“Don’t you dare. Don’t leave me.” Din, suddenly, is as clear as day, as undone and as divine as his bare face. “What if you don’t come out?”
Nova swallows, stepping forward, cradling his cheekbones in between her hands. Delicate enough to keep him steady. Strong enough to shatter bone. She can feel the glow—that constant, utter darkness, pulsating, calling to her. It’s not holy—it’s the opposite, but it beckoned just the same. Nova leans in, lips flush against her Mandalorian’s. So quiet, quiet enough that only Din can hear her: “Then you bring me back.”
“Hi,” Nova whispers, holding the weight of the world in that one, desperate confession.
“Hi,” Din echoes, and everything else fades out.
This, right here? This is something deeper. This is the best kind of karma. This is coming home.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
IT'S ME, BACK FROM THE DEAD, WITH A 13,000+ WORD WHAMMY OF A FINAL CHAPTER!!!
this is where i apologize, for the infinite time, for promising to be more consistent and then consequently dropping off the face of the planet. 2022 has, quite literally, tried to kill me. please take this final installment of Something Deeper as much of an apology as i can muster. i'll go into more depth at the end, as always, but for now, please know that i waited this long to put this finale out until it was as polished and perfect as it could get. i hope you love this final chapter, and while the word "soon" might not mean anything coming from me anymore, i promise Something Holy, the final book in the Something More Series, is already being written. it will be yours soon. thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for sticking with me, Nova, and Din until the very end. it means more than i can say. <3
In the morning, Nova wakes up first.
The sunlight, streaming in through the windows, is the polar opposite of Mandalore. There, everything is blue—muted, cool, soothing even in its holocene. Here, the warmth seeps in through the curtains before the sun even rises, the sky already pink and toned and gorgeous. Both mornings offer different things—steadfastness versus serenity—and yet, both planets feel like home.
For the first time in what feels like an entire lifetime, Nova doesn’t have a nightmare. No Sparmau. No blue lightning. No Ezra, desperate and lost in another mortal plain. No visions of her parents’ ship being dragged out of the sky. No ominous, creeping warning that the First Order–or the looming villainous nothingness—is coming. Just dreamless, restful sleep.
When she wakes up, it’s slow. The pink light streaming in through the windows is the first thing she notices, the way it warms the floorboards and spills over the mess of their bedding. The off-white comforter is turned orange by the glow. The second thing she notices is the way her body aches, familiar bruises swelling over the map of it. But Nova grins with the hurt of it all, marveling at the way Din’s fingerprints are embedded in her thighs, over the grasp of her hips, pressed into her throat. It’s familiar and nostalgic—it’s been so long that the bruises that line her body were from love instead of war.
The third thing she notices is Din.
His mouth is parted slightly, the pink light of Naator cresting over the rugged contours of his face. It slopes over his nose, and Nova resists running her finger over the bump in it. She doesn’t want to wake him from his sleep. He looks peaceful, rested.
“I love you,” she whispers into the open air, barely making a sound. “I love you so much.” He doesn’t stir, just takes in a quiet inhale. Nova stares at him in his sleep, memorizing every single atom that makes him up. At the beginning of all of this, before she knew Din as Din, she wanted him. A gravitational pull anchored her to his side, the Mandalorian who intrigued her. His depth, his kindness—they were shown in small doses, through the cracks in his armor, both literally and figuratively. The way he refused to leave her behind on Corellia. The way he protected her when Xi’an came back to the ship. The way he chased her down when her heart told her to flee. And now—now, even when she betrayed him, even when she ran after promising she never would again, here he is, tangled in her arms, ready to marry her all over again.
Nova can’t help it. Her eyes well with tears.
Din stirs under her watchful eye, and Nova bites her lip, trying to swat the tears away. His eyelashes flutter open, and when they come to rest on hers, there’s nothing but love. And then, immediately after, concern. She swipes one away with her fingernail, but Din catches her wrist midair.
“Novalise,” he says, slowly, carefully, “did I hurt you?”
Nova swallows, stroking the line of his jaw with the hand he isn’t holding captive. “No,” she whispers. “No. I’m just being emotional.”
His eyebrows furrow, his eyes sharpen. Din for you’re lying.
“I’m not lying,” she protests. “I’m not hurt. I promise. I just…I can’t believe we’re here. I’m so happy that we’re here. After all this…it feels like a dream.”
At that, he softens. “I know.” Silently, Din pulls Nova against his chest, and she crumples against the safety of it. For a few minutes, neither of them speak. Din traces shaky but certain circles across Nova’s bare back. “You did…so well evading me.”
Nova pulls away, grinning up at him. “I told you I’d give you a fair fight, Mandalorian.”
Din cracks a genuine, rare smile. “You did,” he says, shifting against her to face her head-on. “I…I believed you, you know. I was just trying to rile you up. I knew you could the whole time. I didn’t doubt you.”
Nova squints. “You doubted me a little.”
Din sighs. “I’m an expert,” he murmurs, dropping his lips to his collarbone. “Hunting bounties was all I ever did before I met you.”
Nova hums, leaning into his touch. “Did you ever fuck your bounties?”
Din stops, pulling away. “No,” he says, immediately. “Only you.”
Nova smiles, biting down on her bottom lip. “I know,” she whispers, lazily running a hand through his hair. “I remember what you told me, the first time you kissed me, back on Dantooine. You didn’t really do anything before you met me.”
Din nods, his eyes on her lips. “Nothing of consequence. Nothing that mattered.”
Nova meets his gaze, giving him a gentle smile. “I know.” The repeated assurance hangs between them. “Next time you catch me,” she breathes, her eyes roaming from Din’s to his mouth, “you should handcuff me.”
She can feel him harden against her leg. “Were my hands not good enough?” In response, one slides up to bracket her neck. “Do you need more of a reminder?”
He squeezes down, just enough for the edges of Nova’s vision to bottom out, and she gasps into the open air. “A reminder,” she stutters out, “of what?”
Din shifts, pinning her legs under his, and once again, Nova feels like divine prey. “You know what, cyar’ika,” he breathes into her open mouth, “that was the last time you’re ever running from me.”
Nova sighs as he straddles her. “Who said anything,” she manages, meeting his sharpened, lustful eyes, “about running?”
*
The sky has bled through violet to magenta to salmon to pale pink by the time Din and Nova eat and get outside. The door, thrown open last night, never got closed, so when they walk out into the open air, they’ve spent the morning already breathing it in. Nova steps over the vestibule to the sky, so gorgeous that even the highest level paints couldn’t capture it correctly. The morning, there’s a hint of fall in the air, a chill that persists even with the sun high in the sky.
It’s perfect. Naator, in all its beauty, is perfect. Being here, after everything they’ve endured is perfect.
She feels Din come up behind her before she sees him. The smell of leather and gunsmoke and metal and earth and something more than all of them. Cinnamon, ever-present, even though the spice doesn’t even exist on most of the planets they’ve journeyed to since. It still smells like home. She turns, slowly, reveling in it. He’s back in the beskar, covered in reflective silver. His helmet, though, is trapped against his hip and his hand.
Nova beams. Din smiles back. “You’re out in the open,” she breathes. He did the same thing on Sorgan. He’s shown his face to everyone that he considers family, now. But this is different. This isn’t in grief, or in a controlled space. It swells in Nova’s throat.
“Until we reach town,” Din confirms, pulling her into his armored body, slinging an arm around her jacketed shoulders. They walk, in unison, around the bend in the little clearing their cottage is dropped in, through the crunch of the yellow leaves that keep dancing down to the ground.
Nova savors everything around her—the feeling of the leaves beneath her boot, the air singing with honeysuckle and soil, the mild pink skies above the gaps in the trees. Naator feels sacred, like something holy. To her, it is. Untouched, a relic. So far away from the war and violence that’s seemed to follow them all around over the last year. She’s determined to keep it that way. Nova’s jaw clenches with the unspoken promise.
“What?” Din murmurs, low enough that it just resounds next to the shell of her ear.
Nova swallows. “I…while we’re here, I want to pretend. Pretend that the First Order isn’t lurking in the darkness. Pretend that Ben doesn’t turn evil. Pretend that Ezra is safe, or that he’s just a dream.” She bites down on her bottom lip. “Pretend that war isn’t coming,” she whispers, quieter. “But—”
“But,” Din interrupts, not unkindly, “that’s not how you work, Novalise. That’s…not who you are.”
Nova nods. “Exactly.”
Din regards her carefully. “Do you remember what it was like?” He asks, and then echoes, “before?”
Nova blinks a few times, coming to a standstill. The leaves drop wistfully to the ground around them, but the trees never become bare. It’s like they replenish every time one falls. The woods around her aren’t silent, but they seem to hold their breath as she stops. “When the Empire won?”
Din nods.
“I couldn’t forget even if I wanted to,” Nova whispers. It’s the full truth. “I wasn’t alive when they came into power, but I know…I remember how dark everything was. Uncertain. Horrible.”
“The First Order doesn’t seem as…”
“Obvious?” Nova cuts in.
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Din muses, “but yes, actually.”
Nova sighs, rubbing her eyes. Even though she had her first night of restless sleep for the first time in what feels like years, she’s suddenly exhausted. “I think…I think they’re in their infancy,” she says carefully. “I know when all of this started, when you became Mand’alor, that we thought they were a more…present threat. I think the pieces that I know about—Gideon not being in charge of everyone, Sparmau’s connection to ‘him’ and the Dark Side, visions of Ben Solo as someone evil and unhinged—they’re all…futuristic, almost. Like maybe the First Order isn’t in existence yet. But I know they’re coming.” Nova punctuates it with a double-fingered tap across her heart. “I can feel it, Din, in here. But it’s not just the First Order ahead of us to fight. It can’t be. There’s a million restless pieces hidden behind the scenes, and the evil that they are might just be the tip of the iceberg.”
Din watches her, curious, awed. “Do you think…do you think that there’s anything to fight against? Right now?”
Nova chews on her bottom lip. “I mean, there are things to fight, after we get home. I don’t…I don’t know if they have a fleet of starships or that they’re ready to attack us. But I know there’s something wrong with Ben. I know the visions I’ve had will become real someday. I know that Qi’ra and the Crimson Dawn, whatever the hell they are, want political capital and to run spice through Mandalore.” She looks up at him. “I kind of wish they—whoever they are—had a fleet of starships ready to attack us, though.”
Din offers a small smile, and as always, it makes Nova’s heart flip over in her chest. “Something concrete,” he allows, hooking an arm around her shoulders, steadying them both. “I know what you mean. But…Nova, there’s no war here.”
And the weight doesn’t lift completely off of Nova’s shoulders, but it feels lighter, more tangible. Enough to push away the darkness. Enough to put in on pause.
The town is as serene as it was the last time they were there. Nova watches as Din pulls his helmet over his face, turning from man to Mandalorian. When they step out from behind the trees, it feels like something shifts. Nova’s hair is still a disaster from the night before, but no one gives her a second look after greeting both of them with a smile. Everything is glorious in the morning light, sifting through all the gorgeous yellow trees.
It moves at a sleepy pace, this town. It’s a comfort after spending so much time running for her life. Nova passes through the gauzy curtains fluttering in the light breeze, breathing in the scent of the leaves. Everything here feels safe, colored a perpetual state of goldenness.
“Are you hungry?”
“Hmm?’
Din gestures toward the restaurant in front of them. “Hungry?”
Nova’s eyes glitter. “You satiated that need already.”
Din cocks his helmet at her, and Nova laughs into the open air.
“No,” she concedes, swinging out in front of him to wrap both of her arms around his neck. “No, I’m not hungry. But I want to go somewhere. Come with me.”
Din doesn’t move until Nova’s hands slide down from where they’re clasped at the nape of his neck, gliding across the individual, seamless pieces of beskar, down until they grasp his gloved hand. He lets Nova pull him onward, through the idyllic little town, with no resistance, without any quarrel.
The little flock of trees where they stood once, preserved under the perennial, falling yellow leaves—it’s not distinct enough to stand out. But Nova remembers walking over the gnarled roots in the ground, the branches that curled up and over the others, like they’re dancing, trying to hang perfectly in the air. She weaves in and out of birch trees, small, flowered bushes, until both her and Din are back in the spot where they started. A lifetime ago, the first time they fell together on this planet, when it was love before the word.
Din observes, silently, from under the visor. When Nova turns around to study him, she catches herself in the tiniest blip, a singular supernova of deja vu. She inhales, breath shuttered in the valley of her throat, chewing on her bottom lip. Around them, the leaves dance down, a lulling melody in the gentle, sweet wind.
“You told me,” Nova says, in a whisper so quiet that Din has to lean in to hear her, “that I was your home once. In this very spot.”
He doesn’t move. Slowly, agonizingly, his hand snakes up across the fabric on her arm, up to the bare, exposed dip of her collarbone, anchoring finally against the back of her neck. Nova falls into his gravitational pull—the same way she did the first time, the same way she always has. “Novalise.”
“Listen,” she mouths, and Din falls silent, obedient, waiting. “You’ve been my home since I met you. Since I walked on the Razor Crest. Since you trusted me enough to let me in, but if I’m being honest…long before that.” She stops, trying to keep her voice steady. “But this is where I admitted it. This is where our lives, together, really started.”
Din nods, just once, the beautiful warmth of Naator reflected dully in his beskar.
Nova reaches up, hooking her fingers under the rim of the helmet. “Do you trust me?” she asks, and this, too, vaults her back in time.
“Yes.” The permission is there in his voice. Nova takes a sharp, solid inhale, and lifts it off. He’s staring at her, love in his eyes, half-lidded, star-studded. Like even in all of Naator’s gorgeousness, Novalise is the only thing in the entire galaxy. Nova’s heart catches in her chest, as it always does, as it always has.
“I love you so much,” she breathes, and then repeats it in Mando’a. Din echoes her, and as Nova watches his lips curve around the contours of the vowels, everything explodes.
Nova recoils, skittering backward as if she’s been struck, her head and her heart split open by lightning. She holds both her palms over her eyes, trying to shut it out—the immediate weight of it all, the heaviness of holding the world on her shoulders. All the peace that Naator usually offers suddenly dissipates, and doubt seeps in like fog, like poison, like venom. It holds her captive, whispering in her ears like a death rattle—Sparmau may be dead, but Nova put her in the ground. Blue lightning. Ezra trapped in an alternate dimension, one that may not even be real at all. The look of pure evil simmering in Ben Solo’s eyes. Something ocean blue and dangerous, lurking on the edges. The impact of her parents’ ship fracturing off into a million awful pieces. Cara’s death. The darkness coming in from every angle, shaving off every single piece of her until the only thing left is a weapon. The wound Jacterr carved into her stomach. The scars she wears every day. The look on Din’s face when she left—again—the resounding echo of I don’t forgive you.
“No!” Nova screams, and it reverberates through the trees. She has no idea how the chasm opened, but now that it’s been carved, she can’t escape it. She’s going to fall in. So she does the only thing she can—run.
Not alone, though. Never alone, not again. She reaches forward and snatches Din’s gloved hand, unsure if she’s able to manage any apology, pulling him behind her. Din stares at her, stunned. Nova can see it out of the corner of her eye. But panic comes up and threatens to swallow her whole, and despite all of her promises, she keeps running.
“Nova!”
“Follow me,” she cries, a choked, visceral sob. It’s too much. It’s not enough. She feels like a false idol, like she’s been masquerading. The love she feels, the love that she’s lost. Her home on Yavin. Her parents, killed by an enemy she wouldn’t meet until ten years later. The man she thought she loved, how his punches felt like knives. Giving up the Rebellion. Nearly losing her life in space. Cauterizing every single wound she’s ever had with a shimmering, vital blade. Trading happiness for disaster. Din walking away from her on Dantooine. Having to fake her death on Mandalore. Looking pure evil in the face and winning. Almost losing Din and Bo-Katan in the same stroke of horror. Every awful thing Grogu’s had to endure. Surviving and nearly falling over the edge. Not being forgiven. Looking in the mirror and seeing a split between Novalise and the saint and Andromeda. Past lives and lives yet to come. Ezra’s panicked face. Blue lightning. Horrible laughter. The certainty that darkness will rise again. The future, shimmering but uncertain. The longing for something more pounding inside of her chest, finally laid bare. Wanting to be holy, to live forever. Wanting a quiet life here, on Naator, with no more hurt ahead of her. This is what hurts the most—a glimpse at a future that still hangs uncertain. All of it collides, a horrible kaleidoscope.
“Novalise!” Din’s voice is unobscured now, sharp, sudden. Nova can hear it register, faintly, barely, over the incessant pound of blood in her ears. She runs across the flower field, up the barely trodden path towards the cave in the maw of the mountain, open and waiting for her. Neither of them are attempting to remain quiet this time, disrupting the forest’s peace. Nova can’t find it in her to care, to bring herself down to the earth. Her heart is still screaming. She’s following the sound, how it coaxes her toward the cave. Her name, a chant, three times.
“Novalise.”
This time, it isn’t just Din’s voice–it’s a triumvirate. Nova can feel it calling out to her, whispering through the sage, amber glow of the forest. She climbs, over and over again, until she’s standing at the cave’s open mouth. Din’s only a few steps behind her, but Nova hurtles through the opening. Like it’s making a choice. And Din follows, right on her heels, like she knew he would.
“Nova!”
She turns.
“I’ve had this dream,” she whispers, “over and over again. A vision, maybe. It’s me, looking in this mirror at the top of a dais. Almost like the throne room on Mandalore, but different. And I’m wearing this dress, Din, silver and shimmering, with this—halo on my head.” She swallows. “And I see her everywhere. This version of myself, this saint. I see Andromeda, too, her innocence, her determination, her brokenness. For months, it’s replayed on a loop in my head. I’ve been trapped in this alternate dimension with two timelines in opposing directions. It’s crazy. I know. I know how that sounds.” Nova steps toward him, reaching her hand out. A plea. “Come with me.”
Din stares at her, helmetless. His hair is a mess. His eyes flash with worry. “What?” A single word with such care, such concern. “Novalise—”
“I don’t know what it means,” she whispers, broken in half. “In every dream, either of them will tell me they’re—me. That I can’t throw it away. When I saw Ezra, he told me I can’t throw it away. None…none of it makes sense. They’re glimpses. Force visions are like that too, especially the ones Grogu makes me see, when he presses his head to my forehead. And I didn’t understand. I never understood. But,” she says, pulse racing, the realization that it’s the truth warming her belly from the inside, “I do now.”
Din just cocks his head at her. “What do you mean?”
Nova grabs onto his hand, which latches perfectly into hers. “I need to show you something.”
Din lets himself be led. He doesn’t argue that she said the same thing back down the mountain, that she’s not making sense. He trusts her—wholly, implicitly.
Nova carefully retraces her steps, following the trickling, shimmering stream to the center of the cave. On top of it, still impossibly, sits the dais with a mirror. Din’s breath catches in his throat, an impossible thing. Nova swallows, leading him closer, closer, closer. Slowly, carefully, she walks up the stone to the center of it. There’s barely enough room for the two of them on the same pedestal, but they make it work. Nova’s leg draped over Din’s, her foot notched against his boot to keep them in place.
“Do you trust me?” Her mouth is only a few inches away from his, her hair flowing in an invisible breeze into his face, tangled in his beard. Din swallows, eyes glancing off her lips, and then he nods. Resolute. Complete.
His answer is the same as it was before. The same as it always is. “Yes.”
Nova dips her chin, chewing on her lower lip. “It might be scary,” she whispers, just a breath, nothing more. “I’ve never—Grogu is the only one I’ve been able to do this with. Others have put visions in my head, but it’s only people who can use the Force.” She swallows. “But…the mirror. I think the mirror will help me show you.”
Din’s eyes flit across hers. “Nova,” he says, quietly, “I don’t understand.”
Nova huffs out a tiny laugh. “I know. I know you don’t. But you will.”
Din holds her gaze. “I trust you.” Unwavering.
Nova swallows. “I love you.” Absolute. She reaches up, snaking her right arm around so that it latches onto Din’s temple. She matches the placement on her other hand, the other side of his head. A tether, a lifeline. Slowly, she turns his head to face the mirror. “Open your eyes.”
He does, but only in theory. They’re still closed, but Nova can feel them moving, flickering, tracking. She appears in the mirror, the saintlike version of herself. Her face is impeccable, a portrait. A world crackles to life within her gaze. The image flickers. It’s her at fifteen, lips half-chewed and not nearly as pink as they are now. Her hair, shoulder-length and messy. That same gleam in her expression, her chin jutted upward, her eyes on the stars. The rest of it comes in flashes, two ends of the continuum. Her parents: Piper tall and statuesque, Arokel with his crooked smile. The way her mother’s hands match and create her own. The flicker of her father’s eyebrow, his constellations charted across her nose. The smell of springtime on Yavin. Seeing space for the first time behind the pilot’s seat. Flying Kicker for the first time Din’s breathing through the modulator. Flying in the Crest. Swimming in a sea so blue it hurts to look at. The glittering of the stars above. The sound of a lightsaber igniting. The sharp cliff edges of Ahch-To. Landing on Naator for the first time. Din’s face, bare and unrestricted. Din down on one knee. Din on both knees, face between her legs. The hook in Din’s nose reflecting in the low light of the ship. Din leaving her on Dantooine. Din finding her again in the double suns on Tatooine. Din’s mouth on hers. Din’s warmth radiating across the void, bringing Nova back home. Din giving Nova her name all over again. To radiate. To shine in silence. Sparmau’s catlike gaze locked on hers, knives in Nova’s heart. Her blood full of poison. Her anger like venom. The vision of Piper and Arokel’s ship crashing down into nothing. Andromeda. Jacterr’s fist connecting with her jawbone. The scar he ripped up her stomach. Nova taking her first life—Jacterr, then her own, right after each other, in succession. Seeing Wedge again by chance, and letting him bring Andromeda back. Meeting Luke in person, even more magical than she ever could have dreamed. Leia’s lightsaber lighting up in tandem with her own. War on the horizon. Din, Din, always Din. Grogu’s tiny little hand pressed into hers. The crystal cave on Ilum. Boba and Fennec letting her hug them, embrace them. Cara’s knowing, sacrificial smile. Bringing Din back to life. Being ready to sacrifice herself over and over again, the martyr complex that somehow refuses to die. Meeting Sparmau as Andromeda back on Yavin. Sacrifice, eternal sacrifice. Her lightsaber hanging off her belt, the Darksaber in her hand. The feeling of karma, of justice, of triumph over evil. Din’s hand in hers, over and over again, making Novalise Nova. Saint. Andromeda. Novalise. Over and over again, Nova spills her lifeline over into lifetimes, showing Din every incredible, agonizing piece. Of who she was before. Of the woman she is now. And of the holiness she will be someday. Only with the vision of the two of them tied together on the cliff’s edge when he proposed does Nova let everything recede, fall back into place, and takes her hands off of Din.
It’s his choice, now, if he wants to give her his in return.
For what feels like an eternity, Nova doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t do anything, terrified that she’s broken some rule of what she can and cannot do, using the Force for something corrupting, something dangerous. Her heart hinges in her chest. In, out. In, out.
“Oh,” he breathes, and Nova doesn’t dare move. “Oh.”
She swallows. Din’s eyes fly open.
“You—” he cuts himself off, breathing heavily in the cathedral ceilings of the cave above them. Nova feels dizzy. “That’s what it’s like? Being in your head?”
It’s so gentle. Nova can feel the tears coming. “I—More and more now, it’s all the time. It’s every single waking moment, everything that’s brought me to this one. And everything that’s yet to come.”
Din stares.
“I know I’ve been a disaster,” Nova breathes. “I know I’ve made mistakes, Din, over and over again. But I’m trying to fix it. I’m going to fix it. I’m going to save us, and the galaxy. I don’t know how. But I know that I will.”
“I would say you’re just one person,” Din manages, slowly, carefully, “but—”
“But I’m not,” Nova admits, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip again. “And now you know it. You know it all.”
“When you left to fight Sparmau,” Din says, still tentatively, like he’s trying to fit it all together, “you really were doing it because you didn’t think you had another choice.”
Nova’s eyes well with tears. “Yes. I didn’t. And it’s not an excuse, Din. It’s not an excuse for running from you, or not giving you a chance to make the decision with me. But for as long as I can remember,” she stops, hitching in a shallow breath, “running has been the only way to keep me safe. To bring me home. You’re the only thing in ten years that has ever made me stop. And when I had the choice to stand my ground or to run to protect you, I ran. Muscle memory. Because it’s kept me alive. And it was my biggest mistake.” She swallows. “This time, when I ran up the mountain, I knew you’d follow me. And I knew I could show you this. Because this is what it’s like to be—”
“You,” Din manages, raggedy but strong. “You, Novalise. You.”
Nova swallows.
“I love you so much,” she whispers, a breath of a thing, moving as close as their tiny proximity will allow. “Darasuum. Forever. And I want to spend the rest of my life—this lifetime, last lifetime, and the next lifetime—with you. But, Din—” Nova’s breath catches, and she closes her eyes, trying to find the center, “—I don’t know if I can marry you in front of everyone—after all of this—without you forgiving me.”
He stares. She grabs his hand, holding it flat against her chest.
“I know…I know that might not be fair. I didn’t tell you I forgave you right away, either. And I know forgiveness is hard. I know betrayal is the worst wound. I felt it when you left me. But I need you to believe that I am never, ever going to run again. You loving me, it’s penance. It’s—it’s karma, in the best kind of way. And I understand if it’s going to take time. I don’t need your forgiveness right this second. But—”
“Novalise,” Din interrupts, and Nova stills. “I forgive you.”
Her heart wrenches upward. What a terrifying, magical thing. “Din, I just said—”
“I forgive you.”
Nova presses her lips together. “You mean it?”
Din nods. A vow. “I…I don’t know if I can live multiple lifetimes like you can. I will love you in this one, and I will try to carry it…into the next. But,” he says, tipping his forehead against hers, his gloved hand lacing in her hair, “don’t you dare ever leave me again.”
“Never again.” She’ll learn how to say it in Mando’a. She’ll say it in every language the stars know. But it’s the truth, regardless of what tongue it’s spoken in. So when Din presses his lips to hers, Nova feels forgiveness. This is the karma that led her here. And this, too, feels like coming home.
*
Three more days pass. In every one of them, Din shows Nova every single piece of the parts she thought she’d lost in the battle. They lay in the middle of the flower fields, mapping out the constellations, tracing the stars. They climb trees like children, laughing in midair. They fly Kicker around, across the ocean, up into the stars. Nova watches as Din learns how to pilot an X-Wing, grinning and giddy the entire time. They eat food in the village, and in the back booth, away from everyone else, Din eats, unarmored. In the evenings, in the mornings—their bodies find the same rhythm they’ve invented and reinvented, every moment a brilliant, shining star.
The night before the wedding, Nova falls asleep in Din’s arms. Above them, the night sky shines purple and pinpricked to let the light through. The cool, flowery breeze filters in through the open windows, letting the wind dance the curtains around and around—like they, too, have been swept off their feet.
“Thank you for bringing me back,” she mumbles, barely awake, and as Din’s hands stroke over her head, Nova doesn’t know what she means—bringing her back to Naator, bringing her back to her senses, or bringing her back to life.
He folds her in even tighter, and whispers I love you over enough times that those words, too, hold multitudes, a vow.
*
Bo-Katan crash-lands in the middle of the field the morning before their wedding. With a gleeful, unnatural smile on her face, she shoves Din out of his own house, stacking his arms high with Mandalorian blue colored clothes. The ship—Bo-Katan’s ship, Nova guesses—has been completely renovated. Its belly is gleaming silver and wide enough for Din to spend the entire day as the guests start arriving. Bo-Katan, however, gives him a strict order to not see Nova again until she’s walking down the aisle, and even though Din huffs off, Nova sees the glimmer in his brown eyes as he walks away, memorizing every inch of her until he gets to hold her again, scooping Grogu off the ground as he walks away.
“You’re excellent at literally everything else,” Nova says, as Din and Grogu walk off across the field to Bo-Katan’s awaiting gunship, “why can you not fly a ship to save your life?”
Bo-Katan fixes her with a withering icy glare. “We all have our flaws.”
Nova grins at her, pulling Bo-Katan and her full armor into a hug. “A year ago, you never would have admitted that.”
Frustrated, Bo-Katan pushes Nova away, up and over the vestibule, and manhandles her into a chair. In the mirror, Nova watches the light in her best friend’s eyes, hiding her small smile against the rogue curls that drift into her face. “A lot can change in a year, Novalise.”
Nova sighs, letting Bo-Katan brush through her hair, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “I know.”
“With us,” a voice from the doorway sighs, “a lot can change in twenty-four hours.”
Nova grins. Wedge, for practically the first time in his life, isn’t wearing his orange jumpsuit. He looks unfinished without it, mildly uncomfortable. He keeps running his hands over the hem on his jacket, like he’s increasingly aware he’s not supposed to be wearing it.
“Hey.” Bo-Katan snaps her fingers. “No men allowed.”
“That is not Naboo tradition,” Wedge says, ignoring Bo-Katan’s order and the sour look on her face. “Just the husband-to-be. I’m allowed to see the bride.”
“How would you know,” Bo-Katan grumbles, but she moves off towards the fresher to run the tub anyways, and Nova stands up and settles into the notch of Wedge’s arm.
“You look beautiful, kid.”
Nova raises her eyebrows. “I haven’t gotten ready, yet, Wedge.”
“Still,” he grins, pressing a peck to her temple. “You always are.”
Nova swallows. “I wish—”
“Me too.” She doesn’t need to finish the sentence for Wedge to understand. Today—and every day—the two of them feel the loss of Piper and Arokel. Out of the corner of her eye, Nova can see the grave, sad expression on Wedge’s face. Long ago were the days that it didn’t exist at all. For a second, Nova sees it in flashes—him carrying her around on his shoulders when he was a teenager and her parents weren’t much older, back when Nova was still Andromeda, back before this life existed at all. But she blinks, pulling away, and Wedge looks the same as he always has—the smile lines on his face are so much more prominent than the wrinkled ones. “They’d be so proud of you, Nova,” he whispers, and Nova lets herself sink into the sadness of it, the regret she has. “I am, too.”
Nova looks up at him. “It’s still weird,” she manages, sounding like a little kid again, “remembering they’re not here. Fighting this war without them. Especially with whatever comes next.”
A strange, pained expression flits across Wedge’s face, but it passes as quickly as it appears. Nova’s eyebrows furrow, but before she can ask, Bo-Katan reemerges without speaking and points one impeccable finger towards the doorway. “Later,” he says, and the double meaning isn’t lost, even as he disappears into the pink sunshine of the early afternoon.
The day fades off into a brilliant, shining salmon. Nova can feel the heat leaving as Bo-Katan sits her down, braiding white flowers into her long, curly hair.
“How’s Mandalore?”
Bo-Katan meets Nova’s eyes in the mirror, finishing the last strand of her hair. It’s beautiful—long ringlets cascading down her back, two strands framing her face, a braided crown across the base of her skull. Nova bites down on her bottom lip, raising her eyebrows in question. They’re perfectly even, except for the scar that cuts through her right one, a few shades lighter than the deep brown of her skin. Nova asked Bo-Katan if she should fill it in, and Bo-Katan had given her a very definitive no.
“Ready to have you back,” Bo-Katan says, her voice guarded. More so than it usually is, and Nova raises that unfinished eyebrow in question. Bo-Katan sighs. “Not thrilled about joining with Rebel forces, but rallying behind their Mand’alor.” She straightens up, shoulders back. “They’ll come around.”
“You’re so sure about it,” Nova says softly, and Bo-Katan nods, resolute. “How?”
“Because,” Bo-Katan answers, smoothing the silk collar of Nova’s robe over her shoulders, “Mandalore is a planet of warriors. And you’re the strongest of us all, leading us into whatever battle comes next. They might not love you, but they trust you. And respect you. And, besides,” Bo-Katan sighs, “War is always coming. That’s something you and all of Mandalore have in common.”
Still, there’s something weighted there, but Nova doesn’t push. There’s a whole lifetime of the next fight ahead of them. This moment—this is for love, for peace. For war to be laid bare.
“I’ll be right back,” Bo-Katan says, abruptly, and Nova smiles at her receding in the mirror. Only then does she look at herself head-on. Her face has been made up—not in armor, not in war paint—but in the same simple makeup that Piper Maluev once wore for her own wedding. Her lips are pink, her eyes are delicately lined in black. Nova feels Andromeda here in equal measure, glittering just like her parents are, alive in memory and in her. Arokel’s eyes, Piper’s beauty, Andromeda’s smile.
Nova stifles a sob. Bo-Katan walks through the curtain into the corner of their bedroom, alarm immediately catching on her face.
“What?” Bo-Katan asks, immediately, moving swiftly into position. “Did Din do something? I’ll punch him, would that help—”
Nova shakes her head, willing the tears to keep at bay. “You chased him out of here upon pain of death, Bo-Katan.” She swallows through shards of glass. “No. I…I just…I can’t believe my parents aren’t here.” She swallows. “I know Din and I are technically already married, and they weren’t at that either, but…this is a Naboo wedding. The kind my mom and dad had. And it just hit me that they’re gone. They’re never going to see me get married. They’ll never meet Din, or Grogu, or you, Bo-Katan.” She touches a hand to the beskar Rebel symbol hanging from her neck. “I’ve been running for so long,” she continues, quieter still, “that I forgot how much it hurts when I’m not.”
Bo-Katan doesn’t say anything. For a long time, she just stands there, at attention at Nova’s side. And maybe that’s enough, Nova thinks. Bo-Katan’s love language isn’t words, anyway, it’s action. The fact that she’s here, facing it all with Nova anyway—that’s enough. And then, with the stealth only a Mandalorian can possess, she turns around to one of the bags splayed over the bottom half of her bed. Silently, she unzips it, pulling something white and gorgeous out of it.
Nova watches, backward in the mirror. It’s not until she turns around that she understands what Bo-Katan brought her. “You made me a dress?”
“I,” Bo-Katan says, so carefully, “did not. It would look like armor if I did. But I helped. Creative direction. Whatever you want to call it. The stitching on the outside is silver.” She points at the gossamer thread that laces the gown together. It’s glorious. It’s long and flowing, with miniscule stars scattered all over the train. The sleeves are silky lace that catches Mandalorian blue when it hits the light. The top of it looks structured—like wisps of beskar—like it’ll fit Nova perfectly. It’s so beautiful. “Some of it is thread from Mandalore. But…not all of it.” She looks at Nova in a way Nova can’t quite decode.
“Where’s the rest from?”
Bo-Katan swallows. “You’re allowed to be mad.”
Nova startles. “Why would I be mad?”
“Because…I kind of…stole something.”
Nova raises her eyebrow.
“From you. Well, not you, really, but something that was—yours.”
“Bo-Katan. I have no idea what you mean.”
Bo-Katan sighs in frustration. “I went to Yavin. I went into the old base and found your family’s quarters. In the corner, there was a pile of bookbinding materials. In there…I found thick silver thread.” She clenches her jaw, looking uncomfortable. “It was your father’s. For his linguistic books. I wanted you to have something. Of his. For your wedding.”
Nova’s eyes go glassy. Her throat tightens even more, and this time, she can’t stifle a sob.
“Oh, Maker,” Bo-Katan says, dropping the bunch of fabric in her hands. “Nova, I’m sorry, I thought you’d like it, that you’d—I don’t know, feel like your parents were here with you—”
“You went to Yavin?” Nova manages. “You went to Yavin, for me?”
Bo-Katan stops, her shoulder sagging. “Of course I did,” she whispers. “You’re my best friend.”
Nova gingerly lifts the dress back onto the bed and then promptly launches herself into Bo-Katan’s arms. Well, against her armor, because Bo-Katan’s arms aren’t open. But slowly, as if she’s adjusting to the shock, they come up, closing around Nova’s back, patting her gently—if awkwardly—between the shoulder blades.
“I, uh,” Bo-Katan says, muffled against Nova’s thick, never-ending curls, “I have something else, too.”
Nova dislodges herself the best she can, wiping her eyes frantically with her fingers. “What else could you possibly have?”
Bo-Katan slowly reaches back into the bag, rustling around until she pulls it free. Nova watches it glitter in the low light before she can blink into focus. Immediately, she recognizes it. It’s the headpiece her mother wore in her own wedding. It’s the halo of stars that Nova wears in every vision of herself, saintlike and untouchable.
“Bo-Katan—”
“I put everything back,” her friend says quickly, cutting Nova off. “In the place it came from. The room looks undisturbed. I promise.”
“Thank you,” Nova says, in one breath of air. “Thank you so much. I don’t know how you found these things. I don’t–I don’t know where you even got the idea. But you…you don’t know how much this means to me.” She swallows. “I’ll have a piece of them there at the wedding, after all.”
Bo-Katan’s lip wobbles, and that’s enough for Nova to yank her back into a bone-crushing hug. “I know what it’s like to lose your family,” she whispers. “I wanted you to know that…you still have one.”
Nova swallows, her throat constricted. She’s trying very hard not to cry, to keep her makeup intact, to save the tears for the ceremony itself, but as usual, the tears threaten anyway. “I love you,” she manages, through all the emotion. “I know you don’t like gushy speeches of emotion, but I do, and you need to hear it. And…Bo-Katan, you’re my best friend. I had no idea when I first met you that you’d become this person for me. But I need you to know that I couldn’t do this, any of this, without you.” Nova’s hands glance off Bo-Katan’s cheeks, warm and full between her palms. It’s so different from the icy exterior that once seemed impenetrable. Up this close, Nova can see the light smattering of freckles stubbornly scattered across her nose. “You’re a good person, Bo-Katan of the clan Kryze. You’re the best kind of person. You’re the one I need in my corner. You’re the person I trust in a fight. And whatever’s coming for us next is going to be a hell of a fight.”
