest door, followed by a frustrated sigh. He turns to see the Marshall pinching the bridge of his nose as he faces an empty bedroom. "You will need to keep a closer eye on her. She has no sense of the danger she is in and still wanders as she pleases."
With this, the Marshall turns around sharply and starts leading them back to the lower levels. A picture has started forming in the Mandalorian's mind of just what he's gotten himself into. Somehow he's agreed to looking after some overindulged Imperial brat with a penchant for running off on her own. Boredom is suddenly the least of his worries.
The Marshall leads him to a small courtyard, tucked towards the back of the compound, high walls segregating it from the mountains behind them. The courtyard itself is something of a curiosity from what he has seen so far. Though Neridiaam isn't exactly lacking in signs of life, it pales in comparison to the lush space in front of him now. A startling number of species of plant life - most obviously not of the local variety - crowd into the space, interrupted only by a snaking stone path that's partially hidden by untended growth. After the stark whites and grays of the compound the riot of colors that surround them nearly comes as a shock, particularly with the twin suns just starting to set. But instead he finds it oddly peaceful out here. Refreshing even, like he could almost forget where he was and why he was here.
But if the garden had been an unexpected sight, the girl sheltered beneath the trees ahead is even more so. She's not a little kid, first of all. He'd guess at least mid to late twenties - a woman, not a girl. Though she is facing away from them there is a stillness to her that belies a greater age than the one he had imagined, based on her uncle's warnings. He's not sure if this makes the job easier, or harder. She certainly doesn't fit his picture of a spoiled Imperial brat, even though he could tell from here that her dress and her jewels were probably worth more than his ship at this point.
"You were supposed to stay in your room," Gideon hisses at the woman, causing her to turn and face them. And that's when he first notices her eyes, and how they don't quite meet either of them. Though his visor tends to lend a darker hue to everything he sees, it is easy to tell that her eyes are far too pale.
"I didn't want to miss the Kore blossoms, Uncle. I am sorry to have worried you." Her expression appears contrite, though her uncle seems hardly mollified by the apology. His voice is still stern when he speaks again.
"Amira, this is your new bodyguard. I expect you to let him do his job."
The girl stands from where she is seated on a low stone bench, walking towards them. The Mandalorian notices her feet are bare.
"Of course, Uncle."
"Very well then. I have matters of state to attend to." And with that the Marshall makes another sharp turn and swiftly exits the garden, leaving the Mandalorian to awkwardly face his new charge alone.
She, however, seems utterly unperturbed by his presence, and moves to reclaim her perch on the stone bench. The silence stretches between them for several long minutes. He tries to better take in their surroundings, evaluate any vulnerabilities and get a sense of all the entry points and exits, though it's hard to determine through the dense foliage in this particular corner.
"You can sit here, you know." Her hand sweeps out to indicate the bench beside her. "We're walled off from the outside, and no one else ever comes out here. You can relax."
Uncertain of what else to do, he takes the proferred seat, and he uses the new vantage point to study her profile. Her face, too, is not what he imagined from a daughter of the Empire. Her features are clear and soft, in direct contrast to the harshness of her uncle's. Her hair is pulled back into a series of imperfect braids to keep it from falling into her face, but the remainder flows freely around her shoulders. He can't get a good visual on her coloring through his visor with the deep red lighting of the sunset, but he can't seem to find any trace of family resemblance no matter how he looks at her.
"I know what you're thinking, and he's not really my Uncle," she offers in a very matter-of-fact manner, before continuing, "he and my father were friends when they were younger, and when my parents were killed he brought me here to stay with him."
Marshall Gideon didn't exactly seem like the type for rescuing orphans, but he didn't really know much about his employer - it was guild policy not to enquire too deeply. Still, rethinking his image of the man kept him from slipping into the memory of his own losses. Thankfully, she interrupts either thought.
"You don't say much, do you?"
"Don't usually need to, in my line of work."
"And what line of work is that?" Amira doesn't quite face him, but she inclines her head slightly towards him. He figures there's no real harm in telling her.
"Bounty hunting."
"A fitting job for a Mandalorian. But how'd you end up as my bodyguard?" Her brows knit together and he realizes he's mirroring her expression, not that she can see him.
