Pet Names

Honey

    Imogen woke up to tiny clawed hands lightly tapping her chest. Her eyes opened groggily, and she was met with the newly named Ruu'Eva giving her a toothy smile as he played drums on her sternum. She gave him a soft smile in return.
    "Good morning, Ruu'Eva," she greeted, sitting up and stroking his large ears. He cooed, as if to say good morning back to her, and Imogen sat up, cupping his bum so he didn't slide off her chest. She lightly bounced him as she stood, awkwardly climbing the ladder to the cockpit one handed. They had left the planet sometime while she was asleep, apparently, according to the streaking lights of hyperspace going past the viewport and shining on the Mandalorian's helmet.
    "Morning," Imogen mumbled sleepily as she plopped into the copilot's seat, her unoccupied hand running through her hair to try to tame her bedhead.
    "Su'cuy," the Mandalorian greeted back, causing Imogen to smile as she remembered his promise of language lessons. "Hi," he translated.
    "So I was thinking," Imogen began, seeing the Mandalorian tilt his helmet towards her to indicate he was listening. "The child is 50 years old, and I'm assuming you're not, so you don't know his birthday, right?" she took the responding silence as confirmation. "So perhaps we can say yesterday was his birthday, or at least his name-day," the Mandalorian shifted to look over his shoulder, eyeing his son in Imogen's lap.
    "That sounds good," he said, and Imogen couldn't stop her smile from flinching wider at the Mandalorian clearly opening up to conversation. "Briikase gote'tuur, Ruu'Eva," he said, swiveling his chair so he was fully facing the pair. The Mandalorian gently took Ruu'Eva from Imogen's lap, settling him against his cuirass. "Briikase is happy, and gota'tuur is birthday," he told Imogen.
    "Briikase gote'tuur," she parroted, leaning forward to give Ruu'Eva a kiss on his head. She didn't miss the way the Mandalorian tensed at her proximity, and she quickly backed off. "Sorry," she murmured, and the Mandalorian shook his head.
    "It's alright," he responded, voice equally soft coming through the modulator. Ruu'Eva cooed at his dad, who began bouncing his thigh, causing the small green baby to giggle. Imogen's heart swelled at the adorable sight.
    "Thank you," Imogen said after a moment of quiet. The Mandalorian tilted his head at her, as if to ask what for. "For agreeing to teach me Mando'a, I know you aren't a big fan of talking, so it means a lot to me," she smiled shyly at him, and the Mandalorian inclined his helmet towards her.
    "It's not that..." he paused, and Imogen passively noticed that he paused in his speech a lot around her, not that she had observed him interacting with a lot of others. "It's not that I don't like to talk," he said finally, and Imogen hummed in question. "It's that I don't know what to talk about," he admitted, and Imogen smiled up at him.
    "So you teach me Mando'a, and I'll teach you conversation not involving weapons and quarries and stuff," she said with a giggle, and her eyes widened as a huffing sound came through the modulator on the Mandalorian's helmet, the sound seeming like a chuckle.
    "Okay," he said, and his voice sounded like he was smiling. He swiveled his chair back to face the viewport, and the three sat in comfortable silence for a while. It was when Imogen yawned that she decided she should talk to him, at least to try to keep herself awake.
    "What's your favorite color?" she blurted, and the Mandalorian jumped a bit in his seat.
    "What?"
    "What's your favorite color?" she repeated, biting her lip lightly. "Or is this one of those don't tell the Mandalorian he's not a robot and is allowed to have personal preferences things?" she teased, and the Mandalorian chuckled again. Imogen decided she liked the sound, even though it was through the modulator of a helmet.
    "Purple," he answered, and Imogen blinked in surprise, for some reason not expecting that. She tried not to let her heart skip at the thought that her eyes were purple, so they happened to be his favorite color. It was silly to think like that. "What's yours?" he asked after a moment.
    "Green," she said after a moment's thought. "Like trees," the Mandalorian nodded. He reached over to flip a couple switches and then turned to Imogen once more, having put the ship on autopilot for whenever they were to leave hyperspace. "And Ruu'Eva, I guess," she added with a small giggle, reaching a hand out to stroke his ear, the baby cooing in response. Imogen yawned again, though she tried to stifle it in her sleeve.
    "It's not morning, you know," the Mandalorian said after a moment, and Imogen looked at him curiously. "When you came up, you said 'morning', it's still the middle of the night, you should go back to sleep," he said, and Imogen frowned slightly.
    "What about you?" she asked, and the Mandalorian shook his head.
    "I'm fine," Imogen narrowed her eyes.
    "You need sleep too, honey," she sighed, but the Mandalorian ignored her statement.
    "Why do you do that?" he asked.
    "What?"
    "You call me those names-honey, sweetie, why?" he clarified, and Imogen shrugged.
    "Well you haven't given me your name, which I'm assuming is for a reason," she said by way of explanation, worrying her bottom lip with her sharp teeth.
    "Why don't you call me Mando, like everyone else does?" he pressed, and Imogen scowled at the question.
    "It doesn't feel right," she said, and the Mandalorian tilted his helmet.
    "Doesn't... feel right," he parroted, and Imogen nodded.
    "Yeah, the same way it didn't feel right just calling Ruu'Eva kid, or if someone were to just call me 'girl' or 'human', it feels disrespectful," she said, crossing her arms moodily.
    "Oh," the Mandalorian responded simply, standing and adjusting Ruu'Eva so he rested on his dad's shoulder. "You should go back to sleep," the Mandalorian pressed once more, and Imogen sighed.
    "Alright," she acquiesced, climbing down the ladder with the Mandalorian behind her. Imogen sat on her cot, and made grabby hands for Ruu'Eva. The Mandalorian chuckled again as he handed him over, and Imogen felt a bit of pride warm her chest at making him chuckle three times that night.
    "Are you alright?" he asked suddenly, helmet tilting up and down as he scanned her, and Imogen flinched in confusion.
    "Yeah, why?" she responded.
    "You're shivering," he said. "Do you have enough blankets?" he asked, and Imogen nodded.
    "Yeah, I'm fine honey," she said, but the Mandalorian clearly didn't believe her. Seemingly without thinking, he unclasped his cape and swung it around Imogen's shoulders, tying it loosely around her neck. "Oh!" Imogen gasped in surprise, hands coming up to feel the knot, and the Mandalorian just shook his head at her when she tried to untie the cape.
    "Nuhoy," he said, voice soft enough to conceal his smile. "Sleep," Imogen pouted at the command, but was cut off by another yawn. The Mandalorian tilted his helmet at her as if to say see? So Imogen grumbled as she adjusted herself so she was under her blankets, two being used as a mattress on the metal cot and two being used as actual blankets. Her eyes closed as she snuggled Ruu'Eva to her chest, both of them turning their faces unconsciously to snuggle into the Mandalorian's cape.

