Din had never seen Grogu so happy.
Din had never been so happy.
Why would I ever leave this?
Though he'd tried to make it a point to consider his decision carefully, he realized he'd run out of excuses, and remained too content to come up with new ones. There was nothing else to consider. Between Aldor and the Eye, Din and his boy had everything they needed.
How could I ever leave this?
With nothing left to consider, he leaned back against the outer wall of the Maze to watch Grogu and Aldor engaged in a Force lesson. Din's lips curled into a small smile while he watched her explain how to expand and refine a defensive wall of Force energy. Grogu was already perfectly adept with it. He saved Din from Moff Gideon's Fire Squad with this tactic when Din himself was too busy dying to be of much use. Not long afterward, he saved both Din and Bo Katan from an inferno. It may have been a powerful skill even then, but since Aldor took charge of Grogu's education, he was able to manipulate it with intricate precision. Right now, however, what Din was witnessing was little more than a review. They were all but playing Force games at this point.
While she spoke through the review, she held a large collection of pebbles aloft with the Force, her delicate fingers curled up into the air to hold them steady. Din loved her fingers. So small and delicate. Nimble. He loved to watch them at work on a sewing project, and often became transfixed on how quickly they could glide along a seam.
She began to swirl the stones in the air in preparation for the onslaught she would deliver on her student, pursing her lips in concentration. Din loved her lips. So plump and delicious. Always on the verge of drawing up into that perfect crimson bow.
She suddenly hopped up in a quick, graceful motion, pouncing backward like a loth-cat as she began to push the tiny pebbles toward Grogu. Din loved the way she moved. A beautiful flow of slopes and rises that could cut through the air like a blade in one instant, then float across the floor like mist in the next.
Grogu continued to successfully deflect the stones, and Aldor's voice grew in excitement, laughing when Grogu gave her a bored look, teasing and playing with her. Din loved her voice. In these moments when she was excited and playful, it sounded like pure sunshine. Then in quiet moments over the kitchen table, it was deep as twilight. He loved her eloquent phrasing. And he loved how every word carried a whisper at the end of it, and enticed him to listen more closely.
I love so many things about her.
Among the things he loved most, he loved how she could fold her time and ability into a perfect triangle of activity, thought, and creation. She used them all in the building and maintenance of a world Din could no longer imagine leaving. He wanted to contribute to it. To become part of it.
How could I ever leave her?
He shamelessly watched her every move, drinking in the things he loved while he barely registered anything except how much he wanted to touch her. Taste her. He'd kissed her many times since, but his mind was still filled with the first. It repeated in his imagination every night. And every night, she was right there with him. The pictured scene was greatly embellished by now. They ended up on the floor or he dragged her into his lap. Then he would strip her bare and kiss her breasts, spread her legs, and ease himself deep into her soft heat.
Din dropped his eyes to the ground to get a handle on himself, even though there was no reason to berate himself for wanting her. Old habits were hard to break, maybe, so he'd resisted. And so did she. It was probably wise of them to have resisted a little while. They were both reserved by nature, and their minds were the sort that couldn't undertake anything without some thought. Maybe they were also a little afraid of how close they had become without thinking.
They spent hours together at the table these days. It had become Din's favorite thing to do. To simply be with her and bask in all the things he loved while she stitched or tinkered. When he could think of nothing else to do, he had taken to honing his carving skills on the colorful stones he found near the Iris, just so he had an excuse to sit with her over their symphonies of notions as late into the night as his body would allow. Then he would kiss her good night, and taste her on his tongue throughout his dreams.
Grogu sensed the tightening bond and loosening boundaries, and had taken to accommodating their tender moments in his subtle little way. He employed himself with a holopad or tinkered with one of Aldor's simpler droids whenever his parents became involved in a lengthy conversation, or if one of them dared to touch the other. By these small acts, the boy seemed to encourage it, but Din decided he should probably talk to his son about their future anyway, since it no longer belonged to the two of them alone. He had to make sure Grogu approved, and the boy had to understand all it meant. Din was sure the kid understood most of it perfectly, but a conversation was in order nevertheless.
