004. FACT IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

( ⁠—Real life is filled with such bizarre, absurd, or unlikely events that it can be hard to believe they are not fictional. )

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Above all, past the power, or even eternal glory, it was a mercy that allowed Myra to plead to the waters with a will. 

Antithetically speaking, the aftermath of her wrath was a raw deal that's simply inevitable. You poke the beast; you get the claws. No, but Myra's mercy wasn't a restraint or control. Her mercy sought to bring change where it was required. Brooking ill will was what she had tolerated for years—it was what kept the remnants of her soul and her powerful body together. 

Within Myra's compassion laid her vow to never take a life. Be it beast, man, or both, she could never bring herself to cause agony on another soul the Ichor had breathed life into. So when the Mandalorian spoke of killing a krayt dragon, indebted to a quid pro quo, Myra could only refuse. 

The Marshal, the Mandalorian, and herself had met with a handful of Tusken raiders upon their questionable infringement. It was then that she'd come to meet with the Mandalorian's humanity, keeping his peace with nature and the life that stalked upon it. 

A piece fell into place. Perhaps that was why she'd taken feelings for this strange hunter. While the world saw her as someone who could never be trusted, he furled across his bridge and took his time waiting for Myra to trust her weight upon it. 

Then, there it was. Something blossomed in Myra's indestructible admiration for the mortal kind. Shaking beneath their cowls, wielding their gaderffii sticks in the air, their bejewelled eye slits twinkling, the celebrating Tusken raiders acquiesced and lauded Myra's arrival. 

"That's a first," the Marshal mumbled, tucking his rifle back into his holster. He reeked of disgust at their reverence. "Why would they worship it?"

She heard the Mandalorian mutter back while she tended to the festive lot of Tuskens. "Some species still view witches as messengers of the beyond. She can hear things... and See things. She can scry for them."

Myra's eyes narrowed speculatively. He spoke of a witch's Ways with no effort.

"Scry?" he asked.

"Predict the future. Read minds and stuff."

"They also say that enchantresses take lives to become immortal." Although the Marshal's eyes surveyed Myra appreciatively. She wanted to laugh. 

"Behind all that beauty and power is a bloodsucking demoness," he condemned.

The Mandalorian wasn't having it. "The only demons here are falsehoods, Vanth. Eat your fruit or, heaven forbid before something eats you."

Acclimated to the scathing words of the Marshal, Cobb Vanth, Myra let her smile slip and quietly receded into the shadow of the tents. For in the darkness was her power, where she tightened her connection to the holy waters. The Ichor was richer and louder, and she felt more at home. 

A child found her in the dark when a loud disagreement began. It was an aged toddler more like, no taller than her ankles but just as endearing. She had seen it follow the Mandalorian, akin to a warrior's stallion. Its skin was the shade of foliage she'd seen on Ahch-To and eyes like black pearls in its little head. Its floppy pink ears perked up when Myra beckoned for the waters to look into its mysterious mind as if the child had sensed the presence of the Ichor. 

She heard its delighted giggle, a sound of familiarity, a gentle rapport. It was a mother's love that tied them together—she could feel it through the warmth of its laugh. It raised its tiny twig arms upwards, a motion for her to lift it. 

But something made Myra stay still and continue to stare quizzically. The waters refused to answer to her, dancing around her fingertips for better or for worse. Unable to defy, she didn't push further. 

In disappointment, Myra stepped back and swerved into her tent, ducking between the curtains to plop onto the sandy earth. The Ichor hadn't denied her in a long time. It felt like she'd failed her mother. 

She cupped a handful of the earth, and let the dust fall through her fingers. Like time descending to an unsalvageable place. She could practice the Sight here. The sand had once held a kindred bind to the waters. 

She recognized the sound of the Mandalorian's footsteps before the feverish tattoo of his heart. Awareness pricked her deprived mind when he appeared by the fringes of the tent, armoured and restless. His proximity almost restarted her dead heart, his mental upheaval cascading a rush of blood to her head. He wanted her, just not like the others. He wanted her—the foregone conclusion without a heart. 

"If I come inside, you have to let me touch you," he declared, his hands forming fists against the curtain. His voice was decisive because he wasn't taking no for an answer.

"And why would I do that?" she challenged.

His aloof murmur got on her skin like a disarming kiss. "Because I don't know what I'd do otherwise." 

An edge of her mouth curved. "Is that supposed to frighten me?"

"Does it?"

"You'll have to try harder."

She sensed a tiny smile in his vocoded voice. "I was hoping you'd see past my one-track mind that has always left you offended."

A formidable beat passed in the decision. 

Instinctively, Myra nodded without taking her eyes off him. "I'm willing to abide. Sit." 

Her command was his salvation. He obeyed and seated on the cotton carpet that had been laid out for her. She leaned forward, her hands restrictively pinned behind her back and stared at the barely translucent band of his visor. If her fingers were free, she would've clawed that helmet off his face. It was the one impediment to what was within. His thoughts—his staticky, softened thoughts were driving her mad.

"Why do you want to kill me?" she asked, merely curious. She wasn't put on this dimension to be assailed by a mortal man. 

