Chapter Text
“You’re a Mandalorian, aren’t you?”
Kal Skirata looked up from his drink and stared at the young Rhodian in front of him. Just once, just kriffing once, he wanted to be able to get a drink without being accosted. He was getting old. He just wanted to do his job, then spend that money on ammunition, fuel, food, then sleep for a day or two and move on to the next job. He hadn’t even gotten to take his helmet off this time.
“I am,” he said anyway. Maybe the kid had a job for him. But they were in what used to be Mandalorian space. If this kid said one thing about Death Watch he was shooting his way out of the cantina.
The Rhodian nodded more than was strictly necessary. Kal immediately clocked it as a nervous tick, then wondered why he was casing the person who was hiring him. Was he really getting so jaded that he couldn’t turn his bounty hunting brain off?
“We-” the Rhodian started. “We - that is my family - we have a-a-a farm-”
Kal sighed. “Why do you need a Mandalorian, kid?”
“Yeah, yeah.”He seemed to notice he was nodding too much, and visibly stopped. “A-a ship crashed on our farm a few days ago. And my sister went to check it out and something attacked her. We- We’re too afraid to go back.” Kal raised an eyebrow, and even though the kid couldn’t see it, he seemed to know. “We- I know it’s probably… beneath you, but-but Mam always said Mandalorian’s were honorable, and you-you can keep anything from the crash, and-”
Kal tilted his head and the kid’s mouth shut. For a second, he held onto being called “honorable” in his Beskar’gam this close to Mandalorian space. Then, he tilted his helmet back and downed his drink. “Lead the way.”
The Rhodian looked confused. “You-you don’t need-”
Kal shrugged. “Free parts are free parts.”
He had a feeling it wouldn’t be too dangerous.
The kid had a speeder and enough credits to rent one for Kal too. It still took almost three hours to reach the farm, and another half an hour to get to the crash site. Kal took one look at how nervous the kid was, and waved him back toward his house.
It wasn’t pretty, not that crash sites ever are. The ship was of a make Kal had never seen before, but that didn’t surprise him. He’d been flying the same ship almost his entire life, and even then he usually had to take it to a mechanic to get it fixed. The ship in front of him was big though, the kind of ship meant for long-term habitation.
Kal walked a complete circle around the downed ship. There was a portion on the side that looked… the right kind of wrong. It was more scorch marks than paint, like there was an escape pod that got launched. The external of the engines looked remarkably undamaged. No carbon scoring from a firefight, no clear holes from an explosion, nothing. If Kal had to guess, he’d say something jammed them and they had overheated. If that was a thing that could take a ship of this size down.
The more Kal looked, the less he was sure he could loot anything but scrap metal from the externals of this ship. None of it looked compatible with his systems. It was just… so bizarre. Maybe the inside would have something more familiar.
As soon as Kal stepped past the escape pod launch site again, a blaster bolt whizzed past him. It went so completely wide that Kal didn’t even draw his own blaster. Either the person who shot hadn’t even been aiming or that wasn’t a blaster bolt at all.
“Is anyone there?”
Silence.
Kal didn’t move. The hypothetical hidden person didn’t fire again. It probably wasn’t a blaster bolt at all. It certainly hadn’t been a color that Kal had ever seen, and downed ships tended to spark and throw off all kinds of weird sounds and colors.
He kept exploring. The entrance ramp was open. That was enough to get Kal to rest a hand on his side-arm as he entered.
The inside of the ship was pure chaos. Every crate by the entrance ramp had been opened. Most were completely empty. Some potable water, some emergency rations, but not much else. There was a scorch mark in the wall above one and a broken bacta patch on the ground. That must have been where the farmer kid’s sister was attacked. Kal sighted along the line of the shot and realized it came from outside. He kept his hand down by his blaster.
The rest of the ship was ghostly quiet, only made all the more strange by how little else appeared to be out of place. There were things like datapads and trinkets and real kriffing books scattered across the floor, sure. But some things looked like they’ve been replaced from where they fell. This ship wasn’t just meant to be lived in, it had been. Recently.
Kal opened a door into a side room and stopped dead.
Oh kriff.
The room was full of… of toys. Stuffed animals and mini tools and little model ships. Things that-
Things for a child.
Kal needed to see the ship's records right now.
He didn’t check the rest of the ship. He went straight to the cockpit. Either he could access the records from there, or the cockpit could point him to the blackbox.
The door outside the cockpit was locked. Kal didn’t bother considering why. He just sliced into it and tore the unfamiliar code to shreds. The doors slid open. Kal stepped forward without checking the room.
“Stay-stay back!”
Kal blinked and froze, more from surprise than obedience to the order.
Verd’ika.
There was… there was a little girl. Her skin was a light royal blue. Her eyes were completely red. She didn’t even seem to have pupils. Her hair was long and a darker black than empty space. Kal had seen a lot of people in this galaxy, but he’d never seen one like her before.
