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azertyrobaz · 9 months

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Satellites (3/7)

What if Grogu hadn’t returned to Din in The Book of Boba Fett? What if he hadn’t been given a choice? – Modern AU setting: Grogu is now twelve, and he has to rely on his memories as a young child to track down the person who changed his life. The only person he knows who will be able to protect him from the bad man. The bad man who precipitated his separation from the only family he’s ever known. He embarks on a road trip to piece together his past, and reconnect with the people who might help him find his family again.

Read below or on ao3.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

************

“Does it hurt?”

The cigarette smell had woken him, but he didn’t mind. It meant his dad was back. He’d been supposed to be asleep when he left and he had been very quiet, but the small cabin they were staying at had definitely started feeling less safe with his departure, even if he knew he just had to knock next door and find friendly faces there – Greef and Cara were nice, but they weren’t dad.

“I’m okay, little bear,” the man replied, crushing his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray. He never liked smoking in his presence, but Grogu knew he still did it when he was alone. Or sometimes when they were driving and he’d open his window wide, the wind rushing in messing their hair and making him laugh.

“You got the mudhorn!” he beamed, seeing the creature on his right shoulder. The tattoo covered most of his upper arm, which didn’t surprise the boy – the wound it concealed had been quite massive too, and he was starting to understand how it worked. Each injury that would result in a scar would become a new tattoo. His dad said it was his armor, and Grogu liked that, it was very cool. And an armor meant he was always protected. So the bigger the tattoos the better, especially when they depicted the drawings he had seen come to life in the various notebooks his father carried around everywhere.

“It looks great, right?”

“It’s exactly like I imagined it. Like in your stories.”

His dad smiled, pleased, playing with his pack of cigarettes. It made a tap, tap, tap sound on the table. The blue arrows tattooed on his hands and his shiny watch captivating him like always.

“You sure it doesn’t hurt?” And he shook his head. It definitely looked painful to the child, but the injury had been more scary.

At least the bad man was gone…

************

It was funny how a smell could trigger a memory. Back on the bus, he’d been scrambling his thoughts to try and remember anything about Nevarro, but apart from a vague feeling of unease and the presence of people he’d be smart to avoid, Grogu was drawing a blank. And yet almost as soon as the man sitting on the bench next to his outside had lit up, he’d started remembering important details. This was where the bad man – Moff Gideon – had almost got him that first time. It was where his dad had almost died. Where he’d gotten that tattoo he saw startlingly well in his mind now, with that creature he’d seen in his drawings – many had come before, and many had come later, he was covered in them.

He’d been able to recall faces, but no names, which hadn’t been very helpful when he was planning his escape from the institute. His hunch had been correct though – Cara and Greef had been friendly. More than that, really. And maybe he’d even be safe with them. But he was pretty sure they’d been some kind of authority figures in Nevarro, and the last thing he needed right now was a cop on his case. He’d already come close to a disaster once with Boba Fett, no need to repeat the same mistakes. He had to proceed very carefully.

Grogu sighed and looked at the map he’d picked up at the bus depot once more. The city center proper would take a little while to reach on foot, and he was still tired, but then what? How could he find his dad’s old acquaintances without raising their suspicions?

“You lost, kid?” asked the bald, smoking man – he didn’t bother using an ashtray and crushed the butt under a well-worn heel.

“No, I’m just waiting for someone,” Grogu replied immediately, folding the map into his pocket.

“You definitely look lost,” he chuckled, but didn’t attempt to come closer at least. His accent was one he was more used to hear back east and felt slightly alien here.

Grogu kept on ignoring him, and wondered if he should pretend he was getting a call on his broken phone – it usually did the trick. But something told him the man could be useful. He looked like someone his father would have worked with: unpredictable and unreliable, but a great source of potentially valuable information. Information he was clearly lacking, right now. He even looked to be around the same age as his dad, although anyone above forty seemed ancient to him.

“Do you know anyone in Nevarro?” he risked, before he lost his nerves.

“What’s it to you?” the man with the Boston accent replied gruffly.

Grogu shrugged, doing his best not to show how fast his heart was pounding. “It’s just a question,” he mumbled.

“That town really changed,” he eventually shared, lighting another cigarette. “Used to be the kind of place people like me could find work, but now they made it all proper and shit. Not sure I like this improvement thing.”

“My dad says the same thing,” Grogu made up over the lump in his throat.

“Oh yeah? Sounds like a smart man, then.”

“You were there for work?”

“Just waiting for my bus,” was his non-answer.

“He asked me to meet him in Nevarro, but I haven’t been in town for a while,” he tried, wondering how long he could keep this scary game of pretend going – but it was weirdly exhilarating.

“If you’re looking for a guide, you’re shit out of luck.”

“I can find my own way. I know he’ll be with Greef.”

“Greef, huh? You on first name basis? Sounds like your dad has good connections. Better than mine, anyway.”

“I don’t know about that,” Grogu hedged, thinking he’d gone too far.

“Well, you’ll find him where he always is now – that office of his next to city hall. Man likes to think he’s the mayor or something. Nevarro really started to slip when Dune left, she would have never gone for that fancy bullshit.”

“Cara left?” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Yeah,” the man replied, looking genuinely saddened by that information. But it only lasted an instant. Soon, he’d crushed his second cigarette and stood up.

“My bus is here,” he grumbled. “Want my advice kid? Don’t go to Nevarro. I know you were bullshitting me with that story about your dad, but trust me on this – there’s nothing there.”

And with that he was gone, and Grogu found himself alone once more.

************

It was getting late by the time he finally decided to walk to the town center. A terrible plan since he had no idea what or who he would find there, and no set destination for after. A kid travelling alone on a bus at night was one thing, but he couldn’t just aimlessly wander the streets without attracting the wrong kind of attention. Also, his feet were still hurting something fierce.

“Shit!” he swore loudly when he stumbled once more – sometimes it just felt good to swear, especially when no one was there to reprimand you, although that realization gave Grogu pause. Pushing those scary thoughts away, he focused on his steps once more. The sole of his right shoe was starting to come off. The cheap sneakers would not be long for this world if he didn’t buy superglue to try to fix them properly. Winta’s money was burning a hole through his pocket, and not just because he was wondering whether it wouldn’t be wiser to get new shoes instead, but mostly because now that he had paid for that last bus ticket to reach Nevarro, the next one he would buy would be with her cash. It meant it was even more important to be really sure of his next stop.

If there was one.

It was getting more and more difficult to ignore the little voice growing louder in his mind. The one telling him that he should just go back to the institute, that this was a silly endeavor, and that he would never find his father. Not alive, anyway.

He looked at his watch. It was just past six. He’d done his best over the years to keep the watch scratch-free and shiny like his dad did, but it definitely showed its age, now. It was only last winter that he had finally been able to wear it on his wrist without it slipping constantly. Before that, he would keep it in his pocket at all times, scared that a bigger kid would try to steal it. It probably didn’t have a lot of value, but to him it meant the world.

“No,” he told himself resolutely – he wouldn’t abandon just yet. And going back to the institute wouldn’t help with Moff Gideon being after him either.

At first he couldn’t understand why the bald man had warned him about the town – it looked perfectly fine. Better than fine, even. With new developments and expensive looking buildings and shops that were well maintained. After having walked around a few blocks and reached the main square though, he started realizing what the problem was – everybody was looking at him. He was a stranger. He didn’t belong. The town was small, and the people probably all knew each other, so Grogu stood out, which was the last thing he wanted.

This had been awful timing on his part, as people were making their way home and shops were closing at this hour – had he arrived earlier, he might have gone unnoticed. His sweaty palms disappearing in his too long sleeves and his blistered feet giving him a terrible time, he nonetheless quickened his steps – he had to find city hall and the office next to it. The one belonging to Greef, according to the man at the bus depot. Surely it had to be around here.

It took more time than he expected to find what he thought was the correct building, and by then it had gone dark. At least there could be no mistake, there was a bronze plaque at the entrance, telling him that Greef Karga, Esq., had his office located on the first floor, and that appointments had to be made. Grogu wondered what the “Esq.” stood for, but he dutifully wrote down the phone number. There was no point ringing the bell, as all the windows were dark.

He had to wait until morning. And that was bad.

He still had some of the food that Omera had left for him – turned out that trail mix and dried fruits actually lasted a lot longer than prepackaged sandwiches – but he had nowhere to sleep. Sure, he had money, probably enough for a hotel room even, but who would let him rent one? His phone call trick wouldn’t help him there. For such a smart kid, Grogu felt extremely dumb at the moment.

Maybe he could sleep somewhere unnoticed? In a park? They’d certainly done such things with his dad in the past, but that had been then, and it was now. And right now Grogu was scared, alone and exhausted. He didn’t want to sleep in the open. He didn’t even think he would be able to close his eyes, too anxious of being found out. By one of the nosy residents or worse – the bad man.

What if he walked back to the bus station and got the first ticket to Sorgan? He’d be safe there. He would be able to call Greef. Omera and Winta wouldn’t mind, on the contrary – they’d welcome him back with open arms! They had food. A comfortable bed for him. Warm water for a shower. Soft and nice smelling clothes and…

“You’ve been difficult to track down, Gregory.”

