I've only ever seen the three original Star Wars movies, and maybe The Phantom Menace (?). But I'm totally on it with The Mandalorian. This is just kind of a fun exercise. I don't write sci-fi. I just like writing about people, real or imagined, and how they behave, and I figure that must transcend all styles of fiction. I've given The Child a name, but that's for a future installment, and if/when we ever learn his real name, if he's given one, I'll just pop in and change it. But I ran out of different euphemisms for 'child' and 'kid'.

HUMAN, ACTUALLY

"You're a damn good shot."

Omera shrugged, glancing nervously toward the woods surrounding the encampment—what if the Raiders heard all the ruckus and came to investigate? She looked at him, her feeling of unease slowly fading—no Klatoonian would be stupid enough to cross this intimidating, soft-spoken, shy man. "I learned what I needed to know."

"For life here?" The Mandalorian gestured slightly toward the woods. "Before those things started raiding, I mean." He paused, and she had to cover a smile. "I mean, this kind of place hardly needs a stockpile of weapons in normal… er… circumstances."

"Very true. Until those Klatooinians arrived, we used spears for hunting and fishing, and that's not effective against them and those… walker things," she said bitterly, putting the rifle down. "Bloody filth. As if they couldn't have just come and purchased some of our krill for their own brewing. Raiding for krill? I'm not even that fond of spotchka! Frankly, I can do without it. If I was going to raid for something, it would be for… I don't know, good leather or… " she glanced at him. "Beskar steel."

She could feel his smile, even if she couldn't see it. "I take it these guys aren't winning any contests for brains?"

She smiled slightly. "No. Big, smelly, mean and stupid-they've cornered the market on that! With proper training, we could use them as beasts of burden."

"That would take some effort."

Omera laughed, watching her daughter and the Mandalorian's tiny charge make their way across the levy between two paddys. "He's just so adorable, and so funny and sweet. The children adore him."

"Well, yeah… I suppose. He's… a troublemaker, like any boy, that's for sure. He's definitely charming. Aside from eating frogs… "

"Yes, well, children do truly horrifying things. My first few days alone with Winta were a nightmare, and her first year, I don't think I slept a wink."

"What, your husband was no help?"

"My husband was already dead."

"Oh."

She felt his steady gaze, knowing he was sympathetic but a bit too shy to pry. So she opted to volunteer, however much it made her a bit shaky to speak of her husband. Her marriage, brief as it had been, seemed like only a brief and pleasant dream.

"He was killed in the Rebellion. I was already heavy with Winta when I got word of his death. She looks like him, in some ways… she's the only tangible image I really have of him. He was a good man, and very kind. Not always nice, but I prefer kind over nice any day."

"He wasn't nice to you?" he asked, and she could have sworn she saw him bristling a bit.

She laughed. "He was quite nice to me, I assure you. I wouldn't have married him if he hadn't been, and my father would have shot him dead if he had been anything other than gentle and respectful, but he spoke the truth, even if the truth wasn't nice. But he lived by certain rules—he never spoke unless what he was saying wasn't truthful, necessary or kind. So even if the truth wasn't pleasant, it was still necessary, and he did possess a good bit of tact—he always said there was a good bit of power in keeping your mouth shut." She smiled, glad that memories of her husband no longer stung. "If he had nothing to say, he didn't say it—a rare quality, I think, in most people. Some folks blither on when they've nothing worth saying at all."

"Yes. They're called politicians."

She laughed. "But he was ferocious in defending the helpless. The Rebels were impressed by him—they said he was fearless, but he told me that any man who goes into battle unafraid is an idiot."

Omera smoothly stripped the rifle and reloaded it with remarkable ease, and looked at the now rather battered pot hanging from the line. "He taught me how to defend myself, and how to use weapons." She sighed. "He was from a warrior clan, and I was anything but. My family has been krill farmers for generations—the most violent we ever got was to serve in the district militia, and that was just settling property disputes and family squabbles, and really, we generally work too hard to get into arguments about property lines. I had never even seen a blaster until the Empire came along and made a bloody mess of everything… so he taught me."

"I would have hated to have crossed him, if he was as good a shot as you."

She smiled at him, knowing his eyes were on her, which made her want to preen like a giggly teenager. "He would have liked you. You two were cut from the same cloth—gruff and quiet and with a heart of pure gold."

The Mandalorian shuffled his feet a little, and Omera sensed that shyness again—a sort of social awkwardness common amongst loners like himself. But it was also very clear that he craved human contact, albeit strictly on his own terms. Maybe a touch that wasn't a punch, a quiet talk in the shade, and maybe even a warm body beside him at night, or, preferably, underneath…

She blushed—good heavens, had it really be ten years?—and looked back across the levy. She smiled as Winta picked up the tiny green child and carried him across the footbridge and started back toward the little smallholding. "Mama, he's caught four frogs already!" the girl called proudly.

"That's why I only eat after he's eaten," the Mandalorian said, with a kind of exasperated affection in his voice. "Otherwise, I'd lose my own lunch."

Omera snickered. "He does have a strange diet, but no two species are alike."

"True enough."

She looked at him for a moment, pondering carefully before finally asking. "What do Mandalorians eat?"

"Eh? Oh. Um… we're not really a… a different species. I'm… uh… human, actually, so I'm not his species. Being a Mandalorian is more of a way of life. A creed. So I can eat anything I like. Well, I can handle almost anything. Can't really do frogs. I never expected to be handling a child, though, much less a kid who eats frogs. It never even occurred to me that I ever would… I mean, I never… I never imagined being in that kind of situation… "

"So he's not your biological child?" she asked, her voice gently teasing.

"No… no, I… well, obv—I've never been married." He looked away, across the paddys, and shuffled his feet a bit, like a shy little boy. She laughed, softly, and just knew he was blushing.