Vod Blood (D'Ral)

[Ginnie Dib]

Ordo Ranch





The inevitable mess after their father's funeral was finally tidied up. The junk and ephemera laid burning in a pit Ginnie dug in the yard, behind the forge. She dug her shovel into the ashes, and stepped back to sit on her Dad's old lawn chair. Cracking open a can of ale, Ginnie leaned back in the chair and swung her legs on either side.





She rubbed her eyes, curling up with her beer. Mom wouldn't mind... not lately. Not when Ginnie'd turned 19. Eyes watching the fire, the deaf girl sniffled and bit her lip.





Why'd her Dad have to side with Monroe? Why'd he have to fight Preliat Mantis? Why'd Ginnie have to make the man's gorram leg? Did her creation of a prosthetic start a chain of events that killed her father? These questions took sleep away from Ginnie since the battle for Cold Iron City. Wembley the Tuk'ata curled up beside her, raising his mammoth head to lick her shoulder then crash back down. Ginnie ran her hand along the beast's head.





It was about time to change the tone, her siblings were going through enough. But... what could one girl do to make the others feel better? She shut her eyes for a minute, her beer can sliding in her grasp.

@D'Ral Arklim

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

He put baby Galeth into his crib and turned on the small musical starship mobile. It was a strange feeling, looking at the child of a butcher who was also his aunt. That meant that Galeth was his cousin, family, vode. His father had always taught that family was more important than self. He had died believing that. Even Preliat Mantis, who had killed the man was so broken by the fight that he came to the funeral to water Ordo's fields with his tears.

D'ral wanted to kill him, but somehow he didn't think his Buir would approve. He had loved Preliat too. He had loved all of his vode and in the end, D'ral was sure, his father had died of a broken heart. Killed by watching a war between family. D'ral left the sleeping baby with an odd reluctance and headed outside.

On his way he spotted Ginnie and made a detour. He didn't say anything. He just sat down beside her and rested his forearms on his knees the way his father used to do. It seemed he remembered his father in everything these days. His Buir. Gone.

He leaned over and put his arm around his adopted sister. The smell of the beer reached his nose and even that remeinded him of his Buir. He felt the lean muscle of her shoulders under his arm and squeezed tight before moving his arm and resting it back on his knee. They needed to leave soon. He was sure of that. He had a feeling that people would come for the baby. Little did they know that Ordo had taught his ad'ika all how to disapear.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

Ginnie's rucksack and duffel laid packed beside her chair. A few empty cans of ale were scattered between Ginnie and the fire, thrown by someone who's heart wasn't in it.





She'd sent her ship to a secure location, hidden by the only contact she could trust. A rickety Echani droid she'd discovered, one of a set of droid 'twins'. A fall-back position, when they needed it. There was no insecurity in the fact of Ginnie's new life. Blood and iron.





Mando'ade would be coming for Galeth Ordo. They craved justice, revenge, the catharsis of turning the child of [member="Mia Monroe"] into a sacrificial lamb. And [member="D'ral Ar'klim"] was leaving to save the boy.





To save their mother, sisters, the farm, Ginnie knew they had to go. She burned all traces of herself in the fire, leaving nothing inside but the heirlooms Rianna kept in her heart. About to throw her beloved stuffed nexu in the fire, Ginnie paused. Wembley's head rose, snuffling at the smoking air. D'ral sat beside her, the only person but their parents, who could come from behind Ginnie without eliciting a jolt as a response. To say she trusted Ordo's son was to say she breathed. He was as dependable as their father, as Wembley her Tuk'ata. The fixed point in her stars. For the briefest moment, Ginnie rested her head on D'ral's shoulder, trying to settle the tears and her stomach. A scant few seconds, it was enough.





"I know where we need to go, where no one will find us, and the baby." Ginnie signed, respecting her brother enough to sign instead of telepathically speak in his brain. That was it. She would never leave his side. They could take the baby before Rianna knew what was happening, before their mother could stop them. She had to know nothing.