Grogu froze in terror – he knew this voice. A woman’s voice. He slowly turned around despite his panic and his mind screaming at him to start running, now.

“I feel like I should congratulate you.”

The smile on her lips didn’t look fake. She seemed genuinely impressed and it completely threw him at first before he regained his composure. He was fast, he was small – he could run away and hide and she’d never find him.

“I’m not going back there,” he told Ahsoka. “You can’t make me.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, nonplused. How long had she been following him? Since the beginning? Was he really that bad at this? But looking at her eyes more closely revealed how tired she was. Deep down, he knew he shouldn’t, and yet he couldn’t help feeling a little smug about it. His dad would be proud, he just knew it.

“I’m not making you do anything, but a lot of people are worried. Luke, especially. He is terrified something happened to you.”

Grogu shrugged. Guilt had always been something he had trouble with. It didn’t come easily to him and he had never really experienced it before. What was it even like? And yet hearing that professor Skywalker was worried about him made him reconsider his assumption – he hadn’t expected he would care so much.

“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing that was what she wanted to hear – and he did feel a little sorry. “But I don’t want to go back with you, I’m close to finding him – I know it.”

Saying the words out loud made him feel better. He believed those words, he knew he was on the right track.

“I’m sorry too,” Ahsoka replied, and she seemed much better at the guilt thing than he was, because she definitely looked contrite. “I didn’t know you’d been looking for him.”

It was true that Grogu had only left the institute in search of his father a few days ago, but in reality he’d been trying to reconnect with him for much longer, and he was glad she realized that. She’d visited the institute a few times over the years, although she never lingered. As if she didn’t feel really comfortable with the place, and Grogu had always wondered why. When they’d met her with his dad she’d felt like the first person who understood how his mind worked. She was perhaps the smartest person he knew, and she had a lot of competition at the institute with all the bright professors who came to teach them. He’d always thought she’d gone to a similar place to become so knowledgeable, but then wouldn’t she approve of what Skywalker was doing and help him if that was the case?

Or maybe she’d come to the same conclusion as him – being special wasn’t all that great. Especially when you were never really given much of a choice.

“How do you know I’ve been looking for my dad?” Grogu asked, wanting to understand. He was leaning against the door to Greef’s office building – hopefully Ahsoka would realize he wouldn’t leave this spot, but he was still curious.

“Luke said you’d become distant lately, pulling back. Your heart wasn’t in your studies anymore and he didn’t know what to do.”

No, it was the other way around, Grogu thought. Luke was the one who’d become impossible to reach.

“He hasn’t been listening,” he tried to explain, staring at his feet – he didn’t care if he sounded ungrateful or whiny. “He’s been so busy with Ben, and I know he’s his family, but I don’t feel like I belong there anymore.”

Perhaps that wasn’t exactly fair – it wasn’t like he’d tried to say any of this to his professor. But back at the beginning he’d just known how to guide him and motivate him. There were so many other kids, now. And Ben… It was all about Ben. He always came first. And yes, Grogu knew he shouldn’t be jealous of a five-year old, and yet –

“I’m certain he would be sorry to hear you say that. His nephew is giving his parents a lot of trouble at the moment and I know it’s been hard on everybody, but it’s just temporary.” Grogu looked up. Ahsoka seemed to realize what she’d said and stayed silent. Ben already had parents, the lucky brat. Why did he also need his professor? How was Luke supposed to help with Gideon with everything that was going on? No, he’d had to go look for help somewhere else.

“You can tell Luke I’m fine, but I’m not going back,” he repeated.

“And like I said, I won’t make you go back. I can help you. I have a car. You don’t have to travel by bus anymore.”

“I don’t need your help,” he grumbled. This was a trap, she was just trying to get him in her car so that she could drive him back east.

“What if I can take you to someone who might know where he is?”

“Who?” he asked guardedly and she hesitated before replying, telling him she was being truthful – hopefully.

“Bo-Katan Kryze. You met her before, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied, the name not bringing back nice memories. She’d been part of the team who rescued him from the bad man that second time. She’d been there when he had to say goodbye. Yet another person who wouldn’t have seen his dad for years. Yet another person who wouldn’t know how to tell him he was probably dead.

“You don’t want to see her?” Ahsoka asked, frowning – until now she’d had all the good answers and he hadn’t bolted, but his last reaction was stumping her. And then all of a sudden it came to her, as Grogu fought back tears brought on by his exhaustion and the mention of Bo-Katan’s name.

“He’s alive, Gregory.”

“What?” he breathed.

“He’s alive,” she repeated, and he let her enfold him into her arms.

************

They’d been travelling for two hours virtually in silence. Ahsoka had offered him food and suggested he should rest, but Grogu was too wired to sleep. His father was alive. And he still wasn’t a hundred percent sure she wouldn’t be driving him back in the direction of the institute if he wasn’t careful. The only thing he said yes to was to some coffee, which she kept in a thermos within easy reach. It was warm, and he thought it would help him stay awake in case she tried anything. He’d always preferred coffee’s smell to its taste, but she’d added milk to smooth out the bitterness. It was very nice. And certainly different than when he’d tried it in the past.

“It’s soy milk,” Ahsoka explained. “Gives it an extra cocoa flavor that I like.”

Grogu nodded, filling in that information for later. It was strange to be riding in a car after being stuck on buses for so many days. Everything was lower but also much faster, which was a welcome change. It was pitch black outside and Ahsoka had said it would take another two hours to reach their destination. At least the stars outside told him they were still driving west. Surely they would see the Pacific soon.

“You never really explained how you knew I was looking for my dad,” he realized, his curiosity once again getting the better of him. Earlier, she’d mentioned how Luke had found him changed and less focused on his studies, but nothing about how she’d deduced where he’d been.

“It was an easy guess,” was her non-answer, and Grogu sighed heavily. His backpack was still clutched to his chest in case he needed to bolt, and it seemed like she wouldn’t give him the courtesy of telling him the truth – he wasn’t a baby anymore, she owed him better than that. The moment stretched, and Ahsoka eventually came to a decision.

“I was there when he visited,” she said. “You’d barely been at the institute for a year, I didn’t think he would come so soon.”

“You were there?” Grogu gasped. “And you didn’t tell me? Why did no one ever tell me this?”

He clenched his teeth so hard it started to hurt. From Peli’s account, it had sounded like his dad had visited after a couple of years, but apparently it had been much sooner than that, and it changed things.

“It wasn’t my decision not to tell you,” Ahsoka replied softly.

“Yes, it was, you could have just told me,” he countered, stubborn. “Did you send him away?”

Silence again, but not for long.

“I never told him he should never visit again, I only said it was too soon.”

“So you sent him away.”

It wasn’t anger that Grogu felt. At least, it wasn’t just anger. He felt betrayed. All these years, he’d thought of Ahsoka as a friend. An ally. He’d even started searching for her in the hope that she would help him look for his dad. He’d thought she would understand what he was trying to do and be there for him. But then Moff Gideon had showed up, and it had forced him to rethink his plans, and fast. He’d only been able to track down a couple of names: Peli and Omera.

He wouldn’t look at her, feeling too hurt, but he could see her hands on the steering wheel. They were shaking slightly, barely illuminated by the lights on the dash. Guilt, he thought.

“So why do you think he never came back?” he asked, thinking out loud, his pain overwhelming all his other senses.

“Maybe he was giving you time,” she offered.

“Time to do what? Learn about applied mathematics?” he chuckled bitterly.

“Time to make up your own mind, like you have now it seems.”

That sounded nice, the way she said it. But Grogu was unable to look at the situation in a positive light, and preferred settling on the bleakest explanations possible.

“Or maybe he thought I didn’t want to see him. Maybe he thought you told me he came by and I decided I didn’t care, so he never tried to reach out again. Ever think of that?”

“I don’t think his mind works like that.”

“How would you know? You have no idea. What if he gave up on me because he thought I gave up on him?” Grogu was breathing fast, his tone was rising – his panic too – but he couldn’t stop.

“I know because he asked me to take care of you,” she shared, also raising her voice. “Because he didn’t think he could do it on his own. He didn’t think he was good enough for you.”

“What?” he breathed through the buzzing sound ringing in his ears. A distant, muffled sound. As if he was hearing her words while underwater.

“The first time we met? He helped me out with that trouble I was in, but in exchange he wanted me to look after you. He believed I would know what to do because you reminded me so much of who I was at that age. I knew how to answer all your questions. Or at least I thought I did, then. But I was wrong. About you, and about him.”

“He wanted to abandon me.”

This was the second time in so many days that he learned that the man he thought of as his father had tried to give him away. To Omera, first. Then to Ahsoka. He hadn’t known what to do with him. He’d been a burden. Something to get rid of.

And now he remembered something else. That last morning when they’d said goodbye to Ahsoka, he’d been so careful with him. He’d woken him and made him breakfast from scratch. Changed him into his best clothes. Read him stories, even though by then he’d known how to read on his own. He’d spoken to him so quietly and hugged him tight. They hadn’t been getting ready to say goodbye to Ahsoka, he’d been getting ready to say goodbye to him.

