Chapter Text
As far back as I could remember, I had always been a little broken. It might have been due to my chronic clumsiness, or to the harsh life my family led on our planet. Still, it was enough for me to brush too closely against someone to earn a bruise, or to bump into a corner to end up with my arm in a sling.
It began when I sneezed as a child. A searing pain tore through me, and my parents rushed me to the town doctor while my bones cracked beneath their fingers. I was bedridden for two months to recover, and everyone in the household would turn sharply, on edge, whenever I so much as dared to cough.
Then came a fall, when I was a little older. Falling as a child wasn’t unusual, but my femur shattered, and the neighbors all flinched at my scream of pain. When I raised my hand to point at a ship in the sky, my collarbone fractured. When my twin brother tried to play-fight with me, I came back bruised and battered.
None of it was truly surprising. But the rule soon became clear and unforgiving: I was no longer allowed to step outside.
My skeleton was whole, yet cracked by every blow. My eyes carried a sickly bluish hue, and my frame was unsteady. I was like my mother, who seemed as fragile as a feather.
My childhood was marked by injuries, lived in a world of doctors and countless surgeries, sometimes unsuccessful, meant to keep my vertebrae in place. Fortunately, I was not as severely affected as my mother, and I could walk almost normally as long as I avoided sudden movements. At night, as she tucked me in, she would whisper that I was lucky and promise me I was no weaker than the others. She repeated the name of my illness to me, though I was never able to pronounce it.
By the time I was old enough to understand its meaning, she was gone.
Our home was padded with velvet, rounding every corner I might collide with. Despite this soft, cushioned cage, I was bored to death. My brother and my father were gone most of the day, working to provide for us. I couldn’t even try to cook or sew to be useful. Every trivial movement was dangerous for me.
I envied the outside world. I had never gone farther than the end of my neighborhood. Even the sand of my planet, lashing against my skin, was too painful. To help me dream, my brother Aren brought me books, told me stories of the outside world, though his own life was monotonous enough. He tried to make me imagine the rest of the galaxy we lived in, even though I knew he spent most of his time hunched over, repairing faulty ships for more-than-questionable clients.
With our mother gone, my father faded quickly. And before we were even adults, we had to behave as though we were.
At seventeen, I had grown a little more than the doctors had predicted, and I allowed myself to be content with that. I felt slightly stronger, more solid. Even though bruises constantly bloomed on my skin, I could hold myself together without fearing my bones would crack.
I began to go outside, mostly because my father was no longer in any condition to forbid it. Aren introduced me to his trade: assembling and dismantling complex circuits, finding solutions when parts were missing, understanding why a machine refused to work, as if it possessed a consciousness of its own. If we couldn’t heal me, he could at least help me live. I watched him work late into the night, half-reading the books he brought me back. I knew that if I ever used any of his tools, I would almost certainly strike the metal a little too hard against my own skin.
I wanted to learn, to understand why my body didn’t function properly. If I couldn’t work with machines, which were far too dangerous for me to handle, then I wanted to help people instead.
It was with great insistence and perseverance that I became the apprentice of one of the town’s doctors. He was somewhat gruff and dry-humored, but he cared for my father, so he tolerated my presence and my help. Above all, during my years buried in books, I had learned the anatomy of the species on our planet by heart.
Years later, Aren was working in Peli Motto’s hangar, and I was taking on small jobs across the city. I still walked with an unsteady gait; my bones cracked whenever I made a sudden movement, but I congratulated myself on having broken them only three times since reaching adulthood. Credits were hard to save, especially with our father’s whims to support.
Honestly, there were nights when we would watch the sky as darkness fell, wondering what might exist beyond our atmosphere. We had each other, we were close, the two of us, and that was all we ever asked for.
The first time I saw him, he did not see me in return.
In Mos Eisley, it wasn’t exactly common to come across a man entirely clad in gleaming armor. He moved at a slow pace along the main street. He did not inspire trust, and I decided to circle the square to avoid him. I hurried away from the area, glancing back only to see him entering the cantina. I was almost certainly being paranoid. My father had always taught me to be wary of men who were far too heavily armed. If he knew I was wandering the city streets so freely, he’d probably have a heart attack.
The second time I saw him was at Peli’s hangar.
I had come to look for my brother, who was taking far too long to come home. It was unusual, he knew how quickly I worried when he didn’t warn me. I had clearly arrived at an inopportune moment, almost running after hearing the sound of blaster fire. It was dark, and Aren turned toward me in a rush, as if he wanted to spare me the sight.
My blood ran cold when I saw a body lying on the ground near the ramp of a ship. I came to an abrupt halt, especially when the man in the gleaming armor turned and pointed his weapon at me.
“She’s my sister ! She’s my sister !” my brother repeated frantically, raising his hands to stop him.
The warrior did not react at once, staring at me from a distance with hesitation, or at least, that was what I thought I could discern behind his helmet. It was Peli who quickly shoved his raised arm aside, snapping at him for his manners.
Aren grabbed my shoulders, urging me not to stay. But my curious, dazed gaze remained fixed on the lifeless body on the ground and on the unknown soldier standing near the mechanic. He was the same one I had seen that morning on the main street.
Once he understood that I posed no threat, he seemed to turn his attention away from me and focused instead on searching the body. I slipped free of my brother, helped by the fact that his grip was always gentle with me. Peli gave me a thoughtful look. In her arms, she was holding some kind of small pet I couldn’t quite make out.
The armored man traded the little green creature for a rather substantial sum of credits he had taken from the corpse. My brother’s employer seemed perfectly satisfied with the exchange. She ordered her droids to dispose of the body, and the warrior took his leave, heading back to his ship : a battered old Razor Crest.