Maeve had to know nothing. Slipping on the birikad, Ginnie cocked her head to the side, putting her hand on D'ral's cheek. Rubbing her thumb along his cheekbone. Words. They would only muddle the moment, temper out the restrictive and powerful emotions causing Ginnie to once more pack up and run.





"I promised this time I wouldn't be late." She signed again, finishing the can of ale and passing one to her brother. The fire behind her blazed, picking up the cans and debris around the fire and consolidating it in a single spot to burn down to white ash.

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

D'ral caught then can in the air and looked at it with an expression of uncertainty. He had never drank a whole can. He turned it right side up and pulled the tab with a crack as the ale fizzed up from having just been shaken by the throw. He reacted quickly trying to sip the overfowing foam before it could get all over the place. It was bitter. The foam tickled at the back of his throat as the bitter sweet taste lingered on his tongue. He swallowed and took another sip as he looked at the fire and felt the heat rise as his Ginnie began burning previous cans.

"We have to move." He signed as best as he could while holding a can of ale, "Maybe now while everyone is gone."

He took a sip as determination that he was doing the right thing filled him. Yes, he and Galeth were going. Ginnie was comming and knew where to go first. Why wait for trouble to come a find them idle? He would go, they, they would go and there was no time like the present.

"How fast can we load a ship?" He signed before chugging down the last of the ale and making a approving nod. He tossed the can into the fire and looked at Ginnie again. Her soft dark skin, her long hair, and those beautiful dark eyes. He thought at least the company was nice to look at before he blushed slightly. "I'll go get Galeth's things, If you grab Buir's baslan shevla supplies."

Dral gave her another appraising look this time taking in her strong lean form before he hurried away toward the baby's room to begin filling a duffle bag. After a minute or two he slung his Buir's old CM-Fragstorm over his shoulder and moved to the crib to grab the sleeping baby with careful hands.

"Gotta go little guy." He said as he lay the newborn in the crook of his elbow and covered him with a small blanket. "We're gonna keep you safe."

He headed back out the front door and waited for Ginnie. They would have to grab a few more things, like some more weapons and food but they wouldn't need much. In fact it seemed he would have just about everything he could want in one shot.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

"Before they come back." A young woman's chin descended, her hazel eyes watching the way [member="D'ral Ar'klim"]'s face quirked from the alcohol. Her lips pulled up at the corners. She couldn't count the ales she'd shared with Buir, working in the forge or sitting out on the back porch watching the weather go by. Once he'd decided she was old enough for a sip or two, it was their thing. Their moments of bonding time the others didn't see. Didn't get. When Ginnie started dating, he'd been the perfect father, warning the dates with a growl and sincere glare 'if anything happened to his ad'ika'. None of the dates led to more than a dismissible second. Didn't feel right, some great guys... but they paled in comparison. All it took for Ginnie to dismiss another potential boyfriend was one look at how her parents loved each other. That sort of love made all of them pale. It twisted her stomach from excitement to dross. She could wait. Life didn't have to get messy, when she had her parents, siblings and the farm.





“You’ve got a shadow that’s going to be trouble in a few years.” A father’s warning to his adopted child. Jasper Ar’klim was as shrewd as his beskad was sharp. Sitting outside the forge, he passed her a beer and watched the barn, where D'ral worked on his chores. She'd put her head on his mammoth shoulder and smiled. Ginnie's heart jumped. Her cheeks grew as hot as metal in the coals.





"Glad it's there, am I evil if I want to keep it?"





"That's not up to me, ad'ika."





"Got time I guess. Would you be ashamed?"





"This would be a whole different conversation if I was, kiddo."





Ginnie went on one more date, a drunk young woman back home early. Her date looked at her like she was a bantha in his sights. Not like she was the world around a hard working young man...





“Six minutes.” Ginnie signed. She stood with a wobble, the alcohol making her brain seem lighter than the rest of her body. The fire flickered in oranges and reds. Died down to embers only to reignite when she raised her palm to it.





