"I don't do rescue missions."

Greef Karga raised his eyebrows. "You do today."

"No," he said. He gathered his weapons that lay on the table and stood up from the chair. "I don't."

Greef held up a hand and sighed. Din paused. "Mando. I'm giving you this job not because it's a great opportunity for a great pay, but because I'm asking as a personal favor. I've got the one offering up the money breathing down my neck waiting for someone to take it. They're offering a high reward. I mean high."

It was true that Din desperately needed the money. He had been struggling to get necessities far too much lately. "What's the job?"

"An unnamed individual currently has a prisoner in custody. The people offering to pay are asking for a bounty hunter to retrieve the prisoner and bring them to their location."

"So two parties are fighting over a prisoner?" he asked. "And I'm just supposed to take them from one person to the other? That's some rescue mission. How do I know which one really deserves to have the prisoner in custody? I don't understand."

"I can tell. You've never asked this many questions before," Greef Karga said with a chuckle. He took a drink and shrugged. "Must be a valuable prisoner. I don't know much about it except what I am telling you. But trust me, it will be worth your while to take the puck and head out as soon as possible."

"Fine," he said. He grabbed the puck and slid it off the table. "I'll take it."

"Be careful, Mando. You're the only man I'd trust with this one. This is a highly sensitive mission. There are threats quickly approaching to take the prisoner for themselves. They're desperately trying to get to them first."

"I welcome the challenge," he said. He gathered his weapons and turned away from Greef Karga. Everyone in the cantina turned to watch him leave, their greedy eyes locked on his beskar. "It'll make this mission more interesting."

Karga's voice carried over the soft noise of the cantina. "From the whispers I've heard, the target is enough to keep you preoccupied. Be careful, Mando. I don't think this will be as easy as you think. Remember, your job is to deliver them. Don't kill them."

The warning was odd, but it didn't worry the Mandalorian. He was a man with nothing to lose. This was all he knew; all he had known for a long time. As he had said to Greef Karga, he welcomed the challenge. Bounty hunting wasn't something he took lightly. He did the job well and he did it seriously. It was all that he had. That and the Guild. And that was a life that he was used to.

Rushing water was the sound you woke up to. The sweet dreams that fogged up your brain slipped away quickly as you flipped over on your side and swung your feet over the side of the cot. You stood up, grabbing the towel that you draped over the tiny window at the very top of the wall that separated you from your neighbor. You crossed the room and knelt in front of the rusty old pipe that poured dirty water directly onto the molded stone floor. Every time the showers were run upstairs, the water poured directly into your cell.

To stop the gushing of water, you stuffed half the towel into the open pipe. The sound of rushing water quieted as the towel quickly soaked. It pooled around your knees, but did it silently. You sighed and sat back on your heels, wringing the water out of the bottom of your dress.

"Hey there, Princess." Your neighbor, a man twice your age with a missing eye, shoved his face through the bars of the tiny sliver of window that granted him access to look at you whenever he felt like it. He did this every morning.

You fumed as he started asking you to look at him. Pushing off the floor with your palms, you slid backwards until your back was against the wall. He couldn't look down far enough to see you if you hid directly under the window. You pulled your knees up to your chest and locked your hands together at your shins. You trembled as he spoke, both in disgust and in bitter anger, the same way you did every morning.

And just like every other morning, there came a time when it was better to hear the loud sound of rushing water pouring into your cell. You launched forward and yanked the towel free from the pipe, then stepped up on your cot that was nailed to the wall. You didn't look at the man's face as you covered your window with the towel. As the water poured all over your cell, soaking and molding the floor, filling the room with the smell of rot and stagnant, damp filth, you sat cross legged on your bed, waiting for your tray of portions to be slipped beneath your door.

Dwelling on the impossible was pointless. Counting the days since you had last seen sunlight didn't make much sense. Unlike the rest of the prisoners that haunted these walls, that screamed and cried and begged until it was their turn for trial, you were silent. There would be no trial for you. There would be no one there to hear your pleas for help. There was no one to speak to, no one to confide in, no one to put your trust in.