“Stop the car,” Grogu whispered. He felt sick. He wanted to throw up. It was all too much.

“Gregory –”

“Stop the car, please!” he yelled, reaching for the handle and opening the door before the car had completely come to a stop. He ran through the trees, not caring where he was going, his backpack still glued to his chest. Grogu couldn’t see a thing through the darkness and the tears in his eyes, and didn’t care about the stinging branches blocking his way or Ahsoka’s yells.

He finally stopped, out of breath. He was standing in a clearing. He wished the trees were as high as they’d been in Sorgan. Back there, they looked like they could touch the sky. Here, they looked as small and insignificant as him.

Should he just go back to the institute? Tell Ahsoka about the bad man and trust her to – hopefully – take care of it? Or should he accept Omera’s offer and go live with her and Winta? Even though he would always be looking over his shoulder and fear for their own safety as well?

Neither of those choices appealed to him. Maybe he should just keep running. Become a wanderer, who went from town to town, looking for work, and never settled anywhere. Like the man with the Boston accent at the bus depot. Was it only a few hours ago that he’d met him? It felt like an eternity already. He’d been right, though. He shouldn’t have gone to Nevarro. If he hadn’t, he would have never learned about his dad trying to ditch him any chance he got.

And yet he’d come to the institute. And he’d promised him they would see each other again. His father was many things, but he didn’t think he was a liar. If he hadn’t gone to Nevarro, he would have never learned that he was still alive, when over the last few days, he’d gradually started to accept that he might no longer be of this world.

Grogu looked up. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. North. Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The Great Bear and the Little Bear. He exhaled deeply and wiped the tears from his eyes with the soft cotton of Winta’s sweater.

He walked back to the car with a firm step.

#the mandalorian #grogu #din djarin #baby yoda #ahsoka tano #greef karga #migs mayfeld #fanfic #star wars #mandalorian #modern au #angst with a happy ending #found family #my fics

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nicad13 · 1 year

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Iron and Kyber

Chapter 3: Riduurok

Chapter summary: Din tends to a wound in his soul before he joins it to another’s.

Mandalorian weddings are simple. Just you and the words. Din strips away everything that isn’t necessary. But he also adds an element he can’t resist.

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He looks at his first tattoo in the mirror. The lines are clean and smooth. The fresh ink in his skin reminds him of the paint he’d added to his helmet months ago. Two red lines on beskar for the birth family murdered out from under him. One gray line on beskar for the blood family denied to him. Now, black ink on skin for the found family he will, at last, get to keep.

Tags: Tattoos, edging, religious conflict, disassociation

Rating: Mature

Notes: Link to AO3 in the source at the bottom. If you like what you see, please leave a comment! If you have constructive criticism, please leave a comment! I'm having trouble stringing the last third of this story together and could use some inspiration...

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Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull At night, I wake up with the sheets soakin’ wet And a freight train runnin’ through the middle of my head Only you can cool my desire

Bruce Springsteen, I’m on Fire

---

Rayne breathes as Din presses the needle through her skin.

The tattoo of his mudhorn signet takes shape on her right shoulder.

They’re out on the balcony as he works, the cool breeze of a warm day keeping the wind chime in motion, its soft, bass, metallic tones relaxing them both. He is in what he has come to think of as “balcony” attire – t-shirt and shorts. Unarmored. Unhelmed. Her breaths are steady despite the continuous penetration of metal and ink through her skin, and it helps to keep him focused. She’d mostly known what to expect, though her other tattoo, the Rebel Starbird on the back of her left shoulder, was done by a professional with modern equipment. By the time Din had gotten a quarter of the way through the mudhorn, she’d determined that poke-and-stick is more painful by a small degree, but nothing she can’t handle. She sits with her head against the back of the chair, eyes closed, his hand pressed against the flesh of her shoulder with the slight give of relaxed muscle.

Din had proposed their union hours after he was granted citizenship on Genesaria, a day after he’d had enough of the helmet being used against him, a day after they’d confessed their love for each other. They knew it was true, knew they were, at the very least, cemented together through their bonds with their son. He had seen no reason to wait. Rayne’s urge for patience nearly broke his heart until she’d asked to bear the signet of their clan, asked his permission to have it made permanent on her skin. Her request had healed him in an instant, and in that moment, he realized he wanted one of his own. Inasmuch as the signet on his pauldron is welded to armor that he considers his second skin, having it inked into the skin he was born with is another thing entirely. An indelible mark. A brand. A thing that cannot be taken away with ease. A score of permanence that will mark them as clan for the rest of their lives and beyond, until their very flesh is no more.

They had decided to gift the ink and the effort to each other, with their own hands. Rayne had copied the Armorer’s design from Din’s pauldron and cut the stencil out. Din had traced it to her shoulder with a marker to begin with. When Rayne checked it in the mirror and gave her approval, Yadier decided he wanted the same treatment, managing to cast his robe off and waving his arm in the air. So, she had drawn a small-scale version of it with the marker, free-handed, on his shoulder. He’d skipped around the flat with it until he wore himself out, and is now dozing in his crate under the wind chime.

So Din works, sticking with a shallow depth, only enough to push the ink through her skin. He traces the outline of the stencil first, then fills it in with a steady hand. Never once does he draw the blood of the woman he will marry. She has already shed too much blood for him and their son. She is sure to shed more in the future. The least he can do in these moments is to not take any more, to be as gentle as possible while he brands her with the icon of the animal that had brutalized him to within an inch of his life. The animal that his son had lifted from the mud, pawing and enraged, the animal he had killed with a single stab and twist of his knife.

Prone to flashbacks, he pauses for a moment, letting himself remember, letting it wash over him. Thrown into the air. Crushed into the mud. Pulling himself to one knee, drawing his knife, lowering his head, and hoping it would be enough of a warrior’s death to be bested in battle by such a ferocious beast. He breathes through his past even in the moments when he is taking steps toward his future.

Rayne notices the break in his work, opening her eyes and turning her head, otherwise remaining as still as possible. Din’s eyes are open but unseeing, brow furrowed, lips parted just a little in the middle, chest rising and falling with his steady breaths. She knows this expression, has seen this before with the same sense of him being somewhere else behind that distant, mournful gaze. Only now, she knows what to do about it. She slips out of her seat with delicate care, not wishing to startle him, the proximity with which he currently holds a sharp, ink-laden needle to her shoulder only one concern of many. She ducks inside, grabs an ice cube from the freezer, then comes back out to crouch next to him.

“Din,” she says, her voice low, tone gentle. “Din, it’s Rayne. We’re home. Can you hear me?”

He blinks, but his gaze remains unfocused. Still, his lips move, ghosting over a single word. “Yes.”

“Can I give you something? Put something in your hand? It’ll be cold. It’ll help bring you back.”

His only response is the barest head-tilt of a nod.

She slips the ice cube into his free hand. His fingers tighten around it and he pulls in a breath, short and sharp.

“Tell me what you hear, Din.”

“The windchime,” he says. He blinks again, and he’s able to focus his attention on the ice melting in his grip. He swallows. “My son. Our son. He’s snoring.”

“Yeah. That’s good. We’re on the balcony. Yadi’s asleep in his crate. We’re safe. We’re home and we’re safe, here. You’re safe with me.”

His eyes return a few moments later, dark brown irises rising to meet her watch. The same haunted eyes coming back from a past that insists on pulling him away from the present.

“Welcome back,” she says.

He blinks again, dropping his gaze down to the needle in his hand. “Sorry. I’m… here.”

“Okay in there?” she asks.

“Yeah.” His features relax back into an easy smile, eyes crinkling at the outer corners. He motions to his half-finished work on her shoulder. “Holding up?”

“Yeah,” she says, returning to her seat and closing her eyes once more. “Stings a lot, but that’s how it is. I’m good to keep going if you are.”

“Yeah.”

He continues his work, inking his signet into her skin with one hand, wiping away the small amount of translucent fluid that seeps back out with a towel held in the other. When he’s done, she checks his work in the mirror in the fresher as he places the needle in a sharps box, takes the medical gloves off, and gathers them along with the unused ink and paper towels lining the table for disposal. She’s finished cleaning her skin by the time he’s done and comes to see his work reflected in the mirror.

He takes a breath.

Seeing his signet on her shoulder… does things to him. Turns out it triggers more than just flashbacks. “Looks good on you,” he says.

She smiles, meeting his gaze in the mirror. “You did an excellent job.” Indeed, he has. The lines are even and the fills are complete. A testament to his steady hand. He helps her with the bandage.

They take a break.

Yadi wakes from his nap, Din changes into the armor, and it’s off to the playground down the street. Mother and father sit on a bench in the shade as their son bounces around with the other children. Their family is well-known in the neighborhood by now. The Jedi with the short chestnut curls, the Mandalorian with the rust-red armor, their tiny green toddler with the enormous ears. Yadi has made fast friends with the other children, even if his parents have been slow to do the same with the adults, but they’ve made a number of friendly acquaintances. They’re on a first-name basis with the other parents who have come to learn that small talk will get them nowhere with the newcomers, but conversations about battle strategy or starship engine design are greeted with more enthusiasm.

