They were running as fast as they could, but the motion dragged on forever, like they were running on quick sand. He stared out at the massacre from his father's shoulders. The bodies of his neighbors littered the ground. Droids were shooting down crowds of humans without hesitation. No mercy. His parents couldn't move fast enough to escape. They were running out of time to save him.

They fell to their knees at the double doors of a cellar, giving him one last hug and kiss as they cried. He could still feel his father's facial hair brush against his cheek. He could still smell his mother's perfume.

They lowered him into the cellar. "I love you," they mouthed. He heard no words, his ears were ringing. He felt dizzy and terrified. They closed the doors, leaving him in complete darkness save for a small sliver of light emitting from the gap between the doors. The explosion of the bomb hitting just outside the cellar bolted him out of his sleep.

It took Din a second to realize that there was no danger. Thunder rolled viciously outside as rain beat down on the outside of the ship. He sucked in a deep, shaking breath, running his hand through his wavy mess of hair to get it out of his face as he tried to settle his nerves. As anxious as that dream made him, he was relieved that he and his crew were in no intimidate danger.

Lightning cracked outside, lighting up the sky momentarily, before it went back to a deep, cloudy purple. Mando shuffled over to the window, looking out in the field the ship sat in. He had tried to find tree cover when they arrived, but it was getting dark so quickly, he needed to land. He had felt uneasy about it before he went to bed. Were they easy targets? Now he worried about what kind of liquid made up the rain that was failing from the sky. It'd better not corrode his ship.

Lightning split the sky again, making his hair stand on end. Maybe his nerves were still fried from the nightmare, but his instincts were telling him to check on the others. He walked over to his bed, where he scooped up his helmet and slipped it on. Mando was as quiet as possible as he made his way down the ladder to the lower level. He didn't want to wake up Rian and the child because he was being paranoid. He landed on the ground with a soft thud and turned to the cot and cradle. The child laid fast asleep, bundled up in his blankets like a burrito.

Rian's cot, however, was empty.

"What the-" He cut himself off, clenching his jaw and cursing under his breath. That girl needed bell. He stormed towards entrance ramp, which he hadn't noticed was gapping open in the darkness. In his head he was counting out the pros vs cons of deciding to take Rian on their mission. Sometimes, it felt like she was more work to reign in than the child. The last thing he wanted to do right now was go on a search and rescue mission in the middle of a bad storm.

However, when he dropped down onto the ramp, he discovered he didn't have to travel far. Rian was sitting in the tall grasses at the edge of the ship, centimeters away from the sheets of rain pouring from the sky. Underneath the ship, she remained perfectly dry as she stared out into the night.

All of Din's muscles relaxed slightly when he saw she was safe and not out in the wilderness making an ass of herself. He walked away from the ship a few feet so his voice wouldn't wake the child. "What are you doing?"

Rian look back at Din, her face solemn, almost sad. He blinked, slightly taken aback as Rian shrugged. "I like the rain." She stated simply, turning away and looking to the sky again. She stuck out her hand, letting the precipitation beat against her pale palm.

He rolled his eyes slightly. "It's the middle of the night and there's no cover out here. It's not safe."

Rian didn't move. "I'll be fine."

"Can't you just go pout inside?"

"Can't you go nag someone else?" Another flash of lightning illuminated the field again as she snapped and turned to glare at him. Her blue-green eyes were misted and teary, making them glisten and churn like a rocky ocean. Rian's anger left as quickly as it arrived, and she wiped at her eyes as she turned away again. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean that."

Din stood for a moment behind her. He was irritated at the comment, but also surprised at the outburst. He had never heard her yell like that before, and he was a bit shocked and embarrassed that he had been on the receiving end of it. His cheeks heated up beneath of cover of the helmet. He suddenly felt awkward, small, and very out of place.

He turned to leave before the situation got any worse, but his feet felt heavy. None of this felt right. Pushing aside his frustration at her, there was obviously something seriously bothering Rian. It somehow felt more wrong to leave her out here by herself than it did to stand out here where he wasn't wanted.

"Okay seriously, what's wrong?" He asked, his gruff, muffled voice making him sound almost accusing.

Rian shot him a warning glance. "Just go back to bed, Mando."

Din pressed his lips together in a thin line, taking a deep, slow breath. He was well aware that he wasn't a very friendly, comforting presence. Din was reserved and private, and on top of that, no one could see his face, making it hard to get an accurate read on him. This unwelcoming exterior and quiet personality protected him when he worked in the guild. But as he made more allies, more friends, those same walls made it hard to confide in him. If he really wanted help his friend and get her to talk... maybe he needed to talk too.

"I don't think I'll be able to go back to sleep tonight." He admitted, walking up next to her and sitting down, following her gaze out to the field. "The thunder woke me up from a nightmare." He paused. "I had been dreaming about my parents. My last moments with them before they were killed."

Din turned his head to look her. Rian was staring at him in confusion. "Why are you being nice?" She blinked, before scrunching her face as she shook her head. "No, sorry, that's not what I was trying to say. You just don't- you're a private person..." She took a deep breath, pushing her frizzy brown curls out of her face as she collected herself. "I'm really sorry about your parents."

Mando waited for her to continue but she didn't.  "Do you remember anything about your parents?"

