Work Text:
A shot rings out clear and sharp across the Lothal prairie. The sound of a rifle--crisp, clear and sharp--unmistakeable.
Boba’s head snaps up from the barbed wire fence he is mending to scan the scene ahead of him: a tawny valley grassland, now streaked with a flash of pheasants fleeing across the dim grey sky. The air is cold and wet, the damp settling in from the mountains seeping into his tired bones and tinting the rancher’s joints with dull aches. He watched as the birds scattered through the air and alighted awkwardly atop the ancient stone mounds that dot his land, one flying overhead towards his meager cabin miles behind him.
He’s been farming this land for five cycles, and knows his valley like the scars that riddle the back of his hand. In response to the gunshot, one of those calloused hands instinctively finds itself on his blaster, securely holstered to the work belt swaying heavily with tools around his black tunic. He realizes his hand has moved without his knowledge and eases back off the hilt. Surely it’s just a poor poacher, tracking game into Boba’s neck of the woods out of necessity, looking for a meager meal for his family. Reluctantly shoving his jumpy instincts aside, Boba forces his head back down to once again busy his hands with joining the rusted metal wire.
He has almost finished convincing the animal part of his brain, twitchy and alert from nearly three decades of bounty hunting, that the sound is nothing to worry about, when the second shot rings out. This time, it’s followed milliseconds later by the shriek of one of his nerf.
Before Boba’s mind can catch up, he finds his body halfway to the speeder. All instinct and adrenaline and wound up like a spring, he accelerates towards the source of the sound, tools discarded hastily on the ground behind the fence. Someone is after his herd.
Across the valley, a lanky girl swears under her breath as she hears a speeder sputter to life and hops on her own junky little bike. Target practice is over for today. She was betting on the barn being uninhabited, and that the nerfs were let out to graze on the open range, their owner dead or having abandoned them ages ago.
Stupid, she thinks to herself. A careless mistake, but one she can recover from. Her speeder may be slow, but she can definitely make up for it with her agile riding skills. The girl awkwardly throws her rifle on its strap over her shoulder. She jolts towards her speeder, swearing when she slams the fleshy part of her thigh on the back of the saddle in her haste to escape. Her breathing quickens and she winces, starting up the speeder with sweaty palms gripping the clutch.
It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. She’ll lose him, everything will be fine, she’ll lose him she’ll lose him she’ll lose him.
Panic dulls her reflexes and blurs the edges of her vision.
The girl follows through with her plan to evade the rancher between the narrow alleys of the stone obelisks and points her bike towards the maze. Her pursuer is now 300, 200, 75 feet behind her. Her steering is shaky and movements are stilted as she tries to smoothly wind between the dimly lit paths. She hears a gruff voice shouting behind her. Without thinking, she turns her head to look at him and her body is snapped forward with a lurch.
As soon as he locks eyes with her, head turned backwards to inspect her pursuer, Tthe girl’s speeder meets its demise against a cruel black stone dome. She flies upwards as the speeder splinters and crumples.
Boba realizes it’s been ages since he’s seen pain, gore, the sick way that bodies twist and flop through the air when they’re headed downwards towards their death.
His stomach lurches as he pulls on the brakes, hard, and veers to narrowly miss the wreckage unfolding in front of him.
Boba doesn’t miss the way that bodies twist and mangle when gravity works against them in its cruelest way. He doesn’t miss the way shrapnel slices into soft skin like a knife. He doesn’t miss the scent of singed skin, nor the gruesome way that limbs bend and contort when ligaments and tendons fail.
Reacquainted with all of this, he promptly leans over his speeder and vomits.
Heaving and panting, Boba forces himself to stumble towards the mess of shrapnel and the limp body splayed on her front next to it. He knows he has to get her away from the wreck before a spark hits leaking fuel. He stoops over her and wedges a hand beneath her belly to lift her, and she weakly grabs his arm.
“Please…. No. It hurts so bad…” she cries out.
Boba ignores her and continues to quickly pry her off the ground and haul her over his shoulder, urgency growing as a small fire crops up behind the speeder. He stumbles forward under her weight, headed away, anywhere away from the wreckage, all the while her cries turning from groans to panicked shrieks.
“It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts.” Tears stream down her face as she regains consciousness and writhes, half in pain, half in a pathetic attempt to escape his grasp. “Where are you taking me? Let me go!”
“Shut up,” Boba grumbles in response, struggling to gain speed and nervously looking back at the growing flames.
Tears now stream down the girl’s face, streaking paths through the blood and dirt.
She sobs out, her chest heaving, voice cracking with pain and fear.
“Let me go, leave me, stop! Please! I didn’t mean to kill your nerf! I didn’t know it was yours–just setmedownithurtssobad please please please–”
Boba stops and brusquely cuts off the girl’s pleas.
“You’ll die if I leave you."