xiii. sweet dreams.

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"Zoya, move!" 

            Zoya barely registers the words as her body locks up, turns as solid and cold as the ice walls bristling around them. Dozens of small, infant krykna scuttle towards them as the giant one looms, opening its circular jaws to bare rows of bristling teeth. Its legs are crooked and long, rising up one, two, three, four times Zoya's height, sharp spines rising along their edges. Its skin is gray, the color of death, ash floating upon a phantom breeze, void and cold and hungry.

            The Frog Lady runs by, robes snapping, and suddenly Din is grabbing her arm, yanking her into motion.

            "Go!" he yells.

            Panic goes from stiffening each of her limbs and slowing her brain to fueling Zoya into hyper-speed, feet churning up clouds of snow as she sprints down the tunnel, chest torn from breaths that come razor sharp through her throat and teeth.

            The stories are true. The stories are true.

            The old childhood fear she'd had of the krykna resurfaces tenfold, prickling at her eyes and trembling violently through her fingers even as Zoya forces herself faster, a pounding in her ears drowning out the roar of the beast as it gives chase. For the first time, she reaches for the power hidden black and crushing within her chest, begs it to wake, to do something, to help, but it lies dormant. A new surge of hate rises at its dismissal, fresh and hot and burning against the cold grip of fear.

            "Din," she chokes out as she runs, feels an ache jam between her ribs.

            "Right here," he pants, "go."

            Ice crashes and shatters behind them as the mother slices its legs through the roof of the tunnel, causing part of it to collapse. Zoya dares a glance back, and dread rises, a black tidal wave of decay. The largest krykna is now out of sight, but the ice crackles far above their heads, and its children are on their heels still, crawling over each other and darting up against the walls. Zoya's chest heaves, but she can't seem to get a breath through to her lungs, vision darkening, air wheezing through her throat as it tightens with panic.

            She tries to say Din's name again as he yanks out his blaster, shooting some of the krykna who have gotten ahead, but it comes out a croak. The mother of the beasts gashes through the side of the tunnel, and Din yanks Zoya aside as it sprays something at them, roaring with fury. He's saying something that she can't make out as he pulls her forward again, forcing her faster as the beasts gain, as a giant leg slices through the ceiling in front of them, as the Frog Lady leaps onto all fours and bounds ahead, capsule slamming against her back.

            Din releases her briefly to pull explosives from his belt, activating the devices and throwing them at the walls as they pass. Orange light flares, bright and extraordinary as the dawn, lighting the tunnel, and it collapses behind them, heavy slabs of ice tumbling down and crushing the largest krykna, flattening it to the ground.

            The smallest survive, crawling from the debris and billowing smoke, and Din activates his flamethrower, incinerating a swarm of them as they continue to run. Dimly, Zoya realizes she should be helping, especially as Din pulls free his blaster once more, shooting the beasts as he rushes them all into the Razor Crest, but she can't force herself to do anything but run, climb the ladder as Din covers their escape, collapse shaking into one of the seats in the cockpit as he forces the door as closed as it can get, torching the beasts that try to claw their way inside.

            When the cockpit grows quiet, Zoya becomes aware of the rapid in and out of her breath, the trembling of her body, the way she's drawn her legs close to her chest.

            "Zoya," Din says, "you're—"

            She forces her head to dip jerkily. She doesn't need to be coddled, especially not when she didn't do a fucking thing to help him kill the krykna. "F-Fine."

            "Strap yourselves in," he says, as the krykna begin to skuttle over the outside of the Razor Crest. "This better work." The ship slowly whirs to life as he presses a few buttons on the control panel. "I've got limited visibility. It's gonna be a bumpy ride." The thrusters roar to life, and the Crest begins to lift, even as the panel flickers.

            Hope swells, a flickering, fragile thing, a warm, miniature flame in Zoya's chest, but it's abruptly snuffed as something slams down upon the Razor Crest, smashing it into the ice below.

            Zoya shrieks.

