These Stripes Mean Something
these stripes mean something
rating: g (word count 762)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/40832574
When the Mandalorian shows up in front of Cara's glossy new officer's desk, asking her to help him spring one Migs Mayfeld, traitor to democracy and accessory to murder, the first thing she thinks is: this man is not the same person who fought by my side on Sorgan. There’s something wrong with the rigid way he moves, with the tightness in his voice when he speaks.
“These stripes mean something,” she says, indicating the badge on her chest.
It’s a no, but not a hard one. More of a please don’t ask me that. She doesn’t want to choose between Mando and her last chance of going straight. (She doesn’t know if she has the strength to choose going straight.)
“They have the kid.”
Cara’s eyes narrow. Oh no, they don’t.
The whole way to Morak, Cara watches the Mandalorian out of the corner of her eye.
There used to be a tenderness to him, an awkward softness that poked out between the cracks of his armor. She saw it first on Sorgan, in the way he watched his son play with the children in the krill ponds. Heard it in the thank you's he clumsily handed the young widow like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.
It's gone now.
There’s an aura of deadliness concentrated around him that wasn’t there before. It’s like he’s a blaster aimed to kill and he’s only waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. His voice is a gaping void. Sure, Mando has always been quiet, but now… it’s like he’s catatonic. Like he only exists when he needs to for the mission.
Cara has never feared him. Not even on that fateful day on Sorgan when she looked up from her spotchka, saw a real live Mandalorian hunter, and thought for the first time in her life, I might be meeting my match. She tends to be more practical than terrified in those kinds of situations, but—
Not gonna lie, the rigid figure sitting across from her makes her a little uneasy. It’s a good thing they’re on the same side.
The old Mando called a truce and offered her soup. She’s not so sure this one would do the same.
Cara can’t believe he agreed to replace his beskar with stormtrooper armor. She can’t believe he suggested replacing his beskar with stormtrooper armor.
It’s kind of dumb, but all she can think is where did your face go? She knows, rationally, that the black T-visor and beskar zygomatic curves aren’t his real face, that helmets are removable and there’s got to be a head somewhere in there. But still. Where is his face.
“I’d say it looks good on you, but I’d be lying,” she says.
The Mandalorian looks at her.
Cara’s always been able to read the crease of a brow and the twitching of lips through a helmet’s tilt. She knows this man as well as she knows her own blaster. Knows the way he fights and the way he stands still, knows what he’s saying when he doesn’t say anything at all. They’ve had entire conversations without speaking a single word. But now—
Now, for the the first time since the day they met, she locks eyes with the Mandalorian and has no idea what’s going on inside his head.
(It’s the lack of doubt. It’s the way he faces her, head-on, like a challenge.)
It shouldn’t feel so jarring. It’s not like he’s done anything yet that Cara wouldn’t do if their places were swapped; the kid is everything to him, so there’s no justification for the strange, premonitory loneliness she feels welling up in her bones. It’s just a helmet.
(It has never been just a helmet.)
Cara will go to the other end of the galaxy and farther if her Mandalorian needs her to. It’s a silent promise she made a long time ago, sometime after a bag of credits and a second chance plunked onto the dirt by her feet. She owes everything she is now to this man, who met an outlaw and saw a former Rebel shocktrooper, who without saying a single word reminded her what it was to have a heart and a code and a people to protect. She’ll hold herself to her vow as long as she’s able, but something tells her the Mandalorian is headed somewhere she can’t follow.
These stripes on my chest mean something, she thinks. That beskar meant something. You were the one who taught me that.
I wonder if you remember.
More Posts from Evanui27 and Others
happy pride month! here's the aroace flag colorpicked from din djarin:
i work at a grocery store and i've written a substantial amount of fic on scraps of receipt paper in between customers.
People who write fic on mobile genuinely frighten me
abbey - mitski
as the general of the 7th sky corps, obi-wan commands 16 legions, including the 501st. in fact, as the high general of a sector army (4 corps including the 7th sky corps), and the high general of the third systems army (4 sector armies), he is not one, not two, but three levels of command above anakin. the only person higher than obi-wan is palpatine
(to put into perspective: anakin commands 9,216 men. obi-wan commands 294,612)
so funny to me that in 7 seasons of clone wars it is literally never brought up that obi-wan is anakin's commanding officer
The Disasters of Sofia, Clarice Lispector // The Old Revolution, Leonard Cohen // Hans Vandekerchkhove// Kyoto, Phoebe Bridgers // Fireworks, Mitski // Insha'Allah, Danusha Laméris // Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin // True Blue, Boygenius // Report From the Besieged City, Zbigniew Herbert // Cool About It, Boygenius // Scenes from Star Wars
the beginning of rots where obi-wan's starfighter gets shot down and he tells anakin to leave him is 10x funnier when you realize that obi-wan commands every single republic ship in that scene. if obi-wan had died right then the republic would've instantly lost the war
yeah, i agree that was definitely the main reason he was upset. i think in bo-katan's case there was also an element of anger that she didn't follow the creed, but most of what set him off there was her attitude towards his beliefs rather than the things she herself believed.