"Wembley started loading yours half an hour ago." She signed, betraying her precognizance.





Running from hostiles? This, Ginnie understood intrinsically. D'ral's eyes wrapped around her and Ginnie tried to blame the heat on her cheeks to the fire. Her ribcage expanded, lips moving as she bathed in his gaze. Could get lost in it, make a home in that gaze of his. D'ral was off and Ginnie grabbed her duffels, handing them off to Wembley, who took them in his front paws and walked two-legged to the ship. She entered her Buir's forge for the last time and started packing Ordo's tools in another bag. Locking his supplies in the tool boxes, she hefted them together in the middle of the space. The kiffar touched on her father's hammer, a wealth of years laid into the one piece of equipment. Ginnie shut her eyes and stuffed it in the bag. Rianna, would she understand? Would she recognize that her ad'ike were saving her from harm?





D'ral's ship was identical in build to hers, but the interior was all D'ral. Ginnie left the gear in the cargo bay. A sleek black container sat in the middle. The size of a torpedo, it carried with it an undeniable reverence. Wembley bounded off to get D'ral, and offered to carry the rest of the supplies inside. His basic hissed and chittered, but the Tuk'ata was shrewd and beginning to speak. Ginnie keyed in hyperspace coordinates, displacement logs and multiple points of exit in case anyone scanned or tried to follow. As the computer ran the numbers, she kept her eyes forward on the transparisteel, waiting for D'ral's reflection.

The moment she saw him, the Ordo Ranch became a memory in their hindsight gaze.

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

Dral moved quickly through the house and stopped only for a moment to slap his thigh and call to his manka cat. He didn't know why they had given him the cat or how they thought it was a good idea to send a giant predator with a child but they had made the decision and so far the growing beast was loyal. He adjusted the baby to his other arm and picked his duffle bag up again to continue on to the ship. He and the cat bounded up the ramp and Dral hit the palm pad to close the door.

He dropped his gear and extra bags on the deck plates and moved into one of the side cabins near the cockpit to make a nice spot for the baby to sleep before sending the cat off to find himself a place in the large freighter. He looked around breifly in the cabin to make sure everything was secure before he left and went into the cockpit behind Ginnie. He didn't waste time with chatting. He sat down and immediatly began hooking a datapad up to the ships computer to try and secure a new IFF signature.

He wanted to talk. He wanted to look at her and tell her he was glad she was there but they would have time soon enough. hyperspace was a quiet trip.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The ship rose from the well tended earth. Ginnie refused to look backward, concentrating on the space above them. A blue twilight sky faded to the rich black of space and once again Ginnie Ordo was a vagrant on the solar winds of the force. Yet, she was not alone. She was a parent of a child she didn’t bear, a... she looked up from the controls, face stern and eyes glassed by the tears she refused utterly to let fall. It wasn’t love if it didn’t hurt, the grace of grief shooting into her heart like scattershot.

Ginnie concentrated on a Dathomiri spell, opening ears which no longer existed. She ‘heard’ every screw, every vibration in the ship. Galeth’s lungs breathing, D’ral’s footsteps, the flutter of his heartbeat... it was a skill she learned and was overcome by, when in too busy a place. But tonight, Ginnie needed to hear what came next. Ashamed by the deaf tone of her own voice, Ginnie signed as she spoke, her chin dipping down at how fallible her disability made her.

“I tore the homing beacon Buir placed on our ships. Once we’re in deep space, do a further scan, get any leftovers. We’re hitting hyperspace twice, hanging in deep space for a few days, then heading to Ziost. My forge is there... Buir... Buir and I cleaned it out after... it’s hidden. No one knows about it and the Mando’ade won’t infringe near Sith space.” The tone of her voice curdled in her force-given hearing. Cathedral Forge... the safest place she knew.