Din was in the midst of these thoughts when he sensed a coming projectile, and ducked just in time to hear a small stone crack against the rock shelf behind him. Grogu giggled gleefully, proud of himself for having distracted his father from his own mind. Aldor tried to scold the boy, but she couldn't hide her smile and was soon laughing along with him.
"I guess I had it coming," Din acceded with an answering turn at the corner of his mouth. "I'm afraid I'm a bit… preoccupied…"
"Maybe you should join us, my Love," Aldor suggested. "Grogu and I are going to meditate for a bit. Meditation can help you find your way if you're lost."
Din felt two pair of attentive eyes awaiting his response, and looked down at his boots almost bashfully while he shook his head. "I know my path… and… I'm not a Jedi."
"All paths have obstacles, and it could clear the way. Anyway, we're not Jedi either."
"No," he agreed lowly. "But you have… ability."
"Don't you?"
Din shifted on his feet. "Not like you and the kid."
"Mmm," she said vaguely. "But lots of sentients practice it, Force sensitive or not. Surely you can manage it, my Love. Powerful as you are."
"I'm… wary," Din said quietly, refusing to look at her as he seriously considered the idea of exploring his own mind. He may have rearranged its configuration when he killed the ray, but there were corners of it that had been left untouched and remained shrouded in darkness. He'd spent most of his life learning how to avoid them, but now he had to acknowledge this policy of avoidance had left him confused and distrustful of his own senses. He had to conquer it, certainly, but he wasn't sure he was prepared just now to shed light on those dark corners, or to face the horrors that may be lurking there. He was just too content to invite darkness anywhere near himself or his family.
Sensing all of this from him, Aldor rose to her feet from her position cross-legged on the ground. One short, devastatingly graceful movement and she was padding her way toward him like a cloud of vapor, and Din found himself preoccupied again. She didn't speak until she was within a few feet of him, her arms crossed loosely just under the breathtaking swell of her breasts. Din gathered all his willpower to keep his eyes on her face, but flicked one look downward in shameless appreciation of the shape of her body under her clothes. Because she knew where his thoughts were, a challenge sparked over her eyes as she planted her hands on her hips to bring the softness up and out almost in presentation. "Wary? You? A powerful Mandalorian?" The provocative tone in her voice vibrated through her throat in a way that made him want to anchor his mouth to it.
"I don't know if I'm… ready… for what might appear…" he tried to explain, hating himself for the broken stupidity of his reply, stuck between apprehension and desire. "If… I let my mind go to those dark corners… I'm afraid all I would find is… more darkness. Don't want to… tempt it... right now."
Aldor's expression softened, and her lips twitched into a hint of a somber smile. "You are wise, my Love," she whispered. "But the things you believe will tempt darkness may just as easily clear it away." She closed the distance between them, insinuating herself so close, he could smell her and feel her warmth radiating into him. She gently grazed her fingers down his jaw, and caressed his lips with the pad of her thumb. He trembled under the delicate touch, apprehension obliterated by the subtle flow of electricity through his skin and the soft vibration of her voice so near as she spoke. "Do you feel the darkness now, my Love?"
"No," he whispered, and dropped his forehead to hers as he closed his eyes under the bliss of her fingertips. After decades of hiding his face from everyone, her touch along his cheek felt more intimate than making love. He craved it now. He loved being this close to her. He wanted to get closer. He tasted her breath in the air and opened his eyes to the deep blue gemstones that spanned all his field of vision. Worlds were born inside him and throughout the Universe every time he looked into Aldor's eyes and felt the warmth of her touch along his face. It made him believe anything was possible. Body, brain, heart, and spirit all came together in these moments when she was close, and he could almost see their future. He didn't say any of this, but of course she felt all of it. Still he needed to speak it aloud to make sure she understood. "When you touch me… I feel… everything… but I'm… at peace."
"Then it can keep you from indulging the darkness, my Mandalorian. What you feel now. There is as much power in the light as there is in dark. Just hold on to it. Remember it." She kissed him tenderly, letting her lips linger against his as she drew away, and continued quietly. "Think of all you feel for Grogu. All you felt for your parents. Think of those you've helped and saved. How you needed to do it. Remember only you took the trouble to help. So much light within these things you know about yourself. I feel it every time I look at you, my Love. Your life was built on hope, whether you remember it or not. I feel it inside you."
