{ this was initially a long, heavy-emotions, epiphany-filled chapter but exceeded the limit I wanted it to be so I split into 2 parts. no confusions, just for me to keep track of scene sequence and transition. happy reading! }

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023. A REDEEMING FEATURE

( —something good or positive about somebody/something that is otherwise bad. )

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The mind which knew how to think did not know how to forget. Probably one of the biggest flaws of a living being, which knew how to move closer yet, did know how to part. It left one wondering—if something did change and life could disremember, could you fall out of love? While the same people who had been drenched in ivory moonlight, forgetting the reason for their being itself, so dedicated to loving each other, could balance ever be achieved?

It was known, Myra and Din had the integrity of the finest glass. 

When they touched, entire nebulae had collided into another while leaving an eruption of toxic propellants and gases but, as beautiful as it was, it was unfortunate. So unpropitious that within the beautiful chaos, one would gaze upon and see an abyss, a chasm of no return and endless oblivion. A black hole. Then they ask, why would you cling onto something so impenetrable? How could you keep streaming passion into a void?

But, could you blame them? They had found each other's greatest treasures in the end, while the Fates cautioned against it, she kept choosing him. Predilection never worked great, especially with witches, and despite advice, Myra loved the sweet taste of emotion. To feel human in another's arms. To be seen as a woman, and noticed for what was bounded, not the front.

At the same time, the profound relief that swarmed Cara Dune was evident on her face when she laid her worried gaze on Myra and the Mandalorian. In all obviousness, she thought the duo were apt for each other—one unable to let go of the other. Like two flagpoles of a lodestone, two facets of a dyad, two parts of a whole. 

All in all, Cara took the honour in pledging an alliance with a witch. She had always thought of them to be tricksters, enchantresses who used beauty as an upper hand. After Myra the Golden, her notions were deemed faulty. Cara saw that she was anything but, more delicate than most and more powerful than general.

 Myra had supported a substantial hand around the Mandalorian, her eyes watching him carefully as his limp converted into his easy gait. He was liberated with her, free to speak and free to think; it was obvious the strain between the two.

"Want me to help you with him?" Cara asked as the walked side-by-side in the same flurry of a pace down the darkened tunnels of the sewer.

Myra gave her a soft smile and waved a dismissive hand. "He's lanky for a human."

"Am not," the Mandalorian grunted, offended. In flashes of irritation, he pulled himself upright and away from Myra to show that he was capable of being solid despite the injury. 

He wavered a little on his knees which Myra's hand had reached out to catch and he cast her a glare underneath the helmet. As if perceiving the glare, she bit down a smile and backed away with a pertinent nod. 

"I'll try to find tracks," he murmured, his head moving towards the ken from the helmet-bound flashlight. Myra took the baby from the droid with an enraged growl at it, retaining it to her chest safely.

"And don't you dare touch me, droid," she warned it.

"I have to refuse the—"

"Don't," Greef interposed while eyeing the intrepid witch, "anger it."

The droid rotated its front on the spike as if running protocols. It leaned forward on its hinges when Myra stared it down. 

"I understand," it said. "Witches don't like contact."

Without any words, she followed the faraway Mandalorian in fast footfalls. She was pensive as the baby clung to her without any noise, its eyes dropped to a shallow and tiresome slumber. What she had seen out there, the baby's potent was unmatched. 

Lost in her thought, Myra failed to realize their arrival into a sanctuary. A refuge for those who followed the same creed as her Mandalorian. Her enigmatic eyes traversed to the ceiling and to a cemented arch over the entrance, where the symbol of the Mandalore hung high and mighty. The similar sigil on her neck started to prickle, like a festering chill and soon a galled burn. 

In front was her aching Mandalorian, on his knees as he reached for a headpiece from the pile of Mandalorian armour. He was in shock, distressed to an extent that his thoughts were going unfinished. Myra could feel his tautness in her veins like it had manifested as an emotion of her own. 

"Did you know about this?" He asked the Guild leader, efficiently shrouding the hysteria with a film of monotone. "Is this the work of your bounty hunters?"

"No," the paling man answered with maddened eyes. "When you left the system and took the prize, the fighting ended and the hunters just melted away. You know how it is," he paused to let it sink into the Mandalorian, "they're mercenaries. They're not zealots."

A feral beast clawed against his bursting fissures, poking at his ill-temper. At once, his patience fractured and he shot off from the ground to prod a finger into the leader's chest.

"Did you do this?" The Mandalorian demanded in a stiff tongue. "Did you?"

The leader had the same truth lacing his anxiety. "No!"

"It was not his fault." 

A tough feminine voice halted his anger's advances. She emerged from the entrance, the darkness hiding her away until it was revealed that she, too, was a Mandalorian. Her wore gold in her armour, the intricate ridges on her helmet folding and twisting to form a pattern around her visor. She was tall and dressed for a fight, much like Cara. 