“I know you and Din are Mandalorians,” Bo-Katan says softly, “but I sincerely hope your wedding doesn’t turn into a fight, Novalise.”
Through her tears, Nova tips her head back and laughs. It’s blurry when Bo-Katan comes back into her line of sight. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” Bo-Katan sobers, picking the dress back up. “But that’s not what’s important right now.”
Nova splays a hand over her heart. “Bo-Katan Kryze focusing on something other than an impending war? Say it isn’t so.”
“Shut up,” Bo-Katan says, but there’s no malice behind it. “Get dressed.”
And so Nova does.
The entire procession is gathered outside. Nova shivers in anticipation through the crack in her front door, looking at the magenta sunset hanging on the horizon. She swallows, catching a glint of light against the beskar, and her mouth runs dry. There, at the end of the aisle, decorated with yellow leaves and flower petals, is Din. Her husband already. The love of her life.
“Are you ready?”
Nova whirls around. As if in a trance, Bo-Katan reaches forward and straightens her veil, the starry crown encircling her head. Nova swallows. “It’s stupid to be nervous, right?”
Bo-Katan considers it. “You’re already married.”
“I am.”
“It’s Din standing at the end of the aisle. Not some…enemy.”
“Yes. Din.”
“Realistically speaking, walking down an aisle in front of all your friends is the least scary thing you’ve done in…months.”
“Realistically speaking, you’re right.”
“Well,” Bo-Katan says finally, “it may be stupid. But I think you’re allowed to be irrational. Just for today.”
“Right.” Nova exhales. “I’m still scared. Just, you know, for the record.”
“Well,” Bo-Katan says, simply. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel, so in my book, I suppose that’s fine.”
Nova chews on her bottom lip, stalling until her heartbeat runs back down to its normal beat. “Were you ever in love?”
Bo-Katan affixes her with a sour look. “I know you remember my dating history, Novalise.”
Despite everything, a laugh bubbles up in the back of Nova’s throat. “And you know mine. You can easily love someone who turns out to be a monster.”
Bo-Katan sobers. “Not like this,” she answers, softly, and Nova knows she’s laying everything bare. “Not the way you love Din. And certainly not the way he loves you.” It blooms in her chest like the honeysuckle and clover growing in Naator’s gorgeous fields. “When Sparmau took us to Coruscant, there were hours when he wouldn’t talk to me, you know.” Bo-Katan swallows. “He was furious at me, Nova, for letting you escape. For helping you go off to fight Sparmau on your own. If she didn’t kill us, I knew I could lose him anyway. Not because I kept your secret. But because he was willing to sacrifice everything to make sure you were the one who came out of it alive.”
“If she killed you, either of you—”
“I know.” Bo-Katan’s eyes flash in the low light. “I know, because I would have felt the same way, Nova.”
Nova tries to keep her composure.
“Sparmau left, once, after torturing us for hours.” Her voice is barely there. “My throat—it was swollen, almost shut. Din was beaten half to death. And he looked at me, helmetless, with that anger in his eyes, and I tried to tell him it would be okay, that you were coming, even if I didn’t know if she’d even let that happen.” Bo-Katan swallows. “And he looked at me with one good eye and said, ‘Nova’s job isn’t to save us. It’s to save the galaxy’.”
Nova stops breathing.
“And I tried to tell him he was being stupid. Because he was. As if you’d let us stay there. But he yanked me close with the chains keeping us knotted together and whispered, ‘But she’s going to save us anyway.’”
Tears well up in Nova’s eyes. “He did?”
Bo-Katan nods. “I told him some bullshit about how he couldn’t stop believing. I didn’t know where it came from. It was like you possessed me for a minute there, or something. He was still so mad, but he listened. And then he said, ‘Nova’s the only miracle I’ve ever believed in.’”
Nova exhales, a shaky, rattling thing. I don’t believe in miracles, but I believe in you. “Bo-Katan—”
“That man hasn’t known faith in the same ways you have. He doesn’t hold weight in higher powers like you and I do. But Din Djarin has looked a miracle in the eye every single day since he met you and knew that was something holy.” Bo-Katan steps forward, grabs Nova on the arms of her glittering, silver-white gown. “Whatever war we go into next, that man will be a zealot for you. He will defy every single person who tries to tell you no. You’ve brought him back from death more than once. I’m telling you this now because I need you to know that if you are scared walking down that aisle, you are an idiot.”
Nova startles. It brings her back down to earth, a lightning strike.
“Every single person standing out there would walk into battle with you. We have before. We will again. But the one at the end of the aisle, Novalise? He’s had a crisis of faith for the last two years. And you’re the only divine thing that’s pulled him out of it. He’s not afraid. He’s standing there, helmetless, in front of people that have somehow—” Bo-Katan punctuates this with a begrudging eye roll, “—become our family.” She stops, adjusting the starry crown atop Nova’s head. “He’s not scared of any of this. That’s a man who’s all in.”
Nova straightens her shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispers, the words wobbly. She wants to cry, to give Bo-Katan a sappy speech about how the only miracles she’s made happen are because of the faith people have in her, about how her best friend is something holy herself—but she reigns it in. Bo-Katan went out on a limb to give Nova these words. She owes it to Bo-Katan to give her sweet, meaningful silence. So she just squeezes down on Bo-Katan’s grip, letting her friend take one arm instead, fisting the curtain in the other hand, and gives her a nod.
She’s not afraid anymore. There’s a war ahead, sure. There always will be.
But this love burns so much brighter. It shines so much deeper.
The music starts to swell, stars pricking to life in the magenta dusk.
Nova’s sage eyes meet Din’s brown ones—emotion marrying warmth, over and over and over. Everything shimmers and sparkles. Something deep inside of her chest comes to life. Slowly, Nova and Bo-Katan make their way across the aisle, strewn with flower petals and yellow leaves. Around them, the people they love—Grogu, Luke, Leia, Wedge, Boba, Fennec—beam as Nova and Bo-Katan pass, but Nova doesn’t take her eyes off of Din’s, that beautiful, singular locus.
When his hands clasp around hers at the end of the aisle, everything in the universe shifts into place.
“Hi,” Nova whispers, holding the weight of the world in that one, desperate confession.
“Hi,” Din echoes, and everything else fades out.
This, right here? This is something deeper. This is the best kind of karma. This is coming home.
Bo-Katan moves around behind them, orbiting the two of them like a singular star. Only then does Nova look out at the small, mighty procession—the people gathered around them in a semicircle, strewn across flower petals and yellow leaves, the sky shining a deep, warm pink above them as the sun slips over the horizon. All of them, gathered here, putting their individual fights to bed, to share in this radiant, brilliant moment. It thunders in Nova’s veins, makes her heart grow three sizes.
“On Mandalore,” Bo-Katan begins, “weddings aren’t a ceremony. They’re simple, private events. Two Mandalorians remove their helmets and say their vows in Mando’a. Those are the kind of weddings I grew up with.” She looks at Nova, then over at Din. “But we’re not on Mandalore,” Bo-Katan continues, with a ghost of a smile spreading across her face, “and Nova and Din are something other than Mandalorians.”
Din narrows his eyes slightly. Nova grins.
“Love,” Bo-Katan says, rolling her shoulders back, “used to be a four letter word to me. The people I loved were my sister, and the most evil woman in the galaxy.” Nova meets Bo-Katan’s eyes, which glimmer with just a lapse of momentary grief. “Both of them are dead now, for better or for worse.” She swallows. “But love,” she continues, into the pink night, “is not. Not here. Not ever again. You know, Cara was supposed to do this part. She was supposed to stand up here in front of the entire crowd and perfectly proclaim why Novalise and Din are perfect for each other, why their love is so special, but Cara is dead now, too.”
Nova sneaks a furtive glance at Bo-Katan, raising her eyebrows. Bo-Katan shoots her back a chilling glare, perfectly clear—I know what I’m doing. Nova looks at Din, who imperceptibly shakes his head, a small smile splayed across his face, and Nova relaxes.
“I hated Nova when I first met her,” Bo-Katan says, and both Luke and Fennec laugh out loud.
“Bo-Katan,” Nova interjects, “seriously?”
“I hated Din more,” Bo-Katan continues, serene and unperturbed. Din presses his lips together as Bo-Katan tilts her head towards him, undeterred. “Really. I thought you were a zealot, and I thought Nova was too hopeful for her own good. I didn’t want to spend a second with either of you. I wanted Mandalore for myself.” She stops, looking up toward the three peaks in the distance. “I don’t want that anymore.”
Everyone settles back into silence.
“My whole life, I’ve judged people by the way they’re able to hold their own. Especially on the battlefield. And since I’ve known Nova and Din, there’s never been a second of peace. Both of them, in their own ways, have fought back. Back against tyranny, back against evil, and most of all, back against me.” She moves a half step closer. “Not with weapons, but with determination. Care. Anger, sometimes, sure. But most of all, with love. There’s been a hell of a fight since Nova and Din met me. And a fight even before that, when it was just Nova and Din against the galaxy. Before they brought us in on any of it.” She stops, and Nova catches her eye, and for the first time, Nova sees something that could be tears reflected back at her. “I once thought there was one way to be a Mandalorian. I didn’t think someone raised as a Child of the Watch could be a Mandalorian. I certainly didn’t think that a Rebel pilot—a Jedi, at that—could be a Mandalorian. But both of them have sat on that throne, and I’ve never wanted to fight alongside two Mandalorians more.”
“Nice save,” Din mutters, and Bo-Katan shoots him a death glare.
“To Novalise and Din, though,” Bo-Katan says, ignoring him entirely, “fighting isn’t a way of life. It’s to have a life, after the battle is done.” She stops, watching as a shooting star streaks across the sky. “The battle might be done, but this war isn’t,” Bo-Katan whispers, more to herself than to any of them, “but I know at the end of that one, too, the love that the two of them have will outlast all the fighting. The rest, though,” Bo-Katan says, “and everything in between, is up to them.”
Nova beams at her. Din smiles, too, and Nova can feel the eyes of the family they’ve chosen gleaming back at the three of them, the unlikely triumvirate, as Bo-Katan steps back.
“Neither of you are wearing helmets,” Bo-Katan says, “but—”
“I want to say the Mandalorian vows anyway,” Din interrupts, and Bo-Katan nods, pleased. He looks at Nova, and the entire galaxy shines back at her in those brown eyes, trained just on hers. “Repeat after me. Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde.”
“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar’tome, mhi me’dinui an, mhi ba’juri verde.”
We are one when together, we are one when we’re apart, we will share all, we will raise warriors.
At Din’s feet, Grogu coos.
Nova grins, tears sparking up in her eyes. “On Mandalore, they exchange words in Mando’a. On Naboo, they read vows aloud. On Yavin, marriage was mostly made in the skies. And on Naator,” she says, carefully, “we’ve done all three. Din Djarin, you’re already my husband. In name and in love, in war and in peace, you’re the one I love. From Andromeda to Novalise to the woman I will be, you’re the one I need by my side. I’ve loved you since you saved my life the first time, and I will love you long after my bones turn back to dust.” She swallows. “You know every inch of my soul—every horrible, fractured, glowing inch—and you’ve never once looked away. I am yours in love and in life. I will be yours in death. You are the only one,” Nova mouths, her hands squeezing down on his bare ones, “who brings me back. To you, this I swear.”
“Novalise Djarin,” Din begins, carefully, eyes flickering over to their very captive audience shifting under the bareness of his words and of their gaze, “Andromeda Maluev. I think you saved my life more times than I’ve ever saved yours.” His grip is tighter, stronger, swearing every chosen word down to the marrow in her veins. “I once said I don’t believe in miracles, but I believe in you. Now, more than ever, I think they’re the same thing.” For a second, Nova thinks he’s done talking, but Din’s mouth unhinges from where it’s been pressed down to the quick. Speaking in this much succession, unmasked, his words heard by more than just her ears—it means volumes beyond what she could ever say. “Your name, Novalise, comes from the Mando’a word novay’lain. To radiate. To shine in silence. And you shine, but never just in silence. And I will follow you,” he says, the words barely above a whisper, “into the dark, into the storm, and into every war. Without question.” His eyes blaze, and then Din sighs—not out of boredom, but out of love. “To you, this I swear.”
“Din Djarin,” Bo-Katan says, and even though she’s fading back into the night, Din eclipsing everything else in Nova’s line of sight, Nova knows this, “you may kiss your bride.”
“Way ahead of you,” Din murmurs, and he crashes his lips to Nova’s. Above them, surrounding them, everything explodes into stars. Later, after the light completely leaves the sky except for the galaxy hanging, all of them dance and sing, twisting around each other like there’s nothing left to fight, like celebration is all any of them know. They build a bonfire in the night, their smiles and the flame keeping the warmth around them. The mountains surrounding them embrace the people here, standing sentinel, keeping watch. The stars glitter and dance. The leaves, yellow confetti, line the ground. Here, on Naator, there’s only family and friendship, and love, so much love. In this moment, this shining, glittering moment—it’s only Nova and Din and the family they’ve made, this home they’ve built out of starshine.
After the celebration, the group fragment off their own separate ways—Luke back to Ahch-To to teach, Leia back to Hosnian Prime to lead, Boba and Fennec back to Tatooine to guard, and Wedge, Bo-Katan, Grogu, Din, and Nova back to Mandalore to plan. There’s a war building—none of them have said the words aloud since the wedding, but plans have been made. They’re a garrison, all of them, and each of them have a part to play to make that garrison into an army. For now, everyone is gathering resources. When morning comes, Mandalore will become everything it needs to be—birthplace of their blended army, solace to the surviving Mandalorians, a truce between populations that used to be enemies, newfound Rebel base, and home to Nova and Din. But for now, it’s them in the blue darkness, newlyweds getting ready for the life ahead of them.
*
Walking into the palace on Mandalore feels right in a way that it’s never felt before. Nova moves up the marble steps, into the open doors of the place they call home, and she feels the rightness in her chest, something finally laid bare.
“I’ll take Grogu to bed,” Bo-Katan murmurs, squeezing Nova’s hand as she plucks him out of her tired arms. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Thank you,” Nova calls after her, throwing the weight of her gratitude into it. Bo-Katan just nods in acknowledgement and lets Nova and Din press their own kisses onto Grogu’s big green forehead, disappearing up their staircase.
“I want to take you to bed, Mand’alor,” Din whispers into the crook of Nova’s neck, his breath rupturing goosebumps across her entire body, lighting up under the silk of her wedding dress. She lets him push her against the blue wall, lips ravenous, divine, pulling her into his gravity.
“That’s a fantastic idea,” Nova murmurs as Din’s tongue slides against her jugular, her hands knotted in his hair, “but I want to fuck you on my throne, Mandalorian.”
Din stills. Nova grins against the feeling of his tongue on her neck, flickering, halting. “You know,” he says, carefully, intentionally, “you’re the leader of this planet, Novalise. You could order me to do anything. I’d be helpless, without a choice. Needing to comply.”
Nova’s moan goes directly upward, into the vaulted cathedral ceilings. “That sounds familiar.”
She can feel the low grin stretch across Din’s mouth from where it’s anchored against her pulse point. “I may have…stolen it.”
“You make a habit of stealing things, Din Djarin?”
“For you?” Din’s hands travel lower, lower, until they’re cupped under the curve of her ass. Nova sighs as she gets lifted off the center of gravity, falling helpless to Din’s dictation. “I’d steal the stars.”
“Well,” Nova concedes, high and breathy, “if anyone could.”
With a long, languid noise, Din’s mouth pulls—regrettably—off of her neck. But when Nova sees the look on his face—hungry, wanting—she doesn’t miss the press of his tongue against her skin. “Are you going to rule with an iron fist, Mand’alor?”
“Not Mandalore,” Nova whispers, tracing the outline of his pink, bitten lips with the tip of her finger, “but you, maybe.”
A groan falls out of his open mouth, and Nova grins.
“You’re fucking devilish,” Din grits out, and Nova can feel how hard he is as his grip slips, watching the silhouette of her tongue swiping over her top lip. “The galaxy is lucky you use your power for good.”
Nova winks. She has him here, in the palm of her hand, fully enraptured. It doesn’t ever get old—the allure that comes with holding the Mandalorian’s heart, mind, and soul between her fingers. How lucky she is to have him, to love him. How lucky he is to know her, to adore her. “For the galaxy, I’ll use my power for good. But for you, Din Djarin, I’ll use my power however I damn well please.”
For a second, just a fleeting, blip of a moment, Nova wishes he had the helmet on. She wouldn’t trade the look in Din’s eyes—pure, unrestrained lust—for anything, but to be able to hear the moan that just passed through his lips through the modulator would make everything inside of her molten and wet. “Use me however you damn well please.”
Din’s looking up at her like she’s something holy. And in this shining second, Nova feels like holiness is just that—divinity, not a burden to bear. Everything inside of her is shimmering, glinting silver. The beskar he’s adorned with. The stitching that structures her dress. Everything here is shiny, eternal.
So is Nova.
“Let me down.”
Din whimpers. “But—”
“You had your turn to be in charge. That’s my throne now.” Nova hooks her finger under Din’s chin, pulling his brown eyes, reverent and half-lidded, up to gaze into hers. Slowly, she unhinges her grip and points instead to the gleaming beskar throne on top of the dais. “Do you understand me.”
It isn’t a question.
Din’s grip relinquishes as he lets her go, sliding up from the curve of her spine, over her hips, settling into the crook of her waist. Poised, ready to snap into action, but waiting for Nova’s orders.
When her feet are on the ground, solidly, Nova wets her parted lips. Din’s fingers hitch into her sides, but he doesn’t move, resolute and unyielding. Even without the helmet on, he’s acting like the Mandalorian—ready to strike, but waiting for the signal. “Get on your knees.”
Din’s eyes, dark and hazy, flash at her request.
Nova raises a singular eyebrow—the one sliced through with the scar. She watches carefully as Din’s irises flick up to it, back down to her own. All reverence. All delight. Nova steps forward, refusing to break eye contact, until she’s flush against his body. Din’s hands slide up her ankles, cupping the backs of her calves, until they anchor to the backs of her knees. Nova knows how much strength he holds, how Din could cut the sides of his hands towards his body and tumble her down to the floor. Like a knife, poised as something other than a weapon. A willing one.
Everything stills as Din looks at her. Nova bites down on her lip, lust pooling between her thighs, running like lava through her veins. She knows how much willpower she has left—it’s an hourglass counting down to nothing. If Din moves a singular muscle, she’ll crumble, relinquish every semblance of power, and beg him to fuck her here, on the floor, the throne be damned. But she watches as his lips part, tongue hanging in the open chasm of his mouth, and she has another idea.
Slowly, silently, Nova reaches up the back of her dress. In a stroke of genius, Bo-Katan’s design choices for this wedding dress included a silver zipper instead of pearly buttons up the back. In one solid, smooth stroke, Nova yanks the zipper down her spine, goosebumps erupting all the way down. Gently, she steps out of the cathedral of a dress, swiping it to the side, away from damage across the blue floor. Din watches as it slides away, Nova standing in her silver slip and nothing else, still holding all the power.
“You’re still wearing your beskar.”
“Yes, Mand’alor.” Din’s voice is so thick. It makes Nova’s blood thunder in her ears.
“Take it off.”
Din’s eyes don’t leave hers as he starts prying every single piece of it from his body. First the pauldrons, then the gilded plates on his arms, and then, finally, the chest. Dully, Nova recognizes the significance of it—his heart, too, completely in her hands. The palace is dark and quiet. Everyone else is either gone or asleep—and hopefully, for Bo-Katan’s and Grogu’s sakes, well out of earshot.
When the final piece of armor clatters ceremoniously to the floor, Nova steps forward and grabs Din’s face on either side, possessive, hungry. It’s the same way he’s grabbed her since the second they first collided—with the want of someone starving, with the weight of a collapsing star. He falls into her touch, heavenstruck, possessively.
“Do you want me, Mandalorian?”
“More than I’ve ever wanted anything,” Din manages, choked and distorted. Nova strokes a thumb over his cheekbone and Din’s eyes close, committing her to memory.
“What if I told you I wanted to fuck you on the floor?”
“Fuck, Nova—”
“Or on the holotable?”
“Anywhere,” Din vows, the words thick with lust, “Maker, any way—”
“Do you trust me?”
Din’s eyes fly back open. “If you don’t know that by now,” he whispers, “I think we might have a problem.”
Nova’s smile spreads across the entirety of her face, and the giggle she lets out bubbles up in the air around them, melodic, butterfly-winged. She leans in closer, swiping her thumb across Din’s mouth. “Protect your head,” she whispers, and as his hand comes up to shelter the back of it, Nova plants her bare foot against his chest and sends him backward.
The breath knocks out of Din’s lungs. Nova waits a beat for him to recover and then slowly sinks to her knees, the ghost of that smile still flitting across her mouth. “Good boy.”
Din groans. “I thought,” he says, words ragged, “you wanted to fuck me on your throne.”
Nova shrugs, hiking the slip up as she drops her panties to her knees, straddling Din’s chest. His breath hitches in the hollow of his throat as she gets closer and closer, sliding up across the smooth marble of the floor until she’s hinged just above Din’s mouth. “Oh, baby,” she murmurs, hooking her fingers inside of his teeth and pulling his tongue free, “I am on my throne.”
Din moans so loud that Nova can feel his body beneath her spasm. She waits, the words hinging on her mouth, but he shakes his head so vehemently that his hair moves. His hands, so obediently pressed to the ground a second ago, snap to her hips, bringing her cunt down low enough that Nova can feel the hot heat of his breath blowing up into her. “Don’t you dare.”
“What?” It comes out as breathy as Din’s does.
“I’m not having just a taste,” Din says roughly, “I’m going to fucking devour you.”
Nova squirms as he brings her down closer. “I’m in charge,” she protests, but it’s so halfhearted that Din’s laugh echoes against her bare pussy as he licks a line clean up to her clit.
“Whatever you say, Mand’alor,” Din concedes, hot and wet against her, and then he sinks her all the way down.
Nova moans as she adjusts to the rhythm and warmth of Din’s mouth. It’s only been a handful of hours since the last time he went down on her, but it feels like years. He takes his time, careful with it, and until Nova adjusts to the shock of it, he takes it slow. Agonizing. The power in his tongue is unparalleled, unlike anything she’s ever felt. Her pulse thunders in her ears as Din’s grip tightens around her hips, tongue playing everywhere but her entrance.
“You’re going to leave me bruised—”
“Good,” Din growls, and the absence of his tongue for the split second it took him to say it makes the building orgasm flutter and shake just for a second. “Don’t you dare run away. Let me drink from your cunt.”
Nova’s eyes roll back in her skull. “Oh—”
Din’s tongue finds her clit again, and Nova’s whole body thunders from the impact. She reverberates as he traces it with his tongue, once, twice, three times—and she’s a goner. Nova cries out, unintelligible. He doesn’t let up, as insistent and thorough with her pussy as he is with the bounties he hunts down. Panting, Nova tries to pull away from it, every single nerve in her body firing on all cylinders, but Din grinds her down farther.
“What did I say about running?” he croons, breath hot and intense against her.
“Not—running,” Nova pants out, “fuck, Maker above—”
“Don’t pray to the Maker. I’m your god now.” When Din’s tongue finds her entrance, he thrusts up and inside of her, and Nova screams out, a far cry from a singular moan. She’d send the entire palace thundering towards the throne room if anyone was listening, but right now, the entire galaxy fades out. Nova folds in half as Din brings out another orgasm, then another, and her thighs are shaking, ruined, by the time he’s decided he’s finished, gently placing her back down against his chest.
“Holy shit,” Nova breathes.
“Something holy, that’s for sure,” Din says, lifting his chin to meet her eyes. “I meant it when I said you weren't allowed to run from me ever again.”
Through half-lidded eyes, Nova tries to catch her breath. “I wasn’t running—”
“And I wasn’t finished, Mand’alor,” Din breathes. “How could you deprive me of tasting you until I’d drained you?”
Nova grins down at him, heart pounding against her ribcage. “Drained me? I haven’t fucked you yet.”
Din raises an eyebrow, breathing ragged and uneven.
“We still need to break in the throne up there,” she says, pointing up at the beskar on top of the dais.
“We’ve broken it in,” Din murmurs, letting Nova use his hands to brace up against as she rises, shaking, to her feet. “Or do you not remember the first time I fucked you in this room?”
“Oh, I remember it,” Nova says, grinning, grasping Din’s throat in her hand as she slowly leads them backward, towards the steps to where the dais is raised. “But that was when you were Mand’alor. It’s my turn now.”
Din’s knees sag as Nova’s hand travels down the valley of his throat to the silken blue of his underclothes. Slowly, they climb up to the top, the metal glinting even in the low light. Nova lets go of Din, just for a second, to slide both straps of her slip down over her shoulders, watching as it sparkles as it drops to the floor. On the step below, Din gathers up the fabric in his hands and tosses it off the dais altogether. It’s just Nova and her star-studded halo on the throne now.
“Holy fuck,” Din says, reverently, and if Nova coulmd’t taste divinity on his lips before, she can sure as hell see it in his eyes. “You’re—perfect, Novalise.”
Nova crosses one leg over the other, and Din’s eyes travel down her naked body, ravenous. “Take your clothes off.”
He complies. In the dark, even under midnight skies, he shines. The contours of his body—memorized, well-loved—are so familiar, equally as holy as the look of love in his eyes. Din’s eyelids flutter. “I have a confession to make.”
Nova raises her eyebrows.
Slowly, he slides the waistband of his trousers to the floor. In it, though, Nova can see the wet spot there, sticky, still gleaming on his skin. “Din,” she whispers, pussy clenching, “did you cum from eating me out?”
Silently, he nods.
“Just from that?”
“I could taste you every day for the rest of our lives,” Din breathes into the hollow of her ear, bending forward until his hard cock is flush against her bare thigh, “and cum every time from that alone.”
Nova moans.
“But I’m selfish, Nova,” he whispers, “and I want to fuck you, too.”
“I’d make you beg,” Nova pants, “but I don’t have the patience.” She reaches up, grabbing him buy the neck again, and Din’s knees lock into place as Nova pulls herself off the throne and spins them around, pushing Din’s chest so he lands back against the beskar. He looks so regal here, even without the silver adorning him, especially with nothing on at all. Nova moans as he drags her forward, kicking her legs open so that she can straddle him. “Tell me you want me,” she whispers, into the open air behind them.
Everything stills. “I’ve never wanted you more,” Din manages, and then he’s thrusting up into her as Nova sinks down. Her eyes roll back in her head. Nova cries out as he ruts into her, feverish, devilish, desire coursing through his veins like he’s never fucked before.
“Din—”
“I know, sweet girl,” he murmurs, teeth sinking into her neck, “I know.”
For a moment, neither of them can speak. Nova moans, the sounds higher and higher, floating clean up through the vaulted ceiling to the stars above. On Mandalore, it’s a rare, starry night—the fog disappearing long enough for every single shining locus in the sky to hear their worship.
“I’m—yours,” Din slurs, breath hot and heavy in her ear, “fuck, Nova, I’m all—”
“Wait for me,” she pants, already cresting on the edge of her orgasm. She wanted it to last forever—the sex on their wedding night—but as Din cries out into her ear, Nova’s ready. “I’m gonna—”
“Don’t make me wait anymore,” Din growls, hips slamming into her as he pounds her, relentless, both of them unanchored and edging towards a supernova.
“Cum for me,” Nova manages, and stars above, he does. Right as he erupts, spilling hot, pearly ropes into her, Nova clenches down, and they go over the edge together. As they always do. As they always will.
And on the comedown, foreheads pressed together, the words fall from Din’s swollen lips: “We have all night for more.”
Nova grins, leaning in to press her mouth to his. “We have forever.”
They stay like that, intertwined together, bodies hinged into a two-headed animal, until both Nova and Din can catch their breath. Finally, with a disentanglement of limbs, clothes collected off the floor, Din holds out his arm.
“Let me take you to bed, Mand’alor.”
Nova laughs, low and long, her smile sleepy and eternal across her face. “Don’t think I can walk up the stairs, Mandalorian.”
Din’s arms scoop her up, collapsing her body in a roll down the middle, and Nova links her hands around his neck. “This is something newlyweds do, anyway.” He notices her furrowed eyebrows, a small laugh bubbling out of his mouth. “Carry you over the doorstep.”
“We’ve slept in this room a thousand times before, Din,” Nova whispers, but she lets herself be swept into his arms anyways, carried up the steps.
“Tradition,” he mumbles, half-asleep, and when he carries her over the vestibule of their bedroom, Nova grins up at him. It’s not a Mandalorian tradition. It’s something else entirely. “I love you,” he says, silhouetted in the moonlight. “Did you know that?”
“Vaguely,” Nova yawns, crawling into the silk of their bedsheets, settling right into the crook of Din’s arms. “You’ve given me a few hints.” He laughs out loud, an unrestricted, melodic thing, and Nova’s heart sings in her chest. “I always wanted for something more,” she whispers, against the warmth of his chest. “More meaningful, more…more like home. I don’t need to wish anymore.”
Din folds her into his arms, like he’s always done, like he always will. “It’s deeper than that word can hold,” he agrees, fading off into sleep, Nova’s heart beating in tandem with his, “but yeah, Nova. We’re both home.”
And when Nova dreams tonight, it’s with her lightsaber in one hand and her husband’s in the other. She can feel that something deeper, the eternal pulse for more, saiated, full. The people that stand next to her—Rebels and Mandalorians and Skywalkers and everything in between—they’ve become her new family. Her parents are somewhere in the great beyond, fortifying her, keeping the orange that forged her alive. There are thousands of people that have become Rebels, united in resisting all the evil that lives in the underbelly of the galaxy. This isn’t like last time. This isn’t going to plunge the universe into something insurmountable. And, sure, whatever darkness is coming—and there is a multitude of evil, murky and midnight, uncertain but forming—will be strong.
But Novalise Andromeda Maluev Djarin is stronger. And the army next to her, the people that have become her family, they know how to beat the darkness.
Pull its mouth open. Threaten it with light.
*
EPILOGUE
“You’re up early.”
Bo-Katan affixes Wedge with a tired—yet somehow still withering—stare. Earlier, after she was certain Nova and Din were done desecrating the throne room, she had snuck back into it, powering the holotable on. Everything in the room is lit up azure, that incessant, never-ending blue. “I never went to sleep.”
He smiles, but it’s fleeting, taut around the edges. The night has clouded back over, but the grey is fading into something warmer. Above them, any minute, the sun is about to rise. “What’s wrong?”
“Before the wedding,” Bo-Katan sighs, moving around the blue glare of the holotable to meet Wedge on the other side, “I went to Yavin.”
Wedge just raises a bushy eyebrow.
“I…I went to Nova’s old barracks. Where she lived with her family.”
“I know the place,” Wedge says, sadly, and Bo-Katan feels her chest squeeze, just for a second. She can’t get distracted, can’t get deterred. She wipes her exhausted eyes, trying to shake the sleep loose. “What did you find?”
“What I needed for Nova’s dress. Thread, that veil she wore. But before I left to go to Naator, Grogu would not follow me. He kept running off down the main hallway, and he refused to come back—or let me pick him up—until I followed him instead. Into a…into a war room. It looked like—”
“A ghost town.”
“Like it hadn’t been used in years, yeah.” Bo-Katan nods. “But there was a…distress signal. And I thought it was new, maybe. But all the distress signals, everything in communication—they’re all regularly rerouted to Hoth. And all of them will be rerouted here, now, to Mandalore. So this one—”
“Must have been old.”
“Stop interrupting me,” Bo-Katan snarls, and then realizes what Wedge is saying, clocks how calm his face is. Suspicious, she raises an eyebrow. “Why…why the hell aren’t you surprised?”
“I came from Hoth.”
“Yeah, Wedge. I know.” Bo-Katan sighs through her nose, a heavy smoker’s exhale. She turns around, flicking through the thousands of old Mandalorian and Rebel files on the holotable in front of her, letting Wedge filter out so she can bring up the distress call.
“I came from Hoth,” Wedge repeats, watching Bo-Katan carefully as she taps out her password on the holotable, trying to bring the distress call up, “where I ran into General Syndulla.”
“Mhm,” Bo-Katan says, half listening, still running through the archives.
“She told me about this Star Destroyer.”
Bo-Katan rolls her eyes. “Who gives a fuck about a Star Destroyer, Wedge, there’s a million of them. Did she give you an identifying number—”
“Bo-Katan—”
“Yeah. Quite frankly, I don’t need the identifying number right now. I need you to hear this distress call—”
“Bo-Katan, listen to me—”
“Wedge, just shut up—”
“General Kryze!” Wedge yells, and both Wedge yelling and using her formal title is so wildly out of character that Bo-Katan shuts up and listens. “I spoke to General Syndulla. On Hoth. About a missing Star Destroyer.”
Bo-Katan’s eyes narrow. Her heartbeat picks up, rapidly, dizzying. “Did you say—”
“General Syndulla. A missing Star Destroyer. Are you listening to me?”
And suddenly, with the force of a tractor beam, Bo-Katan realizes her and Wedge are talking about the exact same thing. “You don’t need to listen to the distress call,” she whispers, slowly, as everything snaps into place, “because you don’t need the identifying number.”
Wedge nods. “It’s the Chimera. It’s back.”
Bo-Katan stares from Wedge to the holotable, then back at Wedge. Silently, suddenly awake, she slides her helmet back on. “Wedge,” Bo-Katan says, her voice ringing out even and clear, “someone needs to wake up the Mand’alor.”
*
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*
I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!! i'm so, SO sorry that it took me ~3 months to give you this final chapter. i was in the hospital for the fourth time this year, had multiple work-related breakdowns, had to have surgery (again), dealt with more UTIs (again), and have not been by best self. my 2022 started out with sepsis and nearly dying, and truthfully, i've been fighting tooth and nail for almost a full year now to fully come back from it. i've been emotionally, mentally, and physically unable to write for so much of this year, and it's devastated me. i haven't felt like myself in a very long time, but slowly writing this final chapter allowed the parts of me that i'm proudest of to shine through again. i'm so sorry for being so wishy-washy and disappearing and always having an end-of-the-world excuse every time i've popped back up on the map. it's been so hard. i don't want to spend forever lamenting, but just know that Something Deeper is such an integral part of me, and the reason why its been gone is inexplicably tied to why i've been gone. you all mean the absolute world to me. thank you so much for caring, for your loyalty, and for being so wonderful to me and my chronically ill body every step of the way. this chapter is a love letter to you. you mean more than i could ever put into words, but i promise i'll keep trying.
today marks my 26th birthday, but it also marks 2 years of Nova becoming Novalise instead of a self insert. she was always there, fully formed—i just uncovered her as i kept writing. since her conception, Nova was something more, and for two years now, i’ve gotten to share her with the world. so happy birthday to me and to my Supernova—the girl who kept me alive long after the light left. thank you for sharing her with me, and for loving her—it means more than i could ever say. ✨💛
WARNINGS: predator/prey dynamic, explicit sexual content
SUMMARY: “I,” Nova levels, voice a hell of a lot steadier than she feels right now, “am reigning Mand’alor, Jedi in training, Rebel royalty, and Her Highness Pilotess of the Outer Rim. You may be the bounty hunter, Mandalorian, but I’ve got power. This is going to be a fair fight.”
“Oh, Nova,” Din sighs, sliding his hand up her waist, her arm, to her neck, fingers closing so gently around her throat, light and restrained. “I don’t want to fight you. I want to fuck you. And even when I give you a head start, that’s all I’m going to think about. I will chase you down across Naator, I will find you, and then I will destroy you in every way you’ve been begging for.”
If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3
AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLOOOOO EVERYONE AND HAPPY SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY!! i apologize a million times for the wait but i hope this chapter, in its 16,000+ word glory, makes it up to you ;)
Nova’s heart flips, skips a beat, and then hammers. The flood of adrenaline is in her ears, the static dizzying and disconcerting. She swallows, shaking her head, trying to make sure she heard Din right. “You want me to run?”
Din nods. There’s something dangerous in the depths of his eyes. It’s like fire is looking for a place to catch, and he’s just lit the wick. “We’ll make it even. We’ll go on Kicker. And when we touch down, I’ll give you a head start. You’re going to run, Novalise. For the last time.”
Nova swallows. “You—you want me to run?” It’s the same sentence that she managed before, but higher and breathier. Everything sounds utterly distorted. “You still haven’t forgiven me from the last time I ran, Din. And now you’re—what, giving me permission?”
“I’m leveling the playing field.”
Nova stares. Din stares back. There’s no mirth in his voice, nothing to indicate he’s joking. Or being sarcastic. Nova doesn’t think he has the capacity for either, not with this. But she studies him, trying to analyze every single breath out of his lungs, the way his mouth shapes around the words. “You think that if you let me go,” she starts, “that I’ll come back to you?”
It doesn’t come out like she wants to—in sheer disbelief, not in challenge—but it doesn’t matter, because Din nods. Immediately. “I know you will.”
Nova gapes at him. Acutely, she feels the bark of the tree against the thin fabric of her clothes, the sounds of the people gathered just around the corner, the way the forest barely shields them. She’s drowning in Din, the way she wants to, the way she needs to, filling up on his oxygen because he’s already taken his own. “Din—”
“But let me make something very clear,” he says, and his gaze drops to the shape of her lips. “This will be the last time you run from me, Novalise. You are going to run, and you’re going to try to keep me at bay for as long as you can, but I will find you. This is what I do. This is who I am. And I know where you’d hide. I know where you’d go. I could find you in a galaxy neither of us have been to. I could find you in death.” He presses closer. Nova’s breath hitches in her throat. “If it hadn’t been for Sparmau taking us both, I would have beat you to Yavin.” Din’s mouth dips down to the hollow of her throat. His tongue lashes out and licks her, and Nova gasps as the cool air swallows up the place where his lips just were. “You think you can evade me?”
