#the mythosaur pendant is there for a Reason | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

valkblue · 3 years

Text

Lost and Found - Episode 3

"Tales of Clan Mudhorn" series

Word Count: 16k Pairing: None Rating: General Summary: POV Din + OC — The Crest needs repairs after the dogfight over Nevarro. And an emergency landing on an off-the-road planet brings back memories... and enemies. Warnings: street violence, space violence, the Child is a powerful being who 'does the magic hands' 👋 , killings and severe wounds (with a bit of blood at some point), Star Wars cursing. And I'm still not done with my nerdy yappings about spaceships and dogfights!!! A/N: This one is a bit longer and wild than the two previous ones because there is a new POV added in the mix, and I really hope you'll like it!! Also, because of the same reasons, the next chapters are likely to be around that big as well. 😳 (The painting I used for the banner is an old piece you can find here!)

— Childhood

Some travels in hyperspace happened to be longer than others at times, and in general, Din used to spend that time on all sorts of things, often focused around his needs and, now, the child’s as well.

And this time, after just under two hours of sleep interrupted by the squawks of the child, woken up before him in the bunk, he had taken care of fixing and reassembling his thigh plate to the rest of his armor.

The upkeep of his armor and the maintenance of its integrity were part of his everyday life, and had been part of his teaching and his training with his covert’s armorer, back when he was a child himself; knowing how to establish a diagnosis and fix the electronics, washing, reshaping and welding the beskar, taking care of the different parts of his flightsuits…

And this time again, just like the last time with Kuiil on Arvala-7, he had fixed his armor. This thigh plate, at least. He had finished to clean the carbon scoring stuck in the ridges before finally replacing it on its support, on his flightsuit. Din felt strangely better now that this piece was back in place, like a bone popped back into its socket. Din had got enough of those to make the comparison…

Back in the cockpit with the child afterwards, he then had the unpleasant surprise to notice that his port reactor had continued to deteriorate, a fuel leak had been detected, and had put quite a few other gauges in the red now. Din would have wanted to get a bit farther before stopping, but he didn’t have a choice anymore.

On his navicomputer, the estimated closest sector was somewhat satisfying as of its planets and their activity. One of them, Zar-Oda, wasn’t a very big planet but several cities had been built there, including one with a fairly influential starport where Din could be sure to count on some refuel and repairs. And that was all he needed for now.

His destination selected and disengaging the autopilot, he prepared the ship to exit hyperspace. On the passenger seat, the child looked calm, deep in what sounded like a thoughtful chitchat with his mythosaur pendant, held in his fingers. On the navicomputer, Din could see that they were getting close to the exit and, following the advised course, he pulled the lever to him; the stars streaked the black void of space and everything seemed to come to a standstill for brief moment. Din flipped several switched up on his dashboard, pressed a button to redirect the power and spare the port reactor before tilting the controls to glide on starboard and engage the ship on Zar-Oda’s course.

On the screen where the data were still displayed, Din could notice that it was daylight on the side where the starport was located, and it didn’t take long for the planet to appear through the cockpit’s viewport, in lines and shades of green and blue, covered in thin white ribbons under the light of a single sun. Din opened the comms and sent a request ping to the spaceport’s tower. The answer didn’t take long to come.

"This is Barjuun Tower. We are tracking you. Head for bay two-six. Over."

"Copy that. Locked in for two-six."

Din switched the comms off and began his descent towards the lush surface or Zar-Oda.

***

Barjuun’s spaceport was a vast duracrete structure set apart from the city where many ships of all sizes and kinds had been docked, some even already tended to by teams of mechanics. Din landed the Crest in the place he had been assigned to and the port reactor sputtered in an unpleasant creaking as it stopped.

Going down in the hold with the child in the crook of an arm, Din prepared them both to go out; he secured his jetpack on his back again and put the child in the satchel before opening the port sideramp, with the wall’s command.

The ramp lowered slowly, allowing the busy buzzing of the spaceport to leak in the almost silent Crest. The ramp reached the floor as Din was already walking on it. There, a mechanic was already busy looking at the port reactor with a scanner, and tapped on the hull with an hydrospanner — PANG BANG!

"That wasn't a pretty song I heard when you put her to sleep," the mechanic told him, without taking his eyes off the ship.

Looking up to the reactor with a frown of displeasure, he added:

"Far from encouragin', methinks…"

"How much for repairs and a refuel?"

For the first time, the mechanic’s eyes locked on Din and he started back, more surprised than frightened. He finally shrugged.

"I have to make my diagnosis first but, eerr…"

He scanned the hull’s surface again, on a spot where a cannon's laser impact had left a trace.

"Yep, fuel leak. No wonder…"

He holstered his scanner in his utility belt like a blaster and turned back to Din.

"I’d say, you’ll be good for, err…"

BRAANG! BRAANG! BRAANG!

An alarm started to blare somewhere in the glassed cabin which served as an office. The mechanic muttered a curse and sidestepped to shoot a furious glance behind Din, towards the cabin.

"Hey, kill it, will ya?!"

A few more strident notes and the alarm got silenced.

"Need to hear myself think, alright?!" the mechanic grumbled to himself. "What was I—Oh, yeah! She's an old bird but, errr… You're good for two thousand. My droids will take care of the fuel leak first…"

Din winced and took advantage of his trailing off to ask:

"And how much minus the droids?"

Once more, the mechanic looked surprised.

"It ain't so much the droid maintenance that'll cost you here," he countered. "More like the time I—"

Again, the alarm rang and the mechanic grimaced, seething. He didn’t have to express any of his rage that the alarm was muted again, almost right away.

"It's more about the time it'll take me to get everythin' fixed. And it's gonna be a lot already. Even with droids."

He turned his attention back to the Crest, walking up to the tail. He shook his head, bemoaning on a hushed tone:

"Look at that…"

Then, he faced Din again, who had stayed in place, only following him with his eyes.

"Might even cost you more, if I bench my droids, actually."

Din didn’t want to trust droids, and certainly not with the repairs of his ship. Not all droids had been rewired by Kuiil’s more than capable and caring hands. But he couldn't be too picky at this point either.

"Fine."