They let Yadier go at it for as long as he wants, and two hours pass before he finally gets tired, playing his way through four shifts of children who come and go from the park. The kids are generally independent from the parents, checking back for the occasional gulp of water or quick break. A few signs of sorcery are present, when one child slips off the bars and is caught in mid-air by another, or when a child launches themselves to an unnatural altitude and lands with unnatural ease. They are all well-behaved, and those who wield the Force appear not to hold it over those who don’t. When Yadi comes back for the final time, he waddles to Din’s boot, hugs his father’s leg, then falls to his back and lets out an exhausted raspberry. As clear a hint as any, they scoop him up, place him in the birikad, strap the harness to Din’s chest, and stroll home. They pick up some lunch from the street vendors on the way; several varieties of mystery-meat-on-a-stick and some fruit. Meiloorun is in season and Din is over the moon about it in his own quiet way. Rayne and Yadi share one of the meat sticks for the duration of the walk, and they consume the rest of it on the balcony once Din changes back into something more casual.

Played out, belly full, Yadier conks out for another nap, and his parents lay him down in his room.

They make love in their bed, the afternoon sunlight warm on their skin. They have the time, so they take it, and their movements are gentle, slow, and languid. Din wants to make up for the pain he’s caused Rayne, and she wants to bank his pleasure to make up for the pain she is about to cause him.

The dark, curved lines of his signet on her skin under the transparent bandage makes him grow hard as he tastes the rest of her, knowing it’s just one more step in the formalization of their union. He has grown more aggressive with his mouth and face in their time together, often using his nose to turn her head to the side so he can reach her neck with his lips. Often using his mouth to turn her knee out so he can nibble the inside of her thigh. He tastes her until she’s swollen and ready, aching and glistening at his touch. He can’t help but think of the needle penetrating her skin when he penetrates her flesh with his own. How he had used the needle to deliver the mark of his family. How he is now in the process of a different kind of delivery, one often used to build a family. It doesn’t matter that it will find no counterpart to join with in her; it doesn’t matter that they cannot add to their family with their own blood. Their one child is enough. Instead, he uses this penetration only to deliver and receive pleasure.

Neither of them wants any games in these moments. No intrigue. Life outside has enough of that. Here, they want nothing but honest sex. Desires are simple. Fulfilling them is easy.

Which is not to say that teasing is off-limits. Today, they have the time, and they agree to take it. She lets him into her mind just enough, just enough for him to know how far along she is. And when she reaches the brink, when she’s right there, he backs off. He stills. He feels her wave crest, hold, and then recede. And then he builds her up again. He edges her three more times until they inevitably miscalculate and her wave crashes, so he brings her home. He shuts her out in this moment, using the Force resistance training he’s gained over the last two months. He wants to feel the Force wrap around his spine and push through his throat and sink into his mind when she finds release, wants to let that all drag him with her immediately after.

But there’s one thing he wants even more, today.

They pull apart and he gives her time to wind down, takes pleasure in her soft sighs as he runs his hands over her, runs the tip of his tongue along the lobe of her ear.

And then she pushes him onto his back.

And she’s just as good with her mouth as he is with his. She wields as much power over him as he does over her. She can keep him on the edge just as well as he can keep her.

Now he lets her into his mind, lets her read him, just enough to know. She’s gentle with him, her mouth is hot and wet and soft, her hand is firm but not too tight. He’s close to start with, and it’s less than a minute before she pauses, softening her hold, dropping her jaw to pull her tongue away. They breathe together and he battles it back, letting it settle back into him, down low and deep. She starts again. She pauses again, and he lets the ache build. Again and again, and the ache creeps up his belly and up his spine and down his legs. Once more and he can stand it no longer and he pours himself into her and she takes every drop of him.

He runs dry and she slides back next to him. He turns his head to her and she kisses him and he tastes them both, the heady mix of himself and what of her that had been left on him. The meiloorun fruit he’d eaten with lunch has taken the edge off what he knows can sometimes be bitter. Symbols carry heavy meaning for Mandalorians, and he relishes all the symbols of their union. The taste of them together in his mouth. The mudhorn inked into her skin. The one that will soon be inked into his. The vows they will soon exchange. The beskar casings they both wear. Even the little boy who brought them together, displaying their mutual influence with his initial forays into learning to use the Force and understand Mando’a. Din cherishes all of it, holds all of it close to his heart, and when Rayne takes his hand and places his palm flat to her sternum and looks him in the eye and whispers the truth of her love for him, the weight of it all nearly crushes him. He reciprocates the gesture, pulling her hand to his chest, whispering the words. He can’t quite maintain eye contact when he says them, but she understands, and her eyes are there to meet his when he opens them once again.

They rest. She falls asleep and he lets her nap, and his hand roams her body as she twitches with oncoming dreams. She’s mostly muscle and bone and sinew, soft only in the few places that nearly all women are. Fifteen minutes pass like this, and then he kisses her awake.

His turn under the needle has come.

They shower together, exchanging a few more lingering kisses as the water rains down on them, and she scrubs his shoulder, the first step in the preparation of his skin.

Mother and father regroup outside on the balcony once more. The peach-fuzz hair on his shoulder is shaved away, skin disinfected, and Rayne applies the stencil, draws the pattern, inspects it, and asks if he’s ready. He responds with a quick affirmative, turns his head away, and relaxes as much as he can as she sets to work. This tattoo is his first and he doesn’t quite know what to expect. The sting of it builds and levels off, but she is gentle with him, as always. The wind chime’s tones distract him with the breeze, and he manages to stay in the present. Even more, he slips to the future, thinking about the possibilities for the day they will exchange their vows, when they will speak the Riduurok. He smiles despite the pain as the ideas come, and soon enough, he is branded with his signet of the mudhorn.

He cleans his shoulder in the fresher while Rayne picks everything up outside, and he looks at his first tattoo in the mirror. His betrothed was just as gentle with him as he had been with her, drawing not a single drop of blood. The lines are clean and smooth. The fresh ink in his skin reminds him of the paint he’d added to his helmet two months ago. Two red lines on beskar for the birth family murdered out from under him. One gray line on beskar for the blood family denied to him. Now, black ink on skin for the found family he will, at last, get to keep.

Something in his chest tightens with the thought. He’s noticed it more and more since first stealing Yadier. It doesn’t scare him as much anymore, now that he knows what it is. He stands with it, lets it settle down in towards the pit of his stomach, and his chest releases as he pulls a breath in and lets it back out.

Rayne steps in and inspects her work. “Happy with how it turned out?”

“Yes,” he says, meeting her gaze in the mirror, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Good.” She pulls a bandage from its package and smooths it over the ink. “No turning back now,” she says, returning his smile.

---

Din stands before a monument of Tarre Vizsla, watching the Mandalorian war banner flutter in the breeze at its base, the red mythosaur skull on a white field.

Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian Jedi. The creator of the ancient weapon clipped to Din’s belt. Indeed, the Darksaber itself is immortalized in stone, its square-edged hilt carved at Vizsla’s hip. The monument stands before a modest temple. A place of congregation for Mandalorians brought to or born on a Jedi asylum world through some connection with Force-sensitives.

Two such temples exist on Genesaria. One for those of the New Mandalorian persuasion, the pacifists, those who had stood against Mandalore’s history of bloodshed and sworn off all violence. Another for those who seek a middle-ground between the New Mandalorians and Death Watch, those who wish not to glorify violence, but feel it unwise to cast away all manner of defense. Followers of the two coexist peacefully enough, here. Indeed, willingness to coexist in a multicultural society is a prerequisite of living on Genesaria.

Din stands before the temple of second group.

His feet are rooted to the ground, unable to move forward.

Doubtful.

He’s never seen a Mandalorian temple before. The chances they won’t accept him here are high. They will likely deem him too fundamentalist when he won’t remove his helmet. They may even demand the Darksaber before they turn him out, in which case he will transfer custody of it to them and leave.

Something about the weapon puts Rayne off.

They had sparred together with it on a few occasions, the Darksaber against her lightsaber, the two blades now coming together in friendly combat after their first battle to the death. Din still isn’t used to the odd weight balance, both in the blade itself and the way it seems to want to throw him off his own feet. When he’d offered it to her for inspection, she had frowned, turning the hilt over in her hands while it was deactivated, handing it back to him after only a few moments. “Weird vibe” was all she’d said. He’d offered to leave it on the Razor Crest, but she’d said that wasn’t necessary. It only gave her the heebie-jeebies when she touched it directly. When he pressed her further, she said that Tarre must have altered the kyber crystal to get the emitter matrix to produce the light-absorption properties of the blade. Altered kyber disrupts the Force around it, and most Force-users find it disturbing. Paired with the similar ways that Sith alter the crystals in their sabers to turn the blades red, it all adds up to a discomforting sensation that she does not care to experience.

“Din Djarin.”

A voice to his side startles him and he spins, hand dropping to his blaster.

A man he guesses to be about ten years his senior stands in the courtyard ten meters away from him. He’s dressed in civilian clothes, but he holds his hands open away from his sides, the Mandalorian signal meaning that he does not have a weapon in hand and does not intend to draw one.

