Vibrant Eyes | Din Djarin

17: change

Din held the E-Web blaster in hand, the very thing they cowered from mere minutes before, and set it upon all of those around him.

Scores of troopers fell under his fire and the square was engulfed in chaos. His one reassurance was that the Child was nowhere to be seen, even as IG-11 tore through the enemy with an ease that made him so very glad that it was on their side. Or, at least pretended to be in that moment.

And on that matter, too, he had no idea where Venus had gone. He thought he'd seen her tear into the courtyard with the IG unit, even sending a second speeder into a line of troopers, but she'd disappeared almost immediately after. 

Wherever she hid, the Child must have been too. And he was almost certain it was safe.

Because if there was anything he was learning about Venus, it was that he should probably stop underestimating her. There was always something more to her. And it should have made him distrustful, even angry, but for some reason it had the opposite effect. Once again where the Child was concerned, he found himself trusting her entirely.

Then, of course, the world erupted in flames and darkness.

The next thing he remembered was pain. 

A sharp ache blooming on his skull and thrumming through every bone in his body. It became impossible to remember life without the scratching of its nails beneath his skin, almost as much as the startling disconnect between his mind and his control. He could hardly shift his arm, much less try to stand.

However, there came the other thing that faded into focus. A tight grip wrapped under his arms and the harsh floor dragging by beneath his heels with each surge of another's footsteps. The warmth of another body pulled his back close to their front as they dragged him from the heat of flames. Flames he was sure belonged to an explosion he vaguely recalled.

Din almost began to panic. He was about to assume that the person taking him away was an enemy, but then a voice cut through the ringing in his ears. Female and harsh.

Familiar.

"Stay with me, buddy," the woman grunted. Cara. It was Cara who held him and dragged him from danger. He also couldn't imagine anyone else would have the strength to do so. "We're gonna get you out of here."

Then there was Karga saying, "This is our only path out. Can you clear it?"

"Stay with me," Cara breathed, almost pleaded.

He wasn't sure why until the pain pulsed through him again and black dots encroached upon his already limited sight of the pale stone above their heads.

A mechanical voice said something in the background, but it was drowned out by another's. Another woman, this time with a voice of a passing breeze and heavy mist. If he wasn't lethargic before, teetering on the edge of unconsciousness for the second time, he certainly was then under Venus's touch. 

Maker, her voice was beautiful.

"Good morning, Mando."

"He's awake?"

"Injured, yes."

Cara gritted out, "You're a healer, right?"

"I can be," Venus hummed.

"Will you just focus for once? We need to get him up and out of here!"

"Hmm. I'm aware."

Not once did Venus falter under the ire directed her way. As his vision finally cleared, he could see the serene smile upon her face and the dust coating her right cheek as if she'd fallen onto the ground. He squinted to spot a faint scar highlighted by the dust cutting just above her jawline from her chin to mid-jaw. It was then he remembered the other scars he'd seen, as well as Moff Gideon's knowledge on her.

Not for the first time, he asked himself: Who was she?

Cara gritted her teeth, her wide-eyed glare persisting past a forced calm. "Can he stand?"

Those eyes, a dark violet in the shadows, stared intently into his visor. "No."

It was the harshest word he'd ever heard her say, if only for the deeper notes that encroached her in darkness and played out like the throes of war in her gaze.

Din took that as a sign and turned his head to Cara who immediately focused on him. "I'm not gonna make it," he said. "Go."

"Shut up. You just got your bell rung. You'll be fine. Right?"

Venus stayed silent, not even a hum from her direction, and finality settled as a pit in his stomach. He'd thought Karga was being unnecessarily dramatic when he had a brush with death the day before but now, he found himself understanding, and thinking, those very same words.

Is this how it ends?

"Leave me."

He watched and began to accept it when Cara pulled her hand from the back of his neck to reveal scarlet blood coating her palm.

She pulled in a sharp breath. "I'm gonna need'a take this thing off."

She reached for his helmet and began yanking it off before he could stop her. Pain filled his vision once more and he feared it would spell the end of his Creed. Easily one of the most important things in his life stripped from him just before death.

But then it stopped, and Cara gasped at something. When his hands finally listened and flung up to grip her forearms, one landed part way on another hand and he was surprised to feel the tension in the tendons of that hand. Of Venus's tight grip stopping Cara from unwittingly dooming him to a fate worse than death.

"No," he rasped.

At the same time, that melodic voice sharpened to knives in the air poised at Cara's throat. "Do not."

He gave the hand under his the slightest squeeze as he locked his gaze with Cara's as best he could. He wasn't sure what he intended to imply with it, but he could have sworn he felt Venus relax. 

"Leave me," he ordered Cara.

Venus's hand slipped away as he pulled Cara's' from his helmet.

"You make sure the child is safe," he gasped. "Here." He reached under his chest plate and handed her a necklace of the Mythosaur, a Mandalorian symbol and, well, myth. "When you get to the Mandalorian covert, you show them that. You tell them it's from... from Din Djarin. You tell them the foundling was in my protection, and they'll help you."

"We can make it!" Cara insisted. She grabbed and jostled him in desperation. "Come on! Let's go!"

"I'm not gonna make it, and you know it!"

Before she could protest any further, billowing fire poured in through the open window. Cara threw herself on top of him as if to protect him and he could feel the heat blanketing them in moments. It was uncomfortable and unnerving, like the universe was warning them of what was to come. 

The threat closing in.

When it stopped and the room was lined in fire, Cara lifted herself off of him. He grunted past the pain and boiling fear, "You protect the child. I can hold them back long enough for you to escape. Let me have a warrior's death."

Maybe then the Child might know the peaceful life it so deserved.

"I won't leave you."

"You must," Venus whispered nearby.

He didn't have the energy to seek her ought, merely finding comfort in the finality in her words. Resolution settled in his chest and pride for the life he lived. The helmet upon his head and the face none had seen in so many years (not including the incident Venus claimed didn't actually happen).

He was to die to protect all he held dear.

"This is the Way."