“He could be useful,” Fennec says, voice light. Her eyes are squinted slightly, gaze contemplative. She’s watching the way Boba rubs his thumb and forefinger together, dried paint balling against scarred skin. No elaboration is offered, just that simple assessment, the statement bordering on a suggestion. 

Boba hums, noncommittal, and steps past her. There is a wet rag in the refresher, old and worn but decent enough, and he drags it over his hands with quick, hard pulls, the paint peeling away from his skin and fading into the bleakness of the cloth. Distantly, he can feel Fennec watching him, just as he’d felt her before. 

He says nothing, but he does not need to. Fennec’s words have found a home in his mind’s peripheral, the seeds of an idea planted.

The Imperial cruiser is bleak. Troopers lie scattered in the halls, their bodies unresponsive, surrounded by the flickering remnants of a droid army. If Boba were a nicer man, or a kinder man—or perhaps if the galaxy had been kinder to him—there might be more to say. As it is, he gets one look of Din standing helmetless, the Darksaber clipped to his hip but with no kid in sight, and all that comes out is a gruff, “With me, princess.” 

There is a laugh sitting at the back of his throat, if only because of the look on Bo-Katan’s face, but he swallows it for Din’s sake. He’s seen his fair share of broken men—has been a broken man—and he knows what they look like. One glance at the beroya’s big, brown eyes is enough to tell Boba all he needs to know. 

“The child’s safe,” Fennec tells him, once Din disappears into Salve I. Dune and Gideon follow, the latter dragged along, barely-conscious; it’s almost enough to drown out the quiet timbre of Fennec’s voice. “It was a Jedi – Mando said it’s who he belonged with.” 

Boba nods, but says nothing of the Jedi, nor Din or the child, or the promise he’d made on Tython. Instead, he boards the ship, his voice a blank canvas when he announces, “I’ll start a course for Navarro.” 

Fennec is smart enough to leave it at that. She remains in the cargo hold as Boba moves onward, her voice mixing in with Dune’s and filtering through Slave I, the sound muffled by the time Boba reaches the cockpit. Inside, he’s unsurprised to find Din sat in the corner. His face is still bare, though it’s now obscured by the way he sits, his shoulders hunched and head bowed, elbows resting atop his knees. His hands hang in the open space between his legs, his buy’ce dangling from his fingers, awkward and out of place. 

Boba doesn’t ask, and Din doesn’t offer. In the moment, there’s nothing to say. 

“Tell me about him,” Boba asks, once, in the half-dark of the Dune Sea, Tatooine’s suns all but set. He’s lying on his back, his eyes shut; sand, soft yet coarse, cascades around his hand, his fingers swirling in mindless patterns.

There’s the clink of metal, a quiet screech as something is screwed into place. Boba listens to Fennec breathe, and then, eventually: “He’s kind,” she says. Her voice gives nothing away, no judgement nor acclaim. There’s only fact. 

Boba’s eye cracks open, and he shifts in the sand, his head turning to see Fennec with her gun in her lap, fingers fiddling as it’s cleaned with care. “What else?” he asks, because there’s not much he can do with kind. This is the man who has his armour—the Mandalorian who’d managed to win it. It will not do to be ill prepared. 

Fennec’s lips quirk, small and subtle. “He’s smart,” she amends. “Resourceful.” The corner of her jacket is curled around her hand, the fabric dragged across her rifle to wipe it clean. “The armour can be cumbersome – he prefers long-range combat, from what I’ve seen. But you need not worry about that.” Her eye catches Boba’s, and her smirk falls away, her next words serious. “He’s protective of the child,” she says. “It makes him vulnerable.”

Boba blinks, contemplative. A few feet away, they have a fire going. It crackles in the quiet, hues of red, orange, yellow swirling together as the flames dance, wisps of smoke curling upward and outward before disappearing into the wind. The light emitted flickers across Fennec’s face, her eyes reflecting the warmth. 

“You like him,” Boba says, after a moment. It’s not a question. 