“You’re…” Nova swallows. She can hear how close the villagers are. Everything inside of her body is running molten and in flames. Wet, hot warmth seeps from between her legs, every single nerve inside of her body a live wire. Her heart is still arrhythmic. She meets Din’s eyes. “You’re terrifying.”
A slow, dangerous smile cracks across his face. Nova bites her bottom lip. “You’re scared of me, cyar’ika?”
“No,” Nova says, forcefully. “I mean, as a bounty hunter. You’re…inescapable.”
Din leans in, pressing his mouth to hers. Before Nova’s knees get weak at the kiss, Din’s hand snakes out and grasps the base of her throat. He squeezes. Not hard enough to do anything except show her he’s there, that he could. But it doesn’t feel threatening. Nova feels alive, like everything inside of her has finally awoken. “Don’t you dare fucking forget it.”
Nova looks up at him through half-lidded eyes. Here, he towers over her, pressing her back into the tree. “You’re forgetting something,” she whispers, barely audible over the ambient sound of the forest.
Din raises a thick eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“I lived another life before I met you,” Nova says, slowly lifting her chin. “I became an expert in hiding in plain sight. Naator isn’t Coruscant. It’s built like my home.” She lets her tongue slide out, catching a glimmer in Din’s eyes as he stares at her open mouth. “There were times on Yavin when my parents sent the whole base out looking for me. I didn’t get lost. I wasn’t deep in the trenches. I was right there.” She swallows. “I’m an expert in running, but I’m pretty damn good at hiding, too.”
Din’s hand catches under her chin, and Nova pulls back into his orbit—intentionally, teetering on the edge of forceful. But the only thing it does is explode heat deep in her stomach, heartbeat quickening with excitement rather than fear. “I’m an expert in finding.”
“You’ll find me when I want you to find me.”
“I’ll find you, and when I do, I’m going to fuck that cocky little attitude right out of you.”
It makes Nova feel fluttery, weak, like willing prey—but she doesn’t show it. She clenches her jaw, rolling back her shoulders, pushing off the tree trunk. Din’s large—towering, all-consuming, especially in the armor—but she’s mighty. “I’d love to see you try.”
She sneaks out under an opening in his arm, hurtling through his grasp. He’s quick, determined, but Novalise Djarin has all the power of Andromeda Maluev, and when caught off guard, Din is no match. She grins, fleeing back into the firelight, flushed and out of breath. When he reappears, Bo-Katan gives both of them a sickened look, but as Nova rejoins the stragglers, the remaining group of people gathered around the pyre, she catches a tiny smile in the corner of Bo-Katan’s mouth.
“You disgust me.”
“Hey, Bo-Katan,” Nova says, the words falling out of her mouth, colliding with Bo-Katan’s pride thinly disguised as annoyance, “I know it’s not the way of Mandalore, but will you be my maid of honor?”
Bo-Katan’s mouth falls open, gaping. Grogu squeals from her lap. He looks gleefully between Nova and Bo-Katan, big bug eyes lit up as bright as the flames dancing in front of them. “I just insulted you.”
Nova shrugs, unfazed. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
Bo-Katan studies her. “I thought—” Her voice catches, as if she’s suddenly unsure. “I thought you wanted me to be your officiant.”
“I do,” Nova says, low and earnest. “But I want you to be my maid of honor, too. You don’t need to do anything else. Just a title. But an important one.”
Bo-Katan blinks, and it’s like something softens. Not just around the edges, like how she usually does, but like she’s eschewing something cold and dark with it. “Yes,” she answers quietly. “Of course I will.” Her hand finds Nova’s, and she squeezes down hard.
“Good.” Nova swallows the emotion bubbling up. “But I have another favor to ask first.”
Bo-Katan sighs. “What is it?”
Hours later, after the pyre has burnt out, after the stars are in full shine, the moon hanging serenely across the celestial splashtop of Sorgan’s skies, the group has whittled back down to the Rebels and Mandalorians and Skywalkers. They’re gathered around the fire, sharing in the quiet of the night, watching as the smoke trails back up into the heavens. Nova can feel the weight of missing Cara, the heaviness of it, but it feels like something has shifted back into place. The grief, while still lodged in the pit of her stomach, isn’t a knot anymore—it just exists, constant and tumbling.
“She would have liked this,” Din murmurs finally, breaking the silence. “I know…I know she’d hate that we were still here, instead of fighting the next enemy, but Cara would have loved this.” His voice is rough, and Nova’s hand finds his gloved one, lacking her fingers through his. No one needs to speak their assent out loud, though, because they’re all in agreement. Cara would have loved this. And Cara would be gearing right up for their next fight alongside them.
Luke and Leia exchange a look—knowing, with trepidation. Nova knows it immediately, because it clenches in her stomach, too, the part of her that’s connected to something deeper, but none of them speak it aloud. Danger is coming, yes, with darkness to follow, but there’s time. Whoever they are, however strong they’re standing, Mandalore is resolute, resounding. And its people—Mandalorians, Rebels, and Jedi alike—are standing tall, a multi-headed animal, ready to beat it all back.
“What are you thinking, rebel girl?” Wedge calls across the clearing. He’s right next to Luke—his orange clad thigh flush against Luke’s black pants—and Nova bites back a smile at the two of them, still orbiting each other, after all this time.
“I’m thinking,” Nova says, “that I know what comes next.”
Fennec raises a sharp eyebrow. Leia takes a half-step forward. Boba’s face hasn’t changed, but his stature stiffens. Bo-Katan is flashing a rare, smug smile. Nova doesn't need to look at her to prove it. It hangs in the air.
“I think we need something joyful before the war calls us back,” Nova says, trying and failing to stifle her own grin. “Din and I are having a wedding. A real one. On Naator, in five days. Please join us.”
Grogu squeals. Wedge’s smile is so brilliant, it could light up the entire forest. Leia’s eyes shine with sadness and excitement. Luke looks thrilled. Karga, who’s been standing in the background, gives a jovial laugh and clap, shaking the ground. Even Boba and Fennec are smiling.
“Good call,” Wedge says, coming over to embrace both of them, tears shining in the back of his eyes. “We need something more than all this darkness.” And even now, even after all the death and loss and grief, he’s right.
Everyone makes their way to their ships long after the fire has gone cold. Luke and Leia leave in the Falcon, but not before they pull Nova into a bone-crushing hug. “We’ll come,” she promises. “We’ll be there. Five days.” They take off first, that iconic blue blaze shooting through the sky, and then they’re gone.
Boba and Fennec are already in Slave I. Karga is buckled up somewhere in the backseat. Koska is long asleep. Bo-Katan stands outside of the gangplank, arms still wrapped around Grogu. “You trust me with him?”
Nova nods. “There’s no one else I trust more.”
Din scoffs behind her, but Nova can hear the joke in it. Bo-Katan fixes him with a sour look. “Five days is a long time to keep him entertained. Or fed. Mandalore doesn't have frogs, Novalise.”
“That is,” Din sighs, “for the best.” He leans over, plucking Grogu out of Bo-Katan’s lithe arms. “You be good,” he warns, waggling a gloved finger in Grogu’s face. “No crimes. Your aunt isn’t as forgiving as we are. She’ll put you to work.”
Bo-Katan’s face holds the shine of pride. “I mean it, kid. There are rules you have to follow on Mandalore.”
Grogu makes an affronted noise, and Nova leans down to press a kiss to his soft, warm, green forehead. He reaches out a three-fingered hand to her temple, and Nova pulls away before it’s fully realized. Just flashes. Not urgent ones, nothing dangerous. The good kind, the sweet blips of life she wants to live in forever. When Slave I finally pulls away, the excitement, running wild through Nova’s veins, returns with a vengeance. She turns to face Din, heart thumping quicker and quicker, flame running rampant through her body.
“So.”
Din doesn’t say anything, just watches her intently.
“How much of a head start are you giving me?”
He steps forward. “It doesn’t matter.”
Nova narrows her eyes, smile spreading slow and steady across her face. “You really think you’re gonna win, don’t you?”
Din studies her carefully, dark eyes sparking up with lust, with hunger, and Nova lets herself be pinned under his stare. “I told you once there’s no place you could hide from me. I know you, cyar’ika.”
At this, Nova moves forward, one step closer to his entire armored body. It reminds her so much of the first time they met, back before she knew the man under the Mandalorian, back before she had fallen in love, when her life was darker and sporadic and hidden. Even without all the beskar, Din makes her utterly shine. Nova’s never felt anything like his gravitational pull. And when she’s here, magnetic, stuck to it, she can’t remember anything before it.
“And I know you, Mandalorian, she whispers, voice charged. “I know where you’d go. I know your habits. I know which dark alleys you go down. I know the way you feel when I’m a million parsecs away. Don’t be so sure you’re going to win.”
Din’s on her in a flash, body colliding with Nova’s. It makes her stagger backward, lost in the sheer magnitude of his body, his grip, his face, his mouth slotted against her own. She doesn’t have time to inhale before he’s sucking the very air from her lungs, piercing something deep down inside of her that hasn’t belonged to her in years. She’s caught herself in this endless, voracious love. It keeps her steady even as it invades her. Nova’s dizzy on it, even now, even after all this time.
When he pulls away, Nova leans into it, both of them stumbling, drunk on it. The thrill of it keeps shooting through Nova’s stomach, pink lipstick staining Din’s mouth. “We’re going now,” he says roughly, pulling her towards Kicker.
Nova yelps as she’s dragged behind, running for a few steps until she’s steady on her feet, Din’s hand clenched around hers, vicelike and determined. “Why?”
He stops. Nova doesn’t. The momentum sends her sailing towards Kicker’s outer structure, reinforced in bright orange paint that blares out even in total darkness. She careens into the wall, but Din catches her, the centrifugal force of his body keeping her in place. The cold metal of Kicker presses against Nova’s hot neck, and she gasps until Din’s mouth is hovering an inch away from hers again. Every cell in her body is so, so alive.
“Because if we don’t leave right now,” he says, his voice low and gravelly and dangerous, “I will not let you go. I will keep you here until I’ve fucked the fight out of both of us, and we will miss our own wedding. Get on the ship, Novalise.”
Nova falls into the gravity, over and over, stars exploding in the back of her eyes. She can’t get her feet to kick up and move until the weight of Din’s words settle into her veins like fire, and then she’s moving, running up the ladder, igniting Kicker back to life, and setting course for the Mid Rim.
*
It feels like magic to be back in Kicker. Din is strapped into the copilot’s seat. Nova could put her ship into autopilot, but she knows she needs the distraction. If she didn’t hold tight to the controls with both of her hands, they would be all over Din, and she’d forget to put the nav system on, and they’d outshoot the Mid Rim by parsecs entirely. And, besides, even if she wasn’t actively trying to keep herself distracted, Nova wants to hold Kicker up in the skies again. She’s beautiful, an entire disaster, this ship. Lovingly, Nova runs her hands over the dashboard, the control, everything that she missed when Kicker was grounded.
Home may now be on Mandalore, but there’s home here, too. Nova watches over Din in the pilot seat, helmetless and beautiful, catching a rare moment of deep sleep. His mouth is parted slightly. She can see his tongue in the cavern of his mouth. His eyelashes flutter every once in a while, like he’s caught in the netting of a dream. He’s strapped in, pieces of armor discarded across the pathway up to the hull, and Nova watches him as the ship hurtles through hyperspace.
She traces the tips of her fingers over the controls, worn down from years of use. Kicker belonged to someone else before it was hers, years and years of love written into a starfighter that was made for war. The last X-Wing she had, she had crashed unceremoniously to the surface of Nevarro. It was dilapidated and ran into the ground long before that became its final resting place. She’d grown up in the cockpits of X-Wings, of Rebel starfighters on the base, and Nova could fly one in her sleep. She flew one half in death. It’s familiar, always—that blueprint, the shape of it—but Kicker feels like hers, unequivocally.
Smiling, Nova settles into her seat, bringing her knee up close to her chest. She watches, silently, as Din inhales and exhales, remembering the time he took her to Kashyyyk and tried to get Nova to shoot him out of the sky. It was glorious, the thrill of it, being back in a starfighter again, letting muscle memory take over. Nova relives it, the whole day, down to her bones. How sure Din was that he was going to win. How hard he was when she did indeed shoot him out of the sky.
“What are you smiling about?”
Nova blinks, startled out of her reverie. But that slow, easy smile spreads itself back across her face as she looks over at Din, sleepy-eyed and gravelly-voiced. “How certain you were that you could evade me on Kashyyyk.”
“And you shot the Crest down,’” Din says, the same grin reciprocated on his face. “Like it was nothing.”
Nova tucks a lock of rogue hair behind her ear. Din watches her carefully, tracing her every move. “I could do that in my sleep,” she taunts, lowering her voice to something huskier and addicting. “You better be prepared for a fair fight, Din Djarin.”
Din’s eyes flash. He leans in closer. “Oh, Novalise,” he sighs, skating his gloved fingers over her thigh, “I didn’t want to evade you. That was just the lie I told you so I could get to fucking you quicker.”
Nova narrows her eyes, trying to keep composure. Her heart is knocking up a storm on the left side of her chest. “You better be prepared to concede in the possibility that I win.”
Din shifts, moving his face closer and closer to Nova’s. She can’t hear anything but the thrush of blood pumping through her veins. It’s dizzying, being this close to him again, with the promise of electricity in the place of sheer anger. It’s making her drunk. She inhales, carefully, to try to steady herself.
Din moves his hand up higher on Nova’s thigh. Novalise is unable to steady herself. He tips in closer to her, lips hovering an inch over her ear, and chills explode down her spine. “You might be able to keep me at bay, Novalise,” he breathes, “but you haven’t seen me stalking my prey.”
Nova gulps. “You think I’m your prey?”
Din nods. Nova can hear the rustle of his movement, relishing on his hot breath on the side of his neck. “I’m a bounty hunter, cyar’ika,” he simpers, sickly sweet, “it’s what I do.”
“I,” Nova levels, voice a hell of a lot steadier than she feels right now, “am reigning Mand’alor, Jedi in training, Rebel royalty, and Her Highness Pilotess of the Outer Rim. You may be the bounty hunter, Mandalorian, but I’ve got power. This is going to be a fair fight.”
“Oh, Nova,” Din sighs, sliding his hand up her waist, her arm, to her neck, fingers closing so gently around her throat, light and restrained. “I don’t want to fight you. I want to fuck you. And even when I give you a head start, that’s all I’m going to think about. I will chase you down across Naator, I will find you, and then I will destroy you in every way you’ve been begging for.”
Nova gulps.
“You asked me,” Din whispers, licking a line up the right side of Nova’s neck, “back in our bedroom, if I wanted to hunt you. I told you that when I wanted to hunt you, you’d know.” He quiets for a moment, and then his grip tightens. Everything inside of Nova unhinges. She can feel the warmth coursing through her body, threatening to flood out from between her legs, but she holds on, refusing to give into another orgasm before she can give it to him, too. “Do you know now, cyar’ika?”
Kicker crashes out of the sky.
As usual, it’s a bit of a rocky landing. Nova grins as Kicker punches on the way down. Even under her expert grip, the ship still puts up a fight. It’s greedy, like it can’t be grounded fast enough. She’s strangely proud of it, the way Kicker misbehaves. That even the star mechanic on Tatooine couldn’t wrangle her beloved ornery X-Wing into place. Kicker’s a Rebel, too.
The descent to the planet’s surface has Nova’s adrenaline back up. Both of them slept through the night, or at least as much of the night as they could. It’s dawn on Naator, and the usually faded pink sky is nearly magenta. It casts the planet’s atmosphere into a hazy glow, hanging over Nova, Din, and Kicker. It’s invigorating, the sweetness of the air, the yellow leaves dancing down from the perennial trees. They cover the ground in swathes, shining golden in the sky’s bright light. Nova swallows as she looks around, heart wanting wistfully to just stay here, at the little cabin they have to call home someday, get in bed with Din, and not get out.
But that’s not why they’re here.
When Din follows Nova down the ladder and onto Naator’s beautiful surface, she can feel him. The hair on the back of her neck stands up in equal parts electricity and longing. Nova doesn’t need the helmet to track him, to know where Din goes, to categorize his every movement. For a regular bounty, sure, they’re hunted, stalked like prey. But as much as Nova might want to be, she knows that she has something Din doesn’t, even with all of his fancy technology—the Force. That’s all hers. She swallows, turning around to face him.
He’s fully outfitted in armor. Nova has to actively try to keep her breathing steady, and when he cocks his head at her, Nova knows he sees it. Din doesn’t say a single thing, just stares at her in silence, hanging onto her every movement, tracking her with eyes she cannot see.
It feels, just for a second, a fraction of a moment, the same way that Din was when Nova first met him. Not Din Djarin, the man she knows and loves, the man who married her in the darkness of her X-wing, the man who wants to remarry her here, the man who showed her his face, the man who broke his Creed for her, the man who loves her—the Mandalorian. A myth, maybe, a legend, definitely. The top bounty hunter in Nevarro’s Guild, respected and feared across all of the Outer Rim. And he’s here, standing in front of her, with a vow to hunt her, find her, and catch her.
It’s thrilling. It’s terrifying. Nova wants him so badly she can’t breathe.
“What are you thinking about?”
You, Nova wants to scream, but she doesn’t. Instead, she raises her chin. “Ground rules,” she says instead, and Din moves enough for her to know he’s processing it. “You have a whole suit of fancy armor, with built in tracking technology. I have my own wits.”
“You have the Force,” Din counters, and Nova grins. “You can sense every living thing, me included. No suit of armor or operating technology is any match for that. No deal.”
“You do think that you might not have the upper hand.”
“I think,” Din says slowly, moving closer to where her feet are rooted to the ground, “that you’re a good match for me. I didn’t say I think you’re going to win.”
Nova sighs. “What else?”
Din’s silent for a moment, but when he speaks, it’s slightly more gravelly than it was before. “No ships.”
A knowing smile spreads across Nova’s face. “You don’t think I’m going to really run, do you?”
“No,” Din enunciates, “but I also where my strengths are, and with only one ship between the two of us, a ship that seems to only listen to you, you’d obliterate me before the twenty-four hours are up.”
Nova raises an eyebrow. Din cocks his head. “So, this twenty-four hours. Is that including my head start?”
Din nods. “I’ll wait for three. I’ll stay at the cabin. I won’t follow you. I won’t know what direction you’re heading in.”
“So you’re not going to have the full twenty-four hours to find me?”
Nova can’t see Din’s face, but she can hear the cocky grin in his voice through the modulator. “I don’t need the full twenty-four hours.”
“I say,” Nova proposes, closing the distance between them, shoe dragging through the canopy of yellow leaves on the ground, “that when I win, you’ll have to fuck me on my throne.”
She can hear Din swallow. It’s audible, even through the vocoder. She bites down on her bottom lip, and he sighs, long and languid. “Whatever my Mand’alor wants.”
“Your Mand’alor is going to run from you now,” Nova says sweetly, reaching up to stroke Din’s helmeted cheek. “And when she wins, you’ll be eating your words.”
“One more thing,” Din says, hand flying up to capture Nova’s wrist, keeping it anchored against where it’s pressing against his helmet. “Keep your comm on. I deactivated the tracker linked to mine and the honing beacon in Kicker. But I want you to be able to call me. If you need to.”
Nova narrows her eyes. “You’re not lying about disconnecting them, right?”
Even hidden under the helmet, Din looks affronted. “I’m not a cheater. Even when I’m hunting down a bounty, I fight fair.”
“Comm on,” Nova repeats, stroking her thumb over where his cheekbone would be. “You got it.”
“If there’s trouble,” Din warns, his voice dropping in volume and tone, “you hail me. Immediately. If you have a vision of Sparmau—or whoever’s not Sparmau. If Ezra…pops into your reality. If someone from the First Order shows up. If—”
“Din.”
“Yeah?”
“I learned my lesson,” Nova whispers, willing his covered eyes to meet hers. “I’m not going to try and fight an entire war on my own anymore. If something bad happens, I’ll let you know. I know my word doesn’t…mean as much anymore, but I swear to you on every single star above that I will call you.”
Din doesn’t speak for a moment. When he does, the words hold volumes. “I’m believing you.”
Nova leans forward to press her lips over where the outline of Din’s mouth should be. He releases her wrist, he moves forward to hold her for a fraction of a second, and then he’s letting her go. He moves away first, heading into the tiny cottage, locking the door behind him, drawing all the curtains. Nova watches him disappear as panic sets in.
“Shit,” she mumbles under her breath, “Where do I go?”
The entire trip there, all Nova was thinking about was the aftermath. Her and Din colliding, over and over, celestial and eternal. The way he’d feel inside of her after weeks that have felt like centuries apart, and maybe, just maybe, his forgiveness in the hollow of her mouth. She didn’t think for a second about a game plan, where she’d go. Even when she was teasing Din about evading him, about winning, she wasn’t scheming. She looks forlornly at Kicker, like maybe her stubborn starfighter will give her a suggestion, or maybe a wish that she could jump back on and get in the sky, but Nova’s not a cheater either. She could just sit out here, in the wide open, and wait for Din’s three hours to be up, but she’d never hear the end of it.
With one last look at Kicker and the cottage, Nova turns on her heel. The pinkness of the sky has reduced in intensity, but it’s still morning. She wants to head back into the trees where she and Din walked together when they were first here, but that would be a dead giveaway. Din said he could find her in death. He could easily find her lost in a memory.
Instead, Nova turns in the other direction. There’s a vast field of wildflowers, some of them sprouting up to the height of trees, and she decides that’s the best place to go. The cottage is hidden by the trees and the yellow leaves, but beyond the forest, there’s nowhere else to go. Just miles of rolling fields until the mountains gather up into tall peaks in the distance.
As she moves through the first line of flowers, the smell of them floats up to greet her. Nova forces herself to keep pushing, keep moving, because if the scent of forsythias and freesia and lilies wasn’t distracting enough, the breeze that tickles the petals as it passes makes her feel like peace is possible here.
“You know,” Nova whispers to herself, “maybe the First Order and whoever Sparmau warned me about wouldn’t be so keen to kill me if they just came to Naator.” A breeze tousles the flowers as she moves through them, deeper and deeper into the tangles of stems and trunks, and Nova giggles. It’s impossible to imagine Sparmau relaxed. She’s only met Ben Solo as a scowling, sharp-eyed kid, but from the premonitions and visions she’s seen of him as Kylo Ren, she can’t imagine him relaxed either. Gideon, before he got the Darksaber plunged through his chest by Bo-Katan herself, was the opposite of relaxed. Strangely calm, sometimes, but with a raging temper and evil calamity.
But, Nova muses, moving thicker and thicker into the field of wildflowers, Bo-Katan might have a lovely vacation here someday. If Nova could ever convince her to leave Mandalore for longer than a mission. Bo-Katan would be forced to enjoy the wildflowers and the scent of them in the wind. Bo-Katan would begrudgingly trek through the yellow leaves alongside Nova and Grogu if she asked really nicely. Bo-Katan would, at the very least, love the sunset against the pink sky, seeing the whole world lit up in something other than Mandalore blue.
Nova doesn’t pay much attention to the thinning of the flowers until she’s on the other side. One second, she’s thigh-deep in stems, the next, she’s stepping onto a grassy knoll. Startled, she trips over herself, and when she looks up, she’s on the other side.
“Oh no,” Nova says, heart sinking, realizing her mistake. Behind her is the very clear and determined path of where someone trudged and tramped through an entire field of flowers. She sighs, squinting up at the sun. “I may have been talking a big game for someone who’s good at running, but never actually succeeded at staying hidden.”
And then, right on cue, as if the universe plucked Novalise from a star and chose to grant her one wish, the same breeze that carried the flowers through the air rips across the knoll, over the plains, and through the field, disguising the fact that anyone had been there at all.
Nova blinks.
“Well,” she says, out loud, “thank you, Naator.”
She keeps moving.
*
Three hours later, Nova’s made it through the field of wildflowers, over the bigger plains, and is at the base of the mountain. She stops, exhausted, taking a swig of the water strapped to her back, trying to catch her breath. The comm crackles to life as she perches on a boulder, and she lets out a small yelp, looking behind her to ensure Din isn’t there already.
“You far away?”
Nova smiles. “Not telling you.”
The telltale chuckle through the modulator sends Nova’s stomach reeling yet again. “Good girl.”
“The jury’s still out on that one,” Nova says, taking another sip of water. She’s under the treeline, barely hidden by the brush and fallen leaves. The forest over here isn’t encased in yellow—they’re big, sprawling willows with leaves shaped like teardrops. A breeze, the same one that rippled through the field, spurs her on, encouraging her to keep going. “Where are you?”
“On your trail.”
Nova makes sure the comm falls flat, looking around for anything significant enough to hear across the line. There’s a tiny stream that runs through the rocks, but it’s nothing significant, nothing loud enough for her to hear. Songbirds swoop up through the trees and across rosy skies, but their chirps can be heard here and the forest near their cottage, so Nova doesn’t think they’re a dead giveaway. She’s not wearing her usual boots with their telltale tracks, either—the ones she brought to Sorgan are sleeker, the bottom less detailed. “Your three hours were just up,” she says, checking the tiny watch built into the comm on her wrist, “two minutes ago. You can’t be on my trail yet.”
She can hear the smile in Din’s voice. “Can’t I?”
“You can’t get into my head, Mandalorian.”
Din sighs, low and charged. “No,” he concedes, “just other things.”
Nova hops off the rock. “I’m running again.”
“Okay, cyar’ika,” Din says, voice dropping, “I’ll see you soon.”
Equal parts scared and thrilled, Nova jumps to her feet, leaving the rock behind. She loves the water, so she’s tempted to follow Naator’s tiny babbling brook wherever it leads, but she knows Din will clock that from klicks away. So she keeps moving deeper into the forest, keeping track as the weeping willows transform into thicker, deeper oaks, ones similar to the woods on Kashyyyk. At the top of the mountains that surround the area, ice juts like skyscrapers into the sky, but right here, the weather is temperate. Warm enough to not need a jacket, but the breeze is tinged with the feeling of fall. It might be the only planet in the Mid Rim that actually has seasons.
Deeper and deeper she goes, careful not to step into any mud or make dents on mossy grasses to indicate she’s going this way. She had stretched the truth for Din a little earlier—Nova did indeed once go into the forest and send the whole base on her tracks when she lived on Yavin, but she wasn’t right at the treeline. She had followed a butterfly into the forest, one that glowed violet like the bioluminescent flowers that lined the trees, and she got so entrenched in the woods that she couldn’t even remember which way she came from.
“Nova.”
Nova whirls around, hand on the lightsaber hanging from her waist, ready to ignite the yellow blade, but there’s nothing there. No person. No vision. No Din speaking to her via comm. She blinks, turning around and around, making sure there’s nothing lurking in the trees, but Naator stays as silent and serene as ever. She sheathes the lightsaber back into her belt, moving deeper and deeper into the tangled forest, trying to shake the sound of her name free.
She’s lost track of time when she reaches the clearing. It’s a perfect circle, carved into a thick ring of trees. If she hadn’t stumbled straight into it, Nova would never have known it existed. Grass and flowers grow in the middle, and when Nova peeks out at the pink sky, the sun is high. Orange and nearly iridescent, it hides behind clouds, changing the green interior of the forest into something much warmer. It’s beautiful. It looks almost like it’s been carved from a memory, one Nova knows exists but is obscured by something else entirely.
Carefully, gingerly, Nova steps forward.
“Novalise.”
Again, she whirls around, this time the lightsaber flying out of its pouch and into her outstretched hand like a reflex, and again, there’s nothing there. No birds, no forest creatures, no light on her comm, no visions in her head.
“I’m going crazy,” Nova whispers, and for the first time since she got here, to this beautiful safe haven that feels like home, she can feel the darkness creeping up her spine. It infiltrates, hissing and licking as it grips her tighter, luring her back into fear. “Am I going crazy?” she asks, a little louder, talking to Naator itself. This planet feels sentient in a way that humanity doesn’t. It pulls her back from the edge.
“Nova.”
This time, it comes from the comm. Nova swallows, falling relieved into the patch of green grass. The salmon skies sing warmth across her skin. “Having trouble finding me, Mandalorian?”
“Never.”
Nova smiles, wanting to lay down here in this patch of grass and flowers, and sleep some of her trek away. And then, as the warmth of the meadow cals to her, threatening to caress her into dreamland entirely, she jolts awake. Din’s voice sounds weird.
“Din,” she says slowly, “where are you?”
“Like I’d tell you,” he says, but he sounds muffled. Like he’s standing near something…rushing. Not a waterfall. Naator doesn’t have waterfalls. It doesn’t have an ocean, or a river, or anything bigger than the stream she walked by a few hours back. Nova’s eyes dart back and forth, trying to put her finger on it. A really strong wind? Laying close to the brook to distort his voice?
And then it hits her. Din isn’t at a waterfall. Din is in his full suit of armor, made of Mandalorian beskar and steel, and included in that impenetrable fortress is his jetpack.
“Hey!” Nova yells, scrambling off the grass, raking through it with her fingers to obscure any trace of her being there, running back under the canopy of the forest, “you said no flying!”
Din laughs, and it still sounds like a miracle, even when it’s muffled by the rush of the air. Nova’s still panicked at the knowledge that he’s airborne, but she can’t fight the smile off of her face either. “I said no ships,” Din clarifies, and Nova darts through trees and brush and rocks to get deeper and deeper into the forest. “If you’d worn your Mandalorian armor, you could be flying, too.”
“This isn’t fighting fair,” Nova whispers, trying to keep her voice level. Din was right. He probably could have given her a full twelve hour head start and still be right on her tracks the second he started. She’s crashing through the underbrush, not focused on anything in particular except staying hidden. “Low blow.”
“You could just let me catch you.”
Nova blows the hair out of her eyes. It’s knotted in a braid that hangs down her back, but the curls that frame her face fell out somewhere back before the forest. “You should know by now,” she says, vaulting over a boulder, “that I don’t give up that easily.”
“C’mon, sweet girl,” Din croons through the modulator, and it takes all of the strength in Nova’s body to not turn around and catapult back into his arms, “you know you want to.”
“I’ve waited this long,” Nova manages, through gritted teeth, “I can wait a little more.”
The whoosh of flying through air halts, and Nova keeps moving, refusing to be distracted by it. Carefully, she looks upward, scanning the sky through the trees, but she doesn’t see her Mandalorian in beskar, no pink light glinting off the silver. “Are you sure?”
“Do you play with all of your bounties like this?” Nova asks, moving deeper into the mossy brush, landing on her toes to hide full footprints.
“I’ve never needed to,” Din answers. “They don’t want me to catch them. You, on the other hand…”
“Goodbye,” Nova sings into the comm, undeterred and melodic. She powers it down, smiling, trying to get her racing heart to settle down. Without Din’s voice invading her rational mind, it’s much easier to think. She does so easily and effortlessly, clearing her head like she does when she’s using the Force—letting everything run out of her backward.
She’s not anywhere she recognizes. She knows that when she darted back into the forest, away from the familiar circular meadow, she was heading toward the base of one of the mountains. By the way the sun’s hanging in the sky, Nova can calculate that she’s been running for about five hours. Maybe six. She’s starving, and she didn’t think to bring food with her. Scanning the forest floor, the moss jumps up at her again. Beyond the moss, there are tiny violets swaying in the breeze that never seems to hold still, and beyond the flowers, there are ferns.
“Thank you,” Nova exhales, extending her gratitude to Naator itself, thankful that the planet’s seasons gave her a time where the fiddleheads are crisp and edible. She rushes over, plucking them from the fern’s tip, foraging until she has enough to fill her hands. The stream seems to wind out of nowhere, and Nova settles in at the tiny river’s edge, plunging her cupped hands underwater. It runs clear and beautiful, and all the dirt and debris from the forest floor runs downstream. It would be better if she could crisp them up over the fire, but she doesn't want to risk it. Smoke is a dead giveaway for anyone, let alone for a bounty hunter as experienced as Din.
For a minute, Nova just sits. Her legs are still banged up from the fight against Sparmau. Under the grey clothes she wears, leftovers from the funeral, the bruises mottle against her brown skin. They’re a strange, haunting reminder about all of it. The way they still ache, even now. The entire ordeal only took place over a week ago, and when Sparmau kidnapped Din and Bo-Katan, it was only a month before that. So much loss and devastation in such a short span of time—Sparmau’s wrath, losing Cara, letting her friends back in, seeing Ezra for the first time, getting her Kyber crystal and lightsaber, killing Sparmau, getting Din and Bo-Katan back, accidentally becoming the Mand’alor. Nova downs the last fiddlehead, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. The exhaustion seeps back in, replacing adrenaline and excitement. She could fall asleep right here. Orange sunlight streams through the cracks in the trees, and Nova yawns as she uncovers her eyes, letting everything filter back in.
A butterfly flutters above.
Nova looks at it once, twice, and then she’s hauling herself to her feet. It looks exactly like the one she followed into the wild back on Yavin, back when she was still Andromeda, back when she was still a kid. Bioluminescent and violet-blue, the hue electric against the warmth of Naator. She stares up at it.
“What are you doing here?” Nova breathes. The butterfly flutters down and encircles her head. Nova can’t tear her eyes away. It’s everything she remembers it to be—ethereal, not of this world. It gives her the same holy feeling that the Jedi Temple did, the cave on Ilum, the cathedral back on Jedha. She lifts her fingers up to the butterfly, coaxing it down against her skin. Novalise rephrases ehr earlier question. “What are you?”
The butterfly doesn’t respond. It does land in the outstretched palm of her hand, though. Nova feels warmth, then nothing at all. It flaps its wings at her, lazily, gently, and then it’s taking off, moving up and down across the tree cover, and Nova abandons all reason. She follows it.
There’s no guarantee that she’s being led in the right direction. It might, in fact, be the same path that she made to get here, and this beautiful creature might be leading her right back into Din’s grasp, but Nova finds it incredibly difficult to muster up the energy to care. It doesn’t matter. The hunt, running from Din in the first place—what was she thinking? Nova abandons all reason, all feeling that she should try to stay hidden. She doesn’t want to run away. She wants to run right into his arms.
The butterfly flaps its wings harder and harder, an electric shock of color. Nova bounds over small rocks and mini mountains of moss, getting led somewhere she’s never been. Not back to the meadow. Not back to the cabin. Somewhere else entirely, the sprawl of Naator both familiar and foreign. her surrounding blur around her as Nova follows the butterfly. It drifts higher and higher, and she climbs over fallen trees and unfamiliar terrain and what could be graves, but everything is obscured in comparison to the butterfly. It flies higher and higher, eclipsing her vision, until Nova stops, whirling around and around, trying to catch sight of it again.
“No,” she whispers, turning again in desperation, and when the butterfly flits beyond the canopy of the willow and pine trees, Nova’s forced to look back down and realize where she is.
She blinks. Once, twice, three times, trying to clear her vision.
“Novalise.”
Nova turns around again, but she knows it’s useless. It’s the trees singing to her, the flowers whispering a lullaby, her own imagination. Besides the gatherings of villages on the flat surface of the planet, Naator is empty. It’s just her and this planet and the man she loves chasing after her. But this time, it’s coming from somewhere she can pinpoint.
Hand on her belt where the lightsaber and Darksaber hang, Nova moves forward, stepping gingerly across the uneven forest floor. There’s an open mouth of a cave, the gaping maw of grey rock and granite. It seems to have come out of nowhere. Nova forges forward, toward the open, jagged O hanging open, inviting her in.
“Novalise.”
Nova pushes forward. She forgets about the butterfly, of Din right on her tracks, of the time. She forges on, moving into the cave, toward what she thinks is the sound of the call. This isn’t a coincidence. It can’t be a coincidence.
She doesn’t believe in coincidences.
The cave calls to her. Like the crystal cavern on Ilum, like the cathedral on Jedha. She swallows, moving carefully across mossy rock, trying to keep moving. There’s a thrumming coming from the center. She can feel it—not hear it—feel it, like it’s coursing through her veins, consuming her very soul. Deeper and deeper she descends, slipping over damp rocks, not caring that it’s soaking through her thin clothes. It’s freezing in here, but the air doesn’t seem to be touching her.
“Novalise.”
Nova moves quicker. Desperate, searching. She can’t put her finger on the voice. It sounds so familiar, so unbelievably distant. She wants to get inside it, feel its warmth.
Her name. A chant, three times. The beacon of it, calling her home.
She gets to the middle of it all. In the middle of the cave is a gilded intricate mirror. Nova stares. Her reflection stares back. The overwhelming feeling of deja vu settles in her bones, thumping in her heart. She’s been in this moment before. She’s had this vision. She’s come alive in this dream. She looks like herself—brown skin, pink lips, green eyes—but there’s something wizened and melancholic about her expression. And then it shifts, and her smile lines lessen, her eyebrows unfurling, her teeth gleaming. Nova sees herself—Andromeda, Jedi, Rebel, Novalise, Mandalorian, Saint. All her identities, all out of order.