"I've been asking myself that same question."
That draws a surprised laugh out of the woman beside him. Her face settles into a small smile. "I suppose it's not that much a stretch - I'm sure you regularly have to escort your bounties safely wherever they're heading."
"I usually just put them in cryo." He answers truthfully, usure what else to say.
She laughs again, though with far less humor than before. "Don't tell my Uncle that, he probably wishes he could freeze me away whenever I become inconvenient for him."
He's thinking once again that he doesn't really know much about the Marshall beyond their terms of contract, and can't offer up any reassurances to the contrary. He considers letting them lapse back into silence, but her brows are knitting up again and he decides a change in topic is the safer option.
"So what exactly am I looking at here?"
"I don't know, what are you looking at?" She asks him back, in a manner he thinks might be teasing. Right. Of course. She doesn't seem to take any real offense to his slip however, turning back towards the trees in front of them. "If you're facing the same direction as I am, you should be able to see a few vines running up along the trees. They'll have little buds along each string."
He thinks he sees what she's talking about. The vines don't quite go all the way up the trees, but they're covered in small purple buds. The color is nice enough but they're not particularly impressive considering their surroundings.
"They're called Kore flowers. They're one of the few local plants in the whole garden. The rest of it was all brought in by the previous Marshall, who was trying to impress his mistress - though it turned out she was allergic to most of it." She laughs a little at the irony, "but the Kore blossoms - they only bloom once a lunar cycle, and only when Kore is fully overhead - the next blooms won't be for another 76 days." She's smiling again as she explains this all to him, and he looks up to where space between the trees is still faintly lit by the dying rays of the suns.
"It will probably be another couple hours before the moon is overhead." He remarks, not knowing what else to add, and her frown returns.
"But I asked the computer for the sun set time, it should be nighttime soon…"
"I don't see the moon out yet, so it may take a little longer to get overhead." The Mandolorian does some rough calculations in his head - Neridiaam's days are a little over 32 hours long, with nights at this latitude about ten hours long. If he doesn't see the moon out yet, it's not going to be overhead any time soon with an orbit that slow.
"Oh." She sounds a little put out by the information, but she recovers easily enough. "Then will you tell me when the moon is overhead?"
"Sure." He can think of worse things to do than sit and watch the sky for a few hours. It also gives him a little time to figure out just what the hell he's doing here.
"Thank you."
She responds with such sincerity it nearly catches him off guard. He's rarely been thanked in his line of work, and never for such a small request as this. With the mountains shielding them on one side, and a less than silent door as the only entrance to the courtyard, it's no trouble to occasionally search the sky for her. A far more comfortable silence stretches out between them, broken only by her offering up a few more facts about the flowers.
"How were you planning to know when the plants bloomed anyway?" He can't help but ask, still not entirely sure why she's so excited for an event she can't even witness.
"When the petals open they're supposed to smell like moonlight."
The Mandalorian does his best not to scoff at that description, "what does moonlight even smell like?"
"I'm not quite sure, but I'd like to find out." She smiles, completely unfazed by his skepticism. "I've also been told they're very nice to look at when they bloom."
He's never been one for looking at flowers, but after nearly two hours of sitting here waiting he'll admit he's growing a little curious.
"How do the flowers know when the moon is overhead?"
"Perhaps they have someone else tell them," she teases, then adds, more seriously, "plants can sense changes in temperature and light, they know when the time is right."
Speaking of changes in light and temperature, he's somehow missed how the temperature has dropped considerably since the light faded. It doesn't particularly affect him, covered as he is in multiple layers. But the woman beside him is less appropriately bundled. Her dress is of a loose shimmering fabric, with a semi-sheer cape that exposes her bare arms - arms that are currently covered in gooseflesh. Between that and her bare feet he is tempted to escort her back to her quarters for more appropriate clothing, but she seems utterly content in the chill air.
In the end he doesn't even need to tell her when the moon is overhead. The blossoms themselves are spectacular - erupting into intricate purple flowers with an inner corona of small white filaments that almost seem to glow as they reach upwards towards the night sky. But the scent hits them even before the petals are fully open - something cool and faintly sweet. The description of moonlight might be a little on the poetic side, but it seems as appropriate as any other.
