vii. the dream.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Nightmares lured from a dark shade of coalesced blood fill Zoya's mouth with the taste of ash. Sweltering beneath a fictional sun the color of scorched bone, she sees landscapes of onyx rock, highlands towering above hungry pools of crimson, thick and viscous and clinging to her skin. Ayaan Vitaan watches the lake cling to her boots from the shores, standing imperial and dark and Sith-like, and his irises that were once warm and brown in real life look down upon her now an iridescent, glittering scarlet. She calls to him for help, begs as the blood consumes her, first engulfing her legs, then swallowing her shoulders. He opens his coat as Zoya drowns, and in place of his chest is a gaping hole, smoke curling from the edges. Ayaan's mouth moves silently, but the words slide through her ears phantomlike and unavoidable all the same.

Murderer.

Before her head goes under, the sky bleeds a liquid dark as ink, and it chokes her, smears across her lips.

Murderer.

Zoya wakes in a cold sweat, hair plastered to her forehead and chest heaving as tears spill down her face, power thrumming angrily in her chest, trying to peel her ribs apart. Her thrashing seems to have brought Din from sleep, and they reach for each other at the same time.

She whispers his name, voice quieter than gentle rainfall pattering against the roof of her childhood home.

It's so dark that she is not able to tell that Din had removed his helmet to sleep until her knee brushes against the metal caught between their legs. Bemused, Zoya removes her fingers from his chest to slide across the smooth surface until she realizes what it is. Sleepy confusion and the lingering effects of the nightmare blind her momentarily, but the press of his chin against the top her head then gives an electric charge to her senses, as effective as a bucket of icy water. Threads of pure iron thread themselves through her muscles, taut with electricity. Din senses the change in her body immediately, and holds her tighter. His arms are softer, somehow, and Zoya realizes it's because the beskar typically on his shoulders is now also discarded on his side of the tent.

"I won't look," she whispers, urgent, "I won't look."

"I know," he replies, anxiety absent from his voice. The deep tones of it brush across her skin, as soft and intimate as she remembers them being without the helmet's modulator. His light accent curls gently through the air, whispers of warm clouds lingering at dusk. "I thought I'd wake up first, since you like to sleep in." He does not mention her nightmare, not for a while.

Despite his confidence in her ability to keep her eyes averted from his face, a deep sort of craving awakens within Zoya's sternum, mixing treacherously with the pulse of power clutching at the atriums of her heart. What does he look like what does he look like what does he—

As if privy to her thoughts, Din shifts his arms around her, drawing back enough that she squeezes her eyes shut, refusing to look upon him without his helmet. No matter how much her heart aches to see his face, Zoya knows that in her fragile state of mind, it would leave her undone—if Din would even want to allow it. The pad of his thumb brushes across the arch of her brow, the curve of her cheekbone, and she struggles to breathe (it's bare skin—he's also removed his gloves).

"Zoya," he whispers softly.

"Din," she murmurs in return, flushing when her voice comes out strained.

His finger, feather-light, traces the gentle sweep of her lashes where they remain stubbornly pressed closed. It finds a tear still clinging to the corner of her eye, and sweeps away the slight moisture, cleansing the remnants of the nightmare from her mind just as fluidly.

He says her name once more, and his thumb, nervous, cautious, tentative, brushes the curve of her lower lip. Zoya's next exhale is more of a sigh, and unconsciously, she leans into the touch, his broad palm cupping her jaw. Her fingers find the hem of the tunic he wears under his armor, and, carefully, venture beneath the worn fabric, slipping over the hills and valleys of his ribs and abdomen before finding the smooth, curved planes of his back. It's warmth and life and everything in between golden rays of light at sunset, and, caught between the horror of her nightmare and this euphoric wakefulness, Zoya—wildly—wonders if it's simply a fever dream, borne from the suffocated longing kept hostage beneath her lungs and the lingering heat from the sands beneath the tent.

But Din nearly trembles at her first touch, and then curls tighter around her. "Are you . . ." The sentence trails off, broken, the unspoken thread of it unspooling from his lips to linger within the air.

Zoya nods, her eyes still shut. "Bad dream."

"I'm sorry," he says.