Nova swallows, lifting her fingers to the mirror. Immediately, she’s vaulted somewhere else—a memory, maybe, or something yet to come. She’s looking at herself from outside her body. There’s Nova, on the floor of the ship she escaped Coruscant on. Laughing with Bo-Katan in the fortress of her bed. Flying an X-Wing that she couldn’t quite reach the controls of. Sitting on the beskar throne. Holding Grogu in her lap and floating him his little silver ball. Kissing Din for the first time, obscured entirely in the dark. Getting left on Dantooine. Mapmaking with her mother. Singing karaoke on the Rebel base. Getting fucked in the Razor Crest. The festival she stumbled into on Balnab. Meeting Luke. Walking through the halls of the base on Hoth with Wedge. Seeing Din’s face for the first time. Looking at herself with grey in her hair, still hanging in ringlets down her back. Slashing her yellow lightsaber through the pouring rain. Dancing in a circle with Wedge. The heat of Tatooine’s double suns. Smelling the meadows on Naboo. Unearthing languages with her father. Defeating Sparmau. Blue lightning. Sinister laughter. A hand reaching through the veil and pulling Nova through reality. Laying with Din in the wildflower meadow, half-clothed with purple twilight settling in around them. The scratch of his beard on her neck. The permabruise of his fingers clenched around her thighs. The grip of his arms around the small of her back. Safety and surety and a place to call home. Her own reflection in this same mirror, like a piece of her was here from the beginning of time, like a part of her will be there at the end. Din’s lips on her neck. Her heart meeting something more. Her body feeling something deeper. Her soul being something holy.
Novalise is vaulted out of her reverie. Like she’s being resuscitated, she can hear Din’s voice flooding back in, the evergreen breeze, the scent of flowers, the warmth of the breeze. Nova blinks, and there’s no mirror in the cave. Just a hole where she projected herself, and brutal, stunning clarity.
Like a woman possessed, Nova hurtles back out of the cave. She’s careful but quick, planting her feet on dry patches, reaching up towards the light. The second she hits the air above, Din’s voice blares.
“Oh, Novalise.”
Nova’s heart is pounding. The butterfly—imaginative or real, it didn’t matter—was a distraction. She has no idea how long she got lost in the cave, but when she comes back out, the filtered, slightly sepia tone of the forest is hanging in dusk. She gulps. “Yes, Din?”
“I see you.”
Nova’s heart stops.
“No, you don’t.” She leaves no question in her tone, but she knows he’s not lying. As quietly and nimbly as she can, Nova slips between foliage, running and moving with her heart pounding arrhythmic in her chest. She’s fast. The exhaustion that pressed her down to the earth earlier is gone, replaced by the spark that her own reflection gave her.
Behind her, incredibly, unbelievably, Nova hears a twig snap. A yelp rises in her throat, seeing a flash of silver in the corner of her eye. She panics, jumping over a small ridge. She gulps on the way down, crossing her fingers, letting the Force guide her way to the ground. Running is what she built so much of her life on, and even though Nova has learned how not to fall victim to her first instinct, it still comes to life in her marrow when she needs it. And right now, she needs it. Behind the wall, there’s a small opening between boulders. Against the tree is a fallen log. Her eyes oscillate between the two, trying to make a split second decision. She can’t hear Din anymore, but she can feel him, residual, haunting, present. She dives for the tree, barely making it around the corner before a suit of silver beskar materializes out of nowhere. Quickly, silently, Nova slams her hand against the comm, the blinking red light disappearing from view. She holds her breath, willing her heartbeat to steady itself, for everything to quiet.
“Where are you?” Din asks, smug like he already knows, and a pool of warmth rushes through Nova’s stomach at the sound of his voice, modulated and gorgeous. It’s gravelly with want. She could hurl herself at him right now, at this very moment, and all of the need pent up inside of her would be gone. They could destroy this patch of forest and no one could hear a thing. “I can smell you, Novalise.” Another small twig snaps. “I want to make you come undone.”
Nova presses her thighs together as tight as they’ll go.
“Come out, come out,” Din croons, voice low, “wherever you are.”
Nova squeezes her eyes shut. She can feel him getting closer, the vibrato of his breath through the modulator.
“You want to be hunted,” Din continues. “I know you love the chase. But you love getting to cum more, don’t you, my sweet girl? Come out of hiding.”
Nova inhales a ragged breath, clamping her legs together.
“I can’t promise I won’t ruin you,” he taunts, his voice closer and closer, “but I can promise you’ll be begging me for more.”
Nova mewls. Din’s head snaps in her direction. She can’t see him, not inside the hollow of the tree, but she knows the sound it makes. She wants to be found. She wants to be ruined. She has become the something holy that is begging to be desecrated.
“I know,” Din simpers, and the tone of his voice is electric, inviting. Alluring. Tantalizing. Dragging her down deeper and deeper, until the rest of the world fades out. “It’s okay. You don’t have to hide from me.”
Nova presses the comm back on. “I know,” she parrots, and Din steps backward at the sound of her voice so close, “I don’t scare easy.”
She lifts her hand as much as her hiding spot will allow, closing her eyes, letting everything drain out of her backward, and makes a bush rustle in the distance. Din snaps to attention, darting after the sound. Nova feels her eyelids flutter, and she makes another tree rattle, sticks snapping, way off, back down the mountain. Silver beskar armor streaks up the hill, and then disappears entirely. Nova keeps making the planet bend to her will until she feels something snap from pure exhaustion, and she plasters both hands against the trunk of the tree, bracing herself. Her breath is ragged, uncertain, and when she collapses to the ground, there’s a smile on her face.
Nova stays there, on the serenity of the forest floor, for a long time. Twilight comes, and night dawns over the horizon, milky navy. Above her, visible only as a smattering under the tree cover, are stars. The energy she expended getting Din away from her—the physical exertion of it combined with the mental war of wanting him closer—returns, but by the time she sits back up, night has almost completely fallen.
She checks her time. There’s only six more hours until sunup. She’s evaded Din—with a very close call—through eighteen hours. A bunch of them were swallowed by the cave, although it only felt like minutes. She has six more, and she wins.
Carefully, Nova pushes herself to her feet, breathing in the smell of the soil and water that runs like veins through Naator’s gorgeous earth. She’s exhausted, and she’s also exhausted all her options. She has no idea where she is. She has even less of an idea where to go next.
And then, all at once, it hits her, colliding like a shooting star.
Din thinks she’s running from him. Din thinks that she’s heading down the mountain. Which means Din thinks that he’s still tracking her.
And Nova meant it when she said she was done running. He thinks she’s going back down the mountain. And she will be, but this time, she’s not going to be hunted. She’s going to do the thing he’s least expecting, the Mandalorian that she loves—she’s going to chase him right back.
*
It’s much harder to navigate the mountain in the dark.
Nova’s used to rugged, tree-lined terrain, especially after growing up on Yavin, but Naator’s nature is blossoming, constantly shifting. If she hikes too far north, the temperature drops and the ground gets rougher. If she runs down the mountain, the moss springs up, plush and roving, and holds much more moisture. She grits her teeth, holding onto the brush for a better grip, trying to make it back down the hill she hiked up in a daze earlier.
In the middle of the night, there’s still pink in the sky. It’s a very muted purple, but Naator’s nights don’t turn vantablack and obsidian like the other planets do. There’s still a resemblance of midnight, but it’s hazy around the edges, like the day has just been put on pause instead of turning over into night entirely.
Nova sighs. A yawn works its way out of her mouth before she can stifle it, and with her eyes closed, in the dark, her foot rolls over a fallen stick and she crashes to the ground.
“Smooth,” she mutters to herself, blowing hair out of her eyes. She sits up, wincing, acutely aware of how quiet the night is around her. There’s the sound of the constant breeze, and the rustle of dancing trees, and the bugs and frogs that chirp, but other than that, there’s nothing. Just wide open air that Din is so trained for, the expert bounty hunter that he is.
A twig snaps down the mountain and Nova’s heart stops.
“There’s no way,” she whispers, and immediately claps a hand over her mouth. Even that tiny omission, barely loud enough for her to hear alone, could be caught by the experienced bounty hunter immediately on her trail. Nova’s heart flip-flops as she waits in the silence, pounding out a staccato rhythm that only Din can evoke. She feels like prey, even though she’s flipped the script, even though she’s the one doing the hunting.
She doesn’t move. Her heart pounds in her ears. Something bounds through the brush—something small, and decidedly not covered in beskar. She exhales, stepping so carefully across the forest floor. It’s hard, painstaking work, keeping this quiet, but she’s determined. It doesn’t matter if her bones ache. It doesn’t matter that she’s barely slept in two days. She knows what’s waiting for her at the bottom of this mountain, what she’s going home to. That’s enough adrenaline coursing through her body to keep her awake for days.
“Novalise.”
Nova stops. “You’re not making this easy on either of us,” she growls, too pent up to play the game anymore.
She can hear the smirk in Din’s voice. “Just tell me where you are, and this can all be over.”
“You came so close earlier,” she breathes, moving through the wistful willow trees, all twisted together. From the breeze, even at this distance, she can smell the flowers in the fields. “And you didn’t find me. So maybe it’s time to start admitting that I could beat you at your own game, Din Djarin.”
Silence.
Then: “What do you mean?”
Nova swallows. She may have just let on a bit more than she intended to. “Think on it.”
“Novalise—”
“See you soon,” she whispers, drawing the last syllable out, and then she turns off the comm. The night blinks on around her. Nova wrestles the giant smile off of her face. She stops, draining the last of the water she took from the stream earlier. She stretches, cracking her vertebrae all the way up her spine, rolling her neck side to side. What she needs to do next is get inside Din’s head. She’s nowhere near as strong of a tracker as he is, and even if she had worn her armor and her helmet, he’s had years of practice on her.
But Novalise is scrappy. And she also has the Force.
At the base of the mountain, where the willows bleed into pines, Nova sinks down behind a boulder, right at the root of a giant tree. It hangs over her like protection, and she knows with the combination of the night and the leaves, she’s hidden in obscurity. She closes her eyes, rolling sore shoulders back, letting everything run out of her.
It drained her, earlier, simulating her footsteps back down the mountain. She doesn’t feel as connected to the world around her. Nova pauses, focusing on her breath. In and out, even and steady. Din’s face keeps popping into her mind’s eye, but it’s not the version she needs. She can hear his flesh slapping against hers, feel the rumble of his moans in his throat. She knows the exact noise he makes when he’s coming undone. It’s distracting, spreading heat through her entire body.
“Focus,” Nova breathes, but the only thing she can visualize is the way he cornered her in that cell in her dream. The hungry way his body crashed into hers, the way he made her repent. She shivers, but it has nothing to do with the air around her. Carefully, she sidesteps the memory, as visceral as it is, focusing on Naator and the space Din’s in.
It comes to her in a blur, like her focus is shifting in and out. Nova blows out air, trying to find him in the ether. It’s not easy. She’s only ever explored around where the cottage is, there and the little village down the lane. All of the mountains are made up of the same flora and fauna, so the environment he’s in won’t be easy to identify. Nova shuts out the rest of the forest, trying to pinpoint his location.
Just when she’s about to give up, give in, make herself known so that Din will come here and feed her hunger, Nova finds him. He’s sitting at the base of his own willow tree, helmet tipped up to drink water. Her heart skips a beat then stills, like it can’t make up its mind. Seeing him, covered in armor, unmasked only for her, on this planet—it’s the best kind of deja vu. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. Nova lets out a tiny sigh.
He’s so beautiful. It hurts to look at him, and hurts even worse when all she wants is to be right there beside him. To take the rest of his armor off. The need pulsing through her veins rivals her want to win. Hearing his voice is bad enough. Seeing him is even worse.
Without thinking, Nova raises the comm to her lips, pushing down until it starts to blink. “Where are you?”
Din’s eyes dart around, and then he smirks into the night. “Why? Getting desperate?”
Nova sighs, trying to stay in the vision, to stay connected to him. “Because I’m breathing down your neck.”
Din turns, and Nova catches sight of him, clocks where he is. He’s not far at all. But she recognizes where he is, because his willow tree is facing the wildflowers.
Like liquid, completely fluid, Din springs to his feet. “No, you’re not.”
Nova grins. She’s being pulled out of the vision, but she blows him a kiss he’ll never see. “Watch out, Mandalorian. I’m on your trail.”
She falls out of the vision sideways, but it doesn’t matter. Leaning down to run the water bottle through the stream, Nova pops back up, buoyed by her tiny victory. As the terrain shifts to flatter, grassier sections, she skates close to the line of willow trees. Din’s in here somewhere, and he’s the expert. Her little head start could be entirely screwed if he even gets a whiff that she’s as close as she is.
Carefully, painstakingly, she presses on. Vignettes of Din dance through her head—all filthy, all permanent. The way his mouth tastes after he goes down on her, devouring her for hours. The rough brush of his mustache against her upper lip. The grip of his hands, squeezing whatever part of her that needs to be throttled. The growl deep in the base of his throat when she wraps her lips around the perfect head of his cock. The feeling of him inside of her, moving desperately as she grips him. How long it’s been since he’s fucked her. How badly she needs it right now.
Nova shivers, trying to shake the want loose. More than anything, more than she’s aching, she wants to win. Din’s made it perfectly clear how easily he can find her. The odds are tipped in his favor, even right now, even while she has the upper hand.
She watches the forest floor under the bruised night sky, skirting around any branches or fallen, brittle leaves. Novalise is a lot of things, but a hunter has never been one of them. Still, she takes note of the breeze, the particular rustle as it dances through the trees. She knows there’s a giant pine tree near where Din is—one that the woods fades into up the mountain, but it’s alone around here. She swallows, pacing her breath.
Come on, Nova, she thinks, this is your one shot.
She stalks forward, prey turned predator, ready to—she’s not sure what exactly. Pounce? Maybe. Prove to Din that she can find him right back? Definitely. But a nagging voice seeps into her head, the one that’s competitive, the one that wants to win, and it’s only saying one thing.
You’re still running out the clock.
Nova stops. This wasn’t part of their deal. The directive was to avoid, evade, not hunt Din back. A flash of beskar, camouflage in the night, catches her eye at the same time that the moon comes out from under the clouds. She darts behind a giant willow tree, the trunk three times the size of her.
Nova closes her eyes, thinking.
“I can feel you, cyar’ika.”
They shoot back open. Her heart picks up its arrhythmia. Nova swallows, clapping a hand over her mouth, afraid to breathe too loud. She feels him, too—knows his movements, even without seeing them. He may be a hunter, but Nova has her own strengths.
“You may be able to feel me,” she breathes, barely moving her lips, which are pressed up against the comm, “but you can’t catch me.”
The pounding in the left side of her chest rackets up in intensity. Din’s utterly silent, evaluating the challenge, and then he moves, lightning-sharp, whip-quick. Instead of being stuck in indecision, Nova closes her eyes, letting her intuition take over.
She still has to be quiet, nimble, ten steps ahead. Especially with Din on her tail again. But this time, Nova doesn’t think. She doesn’t agonize. She keeps moving, refusing to let the swaying trees ahead of her outmaneuver her path through the trees. She doesn’t have the same kind of stamina that Din does, but right now, in this moment, she doesn’t necessarily need it. She’s no longer moving like Novalise. She’s letting the Force use her as a conduit, and she streaks through the trees, careful to stay out of sight.
Even though Din is right on her heels, Nova doesn’t give into the war between heart and head, or the voice begging between her legs. She keeps on moving, running through brush and weaving through tree trunks, thinking about nothing except the pulse inside of her that’s keeping her steady. The trick is to get to somewhere with more cover, but as she reaches the very end of the wooded area, she realizes there’s a flaw in her plan.
Ahead, there’s only two options. The field of wildflowers, or a straight shot cut across the grass.
She skids to a stop, feeling the chase. Nova gulps, knowing Din is only seconds behind her, and then she lets herself fall back into the thing that’s driving her. The field of wildflowers provides more cover. But the path cut through the edge of them, one she completely skipped over earlier, is the straightest, quickest point to the flock of trees where their cottage and the village hides.
She can feel Din before she sees him.
“Hi, Nova,” he breathes, and Maker, a rush of wetness pools between her thighs. She catches a flash of silver out of her peripheral vision, and then she knows he’s lunging. Nova has a split second to decide if she wants to give in, if she wants to get caught—or if she wants to win.
Adrenaline decides for her. Just as a full body in beskar is about to land on top of her, trapping her to the spot, Nova dives forward, tucking and rolling before she hits the ground. She somersaults up with precision, using the momentum from her movement to keep running. Tearing across like birds streaking into the skies, she runs toward the straight path cut between the flowers. She doesn’t look back, but she knows the second Din’s after her again, his stride will eclipse hers. She can’t slow down.
This rush, this adrenaline—it feels like everything she’s been running from since her parents died. The feeling of being trapped, of being hunted, it used to sit like a pile of rocks in the shape of panic in the middle of her stomach. But, she reasons, as her feet tear against the short grass, she was always running from something awful.
She didn’t want to get caught.
This time, she does. Stars above, she really, really does. Lust thunders in her ears the same way the drive does, and Nova fights it off, feeling Din’s stride shake the ground behind her. She has her plan. It materializes in the middle of the haze, and she grits her teeth and runs faster. This would be so much easier if they were in the sky, the Crest versus Kicker, but Nova can’t fly. She can’t be a pilot down here.
So she goes on autopilot instead.
It took her hours to canvass the field earlier. If she had seen the shortcut, she would have been through the thick of it in just a few minutes. The opening is way on the side, approaching the flock of trees where the village rests from the left flank instead of head-on.
“Stop running,” Din pants through the modulator, and fuck if the command isn’t storng enough to make Nova consider it.
“Make me,” she responds, trying to keep her shaky voice level.
She can hear the growl before it fully comes out of his mouth. Din’s not a growler—he’s a rasper, a grunter. This noise is different and guttural and ten times as intense as the one he let out earlier. Nova squashes it down, relaying it to replay in her memory for months afterward, stashing it away when she feels like making Din scream.
She only manages to stay a breath ahead of him, but it’s enough. He lunges again, and Nova tumbles off into the high grass, somehow, thank the Maker above, staying on her feet. She keeps moving, legs burning, lungs heaving, spurred on by the fact that she’ll be in full cover in a matter of seconds. And the knowledge that she’s evaded the most feared bounty hunter in the Outer Rim for almost a full day.
The same bounty hunter who knows her inside and out. The Mandalorian who could find her in death. The one that could probably resuscitate her, too.
“Novalise,” he bites out, and it’s surreal to hear it in the comm and behind her at the same time, but Nova doesn’t stop. She crashes into the treeline, leaving grace and finesse behind, heading towards the cabin, desperate to get ahead just a little bit more. She’s waiting for something in particular.
It’s pitch-black in here, in contrast to the mountain. The trees and brush are much fuller, robust. She knows any second, a big gust of wind is going to whip across the field, and it’s going to disseminate through the yellow trees. It’s what she needs, exactly what she needs. Nova swallows air as she streaks through the forest, feeling the breeze pick up, and as it does, she whips around the corner of a huge oak tree. As the wind shakes the tops of the trees, Nova closes her eyes, holds her breath, and jumps.
She doesn’t like heights. It’s ridiculous to admit, especially since she’s a Rebel, a fighter pilot, but if she’s not encased in the steel stability of a starship, she hates them. Nova pushes all fear aside as she leaps, disappearing into the open mouth between thick, wiry branches of a tree, and she crosses her fingers as she grips the branch and the wind dies down.
“Where are you,” Din grits out. It’s not a question. It’s a demand. Nova grins, wanting to slump back against the branch and catch her breath, but she doesn’t dare. Summoning what’s left of her strength in reserve, she raises her hand and shakes the brush, willing the breeze to follow with her scent. Din has his jetpack on. He could easily find her up here and snatch her out of the sky. But from this vantage point, if she pretends she’s seeing things through the dashboard, Nova’s in control.
“Come find me,” she breathes, “but you can’t disturb the village. They’re sleeping.”
She can practically see Din’s eyes flash. “That was a mistake.”
Nova purses her lips up to the side. She can see him, barely, through the trees. The way he’s standing is so charged—taut, hungry, controlled. She mouths out a silent prayer to Naator, and the planet pulls it off. Again. After Din swings around, visor canvassing the entire area, he turns in the direction of the village, running off.
Nova exhales, gulping in lungful after lungful of air. She’s feeling the burn of running now—it’s in her bones, her muscles, her sinew, her organs. Her heart is still pounding an obscene amount. Her calves and thighs ache like they’re falling apart. She settles in on the branch, creeping as close to the tree as she possibly can, knowing that if she has any chance of making it to the finish line, she needs two things—to keep Din distracted, and to close her eyes.
The village is perfect. It’s quiet, but there’s always a person or two making noise in the silence of the night, and there are so many places to hide. Nova feels a tiny pang of guilt for siccing an angry, horny Mandalorian on the people of Naator, but she knows they have spunk. They can handle it.
And it’ll kill enough time for her to rest. Not sleep, Nova reasons with herself as she settles in, because sleeping is dangerous, but rest. She can rest for a few minutes, breathe normally, let her body relax, and then she’ll execute the final step of the plan.
Catch Din Djarin before he catches her.
*
“Novalise.”
Nova’s eyes pop open, terror flooding through her veins. For a second, she forgets where she is—on Naator, actively being hunted down, perched up in a tree like a lothcat—and her heart hammers against her ribs as she plasters herself to the branch she’s leaning on, gripping with arms and legs like she’s never held onto anything before.
Everything is diluted through shades of pink and warmth. Nova gasps, realizing the sun is cresting up over the horizon.
The comm on her wrist is blinking, and Nova hurriedly rubs sleep from her eyes. She can’t have nodded off for more than a handful of minutes, twenty at the most, but when she checks the tiny clock counting down the hours, she startles.
There’s only twenty-five minutes left on the clock.
“Novalise.”
“What’s the matter, Din,” she whispers, lips skating off the device, “still can’t find me?”
“Oh, I know where you are,” he says, easily, “up in a tree. You didn’t think you were going to keep me off your trail for a full day, did you?”
Nova’s heart sinks. “I—”
“Come down,” Din says, “and let me catch you.”
Nova swallows, mouth dry. “No.”
Din’s voice gets closer. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”
“That,” Nova says, looking around to find him, “has a double meaning.”
“I’m not going to fuck you up in that tree, cyar’ika. So you can either come down now and keep running, or I will fly up to you and drag you down myself.”
That absolutely should not turn her on, but it does. Nova breathes out, stuttered and cloying, and tries to clear her head.
She sees him. He’s on the ground, staring up at her, head cocked to the left. Her chest burns. She wants him, just Din, and she’s so close to giving in and letting him ruin her in all the ways that he promised, but another idea blossoms up, and Nova hides a smile against the branch.
“Okay,” she sighs, sounding resigned, “come up and get me, then.”
She hears the propane in the jetpack ignite, and then he’s lifting off the ground. Nova tenses up, rolling her shoulders forward, and the second Din gets close enough to touch her, she backflips off the branch instead.
It’s terrifying. And high. So, so high, but she doesn’t let herself think about it for too long. Nova hits the ground, staggering back over a root, feeling the full impact vibrate through her legs, and then she’s running again.
She’s so close to making it. So close, and the adrenaline combined with the euphoria of winning spurs her on to what is hopefully the final lap. Nova sprints in the only direction she can—she runs towards the cottage. The timer on her wrist has counted down even lower. Fifteen minutes, then ten, then seven, as she runs through the trees, skirting through alleys and dusty side streets near the village, hurtling down the path, sending yellow leaves skittering up in her wake.
Nova knows Din’s on her trail. She’s winded, even with the rush of almost making it, and he’s not even slightly affected. Her comm is still on, and she can hear his steady breaths as he chases her down. Her heart flips over when she looks over her shoulder. He’s so much closer than she anticipated, so quick, so agile—but Nova knows what to do.
She’s going to run like hell and dive into the cottage, and then she’s going to escape out the back window while Din is tearing it apart looking for her.
“Scared, Mandalorian?” she tosses over her shoulder, voice uneven.
“You have no idea,” Din says lowly, “what I’m going to do with you.”
“Oh,” Nova manages, breathless, “I have a few ideas.”
And the cottage bursts through the tree cover, into sight. Nova takes the chance, springing toward it, hand turning the knob on the door as she’s flying through it. Din’s caught a few paces behind her. It’s enough time to execute her plan. She slams the door behind her, flying into the tiny fresher off to the side, prying open the window.
She feels Din in the house before he can make his presence known. Expert, heavy feet cross the floorboards, knowing exactly where to apply the right pressure. Enough to make the movement foreboding, sinister. Hidden enough to not be a dead giveaway. The cottage is only one floor, and there’s only so many places Nova can hide, so the second the window opens, no screen blocking her escape, she’s vaulting through it and sprinting around the side of the cabin. She knows Din will come out in a second, but the clock is down to less than a minute. Sneaking around the side, staying out of sight of the other open windows, she sneaks back around to the door.
Din makes a noise of anger, frustration. It coils deep in Nova’s stomach, rolling through her like a wave. She looks at the timer on the clock.
Fifteen seconds.
Carefully, she places her hand against the holster for the Darksaber on her belt.
Ten seconds.
She puts the other one on the open door, palm flat against the wood.
Five seconds.
Nova sees where Din is. Her breath is still held, hoping against hope he doesn’t feel her presence.
Four seconds.
She steps carefully, praying, over the vestibule.
Three seconds.
One step forward.
Two seconds.
Her heartbeat, hammering, lightning-quick.
One second.
Nova bends her knees.
The clock runs down to nothing.
Nova pounces.
Colliding with full-body beskar is painful, knocking the wind out of her. She ignites the Darksaber in her free hand as she moves forward, the whoosh of the blade crackling through the static in the air, charged and intentional. Din braces himself for impact, but Nova’s already got him in her grasp, electric and alive. Everything inside of her is filled with adrenaline or lust. She stares up at him, triumphant, grin plastered across her exhausted face.
“Gotcha,” she breathes, staring up at the visor.
Like it’s nothing, Din shakes her off. Nova lets the Darksaber drop out of her hand, reining it in before it cuts through the wood of the floor.
“That,” Din says lowly, “was not the deal.”
The smile flickers and falters. “I caught you,” Nova breathes, “I win.”
“You were supposed to evade me, cyar’ika. Run for twenty-four hours.”
Nova blinks up at him, trying to categorize it. She was supposed to run, not catch him back. Her heart pounds as he moves closer, grabbing her chin roughly and forcing it up to meet his eyes behind the visor. She swallows, everything wired taut, staring.
“I did,” she whispers, “and then I caught you.”
“I found you three times,” Din grits out, so much stronger through the vocoder, “or did you forget so quickly?”
Nova raises her eyebrow. “You may have found me three times,” she says, voice high and thready, “but how many times did you actually catch me?”
If she could see Din’s face right now, Nova’s positive that his nostrils would be flaring, his teeth clamped down tight, something dangerous in his brown eyes. It should terrify her, being at the mercy of her Mandalorian, but it doesn’t. It just makes her wet.
Her lips part. With a low growl, Din moves forward, closing the little distance between them, pressing her heaving chest against his armored one. Nova lets herself be pushed backwards, stalked like prey, all the breath leaving her body.
“I’ve got you right here,” Din says, voice low and gravelly. His hand tightens against her chin. Nova lets him slam her back against the wall of the cabin, only dully registering the way it knocks the remaining air right out of her lungs. “Are you going to fight back?”
Nova licks her lips, staring back at him, knowing what his eyes look like under the modulator. “Do you want me to fight back?”
For a moment, neither of them speak. There’s something dangerous between them, charged and wet. Like the way the sky feels before a thunderstorm. Like the best kind of devastation.
“If you run from me again,” Din says finally, “I will drag your body back here and fuck it out of you.”
Shivers shoot down Nova’s spine. She can feel how close she is, already, how she loves to feel like Din’s prey, even though she was the one that caught him. Again, the war of wanting to prove that she won and wanting her body to be ravaged sits in the middle of her chest. “Try it,” she breathes, and then she’s yanking her chin down, out of his gloved hold, and trying to dart out between his body and where his other arm is plastered against the wall beside her.
She’s quick. She expects it to be easy, like the same move was back on Sorgan, but her body is already exhausted from the full day she spent running, and Din’s entire form is covered in a suit of armor that only enhances his strength. His hand shoots out, vicelike and expert, and Nova yelps as it closes around her arm.
In disbelief, she looks back at him, trying to yank it free. Once, twice, and then on the third, Din lets her go. But even as she moves like a firecracker, trying to traverse the floor and make it back outside into the pink air, Din’s hand fists in her hair, pulling her back against his body. It sings out in pain, but he soothes it immediately, gently holding her against his body, gloved hand pressed against her stomach, anchoring his back against him.
“Good try,” he says, and his voice is absolutely filthy. “You like running from me, Novalise?”
Nova’s voice comes out breathy and strangled. “Yes. And I like getting caught.”
Din’s hand travels up her stomach, over the peak of her chest, gloved fingers snapping out to pinch her nipple through the thin fabric of her shirt. Nova squirms, but it just makes Din hold her tighter, hand palming her tits, the other traveling from the nape of her neck down her stomach. He’s rock hard against her, and the more Nova wriggles against him, the harder he becomes. His other hand inches down to the waistband of her pants, and when she twists her hips, trying—with absolutely zero urgency—to break free, he slips his gloved hand into the line of her panties, dragging the leather across her bare skin.
With an impossible grip against her chest, Din slips his other hand further, thumbing down on her clit, hard. Nova mewls without being able to control the volume of it, and with the door still hanging open at the hinges, the noise travels out into the open air. Din dips his fingers lower, dragging them through her slit, and right when she’s about to beg for him to go deeper, he pulls them out, releasing his grip.
Her knees buckle as she’s released back to her own volition, but before she can react, or try to run, Din’s hand is on her hip, flipping her around to face him.
She swallows. He’s holding her firmly in place, and pushes his other hand into her mouth. She tastes herself against the leather of his glove, and her eyes flutter back as she moans around his fingers.
“You’re so fucking filthy,” he grits out, and Nova opens her mouth wider, letting his fingers go deeper into his throat. “Why did you run away from this, cyar’ika?”
He punctuates each word with moving his fingers down to the hilt, and Nova can taste the gunsmoke and forest against the glove. Her knees sag again. She mumbles something, muffled against his hand.
Nova whimpers as Din’s fingers pop out of her mouth. “Wanted to be hunted,” she slurs, licking her lips.
Din’s hand comes to rest against her chin, and Nova tips her head back, silently goading him to clench it around her open throat. She’s dizzy, drunk with how badly she wants him—needs him.
“I told you back on Mandalore,” he breathes, “you’d know what it would feel like when I was hunting you.”
Nova looks up at him through half-lidded eyes, extending her neck back. “Feels so good,” she croons, using her free hand to guide his down to where she needs it. “Make me stay.”
And then she wrenches free from his grasp, the only hold Din still has on her the hand bracketing her throat. She gives him a devilish grin, and yanks herself free, getting ready to run. Din stares at her under the visor like he can’t believe what she’s insinuating, and then, as she runs towards the open door, a snarl leaves through the modulator.
The sound alone is enough for Nova to cum right there, but she doesn’t.
Din’s gloved hand closes around her neck, ruthless and unyielding. Stars flicker at the edge of Nova’s vision.
“You want me to possess you, cyar’ika?”
All she can manage is a moan.
“You have no idea,” he whispers through clenched teeth, dragging her back against his body, “how possessive I can be.”
Nova lets him manhandle her against the wall, vision tunneling from the grip he has on her throat. Combined with being confined, caged in against the wood, it’s everything she needs. She’s strung-out and high on it, the feeling of being hunted, held. Din’s grip against her throat loosens, just enough for her to suck in a ragged, desperate breath.
He presses himself into her. This isn’t the man she loves, the one under the armor—it is, but he’s encased in beskar, the full-on Mandalorian. This is the Din that would kill any man that looked at her. This is the Din that would fuck her into nothingness. This is the Din that screams danger. And she’s never wanted him more.
“You smell so good when you’re running from me,” he whispers, cloying, dangerous. Nova moans again, and she can feel the helmet press in the crook of her neck, giving her no room to escape. “So sweet.”
Nova swallows as Din releases his grip around her throat. His arm is pressed flat against her chest, and even up against the wall, he paws at her tits, tracing a single gloved finger against her nipple.
“Is this hard because you’re scared,” he says slowly, flicking at it, tweaking it between his fingers, “or because you’re turned on?”
“Oh, Maker,” Nova pants, as his hand travels back up and squeezes her throat, “both.”
Din stills for just a second. Long enough for her to feel like he’s evaluating her answer, and Nova freezes. For the first time, a hot flush of embarrassment shoots up her neck, and then she’s being spun around so that Din can look at her, study her, pin her body facing his.
“That’s the wrong answer,” he grits, one hand on her thigh, the other tracing circles around her collarbone. “You’re going to lead me down a very dangerous path, cyar’ika.”
Nova swallows, looking straight through the visor, refusing to back down. “Good.”
Din sighs, low and languid. “If I fuck you like this,” he says, “I might ruin you.”
Nova lifts her chin. “I’ve been a very bad girl, Din Djarin,” she breathes, tracing her fingers along the top of the plate on his thigh, cupping him between his legs. “I deserve to be ruined.”
Din groans as Nova slides her hand up the entire length of his cock. “Nova,” he says, strained, the pretense dropping for just a second, “I don’t want to hurt you—”
“I know,” she croons, feeling his fingers tighten against the skin of her throat as she palms him, “and you won’t. I want it.”
Din exhales so loudly through the modulator that it consumes her.
“Ruin me, Mandalorian,” she whispers, and she can feel the last visible shred of hesitation snap, as she lowers her voice, whiny and moaning, “please.”
That does it. Din tears at her shirt, his gloves shredding the material. Nova moans as he grips her, so desperate, so strong. The material of her bra snaps as he yanks it off of her, gloved fingers back on her tits, pawing and squeezing. She moans again when he tweaks her nipple, wet and languid.
“You gonna cum just from me playing with your tits, cyar’ika?” Din mumbles, and the sound of it through the modulator shoots Nova right to the edge.
“Maybe,” she manages, and then he’s lifting the helmet just enough to wrench his mouth free. When his lips close against it, she cries out, not giving a single fuck that the door is wide open, that anyone could stop by and hear her crying out in pleasure, could stand there and watch. “Oh, fuck—”
“It’s okay,” Din says, hand traveling down to crawl between her thighs. Nova grinds down, desperate, and he shakes his head from side to side with her nipple in his teeth. “No,” he growls, “no touching my hand until you’ve already came.”
With a shaking, stuttered breath, Nova nods, and then his tongue is swiping over again, and she’s gone. She clenches down, hard, and that’s as much as she needs until her orgasm rips through her, cresting and waning far too fast, and then she’s shaking and undone, held up only by Din.
“Din—”
“Shhh,” he says, and then he’s ripping her pants down to her ankles, and Nova inhales through her teeth as his gloved fingers roam across her panties, already soaked clean through. She yelps as he thumbs over her clit, still so sensitive from how hard she just came, but he doesn’t do anything but tease her. Even with him on his knees, Nova registers dully, he still has all of the control. He traces a line up and down her lips, and Nova sobs out, needing more. “I decide,” he snaps, and Nova’s blood thunders in her ears. “You’re at my mercy. Do you know how fucking hot it is,” he breathes out, teasing with the lace on the underside, “to have you here, dripping and ready, stripped out of your clothes? To know that I can just take what’s mine?”
Nova whimpers.
“Your pussy smells so fucking sweet,” he growls. “I’d have you like this all the time if I could.” He circles her clit again, and Nova’s in heaven, already so close. “With those perfect tits on display, the smell of you in the air. And then I’d fuck you in front of anyone who dared to look at you.”
Nova’s eyes squeeze shut as his thumb presses exactly where she needs. This time, she doesn’t care how desperate she is, how wrong everything Din’s saying is—because right now, in this moment, it just feels right. She’s addicted to it, the filth on his tongue, the way he’s possessing her, and on the comedown, her eyes open just enough to see him remove the helmet. Helplessly, she claws at it, hooking her fingers under the rim, pulling it clean off.
His eyes are black with want, with lust. His hair is an absolute mess, and he tears at her underwear, ripping them in half. Before Nova can warn him just how overstimulated she already is, Din’s giving her a devilish grin, dripping with sin. He slams her back against the wall as he notches his tongue between her thighs, drinking, devouring.
Nova’s a goner. She goes blind with it, exploding all over his tongue. She’s riding the same wave he’s lapping up, drinking like she’s the last water in the world. She grabs at his hair, trying to drag him away, but his eyes pop open in question. She can tell immediately what he’s asking: do you want to stop?”
“Fuck, no,” she breathes, and that same steely glint returns, and he’s diving deeper, tongue running in circles around her clit, swiping and lapping lower. Nova yelps as it teases her entrance, and then it slips inside—and she’s lost in ecstasy. This is better than when she rode his thigh on Korrus. Better than the first time he made her cum. Better than riding him into submission. Better than absolutely anything she’s ever felt. This is what people kill and die for, and she’s living it.
She cries out as Din pulls away, but it’s only for a second. He’s standing, roving up her body, and then he’s anchoring both of his hands down on her shoulders, pushing her over across the floor to the bed.
They don’t make it that far.
Nova drops to her knees, not caring if she cuts them against the floorboards. “I love to be on display for you,” she croons, tearing at Din’s waistband, “but it’s your turn.”
Din’s eyes flash. “No.”
Nova raises her eyebrows, stopping immediately. “No?”
“If you put your sweet mouth on my cock right now,” he grits out, his voice so dark and gravelly it sounds like it’s still coming through the modulator, “I will cum down your throat. You won’t get fucked.”
Nova shrugs. “Worth it,” she says, and then she’s pulling it free and licking over the tip.
