iii. bitter longing.

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Zoya still remembers the harsh, scorching fire of loss, how it burns you until you're empty, a shell of a human, a shell of a girl, and how it felt like the entire world was coming to a bitter end the night she lost her parents.

          Twelve years old and already a soldier: she'd gotten home breathless and dizzy from her lesson, arms sore for holding her hands up for hours, mind worn thin enough that any weighted thought would rip it in half without hesitation. Drunk on the mid-afternoon sunlight, the only thing magical enough to captivate her drifting attention in a world of beige and colorless gray, she'd spun into the house, eager to tell Ayaan and their parents all about the magic that she is learning to conduct.

          The door swings open easily under her small hands, a grin on her lips and sunshine in her eyes, a fairytale girl of dreams and wide-open horizons full of endless possibility. She is unbroken thus far, a dove with unblemished ivory wings.

          But her eyes fall upon the small, cramped sitting room and she steps inside. Unwittingly, her small leather boots land in puddles of blood, and crimson flecks across her waxen, lily-white feathers: her first taste of loss. It's bitter, stinging, acrid, the taste of poison in blackened corridors. She shrieks, and drops to her knees. A dove no more, she has become a phantom of a child, strangled and choking.

          This is how it feels to plummet into an endless abyss: screams spiral unheard into the slick blackness, tangent and viscous enough that it clings to your skin, tainting you with the color of sin and death, pools of despair drip from iron cavern walls, hopelessness for an end clenching glowing red fingers tight around your heart, a cage of smoldering metal that crushes your ribs in a vise.

          This is what Zoya feels again, seeing Din seated across the arena. This is what it feels to fall when you know nothing can prevent the inevitable collision.

          Each breath burns as it passes through her parted lips, each second drags into an hour. It feels as if her eyes are glued to his helmet, but she forces herself to look away, every inch of her exposed skin thrumming audibly with a type of power that crackles cruelly in the darkness and cleaves worlds in two. Her fingers tremble, barely able to keep still where they rest, folded in her lap.

          She wordlessly begs the power to lie dormant for just a little longer.

          Zoya isn't sure if Din has seen her, or what he would do if he did. Her heartbeat accelerates as her mind scans the possibilities, unwilling to let her think of anything else. Would he simply sit there, acting as if she didn't exist, like she's doing now? (At this, her heart gives a painful twinge; the idea of him pretending she was invisible spears a small knife into the vulnerable spaces between her ribs.) Or would he walk over, ease into the seat next to her? Zoya can't decide which option scares her more—or how she would react.

          Her eyes sweep the room. It's dark enough that perhaps he hasn't seen her. After all, the only reason she realized it was him is because of the lights reflecting against his helmet. That damned helmet.

          The hollow clang it had made when Din had removed it to tend to his shoulder rings through her mind. The memory is imageless, shapeless, yet it stains her thoughts all the same; blinded with a strip of cloth, she'd fumbled, and she'd touched him, touched him in a way that likely no other ever had.

          Her cheeks flame; the crowd roars.

          He threw it away, she reminds herself. He threw it all away.

          But it's not enough to demagnetize the draw of his form, because he's here, and he's real, and he's tangible, more threatening and pronounced than he ever was the thousands of times she'd cursed his name within her head. Now, faced with his utterly solid, corporeal figure, Zoya is less sure of her festering anger, more aware of this bitter, hollow ache that's been dwelling within her for months.

          In the next instant, she's remembering the companionable, easy silence that lingered in the early morning hours of travelling, when the child still slumbered and the stars glittered more brightly around them. Her mind eases over Din gently awakening her in the morning, offering her some of the freeze-dried food he'd prepared, disgusting stuff that somehow seemed to taste less horrible than usual when offered up to her by his caring hands.

          Something warms in her chest, something drenched and aching with nostalgic memory. Zoya's eyes blur over, and her anger continues to drown, sputtering furiously and raking claws down her throat.

          Everything next happens at double the speed it should have, yanking her unceremoniously from her thoughts: one of the fighters, raising its weapon high for a killing blow, is struck in the chest with a blaster bolt and crumples to the floor, dead. Zoya's eyes shoot to where Din is sitting, searching for a fight but finding only a catalyst for one. He's surrounded, blasters pointed at his head.

