#unidentified landspeeder | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

auntie-venom · 10 months

Text

Will of Fate

Chapter Eight

Fandom: Star Wars: The Mandalorian

Story Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Mature

Characters: Din Djarin x Original Female Character

Summary: There hasn’t been an unidentified spacecraft in the stratosphere of Arkadia in over two decades, let alone three in one day. Those skilled or mad enough to venture into the Chaos unguided were few and far between. That means no one has ever made it to Arkadia who wasn’t intending to be here.

Until today.

Din Djarin finds an unmapped planet filled with beings who have the same powers as the Child, but know nothing of the force or the Jedi.

Chapter Summary: A trip to the prefecture and the mechanic

Word Count - 3,870

Chapter Warnings: None

Will of Fate Masterlist

Read on Ao3

A/N: Hey y’all, sorry for the long wait. We had family and friends visiting from our home country and hosting duty prevented me from sitting down at the computer and doing edits. I was able to continue writing on my phone so at least progress is being made even if y’all can’t see it yet. I also caught a case of Miguel O’Hara brain rot for a bit, so I was distracted for a few weeks with that.

This chapter is dedicated to the Paris prefecture: fuck you, very much.

Chapter eight

Din can admit with full honesty that his well of patience is very deep. He has waited for bounties to appear while maintaining uncomfortable positions for hours. He has surveilled a safe house for over a week from a tree canopy to confirm a potential lead to a target. He has begrudgingly walked at the child’s pace for two kilometers when the kid refused, by a screeching tantrum, to be carried. But the verbal gymnastics of politics is something he has no patience for and he has to actively fight down the itch for violence.

The sterile prefecture was staffed with dour looking people doing the work with the least amount of effort in order to get through the mass of civilians who were just trying to file the right paperwork. Every person who goes up to a staff member is greeted with pursed lips and a look down the nose full of disdain.

It was even directed towards Eziriel who claimed in the landspeeder that she had dressed to her station with a draping blushing gold jumpsuit and a long caped navy blazer in hopes to possibly make the bureaucratic hoops easier to jump through, but it was apparently a useless tactic. It didn’t matter if the civilian was in rags or glittering jewels, they were a mere nuisance to everyone who worked there.

Din was glad to have the woman on his side, but even her disarming banter and warm smiles could not penetrate the lifeless pointy-eared Arkadian and his protocol droid who were in charge of Din’s case. He watches as Eziriel slips into a more diplomatic facade once she realizes her usual friendly route wasn’t going to get the results she wanted and he observes something he hasn’t seen in her before. True irritation.

Even in the handful of days he’s been around Eziriel, Din feels like he has a pretty good read on her. She is one of those who uses teasing humor to soften reality but also has the tendency to use it as a shield to deflect from true vulnerability. He doesn’t think many notice the deflection since she is always open and honest about any topic, but seeing the pensive look that came across her face when he asked why she was willing to hide things from her government for him, it suddenly registered that he has seen that look on her a handful of times previously: when she admitted to finding the sabotaging item and her worry of it; when he pushed beyond her deflection and to get her to accept his genuine thanks with the Jedi research; and when she admitted to him what the oath truly entailed. All these little vulnerable moments that she tried to hide with witty words finally came into focus once Din recognized the pattern, but the look she is currently presenting is none of the ones he has seen before.

She is expressive to a fault, so when all of her expressions drain from her face he takes note. He focuses in on the new tightness in the corner of her eyes while she forces a saccharine smile when the bored staff member, once again, sends her away with a wave of his hand at her questioning why they needed to fill out a physical form when they’ve already filled out the digital one. He’s seen her disguise her flustering amusement with faux irritation, but there was a true kindling of rage in her eyes when she filled out a handwritten physical copy of the same form she painstakingly filled out the night before. Seeing her fume and grumble under her breath was what caused Din to stop pacing like a caged beast and shift all his focus on observing her for the rest of the visa process.

He didn’t know if he fully liked the blazing fury that radiates off her ever-smiling facade, but admittedly, a dark part of him enjoys that focused rage. He will concede that he did miss the warm mischief her eyes usually held that was lost in favor of icy concentration, but when the third round of interviews gets too intrusive he watches as her normally friendly banter turns into scathing definitive statements that defends his clan of two and a fire burns in his gut.

He acknowledged when his concussion cleared that Eziriel is an objectively attractive woman. With her clever brain, witty tongue, and kind hands he could see how easily someone could be enchanted by her, but he was not one to be drawn into amorous attachments outside of carnal stress relief. Eziriel was meant to be a distant star in his time with her. Something in the dark night sky of his life that was a bright guiding beacon when he was thrown from his path; a star that shined so beautifully that he could admire from a distance in his memory when he was back on his trek and no longer lost; an astronomical body not meant for him to get any closer in exploration.

