021. DEAD MAN WALKING

( —Any man who is near death or certain to die.)

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"I don't like your leader."

"Greef's not my—" The Mandalorian let out a sigh. "He's not my leader."

Myra never trusted a person of authority. Men who relied on themselves were superior, inexplicably over their heads and demanded respect they would never achieve. These were usually the men who liked to flaunt their influence when they didn't have the slightest clue of her Ways. 

The pendulum of inequality seemed to never suspend, swinging from side to side, victimizing and terrorizing. She was still viewed as a scarlet lady, just like Luna had warned her, and the galaxy was still in for a paling. The ones with hearts didn't have compassion, empathy or kindness, yet here Myra was. Without a heart and being more tolerant than a real-hearted person ever could be.

"Hey," the Mandalorian called to her in question while he walked beside her on the black, lava-hardened plains of Nevarro. "What are you thinking about?"

Myra laughed through her nose, deciding to humour him a little. "I'm thinking about primitive impulses and new prospects that could arise instead."

"Forget I ever asked."

"I actually wanted to ask you something," Myra said, looking at him apprehensively. He could see that she was hesitant, unable to trust her mind and the words that would soon follow. She bit on her lips; he found it adorable.

"Go on, Myra," he said, his voice betraying of his amusement. She was asking him permission for asking a question. How was he supposed to refuse her?

"What did you," Myra halted to push a dark strand of her hair behind her ear, "think of me when we first met?"

Din froze at the inquiry, his hands fisting as the result of the collision at his subconscious. It arrested his breath as he tried to exhale, curling like barbed wires around his throat.

"I won't be hurt," she added quietly, placing a hand over his tightened fist in conviction. "Just curious. I was able to see... but not quite. I didn't understand your emotions then."

"You do now?"

"I feel what you feel," she nodded at him, past all evasions. "Anger. Passion. Bliss. Pain. I've learned to differentiate the responses."

Din heaved out a slow breath. There was no weird or wrong in Myra. There was only charming and chaotic. This was both. He couldn't really care about privacy anymore, his mind was a written book of hers, but this seemed too much of curse for her to bear.

"I mean I thought you were the most beautiful thing I ever laid eyes on," he breathed out in a reserved relief, answering her prime question instead. "But I also knew what you were. And what you were capable of."

"Did you think about anything... good?"

A beat passed. "No."

"Oh," she nodded, chewing her cheeks. Colour lifted on them, soon being curtained by a dark fringe of hair. "All right."

"Myra, that was before I even knew you or about your Ways," he tried to make up for his past thoughts and actions. "It was out of pure judgement."

She smiled at him, shaking her head as if brushing off his words. Only it was etched into her mind like the tattoos on her skin. "I thought it would be inconsistent. With you, at least."

He tongue felt heavy and filling with sawdust. Guilt gilded into his carotids and dishonour waging a war with his conscience. He touched the side of her arm with his. 

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I really am."

"You have nothing to apologize for," she laughed at him, jostling him. "It's natural for me; instinctive."

"It's the wrong instincts."

"Well, you can't break it," she shrugged. "First impressions are important and mine are inevitable."

"It should be changed," he asserted. "You're not what others think you are. You're... something else."

Laughing quietly, she nudged the side of her arm into his playfully to get his attention once again. "I think you don't trust them."

How efficiently Myra had changed directions. Fine, later then.

The Mandalorian looked up at the leader of the Bounty Hunter's Guild and the remaining security detail from yesterday's snatching. His mind rotated in the cogs, mulling on her words hard and giving her an assertive nod.

"Why not?" She asked, languid. 

"They might be having second thoughts," he said, his sound dropping to a soft whisper. Despite the low tone, his tone was that of static and obstructed by the helmet. A flicker of events fluttered by his memory, an address with Cara Dune about the same. 

"You can read minds. Look into their heads or something."

"They're going to kill you," she told him simply. 

Without even having to spare a second to glance into their heads, she could tell. From nightfall yesterday she knew the plan they had poorly formulated but unwilling to disturb the course of events. She refused to rest, staying awake to keep her side of the troop protected. 

The Mandalorian's feet screeched to a halt. His mind seemed to mirror his actions, tension embedding deep in his core. Seizing her wrist to arrest her hike, she could tell that he was mortified and probably slack-jawed under the headgear.

"Are you s—"

After those short flurry of words, two blasts reverberated through the clearing. Myra already perceived his thoughts and his aim, looking to where the two men that belonged to Greef Karga laid gunned down. A bullet wound sizzled into their chests without further ado, the Mandalorian and Cara Dune had pinned their blaster's aims on Greef's chest. 

He walked over to the men, kicking one over to push over his back and kick off their blasters. Myra could still read their disorder, the chaos in their fainting minds. 

"There's something you should know," Greef announced, raising his hands in surrender. 

Myra didn't let him speak any further, allowing the Ichor to flow through carotids and release the pent up fury in her system. The Ichor traversed from her fingertips like tributaries of complied influence, coiling around Greef's neck and arresting him a chokehold.

The man gagged, holding his neck and short of breath. Myra's lips twisted with effort as she forced her grip tighter until a warm hand laid over it. 