He hesitated with his strumming heart, taking a moment to remind himself something. Ghosts of amusement appeared in his mind. 

"That's just a metaphor," he explained.

"Oh, you metaphorically want to kill me?" she urged. Her eyes wandered around his helmet. "Well, metaphorically, I would like to do many things to you."

He heaved out a breath, crackling against his vocoder. Inwardly thanking his Creed for the helmet that was blocking the view of his expression now. Myra wanted to bury the Creed in a wasteland. 

"Starting with tearing this infuriating armour off you," she finished in a whisper.

Growing increasingly frustrated, Myra turned away with a sharp 'harumph'. Every passing second had her vehement for something from him. She wanted everything he could offer and even that wouldn't be enough. It seemed too easy for them, and his very presence was tempting her like this. 

"I'll do it then," he decided.

She whirled toward him and staggered back at the sight. The Mandalorian, uncharacteristically ingratiating, was on his knees for her. Abasing himself for a witch who didn't deserve it.

"Get up," she ordered, alarmed. 

He steadily began to pick off his gloves. "I've done it before, Myra."

This somehow angered her. "Look, I've no intention of—"

"All and just for you," he vowed.

"You need to go. Leave. Please." She didn't know why she pleaded; perhaps she was that desperate. A desperation she was beginning to get familiar with. 

With his helmet ducked low, he reached over his shoulder to loosen the straps to his breastplate and pauldrons. He fought deftly with the buckles, one by one letting them tumble to the carpet, all his defences lowering. The way he moved, the intimacy of his knowing stares, and the ease of his motions; all of it made Myra wonder how many times he'd done this for her. 

He stopped until he was in his tattered shirt and trousers, and his glorified Mandalorian helmet. His breaths staggered when Myra cautiously tucked to sit in front of him, palms flattened over her curved knees. Every effort, every emotion of his—she felt it in the senseless fibres of her being. 

The waters, like overjoyed ingenues, welled up with the advance of the Mandalorian's emotions, and almost instantly, the crackling interface that was his mind started to feel less static. She could hear his mind more coherently now, even glimpse into the moral fibre that made up who he was.

His anticipating inhales and exhales were like an art form, the muscular expanse of his chest rising and falling in a rhythm she wanted to watch forever. But what was he waiting for? Why make her wait?

"You always took it off," he responded to her quiet confusion.

"Your helmet," she learned. "You let me..." 

"You said it was the one passage that was especially yours." It was firm; meant as a devotion. 

Following her inspiration, Myra placed her impatient fingers on the sides of his helmet. Another bolt of familiarity struck her mind when she noticed the smallest motes of gold deposited in the crevasses of the armour welts. She tipped it over, caught her breath, and succumbed. 

"Hi," the Mandalorian whispered, inciting an unshakeable memory. An echo from her past.

The uncontrollable waters came down on her in little raindrops, kissing her skin, singing of the treasured little chronicles, sinking their painless claws between the grikes in her mind. His lips twisted into a faint smile, shy almost, Myra had never hated the darkness more. As the Ichor urged her to reach back to her most noble memories, the man who came into sight was the kind of exquisite that would force its way into her bones. The haunting wheaten eyes that consumed her waking life and dreams were his, and they spoke of their times past before she heard his voice. 

Oh, those eyes. She couldn't restrict that colour to a mere brown. It was the shellacked amber that she'd remembered being weathered into golden sands near the cliffs under the Catherdral. Even after so much destruction, there was so much life. 

Din, Din, Din — the sole single syllable flashed in her eyes and ears. 

"Din," she said aloud. It was a hardwired response, like a sound that was made hers.

His sloe-black eyebrows crinkled and tilted in poignant ease. "Myra."

Her chest was burdened with the weight of satisfaction, only because it was something she hadn't felt in a long time. Her avid fingers brushed against the strength of his neck, the rugged sweep of muscles that formed a grid under his threadbare shirt. There was no impulse left in her to deny him, he was exceptionally hers. Where her palms traced the skin, she wasn't exploring. She'd learned this off by heart. 

As if taking a fist to the gut, she underwent the ache for subsistence and breathed out in a low gasp. She shrunk back and gripped her neck. A moment later she realized that he was doing this to her.  

"You're in pain," Myra said from between her teeth. The strange ache had twisted her lips to knots, elbowing deeper inside where her cold heart rested. What was the reason for his misery?

"Does it hurt?" he murmured. It was strange though, he sounded momentarily satisfied. 

Myra rasped out, "Yes."

The Mandalorian moved as if she were a mere extension of himself, holding her up by the sides of her face. Inside, Myra heard him think back to a hot quarrel that had emerged between them before. 

I feel what you feel... passion, bliss, pain... learned to differentiate the responses... too much of a curse to bear...chaotic. The Mandalorian's mind was taking it piecemeal, attempting to manifest a proper response.

But no, he'd become the implicit version of anger and pain all at once. Everything good he harboured about her was starting to fade.

She looked at him desperately. "You want this." 

"I'm sorry," he admitted in a whisper, his handsome face crumbling into torment. "But it's not fair. All I've been able to think about and wait for is you."