(i'll make sure to tag you in my prejudice post once i get around to writing it!)
i don’t think we should be quick to trust anything bo-katan says about the children of the watch.
the main thing i’m suspicious of is her claim that they’re a fringe group. maybe they were in the clone wars era, but they’re clearly the dominant mandalorian faction right now. we know this because literally everyone in the show, not just din, thinks all mandalorians never take off their helmets. that perception wouldn’t be so widespread if the helmet thing were only practiced by a small group of religious zealots. i mean, this is galaxy-wide common knowledge. it’s not just din being sheltered by a cult.
Keep reading
until things get messy
rating: g (word count 431)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31179644
Mayfeld honestly doesn’t believe the guy’ll take off his Mando armor until he’s right there with a kriffing stormtrooper helmet screwed onto his shoulders.
The guy makes himself out to be some sorta moral big shot, y’know? All that this is the Way and you start to think a guy’s serious. Not, like, a strong possibility, but it’s a maybe. It’s out there. ’Cause most people in Mayfeld’s line of work are all talk and nothing to show for it, but then here comes this guy who’s no talk and a hundred percent wicked fighting machine, who can take out four New Republic security droids all by himself without breaking a sweat. Mando’s on a level of his own. Makes Mayfeld think, maybe somebody like that doesn’t have to make concessions.
’Cause the rest of them make concessions all the time. Mayfeld sure does. He’s got a backpack full of excuses and it never runs out.
But if anyone could do it, make it through the mercenary business without stretching their conscience, it’s Mando. Mayfeld didn’t expect to find himself still breathing after he felt a presence approaching him in the prison transport hallway, much less locked up with a still-very-alive Xi’an and Burg. He would’ve pulled the trigger in a heartbeat if their shoes had been swapped. But Mando didn’t.
From a practical standpoint, their lives probably weren’t worth the idealism. Not that Mayfeld wants to be dead, but once Burg and Xi’an get out of prison they’ll track Mando down and kill him. They’ll have to be taken out of the equation sooner or later.
Everybody starts out like Mando, convinced that you’re gonna be the good one when everyone else has failed. Eventually you reach a point when you’ve got to choose between being good and being dead. But a tiny part of Mayfeld has started to think the old buckethead is invincible, started to think that maybe idealism doesn’t have consequences if you’re a Mandalorian. There’s not much that could hurt or even slow down a guy like that.
Maybe it’s naive, but Mayfeld owes his life to Mando’s code. Can’t blame him for starting to believe in the man a little.
But no. Turns out Mandalorians have their weak spots just like the rest of ’em, and this one’s is a little green kid with big ears.
When Mando turns his brand-new stormtrooper face to look at Mayfeld, there’s a clear You happy now? written all over it.
Nah. Think what you want about Mayfeld, he’s not that cold. Doesn’t make him happy to be right.
just realized “din djarin needs a hug” is a popular tag on ao3 but “din djarin gets a hug” isn’t :(
someone give the poor man a hug
the hunter
rating: g (word count 195)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/31384529
The urge to move burns hot and bright through his veins.
He does not like breaks. He has never taken a vacation. He rarely stays on one planet for longer than three days. The bounty has never excited him, the accomplishment of a job well done bringing only unease. When asked what he wants, his answer never changes: My next job.
Because there's this itch. This crawling beneath his skin, this emptiness following him across the galaxy. He’s a shell of metal where a self should be. He hates the moment after the credits are pushed across the table and the job completed, because what is he then?
He is Mandalorian, but has no clan or signet. He has a name, but doesn't use it, not even to himself. He is a head without a face and a voice without speech. He is an outsider in the covert and a stranger above the ground. He exists only in the moments when he feels flesh against his knuckles, when the tracking fob tells him you have a purpose in blinking red.
You hunters like to keep busy is how Karga puts it.
Yeah. Something like that.
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