"Let him go," the Mandalorian murmured. "Myra, love, come on."

Her grip slackened and with her cut, Greef panted out like an animal and planting his hands on his knees. Myra watched the betraying pig in disgust, gritting her teeth hard. 

"The plan was to kill you and take the kid," he confessed to the Mandalorian, nonetheless to his surprise. "But after what happened last night, I couldn't go through with it."

The Mandalorian and Cara's aim never wavered.

"Go on," he goaded them fatefully as if trusting his very loose stance. "You can gun me down here and now and it wouldn't violate the Code. But if you do, this child will never be safe." 

"We'll take our chances," Cara concluded with a grunt.

"The Imperial client is obsessed with obtaining this asset. You tried to run, but where did it get you?" He strived to convince them but a single glimpse into the Mandalorian's head said differently. 

"This is ridiculous," Cara snorted.

"Perhaps you should let him speak," the farmer, Kuiil she had learned, spoke up promptly. 

"Listen, we both need the client to be eliminated. Let me take the child to him and then you two—"

"No." His tone was flat, leaving no area for discussion. 

"Let's just kill him and get outta here," Cara placed forward with a sneer evidently twisting on her lips. 

"He's right," the Mandalorian nodded. Myra snapped her gaze to the Mandalorian in surprise, between all the commotion, forgetting to look into his head. She silently watched as he pocketed his blaster. 

"What are you doing?" Cara asked, equal parts sarcastic and confused. 

"Mandalorian," Myra tilted her head in confusion, "this is the same man who tried to kill you."

"As long as the Imp lives, he'll send hunters after the child," he told the pertinacious warrior who was bent on shooting Greef. Myra seconded that motion. 

"It's a trap," Cara pushed her blaster forward, strongly sticking to her 'slaughter' idea.

"Bring me," he suggested easily. 

Myra stepped forward, placing a hand over the Mandalorian's chest. She knew this situation all too well, and she was not going to allow it. "Certainly never."

Greef was puzzled instead. "Bring you?" 

"Tell him you captured me," the Mandalorian explained to the both of them, sounding more reasonable than ever. "Get me close to him and I'll kill him."

"That's a good idea," Greef echoed his thoughts. "Give me your blaster."

"This is insane," Cara exclaimed, trying to stop the Mandalorian from following Greef's request.

"It's a suicide," Myra warned in a solemn tone, her mind dreading the events that were about to occur. "You don't even have reinforcements."

"It's the only way." 

While the words struck her down to her conscience, Myra turned away with a converged look in her deep-set eyes. They continued to chatter about their plan and trading strategies, she witnessed the minute change of the morning on Nevarro. 

The lava fields seemed to hardened, darker than last night. The cerise and ember cicatrixes that bled out into the coal had bubbled near her bare feet but the hotness didn't seep through. Soot had fit into the crevasses on her toes and far ahead, the city stood proudly and crawling with Imperial scum. Soldiers in white armours and flattened, visor-like headgear fit over their heads. 

Everything seemed ominous to her at the moment. The velocity of the winds, the ambivalent passions, the cloudless sky subtly changing shades or the chill breaths that were caught in her chest. Apprehensive, yet unafraid. 

Something heavy landed on her shoulder and she looked up to see the looming helmet of the Mandalorian towering over her. Despite the helmet, she could see the displeasure in that curled on his lips.

"I'm not coming with you, am I?" Myra knew the answer, pushing her luck anyway.

"They want you, too. High contingencies."

"So?" 

"Kuiil needs you," he murmured, frying her brain up. She swallowed down a soft sigh, nipping on the side of her lip. "It's for the best."

She turned cold, timid and anxious; unable to let go. Refusing to share another unpleasant goodbye, she acted in cowardice and looked away. She couldn't endure the Sight to mock her actions in the near future, trembling lightly. 

"Hey."

In a moment of frustration, her hands had conjured an illusory spell around them and her long fingers reached to his helmet to yank it right off. She didn't care about the stunned eyes that watched them disappear or the sounds of their alarm. All she cared about was this one moment. Her lips crushed against his, soft and swift, craving for that second to last forever.

"This isn't goodbye," she muttered, her nose stroking his. 

"This isn't goodbye," he pledged back, dark eyes channelling confidence she never knew she needed. "Can't let you off that easy. You've cast a spell on me."

"Oh?" she laughed. "Sounds like a vicious dream."

"I still have to take you to that sanctuary moon, right?"

She bit her lip, nodding. "Right."

The Mandalorian could hear—almost feel—the Mandalorian's thoughts, thinking back to a simpler time when parting didn't matter. It had been just them, a refuge to each other in arms and in fact, the memory had been so definite, she could hear her own quiet laughter in her ears. When her finger had traced the supple skin around his mouth and the desire to play embedded deep in them. Relaxed and tensed—it had been moments of natural fulfilment in his life. 

The illusion fell and everything returned to its perfect disorder. 

"Whenever you're ready," she looked to Kuiil with a soft look, stretching out her hand. Faster than riding on a blurrg, teleportation was their best and safest option.