But then she puts on a vicious smile and fierce tone and defends his culture to the case officer when he tries to claim that they could not proceed without facial recognition, names, or at the very least a decrypted chain code, even though Arkadia doesn’t even use them. She was prepared for that and brings up a hundred year’s worth of data that held passage clearance case files where encrypted chain codes or alternate identifiers were used to adhere to culture differences, some of which were Mandalorian files Din noted.

That small shining star’s gravitational pull dragged him in to witness the might of its white-hot plasma and he doesn’t know if he has the strength to look away.

Kriff.

He nearly misses the resolution to their argument but is focused back at the defeated sigh of the case officer. He grumbles that doing it her way would take hours of paperwork, as if it hasn’t already taken hours already, and that it could be weeks before getting any approval.

“I am terribly sorry that you must do the bare minimum of your job description. My deepest condolences,” she says with that venomous inflection and that sickening sweet smile. “Here is an approval to move their case to the top of the stack at every turn. King Amarian’s royal seal and everything.”

She pulls a datapad out of her bag to add to the pile of other datapads and paperwork. Din didn’t need to be able to magically read emotions to see that the case officer is frustrated, regardless of how well he was trying to hide it. The case officer begrudgingly takes a hand and vocal print of Din as proof of identity. He then has his protocol droid collect everything and commands them back to the waiting room in order to wait for the temporary visas.

After a total of six hours they are finally walking back to where she parked the landspeeder. She tugs her blazer off as Din settles the kid into the back seat. As soon as she plants herself in the pilot seat and the doors close she buries her face into her blazer and lets out a ragged scream, startling the child and Din both. He feels amusement pull at his mouth when she pulls her head up and she is all wild copper curls and frazzled red faced, gone was the smiling stoic facade she has been presenting in the prefecture.

“Maker’s hairy balls,” she says and Din’s almost smile grows at the colorful language she has been holding back for hours. “I’ve always heard it was bad, that they always started every interaction with ‘it’s not possible’, but kriffing hell!” She slumps her form deep into the seat and rests her head against the headrest taking a moment to close her eyes.

“Thank the stars I had Princess Ziri on my side,” he quips and catches the corner of her lip quirk up at her nickname. Her head lolls to face him as the icy fire drains from her eyes and mirth starts to refill them once again, and it makes his chest alight with an ember of satisfaction to cause that reaction.

“Well, Princess Ziri is starving and so is the little laddie,” she says, sitting straight once more and glancing over her shoulder to smile at the kid in his little safety seat before patting Din on the unarmored part of his arm and pointing at his helmet. “I’d make you buy me a drink after all that bantha shit, but since I am oathbound to your wellbeing I can’t, in good conscience, make you pay. So let’s say you owe me a drink once my oath is fulfilled.”

“Done,” he says with a single nod of his head as she gives him a true smile filled with that teasing kindness that he has gotten used to in the last four days and begins pulling out of the parking garage. He doesn’t even bother to ask where she is taking them, he just sits and listens to her talk to his ward about all the types of desserts the restaurant she plans to take them has.

════════════════════════════════════

The small cozy restaurant at the edge of the city wasn’t too busy when they show up between the lunch and dinner rush, but the middle-aged owner makes it a point to exchange pleasantries with Eziriel and fondly talk to the child in between serving other tables. Din spends the lunch watching the child be spoiled by Eziriel who gives the boy a piece of each of the deserts she could get a sample of before Din has to stop her which earns him a pout from the pair. At the end of the meal Eziriel insists on a to-go bag of food and shoves it into Din’s arms before he could protest, claiming that if he can take a moment to eat he should.

Once they are back in the landspeeder she takes them out of the city and starts coasting next to the large lake heading towards the starport on the opposite end. With the gentle stringed music she had put on the kid is nearly instantly asleep and Din takes that quiet moment to ask a question he has been curious about for a few days.

“What would have happened if I refused to apply for the planetary visa?” he keeps his voice low enough not to wake the child and he watches her face cringe at the question.

“Then we would have probably had to detain you two,” she admits with a lowered voice.

“‘We’? You would have tried to detain me?” Din says with amusement at the mere thought of her small frame trying to take him in.

“No, no, no, ‘we’ as in Arkadia, not me personally. If you were not cooperative or receptive to my help I’d have been forced to call the Enforcers in,” she explains and from the few times he’s heard the word he assumes that the Enforcers are Arkadia’s military. “It would have been nothing personal, but the location of Arkadia must remain hidden from anyone who can’t be trusted. I hope you understand.”