Din feels a little less perturbed about being snuck up on given that it’s another Mando. Instead, he feels a little ashamed of himself for being caught off-guard.

The man moves one hand before him, palm down. “Easy, Mando. No threats exist for you on this world.”

You have no idea what I went through my first week here. The two trials of Force he endured flicker through his mind, but he tamps them down and forces himself into a more relaxed posture. “Sorry. I’m still not used to being addressed by name.”

“I gathered that.” The man lowers one hand and extends the other. “I’m Tarmont Berend.”

Din accepts the gesture as they grasp forearms. The greeting of warriors. “Are you a… member of the covert that… worships at this temple?” He stumbles over the words, not sure if they’re the right ones.

Indeed, Tarmont raises an eyebrow. “Covert isn’t quite it. We have no need to hide on a world that is already a secret from the rest of the galaxy. Worship probably isn’t the right word, either. It looks like a temple, but we call it a Forge. But yes, I am a member, inasmuch as I am a Mandalorian, and we come here to observe many of the Mandalorian traditions of old. Many of us come here for school as well.”

Din gives a slight nod, then turns to face the temple… the Forge, again, unsure of the appropriate means of asking for entry. Showing up unannounced at a Death Watch covert where no one knows you is a tricky affair. Presenting a mythosaur pendant gets you in the door, but you’ll still have a blaster in your face until your intentions are made clear, or you’ll get thrown back out if you’re lucky. Killed if you’re not.

Din’s pendant still hangs around his son’s neck. He couldn’t bring himself to remove it so he could have it with him this morning.

“Would you like to come in?” Tarmont asks. “I’m having some upgrades done on my helmet today. I can introduce you to our Armorer if you like.”

You wear armor? You have an Armorer? You have a working forge here? The questions flood Din’s mind and get jammed up at his mouth; he refuses to let them all tumble out as if he’s a child. Instead, he allows himself only a simple, “I would.”

They enter the Forge, and it bears no resemblance at all to the coverts that Din is familiar with. A high, multi-colored stained-transparisteel ceiling scatters rainbows of light along the floor of the main hall. Cubist artwork adorns the tapestries that hang on the walls. The bright colors and airy spaces laugh in the face of the dark mines and cramped sewers he had called home for decades.

Din stands in the middle of it all, his posture somewhere between awed, frightened, and insulted.

“This… this design… is Mandalorian?” His tone is incredulous.

“Yes,” Tarmont looks around, smiling. “It’s modeled after the temple in Sundari. Before they had to dome the city.”

Din’s shoulders drop, helpless against his ignorance of a culture that had nonetheless consumed him. “I’ve… never been to Mandalore.”

“Let me guess. You were raised on Concordia. Underground.”

“I was there for three years before the Siege.”

“And after?”

Din shrugs. “We fled to Katraasii first. Never stayed on any one planet for longer than a few years after that.” Never enough time to build. Never enough time to think of anyplace as “home.” Just skipping from one hovel to the next, staying one step ahead of the Imps, not always with success.

Tarmont looks at him with a frown, and Din can’t tell if it’s confusion, pity, or both. It makes him feel hollow, like the only parts of him that are truly Mandalorian are the armor on his body and the weapons strapped to his hip. He knows next to nothing about Mandalore; much of what he does know outside of religious training and the Resol’nare was provided by Alaria’s parents. They had told him some about Mandalorian art – the cubist form which he knows he is looking at right now. Shared some tales from their own parents of what Mandalore had been like before they had been exiled to Concordia, though the word exile had never quite been used. Hell, he’d not even known about the Darksaber until Rayne told him. His enemy sorcerer betrothed knows more about Mandalorian culture than he does, inasmuch as it intersects with such intimacy with the Jedi.

Who is he fooling? He was literally raised in sewers for the latter part of his childhood and all of his adolescence. A war rat. A child soldier. Nothing but Fighting Corps gun fodder. Always put on the front lines when the Imps came knocking from the day he swore the Creed.

The Fighting Corps kids weren’t taught about Mandalore. The only god they were taught to serve was the god of war. To fight and lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters.

Their clan-born and clan-adopted brothers and sisters.

The foundlings were the future, but only insomuch as they could sacrifice themselves for the others.

He hadn’t been meant to make it to adulthood. He’d been taught the Resol’nare, the six ways, just enough to keep him in line. Any cultural education beyond that would have been wasted on him.

“Djarin?”

Din snaps his head up, realizing he’s been staring at the floor for far longer than is socially acceptable. “Sorry… I… I don’t think… I don’t belong here.”

Tarmont tilts his head in confusion. “Why not?”

I’m dar’manda. I’m gun fodder that didn’t know how to die. I sold my baby to Imps. His mouth hangs open and he’s caught between confessing all his sins and fleeing entirely and thank the Maker the helmet hides it all…

Indeed, all Tarmont sees is the slight upward tilt of the T-visor, and he guesses that Din has lost focus at a point somewhere over his left shoulder. He does, however, hear the wet-sounding breath through the modulator. Tarmont had attended school in this Forge as a youth and sends his own children here. He is well-versed in Mandalorian history, and Genesarian scouts had brought back much information about Death Watch over the centuries. He had served as a scout himself, in his young adulthood, and he knows trauma when he sees it. He has seen the trauma that Death Watch had inflicted on its victims and its own people. The man before him now is truly disturbed. The savior of the Lost Son is no more than another shell-shocked Mando, coming here for help but not having the slightest idea of how to ask for it.

“How about I take you to the sanctum? I find it a good place to collect my thoughts sometimes. You can have a few moments to yourself while I get the Armorer.”

It takes a second or three for Din to respond. “Okay.”

Tarmont leads the way down a winding staircase to a basement hallway. The lights are dim, but the air is warm and Din hears hammering somewhere nearby, and he realizes he feels the warmth from the Forge proper. They stop at a wooden door with the Iron Heart carved upon it – the diamond shape at the center of all Mandalorian chestplates. “I can’t go in with you at the moment,” Tarmont apologizes. “The sanctum is one of the few places here where we do require full armor to enter.” He points to the Iron Heart. “Any door with the kar'ta beskar carved on it marks such a place. But please, go in. Have a seat. Relax for a bit. I’ll have the Armorer join you shortly.”

Din stands before the door. Looks at it for a few moments. It’s an ancient design with a handle. He pulls it and opens the door. He sees that it’s even darker than the hallway in there, but not entirely, and calling up the infrared on his HUD, confirms that no one else is present. He turns to Tarmont. “Thank you.”

“You are quite welcome.”

Din sits in the near-darkness and looks upon the carved triptych of the three ancient gods of Mandalore adorning the front of the sanctum.

Hod Ha’ran, the god of fickle fortune. A reminder that life is not fair.

Arasuum, the god of sloth and stagnation. A reminder of what not to be.

Kad Ha’rangir, the god of war and destruction. A model of what to aspire to be. The god he had been trained to emulate. The god in whose name he had been taught to dedicate his weapons and his life to.

He feels the heat of the space seep down into his bones, but the air is dry, and he does not sweat. The weight of his helmet pulls his head forward and his eyelids down.

Din Djarin is a devout man. His parents had been devout. The very name they gave him means “Faith” in the language of the first settlers of Aq Vetina. They had raised him with a spiritual upbringing until their demise. Swapping out the religion of his childhood for the religion of the Mandalorians had been easy. They both had gods. They both spoke of an afterlife of sorts. They both spoke of a soul. They both spoke of sin.

And his sins are unforgivable.

He hears the door open behind him and he opens his eyes. The sanctum brightens just a bit, then darkens again as the door is closed. The mineral smell of freshly forged beskar reaches him as the Armorer sits on the bench next to him, a few feet away.

“I was wondering if you would come to us.” Her voice has a slight rasp to it, making her sound a little older than the Armorer on Nevarro. He’d always found it strange that the Nevarro Armorer had a strong central-core accent. This one’s accent is more reflective of a native Genesarian. Middle-of-the-road Outer Rim, like his own when he speaks Basic, more casual than the haughtiness of the Core, but formal enough not to drop the Gs and clear enunciation on the Ts.

“Sorry it took me so long,” he says.

“What brings you here today?”

“I was raised by Death Watch.” It’s as good an explanation as any. It seems to be general knowledge among Genesarian Mandos anyway, given his conversation with the woman at the Mandalorian restaurant not so long ago. In a place like this, the translation is something akin to I’m lost. I’m lost and I need a path forward.

The pause that follows is heavy. When the Armorer breaks it, her tone is strong, but gentle. “You were kidnapped by Death Watch.”

“Yes. They murdered my parents.”

“You worshiped Kad Ha’rangir.”

“To wage war is divine.”

“You were taught that in the Fighting Corps.”

“This is The Way.”

Everyone is on the same page, now.

“Your beskar is newly forged. Not much more than a year old. All of the pieces are the same age, save your helmet. Highly unusual for a Death Watch captive. How did you come by it?”