Din struggled to understand how she could possibly sense a life built on hope when she looked at him. He'd spent most of it in the absence of hope. He tried to think of the last time he had any before he came to the Eye, but all he could see was a static of struggle and war. A lifetime of fighting for illusions that glorified without gratifying. Perhaps he felt some hope in the prospect of a united Mandalore when he fought for Bo Katan, but then their own people turned on her and took that from him too. The only worthy things he had left to fight for now were here with him on the Eye. "I want to," he whispered at last. "This… hope I can't remember... I want to believe it's still there… but… I really can't. I've only known hope since I've known you, my Lady."
"It's been there all along, my Love. I promise. You know it has." She took his hand to lead him to the spot where she and Grogu had been sitting face to face in the soft moss. She sat him down next to his son, who was already in a trance, his big eyes closed as a sort of soundless hum surrounded and penetrated him. The boy looked so much at peace despite all the hopelessness he'd seen, Din finally gave in, and nodded at Aldor in acceptance.
"I know it's rather a frightening prospect, my Love," she said gently. "I understand why. There have been times when I felt the same way. But in the end, meditation has always brought my visions into focus, and I'm not sure I could have managed so many years alone if not for this skill. Make no mistake, my Love, it is a skill. It may take some time to master, but I will be here if you need me. I'll bring you back if darkness tries to take you. But remember, my Love, it was you who brought me back. If there were no hope left in you, you could not have done that."
As Din watched Aldor sit across from him and considered her words, he recalled the moment he had in the glen before he killed the ray. When the static of hopeless memories rearranged itself into something unified, and he managed to use the thing he was supposed to forget. It occurred to him that meditation was exactly the state he'd achieved before the Eye sent him on his way to the sea. "I told you about it," he said. "I… sort of… travelled… up to the suns… left something in the springs underground, and they… helped me. All of them. The suns and the springs… I… stretched between them. Sounds crazy, but… you know… you've seen things and been places… like that… right?"
"I have," she answered. "My experience has been different, but I have. The difference is that you've never had the benefit of a guide. Never been trained. But your instinct… oh, your instinct is so strong, my Love. It's why you like to find out for yourself. You're really just confirming a theory you've already proven most of the time."
"But my instinct… that instinct… it's always been at odds with other things. Experience and training… the Mandalorians…"
"That's how strong you are, my Love. Don't you see? Through everything, it never died inside you. You kept it alive without knowing it. Neither Mandalorians nor even Imps could snuff it out entirely because you never let them. That's why you saved your son from an unspeakable fate even though you knew the consequences. You never let the flame die. So use it now, my Love. Let it guide you." At that, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Close your eyes," she whispered more evenly. "Let your mind clear. Think of being with the suns above and the springs below. Stretch yourself out like you did then. Leave your darkness below with the springs, your mind up with the suns, and imagine the Force between them and yourself. Between the three of us. Between all things. Visualize it if you can. And follow it."
Din took a deep breath and drew his back up straight as he sat cross-legged in the moss, and let his hands lie relaxed, palms-down over his knees as he closed his eyes and called himself back to the glen by the stream. First he heard the sound of the water. Then the scent in the air. The breeze across his face and through his hair. The little silver fish rushing by. The ground rumbling underneath him. He pushed his fear deeper into it, and gave it to the springs. Then he drew his back up straighter, and reached for the three suns. He was with them again, back in a comradery of old soldiers. They spoke of ancient battles from before the planets were born. Faraway explosions that rippled the fabric of spacetime.
The red dwarf suddenly turned to him, and asked what battles he'd seen. Before he could think of an answer, he found himself back on Mandalore. Bo Katan lay dead at his feet, and the Armorer asked him why he didn't rejoice. He wanted to kill her then and there, but with all the factions looking on, it didn't seem like a good idea. So he'd chosen his moment. Found her at the Forge and took his revenge.