            It's a sound of pure terror, a sound she cannot remember herself ever making before, and then, all capabilities of speaking leave her as the largest krykna's legs shatter through the glass surrounding the cockpit, spraying them with wickedly sharp debris. It withdraws, slowly, and crawls over the ship, turning on the other side to push one of its large, round eyes close to the glass.

            "Quiet," Din begins to whisper.

            Zoya whimpers despite herself, closing her eyes tightly, gripping the armrests on either side of her seat so forcefully that bone shows white at her knuckles.

            Something slams into the glass with a wet-sounding smack, something Zoya can only imagine is the beast's mouth. It rakes back and forth, shaking the ship, stops, and slams into it again. "Din," she begins to plead—though for what, she doesn't know, there isn't anything he can do anymore—when something explodes.

            Her eyes shoot open in time to see the large krykna pummeled over and over by flashing red lasers, large enough that they must be coming from another ship. As it falls, dead for sure this time, the lasers pause, then become smaller, shot from blasters. Bright white light floods the cockpit, washes across the four of them as the sound of firing echoes loud off the walls. Din sets the child down quickly, rising to his feet and drawing his own blaster in the same fluid motion.

            "Stay here," he says, and is gone.

            For once, Zoya doesn't object. She has no interest in seeing the carcasses of the krykna that must be covering the interior of the Razor Crest—much less going outside the ship and having to look at the mother's dead body, collapsed atop the Crest itself. She shivers, wrapping her arms tight around herself.

            "You okay?" she manages to ask finally, directing the question to the Frog Lady, who nods fearfully.

            Outside, the firing ceases, but the bright, stark white lights remain, making it impossible to see anything that's occurring except Din, silhouetted in black. Zoya remains tense for what seems like hours, but must only be a minute or two, before the lights rise and turn, revealing the X-wings from earlier as they rise and fly away, maneuvering up through the ice to disappear.

            "I think we're safe," she whispers.

            The Frog Lady only sniffs a little, holding her capsule of eggs close to her chest, looking almost as afraid as Zoya feels.

            Din stands there for a moment, alone in the blueish ice, surrounded by the dead krykna and the howling wind. Finally, he turns, lifts a hand, knowing instinctively that she's watching, and walks slowly back towards the ship, as if in thought. Zoya eases back into her chair, eyes fluttering closed. Fear's cataclysmic path through her body leaves her suddenly, horribly weak, numb, unable to do much but drape herself limply across her seat, exhaustion prickling at her eyes. Though she knows Din is coming up, knows he'll be wanting to tell her what's happened, sleep only takes a brief second to seize her, dragging her down into its ebony depths.

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Din ducks back into the Razor Crest, mulling over the pilots' words. He shouldn't question it. He's lucky it happened the way it did, that they didn't try to seize him or the ship—and find the others inside. He pulls up short, blinking away the thoughts that cloud heavy and foggy before his eyes, finding the Frog Lady and the child waiting for him, Zoya noticeably absent, and the capsule glowing blue beside them. He hopes the frog hasn't noticed the diminished number of eggs.

            Without waiting for the inevitable questions that he won't be able to interpret or understand, he says without addressing the help they'd received, "All right. I'm gonna repair the cockpit enough for us to limp to Trask."

            The Frog Lady nods and says something in her language that sounds like affirmation and thanks in one.

            "There's nothing I can do about the main hull's integrity, so we're gonna have to get cozy in the cockpit. It's the only thing I can pressurize. If you need to use the privy, do it now. It's gonna be a long ride." She nods again, and as she turns away to go relieve herself, he holds up a hand. "Where's Zoya?" he asks, and even before he's finished talking, the amphibian gestures back to the cockpit, nearly catching her arm in one of the webs hanging thick from the walls.

            He bends to lift the child, hellbent on never leaving the boy alone with the eggs again, and moves towards the cockpit to give the Frog Lady some privacy—and find some of his own.