Kuiil was overwhelmed by the assistance, waving her away with a shake of his head. "Oh, Myra that won't be—"

"Please, I insist."

∞

The anxiety expanded through Myra's mind like wet colours on paper. She took in an abstruse amount of broken breaths before fixing her hands, confined together, onto her lap. She sat in the hot ground, refusing Kuiil's offer to board the Razor Crest as the Mandalorian had mentioned and engage security protocols.  

Her eyes lifted from fiddling with the edges of the satin wrap, plucking on the hem so hard that she had blown a tear at the end, and she could tell from the pooling umbra beneath her that it was clearly midday. With unblinking eyes, Myra stared straight up at the fair firmament and the bare, intense heat which didn't bother her the slightest. Her eyes shut, in hopes of slipping away and hoping to meet Fate again, and sensed the fever caress her slick skin. 

Through the silence of the blazing desert, Myra felt something cast a shadow over her and bring about a coldness. Her golden eyes met the sight of a nearing ship, shaped like an arrow and more streamlined than a bird. It whizzed forward before landing a few feet before her and blew out blasts of drafts into her face. 

Her first instinct was to protect. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the farmer with the baby in his grasp walk forward to view the scene and before Myra could yell at him to take cover, she had failed to hear slow footsteps that approached her. 

"Ah, Myra," a familiar voice whispered, "always a pleasure."

Before Myra could lunge for her attacker with a sneer, the man's part droid instincts were quicker. pushing her attack away with a flippant wave and surging higher. Karstark Knox's metal fingers had encircled around her throat to slam her to the ground. Her back prickled as the sharp ridges pieced into her exposed skin, the straps to the dress tearing as he shoved deeper and cut off her air supply. She reached out a hand to grapple on his ingot wrists and choked loudly.

"Chased you around the galaxy," he smirked, the malevolent expression in his face deepening. "Got your father and now, you."

Her eyes widened as she stifled a loud sob which droned out to another gasp. What had this metallic clown done with her father?

"You think you're smart, Myra the Golden?" 

She growled out, feeling her eyes push out and exert pressure on the thin skin around her sockets. Like someone had dislodged an unpoppable into her brain but in mere seconds, she felt like she was about to explode.

"Where's your power now, you whore?" He tongued his canines in a threat. 

One accessory of strength was the protector from jeopardy, one becomes a novice to security and solace, then as a little girl who had not felt the bitter frost in quite a while, the temptation grew within her. It was the Ichor, furling in her chest to breed catastrophe and furious that one of her children was facing the wrath of the man who hasn't the faintest clue what was possible. It was ascending up to her chest as he continued to sieve through her unfiltered rage.  

She cracked. 

Yearning storm seethed through her body like a gaunt virus, shrieking an obliged discharge in the form of undesired force. While her morals stood strong against killing another, she felt herself step over the line she had drawn. 

In moments of the haste and fleeing violence, she had found herself tackling Karstark out of his iron grasp and forming the spells she had vowed to never use. Her hands formed dense, violet vapours, depictive of the wrath and the green whips of electricity that performed a celestial dance around the clouds. The shades washed brightly as they grew in size with the verve, her eyes shining brighter than two suns on a planet. 

Before she could release her wrath, the dense, thickened vapours had formed a part gas-like and solidified staff between her palms, able to fight off the slice from Karstark's sabre. 

"That's for my father," she hissed out, a snake having a taste of its prey. 

Momentarily, Karstark Knox was a dead man walking. In a swing of mania and aggression, Myra found herself gaining an upper hand from his attacks. A disdainful smirk coloured her lips, finally voting to release the tension that built with the purplish smog in her hands.

"See you in hell," she said, her voice trickling in virulence.

The vengeance consumed everything, sinking her gentlenesses and shattering the limits of faith. The smog that curved around his metal gears in his chest and rotting the occasional flesh and skin, Karstark held his face in his hands.

He yelled out wordlessly in slow agony but to no avail, the acidic smoke eating away everything in its path. The violet soot dissolved his elements as the silver wetness dripped onto the coal, ironing up his new corpse and leaving him on the ground in mangled disarray of parts. 

Myra felt her body shake as she fell to her knees. 

Do nothing, child, a voice whispered a croon to her. You have no fear.

"Why?" She cried out softly, wanting to rip the bones out of her hands for the actions she had performed. Her hair had been burned off at the tips, sizzling like dead droid man before her. It was agony with the scent of death and burning flesh that hung around despite the unwanted pleasure of release in her system.

Come to us, it whispered like a mother's caress. 

A pair of long looking transport came dashing towards from her distance, kicking off dust and racing faster. Myra had lost all her energy, ready to fall to a charred mass of bones when they neared her. 

Myra took a shot to her shoulder from the blaster of one of the riders, slicing through the bone. She didn't even have the vehemence to scream the pain away. 

Look within.

Another shot rang through the air. 

Let go, let go, let go...

She couldn't stop anything—another dead man fell. The last thing she saw before they speeders rushed for the distance they had entered was the bundle of brown blankets in their hands. The baby—they took the baby.

It is time.

∞

{ time for what? time FOR WHAT— DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING, YOU STUPID BITCH  }