Oh, boy, here it is… “My Foundling. You call him the Lost Son. I… sold him. To the Imps. I stole him back, but I sold him first. The payment was this beskar.” Din’s voice cracks at the memory. “The beskar belongs to my son. I bought it with his life. Be sure he gets it when I die.”

The Armorer nods. “I will make note of it in our registers. I or one of my successors will see to it ourselves.”

“Thank you.”

“I sense there is more.”

Din dips his head in an abbreviated nod. “The child… before I turned him in… the child saved my life. Stopped a mudhorn before it could kill me.”

The Armorer pauses again, and this silence is uncomfortable. When she breaks it this time, her tone is less gentle. “You sold a child to whom you owed a life debt to Imperials?” The fact that she is more concerned with this than the fact that the baby stopped a mudhorn reminds him of where he is, and he is glad to no longer have to explain such things.

Leaves more time to get right down to the guilt.

“Yes.” The confession that comes out is broken and miserable. Confession with no hope for forgiveness. Confession that will take more than a lifetime of redemption to heal.

“What were you thinking?”

He remembers how much it all hurt. He remembers how much pain he was in. He remembers the woozy headache of a severe concussion. He remembers thinking that he must have hallucinated what had happened with the mudhorn. That his vision of the tiny baby with his arm outstretched appearing to lift the giant rampaging beast was exactly that – a vision, generated by a delirious recipe of days without sleep, dehydration, near-starvation, and way too many hits to the head.

But the alternative was that he’d beaten the mudhorn on his own. The furious mother defending her egg, three tons of pure rage bearing down on him after already beating him to within inches of his life, having him dead to rights, only to lie down and let him stab her through the artery along her neck?

Not fucking likely.

He’d been… confused. So confused. Nothing had made sense. A fifty-year-old baby. His ship stripped to the girders. A floating mudhorn. A whole entire camtono of beskar. Things that do not exist. Things that do not happen. His mind had started to unhinge, and the things he doesn’t remember alarm him almost as much as the things he does. He has no recollection of how he got from the mudhorn nest back to the Jawa transport. He doesn’t remember the trip from Arvala-7 to Nevarro. He doesn’t remember walking from the Razor Crest to the Imperial safehouse. One moment he was in one place, the next, he was somewhere else. Had he eaten? Slept? Had enough water in his bloodstream to so much as take a piss? He has no idea if any of those things happened during any of those intervals.

He vaguely remembers having a flashback of his village, Aq Vetina, getting destroyed while in the Forge. The fight with Paz just before that.

He does remember flipping through the Razor Crest’s start-up sequence, reaching for the thruster lever, noticing the knob off to the side, and his brain coming back to life with a slow creep as he screwed the knob back on.

He had known damn well he owed a life debt to the child, that the child had become his the moment the mudhorn had been stopped. Defend your family was one tenet of the Resol’nare. Another tenet was to wear armor. Din had broken one to support the other. He’d sold his baby for the beskar. Somehow, he’d placed a higher value on the armor than on the child’s life.

How had he done such a thing?

Because he’d had to keep his word.

He’d had to honor the contract he’d agreed to. One of the many overlapping Mandalorian and Bounty Hunters Guild values – keep your promises. Do what you agreed to do.

Through his unhinged disassociation, his duty to his contract allowed him to ignore what the child had done for him, ignore the very treatment of Foundlings that he had believed saved his own life once upon a time, ignore that bond of family. He remembers shoving it away. He remembers rejecting it. He remembers rejecting the six families who had tried to take him in as a child. He remembers his belief that he was unworthy of having a family of his own as an adult. He remembers rejecting the notion that the child was his, his Foundling, convincing himself that the baby was nothing more than a bounty. A contract to be fulfilled.

And as his hand had hovered over the lever, the slow dawn of horror had risen in his mind.

Oh dear god what have I done?

Oh dear god what do I do now?

Din hears the clink of armor next to him and realizes, again, that he’s spaced out. Two or three levels deep, this time. How can he possibly explain it all? How can he possibly put the whole mess into words? He doesn’t even care about forgiveness – he doesn’t deserve it and he doesn’t want it. He just wants to make someone understand that he’d been… broken. Wrong. Foolish in his prioritization of conflicting demands. He just doesn’t have the words.

“You do not necessarily need the words here, Djarin,” the Armorer says. “I can see well enough for myself.”

“You’re Force-sensitive?”

“To a small degree, yes.” She inclines her helm just a bit. “You would be well advised to remember that you are on a world populated by many who are helpless but to see and hear what you broadcast. They do not mean to pry, but your mind is… loud.”

He sighs. Rayne has told him as much. “The volume of my mind is inverse to its usefulness. I am dar’manda as a result of my actions – I swore the Creed to the people who murdered my parents and I sold my foundling. I was raised by a terrorist organization but I am somehow the father of a powerful sorcerer baby and I am about to marry his Jedi mother. And I have no idea what to do with this.”

In his frustration, it’s all Din can do to keep himself from slamming the Darksaber down on the bench when he unclips it from his belt.

The Armorer takes a deep breath. “I was told that you understand little of Mandalore. Do you understand what it means to possess this object?”

“Leadership of an entire world as determined by winning a weapon in battle seems… less than legitimate.”

“A valuable insight for someone raised in a religion that worships weapons.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I have no clue about what I’m doing.”

The Armorer considers for a moment, parsing through the storm of confusion before her, then comes to a decision. “Do you still hold to the Resol’nare?”

Din swallows. “I’ve… started taking the armor off at home. Including the helmet. My son and the woman I will marry see my face every day. But I speak Mando’a to our son. We intend to raise him as both a Jedi and a Mandalorian. We defend ourselves and each other. We provide for each other.”

“And if you are called upon by the Mand’alor? Will you rally to the cause?”

“If the cause is worthy, yes.” His gaze falls to his feet. “Do we even have a Mand’alor at the moment?”

The Armorer picks the Darksaber up from the bench. She tests the weight of it in her hand, a reverent breath sighing through her modulator. She hands it back to Din. “No.”

Apparently not.

He takes the ancient artifact and clips it back to his belt as if he’s perturbed to be stuck with it once again.

“As far as the practices of this Forge are concerned, your application of the Resol’nare is adequate,” the Armorer says. “You may consider yourself a Mandalorian and practice under our banner if you so wish. You must understand, however, that you are the only vod to wear armor and openly bear weapons beyond these walls when not on missions. Such actions would normally be considered aggressive on a planet of peace, and many here have suffered at the hands and blasters of those wearing armor that is an homage to our own.” Din thinks of Rayne’s discomfort with his armor and his gut tightens at the realization of her response on a global level. “But allowances are made for you because you have brought the Lost Son home. For better or worse, you now represent all members of this Forge, and any aggression against any citizen of Genesaria will reflect poorly on all your sisters and brothers here. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“Will you speak the Ridurrok when you make the Jedi your wife?”

“Yes. We both will.”

“Very well. As for the state of your soul, creeds sworn by pre-teens under false pretenses after brainwashing by their captors are non-binding under this roof. The honor you declare for your parents in the color of your armor is backed by your break with Death Watch.

“The matter of selling your child to those you knew to be evil while in his debt weighs much heavier. A sin such as this can only be rectified by a lifetime of utmost service to your child. You are not to abandon him. You are not to deem yourself unqualified and relinquish your responsibilities to another. You must continue to earn the honor of wearing your clan signet. Your devotion to your son must never waver. You are his father, as you must always be until your dying day. Only then will your soul be granted entry to the manda. Do you understand?”

“I do.”

“As for our ancient gods,” she nods to the triptych, “we keep them merely as allegorical reminders. Fate is fickle and unfair. We must not allow ourselves to become stagnant. But we must also be cautious in our application of destruction and change. Noble hunters are selective in their kills. They take only enough to remove excess. Trim back to allow new growth. They are the dark that balances the light. No wanton slaughters. No violence for its own sake. And be very, very careful with revenge. Do you understand this as well?”

“Yes.” Damned if she hasn’t seen right through him. The three pieces that are left of him when his soul shattered under the weight of discovering the circumstances of his capture. The piece that wants to love. The piece that wants to run away. The piece that wants to destroy. She’s taken the last two and pinned them directly to the first. The fractures are still there, the pieces still very much their own, but they are now stuck together. They are now in the position to heal. “I understand.”

“Very well. Come with me. I have something you may be interested in.”

---

The Mandalorian and the Jedi stroll through the market, picking up what they’ll need for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s breakfast as they go. They decide on shrimp pasta for dinner, much to Yadier’s delight, his memory of the massive amounts of krill he consumed on Sorgan not forgotten. Din has mixed feelings about shellfish in general – something about boiling an animal to death in the armor it has grown around itself and then prying it out to eat it unsettles him, but even he must admit that they’re tasty, so he rolls with it.

The thought reminds him of something else.

“May I borrow your bow for the weekend?” he asks.

“Sure,” she says. “Going hunting?”

“Yeah.” He shifts the sack of groceries over his shoulder. “They have an open season on the deer species here. Their natural predator got wiped out by a virus and the deer population exploded. The Mandalorians here set up a hunting management program.”

She looks up at him, her pace slowing. “There are other Mandalorians here?”

“A few. Yes.”

“And you’re in contact with them?”