Din moans so loud that it shakes the foundation of the house. “Cyar’ika—”
“It’s,” she says, her tongue roving down the underside of it, “my. Turn.”
Din doesn’t protest. His hands tangle in the mess of her hair, groaning as she swallows. He’s huge—thick and long at the same time—but Nova’s had plenty of practice, and she takes him down to the hilt. With one hand, she pulls him even closer, begging to have every single inch, and as he pistons out of her, Nova’s eyes flood with tears.
It hurts so good. She wants more, needs more, and her free fingers find her clit, begging Din to fuck her mouth. He’s undone, unhinged with it, and so is she. This is the kind of high she’s been chasing, the one they both need. Ruination feels so good when it’s this kind of desecration. Holiness being corrupted. Nova cries out around Din’s cock as she crests close to the edge again, and then he’s snarling, pulling her off.
“Hey—”
But before Nova has a chance to protest, Din’s scooping her off the floor like she weighs absolutely nothing. The sheer force of him knocks the wind out of her, his hands closing around her ass, carrying her over to the bed.
“It’s been so long since I’ve came,” he grits out, throwing Nova down on the sheets. She yelps with the force of it, feeling it down to her molecules, her bones. “Not doing it if I’m not inside you.”
Nova stares up at him, pink light streaming in through the windows. She wants to stay right here, in this moment, in this kind of love, forever. It’s addicting. It’s haunting. It’s everything she’s ever fucking needed.
Din doesn’t move, waiting for permission. He stands resolute until Nova sits up enough to bring him down on top of her. “Fuck me,” she whispers, breathless, “hard.”
Din inhales and then he’s pushing inside of her, cock still dripping with her saliva. Nova moans as he sinks in, painstakingly slow, careful, clawing at the small of his back, and then he’s snapping his hips, driving inside her so deep. She’d forgotten how good he feels, how big he is, how badly she wants him, needs him. Three strokes and she’s on the edge again. He buries his face in her neck, and Nova arches her back against the feeling of his teeth on her skin. He’s relentless. She’s so in love.
“Your cunt is so fucking tight,” he manages.
“How wet am I?” she breathes back, and Din’s fingers trail down her body to dip in. Somewhere between the floor and the bed, his gloves were ripped off, and when he pushes his wet fingers into her mouth, Nova hums around them.
“Soaked,” Din manages, and something in his voice completely unhinges. “Oh, fuck, Nova, I’m gonna—”
“Cum for me,” she interrupts, and then his eyes are rolling back in his head. “Ruin me.”
As if he was just waiting for her permission, Din does. Nova clenches around him, both of them coming apart at the same time. Even with the ceiling above her, Nova only sees stars in her eyes. For what feels like both a blip and an eternity, they stay there, sharing the high. When Din finally comes back down enough to pull out of her, he takes two fingers and plunges them back inside of her, an unspoken reminder that he’s possessed her.
Nova’s exhausted, sweaty, happier than she’s been in weeks. This was worth the chase. This was worth the wait.
When both of them have recovered, at least enough to breathe evenly again, she turns on her side, gazing at Din through the rays of pink light. “So,” she says, still breathless, “who won?”
The way Din looks at her is more than just love. It’s reverence. “Me.”
Nova glares at him. “I caught you,” she says, punctuating it by pushing a finger into his still-armored chest.
Din grins at her, and it’s divine, the bareness of it. “You did,” he concedes. “Always, it’s you catching me. I—I meant that I won. Loving you, that’s winning.”
Nova smiles, tears threatening at the edges of her eyes, letting him pull her in. It’s safe here, the feeling of it radiating through her entire body. Sleep tugs at her. “I’m never running from you again, you know,” she whispers against Din’s neck. “And I love you. So much.”
He doesn’t say anything, just strokes a hand over her hair. He doesn’t need to, not this time. He knows. Before sleep takes Nova, the last coherent thing she thinks is that sure, Din may ruin her. But he always resuscitates her, brings her back to life.
*
I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!!! i know Chapter 26 was a whole novel, and i so hope it was worth the wait <3
with my original outline, the next chapter (27) was supposed to be the end of SD, but now i'm not so sure if it will be. we still have a few plot points to go before the third one (a hint for the title of the third and final in the SM trilogy was hidden in this chapter, let me know if you catch it) ;)
with how life has knocked me around, i don't want to promise that 27 will be up within a week, but i DO promise it'll be SOON!!!
i love y'all so much. thank you for sticking with me, Din, and Nova. it means beyond words <3
SUMMARY: “I want to marry you,” she admits, finally, speaking only to Din, trying to hone in on him, trying to put enough conviction in her words to convey the intensity of it. “Now more than ever. Do you—do you want to marry me?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Nova can see Bo-Katan shift. Back into the obscurity of shadow, trying to eclipse herself from the intimacy of the moment.
Din doesn’t break her gaze. He doesn’t let Nova’s question sit in silence. He nods, solemn, serious, a promise. “Yes,” he answers, the word an unshakable thing. “Now more than ever.”
If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3
AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLO EVERYONE AND HAPPY SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY!! i'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth yet again but i hope you love this one! i'm hoping to be back for good now!!!
*
The word “wedding” hangs in the air, and both Nova and Bo-Katan do a double take.
And, somehow, in this moment, Bo-Katan is the first one to speak. “I’m sorry,” she starts, tucking her hair behind her ear, squinting back and forth between Din and Nova in the dark, “I thought you were already married?”
Nova swallows. “We are,” she enunciates. Din’s face is unclouded, clear. The moonlight still shines through the gossamer curtains, but it splashes across only the foot of the bed, now, illuminating none of them. “We took the vows.”
“We took the Mandalorian vows, yes,” Din says. His voice is still that strange sense of calm. “We swore them to each other. But, Nova, you wanted more than just a private exchanging of vows. You wanted to get married with all of our friends on Naator.”
Nova nods, reeling. “Months ago,” she clarifies, her voice quiet. “Before Sparmau, before this war, before all the Jedi in my head. I still want to,” she continues, quickly, because Din’s eyebrows knit down the middle. “In front of all our friends and family. A bigger ceremony than the one on my X-Wing. But I don’t know if now is the time.”
Bo-Katan surprises both of them yet again. “Yes,” she says, and her usually cool voice is wavering with something colored like emotion, “it is.”
Nova inhales a shuddering breath. The curtains flutter in the breeze. The night feels alive, strangely so, charged with an energy she can feel but can’t yet put a name to. “I want to marry you,” she admits, finally, speaking only to Din, trying to hone in on him, trying to put enough conviction in her words to convey the intensity of it. “Now more than ever. Do you—do you want to marry me?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Nova can see Bo-Katan shift. Back into the obscurity of shadow, trying to eclipse herself from the intimacy of the moment.
Din doesn’t break her gaze. He doesn’t let Nova’s question sit in silence. He nods, solemn, serious, a promise. “Yes,” he answers, the word an unshakable thing. “Now more than ever.”
Nova feels tears well in her eyes. The significance of it, of his surety—it burns like a bursting star. After all this, the war, the heartbreak, the division, Din Djarin wants to remake Nova into his wife. That’s a feeling Nova can’t ignore the weight of. “Cara was supposed to marry us,” she whispers, and grief comes crashing back in through the open window.
Din swallows, and for the first time since he looked at Nova head-on, he averts his eyes. They drop off somewhere dark and full of mourning. “I know,” he manages, staring down at the pooling of the silk sheets in the middle of the bed. Mandalore blue, they form an ocean. “She was.”
Nova hears the nasal exhale from the corner, and she startles, remembering Bo-Katan’s still there. “I could do it,” she offers, her voice small and half-formed, “if you want me to.”
Din glances up at Nova. Nova glances back, biting down on her bottom lip to not let the smile slide out. Back when they first discussed the real wedding, put on paper with the million other to-dos in their life, it was when Nova was proclaimed dead on Mandalore and Bo-Katan was a hinderance, not a friend. She was sour and sculpted from ice and spat venom every time she got too close. Nova had felt that shell cracking, even all those months ago, but it hadn’t given way to the person standing in front of her—bruised, softer around the edges, a mess of usually impeccable red hair, putting more weight on her left foot. Bo-Katan Kryze isn’t a hardened iceberg anymore. Bo-Katan Kryze is Nova’s best friend.
“Or not,” she amends, after a few seconds of prolonged silence. “The offer’s there.”
“The offer,” Din says, and the intensity of his voice carries the volumes of everything he and Bo-Katan endured when Sparmau had them, “is accepted.”
Bo-Katan’s smile, wide and unencumbered, gleams. Happiness wears her like an old, estranged friend. Nova wants to hop out of bed and crash into her arms, make Bo-Katan feel that gratitude right down to her bones. “I can’t promise I’ll be as good as Cara.”
It’s sobering. “Not many people would be,” Din concedes.
“She’d be proud of you.” The words fall out Nova’s mouth before she realizes they’re her own. Both of them look over at her. Nova’s fingers are embedded around her necklace, pressing down until the Rebel symbol imprints on her thumb. “Offering to marry us means you like us. Enjoy our company, even. All Cara wanted was for us to be on the same team.”
Bo-Katan nods, looking like her head’s off somewhere else. “I do, you know,” she says. She’s looking at Din, not Nova, and Nova knows that it’s because Bo-Katan has made this part perfectly clear to Nova already. “Like you.”
Din nods, his eyes holding the full knowledge of it. After a second, after he’s made it known, a small smile snakes its way across his lips. He turns his head to left and right, moving his hands rapidly across the bedspread as if he’s desperately searching for something.
“What,” Bo-Katan sighs, voice already stretched thin to exasperation.
“Looking for the end of the world,” Din deadpans, hand shaking Nova’s wrist. A laugh bubbles out of her throat, and Nova lets it. It cuts through the darkness of the room, wiping the heaviness clean. “It must be coming if Bo-Katan Kryze admits to liking us.”
“I take it back!” Bo-Katan shouts as she turns on her bare heel, stalking towards the door. Nova laughs again, letting Din rattle her body. It’s been months—years, even—since he’s acted this free. “I hate you.”
“Liar!” Nova calls at Bo-Katan’s retreating footsteps, and when Din wraps his arms around her again, Nova feels like she’s finally come home.
*
When morning comes, the sky has clouded over. The moonlight that sprawled all over the room last night is gone, replaced by the usual Mandalore fog. Din’s not in bed. Nova wakes up slowly, feeling around for the shape of him under the covers, but by the feel of the blankets and the absence of warmth, he’s been gone for a while. Nova’s heart sinks. The memory of last night is still full and clear in her mind, but it burns. She rubs sleep from her eyes, trying to decipher if Din’s desire to remarry her was just her imagination or if it was real.
“Hey.”
Nova jackknifes up, pulling the covers up over her naked body. Din is propped in the doorway, holding a mug of something hot. He holds it out to Nova in offering, and she sheepishly pulls on her discarded clothes as he waits, walking over to him.
“You weren’t in bed.”
His eyebrows furrow. “It’s midday.”
Nova blinks. She looks out the open window and back again, the words traveling through her hazy, sleep-fogged head, and then she startles, wrapping her hands around the mug. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Din tilts his head to the side, the gesture somehow as endearing as it was when he was obscured under all that beskar. “Because you needed the sleep?”
Nova’s mouth goes wobbly. It’s the simplest answer, the easiest one, and yet, she had assumed the worst. Still stuck in fight or flight mode, her body shakes on the comedown. “Oh,” she says, softly, sheepishly, and Din leans in to press a kiss against her forehead.
“We’re all downstairs,” Din murmurs. He feels so strong, even still emaciated and bruised from the fight.
“Planning our attack?” Nova asks, pulling away from the embrace to give Din a smile.
His face is unreadable, but there’s still sadness in the lines of his mouth. “No,” he says quietly, and he’s looking at Nova, but something’s missing. “Planning the funeral.”
*
There are Mandalorians, Rebels, and Skywalkers alike gathered in the throne room. Nova feels like the sanctity of it still prevails, even though all of them have worked together in some capacity for months now. Grogu is, inexplicably, in Bo-Katan’s arms. And he looks like he’s enjoying it, which is even more bizarre. She’s leaned against the holotable, talking with Fennec. Luke and Wedge are together on the steps, and Leia keeps sneaking knowing, furtive glances at them. Koska is talking with Boba, which surprisingly doesn’t look heated, and the throne—Nova’s throne—sits above all of them.
For a minute, Nova doesn’t disturb any of them. She doesn't want to. This moment, this grand gathering of all the family she’s recruited along the way—this is what she’s been missing since she was fifteen and left alone in the world. It sticks in her throat, the emotion of it, and she has to swallow before she steps forward.
Nova allows one full smile before she turns her attention to the matter at hand. “Where are we in planning?” she asks, and just like that, the energy in the room stills, goes quiet. Everyone gathers in a circle around the holotable. Something about all of them, united, makes a lump stick in Nova’s throat.
“She wouldn’t want fanfare.”
It’s Fennec who speaks first. Nova raises an eyebrow.
Fennec looks defensively at them all. “What? Am I wrong?”
“You’re right,” Din says slowly. “She wouldn’t want a big funeral. Nothing fancy. A good, honest lay-to-rest, and then she’d want us to stop moping about it.” A small smile flits across his face, and then it’s gone.
“She lived on Nevarro.” This is Wedge. “She spent most of her time out patrolling and catching the slimy criminals in the Outer Rim, but Nevarro was her home base.”
Nova nods. “Does Nevarro have any specific…rituals? Anything she’d want at her funeral?” The word still caught in her throat and left a sour taste in her mouth. Nova swallows, trying to appear level, like she’s not still shattering to pieces inside.
“Cara may have lived on Nevarro,” Leia says, her voice sustained and clear, “but she grew up on Alderaan.” Her words are calm, measured, senatorial. Nova feels the urge to stand up straighter as Leia speaks. She contains worlds. “She may not have wanted a huge ceremony, but it’s tradition to gather in a beautiful place to bury the body.” Leia looks up. “We have no body, but we can put her to rest somewhere beautiful. No matter what state the galaxy is in, there’s no shortage of those.”
Din nods. “Sorgan.”
The name stirs something in the pit of Nova’s belly, but she can’t put her finger on exactly what.
When no one contributes, Din sighs—more to fill the silence than anything else. “I met her there,” he says finally, his words careful. “She called it her early retirement.” A small smile turned up at the corners of his mouth. “She tried to shoot me. I tried to shoot her. A fight ensued. Then the kid toddled in with a cup of bone broth and Cara was declared a friend, not an enemy.” Grogu babbles in assent, still nestled in Bo-Katan’s lithe arms. “She’d like to be laid to rest there. If she could choose…I think that’s where she’d go.”
Nova nods. “Then we go to Sorgan.”
Luke’s brow shoots up. “Today?”
Nova knows what he’s thinking. The vision still lives in her head, haunts the rest of her mind. The sinister laughter. The blue lightning. Ezra’s warning. And, even bigger than all of that, Nova’s nightmare of Sparmau not really being Sparmau is snarling on the precipice, angry at being compartmentalized and locked away. There’s a war coming, the First Order is still in the shadows, and there’s evil yet to be eradicated. This moment might feel like an ending, but it’s the beginning—the beginning of something so much deeper and darker than the hell they’ve already been through.
But she nods. “We can’t move forward into the war without grieving what we’ve lost,” she says quietly. “I can’t, at least, and we all owe our lives to Cara’s sacrifice. I know we need to prepare,” Nova continues, not dropping Luke’s gaze, “but this is fighting back, too.”
A boyish grin spreads across Luke’s face. For a second, all Nova can see is the kid he was when he fought against Vader, back when the Empire had won, back before all of this. He’s full of light, even outfitted in those black Jedi robes. It radiates out of him, from every single place. It’s ebullient and magical and exactly what Nova needs. “Damn right it is.”
They all move to the exit. Nova hovers in the throne room, still trying to take it all in. Somewhere, in town, the rest of the Mandalorians are living their lives. The ceremony of Nova becoming Mand’alor was only a day or so ago, but it feels like an eternity. She brushes a hand over the beskar throne. Bo-Katan lingers with her.
“You don’t need to tell them all where you’re going.”
Nova startles. It’s like Bo-Katan plucked the thought straight out of her head. “How did you—”
“Heavy is the head,” Bo-Katan sighs, walking over to where Nova’s frozen by the holotable. “I’ve been very close to multiple Mand’alors, for better or for worse. I know you feel like you have to lead every second, because it’s who you are. But we are very self-sufficient people, us Mandalorians.” She smiles. It warms Nova’s heart. “They don’t need to be led every second, no matter what Din told you.”
Nova swallows. “Din told me…I need to be all in. That I can’t abandon them.”
Bo-Katan raises her chin. “You are abandoning no one,” she says curtly, her eyes flashing. “You’re going to grieve your friend, and you’re going to send her off, and then you’re going to come back here to be the Mand’alor. It doesn’t get much more Mandalorian than that, Novalise.”
Nova swallows. She needs to put on something other than glorified pajamas, and she still can’t shake the sleep from where it fogs across her head. “I need,” she sighs, choosing her words very carefully, “to do it right this time.”
Bo-Katan has an odd look on her face, something Nova can’t quite identify. Finally, she extends a gloved hand. Nova takes it, letting Bo-Katan drag her away from the center of the room. “Hard to fuck up,” she shrugs, as both of them exit the ornate beskar doors, “when you have me by your side.”
*
Luke, Leia, and Wedge opt for traveling in the Millenium Falcon. Nova would have preferred Kicker, but she was still on Tatooine’s stuface, getting whipped back into shape by that eccentric mechanic, and besides, it was a tight squeeze when it was just Nova, Din, and Grogu. Slave I fits Bo-Katan and Fennec, too, and it hosts more than a nest of blankets masquerading as a bed, so it was the obvious option.
“What?”
Nova startles, looking over at Din. His bare face is just as beautiful as it was when she saw it for the first time, and seeing it here, in the hull of a ship that’s not their own, still sparks up low in her belly. “Just thinking,” she murmurs, thankful for the semblance of privacy the inner hull of Slave I is. Bo-Katan is up front with Fennec, and Grogu’s asleep.
“About what?” Din shifts, moving closer. He’s in the bunk opposite Nova, staring at her through the breath of space between them.
“I’m scared,” Nova admits. It’s not what she expected to come out of her mouth, but it’s the truth all the same. She swallows, her mouth dry. “This whole time…I’m used to knowing who our threat is. Sparmau made it abundantly clear. And before her, it was Gideon. Before Gideon, it was the Calicans. It’s easy when you know what—or who—you’re fighting.” Nova inhales, shaky and off-center. “I know nothing about what’s coming for us, Din. I know the First Order is something bad, constructed in the wake of the Empire. I know they’re gathering, and I know we have to stop them. But that’s pretty much my ceiling.” She pauses, considering, and then leans forward. “How did you feel about Ben?”
Din’s eyebrows furrow. “Luke’s nephew?”
Nova nods.
“Uh,” Din says, considering, “fine?”
Nova’s heart sinks. “You didn’t feel it?”
Din leans back, crossing his arms across his chest. Nova tries her best to stick with the thread of the conversation, but she gets distracted as he moves. “He’s…odd,” Din says finally, watching Nova like he’s afraid he’s going to say the wrong thing. “Strange.”
“He’s tied to them. The Order.”
Din recoils. “He’s a kid.”
“I know. But he won’t always be.”
“Nova, I know you feel things I don’t—I can’t—but…he’s a Skywalker—”
“Skywalkers aren’t always good,” Nova interrupts, looking down at her hands. She’s sitting with her legs crossed, her fingers laced together in her lap. “One turned into Vader, remember? And besides, he’s not a Skywalker in the way Luke and Leia are, Din. There’s something off about his energy. Corrupted. I’ve seen visions.”
Din stares at her. “Nova,” he whispers, and the careful way he says it makes something angry ignite in the pit of Nova’s stomach, “I know you—you see things. I don’t know how, or why, but I know the kid does, too. And I trust you, both of you. But sometimes—sometimes, they don’t always come to life the way you see them.”
Nova holds his gaze. “I’ve seen him. In every vision, he wears a mask, he has a red lightsaber that ignites like a sword, and he calls himself Kylo Ren. He will be on Takodana. I felt him there. I saw it. He will try to stop the Resistance. He’s connected to the First Order. I’ve seen his portrait in the crystal cave on Ilum. It’s not just me. Luke sees it too. And so does Leia.”
Din blinks. “Leia?”
“Yes.” Nova raises her chin. “That kid is going to turn into something horrible. And when he does—not if, Din, when—he’s going to be our enemy.”
A long sigh falls out of Din’s mouth. He rubs his forehead, trying to make sense of it. “So if you know that piece of the puzzle, why don’t we—?”
“Stop him?” Nova interjects glumly. “Because he’s not our biggest threat, and because he’s Leia’s kid. When it comes down to that, we’ll do what needs to be done. But I can’t do anything now.” She swallows. “None of us can.”
They’re both quiet for a minute.
“Are you still having visions of Sparmau?”
Nova looks back at Din and immediately away, turning the Darksaber over in her hands. “When I sleep. They’re nightmares, until they’re not.” She sighs, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes until she sees stars. “She shows up. She can still hurt me. I don’t think it’s her. Not really. But there’s remnants of her in whoever the person we’re up against is, and he’s—he’s terrifying.” Nova shudders. “I haven’t seen him. I don’t know his name. But Sparmau always said she was nothing in comparison to the pain and havoc he could wreak. And Ezra knows him.”
Din watches her carefully. “What has Ezra said?”
“Nothing concrete.” Nova runs her tongue over her teeth, considering. “He—it’s like he’s not fully there. When I see him, he’s blurry around the edges. Like he’s in limbo. No one else appears to me like that.”
Din nods. “Is he real?”
“Yes,” Nova answers, immediate and concrete. “He’s real. His reality just…isn’t ours. I think it used to be, but not anymore.”
There’s something resigned in Din’s eyes. Nova watches him, studies him, trying to place it. He looks haunted still, from Sparmau, from all the loss. He’s emaciated and thin and unarmored, and it’s strange to observe him in this form, like everything has been stripped bare. Anxiety hammers in Nova’s heart, dangerous and incessant.
“I know, it sounds crazy—”
“No,” Din interrupts, leaning forward. Their faces are only a few inches away. “It doesn’t.” He sighs, reaching forward. Nova lets his bare hand swallow hers, basking in the safety and security of it. “Maybe it does. But I’ve had a front row seat to this for a while now, and I know better than to doubt you.”
Nova’s throat constricts. “I think you’d like him.”
Din squeezes down on her hand. “Maybe he’ll come back someday. Out of your head.”
Nova runs her tongue over her teeth, then nods. “Maybe.” They share a look, a long one, and then Nova hops off her bunk and uses her hands to push herself up on Din’s. He moves over to the wall, letting her curl in around him, and Nova closes her eyes, listening to the thrush of Slave I’s coast through hyperspace, breathing in Din. Metal and gunsmoke and fire and cinnamon, and something different underneath all of them. It’s the lack of armor, the smell of the air hitting his skin. She snuggles up against him, getting closer and closer until they’re one cohesive form, a multi-headed animal, limbs wrapped around limbs. “Sorgan,” she whispers.
Din makes a noise reminiscent of a “yes.”
Nova looks up at the metal interior of the ship. “There was a woman there,” she says, trying to keep her voice level, devoid of any jealousy, “if I remember correctly.”
Din nods against Nova’s head.
“She wanted you to stay,” Nova repeats, stringing together the concurrent stories that both Din and Cara had told her. “You wanted to stay.”
Din’s quiet for a minute. “Nova—”
“That’s true, right? Did you want to stay?”
More of the quiet. Then, smaller: “Yes.”
Nova considers this. “Was she Cara’s friend?” This is a genuine question. Nova can hear the tha-thump of Din’s heartbeat. As usual, it’s steady and strong, and it doesn’t quicken under pressure. “Should we invite her to the funeral?”
Din shifts. “I think we should invite the whole village,” he says, finally, after spending a moment lapsed in silence. “Cara saved them. I helped, but she…she was the power behind most of it. They’d want to come.”
Nova nods against his chest. “Okay.”
The familiar lull of space, and the feeling of being intertwined with Din again, make Nova sleepy. She’s been chasing sleep in small doses for what feels like years, and still, she’s not rested enough. After a few minutes, she’s forgotten she’s asked about the woman on Sorgan.
“Novalise.”
Nova shifts, looking up in the darkness of the ship. She can hear Grogu’s tiny snores next to their beds, and even though she can’t see the stars from back here, she feels their presence. “Yeah?”
Din’s hand pulls her even closer, running his fingers through her hair, and already, Nova feels more at peace. “Sorgan’s not Naator. And Omera was never you.”
*
Nova’s not sure how long it takes to get to Sorgan from Mandalore. She sleeps through the whole thing, and she’s woken up by the rough touchdown onto the planet’s surface, rattled in the bunk like she’s getting thrown around in a cage.
“Sorry,” Bo-Katan calls, the single-word apology angry. “I don’t have the landing down in this thing yet.” Nova hides a small smile as she gets down off the bunk, pulling her armor and lightsaber from where it’s scattered across the ship’s floor. She makes her way to the cockpit, bracing herself in the door.
“Where’s Fennec?”
“Not here, obviously,” Bo-Katan says sourly, tucking her hair behind her ears. It’s still longer than it usually is, the red shock of it hitting almost to her shoulders. Nova loves it, the wildness of it. “She conveniently went to use the fresher before warning me the ship does not land like a normal ship.”
Nova presses her lips together, and Bo-Katan catches a glimpse of it out of the corner of her eye, shooting Nova a look. Nova raises both of her hands as proof. “I come in peace.”
“Yeah, yeah. Where’s Din?”
Nova looks around, still dragging from sleep. “I don’t know. He was with me.”
“Out here.” Din’s voice rounds the corner, and Nova and Bo-Katan climb down the gangplank, tracing its origin. Nova glances up at the treeline, and does a double take. It’s beautiful here, with towering pines and yellow-green grasses that dance and rustle in the breeze. It looks like Kashyyyk but more populated, and the smell of the air reminds her of Yavin. Nova can feel her heart in her throat, and she swallows, looking out at the mountains.
And then, out of nowhere, a desperate frog immobilizes in the air. Nova yelps, recoiling, and Grogu stands in front of her, his tiny face screwed up in concentration, his three-fingered hand wobbling. Before she can do anything, Grogu drags the frog down to the level of his mouth and swallows it whole. Din looks appalled. Bo-Katan looks strangely proud.
“Don’t play with your food,” Din grumbles.
Grogu blinks his giant eyes in response. Wordlessly, Din concedes, grabbing him gently off the forest floor and holding him close to his chest. Nova wraps her jacket around herself, grinning, propped up against the side of the ship, the hull still warm from the long travel. She smiles at Grogu as he extends his little silver ball toward her, and the two of them float it back and forth, wordlessly, reflexively.
“There you are.” That’s Bo-Katan’s voice, splitting the air behind her, but Nova’s concentration is entirely focused on keeping Grogu’s ball in the air. “Can you take your ship back? She doesn’t listen to me.”
Nova smiles, expecting Fennec’s dry response, but the voice is someone else’s entirely. “Happily. You were under strict orders not to touch the controls. I could have you killed for that.”
“Maybe you could,” Bo-Katan mutters, “but your jurisdiction is only good on Tatooine.”
Nova whirls around. Standing in front of her, tall and broad, is Boba Fett. And behind him, stubborn as ever, is Kicker. Nova cries out, letting Grogu’s ball float back down to his hand, and before he can protest, she’s hurtling toward Boba and grabbing him in the fiercest hug she can manage. After a moment of stunned silence, he chuckles in her ear and carefully hugs her back.
“You came.”
“She’s not ready to go into battle,” Boba says, jerking his head toward Kicker as Nova releases him, “but she’s airborne.”
Nova’s chest tightens. “You came,” she repeats.
“I couldn’t make the fight,” Boba says, and even though his voice is even, she can see sorrow in his eyes, “but I like to keep my promises.”
Nova nods, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Thank you,” she whispers.
Boba’s smile is directed entirely towards her. He squeezes her shoulder. “I assume there’s going to be a Skywalker here.”
“Two.” Leia has her hair braided in a crown over her head, her face set in a no-nonsense scowl. “So. You survived the Sarlacc.”
The warmth slowly slides off of Boba’s face. “Not easily. You survived the Hutt.”
Leia nods, a sharp thing. She’s wearing an expression that doesn’t belong to Luke. Nova’s seen it in her visions. Leia may be an Organa, but she has her birth father’s face. “It’s what I do.” She holds his gaze. “You’re lucky Han’s not here, or this would be a different conversation. Don’t try anything. Not with me, and not with my brother. We’re here for a funeral.”
Boba looks from Nova to Leia to Fennec, who seems to have materialized at his side. “I know. I knew Cara. I liked her. That’s why I’m here. And,” he sighs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “I brought someone.”
Greef Karga climbs out of Kicker, and Nova sighs. Besides Din, he was probably the person here who was closest to Cara. His usually easy, jovial face is saddened. It’s written into his smile lines. “Hello, gorgeous.”
“She has a name,” Din says gruffly, standing up. Karga stares at him for what feels like an eternity before he recoils, realizing who it is.
“Stars above,” Karga cries. “Mando!”
Din blinks, like he forgot that he was unarmored until now. Nova moves closer into his orbit, ready to be his armor in the absence of it, but Karga smiles, extending his hand. “Good to see you, old buddy.”
Din still doesn’t know how to make normal facial expressions, especially around people who have never seen his face, so it takes him a painfully long time to meet Karga’s grasp. “You too,” he says, finally, and Nova knows it’s the truth.
Nova looks around at the group of them—three Mandalorians, in varying stages; Skywalkers; a tiny green baby stronger than most of them; the slightly slipperty head of the Guild; two bounty hunters; an experienced Rebel. They’re a ragtag group, an army without any sort of collective training, but they’re all here for one thing—Cara. And she’d be happy. She’d have drunk her spotchka and laughed at all the tension, and she would have made it so much easier to bear. Nova can feel her, here, on this planet. It’s serene in all the ways Cara wasn’t, but it’s exactly the kind of place where Nova can picture her being happy.
“Let’s have the ceremony at sunset,” Nova says, breaking the silence. “We can have it right here, at the forest’s edge.” There’s a small smile on Din’s face, and seeing that in public is so rare that it startles Nova out of her speech. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says, looking where the trees meet the open sky, eyes traveling over the small town below. “It’s—this is the place where we fought. This was the town we protected. Cara shot down an AT-AT right here.”
Nova smiles. It’s so fitting, so Cara, that for a second, it takes away the heaviness of her grief. “Here it is, then. Fennec and Boba, can you move the ships? Not far,” she warns, and Fennec winks. “Karga, you and Bo-Katan can start gathering stumps and logs for people to sit on. Luke and Wedge, will you stay with Grogu?” Bo-Katan gives Karga a side eye, vicious and glaring, but when she catches Nova’s eye, Nova knows Bo-Katan understands. Nova wants someone to watch Karga, who looks sullen and strange, and that Bo-Katan could use the physical release of doing something difficult. Luke nods, grinning at Din as he plucks Grogu easily out of his arms. “Din, Nova says, “you know the town. Will you go ask them if they’d like to attend the ceremony?” Something sad and conspiratorial passes between them, and his hand squeezes down on Nova’s for a second before he retreats back into the ship to gather his armor. “Leia,” she says, finally, after everyone else is accounted for, “will you tell me about funerals on Alderaan?”
Everyone divulges, set off on their respective missions, and after a flurry of movement, it’s just Nova and Leia standing at the forest’s edge. Leia finds smaller sticks and logs, gathering them up in her arms like she’s lived in these woods her whole life. Nova follows in her footsteps, and after a few minutes of silence, both of them are standing in front of a hand-built pyre. In traditional funerals, the body would be wrapped in a shroud, but they don’t have a body to bury or a body to burn.
“I did this for my parents,” Leia says, as the flames roar to life. Both of them are in shades of blue, illuminated by the dancing orange. “After Vader blew up Alderaan. I did one alone on Yavin, but Luke and Han and Wedge didn’t let me go through with it. I yelled at them and told them to leave, but they’re stubborn when they want to be.” She smiles, lost in the memory, staring at the fire. “Especially Luke. He held my hand and stood with me as we burned the wood down to nothing. I don’t know if this is an Alderaanian tradition,” she confesses, looking over at Nova, “but it’s what my family has always done. When Vader died, when Luke saved him, Luke brought his body back to Endor. I didn’t want to mourn him, but we lit the pyre anyway.” She’s quiet for a moment, deep brown eyes studying the fire. “I’ve been to a lot of funerals, Novalise. Too many. But for the ones that matter, we light these pyres.”
Nova chews on her bottom lip. She doesn’t know what to say, how to shoulder the sadness. Leia is so fiery, so intentional, that seeing this emotion—raw, not in an outburst—feels strange. After a minute, she reaches forward and takes Leia’s hand. “I haven’t burned a pyre before,” she says finally. “When Sparmau killed my parents, their ship imploded on impact. I mourned them by running.” She swallows. “I haven’t had an actual funeral for anyone I loved. I’ve just held onto the grief and hoped I could put it to rest in my mind. But Cara deserves more than that. My parents deserved more than that.” The fire crackles, and Nova and Leia stand hand in hand, captivated by the flame. “She sacrificed herself for me. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I ever going to repay her?”
Leia’s quiet. “I had a friend once,” she said, “who sacrificed himself for me. And Luke, and Han, and Chewie, so we could get away. So we could make the rebellion matter. I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid, but he kept saving my life, and Luke’s, and Anakin’s.” She clenches her jaw. “He loved Anakin once. He loved Padme, my birth mother, too. And he was so good. Exhausted, retreated into himself, but good. His whole life was about making sure we stayed alive.” She stares into the fire. “He came to the Death Star for me. It had been ten years since I saw him, but I told him I needed him, and Obi-Wan came for me. I didn’t even get to see him before he died.” She inhales, exhales, and even over the roar of the fire, Nova can hear her breath shaking. “For a long time, Nova, I was furious at him. I held onto anger because I thought it would protect me from the grief. I wish he didn’t come. I wish he had stayed on Tatooine. But he didn’t. He died,” she says, her voice wobbling, “for me. I didn’t know how to reconcile it. But then I do this,” she says, punctuating it by waving her hand through the air, “and I get why he did it. I built the Senate back up. I fought for the Rebellion. I helped save the galaxy. Obi-Wan couldn’t have done it at that point in his life, but he knew I could. So I did.” She looks over at Nova.
“You make it sound so simple,” Nova whispers.
“It is,” Leia enunciates. “Cara told you why she did it. She sacrificed herself so that you could kill Sparmau. So that you could keep saving the galaxy. So don’t you dare throw that away. Be loud and fierce and cut down any evil that stands in the way. You’re something more, Novalise Djarin. Something closer to holy than any of us. So take the second chance Cara gave you. Don’t you dare throw your life away.”
Nova’s mouth runs dry. “Leia—” she starts, but the words evaporate with the smoke. She wants to tell Leia about the nightmares that wear the face of her son. She wants to talk about Ezra, the warnings he brings, the need to bring him back from the void. She wants to prove to Leia how sorry she is about all the loss she’s had to endure, her friends killed, all four of her parents gone. But Leia just holds her hand, squeezes it twice, gives Nova a look, and that’s enough. It’s not, it’s nowhere near it, but for the moment, it’s everything Nova needs.
As darkness begins to descend over Sorgan, people trickle in. There’s enough ships now that everyone has a place to rest, and before Din brings the town to her, Nova sneaks into the cockpit of Kicker, needing a second of peace before the grief comes back in. She folds herself up in the pilot’s seat, running her fingers over the worn dashboard. There’s the flower she pressed back from Naboo, before she and Din were together. There’s the map that Piper and Arokel made together, the cluster of stars shining even in the darkness. There’s the messy nest of the blankets on the floor. There’s random tchotkes hanging from the ceiling. There’s home here, made in between all the strangeness and brokenness, and Nova sits in the middle of it, knees drawn into her chest, looking up at the stars.
It’s beautiful, this universe of hers. Dangerous and all-consuming, sure, but beautiful. Novalise shines in the silence, all the stars, standing on the precipice of everything her life has led to. She’s Mand’alor, Rebel Girl, on her way to becoming a Jedi. She’s seen the worst of all of this, gone face to face with evil, but here she stands, ready to take on the darkness. It feels insurmountable if she thinks about it for too long, but she’s not alone. She’s here, alive. What a strange thing.
“Nova.”
She turns, expecting to see Din, but it’s someone else entirely. Something else entirely.
“Ezra?”
“Have I caught you at a bad time?” he asks wryly, and even though she knows he’s exhausted, she can see the smile in the corners of his mouth. It’s a ghost of one, but still, it’s there.
Nova smiles, too. “Darkness is coming, my friend. It’s kind of always a bad time.”
Ezra’s face shifts. He looks off into the distance, somewhere Nova can’t see. “The Order is coming, too. Not soon. Not anytime specific. But I can feel them building.”
Nova nods. “I know.” She screws her lips up to the side. “But, Ezra—”
“The Order is like the Empire,” Ezra interrupts. “Evil, yes, but not insidious. No, this is different. This is—who I’m fighting, whatever else we’re fighting—that’s different.”
“Ezra,” Nova says, standing up. Wind comes whipping around the both of them, and Nova forgets she’s indoors. “Ezra, who is he? Who are you with?”
Eza disappears for a second, then reappears. “The people who took your kid, that man, he was trying to harvest something from him. Just because that man is dead doesn’t mean it’s over.”
Nova feels a chill run down her spine. “Gideon?”
Ezra nods. “They’re doing something dark with the Force. Corrupting it. Twisting it.”