          The crowd panics as one and floods for the doors. Zoya stands with them, allowing herself to be swept past the ring and the corpse still smoldering inside. Before they drag her through the door, Zoya melts into the shadows, freeing her knives from the sheaths beneath her dress. The cloth sparks around her ankles, unborn flame.

          Then, a flash of emotion alights within her eyes: anger, pure and suffocating and all-encompassing, vast and glittering brighter than the ocean, ancient and threatening, the place where the devil kneels, wrought from the recesses of a dying star.

          It isn't Din she worries for; her eyes fall upon the child's floating crib, and pure fury swells in her chest. He brought the child here? A scathing remark swells upon her tongue, but Zoya remains silent, teeth clenched.

          As she lingers, a silent observer cloaked in shadowed flame and unforgiving steel, the child presses a button to lock himself inside the crib, and whistling birds erupt from Din's arm, executing the men who hold him at gunpoint. The ghost of a smile twitches upon her lips, and Zoya slips towards the exit as Din shoves the crib away and slips into combat, just as lethal as she remembered.

          He can handle this part himself.

          The sounds of the fight are brutal but short lived. Zoya doesn't have to wonder who has won; Gor Koresh stumbles from the building, breathing labored and one eye wide with fear. He's running, desperate and terrified, and Din is the polar opposite: he steps from the doorway with a languid, predatory grace. An easy pride rings within his calculated, unhurried movements. Din paces into the alley and pauses, and silent as an unmarked grave, he shoots a grappling cord from his forearm, yanking Koresh to the ground.

          Zoya remains in the building's alcove as Din hangs him upside down from a streetlamp; she watches almost detachedly, her heart separate, nonexistent. The frigid air spears her lungs, spreads a cast of ice down her bare arms. Despite the slits up the sides of the dress, the fabric woven from pure flame seems to emanate actual heat, encasing her legs with a layer of warmth.

          Soon enough, Din retreats a step, the child's cradle at his side. Without hesitating a beat, he moves away from Gor Koresh, leaving him swinging from the pole. He begins to scream, begging for assistance, words decayed with anxiety and terror, but Zoya's eyes are locked on Din's diminishing form, and her body turns to stone, alienating her from the way the night places fingers on her arms so cold they burn instead of freeze.

          For a moment, a brutal conflict arises in her soul. She isn't sure he's seen her, so she could just leave, forget this happened, forget she'd seen him again. But the floating crib of the child, the familiar language of Din's body as he moves, something tugs at her sternum, sharp and pinching and a roaring in her ears.

          Zoya's blades are cold and heavy in her hands, and the desire for a challenge burns bright in her chest. Moving on silent feet, she follows him.

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Din Djarin doesn't remember the last time mercy cooled against his skin. Even now, walking away from Gor Koresh hanging upside down, screams dissipating into the night, he doesn't flinch. But there is something else, something about this night, that feels uncertain: a predator lying in wait, the shadow of a demon looming over an inevitable path. Though they're close to the Razor Crest and far from any of Koresh's lackeys that may come to his aid, Din glances down at the child on instinct, relaxed momentarily to see him floating along without a care, eyes wide and bright and warm beneath the streetlights.

          He coos, stretches up a tiny hand. Din lifts a finger to allow him to hold onto, but then the child's eyes move to something behind him. It's enough of a warning for the Mandalorian to think to reach for a weapon, to scan the street behind him, but it comes a second too late.

          A blade presses against his throat.

          He swallows an exasperated curse. The ambusher is quiet, he'll give them that. But if they really believe this will work out in their favor—

          Din slams his elbow back; it connects, but only just. The attacker anticipates the move and curls just out of reach. The blade pulls slightly away, and he whirls, ducking as they throw a high kick towards his head. It's an all too familiar rhythm, but he can't place it until the attacker steals his blaster from the holster at his hip while distracting him with a feint towards his left side, a move that he could recognize anywhere.