“He’s a Mandalorian,” Peli explained as she came to lean beside me.
I watched the ship lift away with an absent stare. My brother tugged at my arm to pull me from the scene as the droids dragged the corpse out of my sight. I had already forgotten the word by the time we headed home, into the cool night of Mos Eisley.
The third time I saw him was only a few weeks later.
More precisely, I became aware of his presence on the planet when I ran into his small pet in the improvised kitchen of the hangar. Somehow, it had knocked over a box of blue biscuits and had been stuffing himself with them for several minutes. I turned my head toward the open roof to look again at the scrap heap that served as his ship, where my brother was busy trying to make something flyable out of it.
I assumed the little alien must have been under the watch of the useless droids who had clearly failed at their task. I approached, slipping around the edge of the table, and sat down on the bench. The small creature with large, fuzzy ears turned casually toward me, checking to make sure I wasn’t about to steal the jar from its hands. It wasn’t my job to watch it, let alone forbid it anything.
In the light, it looked far less like an animal and much more like a baby of a species I didn’t recognize. And yet, I had studied a great many of them through my countless readings.
“What are you, exactly ?” I murmured, leaning on the table.
It offered no answer, busy chewing. I couldn’t help but wonder what such a tiny being was doing with a knight clad in full armor.
I tried not to worry about it, but after the fifth biscuit the little one swallowed, guilt crept in at letting it continue its mischief. Slowly, I reached out to take the glass jar from its hands. It protested at once, stretching its clawed fingers toward me.
“What are you doing ?” a rough voice called from behind me.
I spun around quickly to see the armored man beside me. Even though his body was completely covered in silver, I could feel all the tension and irritation in his voice. I pulled my hand back, timidly closing the jar.
- Ah, I’m sorry. It was going to finish the jar, and I was afraid it’d make itself sick,” I explained softly.
He froze for a moment, as if sizing me up, before crossing the room to scoop the little one into his arms. I stared at him with wide eyes, uneasy, thinking back to our first encounter when a body had lain on the hangar floor because of him. He didn’t seem inclined to harm the little creature.
The tiny green baby proved me right, crumbs covering its clothing and letting out small, embarrassed squeaks from its full stomach. The way the warrior held it showed he wasn’t especially used to handling infants. Yet somehow, they seemed to get along.
The man said nothing further once he had ensured the little one was okay, forgetting even to apologize or thank me. No matter. He left the kitchen and headed toward his ship. I let out a light sigh. Soldiers could be so rude!
I followed at a distance as he approached my brother, who was lying down to reassemble one of the Razor Crest’s landing legs. In my opinion, it would be far better to get a new ship.
“How long will it take you to get this back on its feet ?” he asked my brother firmly.
Aren sighed, wiping his face dirty with grease. I sat down on one of the crates beside the ship.
- With the money you promised, probably a good day. In my humble opinion, you’d be better off...
- I’m keeping it. If that’s what you’re trying to suggest,” the man’s voice resonated from behind his helmet.
My brother showed no less awe; if anything, he seemed exhilarated. Of the two of us, he was certainly the more daring, and facing someone stronger than himself made him shiver with excitement. A smile spread across his face as he tucked his grease-stained rag into his jacket pocket.
- You’re a bounty hunter. It shouldn’t be hard for you to find work in this town.
- My visit to the cantina was fruitless,” added the soldier with a sigh.
He turned, leaving my brother hanging for a moment. I watched his cape flutter in the wind and his heavy feet drag his armor as he walked. I carefully climbed down from my crate, avoiding any unnecessary fall.
- I treated a city soldier this morning,” I began, loud enough for him to hear. “A group of mercenaries regularly attacks the city convoy to feed a small trafficking operation.
The man in armor stopped abruptly and turned half of his helmet toward me, sizing me up once again. As before, it was my brother who tried to ease the tension.
- Ah, you remember my sister ?” he introduced me. “She’s a doctor in town, and... yes, there was an attack this morning. I heard some clients talking about it...
- Then why haven’t I heard anything ?” the hunter asked skeptically.
- The city chief doesn’t want the news to spread too much. It’s a bit embarrassing that our militia can’t defend against these attacks,” I replied quickly.
A silence. I faced the metal helmet, wondering how much he could see through the visor. I stepped closer, and the only one to react was the little green creature in his arms.
- He’s probably at the barracks by now. Don’t say I sent you. I’m not supposed to share this kind of information.
I reached out to offer the officer’s badge for identification. He raised his gloved hand, and fearing he might touch me, I quickly let the badge fall against the leather before stepping back. My gaze met Aren’s, his eyes sparkling like a child’s.
- Do you have somewhere to stay ?” he asked cheerfully. “We live on the edge of town with our father.
- I don’t sleep,” the man finished, turning to disappear into the hangar.
I rolled my eyes and glanced at my brother. He looked slightly disappointed to have missed the adventure, knowing he’d have to get back to getting his hands dirty fixing that flying junk.
- He’s impressive,” he muttered, completely enchanted.
- He’s mostly arrogant and rude,” I concluded. “I hope he can pay you well for the job I put on a silver platter.”
I knew that if family obligations didn’t tie him down, he’d probably be halfway across the galaxy on one perilous mission after another. He had never held a blaster in his life, yet I had already seen him tumble and roll as if in the middle of a fight, facing off against bandits or smugglers.
Perhaps I even worked to allow him a little rest, but money was always scarce. Surely that was what had brought misfortune to our family, the pursuit of daring, of the outside world, of danger, which I had always avoided for my health and safety.
The last time I saw the Mandalorian, my brother had disappeared, and I was ready to do anything to find him.