Broken Soul | Din Djarin

chapter seven: anger and confliction

With the help of Kuiil, the reconstruction of the Razor Crest moves along quickly. Within a day or two, it almost looked the way it once was. The only fallback was welding and shaping contorted pieces of metal back into their original form. 

Sparks fly as you shape the metal at Kuiil's workbench, using your lightsaber to heat the metal. Mando is inside the hull of his ship, fusing the panels back into place as you finish working on them. He works steadily, making sure that the pieces won't break away on takeoff, and ensuring that your work doesn't go to waste.

The Child still hasn't woken up from the mudhorn incident. Your concern for his health grows with every hour of his slumber and you continuously move to check on him. You remove your gloves and stick them inside the waist of your belt, standing with your arms crossed while you look down at the small bundle in the pod.

"Have you noticed any change?" The Mandalorian appears behind you and you jump in fear, letting out a small squeak of surprise. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

How does he keep doing that? Shouldn't his armor make noise or something when he walks? I need to get him a bell.

"Geez, Buckets, you gotta stop doing that to me." 

He still has traces of mud and filth caked on his armor and you reach out to try to brush some of it away from his helmet. Mando freezes for a moment at the gesture, eventually nodding in gratitude. Neither of you has had the chance to truly take care of yourselves after the fight with that beast. Mud was still stuck on your cloak and clothes; the weight and feel of it are disgusting, but you've gotten used to it in the past day or so.

"How's your side?" Mando reaches out his hand as if he's going to touch the injury, but his gloved hand stops a few inches from it. 

Turns out you hadn't come unscathed from the mudhorn's attack after all. Pieces of its horn had sliced open your already injured side, and the injury has become angry and infected from the muck that had coated your body. When your small group had started its work on the ship days prior, you'd found a small amount of time to check yourself for wounds. 

After removing your vest and shirt, the slashes were obviously bad and, to be honest, they gave you a small fright to look at the damage. There were small scratches speckled across your skin from the small pieces of the horn that had scattered through the air - you'd expected that to happen. 

But what you hadn't counted on was the giant slash on your bruised side, tearing your skin and leaving a jagged mark of torn flesh over your torso.

The adrenaline from the fight had hidden the pain from you for a few hours, but now that adrenaline has worn off, leaving you grumbling in pain as you stare at the wound. The tip of the beast's horn must have caught you during your attempt to dodge the mudhorn's advance. You hold your undershirt against your chest as you try to get a better view of the wound. Blood and mud have dried and caked themselves around the gash, making it impossible to get a good idea of how bad the injury truly was. You lightly brush your hand over it, trying to remove the filth, but the touch caused pain to lance through you like liquid fire. It's infected. You grimace at the pain and squeeze your eyes closed, desperately trying to breathe through the shooting pain. Lowering your undershirt, you tear off the sleeve from your longsleeve and run water over it, using it to dab at the gash in the hopes that some of the filth would come off.

Mando passed the room where you stood, stopping after he passed the doorway. The connection flares to life once again, and you can sense his presence waiting outside. Concern and anger flood his mind as he realizes that you had been injured in the events of the previous day.

"I know you're there, Mando." 

He jolts from his thoughts, turning around to enter the room as you look up from the gash. He's frozen in the doorway, not sure what to do or say. You look back down and continue your work, trying to ignore the way his thoughts flare through your mind and desperately try to shut them out as you work.