          He pauses, disbelieving. "Wh—"

          His hesitation costs him the fight. His own blaster is aimed at his head, a safe enough distance away to avoid any counterstrikes, and she's spun into a pool of light.

          "Your hair's longer," he says, stupidly. But it's true: her bangs have grown out to frame her face, dark and emphasizing the cut of her cheekbones, the unforgiving angle of her jaw.

          Zoya's eyes are cold on his. Without meaning to, Din remembers when they'd ambushed each other like this in the Razor Crest, hiding adjacent to doorways and springing surprise fights on the other. It had always ended with laughter and her smile: so bright that it seemed she held living stars within her, effervescent and eternal.

          "Ha!" she crows, pantomiming holding a knife at his throat.

          Din fakes a surrender, but the second she relaxes, he catches her wrist with one gloved hand, spins her in front of him, and sweeps her legs out from under her with one foot. He's careful to soften her fall, but she lands on her back all the same, defeated. Face inches away from his, separated only by his helmet, Zoya's mouth drops open.

          "What—" she begins.

          "Ha," he says. "I win."

          But this time, it isn't a game, this time, she isn't smiling, and underneath the sheet of ice blanketing her eyes, he can see old anger simmering. He scans her face, and remembers every detail of the way she'd looked the first time they'd met, her expression as fierce as a lion's, the cutting wind livid in her hair, teeth bared like a viper, and so full of pure animalistic ferocity that he almost expected her to growl instead of speak when she first opened her mouth.

          She doesn't respond to his comment about her hair (which is, perhaps, lucky), but she does take a step forward, skirts rustling around her ankles. It draws Din's attention, and he has to fight to remain aware; liquid flame, it drips off her shoulders, daringly low-cut yet vicious all the same. The skirt is arranged haphazardly enough from their fight to expose long slits in the fabric that nearly stretch to her hips, revealing another knife strapped to her left thigh, which is marked with a scar, cruel and twisted. Din forces his eyes skyward, forces his breathing to even out. She is a goddess, vengeful and full of beauty so sharp it nearly hurts, and before her he feels he should be down upon his knees.

          "Why are you here?" Zoya says.

          He finds himself unable to meet her eyes. "I could ask you the same thing." The corner of her mouth twitches. Din can't tell if she's trying not to smile or restraining a snarl, so he clears his throat and adds, "I'm looking for another Mandalorian." One of her dark brows arches.

          "Why?"

          Din gestures to the child. "Him."

          Zoya glances at him, and her features soften. Thrilled, the child reaches for her, babbling indistinctively. She flips the blaster in her hand, and it takes him a moment to realize she's offering him the handle. Cautiously, he steps forward and accepts the weapon, dropping it back into its holster.

          "Hey," she murmurs, easing into a crouch. She favors her left leg, though it seems to be fully healed.

          The child immediately grabs at her, catching a lock of her dark hair between his fingers. Zoya lifts him into her arms, carefully cupping the back of his head as he nestles into the crook of her neck, gurgling. She turns to face him, and the sight of the warmth shimmering in her dark eyes hits him like a sucker punch. His next exhale is shuddering and shallow, and Din can only pray that she doesn't notice.

          "Seriously?" she says, disapproving. "You fucking brought him here?"

          Din shrugs. It's a helpless movement, barely lifting one of his shoulders, but he's finding it difficult to move properly. Seeing her again, seeing her holding the child in her arms tucked close, the slight glimpse of something almost like caring in her eyes, the fact that she hasn't yelled at him, isn't scathingly furious—he can barely breathe. "Where I go, he goes," he manages. "He's safe . . . with me."

          Zoya's unmoved. "Right."

          Somehow, all he can think is: is this real?

          "I'm going to Tatooine," he tells her, rather abruptly. Zoya eases the child back into his cradle but doesn't look back up.

          "Okay," she replies.

          Din hesitates. A question balances between freefalling into the air between them and tumbling back down to his heart, because that's what the words are made of, the pieces of him that miss her the most, the pieces of him that shattered on Nevarro the moment she'd turned her back on him. Come with me?

          Instead, what comes out is: "Why are you here?"

          Zoya's eyes blaze against his, suddenly defensive. Her fingers curl into her palms. "Doesn't matter."