The antagonistic red sun asked him why he didn't take the Dark Saber and call himself Mand'alor. The moment the sun asked the question of him, he was on the back of the Mythosaur, looking down in satisfaction at a sea of blood and beskar at the beast's feet. Grogu stood on its head, clutching a red light saber and laughing maniacally at the destruction he and his father had wrought. The only thought in Din's head was that he was glad his son was as ruthless as he was, and decided to keep him around until he ceased to be useful. The Dark Saber rejoiced in its victory, and already looked ahead at the greedy eye of the Mand'alor's heir, wondering when he would become its wielder.
The red sun understood this reason, and called him wise.
This caught the attention of the orange dwarf, and it sagely reminded them that even the wisest are apt to stumble. Din couldn't deny this fact, but the most idiotic things he'd ever done turned out to be the wisest by far. The two younger suns asked him what those things were, and Din showed them.
He was in the Razor Crest, holding Grogu's little chrome ball while his heart fell to pieces among images of Imps and Stormtroopers, all clamoring to get to his boy. He showed them their escape from Navarro, then the rescue aboard Moff Gideon's cruiser. Then he had his arms around his boy while words failed him and purpose awakened him. The suns agreed that he'd been wise in this instance too, and asked about the other he had in his mind. So Din showed them Aldor. Her industry and alacrity. Her kindness. They asked why it was unwise to love her, but Din could offer no explanation other than fear.
The wise old brown dwarf turned its attention to Din at this admission and asked if he truly admitted to fear. Din affirmed that he did, and let the suns feel what he did any time Aldor or Grogu was at risk. The brown dwarf was amazed to hear a sentient like him admit to fear, and asked if he was strong with the Force. Din answered that he wasn't sure, but he was beginning to understand it. He remembered it was there, and now he could use it again.
The brown dwarf didn't answer, but instead threw Din back into the past, where he landed in a dark storage bunker, looking up at his father. Tears welled in Din's eyes as he looked up at the man he sometimes saw glancing in the mirror at him, telling him in a deep, earnest voice, "Don't be afraid." Beside him stood Din's mother. The eyes he sometimes saw in his own flooded with tears while she told him how much she loved him. They closed the hatch, the bombs blew, and he was at the Great Forge again, staring up at the Armorer while he struggled against her savage attempts to get his helmet off. He didn't know how, but he knew where the Dark Saber was, then it was in his hand. Her head flew off her shoulders and the Dark Saber dropped into the Great Forge. When the crystal popped, he found himself kneeling at Aldor's side while she struggled through nightmares, and darkness dragged her helplessly into the abyss. The blanket of molten warmth that poured in torrents through his heart wrapped around her, while he fought to keep her from darkness. Keep her with him.
She awakened and flew into his arms. He felt her breath against his neck, then he was by the hot springs that marked the boundary of the Iris. Looking for something. Something important. But the suns didn't let him see it, and instead flung him off farther into the future. He saw buildings. People. A bonfire. Aldor was in his arms and Grogu was in hers. This was the place he wanted to be. This vision of something he couldn't begin to guess at. The circumstances didn't matter as long as he had the two of them.
The puddle of heat in his chest spread out and embraced him in warmth and light, electricity and dark matter. When realized he'd taken in too much of it, he let it loose. Free at last, this power inside him burst into tendrils of energy that tied him to the springs, the gas giant, the sea, and the suns. They stayed with him when he came back in his own body, sitting in the moss with his family. A swirl of static tightened and curled into itself as heat and mist filled his closed eyes. The swirl grew into a into a beautiful vortex of light giving light that consumed the darkness and spit it out through bands of pure, raw energy. The bands spiraled outward and twisted together at different frequencies, shooting light through them that exploded into new colors as they combined and became one. They squeezed him tighter, throwing out lassos that tied him to her, to Grogu, to everything. Massive pulses of static traveled back and forth between all things, and flowed through him. He thought he might like to follow them all, but an explosion of ribbons and steam brought him back to the single bond that felt like home.
Din…
Not her voice, but the sensation of it. The feeling of her. He sighed serenely as ribbons and steam wove together and wrapped him in a sheet of power. Hers. Something utterly unique, but the same…
The same Force.
He felt raw and strong. Like a power cell drawing from the invisible forces of nature. Everything flowed into him and filled him with all this power. It became uncomfortable again, and he didn't want to keep all of it, so he let more of it fly out into the galaxy, and now that he was tied to his body again, he felt how he could harness and follow it if he chose to. But only if he chose to.