He searched in the pockets of his own utility belt and pulled out all the credits he had left. Not even quite a thousand and a half. Din took a slow breath, holding it in.

"That’s all I have."

And that wasn’t even a lie; he was at the end of what he had left from his last bounty. The mechanic handed out his hand to receive what Din was giving him, weighting the coins in his gloved hand while glancing at his armor, from head to toe, with a doubtful wince.

"Mmwell," he muttered. "Ain't gonna polish it for that price, that's for sure!"

"I just need it operational and flying."

"I'll do what I can, I pride myself in my work, but errr, got somewhere to be? 'Cause it's gonna take some time either way."

And before Din could answer, he added:

"I have quite the queue today, so I hope you got some good business to do here, 'cause I ain't gonna jump on yours right away."

That wasn't to please Din but, quite frankly, he expected as much. Worst case, it would leave him time to find something to do to earn a few creds before leaving.

"Do as fast as you can."

The alarm roared again.

"Yeah, yeah, sure," the mechanic muttered, annoyed, glowering at the cabin. "Hey, what did I tell ya 'bout this kriffin' horn, hu?!"

And he strode towards it, shaking his hydrospanner.

"Let's go stretch our legs, kid," Din sighed, putting his hand on the flap of the satchel in which the kid was still hidden. "Looks like we have a little free time on our hands."

The alarm had still not been turned off when he left the hangar.

Maybe because of its size, the spaceport was located at a good distance from the city of Barjuun but a system of landspeeder transport was available right at its gates. So Din wouldn’t have to walk for too long, or even use his jetpack to reach the city.

The driver who had agreed to give him a lift for the few coins he still had left had been friendly, talkative even, for the few minutes it took to reach the town. He had started by telling him about the beautiful morning they were having today and that, should he have the time, he definitely should go and see the flying fishes at the foot of the Walso Waterfalls, that it was worth the trip!

But Din’s interests were more of the professional kind than the touristic one, and that’s what he had told the driver, asking for some information about job opportunities in town, and the presence of a Bounty Hunters Guild. Still cheerful, the driver couldn't be certain about his intel on the matter, and had advised him to check at the cantina, or even at the town hall; he couldn't get lost, everything was very well signposted.

And then, he had left him at the town’s entrance; it was marked by two large gray buildings, connected by some sort of patrol path in an uneven arch, and framed by trees and other plants in huge flower beds where a lone tooka was dreaming, shaking its hind legs. In the main street just like on Nevarro, shops and houses were combined. Both sides were busy with colorful stalls, covered with sheets waving under the soft gusts of wind that rushed between the buildings, and store fronts were opened on the dirty paving stones, roofs spiked with antennas and moisture collectors.

And past the fortified feel of the place, everything looked rather peaceful, maybe even safe. However, Din didn’t want to let this feeling dull his vigilance… He balled his fist on the bag’s flap from which the child had pulled his head out to watch what was surrounding them with wide, curious eyes.

Din crossed the path of a Rodian, busy arguing in Huttese with an R4 droid as he walked onward in the streets, following the signs to the town hall. He reached a large, lush square where open foodstalls excited the attention of the child who let out a long chirp.

"Sorry, kid," Din told him, in a soft voice. "It's gonna be ration bars and soup for a little while longer. Unless I find a way to get us back on track…"

"Wooo."

But the child only looked happy to blink at the light and colours around him. And even more so when a group of three children playing ball on the square stopped at the satchel’s level to wave and talk to him a little. Din let them do without a word, and they scattered by themselves, hopping around like scared birds when he resumed his walk. The child waved to them with a high-pitched squeak as Din was going across the square to follow the signs and find the town hall.

The signs eventually brought him to a dilemma — the town hall on the left, or the cantina on the right. But Din chose to head towards the cantina; in his experience, it was a hotspot in his profession. So, he’d start there. But farther down, the street was already the theatre of its own excitment. Cries of support over the racket echoed between the facades and the crowd eventually pushed Din towards all the bustle. He was curious of what could be happening anyway. But also wary. He readjusted the flap over the head of the child who had sat down on his own at the bottom of the bag.

"Stay inside until I know what's going on," Din told him.

And he kept walking, picking his way through the crowd until reaching the edge of the bystanders line. Another group of people was blocking the street on the other side, surrounding three people fighting furiously; two men — a Human and a Balosar — against a woman, apparently Human too.

It seemed she had just kicked them out of her shop and wasn't backing down from the fight they wanted to pick with her. A very imbalanced one at that, considering the bulk of the two men compared to the woman's, but she didn’t let herself be overwhelmed either, dodging and parrying hits despite her obvious struggle to keep them off the arched front of her shop.

Around him, the so far peaceful crowd of Barjuun was becoming more and more excited, as if they had placed bets on this improvised arena, cheering and shouting. But if this clamor seemed to embolden the two men, the woman however appeared to be completely deaf to it. All her focus aimed at her attackers, she let them come forward on their own, ready for the next part of this little tussle without provoking any of it.

According to Din, this fight only carried on because the two men had a public, and because this woman wouldn’t back down. Whatever had started this fight, it was a matter of pride now. And the outcome of such clashes was rarely honorable…

She blocked a hit from the Human with her arms, closing her hand on his fist to twist his wrist and gave a quick kick in the Balosar’s thigh; if this effort offered her a bit of respite in their attacks, it also unsteadied her.

Sticking her foot back to ground at the last second to regain her balance, she only had the time to hunch, bringing her shoulder forward to take with a grunt the blow that the Human's free fist landed there.

She threw her shoulder against his chest and, with a surprised oomph, he stumbled a few steps back. Then, she finally released his arm to face the Balosar who wasn’t waiting to charge again; slenderer than the Human, he was still built larger than this woman that Din could already see loosing her breath. She pushed her long braid back behind her shoulder and barely dodged the left fist he threw to her face.

She grabbed him by the elbow but seemed to change her mind in the middle of the act, realizing that he would still be too heavy for her and, sliding in his back, she brought him to his knees with a simple kick of her heel in the calf, and a punch in the cheek for good measure.

The cheering of the crowd quickly turned into warnings when the Human, already behind her, grabbed her around the waist with both arms.

