The first thing the nervous couple did was look at each other. Din had no problem reading their eyes: he could see the uncertainty, fear, and pain in them. They hadn't spoken for a few seconds, opting to find comfort with each other as they fought for the words. Din didn't like it, and he didn't like the way it made him feel.
Is she dead? Is she hurt? Is she refusing to come out? Does she know I'm here? He could feel the emotion welling deep in his chest, and so did the Child as he looked up at his helmet.
"Where is she?" he repeated, somewhat lower than the first time. A moment passed and Aleika's face twisted. She turned away from him and quickly retreated back into the house with a hand over her mouth. Din knew this was not a good sign.
Carlisle sighed, then softly said, "Why don't you come inside? We'll explain everything, give you and the little one something to eat."
"Tell me where she is first." Carlisle stood still for a moment, grasping for the words to say once again. Din took one step and Carlisle spoke the words that confirmed his worst fears.
"We don't know." Din wasn't sure if he heard Carlisle right. For a few seconds, all he could do was stand there in silence staring at the man. A deep panic began to rise deep in his chest, almost unbearable to contain.
". . . You don't know? What do you mean 'you don't know'? I left her here to be safe!" Din's voice had involuntarily risen, attracting a few eyes from the street and from behind nearby curtains. Carlisle noticed immediately.
"Mandalorian, if you'll come inside, we can explain everything." Din stood silently for a moment, wanting nothing more than to take Carlisle by the collar in his anger. As he remembered the Child in his arms, he calmed himself, nodded once, and followed Carlisle into the nice home.
It was just as grand as he remembered, with nice furniture and high walls. Like before, Carlisle led him to the tea room not far from the foyer where Aleika was setting a tea set in the company of a nanny droid, Ruby. Din paused for a moment, eyeing the droid carefully. He kept a hand on his blaster as he entered the room.
The only difference in the tea room was a large portrait hanging on one wall, surrounded by climbing vines. Din's eyes never left the portrait as he entered the room and placed himself closest to the window with a full view of his surroundings. Aleika motioned to a bench moved to the table to Din's left, where a stack of books had been placed. He understood and placed the Child down.
"It's lovely, isn't it?" Aleika asked softly, motioning to the portrait on the wall. "She's grown so beautifully."
It was true: Lili no longer looked like a child in the portrait. She still looked young, but her features were matured, her hair longer, and a permanently distracted look in her eyes. Even so, Din felt as if her eyes followed each motion.
"You remember our nanny droid, Ruby?" Carlisle asked, watching as the droid picked up the teapot across from Din. "If you would like, she can take care of—"
"No," Din said flatly. "She will not touch the Child."
A brief silence followed.
"Sir, my protocol is for the protection and service of—"
"—Not this one. Stay away from him." He stared at the droid for a moment, wondering if the tea pot was about to be launched across the room at his helmet. Instead, the droid returned to its initial task.
Ruby began pouring out tea around the table, even if she knew he wouldn't drink. The slow motions seemed to be a distraction from the uncomfortable conversation they were sure to have.
A crunch brought Din's gaze from the portrait to the Child, who had taken a fairly large bite from a cookie on the table. The Child blinked, its ears perking.
"We haven't seen Lili for six months. She disappeared when we were asleep." Din slowly brought his gaze to Carlisle, the anger boiling deep within.
He had thought she had been gone a few days, maybe a week. He hadn't even thought that Cara's words could be entirely true – and it made him consider that he truly knew very little about the female mind.
"Six months? She's been gone six months and this is the first I'm hearing about it?" Din wasn't entirely sure why he was so upset with the couple. He was the one who surrendered Lili to them – he'd left her to grow up without him. He considered that it possibly wasn't his place to know anymore, but at the same time, he couldn't stop the obligation.
"We didn't have a way to communicate with you, Mandalorian. We've contacted every transport company and facility we could find—"
"—They won't find her, because she isn't a registered citizen with the Republic!" Din responded quickly. "Ryndellians were outer rim, and Lili was a slave by the time the Imperials took over."
A thick, palpable silence filled the room. The same searching look between the Gardinale couple returned, and Din balled his hands into fists as he realized what they'd done: they'd registered Lili to Naboo as a citizen.
"Do you realize the danger you've put her in?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"We couldn't violate the law. We truly did what we believed was in the best interest of Lili, Mando," Carlisle explained.
"And how's that going?" he asked bitterly, being met with no response. "She was supposed to be safe here."