"We revealed ourselves," the Armourer, thanks to the Mandalorian's mind, informed them slowly. "We knew what could happen if we left the covert. The Imperials arrived shortly thereafter," she looked to the heap of beskar and selected some to fill her crate of remains, "this is what resulted."

"Did any survive?"

"I hope so. Some may have escaped off-world."

"Come with us," the Mandalorian requested, offering her passage for escape. 

"No, I will not abandon this place until I have salvaged what remains," she refused and then, looked to the rest of the troop that had followed him in. Her gaze stopped at Myra as they entered the chapel-like room which had a centring forge. Blue flames were kindled along the perimeter of the annular machine, waiting for weapons and armoury to be reconstructed. The concerned witch kept her distance from the automaton, holding the baby tighter in fear. 

"Show me the one whose safety deemed such destruction."

 "This is the one," he pointed to Myra and specified in a clearer voice, "the baby."

"This is the one that you hunted, then saved?" She asked and they eyed Myra. She asked no questions about her when she neared them, glancing at the baby. 

"Yes," the Mandalorian clarified. "The one that saved me as well."

"From the mudhorn?"

 "Yes."

"And this one?" She nodded at the dauntless witch who concealed a frown on her lips. "This one you have taken a liking to."

"He has?" Myra asked, overwhelmed. Of course, he has—she was practically in love with him. 

"She's a witch," he answered modestly. "My..."

"Friend," Myra thankfully finished for him. "His friend."

Myra felt a sharp exhale leave her. His friend, she wanted to giggle. A friend he laid with on multiple occasions. Her lips rolled into her teeth in soft amusement, looking at the Mandalorian with raised brows. He could feel his hilarity too, how he suppressed a boyish chuckle.

"It looks helpless," the Armourer figured glancing at the baby with a tilted head and questioning it inwardly. Watching its wide ears and beady eyes in suspicion, Myra believed.

"It's injured, but it is not helpless. Its species can move objects with its mind," the Mandalorian continued. 

"I know of such things," the Armourer added, walking to the awakened drudge and used a ladle to scoop a portion of molten beskar, which had the consistency of mercury. "The songs of aeons past tell of battles between Mandalore The Great, and an order of sorcerers called Jedi that fought with such powers."

Myra let out an astonished breath, watching the armoured female with awe. "They believed in the Force."

"Yes," the Armourer answered for her. "And you believe in the Ichor. One and the same. It's a sister current."

The forewarned witch hesitantly nodded. "I guess."

"Are they enemies?" 

Myra looked the Mandalorian, startled. Wondered what caused him to think of her or the baby as such, gulping down a dread. 

"No," the Armourer declined his notion easily, looking to the powerful child. "Its kind were enemies, but this individual is not. The witch is... something else."

"What else?"

"Some think of witches as messengers of something beyond our knowledge," she announced, nodding at Myra almost as if it were a bow. Myra felt the need to bow back. "While some find their visions unreliable, they are affluent. Seek alliances based on bonds. This one seems to be yearning for it."

Myra rolled her eyes. The female spoke as if she were never here and didn't know whether to take her comments as criticism or compliments. 

 "What is the baby, then?" The Mandalorian questioned quietly.

"It is a foundling. By Creed, it is in your care."

"You wish me to train this thing?" He sounded like he wasn't ready for it, disappointment flooding him in an instant.

"It is too weak," the Armourer replied to his relief, moulding the liquified metal on a work stand nearby. Carefully crafting the metal with expertise. "It would die. You have no choice. You must reunite it with its own kind."

"Where?"

"This, you must determine," she cryptically stated.

"You expect me to search the galaxy for the home of this creature and deliver it to a race of enemy sorcerers?" Of course, her Mandalorian was no different than the one she was used to. Sarcastic and had zero tolerance to bullshit.

"This is the Way."

"Hey," Cara intervened, her tone heavy with panic. She attended to the Mandalorian in rigid care. "These tunnels will be lousy with Imps in a matter of minutes. We should at least discuss an escape plan."

"If you follow the descending tunnel, it will lead you to the underground river," the Armourer notified to the best of her abilities. "It flows downstream toward the lava flats."

"I think we should go," Myra responded, uncomfortable with the impending ammunition that loomed around her. She fisted her arms protectively about the baby who gurgled nonsensical sounds unknowingly.

"I'm staying," the Mandalorian affirmed, looking around to meet with Myra's hollowed gaze. "I need to help her and I need to heal."

"You are healed," Myra reasoned hotly. 

"You must go," the armoured strongly solved for the unwilling witch. "A foundling is in your care. By Creed, until it is of age or reunited with its own kind, you are as its father."

A father. Din Djarin had become a supporter of the vulnerable, a foster father. He would be anything greater than Myra's, given the gentleness and understanding that arose with his character. Myra felt the esteemed responsibility lift in him, a euphoria that she couldn't bear to comprehend.

