002. FIRST BLOOD

( ⁠—The first instance of success in a particular contest or area. )

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He who chooses will always have desires. 

The words rang true when the Razor Crest crew began their strenuous voyage to the mysterious settlements in Mos Pelago. In an attempt to seek out other Mandalorians who might help him find the home of the young child, the Mandalorian had left Gor Koresh's fighting arena with a bounty of information and a battle that allowed a plentiful release from his nerves. 

It was refreshing to see Pelli Motto in her hangar again, with her delightful remarks about his infrequent changes (she had noticed the missing witch but didn't bother asking him). As long as it was for the better the mechanic had decided. Better for her cash register. 

Circe and King Hyllus were put on a back burner for the quest. They couldn't risk their appearance on the radar to the ears and eyes of Imperial spies spread around the galaxy. Iego was a land bred of conflict and blood, it was tough to find allies for nationals of the planet. 

"We have to find a way to get back to the High Palace, with or without the princess," Hyllus had said. The loss of Myra was a bootless assent. "The thousand moons of Iego lie in wreckage after the Rebellion's destruction."

"Home sweet home," Circe had wistfully grumbled. 

While loading his weaponry over the speeder bikes that Pelli had kindly permitted him to use, something chinked under the cloth of his gear. He fit his fingers under and rested the gem between his palm.

Din turned the dimly-glowing, roseate lavalliere between his gloved fingers. The delicate thread of gold that held the pellucid jewel together glinted with his action under the drift of halcyon stars that looked over him from Hangar 3-5 on Tattoine. 

Again and again, until he earned some sort of a high sign from the pendant. He had never seen it glow. It was always muted and deadened—was it a bad augury?

As the red started to appear as a colour darker than original, Din's mind relayed back and forth; between the past and present. Ridiculous spindles of theories, situation moulded in his head as he tried to conceive hard about recognizance.

Keep it, she had told him, closing his fingers around the crystal with her slender ones. It's yours.

All he could think about was the night Myra had gifted the necklace to him. To him, rather than an act of trust or affection, it was Myra's deed as a human. Fairly, she had given him a fragment of her heart, a part of her humanity, a square deal he had merited.

"You feel it, too," Hyllus claimed from behind the Mandalorian, nodding knowingly at the pendant. 

Din's sudden realization compelled him to blurt out, "She's alive."

Instead of shock, he was greeted with nonchalance. A smirk lifted on the king's lips as he turned his head to give the Mandalorian a lordly glance. "And?"

Din breathed quietly: his jaw locked back up, as he surged from the confusion. He continued to watch Hyllus until he provided a convenient account.

Hyllus lifted the wrist-length sleeve of his shirt to reveal an intricate three-fold knot etched in the same magenta ink that Din remembered being incised all over Myra's sun-kissed skin. Those nights when all that used to bother them was time, living in the expanse of a second. 

"It's the symbol of parenthood. Protection. Father," the king explained. "It's the only way I had any sort of a connection with her."

The realization was like a douche of freezing water, despite all Din had witnessed and known. Symbol, symbol—tattoo.

As if attaining a newfound satisfaction, his hand travelled to the dip of his back where his own ink had been etched on. His finger slipped under the beskar backplates, lost in thought, and stroked the spot he remembered her slender fingers tracing it in disbelief. A pang went up to his chest when he heard the far-flung tinkle of her laughter, dropping his hand just as soon.

"She's close," Din acknowledged truthfully. "I know it."

The king toughly patted his shoulder in a sign of goodwill. "I've lived through it for five hundred years. If the Fates are kind, you will be released of your worry."

"How?"

A lopsided smile broke out on his regally set features. "You meet her again."

∞

Incarceration left Myra the Golden with herself. 

Something like sorrow sat an inch above her, aurous eyes sober and expression stoic. She revelled in the darkness, it was where she drew her life, the very source of her immortality, yet remarkably, Myra did not feel anything short of powerless. 

It was her in her soft, grey corner. Her mind was blank, the itch of the shock collar frightening escape motives away. The Sight had refused her for good so ineffectively, that she plunged into her fantasies.

While Myra's visions continued to be haunted by the beautiful brown-eyed human, her struggle drove up ten times harder. This was the result of her lack of consistency, every now and then obsessed with recovering the fleeting images that plagued her distressed mind. She was terrified yet, enthusiastic about the inexplicable energies that started to ricochet off the waters of Ichor as if something large awaited those who walked the Ways.

The sterling silver flashed like iron rings around her hand, burning into the impossible symbol on her wrist and the magenta started to gleam under the scattering spirits around her. Stark under the flash of her namely colour, brown eyes roamed around her face and lips kissed with a foggy grin.

We meet at last, bounty hunter.

Closeness spoke the language of love until she awoke. 

The strange, undocumented mark scorched with the heat of a pulsar, burning through her bones and drawing out a sharp cry from her mouth. She curled a fist around hoping to stifle the pain away. 

Footfalls approached and the man the town called the Marshal appeared in front of her. He wore armour that bore a striking resemblance but not quite to the hunter that walked in her dreams. He was tall and slender, his head that was devoid of a helmet staring down at her. 