She shook her head. "I didn't know then."

He couldn't afford to listen. "Do you know what that's like? To have your face carved into my mind? To hear your name in the air I breathe?" 

He let a hand drop and allowed his left to curl around her throat. His touch had gone from the featherlight tension to a storm-wracked tide. When he grasped her tight—still fascinating to watch—his lips curled to reveal a sneer. 

"You won't ever know. After all that," he said, "you're still the same fickle, heartless witch. And I should despise the very sight of you..."

All Myra could fixate on was the stabbing flashes of pain that jolted in her chest. Feeling a pain that wasn't hers. His chillingly darkened eyes arrested any shot at looking away. He remained ready to snap her neck at any given time. 

"...so, why can't I?" he seethed, even if it was reluctant. 

He was cursing everything. He was the brittlest of glass in front of her, transparent and hollow. He was grateful that she was getting a taste of his despair. Angry that she'd left him this way. Disappointed that she never looked for him. Hopeless about what's to come. Unnerved about the battle tomorrow. Ecstatic to have her in his arms again. Delirious at her sight, the smell of her, the feel of her... how easy it would be to fill her entire world up in a single submissive stroke. 

His supine mind wandered to places just as he slanted a long finger between the rosy cleave of her lips. Desperation became him when he imagined the time he could tell the exact number of ridges of her lips, or when it looked better fit between his. Myra couldn't believe this man, this adrenalized frenzied man, had been the one to be close with her, more intimate than chemical bonds could allow. 

The Mandalorian's face was hairsbreadths away from hers, stare unmoving, expression stern, thoughts went unfamiliar. He was in his natural state for her, blunt and bare. The well-acquainted sting of dislike struck Myra's self-esteem. 

His fingers tightened fractionally when her breaths quivered with the overwhelming storm of sensation. It was unbearable—he seemed to feel too much for her to comprehend. 

"What more do I have to do for you?"

Her breath caught as she spoke, "Help me."

The Mandalorian's eyes drifted to the building tremble in her lips. His confusion heightened when he noticed the perfect illusion of her composure break. To him, she looked as desperate as she'd imagined. A frantic surface of the witch she once was. 

"Help you what?" he demanded.

"Help me remember," she implored, her voice cracking with effort. "The waters won't come to me if I ask. It's as if the part that's all you... is missing."

His brows furrowed, confusion infesting his mind. "Do you even remember how you disappeared?"

"All I remember is falling into Ahch-Two and my life in Iego. Everything in-between has gone dark for some reason," she confessed with a shake of her head.

Clarity suffused his eyes, not without the rue for what she had to go through. He couldn't conceive a life with missing links. He would've combusted if he were her. 

"I'm losing my mind, Mandalorian," Myra voiced her frustrations. "I don't know what I know, but everything comes back to you." 

Concern ruptured through his red stain of contempt. 

"Something's sickening me," she whispered. Her trembling fingers pointed to her mind. "It's sickened my head."

The Mandalorian's grasp on her neck gently loosened, tremulous knuckles shifting upward to graze her cheek. He spanned a few fingers under her ear, his eyes obsessively holding hers onto his. There was awareness in them, the strength of will that came with his fearless title. 

"Know that I trust you," she managed to attest to him softly. With utmost caution, she spread her hand against his palpitating heart, singing a timeworn symphony just for her. "It's written in my instincts. They're enough."

 An undeniable need to reassure Myra stemmed in his mind. After all this time, he knew that if she was wise enough to renounce him, he might just perish. He needed her so much, he hoped that she needed him just as much. 

"As long as you remember me, I don't care if everyone else forgets," he told her. He laid a hand over hers. "Whatever you want, Myra."

The corners of her lips pulled with a smile that affirmed her captivation. "I can't do it tonight."

His expression fell. "What?"

"A human mind can't fathom that hard of a pull from the Ichor without an adequate approach. And even if you do manage through the night—"

"It takes a night?" he asked, horrified.

"—you'll be too out of shape tomorrow. And I'd very much like to have you back in one piece." 

He was human enough to return a head-spinning grin. "As if some holy water could kill me."

Myra inwardly called for a repose spell to relieve his mind and caressed his strong chest. "Let's not fuss. You made a promise to those people tonight. Honour it."

He rested a finger under her chin to raise and meet his surprisingly softened stare. "You'll be there with me?"

She freed her chin and frowned down at the carpet. "I can't take a life." She stopped to see if she'd upset him. "Be it beast or man, it's my most inviolable oath."

"I'm not asking you to kill. I'm asking you to defend," he suggested instead. 

She looked on at him, contemplating. 

"It can't be that hard for you. It's in your witchy whims. Besides," a gloriously unexpected grin spread across his face, something she believed was a rare sight, "I've got a plan for you that you can't resist."

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{ it's been a long time coming, but... IT'S HERE (although it's short hear with me, alright?). I'm so sorry I haven't updated this in so long, but I've finally found the inspiration to complete it. I will be editing this heavily because I'm not satisfied with the "prose"???  thank you so much for being patient with me, and i promise this one's going to be one helluva ride! }