Fennec’s smirk returns, softer this time. “I think he’s fun,” she admits, laying her gun in the empty space beside her, “and I respect his abilities. But as I said, Mando has a weakness. He won’t be a problem.” 

Boba holds her gaze for a long moment, and then nods, turning away. Across the horizon, he sees the curve of the red sun, the sky around it a darkening purple. 

As colour fades away, black blossoming in its place, Boba starts to plan. 

Din is quiet, even in the relative safety of Slave I. Boba spares glances when he can, his gaze drawn to the stiff lines of the beroya’s body, the way he stares at nothing, his mind distracted. Distant. 

Fennec had been brief when she’d first called him back—had said nothing of the mission nor the child—but she speaks in his ear, now, her voice crackling through the tinny speaker of the comlink, filling Boba in on what he’d missed. He says nothing at the mention of Skywalker, though behind the barrier of his buy’ce, his jaw twitches with an unwanted memory. He pushes it forcefully away as Fennec continues to talk. 

“Loverboy looked pretty messed up,” she says, and even without her in front of him, Boba can see the wry smile, the way her mouth tilts with her teasing. “He doing any better?”

A hint of genuine concern creeps into the last part, but Boba is stuck on loverboy. It shouldn’t be surprising: Fennec is observant, always, and the two of them have spent enough time together now that the teasing is expected. Her sarcastic nature had trickled out of her, slowly but surely, as that initial sense of obligation dissipated, a mutual trust left in its wake, but it requires no encouragement. Particularly when the point of ridicule was Boba’s affections. 

He grunts in response to Fennec’s question, the answer neither confirming nor denying anything about Din’s state, and isn’t at all surprised when Fennec’s soft laughter trickles through the comlink. 

“You should ask him,” she says, after a pause. Ask him what, she doesn’t clarify, but Boba doesn’t need her to. He remembers that days-old assessment. Fennec’s almost suggestion: He could be useful. “Dune says she’s going to ask around, see if she can find him some work, but…” 

The suggestion is clearer, this time. Stronger. It sounds more like permission, Boba thinks, or perhaps encouragement, and the thought makes a begrudging fondness bubble up inside of him. 

He looks to Din from the corner of his eye and says nothing.

The beroya paces, constantly. Boba watches him cross the cargo hold only to turn around again, fascinated by the duality. He is not just kind, Boba thinks, recalling Fennec’s assessment. He’s a warrior with a bleeding heart. It’s written in the lines of his being: Determination straightens his spine, his step light like a man who’s accustomed to surveillance, and yet his hands twitch with a restless anxiety, the fixed, familiar taint of melancholy. It clings to him, heavy and heady. 

Not that Boba can blame him. He’s all too aware of what it’s like to lose everything. 

The beroya turns again, muttering under his breath. It’s too soft for the vocoder to pick up, but Boba hears it, muffled through the buy’ce. He looks down, away from Mando, as Fennec so lovingly calls him, and back toward his scattered armour. A shoulder plate is picked up, the buffer dragged carefully across the battered beskar. 

“You’ll make yourself dizzy, doing that,” Boba says as the beroya turns again, if only to stop them all from going mad. 

The reaction is instant. Mando stills, his buy’ce turning to face Boba. He doesn’t say sorry, but the apology radiates off him anyway; his posture slackens, determination fading away now that he’s without his distraction. Boba sighs, then kicks out softly, the tip of his boot nudging a panel of armour forward. 

It’s a silent invitation, one the beroya takes a moment to consider before stepping forward, his buy’ce tilting as if to say thank you.

“He wanted to see me,” Din says, after what must be hours of silence. It’s barely more than a breath, but it draws Boba’s attention anyway. 

When he looks, Din is sitting with his buy’ce held in his hands, one gloved thumb running along the bottom edge, against the cut of beskar. It reminds Boba of days before, when they’d sat in the cargo hold, Din watching with quiet interest as Boba prepared his armour. He’d been a perfect companion, patient and unobtrusive, willing to help when asked. He’d handled Boba’s armour with care, holding it in place as Boba worked to restore it, Din’s visor following his movements as beskar was repainted in hues of green, red, yellow. 