She doesn't mean to fall back asleep, not in the sun-washed haven of this newfound intimacy, not when he's so close and unarmored and gentle, not when her fingers are beneath his shirt, soft against the powerful muscles of Din's back, but the sensitive, caring brushes of the calloused pads of his fingers lure her back into the soft, dark quiet, and the warmth of sleep curls itself around her once more.

And when she wakes, the tent is empty, leaving her to wonder whether or not she'd imagined the brush of his lips against her forehead as consciousness absconded from beneath her fingertips.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Seated atop a bantha, Zoya squints against the piercing light emanating from the blistering suns overhead. The sideways, rocking gait of the beast is strangely comforting, and as they wait upon the crest of the final dune between them and the krayt dragon's lair, she's nearly fallen asleep again, cradled by the warmth of the suns' light. A hand brushes at her arm, and she jerks violently, suddenly wide-eyed, almost throwing herself off the other side of the bantha's broad back.

"Easy," Din says, a laugh hidden within his voice. "Don't fall."

"I didn't."

"You did. I scared you pretty bad."

"Shut up," Zoya grumbles, adjusting herself in the saddle. As he watches her struggle with the stirrups, she gets the feeling that he's grinning beneath the helmet. "You'd better wipe that smug smile off your face, too."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says, but she can hear it plainly in his voice.

"You may think that you can hide from me underneath that helmet, but you can't," Zoya says. "You don't fool me one bit."

Din scoffs. "I could. If I was even trying."

Rolling her eyes, she replies, "Sure, Mandalorian."

A few minutes later, Zoya observes a single Raider leading a bantha towards a dark, ominous cave, which is absolutely massive. It blackens out part of the rock, giving the mountain a gaping, hungry maw that collects shadows so dark and concentrated that nothing can be seen inside.

Zoya crouches low upon an overhang beside Din, Cobb, and a few Tuskens, eyes narrowed. Her hand remains on the child protectively, a certain type of anxiety pooling within her stomach at the thought of him being so close to the krayt dragon's lair. As they watch the lone Raider approach the menacing cave, one of the Tuskens that stayed behind begins to speak to Din.

After a moment, he relays, "They say it lives in there. They say it sleeps." He accepts a pair of electrobinoculars, leveling them with the mouth of the cave below. "It lives in this abandoned sarlacc pit."

"Lived on Tatooine my whole life. There's no such thing as an abandoned sarlacc pit," Cobb disagrees.

"There is if you eat the sarlacc," Din says.

Just as Zoya reaches out to request a look, Din holds out the electrobinoculars. Her lips twitch, amused by their wordless communication. As she lifts them to her eyes, zooming in upon the Raider approaching the pit, he continues, "They're laying out a bantha to protect the settlement. They've studied its digestion cycle for generations, so they feed the dragon to make it sleep longer."

"Smart," Zoya says.

Din nods. "Watch, the dragon will appear."

Through the electrobinoculars, she watches the Raider tie the bantha to a stake, which he hammers deep into the sand. A pang of sorrow rebounds off her ribs and spirals deep into her heart. "It can't even try to run," she whispers.

A soft hand finds the middle of her back and traces a single soothing circle as the Raider below cups his hands over his mouth and yells something in Tusken into the sarlacc pit. As a growl so deep and cavernous that it vibrates within the confines of her chest thunders out of the pit, Zoya lowers the electrobinoculars, unwilling to watch the bantha be consumed from their perspective.

Immediately, the Raider below turns and sprints away, falling to the ground once as the ground trembles with the force of the dragon's approach. As they watch, the beast emerges in a plume of exploding sand, surpasses the bantha, and snaps its jaws closed around the Tusken attempting to flee. Something seems to shudder within the air, mourning the loss of life. It pinches at her chest, burns against her veins, a whisper of supernatural awareness that lingers agonizingly at the edges of her vision.

"Shit," Zoya hisses, stricken.

The child whimpers along with the other Raiders, who recoil in anguish as the krayt dragon recedes back into the pit.

"They might be open to some fresh ideas," Din says to Cobb and Zoya, touching a careful hand to the child.

"I would think so," Zoya mutters.

Quietly, the Raiders retreat from the edge of the cliff, murmuring amongst themselves, shaken from the death of their companion. Steel still threads itself through Zoya's bones, rendering her nearly immobile; her eyes remain fixed upon the spot where the Tusken was consumed by the krayt dragon. The effects of the Raider's death still linger within the air and upon her shoulders, and death dyes the forthcoming wind a lamenting shade of deep onyx.