He shouldn't be surprised that Amira slides off the bench to kneel on the ground, with a complete disregard for her fine clothing, in order to breathe the scent more deeply and feel for the opened blooms. He watches as her fingers trace along the wide petals at the outside, where the purple color is the deepest, hears her laughing as the inner filaments tickle her fingertips. Apparently the flower's glow isn't just a trick of the light, as when she pulls back her fingertips and the tip of her nose are also faintly glowing - though only for a few moments before fading once again. She almost looks childlike crouched down among the plants, and he feels an unfamiliar sense of protectiveness. But he doesn't give into her urgings that he join her on the ground as she explores each and every bloom. Instead he takes a moment to rest his eyes. With his curiosity satisfied he remembers the lateness of the hour, but he keeps his other senses tuned for any approach.
It's the silence that makes him reopen his eyes again. Amira is no longer in front of him. He scans around but there's no immediate sign of her. He's already running when he hears the slide of the door.
But it's just her, standing in the doorway without looking back at him.
"Let me escort you back to your quarters." He thinks he's beginning to understand this situation a little better.
"I don't actually need a bodyguard, you know," she finally faces him. "I know he's paying you to be but I won't tell him anything."
"It won't really matter what you tell him if you wind up dead on my watch."
"Don't be silly, my Uncle is just paranoid." She remains unfazed.
"And the dead Stormtrooper?"
"He probably shot himself, they're not exactly elite marksmen." The girl isn't wrong, but he's surprised by the coolness of her response.
"Look, if you don't want a bodyguard then just let me guide you around for a few months and we'll call it square." He hopes the change of titles might mollify her.
It doesn't. If anything her expression hardens, and she turns to leave him at the door. She moves faster through the hallways than he would have predicted and it's tough to match her pace without jogging behind her. Any lingering Stormtroopers in the hallway immediately move aside for her, though they don't offer the same courtesy to him. Amira seems to know exactly where she is heading as she meanders through all the twists and turns and weirdly small passages throughout the compound until he's lost all sense of where they are before they're somehow back at her quarters, and she's once again facing him in the doorway.
"I don't need a guide any more than I need a bodyguard."
Her expression is still hard, and he's trying to think of a way to explain that he wasn't belittling her to suggest she needed a guide, but thinks better of it.
"This isn't exactly my first choice either." It's as close to an apology as he can offer right now.
"No, I suppose it isn't."
Her anger seems to deflate as quickly as it came on. But still she stands there blocking the doorway for several long minutes, seeming to consider him even though her eyes are pointed somewhere to the left of his shoulder. Eventually she seems to make up her mind about it one way or the other, and walks into the apartment, clearly expecting him to follow her.
"Would you like anything to eat?" She offers not unkindly, as if she didn't just force him to race through a maze of her own making for daring to suggest she might need help getting around.
"I'm not hungry right now." He is, but he doesn't exactly feel like explaining that he cannot remove his helmet with her still in the room, that it is not the Mandalorian way. "But thanks."
"Well, if you get hungry you are welcome to anything in the kitchen. And if you want anything else we can go pick it up in the marketplace tomorrow."
The Mandalorian hopes that this signals she's coming to terms with his role here. He allows her to show him around the apartment and refrains from telling her he already knows where everything is, content to have her explain it all to him again - though a little less brusquely than her uncle had earlier. He's pleased to find that the only surveillance on the apartment is at the entrance and near the windows. Apparently this apartment also was designed for the previous Marshall's mistress, and he's relieved his own bunk was added only recently.
Her room is much larger and well-appointed, and the fresher between their rooms is fancier than any he's ever encountered. But he doesn't begrudge her any of this. Aside from the plants the whole place feels just as soulless as anything else the Empire constructs, and he can recognize a gilded cage when he sees one. No wonder she has a tendency to wander off.
"What do I even call you anyway?" She finally asks as they are heading to their respective rooms. "You never told me your name."
"Mandalorian is fine."
She considers this too, for a long moment. "Alright then. Goodnight, Mandalorian."
She's smiling again, like she had before. And he's wondering to himself once again just what the hell he's gotten himself into.