At last he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was Aldor's face looking back at him, full of the light he could now see. Half a smile graced the pale crimson lips. Brilliant blue gemstones sparked under a fall of luscious auburn. Fierce and beautiful. The picture of hope.
Din was on his feet, carrying his son in the crook of his elbow while he followed Aldor back to the YT. Grogu had overdone it a bit at meditation, and struggled to keep his eyes open until he finally nodded off against Din's shoulder. At first Din was a little concerned about his boy, but when he looked up at the sky, he finally realized the suns were setting, and the air had grown colder. He'd barely noticed it as they trudged home in the fading light. He felt too much the same as the vapor to notice it until now.
Aldor felt him lagging behind, and let him catch up to her. When he was even with her, she slipped her hand into his and flashed him a smile as they continued on. He laced his fingers through hers, and held on tighter as the ground rumbled under their feet. Where are you, my Love?
"Your nightmare…" Din answered. "Keep thinking about… what I did… why I did it." Can't separate them. Had to bring you back… had to… because you weren't you… "It killed me to think about it. Broke something loose. I just knew I had to use it… because you weren't you."
"I'm grateful, my Love," she said. "I like being me. You can't imagine how much it means to me that you know me well enough to understand… when I am not myself."
They fell into silence as they came to the YT, and made their way inside. Din took Grogu to his pod and placed him gently inside it. Not wishing to disturb his son's deep sleep, he closed the shield and stepped back toward the table where Aldor had set a simple plate of dried roe meat and the savory orange berries Din had become as fond of as the summer greens. Over their meal, neither of them spoke, but both their minds remained on the night in question. At last, after he'd finished the last berry and took a sip of what Aldor called her "nightfall" tea, he took her hand in his and kissed it reverently. "I wanted to show you my face then," he whispered. "Because that was when I knew I loved you."
"Why didn't you?"
"Fear," he admitted.
"I was afraid too."
Din nodded. "I know, my Lady. We both had every reason to be, I suppose. But I think now we've exhausted all our excuses."
"What makes you say that, my Love?"
"Because your face was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes," he answered. "And… when I saw your face… I remembered hope."
They didn't stay long at the table because they were both tired and bleary. He kissed her good-night, wished her pleasant dreams, and asked himself why he didn't lie down beside her. But it was just as well. He wouldn't have made a good bedfellow tonight. His mind was restless, and he tossed and turned for at least an hour, processing all he'd experienced through the Force. From the stone he dodged before he saw or heard it to the image of bloody blue silk that nearly drove him mad to the golden puddle that made him realize he loved her. It was crystal clear. As he lay there in a tumble of visions and memories, experience finally gave way to instinct and admitted it all made perfect sense. He'd known all along.
He remembered things now. Moments from his childhood before the droids came. When he said something impossibly precise that made his parents look at him in shock. Or when he saw the furniture move when he was upset. Animals and people always came to him for something they felt he could give. He even remembered understanding his neighbors' thoughts while he watched them walk by in a parade of varying degrees of consciousness. He had been the uncanny child nobody knew what to do with. Like Aldor. And Grogu. Everything Ahsoka told him on Corvus was meant not only for the Kid, but also himself. There was much fear in him. And Din had also hidden his abilities to survive.
Despite what he knew and almost understood, he was still uneasy. Everything the Mandalorians taught him denounced the sorcery of Jedi. Though he'd broken from that form of being Mandalorian and he knew the Force was more than sorcery, something remained still deeper in his memory that the Mandalorians vehemently reinforced. The piece he couldn't find that Aldor thought she had no right to.
Don't use it. Forget it's there. The voice was the only remnant he had of it. For years, it drifted through his mind only during idle moments when he couldn't focus. When he'd taken a hard blow or couldn't sleep through hyperspace, it repeated softly. After he killed the Armorer, it got louder, and shouted through his mind every time he heard Aldor's thoughts in his head, or when he answered a question Grogu never asked aloud. He remembered what he was supposed to forget now, and he knew he'd already used it, but the voice still warned him not to say it. Even to himself. He listened to it more closely while it looped through his brain, and he realized the tone was familiar, but wrong somehow. Modulated.