The child was wearing a tattered jumpsuit, almost completely gone on one shoulder, and no shoes. There was a blaster rifle, far too large for her, abandoned by her feet. She was holding a knife in both hands, elbows locked and shaking.
Kal was a riot of emotions, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that he wouldn’t be leaving this crash-site without her.
“Back!” the girl repeated, baring her teeth. Kal had never heard her accent before, but it was thick. Galactic Basic was not her first language.
Kal reached up and pulled his helmet off. The girl’s eyes widened, but she never faltered. He kneeled, hands over his head. The girl followed the height of his neck with her knife. Smart. Not many species could survive a hit like that. It was just-
“How are you going to hit me if your arms are already all the way out?” Kal asked. The girl blinked, glanced at her hands, and pulled her arms a little closer to her chest. Kal smiled, the same smile he used to give his own kids. “Good.” He had half a mind to correct her footing too, but didn’t. He sat down, just outside the cockpit door.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Who are you?” the little girl asked. Her fear was clear, but already fading. She looked so tired.
“My name is Kal Skirata. I’m a Haat Mando’ade.” He paused. “Can I know your name?”
The girl did not lower her knife. “I… I am Vosh’erinna.” Her voice was so quiet. “I’m a-” The knife started lowering. “I’m alone.”
Kal took a risk. He scooted a little closer, into the threshold of the door. If Vosh’erinna closed it now, it would not be a pretty sight for him. The only movement she made was to lift the knife back up to point at his neck. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Kal said gently.
Vosh’erinna lowered the knife, but still looked wary. Kal scooted just a little closer, pulled off a glove with slow, clear movements, and offered her a hand. She shifted the knife to one hand and reached back. Her arm didn’t get far before she hissed and pulled back, dropping the knife.
Small gods, how hadn’t he noticed before? The skin under the torn - no, the burned - portion of Vosh’erinna jumpsuit was discolored. The pattern continued, up into the hair on the left side of her head. It was hard for Kal, a human who’d only had to take care of other humans, to tell how bad the burn was, but the crash had been cold to the touch. It had probably been a few days, at least, since the injury. Kal cursed the lack of medical supplies on his ship, almost half-a-day’s ride away.
Depending one how quickly Vosh’erinna’s species healed, those would scar, possibly for life.
Verd’ika
Vosh’erinna noticed him staring. “Hurts,” she whispered.
“I’ll bet,” Kal said, just as gently. He offered his hand again, and the little warrior took it with her uninjured hand, knife forgotten on the floor. Her skin was cool to the touch, in the way that those who come from colder planets always are. That probably didn’t bode well for her burns.
Kal marveled at her trust. This child must have had wonderful parents if some gentle words and an offer of solidarity were enough for her to see he wasn’t a threat. As time passes, Kal equates some of that to how smart he would come to realize Vosh’erinna had always been.
“It’ll hurt less if we can cover it,” Kal said, looking around. There was what looked like a shock blanket on one of the seats. “I have-” He paused, considering her age and unknown species. “-Medicine, back on my ship.” He had a feeling if there were medicine here, Vosh’erinna would have at least one bacta patch poorly placed on her burn. “We can get there by nightfall if we leave now. Or I can go and-”
Kal didn’t get to finish before Vosh’erinna had curled into him, pressing her uninjured side to his chest. He wanted to pull her closer, but he didn’t know where he could put his hands that wouldn’t hurt her. Part of him, the part of him that has always been a Mando’ade, wanted to rage at whoever hurt her, at the parents who seemed to have just disappeared and left her here alone. He pushes that down. She has to get treatment for those burns first.
“Alright, then. We can come back for what you want later.”
Kal wrapped Vosh’erinna in the shock blanket as best he could, speaking in soft Mando’a whenever she whimpered from the fabric pressing against her burn. He bundled her into his arms and walked back to the speeder. He commed the farmer kid en-route, telling him the “threat” was gone, but that he was going to bring his ship around in the morning to collect what he wanted from the crash. The grateful farmer didn’t ask further questions. Half-asleep, Verinna mumbled an apology about shooting at someone harmless. Kal chuckled, then shushed her. There was never any shame in self-defense, even if her threat assessment could use some work.
== == ==
It was only hours later, when Kal was treating the burn on Vosh’erinna’s face that he recognized the pattern.
Most of her burnt skin looks exactly how one would expect a burn wound to look. The striped discoloration stretched all the way up her left arm, condensing into a full patch of burnt skin on her shoulder. It’d be awhile before she could really move it again. The fire hadn’t come too far onto her chest, and, protected by the part of her jumpsuit that hadn’t burned, those would heal without issue. The fire looked to have burned harsh and fast across her back. That would probably also scar.
As gruesome as it was, it looked like a burn was expected to. It was the pattern on her face that was unusual. The skin over and around her eye was fine, but much of her hair was gone, in a pattern of spikes that almost looked like-
Like the reverse of a hand print.
And just like that, Kal’s anger at her parents evaporated, replaced with the kind of respect and the grief that can only pass between parents.