He’d been silent then—had been happy to sit and listen, attentive as Boba spoke of his armour’s history, of his father—but it was a different silence to the one that fills Slave I, now. Now, the air is thick with what Boba can only call grief; it radiates off Din like heat does a cracked radiator, out of place and uncomfortably intimate. 

“What son wouldn’t want to see his father’s face?” Boba asks. 

Din’s immediate reflex is to open his mouth, a rebuttal on his tongue; Boba watches it die before he can so much as say the words I’m not. There’s no need to deny it, not here, and Din seems to understand that, because his face crumbles, his features achingly expressive. 

“My Creed…” he says instead, but even that fades to nothing, as if the thought is too painful to finish. 

The ship is on autopilot, and so Boba is free to stand, to walk toward Din and come to a stop in front of him, to reach out and place a finger under the beroya’s chin, his touch light as a feather as he directs Din’s gaze upward. To do so feels equal parts illicit and intoxicating; Din gasps, barely audible, the breath caught in his throat, but he doesn’t look away. 

“What you did,” Boba says, “you did for love.” 

He lets his hand drop back to his side. It feels wrong to maintain the touch—feels like he’s ruining something sacred—and so he reaches down and plucks the buy’ce from Din’s hands instead. The beroya watches, uncertain but compliant, and something protective unfurls in Boba’s stomach. Fennec’s voice echoes in his head, devilish yet knowing. Admit it. It’d be nice to keep him. 

Boba swallows. “Your son… He will remember what you did for him.”  

He turns Din’s buy’ce over in his hands, glad to have his own to hide behind. His throat is thick with the memory of Jango; it crackles everywhere on this ship, in this suit, in this body, the feeling only heightened when faced with this man, who has done nothing but try and do right by his child. What he’s unaware of is that Din has his own memories. Is that, when the beroya tips his head forward to allow Boba to place the buy’ce back on, Din is thinking of his own father. 

“If you ask me,” Boba says as the buy’ce falls into place, the beskar swallowing Din’s expression, the way his lashes are wet with unshed tears, “that’s more important than any Creed.” 

It’s only once Boba has resettled in the pilot’s seat that Din’s voice breaks the silence, his thank you soft but sincere. 

Boba doesn’t ask how Mayfield goes missing; he doesn’t care. There’s something else that catches his eye, after Morak. Someone else who draws his attention.  

Mando is restless—antsy. He’s been that way since Tython, but it worsens the longer they have to wait, the longer they’re without the child. Alone in the bunks, Boba listens to him toss and turn until all attempts at rest are abandoned, the rustle of cloth and soft, annoyed sighs fading into nothingness, until—

“Fett.” 

It is not so unexpected, Boba will think, later, when Mando is in his arms, body mostly bare but buy’ce still in place, his voice trickling through the vocoder and telling Boba to call him Din. Din Djarin. But in the moment he’s surprised by Din’s initiative, the way he says I want… I want. I want— 

He never does finish the sentence, but it’s no matter; Boba knows what a man seeking distraction looks like. When Din reaches, he’s happy to catch him.

Navarro is bleak, even rejuvenated. Its dark greys are nothing like Tatooine’s sea of beige, the random bursts of colour appearing out-of-place. Boba stands in the landing bay, waiting with a slow-building resignation. 

“Five more minutes,” Fennec says from where she stands, her shoulder pressed against the side of Slave I as she looks out across the distance, as if searching. It sounds weary—disappointed—and Boba can’t look at her. 

He grunts, trying for neutral. He’s not quite sure he succeeds. 

Fennec and I, we have business on Tatooine, he’d said, only hours ago, as he and Din watched Gideon be dragged off Slave I. You’re welcome to join us.

The response had been expected: The child is safe, Din had said. You don’t owe me anything.

It was true, Boba had thought—his promise from Tython had been kept—but what starts as a simple transaction very rarely stays that way. He didn’t need to look further than Fennec to prove his point; he’d saved her life, and in exchange he’d asked only that she help him find his armour. Those terms had changed long before he’d ever had it in his hands. 

