Sacrifice

Mirta looked past Fett to watch Orade leave, and then glared at him. "I suppose that's your idea of protective concern, Ba'buir."

"Meant it," Fett said. "You're no use to me when you're emotional."

"So . . . what did you want me for?"

"Didn't. Just came to visit Dad's grave."

Her nerf-frying stare softened, probably from embarrassment.

Weeping together over Ailyn just that one time hadn't opened the emotional floodgates and given them a blood-bound relationship cemented by shared grief. It was, and probably always would be, wary and restrained.

"I'll come back later," Fett said.

"No, I was just leaving anyway."

"Okay, let's both stand around in awkward silence for a while and I'll give you a ride back to town."

For some reason, the one thing that never embarrassed Fett was admitting his love for his father. He didn't care if that made him look soft. People said it didn't, especially if they wanted to carry on breathing. He hooked both thumbs in his belt and contemplated the slight depression in the soft mossy ground, realizing he should have filled the grave with more soil to allow for settling.

I'm not doing too bad, Dud. Did you ever have to make domestic -

policy when you were Mandalore, or did you just fight? I suppose you know I'm dying.

The last thought caught him unawares. Fett believed in decomposition and eternal oblivion: he'd dealt them out so many times, he knew what awaited him. It was Beviin and his talk of the manda that had him falling into those