"Not so tough now, uh?!" he jeered, as he lifted her up.

As an answer, she threw her head backwards but, even if she only brushed his cheekbone without much damage, the Human roared his anger loudly, and threw her to the ground. She rolled over to the edge of the crowd who encouraged her, and she got clumsily back on her feet.

The way she was fighting and taking the hits wasn’t unknown to Din, like a cantina brawl version of what he had learned himself, and how the other Mandalorians he had known fought. And that, even in the mistakes she was making… Maybe that woman was a Mandalorian, maybe she had taken her helmet off, and then… couldn’t put it — nor her armor — back on again? Now, he wanted to know.

He freed his blaster of its safety hoop and let his hand rest on the grip, careful to the progress of the fight. She had caught the handle of a bucket full of metal scraps, which she poured on the paving stones, and the excited buzzing of the crowd grew louder when she strode to her opponents. The both of them burst into mocking laugher.

"Whatcha think you're gonna do wi' that?" the Human taunted her.

And, confident, the Balosar came forward to meet her. He threw his fists at her, the left then the right, opening his defense on all his left side. The woman didn’t need anything else to exploit that weakness, and send a wide, sweeping slap of her bucket to the guy’s face — THUNK!

The crowd burst into laugher, and there were a few claps. In the bag, the child wiggled a bit but Din kept him hidden inside with a firm hand. The Human’s went red with anger at the sight of the beating she had just inflicted to is acolyte, and charged again. To the general surprise, the woman rushed to him too and, sticking her head in her bucket, holding it in place by the handle, she flung her face straight into the Human’s — BLANG!

A general OUCH rose from the crowd among the laughter. Din, however, wasn’t laughing, watchful and tense.

"Good trick, Elak!" someone shouted in the crowd, on the other side.

But the woman had already taken the bucket off, staggering as well from the shock, a hand to her forehead, and turned around just in time to give another bucket slap to the Balosar who was coming back on her. He blocked the hit this time, but with a strong kick with the flat of her foot right into his stomach, she sent him falling and crashing against a landspeeder parked there. Panting, she dropped her bucket which clattered to the ground.

For a slight moment of hesitation, the fight appeared to be over even through the torrent of insults spewed by the Human behind both his hands clutching at his nose, and that she seemed to ignore, her eyes on the Balosar who was catching his breath, leaning on the inside of the speeder.

"Now, I'm gonna kriffing flat you, you filthy little kreetle!" the Human bawled, his nose bleeding.

And in an instant, he was already on her to throw a violent punch. An arm raised, she managed to soften the blow but it still knocked her to the ground. With a quick scissor move of her legs in the Human’s ankles, she sent him on his back in a loud groan when the back of his head hit the dirty paving stones. He brought his hands to his forehead and furled weakly on the side, stunned. That one wouldn’t get back up so quickly. But neither would the woman; standing on her elbows, head low, she was laboriously catching her breath, exhausted. And she ought to be, considering all the fire she was putting in the fight!

The way she moved, the way she was trying to keep her feet stuck to the ground and her bodyweight to her advantage in her fighting circle reminded him of a little more than a Mandalorian fighting style. It was something even more familiar. He liked the feeling and was letting it linger a little when a swift move from one of the thugs put all his senses in alert; the Balosar had picked up some big and heavy adjustable wrench in the back of the landspeeder that he was now bringing back into the fight.

With a sharp breath, the woman nimbly crawled towards a pile of scrap from which she pulled a long metal bar under the panicked screams and protests from the crowd. But Din wouldn’t wait to see how skilled she was at using this, nor if anyone else than him would finally intervene; he drew his blaster and, as the Balosar was raising his improvised weapon, shot a single bolt — PEW!

The wrench jumped from his hands to fall heavily behind him with a flat thonk on the paving stones. His glance of disbelief fell on Din, his blaster still in hand and around whom the crowd had cleared, frightened. Without further ado, the Balosar leaned down to his acolyte, helping him to his feet before scuttering away. The crowd on the other side split in two to let them stumble out of the street. Then, Din holstered.

On the ground, the woman was getting up with some renewed energy and a smile. She twirled the metal bar with a skillful swing of her wrist to hold it safe in her back, and Din felt a strange shiver ran through him; it was a move he saw Crahl, his Mandalorian instructor, make countless time at the end of a training session with staves and spears, back when he was a boy, in his original covert.

"Thank you for that," she told him in a breathless voice, but still smiling.

And the breath was knocked out of him too as he stared at her walking up to him, waving at a few people congratulating her in the crowd; Din would never have thought he’d see this face again one day, nor hear this voice talking to him…

"What’s your name, brother?"

She held an arm out to him and it felt like he had just stayed still for an eternity before slowly raising his to grab hers in return. He felt her fingers pressing inside his wrist, just above his vambrace. Din couldn’t make a sound, avoiding to even face his thoughts, and the truth smiling to his face. There was a bit of white in her hair and she looked older, but it was definitely her, there was no way for him to get that wrong; he had grown up with her! He knew by heart these green eyes, these freckles, that faint scar across the right corner of her mouth, a scar she'd gotten because of him…

She hadn’t changed that much, and yet, he was rediscovering her as if he was seeing her for the first time. As he was still not saying anything, she glanced at his signet and asked:

"Who’s clan are you of?"

Finally, he found the strength to talk, to utter a sound.

"Elara?"

He hadn’t said that name for nearly twenty years… and it felt strange, scary, painful, but a relief as well to hear himself say it again. In front of him, she frowned and her smile vanished as she made a step back.

CLING CLANG!

The clattering of the metal bar she had just dropped made him almost jump. He felt the grip of her fingers weaken on his wrist and he released his too, to let her withdraw, run away if she wanted. She had recognized him too, he had no doubt… Even if for her too, it seemed painful to admit. He could read the conflict of emotions in her wide eyes, as much as he could see the tears building up there. She made another step back but her fingers lingered a little on his, and she first mouthed a silent word. And then:

"Din?"

Her voice was hoarse, choked and maybe the pain was just as real as it sounded because her hand left his to go to her throat, which she massaged with a wince. He only gave her a slow nod.