            "Zoya?" Din says softly as he enters, eyes immediately drawn to the ruffle of dark hair he can see over the top of her seat. She doesn't respond, and he edges around a krykna carcass fallen upon the floor, coming around the side of her chair. As he begins to voice her name once more, he cuts himself off, quickly, noticing the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the inky sweep of her eyelashes across her cheeks. Her effortless, divine beauty, incandescent even in sleep, stalls his heart a beat, stops him short, steals away his breath. Cautious, Din skims his thumb over the arch of her cheekbone, featherlight.

            Every beat of his heart sounds like the whisper of her name, every turn of his mind she is somewhere within the writing.

            Din looks at her, and he remembers the night they shared. Din looks at her, and he thinks of their wordless communication, the fluidity of their coordination in battle. Din looks at her, and he hears her laugh, her voice, her gentle breaths in comfortable sleep. Din looks at her, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he can see a future.

            He realizes he's knelt beside her, cradling one of her hands in his, the child toddling around the cockpit. When she wakes, he doesn't startle away.

            "Hi," he says.

            She blinks, sleepily. "Hi." Then, panic washes away the soft warmth in her eyes, and she flies up, whirling. "The krykna—are they—"

            "They're all dead," Din says quickly, because while they might be dead, they aren't gone, not yet. He has yet to clear the ship, to wipe away the webs, but he saw the fear in Zoya's eyes when even the smallest krykna appeared, the absolute terror that convoluted her face when they were chased, and he can't remember a single time he'd seen her so petrified, so he tries his best to comfort her.

            She eases back down into the chair, and Din can see how her fingers tremble, so he takes her hand again. Probably would've taken it again anyway. "Good. That's good."

            "Zoya." His voice is soft. "Are you okay?"

            Her eyes flick up, and once again Din is struck by the beauty of her dark irises, the warmth encapsulated within the deep brown and gold hues. He is suddenly grateful for the helmet—though he rarely is, around her—for it hides the stupidity that his features must assume, the flush that springs to his cheeks when she looks at him like this, so direct and intent.

            "I'm okay," she says, trying to make her voice firm. He can hear the quaver lying beneath her words, lingering still from the chase. "Why wouldn't I be?"

            "I saw how afraid you were," he tells her carefully. "Of the . . . monsters." He avoids saying the beasts' name, aware of the flash of fear within her eyes when Zoya had voiced it herself.

            "Oh." Zoya closes her eyes tight. "Maybe a little."

            "You passed out right after," he reminds her, unable to refrain from teasing her, if only a bit. "I would say that's more than a little."

            She opens her eyes, only to roll them. "Fine. I'll admit it. I was scared out of my fucking mind. I've been afraid of those things since I was a kid, and I never thought they would actually be that big. I thought Ay—he made it up."

            Ayaan.

            Din's heart gives a painful twist, just as it does any time Zoya mentions her brother. Guilt remains a constant companion, rotted and punishing in his chest, and though she's told him it wasn't his fault, it refuses to be banished. At his silence, Zoya clears her throat, and forces a shrug.

            "As long as I never have to see them again, it's fine."

            "You won't," he promises. "I'll make sure of it."

            "Thank you," she says softly, and it sounds like she's talking about more than just this, especially with the way she looks up at him, and Din has to channel all his strength into not taking her into his arms again.

            "Yes," he says, looking down, "yes. Of course." Nerves spike beneath her quiet stare, and he fumbles for something, anything, to distract himself—and Zoya, especially—from the stuttering, thoughtless mess he will shortly become. "I—um, the Crest, it's—we're going to make it to Trask. Barely. We all will have to stay in the cockpit; I can't pressurize the rest of the ship. So, if you have to, um, do anything. Do it now. I'm just going to finish up the repairs in here."

            Zoya remains silent for a moment, and when Din finds it within himself to look up, there's a soft smile on her face, turning up the edges of her lips. "Okay," she murmurs. Then, voice turning brittle: "Um. Is the . . . is the ship filled with them?"

            Din winces. "Yes."

            "I can wait, then."

            "It's going to be a long trip."