I’m not asking out of duty, he’d told Din. And then, to give the beroya time: We’ll wait till dusk.

Now, dusk settles slowly over Navarro. Five turns to four, to three. Boba turns away from the city as the seconds tick past, prepared to cut his losses and return to his ship—after all, there is a syndicate waiting for him, his own wishes ready to be filled—but he’s stopped by a voice calling out across the open space, Din’s unmistakable figure stepping past the city line. 

“Wait!” he says, an arm lifted. 

Boba turns back to watch him approach. The buy’ce hides his smile, but there’s nothing to hide Fennec’s smirk, nor the knowing way she looks toward Boba, like she might’ve caught his eye if the visor wasn’t there as a barrier. 

“Does your offer still stand?” Din asks, once he’s close enough. The Darksaber sits clipped to his hip, the beskar spear held in hand, but there’s nothing else; his whole life is distilled to these items, one of them unwanted, and it tugs at something deep in Boba’s core. 

“For as long as you’re willing,” he says. He doesn’t miss the way Din nods, his buy’ce turning to face Fennec, as if to double-check. 

Fennec only smiles. “Welcome to the family,” she says, not-quite-sarcastic. She steps past them both to board Slave I, and Din laughs as he follows, all air. 

Neither Fennec’s words or Din’s laugh are wholly genuine, and yet they both sound as if they could be. Both exist in the in-between, where they almost are. It’s that thought which spurs Boba on, a new, unknown warmth unfurling beneath his breastbone as he follows his companions onto his ship, the space around them alive with the buzz of opportunity.

I.

Maratelle hears about her before she ever lays eyes on her. It isn’t anything good—isn’t anything worth listening to. She’s standing two steps behind Brendol, idly scrolling through the datapad in her hand; her eyes skim over the lines of her speech, distantly aware of her husband’s voice. He’s speaking to some officer, a newly appointed Lieutenant, and it’s he who speaks, his voice gruff and lewd. 

“Look at the ass on that one,” he says, loud enough to give Maratelle pause. She doesn’t bother looking at the waitress who stills, and then scurries past, a platter of food held carefully in one hand. Instead, she’s focused on Brendol. On the way he laughs in answer, in unmistakable agreement. 

It’s only once the Lieutenant goes searching for a drink that Maratelle dares to open her mouth. 

“What charming company you keep,” she says, her voice blank, unamused, as she shuts off the datapad. 

Brendol doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. “Come find me when you’re done playing dress up,” he says, turning to follow the path of the Lieutenant. “I’ll be with Veelo.” 

Maratelle watches, unsurprised, as Brendol disappears into the crowd. He’d laughed when she first announced her intentions to run for Senator, the sound loud and mocking—cruel—and the memory of it haunts her. It echoes in her mind: a constant reminder of those waiting for her to fail. 

She pushes the thought aside, the growing crowd forgotten as she unlocks the datapad once more. 

II. 

“Oh!” says the girl, her eyes wide, frightened. She’s standing frozen on the front step of Maratelle’s home, her hand still curled around the door handle, utterly surprised to see someone standing on the other side. 

Maratelle stares, her umbrella carefully cast aside. “Who—” she tries to ask, but her voice must kick the girl into action, because she scurries past as soon as Maratelle speaks, nothing but a sorry, miss, offered as she steps outside, right into the heart of the downpour. 

Maratelle turns to watch her go. She holds no umbrella, has nothing but the clothes on her back; they cling to her skin, soaked through by the rain, and it’s that which allows Maratelle to see the jut of her stomach, the unmistakable bump of pregnancy. 

She stills, waiting until the girl leaves her line of sight to enter the house. Inside, Brendol is watching her, half-hidden in the hallway. A glass tumbler is held in his hand, filled almost to the brim with a shimmering gold liquid. Maratelle doesn’t need to be a Force user to feel the uneasiness that radiates off of him. 

“Explain,” she says. It slips out in a growl, low and dangerous. She’s almost certain she already knows the answers she seeks. 

Across the room, Brendol downs his drink.

III. 