“I’m not offended that you would have protected your people,” he replies honestly. “I am mildly surprised you didn’t call your military when I pointed my blaster at you, being royalty and all.”

“Twice,” she amends with a smirk.

“Twice,” he agrees at the number of times he’s drawn his blaster on her.

“Well, you started off pointing your blaster at me through your ship’s viewscreen. So that wasn’t a big threat.” Her smirk grows at the memory.

“I had a head injury,” Din grumbles and she chuckles at him.

“I, for one, am glad you were eventually agreeable and proved yourself trustworthy enough for me not to call the Enforcers, despite your ornery introduction,” she gives him that sincere look once again as they fall back into a comfortable silence with some soft melodic music coming from the speeder’s comms accompanying their trip around the lake.

After a peaceful drive through the wooded lakeside they arrive at an industrial part of the city where the starport was the primary focus of the area. Most of the surrounding buildings were either private docking bays or businesses focused on space travel and maintenance.

As she pilots the landspeeder through the maze of buildings Eziriel gasps and points to a small fleet of sleek rose gold starfighters docked on an upper platform of the starport and excitedly tells Din about how a prototype device she has been developing for the past year was being tested on them. When he asks about the prototype he takes in how she perks up and starts happily rambling to him about how the device she invented conserves power and how quickly it can transfer that power to systems that need it, ultimately creating a more reactive user interface than ever before, which results in the ship’s systems to function at a higher rate. It was honestly a rather mundane topic that Din barely kept up with, but the way her eyes light up when she explains the device as if it were the most innovative creation in centuries gives Din an insight of how passionately she feels towards her work.

By the time she pulls them into a public garage Din has learned more about electrical relays than he ever cared about knowing. He tries his best to collect the kid from his safety seat and place him in his pram without waking him and is moderately successful, provoking only a few grumpy grunts from the child before falling back asleep. She leads them out of the garage and down the cobbled street pointing out shops that could be useful if he needed to restock his ship if he were to visit again and when she mentions that it causes him to mentally pause.

He has not really considered coming back since he’s primarily been focused on leaving. Arkadia seems like a lovely, if not privileged, planet. It would be wise to use the passage visa to a planet that was uncharted and overly secure. It would ultimately be a great place to lie low if they needed to avoid the Empire remnants in his search for the Jedi. Not to mention Eziriel mentioned something about Mandalorians in the prefecture, maybe there is a covert here that he could get in contact with. The Armorer told him to search out Mandalorian in his hunt for the Jedi, but he thought his bounty hunter skills were enough to find a trail to them without aid. Din sighs at his hubris and makes a note to ask Eziriel about the Mandalorian history here when they are alone again.

After a few turns and a push through some young rowdy pilots who start to jeer at Eziriel before quickly holding their tongue once they see his broad figure behind her, she leads them to a shop front. The front of the building looks like it was once very modern, but age and time made it stick out against the newer buildings. The windows and pathways are filled with large potted plants that climb up the walls in a verdant maze, except for a large square portion of the vines that is neatly cut away to show the building’s red facade that has the name “Torbin’s'' freshly painted in a shiny gold script. Following Eziriel through the door they are greeted by a smiling middle-aged Nautolan woman seated behind an organized desk dressed in a flowing floral dress that compliments her blue skin.

“Bless the stars, look at you dressed all pretty! Not a single grease stain or burn mark in sight! Trying to impress your new Mandalorian?” the woman says with waggling eyebrows towards Eziriel.

“Yes. I’ve been told unblemished clothes are the way to court a Mandalorian out of their armor and into my bed. You figured me out, Filia,” Eziriel quips with an overly serious tone and a smirk. Filia throws her head back in a laugh causing the golden jewelry wrapped around her head tentacles to jingle noisily. She pulls Eziriel into a brief hug before holding her out at arms length.

“He should be so lucky,” she winks at Dins and hooks Eziriel’s arm into her own to guide her through the waiting room that they had first entered into. Filia leads them through a hallway with shelves cluttered with labeled ship parts as she regales Eziriel with her daughter’s recent accomplishments in some sort of medical academy.

Opening the backdoor a wide open workspace with three attached hangers comes into view. The tall overhead hangar door was retracted and two smaller towing vessels sat in the center of the workspace while a crew of three Arkadians were inspecting the mounted tractor beams. A green skinned Nautolan man stood with a datapad and was giving out instructions to his crew. He turns when he hears Filia call and makes his way over to them after issuing a final command to his crew.