"We know." Carlisle looked down, shaking his head slowly. "I didn't think she would run away."
Din shook his head.
"I've told you about her trust problems. You should've known. You should've been more careful. She could be dead." Suddenly, Aleika stood from the table, her chair falling to the ground. Tears were welled in her eyes as she turned and left the room. As the droid went to follow, Carlisle called out its name and shook his head.
For a few moments, they sat in silence, the only sound from the Child still munching on cookies.
"You'll have to forgive my wife. She hasn't handled the disappearance well. I'm so sorry, Mando," he said lowly. "We've let you down, and we've let Lili down, too."
Din looked at the man and saw the tears welling in his eyes. He could tell how much Carlisle had grown to care for Lili – he'd seen it a year ago. He tried to take pity on the man, putting himself in his shoes.
Din had hoped that Lili would be on Naboo. He'd rather her be there and refusing to see him than her being gone entirely. The thought of her possibly being dead was too much to think about. It brought a sense of urgency to find her as soon as he could.
"Tell me what happened," he said. "Tell me what you know."
Carlisle looked into his visor, his brown eyes searching for a face that was hidden under the beskar. When he eventually looked away, he nodded to the nanny droid in the corner, waiting for a command.
"Ruby." Immediately, Ruby walked to the table and stood before the two men. Carlisle began to move away the dishes. "We thought she was kidnapped at first. She wasn't. She left us a hologram."
Din continued to eye the droid as the dishes were moved to the side. He never had wanted Lili around droids.
"Ruby, show our guest the recording in your drive," Carlisle said, and immediately, a light blue hologram was projected in the middle of the table.
It was Lili, with a travelling cloak over her body and a hood on her head.
"Is it recording?" Even her voice had changed in the short time since he'd last seen her. "Thank you, Ruby."
She had her satchel on her shoulder, which she gripped when she pulled back to stand taller.
For a moment, Lili drew her eyes to stare up, straight at where Din sat. Her face looked like it was struggling to remain composed.
"This hasn't been an easy decision for me. I apologize for any stress I cause tomorrow morning." She blinked, pausing on her words. She briefly looked away, then back up. "These past two years have been . . . difficult. I never want either of you to think it was your fault – you gave me everything and I feel guilty knowing –"
Again, she looked down and composed herself. Din shifted in his seat.
"I love you both. I do. You took me in, gave me a real education and things were normal. But . . . But it wasn't me." Lili looked genuinely grateful, with tears dancing in her eyes. "I know he's still out there somewhere."
Din sat straighter, watching as Lili's eyes turned sad.
"I hope he is, at least. I can't pretend to be happy anymore, when all I want is to return to the stars. I promise I'll come and visit. I'll send holograms whenever I can. But I have to go. It's—It's better this way. It's how it's always been."
She looked down and the Child cooed softly nearby.
"Mom, dad . . . I'm so sorry I'm doing this to you. I don't want to leave but I have to follow my heart. Something's calling me out there and I have to find out why. If he does come back, someday . . ."
The way her eyes shifted to hopelessness and she shook her head would stay with him forever. Tears welled bigger in her eyes.
". . . No. I don't think he will . . . I'm sorry, mom and dad. I love you both."
Lili reached forward again, and the last thing he could see were the tears falling down her cheeks.
Din could feel the Child's gaze on him, but he felt numb to it. He felt numb as the recording repeated itself, and he watched it in full once again. Carlisle's voice brought Din back to reality.
"We were hoping she was with you, by chance. We don't know where she's gone. We've hired investigators, Republic officials . . . but there isn't a trace of her anywhere. We looked on all the planets she'd been to, but it's as if she never existed." Carlisle sighed deep in his chest, the exhaustion showing on the wrinkles in his forehead. "She disabled every camera we had around the property and the security protocols in place. We've searched for anything, but this was the only trace she left behind."
Din spoke immediately.
"Then she either doesn't want to be found, or she's . . . dead. You should pray that it's the former."
"I do," Carlisle spoke immediately. "I blame myself every day. I thought I knew her. We trusted her to stay with us . . . She tried to adapt here. She did."
Carlisle shook his head, a sad laugh passing his lips.
"She was so smart. She went through so many dresses – always found a way to dirty or tear them up. We loved our daughter more than anything. She was always full of surprises, so quiet."
Immediately, Din perked up. He had never known Lili to be quiet.
