tritanopia | The Mandalorian

thirty-five

The crazy thing about dead people is that they do not know that they are dead.

The crazy thing about Fae was that she felt dead despite the fact that she wasn't.

Ever since a young age, she had struggled to find serious situations actually serious. Struggled to force herself to feel the fear that she was aware she was supposed to feel. Nothing mattered very much, unless it mattered a lot. There never tended to be an in between. Fae herself had always considered herself as some form of ghost. Because she felt as though she was merely passing through life as a fleeting moment, and anything bad that happened wouldn't matter in the end. So, in a way, the girl felt dead. For she did not fear death its self, at least that was what she believed, because in her mind it wouldn't really matter. Especially not to her. It was as if the day she died, she didn't tell her body. Mando had called her a sociopath once, and although it was under different circumstances it still managed to stick with Fae for a while afterwards. And it especially stuck out to her in moments such as the one she was currently living through.

She did not know which one of them had flipped the table, but Fae didn't have much time to dwell on it due to the bombardment of blaster shots hitting the wall only mere inches from her head. A weapon was thrust into her empty hands by one of the three adults, as if the possibility of anyone, never mind her, being able to land a shot in this situation was actually plausible. The thudding of the bodies of storm troopers colliding with the ground was one of the few other noises that could be distinguished amongst the anarchy. Most people would have found that little observation reassuring -- the fact that whoever was outside trying to kill them also killed Imperials. But Fae had seen many a trooper meet their demise by the hands of their own leaders. To her, it meant absolutely nothing.

And then, all of a sudden, pretty much as quickly as it had started...it stopped. If asked, Fae would admit to momentarily believing that she had gone deaf. Or, at least partially deaf -- seeing as she was partially blind, it would have made perfect sense. But it was the fact that she was still able to hear three sets of feet immediately hurrying across the floor towards the window the very second that the last shot had been fired that told Fae otherwise.

Mando had noticed that Fae had taken a while to follow him, well, them, and usually he would have chastised her for that. But for one, he was terribly unnerved over where the two stood with each other -- particularly over exactly how much authority he still held. And second of all, Mando wanted Fae absolutely nowhere near the window whatsoever after he got a look as to what, or who, was outside. But before he knew how to stop it, Fae was stood directly next to him with an incomprehensible expression on her face as she too acknowledged it.

It was clear by their reactions that neither Karga nor Mando had ever seen such a mass amount of storm troopers in one place. And not only were there storm troopers, but also death troopers, who stood on the front line with their weapons drawn and ready to shoot at anything that moved.

It was those wearing the nightmare black armour that spiked Fae's heart with fear.

Unlike storm troopers, death troopers actually knew how to hit a target.

"Four storm troopers?" Cara once again repeated for, what felt like, the fiftieth time.

Fae did not remove her eyes from the scene outside as she said absentmindedly, "For fuck sake Cara, let it go. We're about to die, have some respect for the dead."

"You're not going to die," Mando shook his head at her, initiating the first real interaction the pair of them had shared for hours. Perhaps everyone in the room noticed exactly what he had said, apart from Mando himself. 'You're not going to die'. Not that they were all not going to die -- but instead just specifically Fae. Fae was not going to die.