    Din's chest felt full with affection as he watched the girl and his son snuggle into his cape. Imogen had fallen asleep almost instantly, Ruu'Eva not far behind, and Din sat himself in the chair he had been in earlier, content to watch over the pair.
    He had to cut himself off earlier, when Imogen asked his favorite color. He had almost continued to say 'like your eyes' but stopped himself, feeling that it wasn't appropriate. Of course, he couldn't stop the fondness he had developed for her in the past two weeks, watching her care for Ruu'Eva so tenderly and listening to her just talk at him and tell stories, never once pressuring him to speak.
    He had been meaning to ask about her eyes, their odd color combined with her sharp teeth leading Din to believe that she wasn't completely human, or at least was one of the hundreds of subhuman species around the galaxy. It fit her, in an oddly poetic way, the fact that she was subtly different physically than everyone else. Her personality reflected it, with her respect of his culture that was so rare to come by, and her kind heart that was even more rare in the Outer Rim. Din was shocked the day he hired her to see her casually having drinks with a Rodian, the species not known for being friendly, but the Rodian who was buying her drinks seemed to be her friend. He had met Aler before, on jobs or just around Nevarro, and the Rodian wasn't very nice to people. He was civil enough to not get punched in the face, but cold enough that it was impossible to get close from what Din had observed. And the way Imogen wasn't even scared of Din as she admired his child was refreshing. She seemed to know he was a formidable warrior, despite her lack of fear, and was content just staring since she knew she wasn't a threat.
    "He's probably murdered for less," Aler's words rang in his head, causing Din to clench his fist. At the time he had been agitated at the insinuation that he was a cold blooded murderer, but now he was furious with the idea that anyone thought him capable of harming Imogen, even though they hadn't even spoken to each other at the time.
    Oh, and when she had come into the cockpit with Ruu'Eva, hair all tousled from sleep and oversized shirt hanging off one shoulder, Din was glad that there was no way for her to read his facial expression under his helmet. Imogen was utterly adorable, and Din was starting to feel as if he needed to stop thinking about her.
    Din, who never trusted anyone, continuously shocked himself in regards to Imogen. When he had come back and froze his latest quarry in carbonite, he was frantic when he couldn't find her and Ruu'Eva, and when she called out to him he acknowledged in the back of his mind that had she been anybody else he would've been upset with her. But instead she walked onto the Crest soaked through with the child in the same state, and she wasn't freaked out by the child's ability, or angry with Din that he had neglected to tell her about it, and then she called him Sweetie and Din just... melted. He wanted to tell her everything about himself, not just his insecurities about fatherhood, and he wanted to hold her when she was cold, but he settled for the tiny amount of opening up that he did, and the fact that now she was wearing his cape.
    The sight of Imogen nuzzling into his cape as she slept fulfilled some primal, possessive feeling in Din. He now could kind of understand why people liked when their significant others wore their clothes.
    Din stood up when he noticed Ruu'Eva stirring, and he scooped the child up into his arms.
    "Come on, Ruu'Eva, let you buir sleep, you already woke her up once tonight," he said softly, and Ruu'Eva cooed in response. He tenderly brushed a stray strand of hair that was brushing Imogen's nose out of her face, and then Din quietly lowered himself to the floor by her cot, amusing the child while waiting for morning, when hopefully Imogen would be well rested. Despite her only being in their lives for two weeks, it already felt like Imogen was the child's mother. It was as if Ruu'Eva had chosen her in the same way he had chosen Din, just sticking to her like 'yep, that's my mom right there,' and nobody had any choice in the matter.
    Din didn't really mind.

Mando'a Translations
Su'coy - Hi
Briikase gote'tuur - Happy birthday
Gota'tuur - Birthday
Nuhoy - Sleep
Buir - Mother/Father