            She shudders. "I can't see those things again."

            "Want to use my armor?" he says, half-joking. The thought of Zoya in beskar is . . . something else, and he has to turn away.

            Zoya laughs. "Oh, so chivalrous. I would love to."

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"I really wish I did have armor for this," she mutters, squeezing her eyes shut and searching the air. Din catches her fingers almost instantly.

            "It's going to be okay. I won't let anything touch you."

            The cockpit doors hiss open, and Din begins to move forward, guiding her into the corridor. For a beat, she's reminded of what was occurring the last time he'd been directing her movements with her vision purposefully impaired, and grins a little.

            His voice brings her back to the present. "What are you smiling about?"

            "Blindfolds," she says simply, boldly.

            It's enough to silence him. (What Zoya doesn't know is that beneath the helmet, Din wears an identical, stupefied grin as they continue onward.)

            "Okay," he says after a minute of slowly maneuvering through the hall, "don't freak out."

            "When you say that—" she begins to warn.

            "I know, I know. Just trust me, okay?"

            "Okay."

            Din's hand leaves hers for a beat before he catches her waist. She clutches at his shoulders, and he grunts softly as he lifts her up and over something, and it's so similar to the sounds he made the previous night that Zoya's eyes screw shut even tighter, and, Maker, she loses the ability to breathe, completely forgetting about the bodies of krykna that he might be lifting her over. She must make one noise or another, because she feels him stall, a question rising within the silence as he sets her down.

            "Nothing," she says quickly. "I'm fine."

            He makes a noise of assent, and though he doesn't put his thoughts to words, Zoya feels as if she can hear the doubt pinging around inside his helmet. The rest of the journey to the privy is somewhat less eventful, and Din is proud to proclaim that not a single web brushed even the corner of her jacket on the way there. He waits, brimming with satisfaction, and then repeats the process for the return trip.

            Zoya curls up in her chair for the remainder of the repairs, watching the child as the child watches Din, a soft smile upon her face. In another corner of the cockpit, the Frog Lady cradles her capsule of eggs close to her chest, still rather shaken by the krykna attack. Zoya wants to do something to comfort her, distract her with conversation, but with Zero down in the belly of the Crest and the unfortunate lack of a shared language, there's not much she can do but offer hopeful smiles whenever they chance to make eye contact.

            Armor glazed with frost, voice tired and worn, Din finally slides into the pilot's seat what seems like a lifetime later. "Okay, repair's all done. Let's see if we can get this thing going once and for all." After flicking his fingers up to press a few of the buttons on the ceiling, he pulls the Razor Crest off the ground. It rattles and shakes, scraping against the ice and the largest krykna's body as it slides off, thudding dully onto the corpses of the others, but the ship makes it up, gliding through the hole it fell through and out into open air.

            "This thing sounds like it's gonna fall apart," mutters Zoya.

            "This thing has saved your life a time or two," says Din. "Have some respect."

            She raises her hands placatingly, half-bowing in her seat as if in worship of the piece of utter shit that the Razor Crest has become.

            Before she can make up some false prayers or hymns of worship to lavish the ship with (maybe it'll stop the trembling of the entire exterior), Din leans back into his seat and says, "Wake me up if someone shoots at us. Or that door gets sucked off its rails."

            Settling back into her seat, Zoya snorts, fluent in Din's rare but occasionally humorous sarcasm, but the Frog Lady makes a panicked-sounding warble in her own language, clutching at her capsule.

            "I'm kidding," says Din, adjusting the child on his lap. "If that happened, we'd all be dead. Sweet dreams."

a/n: hello 😎 bet you didn't expect to see me again so soon but here this is <3
(adding this note as i'm going back to post: actually had this whole thing prewritten and edited and ready to post so i am putting this up now, but i had something not so great happen in my family today — a pet death :( — so updates will continue to be irregular after this. writing may help me cope, it may not, so just be aware and pls dont comment commanding me to update. just doesn't work. stay safe out there 💞)