Around them, the crowd had scattered, way less entertained by their reunion than by the spectacle of the brawl. Elara wasn’t making another sound, her breath short and her brows furrowed, and Din reached for her cheek to wipe a rolling tear with his thumb. She closed her eyes and other tears followed, but she enjoyed his touch, even gloved. He felt her shake in his palm and, moved himself, he lowered his hand with a look at the street around them, back to an apparently normal activity. He swallowed hard and finally managed to say:

"What happened with those men?"

She sniffled her tears and wiped her cheeks with the back of her sleeves, letting out a brief, sarcastic laugh.

"Oh that! Well, um, they tried to con me… to keep it simple. T'wasn't a first we had trouble with them but, uh, I figured it was time to put a stop to it."

Saying that, she turned her head to the arched storefront where an alien Din didn't know the species of was standing, calm, holding a jacket that looked way too big for him in his arms.

"I tried to keep things civil but… they didn't like it."

She winced a smile that only stressed out the sadness in her eyes.

"You're still a merchant," Din noticed, more to avoid leaving a blank in the conversation than out of real surprise. "What are you selling now?"

She shrugged and Din noticed another painful wince which wrinkled her nose for a tick; he had no doubt she had to be sore after such a brawl.

"Well, I sell what's selling… These days, it's scraps and junk. Tomorrow, who knows?"

Din didn’t find anything to answer, torn between everything he would have wanted to say, and a heavy feeling of guilt. It was her who eventually broke the silence that threatened to settle with a sigh.

"Y'know what? I need to drink something right now."

Elara smiled again.

"We have a very nice cantina. Want to join me?"

Din only approved with a nod again. And she affectionately squeezed his thumb in her hand before turning to the alien Din understood to be her co-worker.

"You're gonna be good without me for a bit ?"

He nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, go," he fended her off, handing her the jacket she recovered. "Take a break."

"I sure need one!" she laughed.

The alien returned in the shop and, putting her jacket back on, Elara gestured Din to follow with a tilt of her head.

"Come," she invited him. "I’m gonna show you around."

And Din followed her. He was on his way to the cantina anyway.

The cantina wasn’t too far after the shop where Elara worked with Chell, her associate. The place was also pretty similar to Nevarro’s, excepted for its larger entrance at the crossing of two streets and left open on a small square, and for its ambiance; a bit of music was coming out of it and the boisterous laughter of a group of patrons at the central counter greeted them.

They drew curious glances as they entered and some welcomed Elara who waved back to them, before she led Din to take place far from the musician’s stage and the bar, in the only free booth after a long high window opened on the street. There, they’d be able to speak without being too disturbed and, most importantly, he could let the child get out of his bag.

Elara settled on the booth seat that had its back turned to the door, and let Din settle in front of her with the door in sight. He wasn’t sure she’d done it on purpose, but he felt grateful. He put the satchel on the seat and settled on its edge so that he wouldn’t have to take his jetpack off.

"So, you changed your armor?" she noted to start the conversation.

"The one you knew needed to be reforged after…"

He trailed off; he didn’t want to especially talk about all that.

"After a commission."

She cracked a simple, honest smile.

"I liked the red one but… this one’s great too."

And a silence settled between them, despite the laughter of the patrons and another musical piece. A single question haunted Din, a single question he didn’t dare to really ask and yet, that he ached to ask. He watched Elara, gesturing to someone, probably calling the barkeep’s attention, smiling again then, she turned back to him, hands joined in front of her on the table. Then, Din finally found his courage:

"Have you… sworn the Creed?"

He didn’t really know what answer to expect but the loving look in her eyes stirred the emotion that this little walk up to the cantina hadn’t snuffed away.

"No, Din," she answered softly, almost tender. "I just learned how to fight like one of you."

"But, you hated violence," he interjected. "Why did you?!"

This time, she looked embarrassed and looked down to her hands before facing him again. Her eyes found his through his visor. That didn’t surprise him, though; he was the one who had taught her where to look to keep holding his gaze after he had sworn the Creed himself, after his trials.

"A lot of things changed after you left."

In his turn, he looked down, glancing nervously to the bag that was wriggling.

"I still don’t like it," she then explained, her tone lighter. "But it's a valuable skill out there. I'm sure you noticed."

He nodded, approving vaguely.

"You should be more careful with your stance when you strike," he told her, concerned. "A chance these two saw nothing of the opportunities you left open. You fight like you're still wearing training gear…"

He didn't expect her to chuckle, amused.

"Fifteen odd years and countless parsecs of galaxy, and the first thing that comes to your mind when we meet again… is to blast my fighting style?!"

Din winced, sorry. He only wanted to incite her to be careful, but he realized how patronizing he had to have sounded just now. And yet, she smiled to him again.

"That's how I learned," she continued, playful, with a shrug. "But I'm sure Crahl would be very interested in what you have to say about his teachings!"

This revelation confused Din, even though it made perfect sense; he had recognised her moves out there, and who else, back on Varthen-4 could have taught her how to fight other than their instructor, the one who was teaching to all the foundlings of the stronghold?

"Also, I've never found myself in a situation where I had to fight people more able than those two, today. And I crossed path with quite a few specimen of bastards in my time out there, believe me!"

Din didn’t doubt it for a second. He could tell her stories too… And maybe he would. For now, he preferred to ask, careful:

"Why did you leave? It… was your home."

Her smile vanished and Din hated himself for it.

"No," she let out in a creaking sigh, reclining against the backrest. "It wasn't anything anymore…"

Those words were painful to hear, he felt pain for her, but he understood. In the bag, the child was protesting against the flap he didn’t manage to push away, and Din helped him with it before taking him on his lap. In front of them, Elara’s eyes widened and her smile came back to light up her face; she leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table to greet him, excited:

"Hello, little one!"

As an answer, the child let out a long, happy coo and his long ears straightened up a bit as he watched her, curious. She extended a finger, as if to invite him to shake hands with her and the child gripped it with a high-pitched quaver. Then, she looked up to Din.

"What could you possibly be doing with a child in a bag?!"

She was laughing but kept her voice low.

