"You're lucky you're needed alive, runt!" Teran laughed bitterly, bringing the staff down harder against Nadine's weak defense. "If you weren't, you'd be cannon fodder for real fighters!"
Blocking as much of the assault as she could, Nadine flinched and stumbled away from her attacker, attempting to protect herself through a retreating defense. It was exactly that mindset that allowed Teran to easily catch her off guard and knock her legs out from under her. Once again, Nadine looked up at the victor, looking utterly defeated.
Days ago, when Teran had begun this sad excuse for training, he realized that this child wasn't doing anyone any good in a ratty dress. She was given something else to wear, consisting of a grey shirt and pair of pants, both dull and practical in their design. Layered over the too-large shirt were a few light plates of plasteel cadets armor, used for training young soldiers to fight. Her hair was roughly pulled back in a messy bun and her eyes were red from the tears that she still caught herself shedding day after day. Over all, Teran thought this scrappy kid looked ridiculous.
"Why are you doing this?" the girl protested, covering her face as though he would keep attacking even when she was on the ground. She crawled backwards further away, tears forming in her tired eyes. "I'm not a fighter. I can't do this!"
Teran dropped his staff, figuring that the metal rod was likely pointless. This was getting him nowhere. He walked along slowly, matching Nadine's speed so that she wouldn't put any real distance between them. "Not with that attitude, you're not. You've gotta give up this whole 'I'm innocent so let me go' thing. It's not getting you anywhere but butt first in that dirt. What do you want?"
Nadine looked up at him for a moment, confused by the question. She took a deep breath and answered. "I want to go home!"
"No," Teran sighed, "That's not it. You know that you can't go home. I mean what do you want right now? In this very second, what do you want to happen?" He stopped walking toward her, since Nadine had stopped moving away, even if she was still on the ground.
"I want you to stop hitting me with a stick!"
"There we go!" he cheered, "Was that so hard? Now, you finally know what it is you really want. If you know what your goal is, the next part is to make it happen, yeah? You want me to stop hitting you? Make me!"
Nadine squealed out in fear, covering her face with her arm again, ducking away from an assault that never came. "I told you! I can't!" Tears began to escape from her eyes, flowing town her face freely.
"Useless!" Teran scoffed, "If you're not willing to fight for what you want, then you just don't want it enough. That's why your mother is failing Mandalore! She won't fight for us! She doesn't care!" He watched, hoping for a reaction from the girl. Maybe rage was the way to unlock her drive. However, when she made no move to do anything but sit in the dirt and cry, he shook his head and started to walk away.
As soon as Teran turned his head away, Nadine silently grabbed for the staff that she had dropped on the ground beside her, gripping onto it until her small knuckles were white. Taking a deep breath, she tried to focus. There was only one shot at this. She used the advantage of her small side to keep her movements quiet as she stood.
CRACK!
The loud smack of metal staff against metal helmet fell deaf to Teran's ears, as the world spun around him, ringing loudly and driving a sharp pain into the side of his skull. It wasn't until he shook the initial shock out of his head that he realized the ground had risen up in front of him. It was that, or he couldn't recall falling down to it. He tried to regain his senses about him, drawing them back into control as best he could. Before he could recover from the blow, another pressure smacked hard against the back of his helmet, shoving his face into the ground once more with the impact. And another crack sounded against the other side of his head, this time carrying the sound to his still ringing ears. When he tried to tune the ringing out, Teran could hear words being screamed between the blows.
"You're! A! Bully!" Nadine shrieked at the fumbling teen, who was taking his own turn sprawled out on the dirt. Her attack was random and sporadic, keeping it from being predicted.
Catching a split second of a break in the attack, Teran took the opportunity to roll, now laying on his back with his wrists crossed in front of his shielded face. The metal gauntlets on his wrists were successful at blocking the next blow and pushing the staff back and away, earning Teran another second to react. To his advantage, Nadine had ceased her assault and stepped back, calming down and loosening her grip on the staff.
"What do you want?" Nadine asked, voice huffing out in deep breaths.
Still shaken from the disorienting assault on his head, Teran stumbled clumsily to his feet, taking his helmet off and throwing the accursed thing onto the ground. Sure, it saved his skull from any real damage, but he feared if he left the bucket on a second longer, it would become a part of his battered head. "Well…" he gasped out, shaking his head again, "I wanted you to get a hit in with a staff. Careful what you wish for, I guess." His voice came out oddly, Teran noticed as he felt a cold feeling on his lower lip and chin. Wiping a hand over his mouth, he pulled it away to reveal a large smear of dark blood on the grey glove. "Kriffing hell, kid…"
Metal rang out once more as Nadine dropped the staff onto the gravelly ground. She looked oddly horrified as she looked up at Teran's face. The fear wasn't driven by him or by the thought of repercussions for her actions. No, this fear was because she caused this. The blood running down Teran's face was because of her actions. Because of her anger and trickery. The feeling sat like a great, heavy stone in the pit of her stomach.