"But she was never truly ours." Carlisle looked significantly at Din, in silent acceptance. "She missed you. She truly missed you. She talked about you all the time for the first year. She even used to wait by her bedroom window every day for the first few months."
Din felt a deeply rooted guilt back in him, worse than it had ever been. Regret came back with full force and Din, for the first time, began to pray that she wasn't hurt or dead out in the unforgiving galaxy.
"May I see her room?" he asked lowly, and Carlisle nodded. The men both stood and Din carefully held the Child as they walked through the quiet home.
Din had never seen more than the main level of the home, but as they ascended the stairs he came to realize that the style matched. Intricately carved vases, commissioned art pieces, and polished marble decorated the hallways. Overhead, Din could see fresh light beaming down onto the floors and the finely-crafted rugs. Every piece in the hallway was placed carefully, and Din lost count of the artwork by the time they reached a door towards the end of the hall. It was next to a painted portrait of a younger Carlisle and Aleika, presumably when they were newlyweds. Large, pink lilies sat on an end table pressed against the light wall.
Carlisle opened the door quietly, leading the way inside. Din immediately heard Aleika inside as she fought back the tears with a handkerchief. She looked up as they entered the room, looking a mess as Carlisle tended to her. He spoke a few soft words and Aleika stood.
"Here." The couple froze and Din held out the Child. "Keep an eye on him."
Carlisle nodded and took the Child carefully. "Of course. We'll be downstairs. I trust you can find it on your own."
With a short nod, the couple left the room, sealing the door to the room after them. The moment Din was alone in the room, he released the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He closed his eyes and sought comfort in the darkness, in the calmness of the room.
Din had known Lili to be rash and loud, with her redeeming quality as her empathetic nature and strength. He knew it would be unlikely she would lose those traits, but he hadn't considered the change in her personality since he left. He couldn't imagine her as quiet and collected, even if that was the common mold of Naboo. He haunted himself in the thought that his departure cut deeper than he thought possible.
He opened his eyes to the sunlit room, to the light blue walls and the marble floors. The room was larger than the length of the Razor Crest, at least. The walls were decorated with posters of fictional characters and musicians, and like the rest of the home, there were plants littered throughout. The most prominent were the lilies – Din counted three different vases of them in the room.
To his left was a raised platform with two steps, where Lili's large bed sat covered in the silks Din knew he could never afford to have. To the left of the bed was a large folding mirror over a thick rug, while to the right was a large, rounded window with a wide view of Naboo. Next to the window was a white wicker chair and a vanity with another mirror, littered with beauty products and a few books.
In front of him were doors to a small balcony outside, with opaque curtains hanging around it that matched those of the windows. A tall dresser was pressed against the same wall diagonal from a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf decorated with various trinkets and books. To his right were two more doors – one leading to a walk-in closet, and the other a large bathroom with another window, covered.
The room felt familiar. It felt like Lili. But at the same time, it belonged to a Lili he no longer knew, and one that he wasn't sure he would ever know again.
Din took a step further into the room, feeling incredibly out of place in the room. He took the two steps up the platform and stopped in front of the bed, its sheets wrinkled from where he assumed Aleika had been sitting before he arrived.
The helmet landed on the soft sheets, catching glints of light from the sun. Din couldn't remember lifting his hands or hearing the click as he pulled it off, but he knew it had grown to be suffocating in that large room.
He gave himself a few seconds to adjust to the brightness, blinking rapidly and cringing from it. It pained his eyes in a familiar way and he inhaled deeply. He couldn't place the smell immediately as he walked to the white wicker chair, sinking into it slowly.
The view from her room was unforgettable, with the capital building in the distance and rolling greenery beyond that. The street below had the same citizens, with a view of the different gardens around. He could see the depot where he'd arrived closer to the home than he'd thought, but not enough to see the ships within. Even so, if she would have been sitting there an hour prior, she would have seen his ship arriving. She would have known he was there.
Din stood, looking around the room again.
Lili must have left something behind that could tell of her whereabouts. Being a bounty hunter carried many benefits for him, some of which the ability to track and find. He prided himself in his skills of finding any clues he could about his bounties. If there was even a trace of evidence, he knew he could find it.
Din thought back to Carlisle's words, reminding himself that they must have searched the room repeatedly before he arrived. If there was any evidence before, he hadn't heard of it – which meant her room was clean.