Her eyebrows furrowed together. "I'm... not sure. I mean, I don't know their names or what they were like. Or what their voices..." She trailed off, shifting uncomfortably before bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them. "I have nightmares a lot too. Ones that are... just terrible. " Her voice caught in her throat. "What makes it was worse is that I think they're memories. I don't want them to be. I don't want them to be real. But I have the scars to match. They're so vivid. These places I've never been before... There's so much detail, these aren't just some random rooms my brain pieced together by itself. And the dreams never change. It's like every night, I'm just watching the same horrible movie over and over again."

Din frowned, feeling a pang of sympathy for Rian. He knew what it was like to have tragic past, but he couldn't imagine having no idea where he came from or who he used to be. And now he had to add on the idea that the few memories that managed to surface were bad enough to give him nightmares.

"Do you even want to know where you came from?"

Rian considered this for a moment. "Yes and no. The only thing I really want to know is where my family is, if someone is still out there." Rian laid her cheek down on her knee, looking over at Mando with a deep frown. "If my nightmares are really memories... then my mom is dead. But I'd like to know for sure."

Din nodded. "That's fair." He watched her a moment. He wasn't sure if he was making good progress or not. He got her talking, but she was still being so vague... she said she knew the dreams were real because she had the scars to match? That didn't make sense. Din couldn't recall any noticeable scars on her.

Despite being curious, he decided to change the subject. He wanted to make her feel better, and being annoying or prying on a touchy subject wasn't going to help. "You said you woke up on Tulth 11 years ago with absolutely no memories. How'd you know your name was Rian?"

In the dark, he could see the corners of her lips pull up slightly. "Well, when I say I just woke up on Tulth knowing nothing, I'm making a broad statement." She sat up, letting go of her legs. "I remember I opened my eyes, and there was this old guy standing over me. He had some other guy radio someone... I can't remember their name... to tell them I was awake.

"And then he bent down to the cot I was laying on and said "Hi, Rian. I'm Rex. It's very important that you listen to what I'm going to say." And then he told me that my family was in a bad accident... that my parents had died and that he and his crew brought me to Tulth. I was going to a foster home." Rian recalled, her tone beginning to pick up a snarky tone.

Din raised a brow. "You didn't believe him."

"Well, duh. Why did he need a armed crew with guns? They brought me to Tulth? That sounds like that's not where they found me. Why would they bring me to a different planet to find a foster home?" She rolled her eyes half-heartedly. "I couldn't remember anything, but I had a gut feeling that I wasn't safe with them. Everything was just suspect, ya know? I remember I could hear them muttering. I knew they weren't as nice as they were trying to pretend to be."

Din snorted slightly, chuckling. "Nothing screams suspicious like bunch of strangers surrounding with you guns."

Rian let out a small giggle, smiling. "Hold on, it gets better. They take me off this ship, and I slip out of their little circle and book it to the forest. They started shooting at me! Like, what happened to trying to keep me safe? I think I definitely dodged a bullet. Literally."

"Sounds like you really couldn't catch a break." Din furrowed his brows together, tilting his head to the side. "11 years on your own is what confuses me though. How old are you? You had to have been just a child."

Rian nodded. "Yes. I think I'm somewhere in my 20s. I'm not sure exactly how old I was when I got to Tulth. 11 or 12 at the youngest, I think." When she glanced over at Din, it looked like she was trying to search for an expression through the helmet. He wondered if she was picturing him with the same shocked look he was actually wearing. She shook her head. "Don't freak out over it. It's not that big of a deal. How old were you when your parents died?"

"6. But I was taken in by the Mandalorians. I wasn't by myself." Din pointed out.

"I wasn't completely by myself." Rian shrugged. "There were other homeless in the city I lived in. There were people willing to help me. Letting me stay in their shelter if mine started flooding. Giving me food if the forest frosted early. Bandaging me up if I got hurt. This one time, after I fell trying to climb over a fence and hit my head, this girl, um... Julien, she saved me. And then after, she even taught me first aid and CPR. She said was former nurse. She was super nice."

Rian shook her head as thunder rolled in the distance. "It sounds bad. And I guess now I see that it was. I'm not sure what my life was like before I got to Tulth, so my life on Tulth was all I knew. I wasn't aware that I was suffering that badly. Ignorance is bliss, right?"

Din blinked. "Yeah, I guess."

The rain let up slightly as Rian took a deep breath, turning her gaze back to the field for a moment. Then, she let out a short laugh as she shook her head, looking back to Din. "This is so weird, sitting out here in the middle of the night talking about how bad my life sucked." Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you being so nice?"

"I'm alway nice."

That made Rian break out laughing, and Din cracked a smile. She had to take a moment to catch her breath. Then she sighed, her shoulder sinking as she decompressed, finally fully relaxed. "Okay, now I have a question. I've been wondering this since we met, because I know you're name isn't actually 'Mando'. What is it?"

Din opened his mouth to answer, but he was cut off by a squeaky voice behind them calling out "Ah!". Rian and Din turned to see the child standing at the top of the entrance ramp, his ears lowered as he stared at them with sad puppy dog eyes.

"Awww, did you have a bad dream too, little one?" Rian asked as she and Din started to stand up.

Before the child could give out any type of response, one last, dazzling bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, thunder clapping with a shaking boom right after. Rian practically jumped out of her skin and landed on her side in the grass. That cheered up the child instantly, and even Din couldn't help but let out a sharp laugh, snickering as he helped a blushing Rian to her feet. "Don't worry, that was only slightly embarrassing."

"If you weren't wearing that helmet, I would sock you."