When more of the world came back into focus, the pain began to set it in Terans head and face. Curiously, he picked up the helmet from where he had discarded it. The antennae sparked and crackled, only hanging off its usual place on the side of the armor by a wire. Large scratches on the back and sides of the helmet had exposed the metal where Nadine's staff had made the harsh contact. The display on the inside was dark and the visor was cracked and split where his bodyweight had shoved it into the gravel. Further inspecting the inside, he could see the blood spattered on the inside of the visor, that had dripped down from his face. "I guess it's a bloody good thing we didn't start with blasters then, huh?" he noted.
"You're...you're not gonna hurt me? You're not mad?" Nadine asked, courage draining from her more by the second as she still processed the blur of action that she hadn't stopped to think about before.
"Mad?" Teran laughed, turning his head off to the side to spit blood onto the ground, "You tricked me and bashed my head in! You honestly just used your age and pathetic scrappy little size to make me lower my guard. I was just starting to think you didn't have it in you, then bang! Right for the head! You clever little barve!" He wasn't mad. On the contrary, he was delighted. This meant that, all along, he was right. This kid had far more in her than met the eye. "Quick! Remember what it is you wanted! What did you want right when you felt that staff hit me?"
Shocked by Teran's reaction, Nadine silently wondered if he was already this crazy or if she had hit him a lot harder than she thought. "Uh…" she stuttered out, trying to decide if this weird question was a trick or not, "I…I wanted you to pay for being so mean! It's not right." She crossed her arms to try and look more confident and imposing, but the effect just looked out of place on someone as young as she was.
"Revenge then? You wanted me to stop, because I beat you and hit you and you were mad? You got me back. Is that it?" His questions were meant to push her further. If he could get to the heart of why she acted, then he could learn how to turn her into a fighter yet.
"I don't want revenge!" she snapped, growing angry with his questions and forgetting her fear once again. "You said awful things about my mother! I don't care that you beat me. You were just being a bad person and you needed to stop! If you have a problem with someone, you should talk to them and work it out instead of saying mean things about them."
Teran stepped back for a moment, thinking about her response. "Well, it's a start." He gave a vague shrug as he spoke. "A bit idealistic of you with the whole talking-it-out bit, but now I know what makes you tick, runt." He stepped around behind Nadine, carrying his helmet under one arm and resting the other hand on Nadine's shoulder as he led her back toward the camp. "Justice."
As the two walked back into the main center of the camp, Teran could hear whispers and hidden snickers bounce around among the others. They were no doubt reacting to current state of his face. It wasn't until Captain Jex saw them that someone voiced their opinion.
"Hey, Jex," one of the younger boys laughed, "Looks like your kid brother got pummeled by the little princess there!"
"Glad he's not my clan," another voice rang out.
Captain Jex watched his brother for a moment, before realizing that the others were right. He'd been beaten by a child. This was a disgrace to the clan that a proud temper like Jex's couldn't stand for it. "What's going on here?!" he snapped, grabbing his brother by the edge of his chestplate and dragging him forward roughly, causing the younger to drop the helmet from under his arm. "If this is a joke, it's in poor taste, brother!"
"No joke," Teran answered, pulling away from his elder brother's grip. He dusted himself off in a display of cocky confidence, which acted as a fair enough ruse to the others around them. "You said I could make her useful, so I wanted to see if she could fight. She's a scrappy little thing, but she's deceptively fast."
Jex's next words were cut off by a growing laughter from the others nearby. Had they thought it was a joke? If so, Jex could play it off and save face for his clan. Suddenly, his rage dropped from his face, replaced by a fake smile and a hollow laugh. "Good one, Vod! You almost had me there. The kid! I mean really." He patted his brother's shoulder lightly as Teran started to walk away. Before Teran escaped the situation, Jex leaned in and growled out a reply for his ears only. "Get a handle on this. You're a disgrace to this clan. One more screw up and you'll be sorry you were ever born into it!"
Hanging his head, Teran started forward toward his own shelter, forgetting the child that was still trailing behind her. Even if she ran away from him, there would have been nowhere for her to go. Right now, he didn't even stop to care.
Nadine watched him trudge away, realizing that he had been far more defeated by his brother's words than he could have ever been by her surprise attack. She knelt down to pick up Teran's damage helmet and followed along after him into the shelter. "You forgot this," she explained quietly, holding the helmet out toward him.
Teran took it with on hand and, after staring at it for a moment, tossed it behind him. No Mandalorian would really treat such a symbol of who they were so carelessly; right now, he didn't care. He didn't feel like a true Mandalorian anyway. Sitting down on the edge of his cot, he dropped his head into his hands. Honestly, it still hurt from the impacts on the helmet.
"I know why you're so mean now," Nadine noted, sitting on the floor in the far corner where she had slept the past few days. "You're only mean because of what he did to you."
Her words clearly got to Teran, because his head shot up and his expression steeled to hide his true face. "You don't know what you're talking about!" How could some kid possibly be making judgments about his life and what he felt? She didn't know him. However, when he looked her in the eyes, his false expression slowly cracked. There was just something about her knowing stare that didn't fit a young child. Some deeper understanding that unsettled him to no end.
She continued calmly, explaining it to him as though she were reading the information off a data screen. "That mean captain is your closest family, so he's in charge of you. He doesn't know how to be a leader; only how to be a bully. He pushes you and hurts you, but you don't let him see that."