"Zoya," murmurs Din, dropping into a crouch at her side. His gloved fingers find the curve of her shoulder, and the pressure upon it lightens. Her irises, laced with swirls of molten gold from the twin topaz suns, linger still upon the empty sands below, and he curls his fingers tentatively into her skin. Her anguish is incandescent, violet and forlorn against the distant horizon, nearly palpable beneath his fingertips. "Something's wrong."

At this, she blinks, glances up. Her eyes are nearly glazed, a light burning within them, the ethereal color of a distant star. "How are we going to beat that thing?" she says, but it's not what she's truly worrying about, and she knows that he can sense it as clearly as if she spelled it out upon the sky.

"We will," he replies at last, and though it's not really an answer, Zoya doesn't press him for more. After a long moment, his hand slides from her back. The loss of contact brings her back into herself, and she turns, searching, to find him watching her still. "Zoya. There's something going on." He's careful, hesitant, but somehow Zoya realizes that he knows she's changed, knows that there's some sort of burning within her, something that doesn't quite fit within the confines of her ribs, something that hungers to rip itself free. "You don't have to tell me, but . . . I'm here." She can tell he feels it's inadequate.

"I know," she says softly, unable to control the fracturing of the words. "I know."

"Find me," Din says, "when you're ready."

"I don't know how I can."

There's a brief silence that feels like a lifetime. "I don't understand," he says. "Help me understand."

"I can't even find myself," she whispers, the words rising unbidden and unwanted. They pause in the air, an uncertain revelation that even Zoya didn't know she'd been containing.

Din's arms are around her immediately; he presses her close against his chest, hand sliding into the hair at the crown of her head. Zoya clutches at him, a surge of helplessness relinquishing its grip upon her still-beating heart. "I'll be here until you do," he tells her, as millions of miles away, the infinite galaxy births an iridescent star.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

A few long hours later, the Tuskens have come up with a plan, represented by a bone model of the krayt dragon below and tiny pebbles that are supposed to represent them, standing about its jaws. The beast is gigantic, way larger than they'd initially thought, and at the sight of it, Zoya had felt her heart drop into the soles of her boots. After seeing the scaled size of the dragon and more discussion—and without asking Cobb Vanth for permission, Din volunteered the citizens of Mos Pelgo as reinforcements.

The speeder bike crosses the dunes at a bone-rattling speed, keeping pace with Vanth as he stares, disquieted, at the horizon. The entire journey seems to be half as long as it was on the way out, and soon enough, Mos Pelgo's jumble of buildings appears ahead, deserted and absolutely silent—though it isn't unusual for the small town. Cobb Vanth peels off for a moment as they reach the outskirts of the village, gesturing them ahead while he loiters to speak to one of the town's older women, face creased and withered from the sun, lines pressed deep into the skin at the corners of her eyes.

Thousands of invisible needles prick relentlessly at Zoya's hands as she urges the speeder onwards, nearly numb from gripping the handlebars for so long, and she removes them for a brief second to shake them out vigorously and flex her fingers, wincing at the twinges of pain.

"Hey, hands on," Din says, squeezing her waist lightly.

Zoya snorts, but obeys dutifully. "Okay, gods. Mr. Tight-Ass Bounty Hunter appears once again."

"Rude," he says, but there's a smile in his voice. "Wait, hey. That's what you called me when—"

She grins. "When I ambushed you and beat your ass—"

"And I handcuffed you."

The corner of her mouth twitches. "Yeah, that too." A pause, then, "Fuck you for that, by the way."

"You were trying to kill me," Din protests, "what else was I supposed to do? Stand there?"

Rolling her eyes, Zoya eases the speeder to a stop and twists on the seat, utterly aware of his gloved hands; his palms press against the curves of her waist, and his deft fingers smooth close to her stomach, burning against her skin even through two layers of fabric. One of her brows quirks as she looks at him, then sighs.

"Okay, maybe not," she concurs. "If I would've killed you then, I would've missed out on the greatest thing to ever happen to me."

At this, Zoya swears she can hear his breath catch. The pause he takes is a beat too long before he replies, "Oh?"