At last he recognized his own voice. Even after he killed the ray, and even though he knew exactly how he did it, he kept telling himself the same things, repeating his father's words even while he told himself they had become a curiosity. Don't use it. Forget it's there. Even now, the words held their sway over him because they were all he'd ever known. When he heard the words in his childhood, he applied them to everything he was. Forget your nature and don't use your instinct. It will only expose you and get you killed. He'd taken the lesson too much to heart because his saviors agreed with it, and since then, he used these words as a shield to protect his heart and maintain his sanity. The little boy nobody knew what to do with cowered behind the words, and stubbornly heeded his father's words.
Din saw the roles between father and son reversed whenever he looked at Grogu. This magical being he loved more than he thought was possible. He understood now why his father implanted these words into the brain of a frightened child. Aldor was right. Because of his father's instruction, Din learned quickly how to protect the power inside him. Armored it in beskar and let the flame flicker pitifully until he found something outside himself to protect instead. The moment he looked into that pod on Arvala-7, it re-ignited with new purpose. Now he had even more. He wondered if his parents planned it this way all along. Maybe this was their reason. To protect him until he had his own reasons to fight.
Use it. Remember it's there. His father's voice and his mother's. Din's and Aldor's. They all came together in a harmony of reasons. Their son. Themselves. Hope. Hope that gave him more reasons to learn the Way of the Force.
Din turned to his side, and saw hope lying in her bunk. He wondered again why he wasn't beside her in it. He wanted to feel her weight on him, lain like a skein of silk across his body. He wanted her breath against his neck. Wanted to smooth his hands over her slopes and rises. He imagined slipping his tongue between the fragile lips, licking into the sweet heat of her mouth. He tasted it now. Wished he'd taken more when he kissed her good-night. He imagined her lips under his jaw. Her fingers over his eyebrows. Her skin under his hands and his face buried in her hair. His body wrapped around hers as he rolled her to her back, and buried himself in peace and hope.
Desire shot through his body like lightening, and plasma rose in his eyes to reach out for her. He felt her reaching for him. Warm bands of plasma almost met with silken ribbons until something made them both recoil. For a moment he felt unwieldy and lost, like he'd slipped and stumbled. Like he needed to get his bearings. Perhaps it was too much power too quickly. It may be dangerous to wield without experience, and Din's experience was limited where desire was concerned.
Because desire required more than attraction for him, only three brief moments of weakness were sufficient to provide intimate familiarity through limited experience. It was enough to make him question the wisdom of giving in to it, and he asked himself why these small instances had been enough to keep him on the pelt tonight.
Omera captivated him with her kindness and gentle curiosity. He admired her strength and bravery, and she made him feel respected and truly welcome. But he never felt like a part of her. Attracted to her, yes. He was deeply attracted to her. In that state of mind and climate of his life, it seemed like everything he wanted when she asked him to stay. Simplicity and comfort. Her beauty. Mutual admiration.
She spoke to him with a greater pity than he sometimes liked, but Din always saw Omera as being somehow equal to him. They never discussed it, but Din was sure they had similar histories and were born of similar roots. Different paths were chosen for them, but in many ways they were the same. He might have considered giving up his armor when she asked, but she did ask. He could easily forgive that, but when the moment came near, he felt a lack of connection. It had no shape or logic. There was just something… missing. These and a thousand other things kept him from going back to Sorgen for her. It wasn't enough to forsake what he thought he believed at the time, and he knew it wouldn't have been enough even now. Especially now. Never mind the bounty hunters who would track them there and put the village at risk again. So it ended before it began.
With Xi'an, it was simply by her force of will that she left a mark. Din's heart never had much in it for her beyond a familiar passion. It was for that very reason that his body awakened under her influence. Forcefully. As it would have always been with Xi'an and how the whole thing started. She must have felt it through a primal sense. If she just tried it, Mando might like it. When she slipped into his bunk and straddled him, then took him into her mouth, she awakened the fire inside him he didn't know was there before. He let it happen because he did like it, and when she sat up and eased him between her legs, he felt immortal.