"He is… my current mission," he said — the simpler, the better.

The child freed her finger and Elara brought her hands back in front of her on the table.

"Your mission?"

But she didn’t ask much more of it.

"I saw one like him once, but never a young!"

"You did?" he echoed, interested.

"Yeah, I'm a space merchant, Din. I see a lot of different people everywhere."

"Where, and when?!"

And she seemed taken aback by his sudden pressing questions.

"Well, um…" she stammered. "It was only one, and quite some time ago, back when I was flying with the first crew I joined up."

She winced.

"Sorry…"

He shook his head slowly and was about to reassure her when the barmaid showed up at their table.

"So, what can I get ya, today ?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. "Oh, new faces ! Kind of…"

She had a tensed smile.

"Anyway, what will it be?"

Din picked the few coins he still had in his pocket and looked at them in the palm of his hand, spreading them there with a move of his thumb.

"What can I get to eat with this?"

The barmaid shot a single glance at them.

"Well…"

She had another tensed smile.

"Maybe some leftovers or… gravy?"

Din had a slow sigh that his vocoder picked up, and he was about to pay for anything she could bring when Elara chimed in:

"Can I get two groundapple juices and a tip-yip bowl?"

"Roasted, as usual?" the barmaid replied with a more earnest smile.

"Of course!"

Elara gave her a few coins pulled from one of her jacket’s pocket.

"Comin' right up!" the barmaid then claimed before walking away.

"Thank you," Din said to her, humble.

He had understood the bowl wouldn’t be for her. She waved the subject with a casual flick of her hand, then asked:

"What brought you here, in Barjuun anyway?"

"My ship needs repairs and… I'm also looking for a job."

"D'you plan on staying long?" she asked, hopeful.

He was pained to disappoint her.

"No, it's just a refuelling stop. I have to take the kid back to his kind…"

At these words, Elara’s attention went back to the child to whom she smiled. He squawked a happy sound, apparently very interested by the musicians.

"How did you wind up with a mission like this?"

Din gritted his teeth.

"It's a long story."

"I'd like to hear it, though."

And Din would have wanted to say it, to tell her all of that story like they were telling almost absolutely everything to one another when they were children. But it was a complicated one to put into words. Especially after so much time apart. And she didn’t insist.

"Do you know if I can find some work here, or nearby?"

She gave it a thoughtful minute of reflexion.

"Mmh, no. Not at the cantina anyway. I worked here for some time and I never heard about something… that could fit your skills. Maybe the town hall?"

He nodded in silence.

"I can also ask around, if it can help you," she added, reclining again against the backrest of the booth seat with a painful wince. "What is it you're looking for, piloting jobs… or something else?"

Din wasn’t hiding the fact that he was a bounty hunter, that he was selling his skills at the execution of a second hand justice in the Outer Rim, but that was just not what he was upon leaving his original covert. He could tell she got it. She was just being polite about it.

"I’ll ask around," she finally said, faced with his silence. "I'm not so sure you'd make fracs'n'blacks, but there must be someone you could help for a few good creds around here. That, I'm sure."

She smiled wide, and Din felt himself smile too, shyly. On the stage, the musicians were taking a break.

Some time later, their order had been brought by the barmaid, and all of the child’s attention had then been focused on the bowl of steaming meat and vegetables while Din had asked Elara to tell him about what had brought her here.

She had taken a long sip of her glass of green fruit juice in which floated a whole bunch of shaved ice before telling him a little — too little — about her training with Crahl, then this first crew she had joined up with, and with which she had only stayed for a year. Then, she had remained very vague about her time as a courier for a moisture farms' supplier to go on a tangent about her love for speederbikes instead. A few years later, she had joined another crew but had only stayed for a few months. According to her, the captain was a good man but the climate on board was rotten…

"After that, I spent some time on Goshir, and then, back on a ship with a Corellian crew. This one was very nice, though. Didn't stay as long as I would've liked, and I'm here since."

It was the short version, obviously. But he didn’t say anything of it, accepting what she was giving him, without comments.

"And what about you?" she then asked him, after a sip from her glass she was making last. "What did you do in all that time?"

"I’ve been… around."

Nothing really fascinating in being a bounty hunter. Not before the bounty on the child, at least. The latter was watching one of the cooked vegetables in his hand before handing it to Elara.

"Thank you, you’re too kind," she said, taking what he was giving her.

She tore a bit of the vegetable with her fingers to eat it.

"Who's signet is this?" she then asked, before peeling another bit of green. "Did you join a clan or… are you still with the Mandalorians you left with?"

As fair as the question was, it still made him uneasy. He focused for a second on the child who was sipping loudly his own glass of groundapple juice in which the ice had melted while he was busy eating all the meat in his bowl.

"No. I… I lost my first covert."

And right now, he didn’t feel like admitting he had lost their trace after leaving for too long when he joined Ran’s gang on a shadow station, deep into an even shadier corner of the Outer Rim.

"And my last one had to relocate," he summed up. "I'm alone, now… It's just the kid and me."

"So, it’s your signet?" she grasped, impressed.

Din wasn’t entirely sure Elara knew how one could earn a signet, but he still kept the details to himself. No need to tell her now that he almost died in that fight. The child was putting his empty glass down with a happy gurgle, and Elara swallowed what remained of the vegetable she was holding in her fingers, which she then wiped in the napkin that had been brought with the plate.

"Yes, it is," he confirmed.

"But what is it? I don't know that beast…"

"A mudhorn. They live on very wild planets, in caves…"

"And you just killed it?" she asked, a clear certainty in her tone.

"Yes."

That was summing things up pretty well. And yet, he wanted to tell her all about how he didn't die that day. Something, in his very core, buried deep, was taking her presence like an invitation to speak, to confide in her… But that wouldn’t be safe for the child and him, or even for her, and he didn’t have the time either. That thought made his heart sink. Even more so when he pushed himself to say:

"I’m… gonna have to go to the town hall."

And check on the progress of his ship’s repairs, but Din didn’t say any of it; he didn’t want to burden her either. Elara nodded, her smile gone, and Din put the child on the table while he got up from the seat. She was smiling again when she looked up to the child, in front of her.