“D’ral...” Ginnie’s voice broke. She took the time to breathe, praying [member="Rianna Ar'klim-Organa"] didn’t come home early. That she’d come home with Maeve much later to find it empty. Enough time for them to get away clean. She tugged on the blood trails she kept, and rested back in the pilot’s chair rubbing her cheeks.

“We’re going to make it. I... I can’t lose you like we lost Buir. So... stick by me and if I tell you to do something crazy, do it. Galaxy’s a ton karked up compared to the ranch...” Ginnie licked her dry lips, as the ship veered into hyperspace. Turning on the auto-pilot, she stared at his reflection.

“I don’t know what to do with a baby... but I do know how to protect what’s mine. We... we should change our names... we... we should have a backstory, we should... should... say something. Please.”

Her ribcage tore under her skin, lungs and heart beating staccato rhythms against it. She searched his face for a sign from the Force, a solid and lasting comfort or rebuke. His lips... his eyes. “D’ral?”

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Ginnie Ordo"]

He listened in silence as he watched the numbers for the ship's IFF reset. It wasn't a long process but it was a mindless one and he needed that right now. The simple monotonous act of waiting for numbers to change while his mind tried to slow down into a semblance of calm.

He heard her speak. He had always liked the sound of her voice but it was when he looked up and found her eyes with his that his mind and heart truly stirred. He watched her for a moment. He scanned the delicate angles of her face, the way her tatoos contrasted the soft dark tint of her skin...the way her jaw line melded with the lines of her neck that tapered down to her shoulders.

He stood, still not obeying her desire that he speak and closed the distance between them with a few long strides. He stood before her, young heart pounding beneath his thin linen shirt, and put his arm's around her. He pulled her head against him and relished the feeling of her hair beneath his callused hands.

"We're in hyperspace, Gin'ika." He said softly as the overwhelming need to protect flares up in him the way it must have done for his Buir, "Set the auto-pilot and let's get some rest while Galeth is sleeping. Don't argue, let's just rest while we can."

He continued to hold on and hope he was being comforting. He didn't actually know if he wanted to let go at all.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

[member="D'ral Ar'klim"]

She filled the cockpit with noise. @D’ral Ar’klim combatted with the virile silence of his eyes, bathing her in what Buir called ‘trouble in a few years’. Ordo’s death accelerated what Ginnie already saw, her heart punching into her ribcage as D’ral’s eyes watched unapologetically. Hunger and an intrinsic, nay, genetic desire to protect what was his.

His.

Clear, wide mahogany eyes strafed up his chest, as Ginnie looked up to D’ral Ar’klim. Her lips pouted, teeth clanking shut in her mouth. The auto-pilot set, Ginnie pressed her cheek into D’ral’s chest, hugging her arms around his back, fingers splaying on either side of his spine. When had he gotten so much muscle tone? When had D’ral gotten so strong?

“I love you.” Ginnie held herself against him, the fatigue of the last week compiling with the sensation of her cheek on his linen shirt. She didn’t know whether he could hear her, whether her voice said it at all. All she did know was he told her not to argue, and for once the young woman stopped and listened.

Rising to her feet took more energy than she’d thought. Ginnie mutely took D’ral’s hand and walked to the Captain’s cabin, checking in to see Galeth’s little chest rise and fall in his basket. It didn’t matter how Galeth came into the Galaxy, he was theirs. Too young to be parents in much of the galaxy, Ginnie tried to settle the shrill buzz along her nervous system telling her the trio were borrowing too much time. She walked on to the bed.

D’ral’s bed, large and comfortable for a growing young man. Ginnie let go of his hand only to detach the latches on her heavy boots, sliding out of them into her stocking feet. Untying her hair, Ginnie shimmied out of her armoured trousers, undid the latches on her leather cuirass, pulling it off her body and letting it drop with a telekinetic muffle to the floor. Standing in her thermal pants and under tank, she cleared her throat, the scar tissue on her neck and collarbone shifting. Ginnie reached for his hand, and in a moment of bravery, slid backward into D’ral’s bed for the first time.