The scene repeated over the following weeks, and he began to reciprocate more every time. Taking her hips in his hands and guiding her, thrusting up into her because it always made her cum. The slick pressure that resulted was what a much younger Mando thought was the pinnacle of creation. He felt powerful in the knowledge that she enjoyed him, and it was seductive to listen to the filth she growled against his helmet. That she didn't care if he was ugly; and she'd only ever fuck Mandalorians if their dicks were all as thick as his. It was gratifying in a primal way Din hadn't experienced before. And cleansing, if only just physically.
So he kept letting it happen. Until she decided to test him one night, and grabbed at his helmet to lift it up. When he stopped her she said, "Come on, Mando... lemme see... I wanna see if your face is as pretty as your thick cock..." Something in the words or the way she said them needled him, and the pleasure began to feel like an insult. When he deflected her increasingly persistent attempts to unmask him, she finally got bored enough with the struggle to pull one of her blades on him. At that point, he'd had enough and pushed her off him. When she bared her fangs and tried to get her blade in his shoulder, he drew his blaster and told her in no uncertain terms to get the hell out. Things with that crew went catastrophically scud from that moment on.
The third left a mark he'd purposefully inflicted on himself at a time when darkness was especially persistent. All things being equal, the timing was the only reason it happened at all. He knew now that he gave in to it as a way to draw attention to what he'd become. It was a little less than a year before he picked up Grogu's bounty. By that point in his life, he'd become so detached from everything, he was little better than a droid. Not even as good as some. When he randomly locked eyes with the girl on Navarro, it reminded him he was made of flesh and blood. He actually felt a pull from her. Connection. Even though it was only half a second, he remembered it because he felt sure she knew his eyes had found hers. Afterward, the Kenari girl made a habit of finding him whenever he passed through the Bizarre. She was no more than twenty, and it was clear someone had seduced her off the poisoned planet through means Din shuddered to consider. Over a span of several weeks, she always caught his eye. He began to realize he liked how she moved. Graceful, but guarded. After that, he saw a spark in her eyes that remained despite the many ways she'd been used by far worse than him. He was amazed it was still there.
When she first approached him after nearly three months of this, he thought she was going to proposition him for credits. He was sure it was a trick when she told him he could have her free of charge if he wanted her. Din resisted it and went about his business, but the longing in her voice haunted him. And like with Xi'an, the scene repeated. Her approach. The increasing desperation in her voice when she told him he could have her if he wanted her. "Please, sir. I am yours." Until at last her plea was whittled down to its truth. "Please sir. I want to be yours."
Speaking to her for the first time since the dance began, he told her she couldn't be. He was not the sort of man anyone should belong to. Still, she pleaded, reaching for him as he backed away. "I want to be yours," she begged, half in tears. "Just once. Then you will never see me again. I swear it. Just once. Please. I want to know what it's like… with a man like you."
She needed a faceless man to give her pleasure instead of abuse, and Din needed to remember he was made of flesh and blood. They could give each other a memory to hang on to when they had nothing else. Din found he wanted to bestow that gift on both of them. So he gave in, and followed her to an abandoned speeder bay off the beaten track, hidden and forgotten. He bent her over a stack of storage cubes and took her from behind so she wouldn't be tempted with anything more. But her whispers were soft and intimate. Her voice touched him as she went on, declaring no man had ever made her feel so good. No man ever touched her so gently. Then she begged to know if it felt as good for him. Through her voice he began to recognize the empathy that had driven both of them. The need to bestow as much as they received. So he'd turned her around, took off his gloves and gauntlets, and touched her, drawing it out for both their sakes. He made something like love to her, molding his hands over her body under her dress, building and gratifying her pleasure while he whispered how pretty she was, how good it felt to fuck her and how nice her skin was under his hands, letting it build slowly until he emptied inside her while she trembled and sobbed underneath him, weeping into his shoulder.
He crumbled over her, ravaged by shame. He apologized idiotically, stuttering that he shouldn't have but he couldn't reproduce anyway, so don't worry. Even as he tried to comfort her, the darkness that followed him all his life enveloped him, and his shame and sadness deepened with every word that rasped through his helmet while she continued to weep into the space between his pauldron and cuirass.