It isn’t hard to track the girl down. Brendol’s proclivities, it seems, are common knowledge; the embarrassment stings worse than the betrayal, but Maratelle keeps her head high as she enters the Academy. 

The girl—Elliana, Brendol had said, twenty-eight years old, the orphaned daughter of machine operatives—is wiping down a bench when Maratelle enters the kitchens. She turns at the sound of Maratelle’s step, and then stops, standing still. Tension straightens her shoulders, her back rigid like a soldiers, but Maratelle doesn’t miss the way her hands fidget with the dirty rag. 

For a moment, Maratelle does nothing but stare. The girl is further along than she’d thought, her apron stretched tight around the bump; an ill-fitting tunic is underneath, worn and washed-out, the white turned to grey. She’s unmoving under Maratelle’s gaze, but her eyes keep glancing toward the exit, as if she isn’t sure if she should make a run for it or not.

Amusement bubbles up in Maratelle’s throat, but it dies as she takes in the rest of her: Elliana is pretty, yes, but she looks exhausted. Her skin is too pale under the bright light of the kitchen, the space beneath her eyes turned purple from lack of sleep. Hair, more blonde than orange, sits tied in a bun at the nape of her neck, greasy and frayed, messy. 

Maratelle had come for answers—she needs to know exactly what they plan to do with the bastard child—but instead, she finds herself asking, “Should you be working like that?” 

She tilts her head toward the girl’s stomach for clarification, and Elliana looks down, then back up again, caught off guard. “Oh,” she says, uncertain. “I—I have to, miss.” 

She can’t quite meet Maratelle’s eye. It soothes some of the sting, but the satisfaction is subdued, more of a distant awareness than the gratification Maratelle had expected. 

“Have to?” she repeats, but the answer dawns on her as she says it. Of course she has to, Maratelle realises. She’s a lowly kitchen woman wearing hand-me-down clothes, and the father of her child cares for nothing but himself. “Brendol isn’t helping you.” It’s not a question, but there’s wonder to it, disbelief. She watches the girl carefully, waiting for a reaction. 

Elliana shakes her head, mumbling something about how it’s fine, how they have her on light duties, but Maratelle ignores it. She’s surprised at the force of her anger, the indignation she feels on the girl’s behalf. It’s unexpected—all of it—but she feels as if it shouldn’t be. After all, Brendol has always been lacking.  

Whatever questions she’d planned on asking have been forgotten. “Come with me,” she says instead, then turns without waiting for an answer. She knows the girl will come—knows the others will let her. Everyone in this building is well aware of who her husband is, and Maratelle knows they wouldn’t dare tell her no. 

As she exits the kitchen, she hears the girl scramble to follow.

IV.

The boy is unnervingly quiet. Maratelle is not a mother, nor has she ever wanted to be, but she’s seen babies before. Infants of any species are expected to cry, to scream, to call for attention. This boy—Armitage—does nothing, as if he is already aware his father won’t come running at the sound. Instead of wailing, he blinks up at her, curious; Maratelle tells herself it’s ridiculous to feel as if she’s being assessed. 

She’s been tasked with watching the child. Since you have the time, Brendol had said, and the words still sting. First because she is expected to agree—to look after this bastard boy as if he were her own—and second because her time is free due to the child. What had been a minor inconvenience for her husband had been a nightmare for her; Brendol’s status at the Academy had quelled any overt slander against his name, but her husband fathering an illegitimate son had put an end to her political career. How could she satisfy them, they’d said, if she couldn’t even stop her husband’s hands from wandering? The words still elicit a burning, bubbling anger, the fury pricking beneath her skin and filling her with the distant desire to fling the bastard boy into one of Arkanis’ three suns. It’s only a fleeting thought—she’s not going to actually do it—but it is there, calling to her like a chipped tooth.  

Armitage smiles up at her as she imagines it, his grin a small, toothless thing, his eyes pale green and sparkling. Maratelle grimaces and turns her gaze away, choosing instead to watch as Brendol enters the room, clasping his officer’s uniform in place. 

“And what of the mother?” she asks. “How is she?”