Studying his face, she waited for repulsion, for anything which would lead her to leave. The sheets felt cool on her infernal skin. Sliding over to give D’ral room beside her, Ginnie searched his face.

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Leto Vos"]
"Me too." He said softly not truly expecting her to hear but confident she could tell anyway. He stepped back as she stood and gave his hand calmly.

Dral followed in silence as they walked. His dark brown eyes moving across the ship, his ship, the ship his buir had taught him to fly and care for. For a moment he could almost feel his buir's eyes watching him, weighing the man he was trying to be.

He watched quietly as she undressed, the deep blush rising and heating his cheeks. She was an amazing woman, and she made him want to be a good man. He pulled off his simple farmer boots and his over shirt and looked at her while emotions he wasn't fully in control of tugged his thoughts back and forth in a violent tug-o-war.

He quickly climbed into the bed and flopped onto his back with absolutely no idea how he was going to manage sleep. He put his hands on his stomach one over the other and watched the ceiling. He just hoped the baby slept for a couple hours.

He could feel the heat radiating from her and he gulpped hard in his throat. What was he going to do? He didn't know, but it was up to him now.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

[member="Elam Vos"]

She’d known for years. A pause in their mutual atmosphere, yet now the atmosphere vented, breathable and succulent. A twisted fist of worries and teenaged anxieties melted off, unwound and laid themselves in neat rows beside her spine. Untangled. Loved.

The bed depressed where he laid, young and noble. A young man among pale comparisons and shadows. Ginnie shut her eyes and stuttered in relief, pressing her forehead into D’ral’s shoulder. She wound her arms around his bicep. Galeth slept on, Ginnie felt Wembley ascend from his cabin to sit in the cockpit and monitor hyperspace.

Ginnie drifted into a lull far easier than on the farm, when she pretended the voices of [member="Darth Metus"] and the alchemical Forge didn’t haunt her. Curled against his side, in his sheets, Ginnie prayed to the Force that they could run far enough to never be found. She prayed that he continued loving her, that he didn’t chalk it up to youthful enthusiasm or proximity.

None of that, a thought passed her spine. Jasper Ar’klim had been as solid and lasting as beskar. His son was exactly like him. Ginnie snaked her way between his arm and his chest, laying her head on his shoulder as her hand drifted over his ribcage. She drifted to sleep for the first time since discovering [member="Ordo"] lifeless in the snow.

A slumbering Ginnie shivered. Her mind relived the crunch of red snow, the howl from her deaf lips. The halting lack of a pulse in her Buir’s neck. Rivers of frozen crimson. A body laid reverent and still. The virulent fires of Jasper Ar’klim’s pyre. D’ral’s face as he spoke the eulogy. The ache in Ginnie’s chest to hold him. To create a safe haven in which they could hide.

The ship around them was a bastion of Jasper Ar’klim’s love for his ad’ike. Built for them, Ginnie’s own ship an identical make and model. Tucked in the living arm of Jasper’s son and the berth of his mind’s creation, Ginnie both grieved and slept. D’ral was the greatest security and kinship she’d known. A person to grow up with. They were doing right by the best of them, their fallen Buir.

A blink on her sec screen. Bounty information for the child of [member="Mia Monroe"], from @Connory. Taken by slumber, Ginnie missed it... for now. For now all that mattered was finding the rest necessary to carry forward, and to keep Galeth safe from all harm.

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Leto Vos"]

He lay silent as she moved close the heat of her body like a warming fire that forced out the encroaching cold of the ever grasping, groping, galaxy. He basked in that warmth as she tucked herself beneath his arm and lay a hand against his chest. His other hand moved to rest beneath his head as her breathing slowed and soon fell into the semblance of calm rhythmic breaths.