In the end she wept until she went limp, and Din finally stood upright, looking down at her and hating himself, not knowing what to do. But she roused quickly. As soon as she'd straightened her skirts and pressed a kiss to his visor, she ran off without a word. And she kept her promise. He never saw her again, but carried her with him for a little while. Until he no longer needed it.
Omera was a fancy for something he might have been. Xi'an was a rude awakening. The Kenari girl was a desperate escape. When he looked back on it and condensed his limited experience into these few statements, it became easy to let go. Both the imagined pleasure and the real shame.
With Aldor, there was only pleasure and completion. He'd never really known pleasure until the night she healed him, when she touched his face and kissed him at the kitchen table. When he felt everything, but at peace. The things that made her different were like the things that kept him from going back to Omera. They had no shape or logic. With Aldor, nothing was missing. Whatever it might be made up of, everything was just there.
With all this playing through his mind, he reached with his plasma bands and tied himself to the wave of silken ribbons that crossed the room. Neither hesitated to reach for the other now, and the moment they came together, a wave of euphoric electricity shot through both of them as they stared unseeing across the room at each other.
You understand now... our power... yours… your Spirit… this molten gold you surround me in… you save me with… so warm... your touch... your strength… brought me out of darkness… your voice... called me back... your hands… kept me on the ground… feel them now… want to feel more of you…
Her feelings overwhelmed him, and power surged through his blood as he began to feel her skin through the Force. Could caress her cheek and watch her sigh under his touch. It was terrifying, but he loved it. He loved it more than anything. That he could touch her so intimately even across the room. He loved that she could see him in this way. Loved how he knew she was there with him while his mind burst forth with the images he'd always tried to hide from her. Now he wanted her to see them. Wanted her to feel everything.
Want to bury myself in you... deep… your body… heart… Spirit… rushing… sleek and succulent… tight… wet… all around me… feel you cum… hear it… feel your nails… down my back… hear you call my name… writhing under me… against me… tight… so tight… when you cum… feel me… fill you… take all of it… it's yours… only yours...
Want you... feel you... between my legs... hard... hot... aching for you… aching… how you feel... stars fall… collide... the FORCE... strong... so strong in you... between us... full of you… complete…
Feel myself… in your womb… flesh… seed… electricity… essence… rushing into you… feel you open… free… so free… want to touch all of you… feel… all of you…
… your spirit… fuse with my blood… nerve impulses… this FORCE... so strong… completed circuit… bound… bound together… flesh… spirit… everything…
For a moment he was anchored to the ground beneath him. Beneath everything. Tied to this place in time for a split second when he felt himself circulating through her on a warm flow of molten plasma. Her blood pumped him through her heart while desire spread him through her womb. Part of her as their hearts pounded through every cell of both their bodies.
A quiet moan escaped them simultaneously, then it was all he could do to stay where he was. Everything in him wanted to cross the room and pin her to the bunk, bind his flesh to hers as inexorably as their spirits were bound. He wanted to wrap himself so tight around her in both body and soul that there would be no power in the Universe that could break them apart.
But the Kid was here and there were matters to be discussed. So he held himself back, half hard and restless until at last he gave in to what he knew he had to do to maintain his sanity. He got up from the pelt and went quietly to the fresher, driven for the first time in years to take himself in hand to release the painful pressure. As he worked his hand hard and desperately along his throbbing erection, he imagined her in the engine room, relieving a similar pressure. Her fingers sunk deep into a flood between her legs, wishing they were him. He felt his own fingers buried to the last knuckle, buried in softness. He tightened his grip on himself, and felt the damp heat grip her fingers on the other side of the wall, both of them pumping desperately until they simultaneously flew apart in a long, deep release. As the tension poured out of him with every thick rope that shot over his fingers, Din knew she felt it. Imagined it filling her as he shuddered with the last pulse that left him empty.
Lulled into a fragile peace, he slumped against the fresher wall. He didn't know how long he stayed there, chest heaving and heart racing. He only knew she should be there with him, flesh and blood encased in his arms. And he knew when the moment came, he wouldn't be capable of holding back now.