"Did you fill your boots, little one?"

"Doo."

She chuckled and stroked the tip of an ear as Din was putting the open satchel on the table. The child blinked his big eyes to him and tilted his head, as if to express his incomprehension.

"Come on, kid. We have to go."

His ears twitched a bit but after a glance at the musicians at the back of the cantina, he started to walk to the bag.

"Maybe it's not that fun to travel in a bag," Elara observed, playful. "Especially with a full belly!"

Din cracked a smile.

"I'll be careful."

"I'm sure you will," she told him tenderly.

Mute, throat tight, he lowered the flap of the bag once the child settled. He would have to find something to say now, he would have to find the strength to say goodbye to her, to say those words he had never said to anyone, and even less so to those that mattered to him… He only strapped the satchel on his shoulder, as if to give himself one second more. Elara put a light hand on his, holding his fingers shyly.

"Come back to the shop before you go," she invited him, her voice shaken by a bottled emotion. "Don't leave without saying goodbye this time… Please?"

She winced a smile but he could read the sorrow in her eyes. He didn’t want to make her sad. She squeezed his fingers a bit harder in hers, like a silent request and Din squeezed them back. He felt a bit calmer now that she had made the first step. And speaking, answering, felt easier.

"I will."

She lowered her head to hide her emotion, her relief, and she was still smiling when she looked up at him. So, she freed him with a nod, her lips pursed.

"See you later, then…"

Din acknowledged and, tearing himself painfully from the ground, he left the cantina, without daring to look back. He would keep his word, and would come to tell her goodbye this time, he'd make that effort for her! And yet, he had the feeling that he was leaving her behind, once again.

Din’s visit at the town hall turned out to be disappointing; the Guild didn’t operate from Barjuun anymore since a few years back. And if that could be seen as some good news for the demographics of a city or a planet, today, it wasn’t really helping Din’s finances.

So, he had returned to the city’s entrance where he had waited for a landspeeder for a good ten minutes. During that time, he had considered to use his jetpack but the prospect of drawing more unwanted attention and making the child sick in flight had put some patience back into him. He didn’t lack any usually. Today, things simply got overwhelming. Really overwhelming…

Din had been grateful to the driver of that landspeeder for being a bit less chatty than the previous one; he needed to hear himself think for a little while. Stumbling upon his childhood friend at a random pit stop wasn’t part of his flight plan. Honestly, he had always thought she was still on Varthen-4, maybe had started a family of her own, bought herself a ship and resumed the trade runs. Maybe she had even continued to help the covert, like her parents before her.

Din clenched his jaw, and fists; deep inside, he knew he had always been lying to himself. He knew her better than that! He could figure now that she had left just like him, that she had given up her place to others once she had been taught everything she needed like it was the custom in a covert and that, maybe because all the Mandalorians there had shown her that example, because he, of all people, had shown her the example in leaving the way he did…

A coo from the child caught his attention back to him ; he had pulled his head out and, his little fingers tightened on his fist heavy on the bag, he was leaning his face to the wind, eyes squinted and his long ears flapping, as the landspeeder carried them away. Din let out a slow sigh and a bit of peace came back to his thoughts. He didn’t want to do the same mistakes again this time.

He’d give Elara the means to send him holos on his ship if she wanted to, from time to time. And maybe he’d come back to see her here, once he would have finally found those Jedi, and that the child would be safe with them. Truth be told, Din would love that.

Back to the spaceport and the bay 26, the Crest had apparently been repaired but was still connected to its pump by a thick, black hose, its port and aft ramps lowered. But the mechanic was nowhere to be seen. So Din came closer to the cabin’s window; through the filth and the scratches, he could make out someone bent over some sort of desk covered with mechanical mess, head in arms, short lekkus hanging on each shoulder.

"Hey!" he called.

No reaction. So, he hit with the flat of his hand against the glass — BLAM. Behind the window, the Twi’lek jumped, half awake.

"Wha-what?!"

He shot a glance through the glass, readjusting on his forehead what was circling his head.

"Uuugh… M'comin'."

He got down from his seat and came out of the cabin, straightening his overalls. It was in fact a rather young girl who faced him, yawning.

"Sorry," she told him. "Started my shift early today…"

She stretched her shoulders backwards, fists on her lower back, asking:

"My uncle isn't here. What can I do for you?"

"Where is he?"

"Lunch break."

Din sighed.

"Is my ship ready?"

She shot a glance at the Crest and had an uncomfortable wince and frown.

"Tell you what," she said. "I'm gonna go fetch him."

Din only acknowledged, helmet tilted and slightly miffed, even if she couldn’t see any of it. The girl waved a hand, index up and one or two silent syllables on her lips before scuttering away. And he didn't have to wait for too long; the girl came back with the mechanic ahead of her, a sandwich in hand.

"Then, when it starts to blink red, it means you unplug the thing, fast! Or else, you're gonna have another kind of failure on your hands, and believe me, you ain't gonna like this one… Ah, Mando!"

"Is my ship ready?"

"Yeah, yeah," the mechanic retorted with a flick of his free hand. "She's all good now. But, eeerr, there's a teeny tiny thing…"

Teeth gritted, Din waited to hear about this new setback. The mechanic was already busying himself by the port ramp, searching through one of the open crates with one hand.

"I was working on the hull and, I took five to check on the landing gear too… I mean, I always do. I pride myself in my work, you see!"

Din knew that, he had already told him, earlier this morning. The mechanic grumbled something before holding the sandwich with his teeth, and plunging both hands in a toolbox. And he continued to speak. Or at least, it sounded like he did, every word muffled by the sandwich.

"Ww-ight?"

He turned to face them and took a generous bite in his sandwich before handing the rest of it to his niece. Din and the girl exchanged a glance; she looked confused, if not embarrassed, as she took it off his hands.

"I said," he went on, his mouth full. "You know your main port got a bent beam and strut, right?"

As Din didn’t answer, he turned back to his rummaging in the crates.

"And, eerr, may I advise you to get your dampers replaced? I can do it, for a little more creds…"

To that, Din didn’t answer either. And suddenly, the mechanic let out a triumphant ah. He spun around, making a blinking item jump in the palm of his hand.