He didn't accept that conclusion. He caught a brief sight of his reflection in the vanity, nearly startling himself as he began searching through drawers. Nothing was in the vanity, or hidden behind the mirror or in the products there. He tried the bookshelf next, then the dresser, the bed, and every other piece of furniture in the room. He searched in crevices he was certain no one else would think of, but there was not a single trace or a clue left behind.
I taught her too well. The thought both frightened him and prided him at the same time. He was right – Lili didn't want to be found.
While impressed with this ability, Din felt a deep irritation building in his mind as he sat back in the wicker chair in the room, looking around it for any other clues he may have missed. He watched the flowers on the desk twitch as pollen spores released from them, the floral sent in the room heavier than before. As Din turned his attention back to the landscape outside the window, it dawned on him where the smell was familiar.
The room smelled like the flower fields on Ryndellia he had seen Lili exploring after she found her childhood home. Din glanced back at them and assumed they either grew on Naboo or Aleika had them imported. Either way, it sent another wave of sadness over him.
Movement caught his eye and he followed a transport ship with his gaze, watching as it moved higher into the sky until it disappeared from sight. It came from the same area where he'd landed, from a trading post on Naboo.
The trading post. Din recalled Lili's stories of smuggling and running spice throughout the Outer Rim. She must have been familiar with the trading routes there, and the ones in and out of the Mid Rim as well. If she had left the planet without a trace, she must have boarded one of those ships.
Din made a note to stop there before he departed to see if anyone saw anything, although he was skeptical they had.
If there's something in this room, she's hidden it well. I need the sensors. Din stood back up from the chair for a final time to cross back to his helmet. The metal was warm from where the light hit it, but the inside was cool. Putting it back on was as easy as slipping on a glove.
As the systems booted awake and he scanned the room again, he moved towards the closet once again. Dresses of all colors, styles, and patterns hung around the small space. He spotted the first dress she was ever gifted, now a dull purple with a few threads loose. He lifted a hand and brought his hand over a few of the dresses, smiling to himself as he saw a few impermeable mud stains on the fabric that she no doubt was scolded for.
He bent to his knees next to the neat line of shoes on the floor. Like the dresses, each pair of shoes were different than the last – but Din wasn't interested in studying them. He reached a hand forward, knocking along the wall to listen for any hollow spots. There were no spaces she could have hidden anything from her parents.
Din let out an aggravated sigh and, in a brief moment of anger, lashed out at the dresser in the space he'd searched before. The dresser's brass handles rattled from the impact, sending a few pairs of shoes falling from their stand on the floor.
Maybe she took everything with her. The thought wasn't comforting by any means. Hastily picking up the shoes, Din threw them back into their places and sat back against the wall as he pondered the possible solutions to the predicament.
As he considered reactivating the tracking fob on his ship, he spotted a light red slipper turned on its side, facing him. The fabric was tightly spun and shone under the minimal closet light with an old bow at the end of it. Din grabbed the shoe to place right side up when he noticed the inner sole of the shoe had released from its glue inside, revealing a very small, unnoticeable pouch within it. Within that patch was a yellowing piece of paper.
Din couldn't move quick enough as he stole the paper and unfolded it quickly.
Clever spot. I wouldn't have thought of it. He flipped over the sheet of paper and was met with a swoopy, beautiful handwriting. He assumed it must have been Lili's hand.
On it was a list of transports, each with a time schedule next to it, transported items, and notes on who worked there with each one. Underlined in red was the answer he was searching for.
Enarc Run. Transport 1A3 – Tatooine, 0200. Transport: refined plasma. Clierd – break at 0130. Zeff – asleep by 0235. Fla-Fla – main comms. Sebul – transport pilot.
Din pocketed the list quickly, knowing that he at least had a start now. If Lili was out there, he would find her, just as he had the first time. There would be no money involved or gang crime: just Lili.
As he left the bedroom fairly quickly, he froze in his place. He took one step back to the vase of pink lilies on the end table, staring at the vibrancy of the petals. He plucked one from the vase and tucked it into his belt, right next to where he had kept her Pasaana necklace. He wasn't sure what had drawn him to the flowers and their beauty — he'd never had time to admire and appreciate flora in his life.
He didn't have time to ponder. He strode down the hallway, and by the time he had reached the tea room, Aleika was feeding the Child with a small smile and Carlisle turned from where he stood at the window.
Din spoke confidently of not a favor, but of a promise.
"I'll find her."