He lay there unsleeping for a long time as his mind hypocritically worried and planned as he had told her not to do for now. But such was his nature. A trait he had gotten from his father. While others rested he pulled the weight. While others yielded he bore burdens, there was no one like him, not a one. He could only hope to fill out a shadow but nothing could have surpassed it.

Slowly, and against his efforts his eyes closed. His sleep silent and dreamless. If he had not blocked out the force he may have felt the animals moving like silent centurions along the corridor and he may have felt Ginnie's presence more closely than he did now.

After, some time he heard a scrapping at the door. His Manka cat was trying to wake them it seemed. He quietly and carefully untangled himself from the sheets. There was a beeping from the cockpit but he decided to check the info from the junction box in the corridor. A bounty notification had come through from [member="Connory"] and it was for Galeth. That was not good. He deleted it for now. Hr would tell Ginnie later but for now he would get some fake identifications. Ginnie was Kiffar, maybe Vos would work...he hoped.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

The crunch of boots on snow. Crimson frozen into the bedrock of Cold Iron City. Purple manka cat sheets, a pink comforter with flying mythosaurs. The first night Ginnie slept in the Ordo Ranch without her armour, without clutching her one knapsack of possessions to her diminutive chest. The rumble of @Ordo’s chest as he and [member="Rianna Ar’klim-Organa"] tucked her in, she’d wanted, no needed, both her parents. They promised not to let anything bad happen, and they hadn’t. The Tuk’ata pup Wembley sleeping beside the door, guarding her knapsack... memories in rapid fire as she slept.

A security blanket against the lonely cold. The blankets shifted and [member="Elam Vos"] rose, as Buir used to, when there was work to be done. The first to rise and last to sleep, he’d kept the home fires from cold ash and now his legacy continued.

The warm comforts of home left Ginnie in an enraptured sleep for some time. Ginnie was first aware of Wembley growling in chitters of the ancient Sith language. Secondly, the young woman became aware of a ripple in the Force, as if one tiny little body jerked about. She grunted and pushed out of bed, searching for the source of the sensation and finding Galeth squirming in his basket, clucked her tongue.

“Oh, oh, oh.” Comforting cooes she didn’t know she was making peppered the air as Ginnie picked the infant up, nuzzling her nose into his squirming cheek. She stuck her pinkie finger near his crying lips and he latched around it, suckling and gazing up with troubled grey eyes.

“Hungry? Mama’s got you.” Ginnie rustled around one-handed in the bag D’ral left beside Galeth’s basket. She heated a bottle with her pyrokinetic hand, changing the nib and testing its’ contents on her wrist. She walked through the cabin and ship as she fed him, instinct creating soothing noises from her throat. Galeth suckled on his meal, little hands reaching clumsily for the bottle and Ginnie’s hair and hand.

Wembley trotted around Ginnie and the pup in her arms, chittering and hissing in Sith. Something about a chime. A warning.

Someone coming for the pup.

Ginnie found D’ral in the cockpit and smiled. Ar’klim men. They were forged from the same beskar. “Morning.”

Hands full with the baby still feeding, Ginnie had to use the voice @Rianna Ar’klim-Organa trained her to use. She opened her hearing to the Force, the rattles and pings of the ship roaring around her like a dysphonic choir. D’ral once again looked troubled. Ginnie’s brow furrowed and she tilted her head to the side. “What can I do to help?”

In their oceans of current troubles, asking if something was wrong was irrelevant. She continued to glance between the baby and the man, not wishing to miss a second from either one.

 

[Elam Vos]

[member="Leto Vos"]

He looked up from his datapad and gave her a bright smile. He had been working on their new Identities and reworking the transponder to give off alternating registration codes for each system. She looked so natural with the baby in her arms. Those soft eyes that he had seen turn hard so quickly were the eyes he always remembered. Her voice was a joy to hear even though he didn’t doubt that she would never believe it if he told her. Was there trouble? Any thing she could help with? Yes and Yes, but how to say that in such a way as to make her determined rather than worried. Buir, would know.