There’s no reason for asking other than that she wants to. The girl has scarcely been seen since Armitage’s birth: Brendol makes her keep her distance despite the obvious desire to be part of her child’s life, and Maratelle is yet to figure out why. Elliana seems to care for the boy—or, at least, seems to want to—and Brendol decidedly doesn’t. Most days, he’s left with a droid. 

Brendol slips his raincoat over his shoulders, barely sparing her a glance. “I haven’t asked,” he says, and it’s all the answer Maratelle gets before he disappears out the door.

V. 

“Mama!” 

Armitage is old enough to run, now. His little legs wobble with it, but Elliana’s there to catch him before he falls. She scoops him up into her arms, and Maratelle watches as her nose nuzzles into his hair, her mouth pressing a kiss against his cheek. 

“Hello, you,” she says, in a voice Maratelle has become familiar with. It radiates warmth, the fondness she holds for her son evident. Maratelle can’t help but think of it as uncomfortably intimate. 

The boy squirms in his mother’s arms, laughing as Elliana leans in to kiss his nose. It’s almost a foreign sound—Maratelle hasn’t heard it anywhere else but here, in the girl’s dingy little rooms. She’s not certain she ever will. 

“Thank you for bringing him,” Elliana says once Armitage is placed back on the ground. His hand is held in hers, his smaller fingers curling around her larger ones, but he’s restless, twisting in place. There’s a toy on his mother’s bed—a little bear, soft and, Maratelle thinks, homemade, and the child obviously wants a better look at it. 

Maratelle nods in silent acknowledgement. She’s been sneaking Armitage here for years now—at least one day, every two weeks—and Elliana thanks her for it every single time, face soft with a grateful smile. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” she tells them.

She doesn’t miss the way Elliana’s smile falters. 

“You don’t have to go,” the girl says. She’s no longer scared of Maratelle, but an air of uncertainty remains, as if she’s unsure how she’s meant to act in this strange relationship they’ve forged. “I mean—You can stay, if you’d like.”

Maratelle blinks. She looks from Elliana to Armitage and then back again. “I…” She swallows around the unexpected spike of desire; it’s ridiculous to even consider it, she reminds herself. She is abysmal with children—doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. There’s nothing she can offer, here. “Perhaps next time.”

It’s apologetic, and Maratelle is surprised with her own sincerity. Her own regret. The way desire still swirls up inside of her, so forceful it’s startling. 

Elliana nods in understanding, though her smile falters again. Maratelle watches her for a moment longer, but Armitage eventually pulls on his mother’s arm, and she turns to leave as Elliana kneels beside her son, the warmth of her voice following Maratelle out the door.

“Alright, darling,” she says with a laugh. “Do you want to see what I’ve made you?”

VI. 

The siege creeps up on them slowly but surely; Maratelle can do little but watch as the life she’d known starts to crumble around her, Arkanis’ very air crackling with the Republic’s imminent victory. But there are some things the Republic cannot ruin—Arkanisian secrets they’ve yet to get their hands on. This is one of them. 

“Get away from the edge!” Elliana calls, but there’s a note of resignation to it, her face scrunched in a worried grimace. “You’re going to fall!”

Armitage doesn’t listen. He turns to look at them, face split in a cheeky smile as he takes a step closer to the cliff’s edge. Down below, the ocean’s waves crash against the coastline, spurred on by week’s third downpour. Trees save them from the worst of it, but the boy still wears a raincoat, the fabric buttoned to his chin and the hood pulled over his head. It hides most of his face from view, and as a result, keeps the worst of his bruise covered, the skin around his left eye turned black and blue and ugly. 

Elliana had not gasped this time, not like she had when Maratelle first brought the boy to her, his body blemished by Brendol’s treatment, but she had gone quiet, her mouth thin, eyes blazing. She’d cursed Brendol once Armitage was out of earshot—had made no attempt to cover her anger, the way her voice had curled with hatred—and it’d made Maratelle wonder what it was that ever drew the girl to him in the first place. 