"Oh, yeah." She can barely control her smile, but it's worth it to hear the hitch in his breathing, the way he seems to go completely immobile, still enough that she would think him built from stone, if she didn't know any better. "I don't know what I would've done if I never met the child."

His hands drop from her waist, and Zoya knows he's rolling his eyes beneath the helmet. "Sure."

"Seriously," she presses. Maneuvering in the tiny gap of space between them, she twists around, swinging her legs over the speeder's seat and back over once again so she can face him. Din doesn't attempt to slide further back on the seat to give her more space to move, and, finding nowhere else to sit comfortably, Zoya rests her legs atop his, hooking the backs of her knees over his thighs. Reclining back against the handlebars, she gives him a look as serious as she can manage, tugging down her mask and goggles at once.

"You're a liar," he says.

"Oh, am I?"

"Yeah."

Zoya frowns. "I would never lie."

"You're fucking with me."

"I wouldn't do that," she insists.

Din sets his hands upon her thighs, inches above her knees, the movement fluid and swift enough that Zoya doesn't have time to prepare herself for it. Gloved and steady, his broad palms flatten against her legs, fingers squeezing lightly. Helmetless, she's unable to conceal her reaction: a slight flutter of eyelashes, a parting of lips, a whisper of an old promise burning alight within her dark eyes. "Oh, cyar'ika, I think you would," he replies, voice pitching low, lower than before, if possible. The roughness of it slides across Zoya's skin, as physical a caress as if he brushed his lips across hers.

Cyar'ika.

She manages a minute shake of her head, frantically trying to recover the reins of her absconding thoughts. Zoya says, weakly, her pulse thundering a nervous rhythm against the column of her throat, "What does that mean?"

"Hmm," Din muses, the sound a low hum in his throat, refusing to tell her, and Zoya isn't sure whether or not she imagines his hands sliding a fraction higher, thumbs teasing the inner seams of her black pants.

The roaring of Cobb's speeder approaching severs any conversation that may have been left to make, and Din twists to look over his shoulder, fingers loosening their grip on her thighs.

"Cobb," he says.

His eyes linger on them for a short moment, curiously sliding over their position on the speeder bike, her legs draped across Din's, but if Vanth thinks there's anything strange about their slightly compromising position, he doesn't decide to comment upon it, and merely turns off his own engine.

Zoya clears her throat. "Ready?"

"Can't say they're gonna be too happy about having to work with the Raiders," Cobb mutters, dismounting his speeder. He shucks off his filthy gloves, tucking them into a back pocket. "They attacked us less than a year ago. Killed half a dozen of us by the mining camp. I'd say I took down about twice as many Tuskens." There's a note of harsh pride in his voice, a cold, blackened vengeance within his stony gaze.

Zoya lets out a low whistle. "An eye for an eye."

"More like a leg for an eye," Din says, and Zoya chokes on a laugh that seems quite inappropriate for the situation. To Cobb, he directs, "The town respects you. My guess is, they'll listen to reason."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

With that, Cobb walks away towards the cantina, leaving them to follow. Din is the first to dismount the speeder; carefully, he lifts Zoya's thighs, fingers hooking around the backs of her knees, and slides out from beneath her. Before she can swing off by herself, he tugs one of her legs over the seat, drops it, and grabs her hand, pulling her easily to her feet. Zoya nearly collides with him; strands of hair fall forward into her face as she stumbles. Carefully, Din brushes them out of her eyes.

"Thanks," she says, breathless.

His hand lingers longer than it should. "'Course."

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

"This here is a Mandalorian," Cobb Vanth announces to the crowd gathered within the cantina, a group of hardy, weathered souls, faces lined from strife and endless days spun away beneath the suns. Zoya wonders, for a beat, that maybe she should be offended that he didn't bother to mention her, but basking in the aftermath of Din calling her an unfamiliar word in his language—a word he refused to relay the meaning of—and his hands on her thighs, she can't feel anything but euphoria.

Vanth adds, "You know what that means?"

"Well, we've heard the stories," says the Weequay who'd been manning the bar when they first arrived in Mos Pelgo.