Nova feels a headache coming on. “Ezra,” she tries again, “where are you? How can I help?”
Ezra crackles in and out. Nova stumbles back. “They haven’t mobilized yet. they’re not strong enough. but they will, and they will come for you. I’m holding the floodgates back. You need to tell me when you’re ready.”
“Ezra, I—”
“Goodbye, Novalise,” he calls, drowned out under the wind, “I’ll see you soon.”
Nova falls back into the pilot’s seat, reeling. Part of her is still lodged in the vision, the memory of it sticking to her like a dream. She shakes her head, once, twice, and when she stands up, she collides with Din. She yelps, ricocheting off the armor, and Din lunges forward to grab her, controlling Nova’s fall back into the chair. “Hey.”
Nova blinks up at him. “How long have you—?”
“I walked in on you talking to nothing.” Even under the helmet, Nova can see Din studying her carefully. It’s mapped into his body language. She doesn’t need to see his face to know there’s concern written all over it. “I assume it wasn’t nothing.”
Nova shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut. She can't tell if she’s erasing the vision or if she’s trying to make Ezra stay. “Something is happening. Wherever Ezra is, Din, the…the veil is shattering.” She swallows, looking up at him. “It’s coming down, and the Order is…it’s after us for something other than just revenge.”
Din’s helmeted head tilts to the side. “What do you mean?”
Nova takes a breath, trying to steady herself. “When Gideon took Grogu, he wanted to harvest something from him. Midichlorians. I said that, but I had no idea what it meant. I think it has to do with the Force. So if Grogu has them, I do, too. And Luke, and Leia.” She closes her eyes again, the vision of Ezra’s face, so similar to her own, haunting her. “And Ezra.”
Din doesn’t say anything.
“He told me he’s holding it off,” Nova whispers, her fingers vicelke around Din’s armored wrist. “But he can’t for much longer, and when it comes, we’re looking at something even more dangerous than Sparmau.”
Something about Din’s appearances becomes steely, unyielding. “Is that possible?”
Nova nods. She can feel it in that sinister laugh, the blue lightning, the warnings, the way Ezra looks off into the distance like he’s shielding her from whatever danger he’s holding off. “I can feel it,” she breathes.
Din stares. Nova stares back. There’s so much they need to talk about, all of them. They need to plan, to prepare, to pull the fight together. But they’re stretched thin, and they’ve all had to shoulder so much grief. Nova’s heart wrenches. She wants to lay down here, to pause, to let someone else handle the weight of the galaxy for a change. But then she remembers Leia’s speech, her determination, her refusal to give in. It strengthens her. It lights a spark. So Novalise does what she does best—she sits up straighter, she braces herself, she finds the light. Nova reaches out, touching a hand to Din’s face. The feeling of the beskar underneath her bare fingers is nostalgic, familiar. She gives him a small smile. “You’re wearing your armor.”
Din shifts under her touch, moving closer. “I am.”
Nova bites down on her bottom lip. “You wore your helmet down to the town?”
Din nods. “I…I’ve gotten used to having it off, with you and the kid. And Bo-Katan,” he adds. “And the rest of us. It’s still strange, but it’s…easier.” Nova can hear him swallow through the modulator. “But the rest of the galaxy—”
“You don’t have to,” Nova interrupts gently. “If you don’t want to. You’re allowed to put it on, and you’re allowed to take it off. Those rules, that part of the Creed—you don’t need to live by it if it doesn’t feel right anymore.” She leans forward, pressing her lips to his armored forehead. She rises, silently, pulling on pieces of armor. Her clothes, Mandalorian blue, won’t show up under the orange light of the fire and the darkened night around them, but it feels good to wear something that represents who she is. Nova steps into the tiny fresher, brushing her hair carefully, trying not to disturb the ringlets. She’s planning on braiding the top half back, but when she looks at her reflection, long dark curls hanging in her face, she sees Andromeda. And Nova sees the person Cara helped er get rid of, all those months ago, when Sparmau had put a bounty out on her head. She can’t get rid of her now.
So Nova just wraps her shawls around her shoulders, offsetting her blue underclothes, her dark armor. She doesn’t cover herself in her helmet. She doesn’t try to erase Andromeda. When Nova looks at herself, she just sees Novalise. And it’s what Cara would have wanted.
Nova reappears into Kicker’s main cockpit, and to her surprise, Din’s helmet is off. He looks at her, sadness written into his face, but when his beautiful brown eyes meet Nova’s, they light up. “You’re not wearing your helmet,” she says, softly, bracing herself in the doorframe.
Din shrugs, reaching forward to her. Nova falls into his arms, letting all of her fear and anxiety melt off into the background as he holds her, happy to just live right here in this moment. “When I met Cara here, she wanted to know why I didn’t take it off. Why I didn’t leave my cohort, why I followed the rules that I did. She wanted me to settle down, to be happy, to show my face. I just didn’t find any of that worthwhile until I met you.”
Nova’s heart flips over. She pulls away from Din’s armored chest, the beskar warm against where her bare skin had touched it. “Din—”
“I could have stayed here,” he continues, “and maybe I would have been happy. But none of it mattered until you walked into my life, Novalise. So I’m going to wear the armor, but not my helmet. I’m going to stand out there with our friends, our kid, this town we once saved, and I’m going to make Cara proud.”
For what feels like the millionth time since they landed, Nova’s eyes prick with tears. “You’re making me proud, too.”
Din gazes down at her, hands snaking up to hold each cheek, capturing Nova’s face in his palms. Her stomach fills with butterflied, and Nova leans into the thrill. “Nova, after tonight, before we go back into the fight, I’m going to—”
Bo-Katan raps on the door three times before she lets herself in. “Everyone’s down there,” she says, softly. “I think it’s time.”
Din’s hands drop from Nova’s face, and his left finds her right.
“What are you going to do?” Nova whispers, heart hammering, as they follow Bo-Katan down the gangplank.”
“Later,” Din murmurs, squeezing her hand. “I’ll tell you later.”
Outside, the sun has set entirely over the mountains. The forest is dark, but with the people gathered around them and the fire lit, light dances. Boba and Fennec parked all three ships under the tree cover, and when they emerge into the clearing, Leia catches Nova’s eye and gives her a smile. Nova forges forward, her hand caught in Din’s grip, trying to steady herself. This is about Cara.
In the middle, there’s an open space before the fire. Nova makes her way over to it, looking around at all the people here to grieve their friend—Karga, Bo-Katan, Boba, Fennec, Luke, Leia, Wedge, Din, Grogu. The townspeople looks sorrowful and determined. Din lets go of her hand with a squeeze, and he moves towards Bo-Katan, plucking a rapt Grogu out of her arms.
“Hi,” Nova begins, her voice small. She clears her throat, feeling fortified by the rush of the flames behind her. “Thank you for coming,” she continues, much more self-assured. “Carasynthia Dune was nothing if not a fighter, and knowing an army she built is here to send her off would make her proud.” Nova smiles off in the distance. “My name is Novalise,” she continues, trying her best to meet the eyes of everyone in the crowd, “but a long time ago, it was Andromeda. I was ashamed of the person I was. I thought she was weak, and when I took on my new identity, I tried to bury her entirely.” She swallows. “When I met Cara, she was my friend instantly. She’d heard of me from my husband, and she didn’t reserve any judgment. She hugged me, told me she was happy to meet me, and that was it. When Cara learned I used to be someone else, it was because an enemy put a bounty on my head, using my old name. She didn’t treat me like a criminal. She didn’t interrogate me. She fiercely and unequivocally fought by my side to make sure I survived.” Nova swallows. “She died to protect me,” Nova continues, carefully. She meets Din’s eyes, then Leia’s, and forges on. “She sacrificed herself so that we all survived. That’s the person Cara was. I know she was that person for all of you, too.” Nova lifts her chin. “Before she died, before she threw herself in front of the danger for us, she told me that I needed to stop martyring myself. That it wasn’t fair. And when she did finally make the sacrifice, she told me everybody needs a martyr. And that it wasn’t going to be me.” Nova can feel the tears building up, and when she blinks hard, one falls. “I can’t thank her for that. But I can repay her. And knowing Cara, the person she was? That’s what she would want anyway.” She turns to the fire, closing her eyes, imagining Cara’s face. “Thank you,” Nova whispers, just to the flame. “I promise you, I’m not going to throw it away.”
The crowd opens up, letting Nova back into its fold. She falls into Din’s arms, and she can feel eyes on her, but they only last for a minute. She watches, held up by Din’s strength, as the rest of the gathering takes turns. Karga tells a rousing story about Cara’s time as Marshal. Boba and Fennec go up together, as they always are. Bo-Katan’s speech is to-the-point but heartfelt in the kind of way only Bo-Katan can manage. Even Luke and Leia take brief turns. Wedge’s eulogy is brief, but so endearing. Grogu babbles in Din’s arms, and Din presses the tiniest, briefest of kisses against Nova’s temple before he passes their kid to her to take the stand. Nova swallows, standing as tall as she can, trying to stay upward without him.
For a minute, Din just stares out at the crowd, unblinking and awkward. There’s no noise besides the crackle and roar of the fire, and Nova meets Din’s eyes, whispering a silent affirmation, holding his gaze.
“I,” Din starts, and then the words fall off. He swallows, looking back at the fire, then to the crowd, then to Nova. “My name is…Din Djarin. Some of you only knew me as the Mandalorian. Mando.” The people from the town whisper to one another, the rustling noise sweeping through all of them. “About…two years ago, I met Cara Dune here. She held a gun to my head. She did that a lot.” A tiny smile spreads across his uncertain face. “The two of us were always competing to see who would die. She…she came here with me, to this town, to help fight back against the last of the Empire. She brought down a whole walker right here.” Din swallows. “Cara was…probably my best friend. She refused to leave me alone, even when I wanted her to. Shed saved my life on Nevarro once, refused to let me die down there. And she led me back to Nevarro, the day I met Nova.” His eyes snap to Nova’s again, and the butterfly menagerie comes to life in her stomach. “My wife.”
She bites down on her lip, eyes still teary, beaming back at him.
“Cara was tough. She was from Alderaan. She was a shocktrooper. She became the Marshal. She killed evil things, and she fought off criminals for a living. But she loved my kid, and she told me when I was being stupid, and she…taught me being alone wasn’t always the best thing.” Din swallows, and the rest of his sentence is strained: “And I’m going to miss her very much.” With that, he moves away from the makeshift podium, making a beeline for Nova and Grogu, and when he reaches them, Nova bursts forward to hug him. Din, still adverse to showing his face in public, let alone any sort of unhindered emotion, stiffens for a second, and then falls into it, letting Nova hold him up.
More of the townspeople go up and make their own speeches. Little kids talk about Cara’s muscled arms, her Alliance tattoo on her cheek. Nova just stays in Din’s embrace, a buffer against it all, when one of the women from the town makes her way to the front. Her voice is gentle and kind, and when Nova sees her over Din’s shoulder, her gaze meets Nova’s. She’s beautiful, and a small smile graces her face. “Hello,” she says, and the crowd responds. “My name is Omera.” Nova swallows, staring up at her, but there’s nothing on Omera’s face except grief and gratitude. “Cara Dune helped save me and my daughter and our town. I didn’t know her well, but we wouldn’t be standing here today if it wasn’t for her. So I want to thank her. I want to celebrate her. Sorgan will always be in her debt.”
When the rest of the ceremony dwindles down to nothing, people gather and drink and laugh. Nova keeps looking over at the fire, wishing Cara was here, startling in the knowledge that she’s not. She holds onto Grogu, and Din stands behind them, talking about something with Wedge. Nova can see Luke looking wistfully over at Wedge, so she beckons him over, and then she feels a tap on her shoulder.
Omera is standing in front of her. Nova blinks, once, twice, and then Omera smiles and extends her hand. “Your eulogy was beautiful,” she says, smiling. “You had a lovely friend.”
Nova nearly crumples. “I did,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “Your planet is wonderful. I’m so glad the peace has kept since Cara and Din left.”
Omera looks over at Din, then back to Nova. “I’m so happy he’s happy,” she says, and squeezes Nova’s forearm. “That man was incredibly conflicted when I met him. You were exactly the kind of person I had in mind to help him.”
Nova swallows. “Thank you,” she whispers, wanting to say more, but Omera just gives both of them another kind, genuine smile, and disappears back into the gathering to find her daughter. Bo-Katan picks up Grogu from where he toddled off towards the swamp, assuredly in the search for another frog to gobble down.
“The child,” she says, with perfectly measured disdain, “is hungry. I’ll feed him.” She sighs, like it’s an inconvenience, but with the smile on her face, Nova knows she’s delighted. Din comes up behind her, snaking his armored arms around her waist.
“Come with me,” he murmurs, pressing himself into Nova’s body, and her stomach flips over in anticipation. He closes his hand around her wrist, dragging her behind him, off behind a clump of trees. Nova exhales as he walks her up against one, bracing his arms on either side of her on the trunk, impossible to escape from. Something warm and wet snakes through Nova’s body, humming in anticipation. “You,” he says, voice low and thick, “are the only person who I would do this for.”
“Do what for?” Nova breathes, the air cutting through her voice. Din’s head dips in to her neck, pulling away the shawl to trace a gloved finger over her collarbone.
“All of this,” he whispers, his tongue licking a line across the hollow. Nova shivers, hearing the sadness and laughter of the people only a few yards away, chills exploding across her wanting body. “Showing my face. Following you around. Falling in love. Wanting to fuck you out in the open. Needing to prove that I belong to you.”
Nova barely stifles a moan. “Din—”
“I gave you this ring on Nevarro. I proposed to you on Yavin. We made our home on Mandalore. But the day I realized I wanted something more was here. On Sorgan. And when you walked into my life, I wanted you so badly it…consumed me.”
“I want everything with you,” Nova manages, her head sparkling with static, every nerve a live wire. “Then, now, for the rest of my life.”
Din pulls away, just for a half second, and then his mouth is on hers. It’s everything, dizzying, wanting, and Nova lets herself fall into the chasm, wanting more, needing it. But then Din pulls his mouth away and looks at her, still pinning Nova in place. “You said you're never running from me again, cyar’ika. Is that true?”
Nova startles, nodding. “I—yes, yes of course—”
“No,” Din says, tantalizingly, slowly, “it’s not.”
Nova blinks. “What do you mean?”
“I’m taking you to where I fell in love with you. Naator.”
Nova’s stomach flips over, staring from Din’s plush lips to the hunger in his eyes. “And then what?”
“Oh, Nova,” Din groans, leaning forward to tuck a lock of loose hair behind her ear. His finger follows down to her pulse pint, skating across it, then pressing. “And then I’m going to chase you. No bounty pucks. No Sparmau to call you away. No visions. No distractions. Nothing but you and me and the planet. You evade me for longer than a day, a full twenty-four hours, you win. If I hunt you down before then, and I will, then I win.”
“And what,” Nova asks, staring at him, “does the winner get?”
“Whatever the fuck I want.” This is the Din from her dream, the Din who chased her down and fucked her in the palace. Nova thrills with it, drips with it, everything inside of her electric and so, so alive.
Nova swallows. “How are you so sure, Din Djarin,” she breathes, leaning into his touch, “that you’re going to win?”
Din presses her back into the tree. She can feel every inch of him, even through the beskar. Nova knows that live wire inside of her is about to explode, edging her closer and closer to the edge. This right here is tangible—an unshakable thing. “Let’s find out. “Go ahead. Run from me, cyar’ika. One last time.”
*
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I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!! i'm sorry again for totally disappearing, working full time has already been so consuming, but recovering from surgery and COVID on top of it all has been… exhausting. i am going to finish SD even if it kills me!!! i promise!!!! and i don't want to give you a set date on when the next chapter will be up, but i promise it will be soon <3 thank you all so much for your kind words. i'm going to be catching up on comments tonight and tomorrow!!!
WARNINGS: canon-compliant violence, descriptions of blood and injuries
SUMMARY: “Wake up, Novalise. I’ll see you soon.”
As he disappears, Nova turns around. Everything shifts—first Yavin, then the Razor Crest, then Naator, and then, finally, Mandalore. She’s on the beskar throne, staring down at everyone she loves. When she lifts her hands, she has a heart in one and the Darksaber in the other.
In unison, like their voices have echoed around the entire galaxy and ricocheted back to her, Nova sees Din, then Andromeda, then the gilded version of herself, saintlike and holy. She touches her hand to Nova’s cheek and light pours out. It travels to her mouth, her lungs, her chest. It’s not just a resuscitation—it’s a promise, a glimpse into what comes next.
At once, the voices meld together. By the end of it, it just sounds like Novalise.
“Don’t throw it away.”
If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3
AUTHOR'S NOTE: HELLO MY LOVES AND HAPPY SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY!!! i hope you love this one. this is everything this entire fic has been building up to, amd i am so, so proud of how it turned out :') ENJOY!!!
Sparmau grins, a horrible smile leaching its way across her face. “Hello, Andromeda. We’ve been waiting for you.”
Nova steps forward, her heartbeat regulating. For one of the scariest—and biggest—moments of her life, she feels strangely calm. Like this has been prewritten. Like she’s been predestined, like everything she’s ever been through has delivered her right here. “Let Din go.”
Sparmau’s teeth sparkle. She has the same amount as Nova does, but the velocity and ferocity of which they shine multiples them, an optical illusion. She’s made from them, rows and rows of teeth, ready to tear into flesh and make everyone bleed. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“I think,” Nova says, her voice even, “you’ve had enough fun. I’m here. I’ll surrender, if that’s what you want. You can use me as your scapegoat, your punching bag, your partner in crime. But let him go.”
Din stares up at Nova, and she clenches her jaw. The magnetic pull of his brown eyes on hers, warm and intentional and filled with home, threatens her resolve. All she wants is to tear her eyes away from Sparmau’s endless, black, evil ones, to look her husband in the face and save both of their lives, but she knows Sparmau is waiting for even a second of weakness. Out of her periphery, Nova can see his bloodied mouth whisper please, and it takes every molecule in her body to resist the temptation to fall right down to her knees to beg for penance, to trade his life for her own.
“You disappoint me.”
Nova can feel water running, somewhere, in this massive, vantablack monstrosity, tap-tap-tapping like a broken faucet. The atmosphere of this, all of the ship’s interior, the intensity of this moment, it all feels like the abandoned Empire academy she got lost in, chasing after ghosts and future versions of herself, fate yet to come. She hears the melody of it, the incessant drip. If Nova were a weaker person, it would make her cower, submit to the darkness, let it taint her and paint everything golden over with Sparmau’s chosen shade of black.
But Novalise Djarin is anything but weak.
“That makes two of us.”
Sparmau’s face doesn’t change, even a tick in her clenched jaw, but her grip tightens around Din’s unarmored shoulder. From her periphery, Nova can see Din wince. Her heart shreds itself, a fatal tear through her aorta, but she can’t bleed out all over Sparmau’s starfighter. She can’t let the darkness win.
“I thought you weren’t coming. I was upset.” Sparmau pouts, cocking her head to the left, a perversion of Din’s innocent contemplation. Nova sees red, and she moves forward across another tile, trying to keep everything even and steady. “And then I realized that if you didn’t show up, it wouldn’t be because you were scared.” She pronounces scared with the R turned into a W, like an echo of a child that Nova can’t ever imagine Sparmau being. “It would be because you’re more like me than you ever thought.”
Something surges inside of Nova, and for a second, the only thing she can hear beyond the running water and the press of silence is her own blood thumping in her ears, something dangerous and entirely unhinged. “I’m nothing like you.”
Spramu grins. “Aren’t you?” She releases her grip on Din’s shoulder, and he sags, swaying violently before his hands buffer his fall against the floor. Nova breaks her own rule, glances at him for a halfsecnond, the icy blast of terror freezing out the red running through her body. “You didn’t rush back to Coruscant to save the people you love. You delayed it, almost until the last second. You’re dramatic, but more than that, you’re selfish.” Her teeth glint again, catching light that Nova can’t seem to find. “Why did you come here?”
Nova narrows her eyes. “To save them from you. To save the galaxy from you.”
“Aw,” Sparmau simpers, running a gloved hand over Din’s bruised cheekbone. He’s still staring at the floor, looking utterly defeated. The last—and only—time that Nova’s ever seen him like this is when he found her on Tatooine, and was ready to give his own life for Nova to get away. He was broken then, a hollow shell of the man she loves, defeated to the point of death. “That’s a nice sentiment, it really is. I wonder how Carasynthia Dune would feel about that? It’s a shame she’s not here to hear it.”
Nova’s heart wrenches, and her teeth snap together. “Don’t.”
Sparmau smiles, looking back up at Nova. Her hair frames her razorsharp face like gold, even though the whiteness of it is a shock against all of the black Sparmau favors. “How does it feel to have lost someone, when you were just bragging to me that you had me outnumbered?”
Din manages to twist his head back up to look at Sparmau, his eyelashes long and tangled, his eyes flitting back and forth between Sparmau and Nova. “What?” he asks, voice cracking down the middle of the word, and Nova can feel her heart breaking even more inside of her chest. It hurts, the weight of it, these tiny shredded pieces. “Cara—?”
Nova swallows, slowly lowering herself down to his level, hand coiled around the hilt of the lightsaber, ready to ignite it the second Sparmau starts swinging. “Din, I—”
“You wanted so badly to be a martyr,” Sparmau interrupts, and Nova can feel the buzz of white-hot anger threaten to drown her out. Nova doesn’t take her eyes off of Din’s bruised, bloodied face. “How does it feel to have someone take your spot?”
Nova’s eyes flash, and she looks back up at Sparmau, anger rising like bile in the back of her throat. “I’m going to kill you,” she says, evenly, and Sparmau grins again, those rows and rows of glittering teeth sparkling even amidst all of the darkness. “For Cara. For my parents. For Bo-Katan. For Din. And for myself.”
Sparmau tilts her head to the side again. “I thought you weren’t a murderer.”
Nova wants to scream, to let the raw sound of it rip the air between them to shreds, but she can’t. The second she loses her composure, she’s vulnerable, and with Din in the condition he is, with Wedge and Bo-Katan and Fennec still stranded back on Slave I, trying to accellerate enough to match Sparmau’s star destroyer at its rattling speed. She needs to hold it together long enough for backup to get here, or until she can channel every last drop of energy in her body to bring Sparmau down single handedly. “I’m not,” she says, as coolly as she can, “but I have no qualms about taking your life. It’s not just revenge. It’s justice.”
Sparmau laughs. It’s a beautiful, melodic thing, so discordant with all of her sharpness. “Is that how you justify it?”
Nova clenches her teeth, staring at Din, who looks so unfinished, so undone. His bare face, beaten, in various stages of healing. His mouth, parted and open, unguarded. He looks broken, and it makes Nova want to upend the entire galaxy for him, to bring the light back to his eyes. She knows she’ll feel the aftereffects of this, all of the wrong choices she made, for the rest of their lives, and the knowledge is just as heavy as the heartbreak of it all. “I don’t need to justify it,” Nova says, her voice sounding distant and strained, “because you’re a threat to the entirety of the galaxy. Taking you out is to balance the laws of nature.”
“Maybe,” Sparmau counters, “but no matter way you color it, it’s still murder.” And then the platform of her glittering, black boot connects with Din’s spine between his shoulder blades, an awful crunch sending him, unconscious, down to the floor.
“No!” Nova screams, all semblance of holding it together shattered the second Din hits the tile. He’s laying against it, slumped and motionless, everything looking wrong. Nova runs across the floor, lightsaber in hand, racing toward her husband, unconscious on the ground. She’s so close to making it, to shield his unarmored body with her own, bacta coursing through her veins. But Sparmau, as always, has other plans, and she sighs, flicking her hand up, crashing Nova to the ground. Nova slides across the sleek floor with the wind knocked out of her, crumpled and stunted from the force of it, sent back to where she started.
Sparmau scoffs, checking her long nails from the hand still held up to relay Nova back, and Nova snarls, pushing herself to her feet, shaken and winded. All the adrenaline pumped through her veins fuels her, the effects of the bacta shot still pumping all of her blood. She doesn’t feel the ache of it, even though she knows she will.
“I’m booooored,” Sparmau sighs, dragging out the word like an apathetic teenager. “You’re giving me nothing, Andromeda.”
“Andromeda,” Novalise seethes, cracking her neck like she does before flying into action, trying to ground herself in the moment, “isn’t here right now.”
Sparmau smiles again, wicked and haunting. “Did I kill her, too?”
Nova furrows her eyebrows, a steely death glare in her eyes. Like the beginning, like the second she walked in here, everything coursing through her calms down, even and measured. “No,” Nova says. “You didn’t. Not for lack of trying, though, was it, Ladmeny?”
Something unhinges in Sparmau’s eyes. Nova doesn’t smile, even though she wants to. “I thought murdering her parents for sport would have broken little Andromeda down to nothing.”
Nova feels her heart wrench again. This one is the worst of all, like the organ is being physically torn from her body to be razed and eviscerated. That’s how she felt the second Piper and Arokel died—eviscerated. She can feel it now, the weight of it, the ache, threatening to splinter her down to shreds. She inhales, exhales, feeling her breath leave her body. Din moans from the floor, still looking broken, all wrong angles, but Novalise doesn’t let herself look away from Sparmau for a second. If she does, seeing Din on top of feeling the loss of her parents will pulverize her. All of it is raw, an open wound. “So it was just for fun?”
Sparmau grins, running her tongue over her pointed incisor. “Does that hurt your feelings?”
Yes, the grief in Nova’s head screams. “No,” she answers, measured and calm. “It disappoints me. For you to be as threatening and dangerous as you claim to be, I figured it was part of some bigger scheme. If it was just for kicks, though—”
“I had my eye on you,” Sparmau snaps, and Nova feels it—the warm, intoxicating rush of a crack in her armor. “From the second I saw you, I knew we were connected.”
Nova raises an eyebrow as Din shifts on the floor, hearing the sharp intake of breath as he wakes back up. It fuels her, keeps her moving forward. Her knuckles are white from clenching the hilt of the lightsaber, thumb anchored on the middle, ready to ignite it and flood the room with blue, hopeful light. “So you did have an ulterior motive.”
Sparmau grits her teeth, considering. Nova can tell, in the flicker and pulse of her eyes, in the rushing feeling of Sparmau’s heartbeat. The drip of the water has faded out in the background, and Nova can feel something else in her periphery. It takes a while to place, because it feels like a whisper spoken too far away to make out the words, like a current rushing through a river, but when she does, it fortifies her, keeps her fighting. “Can’t you feel it?”
Nova’s eyes narrow. “Feel what?”
Where Sparmau was once rattled, now she’s determined. That steely glint, a spark of darkness, relights in the hollow of her eyes. “How badly the Dark Side wants you. How connected we are.”
Nova cocks her head to the side. “The Dark Side will never have me,” she says, her voice low and determined, “and you and I won’t be connected after tonight.”
Din shifts, and Sparmau breaks Nova’s gaze to look down at him. Where contempt and evil lurks behind her eyes whenever she looks at Nova, there’s nothing when she’s staring down at Din. He’s nothing except for collateral, a bargaining chip. He doesn’t hold any power that threatens Sparmau, nothing that she considers to be a rivalry. He’s there to use as Nova’s breaking point, to apply pressure until he snaps.
And, weirdly, the realization feels a little like relief. If Nova can get Din out of Sparmau’s reach, off the ship entirely while she cuts her evil limb from limb, he’ll be safe. Sparmau doesn’t want him. She wants Nova.
“Why me?” Nova asks, taking another step forward. Din’s jaw lifts off the ground, a tiny movement, but Nova catches his gorgeous eye for a split second, willing him to read her mind, to know that she has this under control. Something softens when she stares at him, something to let Nova know he’s still alive in there. “Why do you want me?”
“You’re powerful,” Sparmau answers, checking her nails again. Nova moves forward again, feeling her necklace swing left to connect—for a millisecond—with her heart. “You have mayhem in you, Andromeda.”
Nova lifts her chin. “So you want to use me as a weapon?”
Sparmau grins. “For starters.”
Nova nods, like she’s considering, and then she looks down at Din again. She can feel it, what he’s thinking. She can read him, his energy, his posture. He’s gilded even when he’s not dressed in silver, and before he’s a warrior, he’s hers. He tucks one foot underneath his body, and the second that Nova looks back up at Sparmau, they’re moving in unison, a two-headed animal, even after all of this.
“I’d love to see you try.”
And with that, Nova leaps forward, splitting over Din’s body, using her trajectory to land right in his spot. Before her feet hit the ground, Luke’s lightsaber ignites, and all of the darkness of Sparmau’s ship is lit up in blue.
Sparmau drops back like a lothcat, low and measured. She has fire and venom in her veins, and it makes her fluid, moving like she’s a singular force. With one hand, she brings up her own weapon—a sword-length version of her twin poison daggers—and the metal sings when it connects with the neon blade of the lightsaber. She grins as it grates, and Nova presses on.
She doesn’t have a plan. She should—this moment is all she’s been thinking about for months—but everything’s different now. Cara’s dead. Bo-Katan is dancing across the veil. Din has been bruised and beaten within an inch of his life. Nova doesn’t have it in her to keep her composure anymore. She just wants to fight back.
“You’re good,” Sparmau says, swinging. Nova jumps and dodges, bringing the lightsaber down like the blade of a knife, trying to get the ignited flame anywhere near Sparmau’s exposed skin. “I’m better.”
She lunges forward. It’s coordinated and deadly, Sparmau’s intention. She moves like it’s been written into the map of her sinew and bones, like she was created just to kill. Nova’s untrained, without the same fluidity, but she’s strong. Stronger even than Sparmau, maybe.
Nova dodges, twists a half step. Behind her, she can see Din out of the corner of her eye, and she’s trying not to look at him head-on. Not yet. Not like this, with Sparmau still poised and ready to strike, every single attack she has double-headed and meant for the both of them. “I have,” Nova says, bringing the saber up again, clanging against the sword, “the power of all the Jedi before me on my side.” The venom hisses as it makes contact with the lightsaber, spitting and recoiling in harmony with Sparmau. “What do you have?”
Sparmau grins, sharp and deadly. It would have unsettled Nova once—it did, it haunted her, the gleaming weapons in her mouth the subject of Nova’s nightmares—but now, it’s not a weapon. It’s a defense mechanism.
Which means that Novalise has burrowed her way under Sparmau’s skin more than she thought.
“I have the Dark Side,” Sparmau says, sheathing her sword. When Nova swings her lightsaber again, desperate to cut through to skin, Sparmau pulls her daggers out of her sleeves. She’s replaced the one she knifed Din with, but there’s still the blood on one from where Nova plummeted it into her heart back on Yavin.
“Huh.” Nova moves back, twirling and turning out of Sparmau’s range, feeling the sing of the metal through the air. The only thing that matters right now is keeping Sparmau away from Din, for being a barrier. “Remind me,” she says, offhandedly, gripping the hilt of the lightsaber with both of her hands, “how many times the Dark Side has won?”
Sparmau snarls again, and Nova can feel her composure start to crack. She watches Sparmau carefully, and instead of moving to counterstrike, Nova continues to dodge. She can feel Din’s half-lidded eyes on the back of her neck. It aches something terrible inside of her chest, knowing he’s right there, suffering, hanging on by a thread, but she can’t save him until Sparmau is down.
“You have no idea who you’re messing with,” Sparmau taunts, and her grip tightens around the tainted dagger. Nova moves at lightspeed, swinging the tip of the saber against the impending impact of the dagger, headed straight for Din’s torso, knocking it back at Sparmau. It clatters across the black durasteel of the ship’s floor, and the venom drips into the tile. Nova can hear it sizzle and burn.
“Tell me, then,” Nova says, chest heaving, nostrils flaring, catching her breath. The neon hum and buzz of Luke’s lightsaber turns the right half of her body blue. “Who exactly am I messing with?”
Sparmau cocks her head to the side, considering. Nova lifts a singular eyebrow. Neither of them are swinging—they’re at a stalemate, staring each other down. “You’ll see soon enough.”
Nova nods, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. It’s a mess. There are exposed wires, and the walls near the top of the ship threaten to collapse. She can feel Sparmau staring at her, gloved fist curled around the blade of the poison dagger, and Nova inspects it.
The star destroyer is falling apart. Crumbling from the inside out. It looks sleek and invincible from the outside, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s like a ruin of what it used to be—a metaphor in the making about how fickle and temporary the darkness is. It fortifies Nova, solidifies the ground below her feet.
“I don’t believe you,” Nova whispers, and then she’s swiping the lightsaber through the thick air between them, hum of the blade as much of a reinforcement as the steel beneath her feet is.
Sparmau roars, rushing forward. At the last second, Nova screeches to a halt, holding her ground, and Sparmau has to overcorrect to keep from running herself straight through on the illuminated blade. Nova smiles, a tiny wisp of a thing, seeing how fallible Sparmau is up close.
Sparmau straightens her shoulders, and Nova can feel her grin spreading across her mouth, licking like an open flame. Her armor is cracking, and Nova can wedge her way inside, destroy Sparmau from the inside out.
But then something shifts. Nova can feel it before she sees it, like the crackle of electricity. Sparmau readjusts her grip on the dagger, but something is wrong. She’s stronger, somehow, drawing her energy from something other than herself.
The sound of Din choking rings out. It’s awful, a horrific crack through the air, and Nova backs off towards him, throwing up her free hand to try and force Sparmau back, but it doesn’t work. He breathes in through nothing, his windpipe slowly closing more and more, and Nova screams, swiping at Sparmau until her blade connects with Sparmau’s glove. Sparmau roars, wrenching her hand away, and then, like she’s jumping into warp, she launches herself forward, reaching under Nova’s arm to get better leverage, and cuts through Nova’s top.
The poison feels like it’s burning her alive. Nova moans out, tears flooding the corners of her eyes. It cuts into her scar, rushing into the raised skin like it’s still an open wound. Sparmau knocks the dagger away, skittering across the floor, and Nova feels the full weight of her lithe body on top of her own, weighing her down, trapping her, suddenly doubly immobilized.
“I didn’t kill your parents just for fun,” Sparmau says, teeth glinting, unfocused. Nova blinks, feeling Sparmau’s fist close lightly around her throat. “It was fun, though, watching them flounder. Helpless. Cowardly.” She sneers as Nova kicks with her worn boots, trying to find a weakness. “I’ve had my eye on you since you were born, Andromeda.”
Nova’s eyes focus for a half second, and she narrows them, spitting poison through her choked mouth. “Creep.”
Sparmau’s smile grows, spilling across her face like oil slick. “I saw you in my dreams. Felt your energy. I wanted to take you then, back when you were still a kid on the Rebel base. it would have been so easy to snatch you away and turn you when your mind was still malleable.” Her grip tightens around Nova’s neck, and Nova wheezes, moving her arm up for the lightsaber Sparmau knocked loose, somewhere across the tile. “He wanted you then, too.”
Nova’s eyes narrow, trying to place the reverent way that Sparmau whispers he, like whoever is hiding behind the word is something deeper than just another person wielding the darkness. Sparmau sighs, letting Nova’s neck go. Her head crashes into the ground with a hard, awful thunk, and Nova’s eyelids flutter, flooding out starry and discordant. She wheezes, inhaling oxygen, blinking away the space behind her eyes. Sparmau picks up her dagger, caressing the blade with her gloved finger, and Nova tries again to wrench herself free.
“Can’t you feel it,” Sparmau says again, but it sounds more like a prayer than a question.
“The only thing I feel,” Nova manages, voice creaking around the edges, “is the need to kill you.”
Sparmau grins. “There it is.” Her teeth glitter. Nova knows the fist around her throat is gone, but her windpipe still feels like it’s being crushed down to nothing, ground into ash. She strokes Nova’s face with her other hand, the one without a streak of poison down her pointer finger. “Your darkness.”
Nova yanks her right hand free, fingers curling into a fist, connecting with Sparmau’s side. She feels Sparmau’s body crunch left on top of her, but before Nova can finish it, willing the lightsaber back into her open hand, Sparmau has her forearm pinned back against the vantablack tile. “I will never give into it,” Nova vows, voice seething.
“Oh, Andromeda,” Sparmau sighs, fist clenching tighter around Nova’s wrist, “you think what you want matters? It doesn’t. You were made to be forged by the Dark Side, to let it take you. You were destined for power. You’re only weak right now because you’re not giving into it.” She leans in closer, the curve of her Cupid’s bow catapulting into Nova’s line of sight. “You just don’t see it yet.”
“I’d rather die,” Nova spits, and Sparmau forces her knees against the tile, predicting the way Nova’s trying to wrench upward, her torso still pinned to the floor. The venom traced down her scar is pulsing and screaming, demanding all of Nova’s attention, but still, she doesn’t bend.
Sparmau sighs again, a long exhale. “What would be the point of that?” she says, sourly, a strand of white-blonde hair cutting across her sharp features like a knife. “After all I did to make sure you ended up on this path? You’re not getting out of it that easily.”
“My parents had nothing to do with this,” Nova seethes, all composure lost. Her blood is running red.
Sparmau smirks. “That was the first crack in your shell. They had to go to bring me to you.”
Nova spits, her mouth still dry and thick from getting choked on the edge of unconsciousness. Sparmau takes it, but as Nova’s vision focuses, she realizes none of it materialized in the air. “They didn’t,” she says, her voice unstable, “if I knew that you wanted me, I would have taken their place. I would have gone with you to save them.”
Sparmau exhales through her nose, rolling her beautiful, evil eyes. “That’s why I killed them. To further your martyr complex.” Her eyes narrow. “The Calicans, though, that was to make you desperate.”
Something breaks inside of Nova’s chest. “What?” she manages, and it sounds like a shattered thing, like she’s fifteen and halved again.