“Yes.”

She’s hard-pressed to contain her surprise. “It’s going okay?”

“I found a Forge. They’re… moderate. They only wear armor for ceremonial and certain occupational purposes. You wouldn’t recognize them outside if you don’t know what to look for.”

“How does that sit with you?” She doesn’t seem at all perturbed that he hadn’t told her outright. Her questions are driven by curiosity, and it steadies him. Grounds him.

“They’re… very accepting.” He breathes a sigh. “So far so good.”

“Do you want to take Yadier there?” She brings her free hand to the baby’s belly, but her tone is, again, one of curiosity, not of defense.

“Eventually, maybe. We’ll see how it goes for a while first.”

She nods. She has sensed that he’s felt adrift since he’d removed his helmet before her, a feeling that has grown more pronounced after he’d found out about Alaria’s death and his daughter’s existence. Unsure of where he belongs, how he can fit in, what it means to be a Mandalorian on a planet of Force users, even with the work they are starting. He needs a foundation he’s familiar with. This seems to be a good one and she’s glad he has found it. With that sorted, she gets back to his original request. “Out of all of the weapons in your collection, you don’t have anything appropriate for game hunting?” She gives him an amused smile.

“Oddly, no. Everything I have is geared for close-quarters defense or long-range disintegration.” Even if he switches out the disruptor shells to conventional slugs for the Amban, the rifle itself is so high-powered that anything he hits with it will get blown to smithereens.

He’d brought down a deer with her bow during their time on Methuselah, where the use of firearms was prohibited for game hunting as a noise-reduction measure. She knows he can use it effectively. “Sounds like a good opportunity.” She brushes the back of her hand against his and he looks down to catch her glance for a brief moment. “You need a break from the daily grind of civilized life. This’ll be good for you.”

“Yeah,” he says again. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She catches his glance again and winks. “We share all.”

He swallows at her mention of the vow they will swear in a few more weeks, and hooks a finger around hers, giving a short squeeze before letting go.

Yadier hums with satisfaction as he gnaws at his meat stick. His father has brightened over the last few days. Less like he is in three slightly different places at the same time and more like he is in one place. More solid. A welcome change from the slow descent his father had been experiencing before. Floundering. Like he’d misplaced himself, somehow. Lost. But lately, the glimmer of hope is back. The darkness has receded for now, and Yadier is happy.

His mother is battling a darkness within her, though. Her understanding of it lies just outside of her awareness. She almost notices it, the bitterness of misplaced jealousies, the hollow age-old loneliness, but not quite. Like an immune system fighting off a pathogen before the symptoms have really set in, heralded by precursors noticed only in hindsight. He’s resolved to keep an eye on it. See if he can fix it later, for he knows it’s far beyond his current abilities. The thought of losing his mother… he won’t let his mind go there. He just got her. He’s barely had her for any time at all. He can’t give her up already. He won’t. Another darkness he knows he should avoid. His mother and his teachers have shown him how to identify it, how to evade it. They have urged patience – he is too young to confront it directly now. But later, he knows he will be strong enough. Later. Grow first. Grow strong.

He’s doing the best he can. Being here, on Genesaria, on a world that exists in a peculiar nexus of the Force, surrounded by other Force users, has helped. He feels at home here. Not quite the place he was born, a place he can’t quite recall, the memory dimmed with time and the primordial state of his mind when it all happened. But Genesaria is close enough. It’s home enough. The Force flows through him here, and he grows strong. His parents give him love, and he grows strong. He’s making new friends, and he grows strong. He wants to be strong. Be strong for his buire.

The rift between his parents is almost closed, now, and for this, he is joyous. Their love for each other has grown. Their fear of each other has dimmed. They still have a little way to go, but for now, they are on the right path, and are forging it together.

The bonds of his family are growing stronger, and he grows stronger with them.

---

Din had marked the date on the calendar hanging in their kitchen when Rayne had agreed on “ask me again in three months.” She had also agreed to Mandalorian vows. Mandalorian weddings being what they are, nothing more than a private sharing of vows, the asking and the vows would happen in quick succession.

She has thus far given every indication that her answer will be “yes.” He has no reason to doubt. His signet is inked forever into her skin. She’s been low-key quoting bits and pieces of the vows for weeks, now.

Even so, when he wakes on the morning of the presumed day of their wedding, his heart skips a beat when he discovers he is alone in bed.

The sizzle of first meal cooking out in the kitchen puts him at ease, and he forces a deep breath.

Yadier is half-way through a decent-sized plate of bacon by the time Din makes it out, popping a whole raw egg into his mouth as Din pulls a t-shirt on over his head. Rayne slides a plate of bacon and eggs in his direction as he takes a seat next to his son at the counter. The bacon is just on the meaty side of crisp. The eggs are over-easy and runny. The toast is almost burnt and drowning in butter.

Exactly how he likes it.

They’ve been working their meals around managing his high blood-pressure, but he’s allowed a cheat-day every now and then. Today is as good a day as any to indulge.

“Nervous?” she asks.

“A little,” he admits. “You?”

“Nope.”

In all fairness, this is not Rayne’s first rodeo in these matters. She knows what it means to pledge her soul to another. She knows what it means to commit herself to another. She had sworn “until death do us part” before.

And death had parted her from the soul she had sworn to.

She is ready to swear it again.

Din is in the fresher a little later, trimming his beard. He’s experimented with various configurations over the last few months, all of them including a mustache in one form or another. Some were honest failures – Rayne had thought the chinstrap was hot, but its thin lines were unforgiving of the bald patches on his jaws. Some were blatant failures – the lambchops never stood a chance with his sparse growth pattern, and the handlebars had earned him the hardest eyeroll he’s ever seen in his life – totally worth the time spent in having to shave it all back down and start anew. In the end, he’d settled on something a little fuller around his jawline than the chinstrap, down to a short stubble that de-emphasized the bald patches, a little longer in the mustache, the patchy areas on his cheeks taken down all the way with a razor.

He’s left the door open, so Rayne comes in to brush her teeth. Finished with his beard, he runs his hands through his hair, three months out from the last time he cut it on Methuselah.

It’s a shaggy mess.

Hers isn’t much better.

He offers her the clippers. “Wanna give it a shot?”

She looks at him in confusion. He’s been cutting his own hair since swearing the Creed and doing a… passable job at it. He’d actually done reasonably well with cutting hers on Methuselah, but she’s never done it before and has no idea what she’s doing. Frankly, he’s tired of doing his own. Tired of trying to reach the back of his head with the clippers. Tired of grabbing fistfuls his own hair at the top of his head and mowing it down with scissors.

They bring a chair in from the kitchen so he can sit and she can reach everything. She follows the same technique he had used with her before, starting with the biggest gate and working her way all around his head, then moving to the shortest he figures he can get away with without being prickly under the helmet for the back and sides, then down to the smallest for the edges and around his ears. She manages the taper well enough, and when she is done, he looks remarkably clean-cut. Shorter than what he’s used to, but it will still lay well under the helmet and he likes it well enough.

When her turn comes he uses the same big gate for the top of her head. He runs it through once and has to pause when a memory flickers through his mind. Not an image, but a feeling in his hands. Something that had begun with practice in the light, then happened only in the dark after swearing the Creed. Braiding.

He used to braid Alaria’s hair in the dark.

He closes his eyes, lets the memory of her hair in his fingers play out until it slips away on its own, and then he opens his eyes once more.

He returns to his work, running the clippers over Rayne’s head, only her hair is so curly it seems to “thin out” more than actually get much shorter. He’s reminded of the time he happened to see a farmer shearing sheep and he can’t suppress a chuckle. “Stop,” she says, half-serious, knowing what he’s laughing about, subjected to the image he can’t help but project from his mind. “Knit a sweater with it if you think it’s so funny.” Her tone is light and she runs her finger up the back of his knee, familiar with all of his ticklish spots. He squirms out of her reach and then settles down. He uses a shorter gate for the back and sides on her than what she’d used on him.

He notices…

Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but he doesn’t think so.

Running the clippers over the back of her head, shearing off several months of hair reveals new gray behind both ears. The salt-strewn patches seem larger than they should in their sudden revelation, rather than the subtle intruding creep he’s noticed in his own hair over the last few years. He says nothing, pausing to look at the tuft of silver curls in his fingers.

“What’s up?” she asks.

Not knowing what else to do, he hands it to her over her shoulder.

She’s silent for a moment, as if she’s staring at her own mortality in her hands. “How much is there?”

“A lot.”

They both suspect the same cause.

The Force blowback of pulling down an Imperial starship as it exploded had, in fact, killed her. A new patch of gray hair should not come as a surprise, even if it is a shock.

She lowers her hand, dropping the tuft for it to join the rest on the floor. She takes a breath. “Are you still okay with… moving forward today?”

“Yes. Of course.” His response is immediate and firm, and he grips her shoulder, locking her gaze in the mirror. “That’s how you earned this,” he says, indicating the mudhorn inked there. “It’s just another kind of scar. We’re both riddled with them. We’ll both earn a lot more before we’re done. You know I understand this.”