Who had been on that ship with her? Who was gone now? Who held this little warrior while they crashed? Who had the wisdom to save her eye from the fire?
“Kal Skirata?”
Kal only didn’t startle from years of training and practice. He continued spreading the bacta cream over the burns on Vosh’erinna’s face. “Sorry. And it’s just Kal, verd’ika. You don’t need to say my clan name every time.”
Vosh’erinna blinked, slow in her exhaustion. “Your clan name is…” She seemed confused in the cute way only the very young can. “You have one?”
Kal tilted his head to indicate his thinking, but never stopped with the burn cream. He’d never been as interested in history and culture as, say, Jaster Mereel had been. He was decent with translations though.
“When Mando’ade say ‘clan’, we mean ‘family’,” Kal explained. “My family name is Skirata.”
Vosh’erinna looked like she was thinking about that far harder than it should require. She was fading fast under the slow disappearance of her pain. “So you… your family name is second?”
“Yes.” Kal kept his voice quiet, but didn't diminish his pride. “Is yours first?” The little girl hummed. “So your… personal name is Erinna?” When she didn’t respond, Kal stepped back a bit and gently shook her unburned shoulder. “Hey, I need you to try and stay awake for a little longer.” He needs to check her for injuries other than what he can see, and he wasn’t sure his medi-scanner would even work on her.
“‘S Verinna,” she said quietly. Her accent was thick with exhaustion, her eyes little red slivers. Kal quickly decided Verinna looked enough like a humanoid that the medi-scanner would probably work. She clearly needed sleep.
Verinna said something in a language Kal had never heard before and slumped forward. Kal was glad he had the foresight to remove some of his armor so she didn’t clunk uncomfortably against the beskar. He pressed his forehead to the top of hers, then laid her down on the medical cot and went to dig out the medi-scanner.
He had no kriffing clue what species to select. So far he’d been treating her like he had treated his… like he had taken care of his first children, like a human. She… looked like a Pantoran, sort of. Hold on, Pantoran’s were ancient evolutionary offshoots of humans, right? It was a start, atleast.
As far as the medi-scanner could tell, Verinna seemed pretty close to human. She was running a bit cold, but given that she was that cool after being wrapped in a shock blanket for hours of transit, Kal assumed her species just ran colder.
Again, her injuries were… not as bad as they could have been. Her ribs were bruised, but it was nothing a few days in a healing sheath wouldn’t fix. He’ll have to go buy one in her size. He should have checked the medbay on her ship. She had a burn on her hand too, but it was superficial. The blaster she was using overheated, probably. Two of her toes were broken. Easy fix. The scanner said her shoulder had recently been dislocated. It was no longer dislocated. Verinna must have set it back herself.
Her people must have been made of the stronger stuff.
Kal engaged the ground security protocols, left to buy a healing sheath, and was back as fast as he could be without worrying the local medical staff too much. When he got back, Verinna was still so deep asleep she hadn’t even shifted. Small mercies. Kal wrapped her in the healing sheath, recovered her with a blanket, then went back to the cockpit.
He took off as gently and quietly as he could, flying low back out to the crash site. From the air, Kal could see a second trail in the fields, smaller and far out from the big ship.
The escape pod.
Kal lands just outside the farm, far enough away that he doesn’t trample the crops anymore than they already had been by the crash. Verinna was still sleeping when he checked, which was good. He wanted to check before she woke up. He didn’t want her to hurt more than she already was.
He thought there might not be any way Verinna could hurt more when he found the body. It was laying several meters outside the pod, limbs in all the wrong directions and right side so burned it barely resembled a body anymore. Kal… he thought it had been her mother. She was much paler than Verinna, on the bits of her skin that remained.
Kal Skirata was not going to bury this woman on this farm. She died protecting her child. He would honor her as such.
== == ==
The embers of the funeral pyre matched the rising sun by the time Kal felt a tiny hand on his leg. Kriff. He’d lost track of time, too caught up in musings.
He was getting too old for this.
Verinna didn’t look up from the pyre when Kal turned to look at her. She just murmured something in that mysterious language and bowed to the ashes. Kal reached an arm around her little shoulders, moving slow enough that she could back away if she wanted. She leaned in closer instead, pressed her face against the part of his leg his armor didn’t cover, trembling.
“Th-the door-”
Kal kneeled down and gathered Verinna into his arms. She shook harder, making little choked off sobbing noises and gasping for little breaths, trying so desperately to explain what happened. She was suffering and speaking a language she seemed unfamiliar with and still she tried to tell him how she got here.
Verd’ika
Kal’s heart hurt so much for this tiny blue child. Her cheeks were still round with baby fat under the burns; her mother died holding her because the escape pod door didn’t seal before it launched; she walked almost a full kilometer alone on broken toes just to-
“Did you find your father?”
Kal tried to be as gentle as he could while spreading more burn cream on her face. Verinna hiccupped through sips of the electrolyte water she was drinking.
She never gave him an answer, which is all the answer he needed.