The grin that spreads across Sparmau’s face doesn’t feel like overcompensation. It feels like winning, and for the first time since she walked in here, Nova is afraid. “Merle gave me a ride off of Jedha back in the day. The first time Bo-Katan failed to kill me. We became good friends, him and I. His little brother just needed a little bit of attention and convincing to make himself into the man he was.”
Nova swallows bile. “You sent Jacterr after me?”
Sparmau’s eyebrows wiggle, mischievous and unrelenting. “I had to break you down somehow.”
Novalise feels like she’s drowning—in pain, in grief, in disbelief, she can’t decide which—and knowing how orchestrated all of her trauma has been makes her want to turn into the girl she was in the ship she escaped Coruscant in—on the edge of death, except this time, she wants to give into it. There’s nothing left to cauterize her wounds. They’ve all been ripped open, her heart leaching blood all over the vantablack floor.
“Was it worth it?”
Nova can’t tell where the voice is coming from. It’s not from her own mouth, it’s not from Sparmau’s. But when she looks up, Sparmau’s face is illuminated with the black and white crackle of the Darksaber, and Din Djarin—not the Mandalorian, the man underneath—has the tip of it pressed to the hollow of Sparmau’s throat.
For a second, Sparmau looks afraid. Fear looks wrong on her face. And then it shifts, so quickly it was like it waa never there at all. “Every step of the way.”
Din looks down at Nova, just for a fraction of a second. Everything flashes through his eyes, the deep brown pit of them—apologies, hurt, anger, disbelief, love, heartbreak. In them, Nova sees her whole life, every second of it, the armor and everything underneath it. She feels the press of his lips to hers. She feels the steady warmth of his bare hand. She feels the solid ground beneath her feet, and the forever expanse of the stars ahead of her. With one tiny, fragmented nod, she gives the okay.
Din swings. The Darksaber rips across Sparmau’s stomach, cutting all the black fabric away from her skin. It sinks into her flesh, and she screams, recoiling, falling off of where she’s pinned Nova to the ground. Nova hauls herself up, trying to get off the ground in one piece, and then her head is splitting open. She screams, falling crumpled against the floor, her whole body being fractured apart. When she can get her eyes open, head still fragmenting into a million pieces, Sparmau has her ungloved fist against Din’s throat, the Darksaber shimmering in her hand.
Nova yells—at least she thinks she does—but she’s on the edge of it now. Consciousness, life, whatever’s left. She sees Sparmau choke the light out of Din’s beautiful eyes, the ones she got to see first, his breath breaking off into shards until the ringing in her head is so loud that she can’t hear it anymore. If this is where she dies, so be it.SParmau has taken everything from her, now—her parents, her heart, her innocence, and now, the love of her life. She closes her eyes, unable to watch Din die. Sparmau was right. She’s a coward.
“The hell you are,” a voice whispers, and Nova’s eyes shoot back open, trying to find the source of it. She looks to her left, head lolling in the opposite direction of Din and Sparmau, and Luke Skywalker materializes in front of her. “Open your eyes.”
“I—” Nova chokes out, and Luke moves toward her.
“You hold on,” he says, and the current running through his voice belongs more to his sister than it does to him. “Do you hear me?”
“I can’t,” Nova whispers, the words bleeding out of her mouth. “She’s taken everything.”
Luke surges forward, until his face is right in front of hers. He looks both young and old, like he’s still the boy from Tatooine, like he’s been grizzled by war. Nova blinks, trying to focus on one, but she can’t. Both versions of Luke coexist, and despite what her body wants, she keeps her eyes open. “Not yet,” Luke says, with vigor and fire, and something about it breathes something back into Nova’s lungs—if not life, something awfully close to it. “Do you remember when I told Wedge to look to the left?”
Nova nods, the memory of them on Ahch-To feeling millenia away from this moment, but she can feel the sea breeze ruffling her hair, the salt sticking against her skin, the greenness of the earth below her feet. “Yes,” she whispers, and for a reason she can’t place, the word feels like a catalyst.
Luke looks somewhere beyond Nova’s head. “Turns out that message wasn’t for him, after all.” He places his human hand over her heart like a resuscitation. It comes down like lightning, and Nova comes back to life. “Fight back.”
And when Nova’s brought back to the present, her eyes are fixated on the same doorway she came through. One by one, three bodies burst through the door. Wedge, Bo-Katan, and Fennec materialize as Luke disappears, and Nova fights the stars in her eyes to raise her body from the floor, to make good on her promise to Luke.
She’s fighting back.
And she’s not doing it alone.
Novalise feels the world tilting and shifting underneath her feet, air deprivation still taking its toll. She moves towards the melee, with Sparmau fighting against Bo-Katan and Wedge and Fennec, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible as she limps towards Din.
“Please don’t be dead,” Nova whispers, repeating it like a mantra, a prayer. “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please don’t—”
“You think,” Din’s voice croaks, rusty from choking and disuse, “that I could be killed that easily?”
Nova falls to her knees, tears running out of her eyes like a thunderstorm. She swallows back a sob, then another, then another, wiping her eyes furiously to drink in every glorious inch of his face. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “Oh, Maker, Din, I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t,” he says, eyes fluttering. Nova leans over him, pressing her ear to his exposed chest, feeling the fragility of it. His lungs sound like they’re wheezing out air, like there’s a leak. “Stop.”
Nova freezes, halfway between his face and his chest, the unmistakable sounds of battle imminent behind her. The air in her lungs that Sparmau took is still being withheld, the oxygen buffering. “This is my fault,” she breathes.
Din looks at her, lifting his gloved hand to press across Nova’s cheekbone, his finger ghosting across the bone, muscle memory. “Yes,” he says, finally, breath still off and strange, “it is.”
Nova’s heart seizes. It breaks again in her chest, even though she thought there wasn’t any way there was anything left to pulverize. “I love you,” she whispers, the words hollow in her mouth, like a promise that’s been broken too many times to come back from.
“Darasuum,” Din says, his eyes half-lidded, bruises blossoming and receding all over his body. He looks unfinished like this, without his armor. “I meant it, when I said it means forever. Even when I’m mad. Even in death.”
Nova stifles another sob. Din’s hand drops to hers, tracing a line over the beskar of his ring on her finger. He encircles it like he’s binding a hex, and Nova lets him stare at the metal before his eyes lift back to hers.
“Novalise.”
Nova’s heart wrenches. This is it, when the weight of all of her mistakes become unforgivable.
“She won the saber.” His gaze is intentional, blazing. “In a fair fight. Go get Mandalore back, do—do you understand me?”
Nova nods, clenching her teeth together. The buzzing behind her ears is fading into the background, her head stitching itself back together. “I’m going to fix it.”
Din holds Nova’s eyes, fingers closing over hers. It feels like every time they’ve been intertwined all at once, the heaviness of it, the meaning behind it. Nova draws every ounce of strength in her body, heartbeat regulating, breathing returning to normal. She cracks her neck to the left, to the right, back to center. “I know you are.” He exhales, his grip tightening around Nova’s. “Don’t you dare make me love you in death.”
Nova nods, knowing the intention behind his words. Anger is forgivable. She can right her wrongs. She can grovel. She can wait decades, if that’s what it takes, for Din to trust her again. But if she dies, Din will follow her into the afterlife and drag her back to kill her himself.
Everything is fixable while they’re both still breathing.
With that, she squares her shoulders, running headfirst toward Sparmau. She’s holding her own, even against the three of them, and like Sparmau can sense Nova coming, she hisses and spins, kicking her spike foot up and catching Wedge in the kneecap. He yells, falling to the ground, holding onto his leg like it’s being split apart. Nova clears her mind, knowing someone else will cover him, and she runs toward Sparmau, shaky but undeterred. Behind her, slumped against the near-fallen wall of the starcruiser, she can feel Din’s eyes on her, the weight of her promise heavy on her shoulders. From somewhere beyond that, into what’s made of limbo and starshine, she can feel Luke and Grogu watching her, fortifying her, keeping her upright. And somewhere even further, she can feel her parents. Their blood is in her veins.
Nova lets everything else fade out. Luke’s lightsaber is still laying discarded on the floor, but she doesn’t need it. Luke may have found solace in forgiveness, but there’s something deeper driving Novalise.
Andromeda Maluev, who’s still angry.
Out of her periphery, she can see Fennec throwing herself in front of Wedge, matching Sparmau’s daggers with knives of her own. Sparmau’s hand opens up, and with a chilling smile sent in Nova’s direction, she closes it midair, but Nova knows what she’s doing.
Using the Force to squeeze down on Fennec’s throat.
She’s too far away. Nova can feel the heaviness of her injuries now, the exhaustion of the whole ordeal. The bacta shot has completely drained out of her, and she’s running on sheer adrenaline alone. It’s not fast enough, not even close. She cries out, knowing that Fennec just spent hours in the bacta tank, her hand still shredded from Qi’ra’s ship, but before she can reach Sparmau, someone else appears from behind all the blackness.
Bo-Katan Kryze materializes from behind Sparmau. Sparmau tries to throw one of the poison daggers at her exposed skin, but with a snarl, Bo-Katan catches her hand, yanks the dagger free, and plunges it into the valley of her exposed midriff.
“I will kill you before you touch my friends ever again,” Bo-Katan says, her voice shaking with something Nova can’t identify until she reaches the both of them.
As she launches herself at Sparmau, both of her hands open, Force coursing through them with electricity, Nova realizes what’s behind Bo-Katan’s words.
Fire and fury. And it burns with such intensity that eclipses all of her usual ice.
Nova wears her beaming smile like a badge of pride.
Sparmau lashes out towards Bo-Katan, but this time, Nova’s prepared. Her hands outstretched, she lets everything run out of her backward, clearing her mind of everything except for the one thing she needs.
Strength.
Sparmau yells, immobilized. Nova can feel her hands shaking, the energy Sparmau has so much sharper than hers, but she doesn’t give up. She can’t. No one else is dying today. No one except Ladmeny Sparmau.
Between the two of them, Nova and Bo-Katan slowly overpower Sparmau to the floor, her hair cutting a white slash against all the blackness. Nova bores her eyes into Sparmau’s, laser focused. She can feel everything inside of her screaming at her to stop, but something is so much stronger than all of the pain.
Andromeda Maluev is here. Andromeda Maluev is her.
And before Nova had the Force, before she hand power, before she had lightsabers and lightness, she had the girl made from stardust and Rebel orange. The girl that loved louder than anything else, enough to drown out the galaxy’s evil. The girl who had everything taken away from her and still came back to life.
She’s not dying here. She’s not throwing this away.
Nova hears a sickening crunch of bone breaking as Bo-Katan drives the dagger in further, blood squelching out of the cut in her midriff. It drips down scarlet until it reaches the floor, where it looks like nothing at all. Sparmau’s still fighting, swinging and thrashing back against both of them, but Nova feels it. She’s losing.
With the feeling of victory flooding through her, Nova looks over at Bo-Katan, who looks upended and rattled, but so wholly alive. Gone is the ice that encased her entire body. It’s been shattered and replaced by something so much warmer.
Nova can feel it.
Hope.
She can feel Sparmau’s energy draining, and Nova looks into Bo-Katan’s eyes. For a second, one glorious, immeasurable second, they’re winning.
And then, like a woman possessed, Sparmau’s energy comes back, resuscitating her. Her fist closes around Bo-Katan’s throat, and her other hand snakes the Darksaber off of her belt, swinging and cutting a gash in Bo-Katan’s thigh.
“No!” Nova screams, the word ripped out of her throat. Bo-Katan falls, crying out in pain, to the floor, her red hair splayed out like a halo. Nova moves forward, hurtling toward Sparmau, knocking her off balance, using every single ounce of strength she has left to battle her back,
Sparmau grins, an awful thing, as venomous as her daggers, and then she’s knocking Nova back, Darksaber lost in the shuffle, foregoing it entirely in favor of her hands, closing like a vice around Nova’s throat.
This time, it’s impossible to come back from. When SParmau said she had the Dark Side behind her—she wasn’t talking about pure energy. Nova can feel it—the electricity of Darth Sidious, the unstable grit of Kylo Ren to-be, the choke of Darth Vader. It sucks her life out of her, everything shaking and twisting, Sparmau taking everything Nova has left. Somewhere faraway, Nova can feel something calling to her, but she can’t fight it. Behind her, Bo-Katan, Wedge, and Fennec are in various levels of unconsciousness. Din is slumped against the wall, and Nova knows he’ll be angry at her forever, but she won’t let him follow her into death. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his life to bring him back from the darkness, if that’s what it takes. She’ll make this sacrifice worth it. He can kill Sparmau, avenge her. It’s okay. Maybe everybody needs a martyr, and this time, it’ll be Novalise. It feels right, somehow, like destiny.
And the smallest spark of hope glimmers behind Nova’s eyes.
She’ll see her parents again.
“Andromeda.”
Nova wants to clench her teeth together hard enough to make SParmau’s voice go away. Her name cuts her deeper and deeper, and she doesn’t have much left to lose.
“Andromeda.”
“That’s not my name anymore,” Nova chokes out, feeling her consciousness fading.
“It’ll always be your name,” the voice rings out, “it’s what I chose for you.”
Nova’s eyes fly open. Her voice trembles. “Mom?”
Piper Maluev is standing in front of her. She drops to her knees in her white dress, a cloud of sparkle and mist shrouding everything else behind her, and Nova cries, moving into her outstretched arms. Her mother’s hair is long and coiled, a halo of black curls. She looks like an angel. Nova sobs, unencumbered and freely, and her mother’s hands close around her cheeks. For a second, she’s Andromeda again, a child wrapped up in her mother’s arms.
“Are you real?” Nova manages, tears flooding down her cheeks.
“As real as you are,” Nova hears, and she turns her head to the right. Out of the ether, on her other side, her father shimmers to life. She can smell him, starship and green earth and old parchment, something that she thought was forever lost. “Look at you.”
“I want to come with you,” Nova manages, her voice shaking. “Please, let me come with you.”
Her father shakes his head, his curly, auburn hair shaking out, rustling in a breeze that doesn’t exist. “You can’t.”
“Please,” Nova says, the syllable splitting in half.
“Baby girl,” Piper says, smoothing her dark, warm hand over Nova’s forehead, “it is not your time yet.”
“But—”
“You have a new family now,” Arokel interrupts, squeezing Nova’s hand. “They need you.”
Piper nods. “And the galaxy needs you.”
“I don’t know how,” Nova chokes out, “I can’t come back from this.”
Arokel presses his lips to her forehead, all freckles and warmth. “You did it before,” he says, and Nova feels Piper’s lips take his place. Both of them smile down at her, the glimmer of tears in their eyes. “Novalise.”
Nova blinks, and then they’re gone. She cries out, and then, suddenly, she’s in the crystal cavern, in a cathedral. Jedi materialize around her—only this time, it’s not their portraits. They’re lifesize and real, not just ghosts of spirits left behind. Nova can feel them, their power, their light. It floods into her body, gives her back her strength.
Luke materializes first, then Leia. Then Grogu, Obi-Wan, then Luminara, then Mace, then Rey, then Finn, then Cal, and one by one, more and more filter in around Nova. Novalise is at their center, a fixed luminous point. She spins and spins as they appear, serene smiles on their faces, hands outstretched and interlinked, bringing her back to life.
When she spins the last time, someone new appears. She knows him immediately, and the feeling of Sparmau’s hands around her throat lessen, like her grasp is growing slacker. She’s never met Anakin Skywalker, but she sees him in Luke’s face, in Leia’s ferocity. He steps forward, youthful, blue eyes ablaze, and lifts his human hand to her. Nova grabs it, and when she meets him in the middle, Sparmau gets blown back.
“My strength isn’t hers to take,” Anakin murmurs, and Nova realizes what’s happening. Sparmau’s drawing on the Dark Side, but Darth Vader ceased to exist when Anakin Skywlaker died as himself. Nova can feel her eyes flood with his touch, the guilt behind it, the power, the light. “It’s yours.”
Nova nods, and then she twists again as the Jedi vanish. She’s at the top of the dais in the cathedral, outfitted in silver and gold, a gilded portrait of herself, immortalized. Novalise stands up straight, peering in the mirror, and when she looks in, Ezra reflects back at her.
“Do you feel it?”
Nova swallows. “Feel what?” Behind her, the ethereal ring of bells and divinity shimmer through the air.
Ezra smiles. “The Light.”
Nova nods, smile returning back to her face, matching Ezra’s grin. “Always have,” she says, like a vow, “always will.”
“When you kill her,” Ezra says, hands flying through the mirror to grab onto Nova’s, solidifying the second his skin meets hers, “just know there’s darker danger waiting.”
Nova blinks at him. “Where are you?”
Ezra gives her a sad, meaningful look, but Nova can’t figure out what it means. “Wake up, Novalise. I’ll see you soon.”
As he disappears, Nova turns around. Everything shifts—first Yavin, then the Razor Crest, then Naator, and then, finally, Mandalore. She’s on the beskar throne, staring down at everyone she loves. When she lifts her hands, she has a heart in one and the Darksaber in the other.
In unison, like their voices have echoed around the entire galaxy and ricocheted back to her, Nova sees Din, then Andromeda, then the gilded version of herself, saintlike and holy. She touches her hand to Nova’s cheek and light pours out. It travels to her mouth, her lungs, her chest. It’s not just a resuscitation—it’s a promise, a glimpse into what comes next.
At once, the voices meld together. By the end of it, it just sounds like Novalise.
“Don’t throw it away.”
Nova’s eyes fly open, meeting Sparmau’s darkness, and she sees fear in her eyes. This time, Nova doesn’t wait. She opens her hand, willing with every fiber of her being for the lightsaber to fly into her hand. And it does. It shoots through the air like she’s conjured it from nothing, and when it lands in her hand, Nova ignites it.
And the blade of the Darksaber goes right through Sparmau’s middle.
It happens in slow motion. Nova and Sparmau trade places, Nova in the air, pinning Sparmau down to the ground. That fear in her eye spreads to her face, and for the first time, Ladmeny Sparmau looks human.
Nova lifts her chin, staring down at Sparmau.
“You’re not a killer,” Sparmau says, and her voice wavers.
“You don’t know me,” Nova counters, all of the fury drained out of her voice, replaced by something serene. “You think you do. You think that you killed Andromeda, or at the very least, that you divorced her from who I am. You think that you can break me down to nothing and it’ll leave me no choice but to follow you and turn to the Dark Side.”
“Andromeda—”
“Andromeda Maluev is me,” Nova interrupts, the hum and crackle of the Darksaber lighting everything up in black and white. Nothing outside of her and Sparmau exists. “And for a long time, because of you, because of the Calicans, I thought drowning her would be easier. But I’ve mourned that part of myself, and all that hurt has been laid to rest. But Andromeda still lives inside of me,” Nova continues, her voice wobbling with the emotion of it, “no matter how much both of us tried to kill her. She’s not the Jedi I am. She has no love for Mandalore. But before anything else, she was a Rebel. And Andromeda knows that the light will always win over darkness.”
Sparmau looks from Nova to the Darksaber. “Please—”
“You killed my family,” Nova continues, like Sparmau never spoke. “You sent two abusers after me. You traumatized my best friend. You nearly drained Din of his life. I’m not a killer. I find no joy in it. I mourn every life I take, no matter how evil they were. I will feel your death every day for the rest of my life. But I will feel no remorse for taking yours.” She looks down at Sparmau, slowly moving the Darksaber to the cavity of her chest. “I know evil will always exist. I know whoever he is will try to kill me. I know that I’m not ending anything but you.”
Nova looks from Sparmau to Bo-Katan, splayed out on the ground, and with tears in her eyes, Bo-Katan gives Novalise a sharp nod. It rings out like she’s spoken—the words Bo-Katan said to her when Nova left Slave I.
If you have the shot, take it.
Nova stares at Sparmau, whose mouth is trembling. She looks so utterly human, it’s unsettling. What once was impenetrable darkness is just a woman with a tendency towards evil. Nova isn’t scared of her, and she’s not scared to take her life.
“You’re not going to get out of this alive,” Sparmau warns, voice shaking.
Nova nods, touching three fingers to the insignia hanging from her neck. “Andromeda almost didn’t,” Nova admits. “In space, after Jacterr Calican tried to kill me, there was one thing that kept me going. My father was a linguist. He brought me this word, novay’lain. It’s Mando’a. It means to radiate. To shine in silence.”
Nova looks across the room to Din, who, despite everything, is wearing a smile like a badge of honor. It fortifies her, the humanity of it all, the life still left between them.
“My name is Novalise Djarin,” Nova says, looking down at Sparmau. “This is for my parents, for Bo-Katan, for Din, for the galaxy, and for the girl I once was. There’s no more room in our lives for your darkness.” Nova heaves the Darksaber up over her head, gaining all the leverage she can, looking into Sparmau’s eyes for the last time.
“Novalise—”
“The Dark Side will never win,” Nova says, simply, feeling the weight of all the Jedi behind her, Bo-Katan’s thudding heart, Din’s proud smile. “Goodbye, Ladmeny.”
And with that, Nova drives the Darksaber into Sparmau’s chest, and watches the life leave her evil eyes.
Nova falls backward, drained almost entirely, and before she hits the ground, she’s caught in the tangle of Bo-Katan’s arms. She blinks, once, twice, and then Wedge and Fennec are crowded around her. And then, when Nova opens her eyes, there’s Din, and he presses his bruised mouth to hers. With everyone she loves bearing her weight, Nova sits back up, body shaking, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.
“Let’s go home,” she manages, eyes traveling over Sparmau’s lifeless body. “Back to Mandalore.”
“Um,” Bo-Katan says, and with the strange, strained tone in her voice, Nova looks back at her, concerned. “About going home, there’s—something you need to be prepared for.”
Nova raises an eyebrow.
Bo-Katan points an elegant finger down to Nova’s right hand.
“You won the Darksaber,” Din whispers, and Nova looks from Bo-Katan to him to the weapon in her hand.
“Novalise,” Bo-Katan says, incredulous, “you just became the Mand’alor.”
*
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I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!!! this chapter feels like it was already written, it came out in almost entirely one sitting. i am so happy to give this one to you all!!!
i start my job on Monday, so i'm not sure when the next chapter will be up, but hopefully it'll be same place, same time, next Saturday!!!!
WARNINGS: canon-compliant violence, descriptions of blood and injuries, rough sex, predator/prey
SUMMARY: “I want her back, Bo-Katan,” Din says, and he sounds broken. “I need her back.”
Nova’s invisible to both of them, but she’s still halved by it, undone in pieces she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to string back together.
“She’ll be back.”
Din lifts his head. “Did Nova tell you that?”
Bo-Katan’s lips curve around a sustained, knowing smile. There’s no ice in it. “She didn’t have to,” she whispers. “That girl only runs in the direction of danger, and she always comes out of it alive.”
If you’re a newcomer, my fic “Something More” is the first installment of this story! <3
AUTHOR’S NOTE: HELLO MY LOVES AND HAPPY (FINALLY) SOMETHING DEEPER SATURDAY!!! i am so sorry for disappearing for two weeks, but i am back on track now, and here's my 10k+ word apology. i hope you love this chapter, because what's coming next is going to be absolutely wild!
CHAPTER 17 IS DEDICATED TO LINDSAY, happy FREAKING birthday babe, i love you and your spitfire passion and your dirty mind ;)
ENJOY!!! <3
*
Nova regains consciousness with a long finger jabbing into the hollow above her collarbone. She gasps, skittering backwards on the heels of her hands, up into the cold metal of the ship’s interior until she remembers who’s poking her and where she is.
“You gotta stay awake, kid,” he mutters, hand gently traveling up to press the cool back of it against her forehead. “I mean it. You—” he’s cut off, abruptly, by a Wookiee roaring, and Nova squeezes her eyes together, trying to shake the dizzied stars loose. “I know. I understand that, Chewie.” His mouth gapes open. He looks incredibly affronted.
Nova stares from the man to the Wookiee and back, trying to understand. Everything sounds like underwater, unfiltered gibberish anyways, but she hasn’t had to try and decipher anything but Basic and Mando’a in a very long time.
“I know where to fly,” Han says, grumpily. He has a permanent fissure in the ridge between his eyebrows. Nova knows he’s a lot older than she is—he has close to twenty years on her—but even beside the wrinkles in his smile lines, Han Solo still has his youth. “I’ve flown in this galaxy as much as you have, pal.”
The Wookiee roars, and even though the sound of it makes Nova’s ears go all tinny, she grins up at him. He meets her eye, affectionate in a way she can’t exactly decipher, but Nova thinks he’s smiling.
With another, slightly subdued noise coming out of his mouth, the Wookiee turns on his heel and walks back through a long hallway, disappearing out of the circle of the ship’s core. Han leans back on his heels, putting one knee against the ground. “He worries.” It slips out of his mouth conspiratorially.
Nova blinks again, hard, and finally her vision filters fully back into focus. “How did you get me aboard?”
Han looks at her, those eyebrows coming together. He’s easily into his forties, by now, but he still looks every bit the scoundrel that people whispered about on base. There’s still a boyish spark in his eyes, and even though it’s not colored Rebel orange, it’s close enough that Nova trusts him. “Tractor beam.”
Nova cranes her neck like she’ll be able to see it from where she’s sitting. “Huh.” Then, immediately, the memory rushes back to her. “My ship—”
“Don’t worry, kid,” Han interrupts. “We got that, too. It’s in the loading bay.”
Nova stares. “It’s an X-Wing.”
Han raises an eyebrow. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Nova feels a flush rush to her cheeks. It’s far from his first rodeo. Han Solo is well-practiced in the art of hoarding—and helping—Rebels. “I know,” she murmurs. Her neck hurts like she’s been punched repeatedly at the base of her skull. When Nova tries to stretch, the muscles wail out at her, so she slumps back into the wall. “I had a poster of you,” she mumbles, embarrassed. “And Luke and Leia. When I was a kid.”
Han’s face lights up, his smile still so cocky. “‘Course you did,” he grins.
“Don’t get your ego too inflated,” Nova groans, trying to sit up for the third time. Despite the stars in the back of her eyes, she’s determined to stay upright this time. “They’re long gone by now.”
Han slaps his hand over his heart, falling like he’d just been wounded. Nova eyes him, knowing that this version of the man in front of her—playful, silly, lighthearted—is one not very many people get to see. Especially because he’s a smuggler first and foremost, he’s the cockiest pilot she knows of, and he never ceases to stop bragging about how he made the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs. She’s seen him exalted as a hero on base and from Luke’s loving perspective, but this version of him—kind, heroic—this is the man in the poster she had hanging over her bed.
The Wookiee enters again, with porridge and what Nova assumes to be water, sloshing around in a metal cup. He roars, affectionately, bending at his waist to bring it down to Nova’s level.
“Thank you,” she says, warmly, smiling up at him. She sucks down half the water in the canteen before she resurfaces for air. “I’m Novalise,” she gasps, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, “by the way.”
The Wookiee makes a chittering noise. “Chewbacca,” Han says, pointing. “Chewie, for short.”
Nova looks back at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself before.”
Han laughs, pushing his hand into the bowl of porridge, directing it towards Nova’s mouth. “Eat. I know who you are. I accept your apology, but honestly, I don’t know when you were expected to tell me that. When you were passed out cold after we yanked you outside of Yavin, or when you nearly took my head off with your foot.”
Nova laughs. The sound sounds so joyful, so foreign, that it strikes down her heart. She’s spent the last few days oscillating between the past and passed out—everything in her focused on stopping Sparmau, plunging her own poisoned dagger into that black heart, and saving the galaxy from imminent darkness—that she’s forced herself not to think of Din.
He pulses, now, inside of her chest. It’s a living, snarling animal, with the threat of thunder and lightning warring inside of her. Nova has no idea how long she was gone after she ran through Mandalore’s empty hallways, leaving her dress, her duty, and her love behind. And she has no idea how long she’s been out.
Her lip trembles. Nova squeezes her eyes shut again, trying to find strength somewhere in her, enough to let the question tumble out of her lips.
Han’s watching her. Closely. He’s so familiar, but unlike Luke, there’s something hidden behind his eyes that Nova can’t quite figure out. It might be a fight or flight reflex, she’s not sure, but he’s coiled. Tensed. Wary. “What’s wrong?” he asks, finally, his voice molding clumsily around the words, like he’s not used to saying them.
Tears spring at the edges of Nova’s eyes. She will not cry. Everything that happened after she decided to go after Sparmau was her own fault, her own choice. She has to face the consequences, all of it. Even if Din can’t forgive her. Even if it takes him months to trust her again. “Um,” she starts, voice shaking, “do you have any idea how long I was out for?”
Nova winces, the impact of saying it out loud so much stronger than when it was just worrying around in her mouth.
Han looks from her to Chewbacca to Nova again. “Hard to tell,” he starts, sighing. “Time works differently when you’re in and out of warp, kid. If I had to guess, I’d say that you’ve been out for two.”
Nova stares. “Months?”
“Days,” Han says, incredulously, “Maker fuck, Novalise.”
Nova swallows, bringing the spoon to her mouth again. At least one planet she’s been shouldering evaporates, coming down off her knotted spine like rainfall. “Days are good. Days are doable. Weeks, even, would be doable.” She’s mostly talking to herself, but when she looks up to down the rest of the water, both Han and Chewie are staring at her.
“Do you,” Han starts, blinking, shaking his head, “often lose consciousness for weeks?”
Nova sighs. “Once, I was out for three months.”
Chewie roars.
Nova points at him. “Exactly.”
Han doesn’t react. He just sits there, staring at her, and where there was concern, eventually, gets colored into admiration. “Were you passed out when you got off of Yavin?”
Nova considers it. “Probably,” she answers, bringing another spoonful of porridge to her mouth. “I remember getting into Kicker—my ship—but the next thing I knew, I woke up here.” She pauses, looking back up at Han. “Thank you,” Nova whispers earnestly, two days too late. “For saving me.” She curls a knee into her chest, determined to stay sitting of her own volition. “How did you know where to find me?”
Han studies her, and then the Falcon shouts from the cockpit. Nova can’t see anything from where she’s sitting, but she knows that if she moves out of the circular hull, she’ll see the stars racing by, streaking past her, encouraging her to keep going. “I’ll be back,” he says, holding himself to his feet. “Eat. Chewie, c’mon.”
Chewbacca gives Nova a kind, intentional look, but he follows suit. She listens to them murmuring back and forth in the hallway as they walk toward the cockpit, talking about something important that Nova can’t make out.
She eats. She empties the canteen. Nova’s determined to stay awake until the two of them come back, but she’s exhausted, her heart thumping out a marathon of regret and longing, and when she lays down, the only thing in her head is Din.
*
The lull of the Falcon is so different from Kicker’s intermediary screeching. It takes Nova minutes to fully shake the sleep off of her body, to wipe it from her eyes. It’s dark in the hull, and kind of antiseptic in comparison to Kicker’s lived-in orange, but she can tell it’s been loved and lived in as she pushes sleep away, sitting up.
There’s a colorful blanket draped over her body. It’s the one she keeps in Kicker. The one that used to be on her bed on Yavin. Her heart clenches, shoots up her throat, and rattles around in her mouth. One of them—her money’s on Chewie—went into her ship stuffed into the landing bay and fished out her own blanket. Nova swallows, sitting all the way up.
Chewbacca is asleep, all seven feet of him stretched out across the floor. He’s not close enough to be imposing, but he’s laying just across the hull, a large, furry protector. It makes Nova’s heart ache. It reminds her, strangely, of Grogu, and she can feel the tears welling up in her eyes. Before she can spiral down into regret, into the persistent ache of betrayal, Nova pushes herself to her feet, ignoring the way the body aches, her scar pulses, her heart hurts.
She needs to look at the stars.
It’s odd, this ship. It’s not laid out very logically, and it’s a beast. She thought the Razor Crest was bad—this is a maze. Nova thinks she’s making her way toward the cockpit, to get the best view of the crush of space they’re flying through, but she stumbles into an abandoned cavity with a massive gun pointed out towards the sky. Nova looks up, and even though they’re hurtling through hyperspace, she feels soothed by the sight of them.
As Novalise, as Andromeda, as the saintlike version of herself Nova cannot yet name, this is home. The stars, the space she lives in.
The ship groans and bleeps, and Nova hears a frustrated noise out in the distance. She gives one long, intentful look at the space they’re rushing through, and then she follows the sound of Han’s grunting and swearing.
The cockpit is kind of a mess. It’s large, but the mass of control boards and panels drown it out. Everything is blinking, moving, so much more advanced than the starships Nova’s used to piloting. She stops in the doorway, stunned into a statue at the sheer size of it all.
“Chewie,” Han snaps, his voice raised and urgent, stepping with one foot on the pilot’s seat so he can reach into the open cavity of the ceiling above, while still holding steady with his other hand on the dashboard. He turns, catching Nova out of the corner of his eye, then does a double take. “You’re not Chewbacca.”
“No,” Nova says, blown out of her trance, moving forward to the dashboard, “but I am a pilot.”
Han moves to the side, enough for Nova to squeeze into the pilot’s seat, his boot-clad foot moving up on the armrest to give her more space. The Falcon shakes and whinnies, noises increasing in frequency as Nova holds the ship steady, Han still half-lost in the compartment above the dashboard.
And then, finally, nothing.
The absence of noise is nearly louder than the noise itself. Han hops down from the chair, observing Nova’s expert hands on the controllers, looking out at the tunnel of warp returning back to a steady stream of stardust.
“Converter,” he says, holding up a piece in his hands. Nova pulls the Falcon into autopilot, raising an eyebrow.
“That little thing was making all of that noise?” Nova asks, pushing herself off of the dashboard so that Han can slide back into his well-worn chair.
Han shoots her a grin, watching Nova’s pace as she sinks down in the chair next to his. “Old ship.”
“Cool ship,” Nova offers, running a hand through her tangled hair. She folds herself down, sinking into her usual, eternal position—one knee to her chest, arms wrapped protectively around the jumble of bones and muscle. “I’ve always wanted to see the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.”
Han’s smile widens. “Here she is.”
“Although,” Nova says, eyes scanning across the dashboard, trying to find where the nav system is, “I’m more interested in it because it helped blow up the Death Star.”
Something shifts in Han’s expression. Nova’s only watching him out of her periphery, but she still clocks it. The air in the cockpit suddenly seems so much colder, suspended in sadness where only victory is supposed to live.
“How long you been a Rebel, kid?” Han asks, and Nova closes her eyes.
“My whole life,” she says, simply. It all comes flooding back to her—the life she lived as Andromeda. The smell of the base, musty and familiar. The tarmac out in the middle of the grass, the only visible sign that Yavin had been touched at all. The gorgeous greenness of the trees, the forests, the sparkling blue of the ocean, the violet luminescence of the flowers in every field. She can hear the sounds of the engines revving, can taste the food in the mess hall, can see her parents in front of her if she lets her eyes stay unfocused. Nova swallows, the lump in her throat still so starry and huge.
“You were involved, then,” Han says, the gentlest she’s ever heard him. “Were you there?”
Nova shakes her head. “I helped from the sidelines,” she manages. Han nods, looking pointedly at the dashboard. Above them, the quiet, metallic clinking of two golden dice plays a melody in the silence.
For a long time, neither of them say anything. The quiet swallows Nova up, and her heart aches for Din. She has no idea where they are in space right now, but her heart is still back where she left it on Mandalore.
*
Nova doesn’t know how much time has passed, but Han’s fallen asleep beside her. He’s a snorer. But Novalise is barely on the Falcon right now. She can feel Sparmau—a dark, twisted, evil energy. It pulsates and flickers, dangerous flames licking the inside of her chest.
Sparmau’s not dead. Nova can feel it in her bones. Even with the poison dagger, even after being stabbed, she got up and chased after Nova back on Yavin. She might be wounded. She’s probably knocked back by her own venom, designed to destroy rather than heal. But she’s not dead.
And with Nova gone, their only connection to Sparmau’s mind off on the Millenium Falcon and very much not on Mandalore, Din, Grogu, and Bo-Katan are unprotected. She clenches her teeth together hard enough to rattle down into her marrow, pressing the Rebel insignia on her necklace so forcefully the imprint of it will be there for hours.
Han stirs.
“Where are we?” Nova asks, immediately after his eyes fly open. Han looks at her, disoriented, and then sits up. “Because—thank you so much for rescuing me, I owe you one—but I need to go home. To Mandalore. I think who attacked me is going after my family.”
Han blinks. “I don’t know if that’s safe.”
Nova feels despair bubble up in her chest. “I don’t care,” she says, her voice churning with desperation.
And then, the Falcon pops out of warp.
Han jerks his chin towards it. There, on the horizon, is Hosnian Prime. It’s massive. It glitters. Nova stares at it, the whole thing, words evaporating in the hollow of her mouth. Han takes over the controls, easily gliding the Falcon down to the planet’s surface. Nova just watches, and when the ship finally lands, she follows both Han and Chewbacca towards the gangplank.
Before it cracks its wide maw open into the blue night, Han turns to face her. “I said earlier that I knew who you were. And it’s not because you were fighting some sort of Sith Lord on Yavin. I knew of your parents. Luke’s mentioned you to me.”
Nova’s mouth unhinges. She blinks, trying to figure out what Han’s saying.
He sighs. He claps an unsteady hand on her shoulder. “And I didn’t grab you of my own volition. You know how I knew who you were?”
Nova’s heart skips a beat, knowing something—or someone—is waiting for her at the end of the gangplank. She exhales, eyes drifting over to where Han’s outstretched finger is pointing.
There is someone standing at the end of the gangplank. And her fierce eyes are filled with stars.