"So, I was checking your main gear and I found something, eeerr, interesting?"

He threw him the thing that Din caught with one hand — a thing that kinda looked like a tracking fob.

"T'was sticked into the coat of your door…"

Saying this, he slapped the open door of the port landing gear.

"It was shiny and glowy, it caught my eye while I was checking her foot," he explained, recovering his sandwich from his niece’s hands. "But it had no business doin' no shining or glowing there…"

Ashen, Din couldn’t have said it better himself, indeed. In the palm of his hand, the thing was blinking with a slow, orange round light. It was a long-range tracker, the military type. And according to him, this was here because of Gideon’s remnant’s spies… Din had a now better understanding of how those TIE fighters had managed to figure out which of the ships to follow out of their formation over Nevarro. He clenched his fist on it, as if to muffle its signal, and the reddish glow kept shining defiantly between his fingers.

"Methinks one of your bounty hunter friends ain't playing fair, and wants to best you on some prize, yeah?"

Din looked up to him and the proud smile of the mechanic quivered faced with his visor. He cleared his throat. But Din’s thought were way beyond the idea of making him feel uneasy; he had to leave now, he couldn’t even go back to say goodbye to Elara like he had promised, and this realization made him feel heavy where he stood, his breath short.

BRAANG! BRAANG! BRAANG!

The alarm in the hangar’s cabin made him jump, hand to his blaster. The girl rushed to shut it down.

"So, what you're gonna do?" the mechanic asked.

"Unlock my ship," Din commanded, in a hurry. "I have to leave, now!"

"So, no fixin' the dampers, then?"

Now, Din had an itch on his trigger finger, and this time, he made a step forward, threatening.

"Ok, ok," the mechanic raised his hand and sandwich, placatingly. "I'm setting her free, no need to get testy…"

And he put what remained of his sandwich down on the toolbox to start picking up the thick, black hose and disconnect it from the Crest when the girl came back, panting and stammering.

"Do… do we still have vacancies f-for small crafts?"

"C'mon, Nirhee! Look on the kriffin' grid! What d'you think terminals are made for, eh?!"

"Yes, but… The tower said they are—"

"They?!" the mechanic echoed, dropping the hose without detaching it, and to face her. "What kind of ships are they?!"

Din was starting to lose patience. He had to leave before the warship tracked him down through hyperspace! The girl shot a worried glance to Din, frightened even.

"That's the thing, the tower said they were Imperial fighters…"

Their bewildered, definitely scared eyes turned to him. Din’s blood froze in his veins and his fist clenched on the tracker. Too late…

He was about to throw the tracker to the ground, to crush it under his heel when two TIEs flew over this part of the spaceport — a recon flight, like Cara had said. They had to be looking for the origin of the signal, looking for the Crest, looking for him.

But if he destroyed that tracker now, it wouldn’t change anything to his last recorded location. And a warship could perfectly block all entrance and exit from the spaceport as long as the troops it contained wouldn’t be done turning over every stone of the city and the whole planet. Even if he had managed to get away in the meantime…

Din didn’t have a choice, yet again. He had brought this threat on Zar-Oda, he had to deter them from the planet, to fight them and then run away… But he was on his own this time, alone against an uncertain number of fighters. And he had no doubt that, after the defeat that had been inflicted to them above Nevarro, he’d have to expect a much heavier squadron.

In the satchel, the child wiggled a little, letting out a slow whine under the flap. Din couldn’t do this with the child on board either… He felt his heart sink to think about Elara, at the idea of getting her involved in this, of entrusting her with the child…

Also, if he couldn’t manage to beat them on his own, maybe they would at least believe that the child had been killed alongside him… But he knew for certain that Gideon wanted the child alive. And maybe he wanted him alive too, now. So, with a little luck, this point might give Din a tactical advantage, as he would shoot to kill.

His decision was made, he had to be quick. He threw the tracker back to the mechanic who barely caught it, juggling clumsily with it so as not to let it fall like it had been a thermal detonator. In some way, it was one for Din.

"Put that on my seat, I'm gonna take care of it."

He would need it to lure the TIEs after him.

"Are those Imps here 'cause of ya?!"

Din left his question unanswered.

"Have my ship ready for when I come back! I won't be long so, work fast!"

"Eeerr, ok?"

No time to wait for a landspeeder; Din would go airborne.

"Sorry, kid," he told him, holding the bag and the child inside it firmly, pressed against his chestplate. "This flight won't be a smooth one…"

With a tap on his vambrace, he activated his jetpack. His HUD changed and, he jumped into flight under the shouts of surprise of the mechanic and the girl.

Their landing in the street, right by the arched storefront of Elara’s shop, had been as noticed and cause for surprise as their takeoff. But Din ignored them to stride in the shop. Inside, in the large, very cluttered room, there were no customers, and Elara was busy sorting a pile of scraps in a lev-loader — she straightened up when he entered, lifting her goggles up on her cap, a smile on her face.

"Back so soon!"

Her smile wavered.

"Wait, you're leaving already!?"

"Not exactly," Din replied, on a hurried tone. "Can you take care of him?"

He handed her the satchel where the child looked all cowering after this brutal flight. A brief moment of silent surprise and she uttered:

"Yes, of course!"

He put the satchel and the child in her extended arms.

"Din, what's going on?" she asked, as serious as she was nervous.

"I don't have time to explain, I'm sorry," he quickly said — and yet, he owed her at least a few, essential explanations. "I need you to keep him safe."

She nodded with a frown, heedful.

"Should anything happen to me—"

"Din!"

"Please, Ela."

She stiffened and pursed her lips. But he continued:

"Hopefully, it won't come to that, but if I don't come back, take him there…"

Upon those words, he searched in one of the pockets of his utility belt to pick Karga’s datastick out of it.

"Once you're on this planet, search for a Jedi."

"A what?"

"And give them the child…"

Despite the shock and her obvious worry, she took the datastick he was handing her. Din felt heavy under the weight of his guilt, and his gratitude's also.

"If you find no Jedi there, seek other Mandalorians… He's a foundling."

