The Debtor

the debtor

rating: g (word count 598)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32755144

The Mandalorian watches her do the dishes sometimes. Omera isn’t sure why; she wonders for a while if he’s just lonely, but he never speaks or announces his presence. She figures it out when he joins her at the washbasin one day and picks up a bowl.

“Have you been trying to learn how to wash dishes this whole time?” she asks with a smile, handing him a soapy rag.

He tenses.

“I’m not making fun of you,” she clarifies. “It’s—” Sweet. “Appreciated.”

“I don’t have dishes on the Razor Crest,” the Mandalorian says after a moment. “Mostly I eat ration bars.”

“You must be sick of them by now.” Ration bars have all of the nutrients and none of the taste of real food; Omera can’t imagine eating them on a regular basis.

“They suit my purposes.”

He really doesn’t like empathy, does he. She hands him a wet plate and starts scrubbing at the next one. They work in silence for a while, scrubbing the dishes with soap and then setting them aside to rinse later. Eventually, the stack of dirty dishes she’s already run water over dries up, so they rinse off the soapy dishes and set them aside to dry in the sun before getting the dirty ones wet again. Omera picks up her scrub brush and starts on a cup.

“You’ve been very kind to me,” the Mandalorian says, breaking the silence.

She inclines her head. It’s hard to keep a smile from her face, hearing the way this hardened warrior shyly shapes politeness. “You’re my guest.”

“I know my presence is—hard for you. I take up space. And I frighten the children.”

“You don’t,” Omera says, though she’s not sure which part she’s responding to, taking up space or frightening the children. He doesn’t really do either. Only Winta was ever afraid of him, and that faded quickly. The Mandalorian is stiff around children, like he’s afraid he’ll break them if he makes the slightest move, but he is always gentle. No one in the village fears him anymore. And he takes up little space, so little that sometimes she wishes he’d take up more.

“I owe you.”

Is that why you learned how to wash dishes? “You don’t,” she repeats. “Besides, this is your payment for helping us with the raiders, remember? You asked for lodging.”

The Mandalorian’s head tilts toward her before turning back to the washbasin. “You’ve given me more than lodging.”

Not much, she thinks. Just extra bedding and warm food and an ear to listen on occasion. She wonders what his life has been like, that such basic kindness is a luxury. “Hasn’t anyone ever done something for you just to be nice? Without expecting anything in return?”

The Mandalorian’s head scythes towards her, his chest rising and falling sharply. Omera meets his gaze. The question hangs between them: too forward, probably, but she can’t take it back now. She doesn’t bother disguising the mingled nervousness and curiosity on her face, though she does hide the sympathy. She knows he wouldn’t appreciate it.

“Once,” he says.

She hesitates, wondering if he wants her to ask further questions. He doesn’t seem like the sort of person who likes to talk about his past, but sometimes—

“It’s why I swore the Creed,” he says before she can work out a response. His head slants away from her, staring at the last plate in his hands. “I will never be able to repay that debt.”

The Mandalorian sets the plate out to dry and ducks out of the hut.

me, an aromantic, whenever i realize two characters like each other before they start kissing:

[ID: The Captain America "I understood that reference" meme, except it's "I understood that romantic subtext."]

Din’s covert could conceivably be the direct legacy of the true mandalorians and i can make it make sense without even being that convoluted: an essay

happy pride month! here's the aroace flag colorpicked from din djarin:

i think a lightsaber is a really telling choice of weapon for the jedi order in terms of how they practise peacekeeping. a lightsaber is not the tool of an organisation that priorities non-violence. it’s for, ideally, a very controlled amount of violence, as much violence as is necessary (whether it’s a kill or the traditional jedi cutting off a limb) to efficiently end the threat

we overwhelmingly see jedi fight other lightsaber wielders, but realistically on a day-to-day basis, the enemies the jedi face would be ordinary people, not remotely a match for them. it’s up to every jedi in battle to be judge jury and executioner, to decide exactly how much harm they need to do before they do it. in legends the jedi have their own specific terms for the different kind of cuts or ‘marks of contact’, with an understanding of how honourable they are and what enemies they can be applied to, which really demonstrates that they are controlled ethical decisions rather than instinctual or purely defensive

and on a wider scale this is how the jedi order practises their role in the galaxy. that’s the clone wars: rather than refusing to engage in violence, they accept an amount of violence that, in their view, has to be done in order to end the conflict as quickly as possible and achieve the peaceful result. but violence on a galactic scale can’t be so easily controlled. and even where it can be, that gives the jedi a level of galactic power they were never meant to have

psa to anyone who follows me: if i randomly drop out of a conversation/vanish from tumblr without warning, it's just social anxiety and i will be back