"Shut up."
"Is that why you're trying to train me?" Nadine's question was calm and curious as she spoke. "You keep pushing me, because maybe it'll make me strong. You don't know how else to teach, because pushing and hurting is how he taught you. I thought you were just like them. You're trying real hard to be like them, but you're not..."
"I said knock it off!"
"...because you're alone."
Teran's face fell, paleing as he listened to her. Something in his expression was a combination of fear and interest, as though he couldn't help but to ask questions, even if he really didn't want to know the answers. "You're wrong. These are my brothers."
"If you believed that, why are you only spending time with a little girl they took for money?" Nadine wondered, watching Teran stutter over an answer.
"That's not...I...how do you even….?" As his words faded out, he let out a deep sigh. "I don't know what you are, but that's just freaky kid. I...I wasn't trying to hurt you, alright?" The confession wasn't anything that Nadine didn't already know, but the tension seemed to fall because of it. "I thought if I could make you strong, they'd see that you were a real Mando'a, like us. If you can be Mando'a, the others on the homeworld can. I was just trying to trick myself into thinking that I could learn to lead people, when my brother is failing. This war that's coming...we're not ready. If we don't bring Mandalore together, it'll break us!"
Nadine listened to him thoughtfully, watching as he no longer paid attention to who he was talking to and only focused on the wistful pride in the dream before him. Now, he knew what she really wanted and she'd begun to figure him out. "You want Mandalore to be together and strong again."
"Yes. I thought that's what Deathwatch wanted too, but...this isn't the way to do it. Hiding on some rock out in the middle of nowhere training fighters for a war we can't win!" He groaned when reality set back into his thoughts. "Why am I even telling you this?!"
"You know, mister," Nadine smirked, hope and light shining in her eyes for the first time in a while, "I think we got an understanding here." Putting her hands on her hips, she stood up tall and confident. "Turns out we actually want the same thing. You wanna help people. Our people. Me too. We can't do that by beating each other with sticks until your face is purple...which it kinda is."
Teran groaned and rolled his eyes, pulling a med kit out of his gear. "Look, tiny, it's not happening. I don't know if you're cleverer than I thought and trying to use me or delusional enough to be telling me the truth, but there's no way! My job is to follow my captain's orders and honor my clan for the good of Mandalore. It doesn't matter what I want for any of us, because I'm not in charge." He grabbed a cold pack from the kit and helt it over his swelling lower lip.
"Not yet," Nadine shrugged, "But if you're not willing to fight for what you want, then I guess you don't want it that bad. Right?"
Teran's gaze fell down to the ground, where he stared into the cracked visor of his helmet. He wanted to scoff the whole thing off and forget about it, but the pulling at the back of his mind just wouldn't quit. Any plan, no matter how crazy, was worth trying once. "What did you have in mind?"
Nadine tapped her chin with one of her slender fingers as she schemed. "Lookit, I don't wanna fight anybody. I don't like it. I won't be a bully like you. But...I don't see any other way I'm gonna be able to help people. There's no senates here or anything, so problems are solved by fighting. It's mean, but it's what it is." She pointed at Teran, still leaving her other hand on her hip. "You gotta teach me! No more metal sticks and stuff. I mean, you gotta teach real stuff. If you do that and help me get strong to protect people, then I'll be able to help you."
"Help me do what?"
"Be a better, nicer captain!" she explained, "If you can be fair, then people will like you more and wanna listen to you. You've gotta show them that we're not dumb kids!"
"You're about ten or something, tiny," Teran scoffed.
"Maybe right now," she admitted with a sigh, "But patience is part of being strong too! You don't learn anything in a day."
"You're barking mad," Teran noted, cracking a smile behind the cold pack still held to his face, "And I'm not totally against you here."
"Then let's start over," she offered, holding out a small hand, "I'm Nadine. I'm gonna be your new partner. Nice to meet you."
"I'm Teran," he chuckled, taking her hand in his to shake it, "And I'm just crazy enough to accept your partnership, runt."
The evening passed on in a neutral silence as Teran washed the blood off of his busted lip and face. When he looked less dishevelled, he settled back onto his cot, holding the cold pack back on his jaw. When he glanced up, he saw Nadine sitting on the pathetic excuse for a bed that she had, made out of a scrap tarp for a cot and her rolled up old dress for a pillow. A pang of guilt hit his thoughts, but he wasn't ready to let this weird little creature get to him just yet. Pity and compassion could be weakness and weakness can be exploited. That's what he was taught. That's what he knew.
Nadine inspected the sore spots on her arms and shoulders where the staff had hit her. The tender skin there was purpling with bruising, but it didn't look too bad she thought. It did sting a little on her shoulder, but she'd have to learn to be tough. As she touched the worst spot on her shoulder, that had a welt left from the training weapon, she hissed. Okay, she thought to herself, it really stings. Suddenly, pulling her from her thoughts, a cold pack landed in her lap. She looked over at Teran in time to see him shrug, acting as though he didn't even care.
"What?" he huffed, "You're no good all black and blue. Rest up, tiny. You're gonna need it!"