“You must be the owner of that downed antique in Ga’ladora’s Canyon,” the man says with a grin and holds out a hand for Din to shake. “I am Torbin Dresden.”

“She’s old, but faithful,” Din responds, shaking his hand firmly before resting it on his belt. “Eziriel has told me you are the best mechanic to get the Razor Crest back in the sky.”

“Bah,” he says, swatting his hand in the air dismissively. “She just says ‘cause I let her tinker with the electronics of ships I’m working on when she needs to clear her head. But I will use everything in my skill set to get your ship up and running.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Din nods in thanks.

“I will say, with the scans that Eziriel sent me of how it is wedged in the canyon, it might take us longer than usual with extraction,” Torbin informs them with a slight grimace. “So it might be a few days before it even gets to the shop, but I can comm you when it is if you’d like to retrieve anything from it. Or if you’d like to amend any of Eziriel’s plans for the ship.”

Din cocks his head before slowly turning it down towards Eziriel. “Eziriel’s plans?” He asks with a cool voice trying to rein in the temper he feels brewing at the audacity of the woman making calls for his ship. At the furrow of her brow he assumes she feels that irritation.

“Cool your jets, Lori. I just sent him the original blueprint of a ST-70 Assault Ship,” she says with a placating wave of her hand. “I was going to have him use better quality material and upgrade a few things if needed, but was going to run that by you first.” Din feels his anger recede at that. She wasn’t trying to make decisions for him, she was just trying to help by giving the mechanic the blueprint in advance so he could better prepare.

“Thank you, but the upgrades are not necessary. I don’t have the spare credits for excessive spending,” he says to her before glancing at Torbin. “Just get it hyperspace-worthy.”

“Mando, this is coming out of my pocket.” He opens his mouth to argue how he doesn’t need charity when he sees her with a serious expression, eyes pleading with him. “Your safety is my priority. That includes a high-functioning ship that can manage the wilds of space,” she says slowly with deliberate emphasized beats.

Din stares at her earnest face while he has an internal debate. He detests being in debt to someone, it hangs around his neck like an invisible collar with a chain that yanks him at the most inconvenient time. People have abused the favors he’s owed them when he was younger and he has strived to avoid becoming indebted ever since. Being under anyone’s thumb repulses Din down to his bones.

However, Eziriel explained the night before the importance of her binding herself to him and the vow she made for his safety. She implied that not letting her fulfill that vow would ultimately hurt her and that it was a very sacred thing that her culture maintains, which held no ties or expectations on his end. It reminds Din of a Wookiee life debt, which is seen just as seriously when pledged. Sure, she is bending the verbiage to go beyond what he deems necessary, but her generosity and the kindness behind it sways Din to trust her that much more.

“Torbin is giving me a great deal because of the free work he gets out of me, every single decision will be approved by you, and I will even do all the electrical labor so you don’t have feel like you are draining my bank dry,” she negotiates before Din has a chance to respond. She leans in and elbows him playfully and in a dramatic whisper says, “Not that you could, royal coffers and all that.”

“Okay,” he eventually responds in a soft voice and watches her body melt into relief. “I don’t like being indebted to people.”

“Well good thing you won’t owe me anything,” she says with an equally soft voice.

“Feeling indebted to people is nearly as bad,” he admits.

“Well, maybe I can find you things to do for me to relieve that burden,” she says with a growing smirk. “You’re good with kids, maybe cover my biweekly childminding gig?”

Din releases a small exhale of amusement and turns to where Torbin and Filia had drifted away during his and Eziriel’s intense conversation. Din waves them over and thanks them for the work they are going to put into the ship while Eziriel fills out the datapad Torbin hands to her.

The rest of the conversation of repair planning goes smoothly and Din is only momentarily taken aback when he witnesses Torbin casually float the filled out datapad to his crew with a barely there wave of his hand while making a friendly dig at Eziriel. It makes him realize that it will take more than a day surrounded by the magic wielding citizens of Arkadia for Din to get used to the casualness of their powers. The thought of getting used to the everyday power usage of the people brings up his previous internal debate on coming back to this planet and using it as a refuge.

Could he feel secure enough to hide away here if necessary? Possibly, he thinks as he watches that rose gold patrol squadron take off from the starport while they walk back to the landspeeder; Eziriel pointing to them and chatting away to the now-awake toddler.

Would he come back to this planet even if he didn’t need to use it as a safe place to lay low? Din looks over at the child who pats Eziriel’s face while joining her in pointing at the starfighters and he pushes down the chest-warming simmering thought of yes before continuing to follow the woman back to the landspeeder.

<< Chapter Seven

Chapter Nine >>