Inhaling deeply, you fought hard to ignore the heavy pounding on your wall and the yells of the prisoners from one cell to another. They would soon run out of their morning energy and fall silent. That was when you would finally be able to sleep again, to slip out of consciousness for just a bit longer, where your dreams were usually a tad bit more peaceful than this.

Until then, you could only wait, sitting still in your cell. The guards would check if you were still there. They would shove the food allotted for your meals under the door. That would be all that you experience in terms of human contact. The rest of your day and the entirety of your night would be spent alone in your cell, without any eyes or ears on you.

You liked that. You could dream of better days or carve your words into the wall. You could let the cold water from the spout run over your body and wish it was a pool you were swimming in. Or you could wash the three dresses that you had tucked away on the shelf in the corner. They had given you a bar of soap at the beginning of the month, and there was plenty left to clean your clothes. A smile almost touched your lips; it would be a productive day, and after a couple of weeks of falling in a slump, you were eager to do something new.

The pipe stopped spewing dirty water onto your floor, and it was time to move. You got off your bed, took the thin sheet off the mattress, the dirty dresses off your shelf, and walked over to the spout that worked as your shower. You scrubbed each article of clothing individually with the bar of purple soap. You were elbows-deep in lavender suds when you heard the first sound of a blaster shot down the hall.

You froze. Everyone else in the cells seemed to stop, too. The talking, the pleading, the crying --- it all stopped. Abruptly.

And you heard three more shots, each one sounding closer. With a gasp, you turned the knob to stop the water. As it slowed to a drizzle, you could hear the sound of movement. It sounded like fighting, with shouts from the guards, heavy footsteps, and the sharp scraping of armor against the stone pavement.

You stood slowly. Voices were speaking, but you could hardly hear what they were saying. Part of you wondered if a prisoner had gotten out. If so, it was only a matter of time before they were overpowered and sent downstairs to be executed. It happened a few times before.

But instead of the fighting stopping, it got louder, and then finally, suddenly, it was right in front of your cell door. And the lock on your door was moving.

"No," you whispered, voice rough with lack of use. You backed up until your feet were in the puddle of dirty water, soaking into the scratchy fabric of your shoes. The door pushed open and your eyes widened.

Everything was happening so quickly. Your mind didn't have time to process it. Only moments ago, you were sitting alone in your cell, and now two people were forcing their way in. Relief filled you briefly as you saw the trusting armor of the guards that watched your cell. It was killed quickly by the acknowledgement of the blaster pressed against his temple by a Mandalorian.

"There she is," the guard said. His voice trembled. Sweat dripped from his brow and there was blood caked on his hands. You noticed he limped. "That's her. That's the witch."

You stood absolutely still as both men surveyed you silently. You, the witch. You, with powers you did not understand. With powers that got you locked up in your own palace eight years ago. They were so dangerous that no one came to your rescue when you were kidnapped by the guards of this prison. You had been in this cell for nearly six years. Sometimes, you heard whispers behind the wall of something big planned for you one day. But nothing ever happened.

A moment passed and the guard began to plea for his life. It was ironic, considering how often you heard prisoners pleading to him, asking to be spared. He reminded the Mandalorian that he had promised to spare him if he showed him the prisoner he was looking for, and that Mandalorians were creatures of their word.

"We are, but we are not fools, either. You'll try to kill me again." He pressed the trigger and the man crumbled to the ground, dead in a second. You jumped. "You're a terrible liar."

You stared at the body in shock before your eyes flashed back upward to the Mandalorian. He was approaching you slowly and you stood still, looking horrified and helpless, until he stopped.

Your parents were always afraid of how intuitive you seemed to be. Even without asking someone, you seemed to understand their mess of feelings, no matter how complex they were. You were granted the ability to feel life and death in ways no one else could. No one could explain it, but they were terrified of it. Terrified of the way you looked at your father and knew that he was lying directly to your face, telling you that he wasn't angry at you or afraid of you, that he trusted you and didn't think that you would hurt anybody.

And now, you felt the shift of change in his feelings, from defensive and cut-off, to sympathetic and confused. He seemed to really see you just as you saw him. He dropped the blaster and raised his hands.