Han’s finger is still pointing. And he’s talking, but what he’s saying is self-explanatory. “Leia sent me.”
*
Leia Organa Solo is every bit as dynamic and radiant in person as she is in stories. Nova walks down the gangplank, knees knocking together from the combined attack from Sparmau, the jittery ride of hyperspace, and meeting another one of her heroes in person.
It’s a blur, meeting her—all of it feels like an impossibly vivid dream. Nova’s voice shakes when she speaks, and Leia’s doesn’t. Flanked on one side by Leia’s steady gait and on the other with Han’s self-assured step, Nova feels impenetrable. The building they go into isn’t a palace, but it still reminds her of Mandalore. High, vaulted ceilings, the color blue muted in the stone hallways. It’s the Senate, Leia explains, the new one. And Nova tries to listen, she really does, but she’s exhausted, and seeing Leia and Han together makes the hole of missing Din into a chasm.
When they come to a full stop, presumably outside of Leia’s quarters, Nova tunes back in. Han and Leia are whispering about something, but she hasn’t been listening. She watches, carefully, painfully, as Leia reaches up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss against Han’s mouth. Nova tries her best to look like she’s not yearning, but everything about her ache right now is so palpable. She can feel it in her teeth.
“Come in,” Leia says, and her voice is warm, but Nova can feel the current running through it. It sparks in the places Luke’s softens. She does, marveling at the decoration of Leia’s quarters, and sits down in the nearest chair. Leia leans against her desk, facing Nova head-on. She’s hard to look at—this beautiful, assured, determined fighter.
“What do you know about me?”
Nova does a double take. “Um,” she starts, eloquently, “you’re in the new Galactic Senate, you’re the daughter of Darth Vader, you’re one of the only Rebels to directly beat the Empire twice, and you’re kind of my hero.”
Leia smiles. That, at least, mirrors Luke’s—even though their coloring is vastly different, their smiles take the same shape. “I am a senator. And I am a Rebel. But there’s one thing you’re wrong about.”
Nova raises her eyebrow, trying to fight her exhaustion. Leia leans over, just a little, inviting Nova into her personal space.
“I’m the daughter of Bail and Breha Organa,” Leia corrects, and Nova would be embarrassed, but it’s with such a sense of pride that it eclipses everything else. “Luke calls Vader our father, but he was never mine.”
Nova’s mouth opens, but she’s not exactly sure of what she wants to say.
Something in Leia’s expression softens. “There’s a bed back there,” she says, pointing. “I can’t promise you it’s made, but it’s yours for as long as you need to sleep.”
“I can’t take your bed—”
“You’re a Rebel yourself, and I’ve heard nothing but glowing reviews from my brother, Wedge, and my husband. That last one’s hard to impress. Not to mention,” Leia says, pointing more insistently, “you’re going to need rest before later.”
The bed is massive. And largely unmade, but it looks like heaven after sleeping on the floor of two different starships. “What’s later?” she asks, climbing into the tangle of blankets and sheets.
Leia eyes the lightsaber—her and Luke’s lightsaber—hanging on Nova’s belt. “You’re gonna train,” she says, flashing Nova a grin. “With me. Can’t wait to see what you’re made of, rebel girl.”
And then she flicks off the lights, closes the door, and leaves Nova in a sweet, dreamy oblivion.
*
Sleep isn’t easy. The second Nova shuts her eyes, she’s transported back to Din, back to the betrayed expression on his face when she first showed him her ability to use the Force, back to the awful way he kissed her with finality when he left her on Dantooine.
“Don’t go,” the wind howls, and it starts sounding like Nova and finishes sounding like Din. She closes her eyes against the breeze, against the pain, and when she opens them again, she’s on Mandalore.
For a second, it filters up through her chest like honey and warmth. It’s striking—how this stark, blue planet of warriors somehow became the closest thing to a tangible home Nova’s had since her parents died. It’s so opposite to the way she felt when Din first took the throne that it feels disorienting. On the horizon, the sun is muted behind the clouds, but Novalise can see how it shines on, a beacon, desperately trying to break through. Transfixed, her head pounding, Nova climbs the steep steps up towards the blue impenetrable palace. It’s beautiful, even in the strangeness of the dream. It’s eternal and withstanding, and that alone makes her want to transport back to Mandalore, back to Din and Bo-Katan and Grogu, back to beg for forgiveness for breaking the one promise she always intended to keep.
“I won’t run,” Nova had vowed, back on Dantooine, after Din slaughtered Merle and his men in the street for threatening her. He was panicked—really, truly panicked—and Nova saw the softness of the man underneath the metal for the first time. He sparkled brighter than the beskar did.
And he still does.
Nova’s immobilized, immediately caught in the tractor beam of Din’s magnetic pull. He can’t see her. She knows he can’t see her. It’s a dream, and even if she was transported there in the middle of the war room by way of the Force, Din still couldn’t see her. But he doesn’t look like himself. He’s in the throne—and he’s never in the throne. He’s in his beskar, fitted in every single piece of hnis armor except for the helmet. It’s dark in the room, the sun on the horizon doing nothing to light it up through the dome, and Din’s slumped over, leaning slant to the left, one elbow propped up on his knee, a dangerous, murderous look on his face.
He doesn’t look sad. He looks hollow, like he’s been cut out of his body from the inside. There’s darkness sprawled across his gorgeous, familiar face. It curls in the corners of his mouth, lives in the set of his eyebrow. He looks sharpened and whetted and it scares the hell out of Nova, seeing him like this, seeing him there, soldered to a throne he never wanted while she left him behind.
“Din,” Nova whispers, her voice shattering in the middle of the syllable.
He looks up.
It decimates her, this dream-self of Novalise she’s living in, bisects her right down the middle. She stumbles backward, but Din’s looking through her. She stays like that, for a second, suspended by the look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” Nova breathes, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I’m so, so sorry, baby—”
Din stands. Nova tries to hold her intangible ground.
“You can be angry with me. You can kick me out of our bedroom. Of the palace. Of Mandalore, if that’s what you want. I’d sleep outside on Hoth if it meant I could see you again—”
“No,” Din says, low and dangerous.
Nova’s mouth snaps closed.
“I know you’re lying to me.”
His gaze sears Nova straight through, but now Din’s definitely not looking at her. She steps aside like she’s been impaled, staggering sideways.
Bo-Katan looks so alive. It’s the first thing Nova notices when she turns around, how her eyes gleam with something that’s not vindication. The bruises Sparmau left around her throat, deadly handprints, are almost entirely faded. Bo-Katan is standing impeccably, like she always does, her armor molding to her body like it’s an extension of it, her hair curling out around her chin, red and glorious.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” Bo-Katan belays, her voice even and cool. “I’m not lying to you, Din. I told you what I know.”
Din snarls. Nova recoils. She’s never seen him this livid, this dangerous. Even when he killed Merle back on Dantooine. Even when he went after Gideon. For the first time since she’s known him, Din looks like a warrior cut from Mandalore, worthy of wielding the Darksaber. He looks torrential, like he’s full of a storm.
“Where is she,” Din spits, and everything inside of Nova goes cold.
Bo-Katan flinches for the first time. “She went to meet Sparmau. I don’t know where. She left to keep us all safe, and once Novalise kills Sparmau, she’s coming home, Din—”
“Sparmau is plenty capable of making sure that doesn’t happen,” Din says, the words laced with something electric and so, so dark. “Do you remember what I told you when you called Nova Andromeda?” His eyes flare. “Do you?”
Bo-Katan raises her chin. Nova swallows. “‘If you ever use that name to refer to her again, those words will be your last. Do you understand me?’”
Din’s eyes narrow.
“I haven’t forgotten, Din,” Bo-Katan whispers, her voice so different than when she was reciting back Din’s direct quote. “I never have again. And you aren’t the only person in the galaxy who loves Novalise.”
Nova’s eyes flood with tears.
Din glares, but the horrible, dangerous fire in his eyes is doused. “I know,” he allows, and whatever darkness flared in his bones quiets down. “I want her back, Bo-Katan,” Din says, and he sounds broken. “I need her back.”
Nova’s invisible to both of them, but she’s still halved by it, undone in pieces she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to string back together.
“She’ll be back.”
Din lifts his head. “Did Nova tell you that?”
Bo-Katan’s lips curve around a sustained, knowing smile. There’s no ice in it. “She didn’t have to,” she whispers. “That girl only runs in the direction of danger, and she always comes out of it alive.”
Nova jolts awake. There’s tears still on her face, proof that what just happened is more memory than dream. It cries out in her chest, something undone and unholy. She feels like she’s been plunged into the deepest ocean in the galaxy and can’t come up for air. In every direction, in every way she turns, there’s no surface to break through. She’s drowning in it—her guilt for leaving, and the failure that followed. She had the chance to kill Sparmau, to wipe her threat out of existence for good, but she didn’t. The dagger, for whatever reason, hadn’t kept her down.
But it’s more than that. Nova knows it. She fought Sparmau as Andromeda. She needs to kill her as Novalise.
It’s right there, in her chest, the knowledge of it. Nova’s been pushing it away since it happened, the horrible feeling of intending to kill, but more lived underneath, and has been festering ever since. She didn’t follow through. Not because Sparmau didn’t deserve it, and not because Nova felt incapable, but because she made the attempt with a blade and not with her lightsaber.
Nova moans out into the darkness, shuttered and swallowed by the weight of it—another battle ahead. It’s exhausting, saving the galaxy, and trying to keep the world still turning while she does it. She’s fatigued with the effort, all of it. She doesn’t want to be a Jedi anymore. She doesn’t want the saintlike version of herself to become the only one. She wants to be a rebel girl unattached to the Alliance. She wants to live back on the home they created on the Razor Crest, taking care of the baby while Din hunted bounties. Even from the beginning, even though this world has never been simple, it felt bearable. Palatable.
And this is something deeper. So, so much deeper.
Nova’s not aware it’s happening, but she falls back into sleep. She’s awake one second, lamenting, and then she’s back in the warm belly of a dream, and this one isn’t peering through the veil. She’s not seeing anything concurrent.
She’s on the Razor Crest. And even though hundreds of thousands of minutes in her life were spent on the Razor Crest, Nova knows exactly which one she’s in.
It’s Toydaria. And Din’s just gotten a look at her, a real look, after being all over filthy planet surfaces, tracking down even filthier bounties. He made a deal with this one—if the bounty behaved, he wouldn’t freeze him in carbonite—but the second Din laid his hungry, helmeted eyes on her, it was game over for the bounty. He got frozen, and the two of them burned.
Nova can feel it everywhere like it was yesterday. In her racing heartbeat, in the butterfly menagerie in her stomach, in the apex between her legs. For a glorious second, she’s suspended in the memory, eyes squeezed shut in the darkness. Both her and Din are leaning into each other, buried deep inside of her. Everything clenches down, hard, and even though Din’s fucked her in an entire catalogue of incredible waves, this one stands out to her.
His lips are sinking into her neck, over and over, the wetness of his tongue catching on all of her pulse points, like his job was to dismantle her, break her down, and then sew her back together. Din whispers into the shell of Nova’s ear, the words wet and laden with lust. She can feel it like she’s still there, getting fucked on Toydaria. She can smell the interior of the Razor Crest, impossible to recreate. She can taste Din’s lips on hers, pink and puffy and obsessed with her mouth. She can feel him inside her, hitting what she needs him to, every damn time. It’s cloying and overwhelming, and even though the dream is a memory of something that happened, it feels so vivid that it’s larger than life.
“Wanna fuck you forever,” Din murmurs, into her ear. Everything in Nova’s body—in the dream and in reality— is on fire. “Wanna give up bounties. Just you.”
Nova’s blunt nails dig into Din’s shoulders, and he lets out a loud, strangled moan. “Catch me like one of your bounties,” she whispers, the words punctuated by the staccato rhythm of him fucking into her, “and then fuck me in your handcuffs.”
Nova can feel it, the way he lets go—hot and wet, filling her. Even though it’s been a year since then, it lives inside of her, haunts her down to her bones. The last thing she sees before she wakes up is Din’s eyes on her—eyes that used to be hidden—full of lust, satisfaction, and love.
Nova jerks awake. Her heart is racing. Her panties are wet from the dream, and she presses a hand to her forehead, squeezing her eyes until she sees stars, trying to catch her breath. It feels like hours before her heartbeat slows, lulled back into its usual rhythm. When her knees stop feeling like they’re going to buckle under her, she moves towards the fresher in the corner, feet cold against the marble tile.
Her reflection looks like her and not like her. For the first time in nearly a decade, Nova doesn’t look at herself and wince at the sight of Andromeda. She lives in the corners of Nova’s smile, in the curve of her neck, in her father’s freckles muttered across her nose, in the long, curly hair she inherited from her mother. And then she’s Novalise, in the beskar ring around her finger, in the determined set of her shoulders, in the thick muscles in her thighs, in the scar through her eyebrow. They used to constantly be at war—the past and the present—but now they coexist.
Nova stares, trying to conjure the saintlike version she sees in the mirror, laden in glitter and gold, surrounded by a glow. She lives entirely in the shadows, and even in the dark, Nova can’t conjure her, bring her to life.
As she steps into the hot steam of the shower, water washing away the blood and grime from the last few days, it hits her.
She doesn’t exist yet. And to get there, Nova realizes, she might need martyrdom first.
*
Hosnian Prime is beautiful.
It’s bureaucratic, the life and architecture of the Senate built into the color of the planet, but there’s still a serenity to it. Above the courtyard where she meets Leia are birds darting and soaring on the breeze. It’s both a metropolis and not a metropolis. It’s not like Coruscant was, but it’s busy and commanding in its own way.
Leia looks powerful. She could be wearing a sack and still look powerful. It lives in her body, and electricity radiates off of her. She’s every bit as royal as Nova was imagining, but she’s so much more. Written into the map of her anatomy is rebellion and defiance. It’s a mirror image to Luke’s determination and revolution, but it takes a different shape.
Leia smiles at her. Nova beams back. “Show me what you got.”
Nova swallows, letting Luke’s lightsaber light up in her hand. She swallows, looking back and forth from the flickering blade to Leia, who looks like she doesn't even need a saber to beat her. “I’m rusty,” Nova says, “and I haven’t been formally trained.”
Leia steps forward. Even in the standard grey of her clothing—both fit for a Jedi and a Senator—she’s so alive. A breeze whips through the greenery in the courtyard, blowing Leia closer and Nova’s freshly braided hair back. “You’re not here to fight me,” she says, gently, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re here to show me what you’ve learned, and I’m here to reinforce you. You’ll leave Hosnian Prime a step closer to being a real Jedi.”
Nova swallows. She doesn’t voice what she felt in the dark last night—she’s exhausted from trying to save the galaxy, and she doesn’t feel the Force flowing through her—but she knows it’s probably written over her face. “Why did you bring me all the way here?”
Something darts over Leia’s expression, too quickly for Nova to categorize, and then she flashes Luke’s familiar, giddy smile. “My brother’s not the only one in this family with a flair for the dramatic.”
Nova grins. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Leia steps her feet apart, and when Nova steels herself, she pulls a lightsaber out of her robes. It’s green, but it’s so much more electric than the one Luke uses after loaning his out to Nova. She holds it like an expert, but Nova can see the way Leia’s less practiced than Luke is. She walks forward, saber raised, and Nova deflects, blue into green.
Leia spins. Nova evades. Leia spins again, cutting upward to knock the blade out of Nova’s hand, but Nova can see it coming, and she dashes to the side, tucking and rolling across the stone ground like she does in outer space.
When Nova pushes back up to her feet, Leia is still holding her own saber defensively, but there’s a strange, unhinged sense of pride in her face. “You’re good,” she says, flashing a smile. “Attack me.”
Nova blinks. “I—”
“Attack me,” Leia says, moving in a steady circle, forcing Nova to match her steps to stay directly opposite of her. It’s the same movement Sparmau corralled her into back on Yavin, and that alone sends something like lightning down Nova’s spine, cracking down to her stance. “You don’t need to hold back.”
Nova swallows. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she says, and Leia raises a sculpted, chestnut brown eyebrow.
“Novalise,” Leia sighs, rotating the green lightsaber in her hand. It flickers and hums, and Nova raises the Skywalker one in her hand, heart racing, knowing that Leia has enough practice to disarm her and slit her throat if she wants to, but there’s not a shred of malice in her face. She just looks excited. “I survived the destruction of my home planet, losing both my biological and adoptive parents, getting captured by Darth Vader, the explosion of both Death Stars, a particularly painful childbirth, and not one, but two Galactic Senates. You aren’t going to hurt me.”
Nova steels herself, raising her hand higher, letting the pulse of the lightsaber run like a current into her own veins. She’s out of practice, and she’s been disenchanted from the Force, but her body doesn’t care. She can feel it.
When she charges at Leia, she keeps her saber close to her chest. Leia parries, with brute force and determination, and Nova swings like she’s an untapped faucet, rushing and let loose. She goes high, then low, then spins to underhand Leia’s grip. Leia knocks her back, easily, and Nova trips over a loose stone, catching her fall with her permabruised knee.
“You’re good,” Leia repeats.
“You’re better,” Nova huffs, heaving herself off the ground. “And I’m depleted.”
Leia looks at her, something sad shuttered behind her eyes. “The Dark Side doesn’t care if you’re depleted,” she says, softly, reaching out her free hand to help haul Nova back up. “And the person you have this awful, consuming Force bond with? She doesn’t care either. You’re not going to defeat the darkness if you can’t keep pushing it back.”
Nova sighs, angrily brushing away the tears that form in the corners of her eyes. “I know,” she says, starting forcefully and ending on a dull ache.
Leia regards her carefully. “Again?”
Nova draws her left foot back, getting into her fighting stance. “Again.”
Leia strikes. Nova evades. Then, when Leia’s taken a half-step back, Nova strikes, too. It goes against almost everything she’s done her entire life—punching instead of pulling—but the energy flowing through her body fortifies her, keeps her moving on. The lightsabers hiss when they collide, turquoise in the chilly air. Nova keeps pushing Leia back, defending with her saber in both hands, letting the Force guide her steps so she doesn’t shake loose the wrong stone and twist her ankle. She’s trying to think full steps ahead, and she almost has Leia pinned up against the wall when the hilt of Leia’s lightsaber knocks into Nova’s grip, sending the blue light skittering across the stones.
“Good,” Leia enunciates, and Nova’s doubled over, huffing, but she feels a spark of pride. Easily, Leia raises her empty hand, and the lightsaber soars over through the air, commanded with sheer force alone. “Again."
Nova exhales, grabbing the unlit lightsaber out of the air as Leia tosses it to her.
“I know you don’t like to strike first,” Leia calls, over the wind and the buzz of both of their lightsabers, “so that’s what your enemy will read from you. You’re defensive. You need to hold onto that while doing the opposite.”
Nova swallows, matching Leia’s circle, both of them grey-clad vultures, their faces lit up turquoise. “Are you telling me to run?” she asks, heart banging traitorously in her chest.
Leia nods. “But run towards the threat. Don’t run away from it.”
She has no way of knowing that’s the exact promise that Nova just shredded, shattered all over her and Din’s bedroom floor. The image of him sitting in that throne, morality wrung dry on the kingdom beneath him—it haunts her. Novalise didn’t know Din was capable of such darkness. It snaps something inside of her, that word.
But she does it anyway. She runs.
She charges Leia, feigning left and rolling backwards to bring her lightsaber in a vicious horizontal cut. Leia blocks it, but it’s unsteady, and with the look of surprise on her face, Nova strikes again. Leia parries, and Nova slides around her, kicking off the courtyard wall with her foot, propelling herself forward. Leia moves backward, and Nova keeps on her heels, swinging and spinning until her lightsaber sings into Leia’s, forceful and gleaming, and knocks the green one across the courtyard floor.
Leia’s look of surprise melts into one of pride. “That’s how you win,” she says, grinning, picking up her lightsaber with her hand at her side. Nova watches as it soars into her hand, and once she catches her breath, she laughs. The melody of it lights up the entire open space, the birds coasting on the breeze dancing to the sound. Nova lets herself revel in it, this small victory, and then, even before her smile fades, she’s crying.
She sinks against the stone wall, dressed in Leia’s grey and white clothes, so anesthetic in contrast to the oranges and blues Nova’s used to. All of the strength that just roared through her like a dam burst is flooding out of her now, and she brings her knees to her chest, faded and disparate.
“Hey,” Leia whispers, the glitter and pop of her brown eyes morphing into concern. She crosses the distance between the two of them, sinking down the wall next to Nova, even though her impeccable robes will collect the dirt and moss. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m—” Nova swallows, trying to control her heartbeat long enough to catch her breath. “I’m not cut out for this, Leia. Saving the galaxy. Stopping Sparmau. I’m a coward.”
Leia studies her. “You are absolutely not a coward,” she says, her voice sizzling with the truth of it.
“I am,” Nova wails. “I—way back when I met my husband, when we…when our relationship really started, I misread all of his signals, thought he wasn’t interested, and I ran. And someone from my past found me, someone dangerous, and Din saved me, but then he made me promise that I wouldn’t run again.” Nova swallows, wiping her tears away with equal parts fury and exhaustion. “He left me to protect me, once. And it broke my heart, but I eventually forgave him—but then I turned around and I did the same thing.”
Blurrily, she studies her shaking hands, the brown of her skin so alive and warm in comparison to everything else here. Nova can feel Leia’s concerned gaze burning a hole into her mandible.
“You said you forgave him,” Leia says, gently, and for a second, she sounds exactly like Luke. “He’ll forgive you.”
Nova lets her head thunk back into the stone wall. “He might,” she allows, “but I need to defeat Sparmau. I need to kill her. And I know he’ll get caught in the crossfire if I go home before I do that.”
Leia inhales, ready to fire off a rebuttal, but the words seem to die in her mouth.
“But, stars,” Nova whispers, the words trembling across her tongue, “I want to go home.”
“Novalise,” Leia says, and Nova closes her eyes, turns her head, and looks into Leia’s brown ones. “You will go home. But you need to beat Sparmau first. This time, when you face her, you’re going to have something to fight for.”
Another tear streaks down Nova’s face. Leia catches it with her pointer finger and flicks it away. “Do you think I can beat her?”
Leia studies her. “Yes,” she says, with a vitality so strong Nova knows she believes it. “I do. But you can’t only fight defensively, and you can’t show her mercy.”
“I’m not a killer.”
“No, you’re not,” Leia agrees. “But you’re a Rebel, and more than that, you’re a survivor. I can see it on you as much as I do on me. You aren’t cold-blooded. You won’t be stopping her for fun. This is to save the people you love and to bring yourself home.”
Nova swallows. “Have you killed people?”
Leia nods. There’s a war-torn fury blazing just beneath her expression. “Multiple. And a disgusting slimy Hutt who took me as his captive. I used to hate it. It used to haunt me. I was a diplomat—a princess—not a mercenary. But along the way, I learned that these people are evil, and will use you, torture you, and kill you without a second thought. You aren’t dropping them for the fun of it. You’re taking them out so they never have a chance to hurt anyone ever again.”
Nova stares at the lightsabers at her feet, her thumb and forefinger clasping down on the Alliance symbol hanging from her neck. “She killed my parents,” she whispers. “And she’s hurt almost everyone I love, just to get to me. She—she wants me to join her on the Dark Side.”
Leia shakes with the weight of it. “Well, that’s not going to happen.”
Despite everything, Nova’s face breaks into a soft smile. “No, it’s not.”
Another breeze blows through the courtyard, and Nova feels the chill of it rushing through her, breaking her out of her spell. She sits up straighter, wiping the tears off of her face.
“Did you talk to Luke?” Leia asks quietly. “About trying to stop Sparmau.”
Nova nods. “I did.”
Leia cocks another eyebrow. “What did he say?”
Nova exhales. “He said he beat Vader by letting go of his anger and forgiving him.”
Leia’s jaw clenches down. “I love him. My brother. He’s kind and joyful, and ever since I’ve known him, there isn’t a single person that he wouldn’t help.” Her expression darkens. “But he’s far too forgiving.”
Nova doesn’t speak. Whatever Leia’s trying to say isn’t finished yet.
“Maybe Luke really did meet Anakin before Vader died. Maybe he really did save him, like Luke said. But I don’t forgive him.” She turns her nose into the breeze, eyes flashing across the sparrows darting through the cloud cover above. “Do you know how I’ve kept fighting?”
Nova shakes her head, so imperceptibly it could get lost in the wind.
“I stay angry,” Leia says, and it sounds like a vow. “Luke’s let go of it because it’s who he is, both as a person and as a Jedi. But I keep it right here,” she says, proving it with a stab of her finger against her heart. “Anger doesn’t need to blind you. It can drive you.” She looks back at Nova. “Are you angry? About Sparmau killing your parents, and about threatening the people you love?”
It churns in Nova’s stomach. “Yes,” she says, the weight of a thousand stars shining through.
Leia’s face, again, blazes with pride. “Then use it.”
Nova’s not sure how long they sit there, the two of them belonging to different wars and the same sense of home. Eventually, they both get up to resume training, and the clash of blue against green lights up the courtyard long after the sun does. They practice, religiously, endlessly, until Nova can disarm Leia with both her lightsaber and the Force flowing through both palms.
*
Nova doesn’t know where Leia sleeps, but she’s grateful for the empty sprawl of her four-poster bed after they’re done. Her knuckles are raw, and there’s an ache in her right hand, and she’s exhausted, but for the first time in weeks, Nova can feel something lighting up inside of her chest.
Hope.
She revels in it, holding it flush against her heartbeat like a wounded dove, trying to keep it protected and lit long enough for it to sustain. As she fades into sleep, Nova carries the warmth of it with her, bright gold turning into a serene Mandalore blue. It aches, even half-awake, but tonight, Nova’s felt what it’s like being a savior.
She can handle the weight of being a martyr.
Her breath echoes and reverberates in her ears. She looks up, eyes glancing over the domed ceiling, the mural of Mandalorians past painted across the tower, and when Nova looks back down, Din’s standing in front of her.
Nova’s heart catches in her throat. “Din,” she breathes.
His helmet is on. He cocks his head at her, dangerously and dominantly, and he doesn’t look like Din. He looks like the metal man of the Mandalorian, the most ruthless bounty hunter across the galaxy. It makes her ache for an entirely different reason, and Nova stutters over her inhale as Din regards her, the visor in his helmet moving up and down, clocking every inch of her body.
“You promised me you wouldn’t run.”
Nova’s knees buckle as he slowly starts walking toward her, stalking her like he’s a predator and he’s spent days chasing down her as prey. Her head is screaming to apologize, to try and make it right, even in this dream, just to have a shred of evidence that she tried. “I know,” she manages, instead, and Din reaches a proximity so close he could seize her if he wanted, staring her down. It takes everything inside of her for Nova not to reach forward and close the distance. His chest is only inches away from hers, his hands curled at his side. The visor is impenetrable. Something hot and wet pulses between her legs.
“You’ve been a very bad girl, Novalise,” Din snarls.
This is beyond rectification. It’s beyond worry. He’s angry, and it’s palpable, radiating off of him like smoke. Din could obliterate her if he wanted to, and with the way Nova’s body is reacting, even in this dream-state, she would let him. She would encourage him.
Slowly, he begins walking around her, a dangerous, measured circle. If Nova didn’t feel like prey before, she certainly does now. And still, she’s wet, her breath is caught in her throat, every single nerve ending in her body lit on fire. She’s being sieged.
And she wants to burn.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Din stops, directly behind her. “No you’re not,” he hisses. The words filter out of the modulator and bleed into Nova. She can feel how hard she’s shaking, with equal parts fear and excitement. This isn’t the man she fell in love with. This is the one under the armor when he’s hunting.
And she wants him just as badly.
Din’s hand snakes out and grabs Nova’s hips, yanking her back against him. Even through the armor, she can feel him press into her ass, rock-hard and wanting. Sighing, Nova grinds back into him, and Din’s free hand snaps out and closes around her throat.
Nova yelps. He’s not squeezing. His touch is gentle, but it’s a warning.
“Do you really think,” Din whispers, the words red-hot and wet through the modulator, “that you’re going to be rewarded for what you did?”
Nova swallows. “No.”
“That’s right,” Din says, and then his thumb closes against the side of her throat. Just for a second, but it makes her eyes roll back in her head. “You ran. You disappeared. You don’t deserve a reward. You deserve a punishment.”
“Yes,” Nova breathes, whimpering, “I do.”
Lightning-quick, Din releases her, spinning Nova around so that she crashes into the beskar on his chest. He’s so broad. There’s nothing in her periphery—Din drowns everything else out. He’s metal and danger and sex, and all Nova wants to do is let him unravel her, even if that means taking a punishment. As long as he’s touching her, she can take it.
Din’s gloved hands travel the expanse of Nova’s body, starting at her carotid and dancing down her collarbone. His left hand keeps her body cemented against his, pressing possessively into the small of her back, the right one whispering down the valley between her tits. Nova moans. It’s involuntary. Din’s hand moves from her sternum over to one of her hardened nipples, pinching until Nova moans again. He studies her carefully, moving his grip over to the other one. His gloved thumb brushes over it until Nova’s crazy from the want of it, trembling in his hand. Slowly, Din slides his hand back to center, running a thick finger up and down. He leans in, voice electrified. “I’m going to fuck you right here someday,” he whispers, “and cum all over your pretty face.”
Nova’s knees buckle. Din holds her up, moving his hand down over her bellybutton. “Please,” Nova breathes, and she’s not even sure what she’s asking for. Din’s hand slips down lower, rubbing over her pelvic bone, slowly moving in between her thighs. “Din, I—”
His light touch, finger grazing up and down at the mess of wetness that’s soaked Nova through to her pants, disappears. Nova’s mouth opens to beg, but his hand comes back, cupping her hard. Nova sways.
“You think you can run away from me with no consequence?” Din whispers, hand hot against her pussy, and Nova tries to thrash down into his touch. “No, baby,” he croons, and the word burns through Nova’s cheeks. “That’s not how it works.”
“Let me make it up to you,” Nova whines, her voice all fucked-out and desperate. “Please. I’ll—I’ll do whatever you want, for as long as you w-want, Din—”
He clenches. Nova cries out. She’s so turned on it hurts. “You left,” Din grits out. “Am I that easy to leave?”
“No,” she howls, but her voice is so soft. “Never again. I promise.”
“You like to run?”
Nova shudders. “No.”
“Too bad.” Din releases her. Nova reels from the shock of it. “You’re going to run right now.”
Nova blinks up at him, her own confused reflection shining back to her in the visor. “What?”
“Run.” Din points through the open doors, his finger so steady it looks frozen in midair. “Hide. But when I find you, cyar’ika, I’m going to show you that there is no place in this galaxy you can run where I wouldn’t find you.”
Nova feels dizzy, heart racing so strongly it radiates everywhere. She stares up at Din, and he steps back. “You only have a minute head start.”
Nova turns on her heel and runs. It’s a miracle that she can move at all. She’s shaking with lust, with want, with the swallowed apology in her throat. She knows that he’s going to find her. Din, the part of him that’s still the bounty hunting Mandalorian, is impossible to outrun or evade. He has a success rate of a hundred percent, save for the rescue mission his quarry turned into when it was Grogu. Din’s bounties only breathe when he says so.
It should scare her. In another life, it would scare her. But Nova’s seen the man under the metal, and she’s so in love with him it burns in her chest. He’s scary—dominant, commanding, dangerous—but he’s fallen at her feet, been weak at her touch. He’s not going to hurt her.
He’s just going to make her wet with the threat of it.
Nova runs. She makes the corner, seeing the steps that lead up to their bedroom, but that’s predictable. Loudly, she stomps on the bottom step, lightening her footfalls until it sounds like she’s gone upstairs. Sneakily, as quietly as she can manage, she walks across the wide expanse of floor to the open war room doors, sneaking down the side passage. As soon as Din’s out of earshot, Nova runs, heart pounding in her chest. She only has seconds to disappear before he finds her, and her body keeps stuttering to a stop, wanting to be easy prey.
She’s fucking soaked. Din usually has to open her up with his fingers before she’s relaxed enough to take his cock, but tonight, Nova knows he’ll slide right in, fucking her until he can’t anymore. And when he’s done, she’ll sink back down, feeling every single ridge as she grips him.
Nova mewls into the empty darkness of the amphitheater, her legs squeezing together involuntarily.
“I’m coming,” Din warns, his modulated voice echoing around the palace.
“Me too,” Nova whispers, grinning slyly, and then she’s running again. She knows he’ll check the bedroom first. If she didn’t want him to take her wherever he found her, Nova would have run up the steps and stripped down to nothing to wait for him. But she wants to be praised as much as she wants to be punished, so she moves into the opposite direction, running into the part of the palace that holds the prison.
The last time Nova was down here, it was when Gideon was killed. She never wanted to see the cells again, but here she is, streaking through them with fire—and Din—on her heels. She looks over her shoulder, once, twice, and then moves into an empty one, locking the door behind her.
She’s trapped here. She can feel it. And that would normally incite panic, but right now, all Nova’s feeling is sweet, sweet anticipation.
Nova can’t hear Din. She can’t see him. But he’s here. It lives in the curl in her stomach, on the back of her neck. She swallows, turning and turning in the darkness, looking through the glass to catch a glimpse of him.
Two gloved hands slam against the cell she’s in, and Nova inhales, spinning around. Din’s splayed up against the glass, helmet cocked to the side, studying her. Nova swallows.
“Oh, cyar’ika,” he croons, and Nova’s legs shake again. “You’re as bad at hiding as you are at running.”
“You found me,” Nova breathes. “Now get in here and catch me.”
Din studies her—Nova’s hair long against her back, the tank top and pants she’s wearing, how her chest is heaving up and down. It unravels something in her. She wants to be a bounty. She wants this anticipation, to have him chase her down and not relent until he grabs her and take her. “You like this,” he breathes, and Nova squeals.
Din bangs on the door—once, twice, and then the beskar hits the weak point and the glass shatters. Nova steps back, but Din walks through it like it’s rain. She backs up, her heart in her throat, as Din steps closer and closer, tantalizing and tempting.
“You like running from me?” he asks, a hand coming up and tracing across her collarbone.
Nova shudders. “Only when it ends like this.”
Din steps closer, hand moving forcefully down to her tits, groaning when he squeezes. He’s close enough for Nova to feel his cock jump through his pants. “If I put my hand between your legs right now,” Din breathes, playing with her nipple, “am I going to find you wet and ready for me?”
Nova looks up at him, shaking as Din’s hand caresses over her belly, dipping down between her thighs. She’s dripping. She’s high off of it—the adrenaline, the chase, his touch. “Soaking,” she breathes.
Din groans when he finds Nova wet over her panties and her trousers, and he yanks away his glove, unbuttoning her pants, diving his hand in. Nova moans when she strokes her, thick fingers parting her folds, running her dizzy with her own slick.
“Good girl,” Din moans, and then he’s shoving inside of her. Nova would be embarrassed by her high, feral moan, and the squelching noise she makes as Din finger fucks her, but she’s too gone to care. She lets Din push her up against the wall, knees sagging. “I could spend days inside your pussy,” he growls. “So fucking wet.”
“Please,” Nova mewls, her whole body buzzing. “Please fuck me.”
Din pulls his fingers out, yanks Nova’s waistband down, and spins her around. The glass behind her is cold and unyielding, and Nova moans louder when Din holds her in place, snakes his hand around, and plays with her as he pulls his own pants down. He presses up against her, and Nova makes a noise so loud it sounds like a scream.
“Good girls get fucked gently,” Din simpers, teasing her by dragging the head of his cock up and down from clit to entrance. Nova’s head rolls back. “But bad girls get punished.” He pushes in, hard, spearing her right where she needs it, other hand tangling in her hair, pushing her into the wall. “I’ll fuck you sweet and slow when you’ve earned it.”
“Maker above,” Nova cries, feeling his hips snap, pushing every inch of his big cock inside of her. It’s dirty and filthy and so fucking hot. She can’t catch her breath. “Do—all of your bounties get fucked like this?”
Din’s hand closes around her throat, thrusting up into her. “Only ones who feel like you.” He buries his helmeted head in the crook of her shoulder. “And no one else in this fucking galaxy feels like you.”
Nova’s on the edge, cresting, so close. She pulls forward with the strength of it, and Din yanks her right back. “Where are you going, my sweet girl,” Din growls, immobilizing Nova right there. And right as she’s about to let go, his lips find her ear. The timbre of his voice through the modulator doubles her orgasm. “Don’t ever fucking run from me again.”
Nova screams, clenching down around him, completely gone, and then, as soon as the dream started, it disappears. She whirls around, suddenly clothed, back in the throne room. It’s empty.
“Din?” Nova calls, her voice still shaky from the dream before.
“Guess again,” a voice snarls, and Nova turns on her heel, heart pounding. Sparmau grins at her, one hand wrapped around Din’s throat, the other around Bo-Katan’s. Nova feels sick. “You didn’t keep your promise, princess,” she whispers, venom dripping from her lips. “So I won’t keep mine.”
“Don’t you fucking dare—”
“What?” Sparmau says, fake-pouting. “Hurt them?”
Nova runs forward, grasping for the people she loves, but then they’re gone. The only thing she’s left with is two words spit from Sparmau’s mouth.
“Not yet.”
*
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I HOPE YOU LOVED IT!!! i'm SO sorry for ghosting out for two weeks, but i hope this chapter made up for the wait <3 on top of the holiday season, i dealt with having a horrible flareup of my chronic illnesses and also had a massive allergic reaction. but i am back and swinging, and i can't wait for the rest of SD!
CHAPTER 18 WILL BE UP AT 7:30 PM EST ON SATURDAY, JANUARY 22ND!
