Calamity || The Mandalorian

one

Kasia turned to the Mandalorian, steeling her nerves as she perked an eyebrow. "Can I help you?" she asked, deliberately sweeping her eyes up and down his figure. Up close he was even taller than she had initially thought, towering over her.

"I'm going to need you to come with me," was all he said coolly.

She forced a smirk to her lips and took a step towards him before running a finger down one of his shoulder pads. "Sorry Mando, but as dashing as you are in that armor, I'm not looking for any company tonight," she replied, inuendo clear in her words. She stared up into his black visor, the smooth Beskar of the helmet masking his face. But not his thoughts.

Like an asp, she struck, her mind attaching to the man's thoughts as she stared up into his blank visor.

This is the girl who stole 15,000 Imperial Credits from Jwelk Shat and then burned down his casino? she heard him think. She's tiny.

The Mandalorian's voice was not quite as deep in her mind, unhindered by the metallic drawl of his voice modulator. Kasia didn't allow herself to admit that she rather liked the sound of it, that it somehow managed to send a shiver down her spine.

Instead, at the last thought, she unlatched her mind from the man's rather rude thoughts and glared up at him. Tiny? Sure, she was a little short—at least compared to the tall Mandalorian and most other alien species on this planet—but tiny was taking it a step too far. Intelligent? Yes. Beautiful? Certainly. But tiny?

"I'm not tiny," she murmured under her breath as she glanced away and crossed her arms, a frown resting on her lips.

"What?" the Mandalorian said, confusion clear in his voice, the first emotion she had heard or even felt him make.

Shit, she thought, realizing he must have heard what she had mumbled. People knowing that she could read their thoughts never really went over well. Especially when they were already hunting her for a bounty. "What?" she echoed, willing as much innocence into her eyes as she could.

After a moment, the Mandalorian merely shook his head. Taking that as a response, she gave him a saccharine smile. "Well, as I said, I'm not looking for any nightly company," Kasia crooned up at him. She went to turn but felt a gloved hand clamp around her wrist.

Moving slowly, she exaggeratedly looked down at her wrist and then back up at the Mandalorian and raised an eyebrow.

Without a word, the Mandalorian held up a bounty puck. Kasia watched as a hologram of her face flickered to life. She frowned. "Gods that's such a bad holo of me," she sighed.

Even as she maintained an air of nonchalance, Kasia's eyes shot around the alleyway, looking for a possible escape route, ally, anything. But they were still alone and, save the few beams of light from the nearby casinos, the ebony darkness was too thick for her to see much. Glancing at his helmet, she had a feeling the same couldn't be said for him.

"I can bring you in warm," the Mandalorian said, his blank mask staring down at her in a way that made her feel like an insect, poised under his foot to be squashed. He released her wrist and brought it down to rest on the pistol at his hip, "or I can bring you in cold."

At his words, Kasia made a face. "Well, that's dramatic," she replied slowly. "I hope you don't say that to everyone." The Mandalorian said nothing and, raising her eyebrows, she laughed lightly, "Gods you do, don't you?"

When he still failed to do nothing but stare down at her—or at least she thought he was staring at her, she really couldn't see anything through that mask—she sighed. "Okay, okay I get it. Look, I won't fight you, okay? Just don't shoot me."

Wordlessly, the Mandalorian held out his hand. Kasia glanced down at it and then back up to look into the mask, willing her eyes to meet his. "Sorry Mando, but I don't think we're far enough into our relationship for that quite yet."

Through her mental pathways, Kasia felt a beat of humor at her words. For a moment a corner of her mouth tugged up—at least she knew that the Mandalorian had a sense of humor.

"Your weapons."

She gaped up at him. "Do you really think that I'm stupid eno-"

"Weapons. Now."

Clucking her tongue, she reached for the two concealed blasters in the slits of her dress. "And here I thought we were getting along so well," she sighed as she dropped both of them in the Mandalorian's gloved hand.

He merely continued to stare down at her, unmoved. "All of them."

She glared up at him and snapped, "That is all of them you nimro-" the word died on her lips as the Mandalorian's helmeted gaze dipped down to look at her right leg, where there was indeed a long knife concealed by the length of the dress. Sighing, she handed that one over as well.

"Fine. There you go. Or would you like me to take off my dress so you can search the rest of my body as well?" she quipped, crossing her arms. Again, a hint of humor emanated from the armored man, sliding past her mental shield.

Instead of responding to her quip, the Mandalorian tossed her a pair of cuffs. Startled, she barely caught them before they hit her face. "Cuff yourself," he said coolly, the modulated words crackling once.

At her squawk of outrage, he leveled her with what she could have sworn was a bemused glare. "I'm not gonna run," she muttered as she loosely secured the cuffs around her wrists.

Yet.