He was surveying the girl on the prison carefully. The seconds ticked by, slow and steady. He waited for her to move or make a sound. But all she did was watch.

He wasn't expecting this. She seemed harmless, physically, at least. There weren't muscles on her arms, nor was there a gleam of danger in her eye. She seemed perfectly innocent. Younger than him, but no more than ten years younger. 

The guard had called her a witch. A witch that was being held in a prison meant for the worst of criminals.

Yet he couldn't see a dangerous witch in front of him. All he could see was a frightened girl that was trying very hard to be brave.

He kept one hand raised, letting her know that he wasn't going to hurt her. He reached slowly for the puck that Karga had given him. He turned it on and a holographic image flickered in blue. Her eyes darted down to it.

"This is you," he said. "I was hired to remove you from this prison and take you to the person paying. I'm not here to kill you."

She looked at him suspiciously. A bounty hunter was breaking into her cell but wasn't breaking in to kill her? He wondered how afraid she was of him.

"Follow me," he said. She didn't move.

He hesitantly took his eyes off her, scanning the dirty cell she lived in. She had a few belongings stashed away on slanted shelves and stacked in dusty corners. It looked less like a prison and more like a home. A home she couldn't leave. Right behind her on the wall was a thousand dashes marked into the concrete. Thin scratches that probably counted how many moons she'd been locked away for.

"If you'd like to gather anything to take with you, feel free. There's room on my ship." He wasn't sure why he was being so hospitable, but he knew that he felt for her. She wasn't a danger. She couldn't be.

The girl made no movements to pick anything up. She just looked at him.

His voice was short. "If we leave now, we'll be there in three days time."

And she just stared.

"Let's move," he said, somewhat forceful. She wasn't going to move so long as he was nice. This was a criminal, no matter how nice she looked. "I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold."

Bringing up the possibility of being placed in carbonite didn't seem to frighten her in the least. Something told him that this was her own form of carbonite. She'd been locked away, frozen in one place, for far too long. So he placed his hand on his pistol.

When he put his hand on his weapon, something flashed across her eyes. He reacted immediately, lunging to the side the second she went to dart around him. His arm wrapped around her waist and he tackled her to the floor, but she did not fight. She was horrified and shocked and although he tried not to hurt her, her wondered if the weight of his armor as he pinned her to the floor was too much. He got off of her quickly, making sure he kept his hand away from his pistol so he wouldn't frighten her again, because when his fingers twitched towards his weapon, she didn't try to fight. 

The girl that everyone called a witch. The girl that was locked away in a prisoner meant for monsters. She didn't try to fight him when she thought she was in danger. She tried to run. As foolish as it seemed for her to try to run around him in a room of such small space, she did it anyway out of desperation. He wasn't going to use the pistol against her, he was only going to scare her. Usually doing that didn't leave him with this much guilt. Usually, the fear he saw on their faces fueled him --- let him know that he was doing something right, that no one would cross him.

But all he could feel was guilt. He didn't even want to reach down and grab her by her arms. She was trembling and he lifted her onto her feet, gripping her biceps almost too tightly as she swayed on her feet. He almost tried to reassure her, but he stopped himself. Why would she take comfort in the words of the bounty hunter coming after her?

The pair of binders felt wrong to lock around her wrist. She didn't try to fight him as her hands were trapped in front of her. Her hair fell around her face, finally looking messy, like a real prisoner's hair would look. 

"Let's go." 

The prison was built as a long series of twisting corridors, confusing turns, and identical doors. Everything looked the same yet completely unfamiliar. It was completely possible to get easily lost, but the Mandalorian had formed a path that the two could follow with ease. 

The girl followed him silently, her eyes cast downward. He kept a hand on her arm, the other hand on his pistol. He had cleared the entirety of the prison, but it was better safe than sorry. He had to make sure the prisoner was able to get out alive.

The kingdom that you were being held in was called Aarick. It was ruled by a sickly king that didn't bother sending extra guards to the prison that a single Mandalorian was able to overthrow. From the whispers he heard, the kingdom was falling apart at the seams. The proof was in the crumbling walls of the prison and the lack of assistance to their loyal guards. The guards were stationed close together near the girl's prison. She was their sole focus. It made him wonder just how dangerous she was. There was no way she could be that dangerous. She tried to run when he scared her.

There was something different about this bounty. She didn't plea for her freedom. She didn't ask where she was going. She didn't try to fight. The girl wasn't a fool. She seemed to understand her situation and accept it.

Side by side, they walked up the stone steps out of the prison. At the top of the steps was a set of double doors that he had blasted open before killing the guards on the opposite side. He pushed through the doors with one arm. They groaned as the heavy metal dragged across the stone ground. He stepped up and turned, half expecting the girl to be dragging her feet. 

But she was staring in awe at the cloudy grey sky. Rain was dribbling down, pattering across the broken stones he stood on. It clouded his vision as it dripped down the front of his helmet, but he could still see her and all of the fear leave her face as she stepped out into the outside and felt the cold water run down her face. 

And the first thing she said to him was spoken very softly. "Can we just stand here only for a moment?"

"It's not safe," he replied. "They could send others after you. We can't---"

"They won't," she said. "They're too afraid. I'm out of my cell. All they wanted was to keep me there." She turned her eyes back to the sky and smiled softly as the rain pattered against her face. "I just need one more moment, Mandalorian. Just one more."

No part of him could explain why he gave it to her.