𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 | THE MANDALORIAN

𝟐𝟎.

CHAPTER 20.| BURY MY PAST
The burden of power can be painful.
___

The entire night the Mandalorian had stayed awake, waiting for her to return back. He couldn't get the way she stared at him out of his head. Almost as if she had been caught doing the most horrible thing ever.

She saved their lives. But the moment she looked at him it was almost like she realized her mistake. It was the most alluring thing he had witnessed.

Talía had called her a monster. He was smart enough to know how much Talía affected her, maybe she thought the same of herself. So she ran from the worst.

He had suggested to follow but Cara had debated otherwise. He had given her enough space and right now understanding why Talía would want her back—he needed to find her.

She needed to be back where he could keep his eyes on her, Where she was safe in his sights.

Would she even come back? He had been avoiding her since everything had gone down, he saw the hurt in her eyes when the plan had changed. How Cara informed him on how Alpha stared at him.

Din grabbed her warblade letting the single blade sling out. He gripped it tightly becoming angry, she was weaponless. Alpha was probably capable of handling her own, it just didn't comfort him enough.

It took everything in him to remain in the barn. But everything makes sense to him, the feeling of being pushed down when they were back in Arvala - 7 getting the child, he remembered feeling almost a force pushing him back.

It was her.

He looked over at the child seeing him peacefully asleep, he had recalled how he was looking for her. As much as Din wanted to search for the assassin he couldn't just leave the child here alone.

He had to wait until sun up to find her.

⋆ ⋆ ⋆

Arsyn trudged out of the woods seeing the sun come up, few of the villagers had already started working, it was going to take a lot to clean up the place. Mostly in filling the trenches and removing the bodies that were left behind after she fled the scene.

She had seen most stare up at her, no one had thought she would return after exposing herself, and honestly neither did she.

As much as she didn't want to return, she felt like she had too, mostly for what she had learned.

Arsyn decided it was best not to return to the barn for the time being until everyone was up, instead she needed to clean up from the far walk she had taken in the night.

The water was cold but bearable enough for her to not be frozen, her mind was surprisingly empty, maybe she was just too tired to even think of anything. To think about how she would explain what the hell she had done.

It didn't matter now. It was out and everybody knew. Word in a small place spreads like wildfire more or so if everyone had witnessed it.

It had been a few hours since she had returned, she sat reading over Shaye's handwriting, it wasn't everyday she had read something from wars, Shaye had been through wild adventures with her sister.

But mostly on how the way Shaye's life changed, to being surrounded with thousands of people to becoming entirely alone. She had named a bunch of people within the first two pages of the book, they were either friends or the people others trusted within the legion.

She sighed slamming the book shut. Was this her fate? Being surrounded by everyone only for her to be alone in the end?

Arsyn started making her way towards the barn hoping to try and avoid the Mandalorian.

"We were worried about you. Where did you run off to?" Cara asked seeing the assassin come into view.

"I had to go think" She sounded tired, but mostly she had recognized the most of the new items.

"Where were you really?"

"I can't say" She wasn't risking Shaye's privacy, not even to the people she grew to trust, Shaye was her people and she would respect her choice of remaining hidden.

She entered the barn and placed the books down seeing her weapons cleaned and placed away. She placed the books down and reached out to her warblades, she ran her thumb on the engraved wolf. It was definitely time to get rid of it.

She could bury it or let the water guide it somewhere else. But she just placed it back down, if she wanted to be truly free, Talía needed to go down with the rest of her pain.

In the last several days Arysn and the Mandalorian kept on avoiding each other, she even avoided Cara knowing she would also bombarded her with questions.

The child was almost confused, it didn't know where to go at times having the two separate. Cara had tried to get the two together, within that time she managed to figure out the problem.

She had studied the two, Arsyn was always keeping herself distracted to the point that she wouldn't talk to anyone, not even to the villagers she had grown close too.

Din on the other hand was hard to tell, he was occupied with helping the village, taking care of the kid whenever he wasn't with Alpha. But mostly how he stared at her whenever she wasn't looking.

The Mandalorian would spend more time with Omera, and that was when Arysn would glance at him, but the look in her eyes, it didn't match the ones she saw when they first arrived but it also wasn't like the power she possessed.

Cara had gotten fed up with watching Arsyn and Din skirt around each other. She had pulled them from their duties asking for help, only for them to come face-to-face.

Arsyn had figured out much since Cara was nowhere in sight, she was about to leave feeling a hand stop her. Arsyn quickly turned letting his hand fall to his side.

"What's going on with you? Your acting different?" The Mandalorian questioned, he was confused as to why she reacted towards his touch like that.

"Technically I am different." She really didn't want to have this conversation. Everything that she needed to tell him would reveal Shaye.

"Tell me what's going on. This isn't like you. I don't understand...what happened?" The Mandalorian tires to form words remembering the AT-ST.

"I don't want to talk about it"

"Alpha—"

"Can you just drop it? Please. . . I promise I'll explain it soon, but I can't" She gave another small plea in hopes of ending this awkward conversation.

"I have to go" She left pulling her lips into a thin line not wanting her lip to tremble, what was she even going to say to him? When was even the right time? If there was any.