"This is the Way," she stated, walking to the Mandalorian to emboss a steel emblem onto his shoulder brace. It was silver, twisted into the graceful shape of a creature, finely fitting him to imbue power. She was witnessing a rare moment in Mandalore history, the sparks fleeing the burning tip of the razor forged it in.

When it was revealed that there were indeed two sigils, one of a mudhorn and the other, a flashing three-fold spiral which had been her first inscribed mark of the Ways. 

"You have earned your Signets," she instilled in a warrior's tone, issuing him with the authority of a finality. 

"You are a clan of three."

A clan. A family. Besides the overwhelming sense of belonging that swarmed, Myra felt at ease. She watched as the Mandalorian lifted his head to the Armourer with a confident smile stretching on his face under the helmet. Myra, in an instant, welcomed the bubbling warmth in her body; the feeling of certitude hoisting her up. 

"Thank you," he told her, brimming with enthusiasm. "I will wear them with honour."

∞

Mortality precognition was dangerous, repugnant and applied to everyone. Needless to say, the user themselves.  And sadly, a witch's Fate had been sealed.

When Myra relied on the Sight for the retelling of the eventuality and completely utilizing her clairvoyance, she understood her odds. It would mean changing the course of events and allow a rupture so diseased, that it might ring a consequence back to her. That was the Threefold Law that she had been taught—each drive had an equal and opposite resistance. 

Cursed with premonition and the endowment to fragment a galaxy to its last atom, and even though she would never be capable of such, Myra has been deemed a psychopath. While many others killed with no mercy, the weight has still rested over her inexistent heart. The guilt of taking a life; Karstark Knox's life.

Her conscience opposed her truth. Karstark was never alive in the first place, a human-droid who had committed treason against a planet and unfit to survive. A man who had maybe slain her father, her friend and who knows, burnt down Iego near her vanishing.

"I killed him," she whispered out to no one.

The Mandalorian who stood nearby had the ears of a bat. His head snapped to her in question as the ferry ominously tilted out. The ship on the underground river kissed the dormant creek of fire on its passage. The air was filled with the choking smoky soot and warmer than when she had faced the vengeance of meeting with the Fates all those years ago. 

"You killed someone," the Mandalorian stated. Softer than an accusation, just a recital. 

"Karstark Knox led the Rebellion against the throne on Iego, nearly annihilated me and my father," she told him, never daring a glancing his way. She looked to the baby whose dark eyes were observing her and its mouth gaping open for a few babbles. Dutifully, she passed the baby to Cara who seemed less than willing to take it off her.

"He was a part droid," Myra muttered to him, the same statement that expedited her morals. "He wanted me to extend a hand in marriage. The rightful way."

Red hot fury bloomed in the Mandalorian, hiding his anger under the beskar efficiently. He was trying to push away the lingering jealousy but too late, it acted against him.

"Well, he rightfully deserved it," the Mandalorian grunted. "Don't feel bad about it."

Myra smiled darkly at her feet, inwardly disgusted in herself. "I vowed to never hurt anyone, Mandalorian. I have let myself down."

"Myra," he walked to her from the edge of the ferry's wooden platform to lean by her. She watched him as he moved closer than usual, his voice was eerily silent.

"You're not a murderer," he murmured only to her. "Or anyone even closely capable of something as such. You protected yourself, okay?"

She shook her head.

"You did," he pressed. "You're a witch. A witch who knows right and wrong. This is wrong and you only acted for it."

"You don't understand," she bit her trembling lip, piercing into the soft skin long enough to draw blood. "I broke faith. And I know not how to redeem myself."

"Your father...?"

"I have no clue," she sighed. "But I know he's safe and survived Karstark."

"That's good enough," he nodded, gulping softly.

The Mandalorian's fear was as omnipresent as the fluid heat around them. While she pilloried fear as a weakness in some, in her other half, it was the most thoughtful emotion to sense. It showed that he cared, for her safety and for the ease of her restless mind.

"I still," his mind scrambled to change the topic, making Myra smile. "I have your um, here."

She saw him fiddle with the cloth around his neck, trying to fit his finger under the protective layer of cotton and wedge out a pendant. Her pendant, the rufescent quartz that had thin twine of gold wire at the daggered tip, hung around his neck proudly. 

"You wear it?" Myra exclaimed in a disbelieving whisper which morphed into a soft laugh, her hands going to trace the thin gold chain that slithered down. 

"Well, yeah," he shrugged. "You can have it back if you—"

"Keep it," she assured him, looking at his visor when really she was looking at those dark, tender eyes. "It's yours."

She could tell that he valued it by his neck than anyone else's, however secretive he had kept it. His hand smoothed over hers on his chest, a gloved thumb rubbing the surface of her knuckles in a peaceful gesture.

"I'll figure everything out, after," he promised. "We will."

Myra lied through her teeth as the Sight condemned her from a promise. A soft smile stretched on her lips, leaning forward to press her lips over the back of his hand for a kiss.

"We will."

X X X

{ I know I said this chapter was heartbreaking but I split it so the blues went into the next one lmfao, sorry guise }