This was the same man who had her imprisoned for wanting to simply seek shelter. Myra had a spiteful sneer for him as he lowered down to the balls of his feet. His mind was astir with thoughts, much like men who always dreamed with the mind in their vertigo stick. 

"I've never met a witch before," the Marshal said, his voice trickling with unbent desire. His eyes trailed down her legs which were left exposed by her torn gold slip. "Listened to the legends of the vague seductresses in the Outer Rim. Bad ones."

Myra dared to smile; meant to instil terror. She couldn't care about his measly passion. "Did they frighten you?"

"It takes a lot more to scare me."

"Most people confine what fear them." She turned away to show the collar that strangled her throat.

"Even confinement does not limit your cursed presence, enchantress."

The Marshal reached out to touch her arm, hook her exposed sleeve up, and like an embedded instinct, Myra parried his touch with a strike of her arm against his and seized him by the throat. Hard and sharp.

The Marshal's voice was choked and his pale face was glistening with perspiration.

Her nails punctured the pale skin, his feared eyes bulging out and in the moment of rage, Myra failed to see him reach behind his back to produce the remote which activated the shock collar. Crimson leaked from her tips and she had no mind to stop. 

A fizzle of pain shot up from the leather band, manifesting a continuous shock through her entire being. She arched her back with a wince, biting her lip to fight off a piercing scream. She would never give him the pleasure of hearing her pain. 

The endlessly ignored fire died out in slow drifts, Myra falling back on her knees to control herself with laboured breaths. The Ichor played at her grimy fingertips, whispering songs of death and destruction when she looked up at the Marshal. Like time streaming down the crevasses of an hourglass, the Ichor effused in little beads into her carotids. 

"The next time you touch me without asking," Myra panted at him, "will be the last time you touch anything."

He was hissing too, clamping down on the open wounds that Myra had inflicted on his neck. He was impressed through, flashing her dazzled, toothy smile.

"You're a good one, witch," he complimented, still dabbing against the leaking blood. "Get up, let's go for a drink."

Myra stayed put where she was. Her eyes were gold daggers, knifing through his smug facade. His thoughts were exactly what she wanted to hear—terrified of what she was capable of. 

"Who are you to order me?"

The Marshal shakily hoisted the remote in a warning. "I'm the one who has this."

She bared her teeth at him, irked. "Your cremation, Marshal."

He smirked. "Until then, a little booze hurt no one."

The Ichor was now hissing, jamming her up until she could taste their metalling wrath in her tongue. Orders were unforgiving to a witch in her Ways, this one was only signing his own death to the golden enchantress. 

∞

The human male was irritating and loquacious to the point of pretentious. 

Her only friend was the light from the morning star, spreading gold everywhere. The sun was like Myra, a natural force that could never be contained, never needing an invitation and her passion unwelcome. Bold and free—Myra could feel her skin pebble up in the strange warmth that the lambent rays had brought down on the stretching fields of sandy dunes. 

"I don't usually bring my prisoners out during the day," he said, walking beside her slowly. His footsteps were twice as small compared to Myra's. "You're different, Myra. Unexpected from what the galaxy expects."

Myra didn't have the mind to answer. Every other non-living thing interested her more than the living one nearby her.

"Does your ink have value?" He continued to bother her.

Silence.

"Is it everywhere?" He asked again. "Even under your dress—"

Her silver tongue lashed out an agitated retort. "Would you rather take it off and have a good look?"

"Er."

The Marshal tucked his tail between his legs and scuffled forward, abhorring her transparent statement inside his head. How ironic to think that she could paint herself as he saw her and still be prejudiced. That was the galaxy now.

By the time the Marshal's thoughts had wandered back to retrying his conversation with Myra, they had reached the little cantina on Mos Pelgo. The Marshal was quick to dash into the decayed dwelling. 

A gust of dry wind barrelled into the antiquated labyrinth of dwellings, not much different from the Cathedral she had been raised in, in Iego. Her city had had less charm than a graveyard, this city seemed like it had been born from the very filth it had been abandoned for. On a rare occasion, she saw someone flit by in her periphery. 

A child no older than a few human years ran into his mother's side, watching Myra with a curious glint in his eye. This town had been living out of a fallen memory. 

"Hello," Myra said from where she stood. 

The boy glanced back curiously. When Myra tried to get closer, hopefully, seek an escape, the mother straightened up and ran back into the home. The door dropped shut. 

Myra let out a quiet sigh. Soft, tense conversation from inside the cantina drew back her attention. 

"Hey!" The Marshall yelled at Myra from the inside. "Get in here!"

The Marshal's mind was reeling with thoughts of puzzlement and wonder upon seeing someone he never thought he would. The rest of him was utterly winded about a predicted battle. 

Curious, Myra walked in unusually slowly, almost robotically, as if her brain was striving to tell each foot to take the next step. It was as if she were in a stupor; like the Sight had her roped in for one more contact. 

But even the Sight could not root for what was in store for the subdued golden witch.

X X X

{ basically, essentially and obviously, the plan for this book is to break you apart piece from a piece and stitch you back together. i mean, i think that's a great win for everyone :) also, Mando and Myra bout to meet again—how we feeling kids?  }

—psst! did you find out the part where Myra's age was mentioned for the first time in forever? 😉