"Then you know how good they are at killing." Cobb inclines his head, and thumbs over his shoulder towards Din. "Now, this one's got a problem. I got a suit of salvaged armor, and the Mandalorian Creed says it's his to take." At this, murmurs ripple through the crowd, Mos Pelgo's residents staring distrustfully towards Din. Before the situation spirals, as situations in big crowds like this tend to do, and rapidly, Cobb continues, "But I've got a problem, too. A krayt dragon has been peeling off our pack animals, and sometimes, taking our mining haul with it. It's just a matter of time before it grows tired of banthas and goes after a couple of you townsfolk, or even—so help us—the school."

"Rousing speech," Zoya mutters, as once again, the collected jumble of sunbeaten faces turn to each other once more, apprehension shining clear in their eyes. Din's only acknowledgement that he's heard her is a soft brush of his hand on her lower back, comforting and alert.

"As much as I've grown fond of the armor, I'm even more fond of this town," Cobb tells the crowd. "The Mandalorian is willing to help us slay the leviathan in exchange for returning the armor to its ancestral owners."

The Weequay, amongst many of the others gathered, is already convinced. "Well, that settles it."

Grimly, Vanth says, "There's more."

As one, the people gathered seem to stiffen, cold iron and hammered bronze sliding protective barriers about their shoulders.

"We can't take on the krayt alone." Cobb pauses, now, and seems to steel himself for what is to come. Sealing his fate, he looks upon the people and adds, "And the Sand People are willing to help."

An outcry ruptures the fragile calm of the cantina, shattering it like glass, shards of it spraying across the floor. Villagers rise to their feet, anger written plainly upon their faces. Instinctively, Zoya inches closer to Din, waiting for someone to draw a weapon, her hand swift and light and ready upon the hilt of her own blaster. Distrust coils the muscles of her body so tightly that the lines of them press up against the slick black ensemble that clings to her like a second skin.

Seeming to sense the tension thrumming within her, a roll of thunder rivaling the clamor filling the cantina, Din steps forward to cut off the yelling, raising his voice enough to be heard. "I've seen the size of that thing. It will swallow your entire town, when the fancy hits it—you're lucky Mos Pelgo isn't a sand field already. I know these people. They are brutal, but so is the Dune Sea. They've survived for thousands of years in these sands, and they know the krayt dragon better than anyone here. They are raiders, it's true, but they also keep their word, and we have struck a deal. If we are willing to leave them the carcass and its ichor, they will stand by our side in battle and vow never to raise a blaster against this town until one of you breaks the peace."

Silence unfurls across the room like a tidal wave, smothering fury's lit match. They seem to come to a voiceless agreement within the heavy quiet that Din's words bring, and an old, grizzled man is the first to stand. He crosses the room and offers both Cobb and Din his hand in turn, lined with maps of wrinkles and creases, telling the long story of his life and hard work.

"I am with you," the man says.

The rest are soon to follow.

As they file by, Zoya tips her mouth close to the side of Din's helmet, rising up onto her toes. "Nice job."

"You think so?"

She only smiles.

"I could've handled it," Cobb says, not one to be looked over.

Mirth tugs at the corner of Zoya's mouth, and she eases in front of Din and pats Cobb's shoulder solidly as she walks by, giving him a sympathetic look that drips with saccharine pity. "Aw, of course you could've."

She more saunters than strides out the door, fully aware that she's captured the entirety of both men's attention. Despite the sarcastic burn of her words, Cobb lets out a low whistle, brows lifting slightly.

"I don't know how in hell you're able to handle her," he says to Din, giving him a sympathetic grin.

How is she meant to be handled? he wonders, for it would be like trying to leash the blowing wind, seizing a star and locking it in a too-small box for only him to see, or attempting to claim ownership of a flame—impossible and illogical enough that it has never even crossed his mind.

But there is no way for him to convey all of this aloud properly, in a way that Cobb will understand, because even he cannot fully understand the phenomenon that is Zoya Vitaan, so in the end, all Din says in response is, "I don't."

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

a/n: lots of big steps happening in this chapter 👁 ! apologies for the long wait, i've been kinda stressed out dealing w family issues and figuring out classes for the semester, but some of it has been resolved-ish, so hopefully i'll be updating this a lil more frequently bc i know waiting for chapters is very. Not Fun. 🤠 but i'm not going to make any big promises........just that i will be Trying my best shkdfslj ! AND !! thank you guys for getting this to 20k ( and past ) even tho it barely has any chapters yet <3 ! very pog.