She takes another breath, relaxing, and he watches her reflection as she nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

Soon enough they are done.

They look in the mirror together, gifted haircuts looking pretty reasonable all things considered, and Din looks a little less nervous. She places a kiss on his shoulder, over the signet she had inked there.

They’re ready.

---

Rayne sits on the rock slab in the sun at the point on a bluff, the view of the valley below unfolding for miles before her. Her legs are stretched out and crossed at the ankles, amber shades masking her eyes.

They’re rimmed with tears.

She’s taking some time to reflect back on her late husband.

On Hayes.

She misses him dearly.

Like Din, he had been a man of few words. Unlike Din, he had been prone to silliness and managing to spit out only a portion of the words he ever meant to say. She misses his silliness, which had always made her laugh and set her at ease, and she hadn’t minded having to interpolate the words he spoke. And so it was that when he proposed to her, the words had come out in a stumbling laugh, some of them missing, and she’d forced herself to respond with a clarifying, “Yes, I will be your wife. That’s what you were asking, right?”

He had brought a carefree joy to her life. He had made her feel secure in her place in the world. And when he was gone, he’d left a gap in her soul that she thought would never be filled again.

Din doesn’t quite fill that gap, and she doesn’t expect him to. He is an altogether different shape. Larger in some dimensions, smaller in others. He lacks the carefree joy, bringing focused intensity in its place. Not better, not worse, but very different.

And she is glad to have him.

When Din reaches the edge of the clearing, he takes one more moment to gather his thoughts, getting the words set in his mind. The serious possibility of saying them had never crossed his mind until he had met Omera. She had cracked something open in him, shone the light on a life that was so different from the one he had always led. It had turned out to not quite be the right time, she was not quite the right woman, and Sorgan was not quite the right place, but the possibility had finally been illuminated. He knows he owes the fact that he is even capable of pledging his life to another to Omera.

He had done his best to close the door on it, told himself he was an idiot, told himself that his inability to either join or form a clan by his age was clear evidence that it was not, in fact, possible for him. He was a loner. Always had been. Always would be. All he had to do was get the kid somewhere safe and be done with it.

And then it became clear that he was incapable of doing it by himself. After that, it became clear that the kid was more than a responsibility. The kid was his son. Another truth he had tried to close the door on until the Armorer ripped the doors off and put it square in front of his face. Cara’s pre-emptive rejection of his offer to come along on the heels of that, followed by having to bury Kuiil with his own hands offered up a whole new pile of heartbreak.

And then, Rayne.

Another widow, like Omera. The galaxy is full of them, the machines of war chewing through families and spitting out the mangled remains. Yet he’s only occasionally thought of Rayne as such, lacking the constant reminder in the form of a half-orphaned child. Lacking the mannerisms of one who has any idea of what being part of a family is like. Yet offering protection had come easily for her. Offering comfort, almost as easily. Offering love… had been a clear struggle. One that he shared. One that he, if anything, had exacerbated. Love does not come easily to Mandalorians steeped in violence and loss. And he knows well the echoes in the empty places that Hayes left behind, his name murmured in the dead of night, playing out in Rayne’s dreams and nightmares.

But here she is. Waiting as promised. His words are ready. He steps forward.

She turns her head at the crunch of his boots along the trail and stands to greet him. He takes her hand and leads her to the shade of a tree so he can move her shades to the top of her head without blinding her. He wants for both of them to look each other in the eye for this. “Are we alone?”

“We are.” A small smile pulls at the corner of her mouth.

In this one thing, they will not include Yadier. His place in their lives is already carved in stone. In this one thing, they will go alone. Together.

He lifts the helmet from his head and places it on the ground, then takes his gloves off and stuffs them in his belt. His hands tremble as he takes both of her hands in his, but his smile is steady. “You have been the mother of my son for five months, now.”

“You’ve been the father of my son for much longer.”

The next words are ones he hasn’t quite found yet, but he plows ahead anyway. “If I… find my daughter. If I find her and she’s still alive… will you… if she…”

“Yes. I will accept her in whatever form works out best for the both of you.”

“Will you also be my wife? Will you be my riduur?”

“I will, if you will be my husband.”

“I will.” He pauses, then says “Right now,” as she knew he would.

“Right now,” she agrees, as he knew she would.

He tips his chin up, looking over her shoulder. “In the forest.” As she knew he would.

“Okay,” she smiles. She leads him along a path for a short distance, then steps off, and weaves through a maze of boulders strewn through the pines, stepping down into an isolated hollow. A blanket is spread on a thick bed of pine needles. A warm breeze sighs through the trees above, surrounding them with the scent of pine. She had asked if they could consummate their vows outside and he had agreed, so long as the location was remote and protected. She turns to face him. “Does this work?”

He looks around, taking it all in. “It does.” He places his helmet on the corner of the blanket. Then, he detaches the pauldron from his right shoulder. The one with their clan signet. He holds it in his hands, looking at it for a moment, then looks back up at her. He tips his head to the left in an invitation for her to remove the other pauldron.

Her brow furrows in confusion. She’d assumed he’d want to say their vows dressed in full armor with the exception of the helmet. He smiles, knowing he’s thrown her a curveball, and holds his hand out. She steps forward to take it in hers. “Nothing between us,” he says.

She raises an eyebrow. “Oohh…” She hadn’t expected this, but… why not? Once again, she is reminded of the importance he places on symbolism, and the importance of shedding all barriers before speaking the vows that will make them one makes perfect sense. She helps him remove the armor now as she so often has, removing the pieces on the left as he removes the pieces on the right, helping with the chest and back plates. Clothes come next for them both, and soon enough, it’s just them, wearing nothing but the beskar casings at their throats, the symbols of shared parenthood that they never remove, the symbols of their first connection through their son.

The breeze is warm against their bare skin, and Din is… Din is ready.

Rayne takes him in her arms and kisses him, presses herself to him, thankful that the vows are short, because seeing him like this, touching him like this, having his skin against hers like this, warm and firm and trembling, makes her ready, too.

When he pulls his lips away from hers, he catches her gaze once more, heart pounding. “Connected,” he says.

It takes her a moment to figure it out. “You want… while we’re…”

“Yes.” He can’t help the half-smile that pulls at one corner of his mouth, his face otherwise hardened with desire.

He wants to say the vows of the Riduurok while making love in the forest. He wants to establish the link between their souls through the link already formed in their flesh.

Good god, this man.

They sink to the blanket. The ground is soft. Rayne watches the trees sway above them as Din maps the topography of her body with his mouth, the breeze sighing through the needles as she sighs her anticipation.

Even now, even out here, they take their time. He trusts her senses, trusts that they will not be disturbed. He listens for the pace of her breath, notes the pressure of her fingertips along his spine, the arch of her body against his, the glide of her tongue along the edge of his ear. But still he waits. He continues to give her what she needs, holding off on giving her what they both want, holding off until he hears the words.

“Please,” she whispers. “Din, please…”

And they begin.

They indulge themselves with a minute or so of movement, lips pressed together, slow, deep motions. Din takes Rayne’s left hand in his right, fingers intertwined, and presses their hands to the blanket by her head. He plants the rest of his weight on his other elbow. “Open your eyes.” His voice cracks over his pleading demand.

She does, and finds herself pinned beneath his dark brown gaze. Their eyes, their hands, their flesh. Their connection is complete. “I’m ready,” she whispers. She has studied the words. They are easy enough, and there aren’t that many. So when he begins, his voice low and steady, she joins him, and they say them together, in unison, gazes locked, each line punctuated with a slow easing of flesh.

“Mhi solus tome.” We are one when together.

“Mhi solus dar’tome.” We are one when apart.

“Mhi me’dinui an.” We share all.

“Mhi ba’juri verde.” We will raise warriors.

He presses his head to hers and kisses her, long and deep and hard. They can’t help themselves and they do not last long. He welcomes the Force of her release as it grips him and he follows immediately after, and once again she welcomes his warmth as it blooms in her mind. They are, at this moment, linked in every way.

He lets his weight sink to her and they stay that way for a long time, breaths transitioning from damp panting to relaxed draws, savoring the moment, savoring each other. Understanding that this is just the beginning of the next chapter of their lives.

For him, a chapter he thought would never be written, now suddenly open to a fresh, blank page in the story of his life that had taken such an unexpected turn more than a year ago.

For her, a second chance, a sequel to a story she had once feared ended and forgotten on a dusty shelf.

Theirs is the same story, now, and they are ready to write it together.

He traces the mudhorn tattoo on her shoulder, remembers it taking shape under his own hands, remembers the sting of it when she had given him his. The indelible symbol of their union inked into their skin, now made official, sealed with the sacred words, consummated in love.

She holds her lips to his ear. “My name is Rez. Rez Rohan. I’d rather that didn’t get around too far, but I won’t hide from you anymore.”

His breath catches in his throat, understanding that this is how she had wanted him to know, this was how she had told Hayes, the only other person who had known. And yet, she makes it uniquely his moment at the same time, mirroring the phrasing of how he had first told her his name, five months ago. He brings his lips to her ear in turn, and mirrors the response she had given him then. “Good to meet you, Rez Rohan.”

#the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu

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