          It's uncharacteristically harsh, but then again, Din supposes that perhaps he doesn't know her well enough to make that judgment, not anymore. "Sorry," he says softly, and the word catches in his throat, stumbles over a knot of emotion that he tries to swallow, and he curses himself because he knows that she can hear his hesitation, his hurt, that she can see how vulnerable he is before her.

          She breaks their eye contact and takes a step towards where the Razor Crest is landed, that damned dress turning her into a smoldering ember against the midnight sky. Din would be content to stand here and drink in the sight of her for hours; a vindictive myth of a woman, bones made of gold and a soul vast enough to encompass countless nebulas, a single human so indescribable that the galaxy diminishes to nothing but a insignificant backdrop within the grandeur of her existence.

          "So, Tatooine," Zoya muses, and Din wonders if she's remembering when they traveled there together. His face flushes, and he pictures the speeder ride, a moment of scorching ash and thoughts the color of blood staining his mouth and simmering at his fingertips.

          "Do you want to come with me?" The question punctures the air before he really thinks about it, and he is left to reel, blind with hope, waiting for her answer. "I wouldn't mind the help," Din adds, tentative and soft, offering a lifeline from his side of the fractured bridge.

          Her lips tighten, and he's sure that she's going to say no. "You're searching for the Jedi?"

          "Yes," he says. "But—"

          "Then yes," she all but whispers. "I'll come."

          His brow knits beneath the helmet, confusion proliferating within the rose-colored blooms of joy that erupt within his mind, all singing yes she said yes she's coming she isn't angry. The confusion gives way to a single phrase: You need to find the Jedi? Zoya's eyes remain upon him, silently begging him not to ask her why, and dutifully, he dips his head marginally, leaving his questions unspoken.

          In the roughened silence that follows her agreement, Din indicates his ship. "Do you want to . . ."

          She smiles softly, fingertip brushing against a slender bracelet upon her wrist. "I'll take my own."

          A soft purr fills the air as something sweeps almost noiselessly through the sky to land beside them. It's a blade of a ship, all sleek lines and thrumming engines, lithe and powerful and the color of smooth, polished steel. With a smile that goes unseen, he thinks to himself that it fits her perfectly.

          All too soon, she's turning away, walking towards her ship, graceful and phantom-like within the shadows, and, desperate for one last look at her face, at her irises colored smooth onyx by the dim light and the endless worlds painted within her gaze, Din calls out, "Zoya?"

          She turns immediately, as if she'd been expecting it. "Din?"

          His ribs claw at his heart; once more, she is the first person to say his name in what feels like a lifetime. "It's . . . it's good to see you again."

          Din doesn't know if he imagines it, but the corner of her mouth turns up, and her eyes warm, becoming a pool of sunlight, dappling a bed of fallen leaves. "It's good to see you, too." The wind catches the words and carries them away as soon as they leave her lips, but he hears them all the same, clutches them tight to his chest, because maybe, they could be okay.

          He finds himself unable to move until Zoya has vanished into her ship, almost as if twitching even a single finger would scatter her away, turn her into nothing but a fragment of imagination come to torture him. But when he does finally step towards the Razor Crest, her ship does not disappear. It remains, solid and glistening and humming with energy. And far off, across the distant bounds of the horizon, as a star burns a dying trail against an obsidian sky, glittering with promises burned to ash and smoldering embers of trust once unbreakable and pure, Din feels her pull taut the other end of the lifeline.

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a/n: hey guys !!! pls don't throw tomatoes 😳 im so sorry for the wait but my classes have been kicking my ass so i haven't been able to update as much as i want. 🌚 leave a comment or two if u enjoyed, it's v encouraging & i read thru em ALL <33 i'm not too happy w this in all honesty and i HATE putting out stuff i'm not totally satisfied with but i Need to update this before i lose my sanity entirely ❤️

(also side note: gif at the top is made by me! i considered watermarking it but decided to be risky and tempt my plagiarizers ❤️ since a lot of ppl are casting ana in mando fics now i just thought it put it out there that i Made this so don't steal it pls /srs)