She sits beside her now, the two of them squished atop the same rock, and turns to eye the side of Elliana’s face, her mind wandering back to the topic. It must have been power, she thinks. After all, that was Brendol’s only saving grace. Was what had drawn Maratelle to him, all those years ago. 

“Do you think he gets that from his father?” Elliana asks, as Armitage dares to take another step closer. She looks to Maratelle from the corner of her eye, a small, exasperated smile playing at her mouth, and after a moment of hesitation, Maratelle returns it. 

“Let’s hope it’s all he inherits,” she says, and Elliana laughs beside her, an airy, humourless thing. 

She doesn’t want to tell the truth. To tell Elliana that Armitage is often a perfecty well-behaved little boy, that it is not until he is here, under the safe leniency of his mother, that he dares to do anything so brave as disobey. It would shatter the already fragile frivolity that exists here, on the cliff’s edge, and Maratelle is surprised to find that that is the last thing she wants. That she doesn’t have the heart to do it. 

She leans into the warmth that radiates off Elliana, content to merely sit and watch as Armitage plays in the rain, Brendol and their falling city momentarily forgotten.

VII. 

Brendol and the boy are already missing when the Academy finally crumbles, the Imperial personnel left for dead. Maratelle’s house is hit in the attack, and it’s no surprise: high ranking officers have been targeted for weeks. She’d known their time would come, sooner or later. 

What is surprising is who she finds in the rubble. Elliana stands amongst the dust and fallen brick, the fingers of her right hand curled around the leg of a hand-sewn soft toy—Armitage’s toy, the one she’d made special for him, the bear’s once-beige outer layer turned black and brown in the collapse. She runs to Maratelle when she sees her, her eyes wide, afraid, and for a moment, Maratelle is taken back to their first real encounter, when Elliana was nothing but a strange girl on her doorstep. 

She blinks the memory away. Now is no time to reminisce, she tells herself. 

“Armitage?” Elliana asks. The fear leaks into her voice; the words come out cracked, weary. 

Maratelle sighs. “Alive, I presume,” she says. “He and Brendol have been gone for days.” 

A bitterness sits on back of Maratelle’s tongue, sharp and potent, and she struggles to swallow it down. Her hatred of the boy had died a long time ago, but the hatred she holds for her husband burns with a newfound ferocity. Maratelle is no fool. She’s heard the rumours—knows that her husband is likely one of those smuggled out, one of the few deemed too important to let die. Under other circumstances, she’d be doubtful that Brendol took the boy with him, but there’s no other explanation. 

Elliana seems to understand this, too, because her face crumbles, her pale lashes turned golden with tears. She steps back, shaking her head, her step unsteady, and Marratelle steps forward to catch her before she stumbles; her arm links around Elliana’s waist, and after a moment, the girl leans forward, her face buried against Maratelle’s neck as her shoulders heave, the sob muffled against Maratelle’s collar.

VIII. 

Three suns shine on the horizon, the skyline uncharacteristically bright, void of the usual rain clouds. Maratelle basks under what’s left of the day’s warmth, her eyes shut as she listens to the distant crash of the ocean, the muffled patter of Elliana behind her, inside the home they’ve built for themselves. 

“Dinner!” Elliana calls, once dusk has finally settled, and Maratelle needs no other beckoning. 

The Republic cares for the city, not these outer parts—Arkanis’ forgotten beauties. It had taken almost a full cycle, but together, they’d managed to rebuild: The cabin sits high enough on the cliff that there’s no need to worry about floods, the coastline close enough that hunger is never a concern. 

Elliana is waiting for her, two plates already set at the kitchen table. The little vase she keeps in the centre houses a new batch of flowers; it sits between the arms and legs of Armitage’s bear, the toy a reminder—not just of the boy, but of what had brought them together. 

Maratelle sits, and lets her hand be taken. Elliana’s fingers are warm, calloused, and she squeezes them in her own, a small smile flickering across her face. This isn’t the life she’d chosen—isn’t a life she would have ever thought she’d want—and yet she is happy, here, with her new love. Happier, perhaps, than she’d ever thought she would be.