“Yeah, I have a backdoor into the Outerrim Coalition database and I think I can give us legitimate identities.” He said looking back down at the work he was so proud of, “Buir, knew a guy at the Bureau of Ships and Services and He can set us up with temporary transponder signals for a while but that leaves a person that still knows we asked, so I think we should ditch the ship soon and buy another.”

He clicked a few buttons and activated the cockpit view screen and brought up a local bounty board on the Mandalorian network. Then highlighted a section just like they would have in a briefing before combat.

“Galeth’s father had a bounty on our baby.” He seems to either be a liar, crazy or has a large amount of resources.” He looked up and gave his best look of determination, “We can’t just run and hide, Gin. We need to karking disappear.”

He stood up and walked over to look at the baby and his adopted mom.

“We can do this.” He wanted her to know it…to believe it in her core. If not, they were already caught.

 

[Ginnie Dib]

[member="Elam Vos"]’ eyes stroked across Ginnie’s body with an affection akin to a man in worship. Ginnie’s skin flushed as the beauty of it, the wonder of waking from a deep sleep beside D’ral to cuddle and feed the baby slid through her. It nestled under her skin, a radiance she’d lived ignorant of, all revealed in D’ral’s eyes.

“This... you did all this while I was asleep?” Ginnie watched Galeth finish the bottle and telekinetically moved it to a clear space on the console. She pulled the baby up, rubbing his back lightly to burp him. “Impressive... Leto Vos, huh? Good name, their tattoo colours match m...”

Her eyes scanned across the ident document work, the shifting codes and erasure of their old lives. Old lives... Ginnie’d had so many, Verd, Ordo, CIS, kid bounty hunter, Mando’ade... as reality sunk under her feet like silt, Ginnie mentally prepared to say goodbye to all of her. She once gave up her very name. Now a neat name laid beside others. Elam Vos. Dejan Vos. “... D’ral? What’s our backstory?”

Brothers and a sister? Inwardly, Ginnie hoped D’ral meant something more intrinsic, more natural. A young couple and their first baby were much easier to hide without taking notice. Talk of Connory’s bounty caused Wembley to chitter and hiss, the Sith Hound’s protective instincts kicking in for all three. A dire situation for two teenagers and their adopted infant son. Ginnie’s brow furrowed, yet she didn’t lose the softness in her eyes as she put their wiggling infant into the crook of her arm and cuddled Galeth in with a blanket.

“He might be the karking Mand’alor of Insanity and a blithering emotional moron, but [member="Darth Metus"] would fight [member="Connory"] and any bounty hunters he sends with an army if he has to... he owes me that. It’s not a good option, but if we’re that kind of desperate? Isley would run interference. We could trust Ahani. I knew her before she married Aran, she’s a special kind of strong...”

Ginnie’s free hand tucked onto D’ral’s face, and the barefoot girl leaned up to kiss his cheek. Galeth was cradled between their ribcages. Ginnie’s eyes fled down to his yawning face. “He is our baby. Connory’s nuts, and nobody’s cared for Galeth more than you. I.. made a promise D’ral. Buir died for Gale. For us and if anyone can disappear with the galaxy’s most wanted infant, it’s us, c’yare. You’re right, we got this... but we’re going to need new armour. Both of us. We’ve got enough beskar in the cargo bay for two... just... don’t ask how I got it. How many credits do we have? If we’re going to disappear, we need halfway times a ton and those idents couldn’t have been cheap.”

Ginnie glanced over to the bounty and balked. “Wait... ten million credits for intel? Terrible idea, do we give him intel, pocket the money and keep running? Ten mil... kark.”

The young woman held the baby to her chest and a swell of maternal instinct told her to keep running, to keep their baby safe from harm or unstable parents. Would she die for a son she hadn’t given birth to? Would she fight to the last for D’ral? Galeth squirmed, nestled in and fell asleep. Ginnie smiled and kissed his downy head.

Yes. She would... and that alone should terrify anyone Connory could possibly send their way.