Those words made her raise her eyebrows in surprise.

"By Creed, they will help you."

He didn’t have time to give her the coordinates of his armorer's new covert. He would have to make it so that he wouldn’t need all those precautions.

"I'm sorry to ask this of you, I—"

"Din, I know," she cut him off, still dead serious. "This is the way."

Now, it was his turn to be surprised.

"Whatever it is you have to do, go! He's safe here."

Din touched her arm, to express his gratitude more than with the simple words he said along with it:

"Thank you."

Without waiting any longer, he turned back to leave the shop, and take off again, to fly back to the spaceport.

Upon his return to the hangar, the Crest was ready to go, has he had requested. And after asking for his spot to be kept available, Din took off. He knew for certain he’d need a few more repairs at the end of this little diversion attempt.

No craft had flown over the spaceport again, not chased after him while in the atmosphere. The tracker was blinking silently on the dashboard, and Din left the sky of Zar-Oda. There, he went on a wide spin above the planet to detect the presence of other crafts… But there was none. No TIE fighters, no warships.

"C'mon, where are you?!"

Had he only been trying to flee, the situation would have been ideal; he would only have had to push the reactors to gain a little advance on his pursuers out of the gravity well of the planet and its celestial bodies, and hope to jump in hyperspace while dodging as much damage as he could. But then, still no trace of his pursuers, neither on his scanners, nor in space in front of him. Maybe they were still in the planet’s atmosphere.

So, Din would play the escape game all the way through; he pushed the reactors’ powers and followed the planet’s curve to launch himself towards the dark void of space. The scanner picked up the approach of a craft, somewhere in front of him — a single craft.

The TIE fighter looked like tearing itself from the shadow of Zar-Oda’s closest moon, spinning on itself, like after a sharp turn. Din didn’t alter his own course. On one of his screens, he managed to stabilize his aim enough to try and hit, so he took the shot, engaging combat. He doubted there was only a single fighter up here; the two others had to be somewhere else, covering a larger area of space.

Din didn’t give much more thought to it, he had the TIE perfectly aligned in his sights. He let it get a little closer to have it in his effective combat range. And he was about to shoot when his target tumbled on its port panel in a quick roll. Green canon bolts shot through space until scratching his starboard wing and Din maneuvered in the nick of time to avoid them; on his screen, the scanner revealed the presence of two other TIEs.

With a push of the throttle, he increased his speed to dodge their backstab now that he had their location. Plunging in a spiral, he’d be harder to aim at, even if it wasn’t to shoot him down. But contrary to the Crest, the TIEs were agile crafts, build for this kind of maneuvers, and so were their pilots. The two wingmen followed him and then, split up to flank him, too close for comfort. And Din was sure that the third — and undoubtedly others — were about to show up to wrangle him exactly where they wanted him to be.

This thought barely formed that the lead man reappeared in front of him, far enough to be not much more than a black and gray shape, but still clear enough for Din to know that he would soon be in their range. With a sharp tilt of his controls, he pulled the power, his ship groaned and vibrated at the deployment of the reversal system, decelerating to the point of almost stopping to let the two pesky wingmen overtake him. And then, Din restarted the reactors in a beat and at full power, correcting his course. The Crest’s reactors raged in a dazzling yellow light but Din didn't reduce the speed. He knew his ship very well, he knew what he could do with it, and what he couldn't.

The three crafts were now in front of him and he shot without aiming, scratching and hitting at random, and the canons of the TIE coming in front of him replied in a continuous burst which banged on his hull in green flashes and shrill alerts from his console about his deflector shield’s status. Still not reducing speed, Din tried to lock his aim on this craft facing him but its two allies had reversed to come to its help.

Overwhelmed and scratched by multiple shots, Din was forced to pull back; rolling on his side, he rushed under the TIEs’ bellies, straightened up immediately and shot up, catching the tracker as it slid from the console to clutch it in his fist, as if to crush it. The TIEs were following him in disorganized flight and, slowly dropping the reactor’s power, Din made the Crest roll on its back until he could face them again. Then, he let himself drift slowly.

Through the cockpit’s viewport, he could see the three crafts rushing towards him. Din prepared his own attack, flicking switches on his dashboard to redistribute power to his stabilizers and pressing the buttons to speed up his cannons' charge.

"C'mon…" he breathed, and his own vocoded voice sounded to him like a scream in the cockpit’s silence.

At this very moment, heart pounding hard and highly focused, he missed the precious help of Cara, Rush, Indar and Ud-Rakru… The TIEs shot a simple burst, without really aiming. Even if they weren’t at the ideal range and angle for an efficient shot yet, this small, simple detail implicitly confirmed to Din that the pilots had the order to cut his wings, not to shoot him down… and that they indeed thought the child was on board.

Ready, Din waited a bit longer and, under another crossfire, he reignited the engines and the Crest dived on his command between the three fighters. In a snapping bang and a spray of metal shards, his starboard reactor scratched one of the panels, nearly clipping it, and the shots of one of the fighters hit another — BOOM!

Had he not been so tensed and focused, Din would have laughed. But now, the situation wasn’t really one to laugh about, and that even less so when the two other engaged him, almost at point blank. From this distance, there was no way they’d miss. Din increased his speed under the wild bips of his console and dived just on time to make it so that the shots only scraped on the whole upper surface of the hull. This time, he was fleeing for real…

But the TIEs stopped shooting, sharply spinning around and dropping the fight. Din was recognizing a retreat maneuver when he was seeing one… But his more pressing question was why?! Something was up…

And Din’s first thought was that they were heading back to the warship, or that it was getting closer to the planet. But his screens weren’t picking anything anymore, not even the runaway fighters. He hesitated to destroy the tracker, still in his clenched fist. But he would need it to get this warship off his back, and Zar-Oda’s.

Tensed and worried, Din altered his course; he would do a quick check of the planet's surroundings, just to be sure, and recover the child — they had to get away from here as fast as possible.

Since Din had given her the little one almost an hour ago, Elara couldn’t have done much of all the workload that was waiting for her since the morning. Chell had gone to visit his clients and make some deliveries when she returned from the cantina, leaving her the counter, and she had got the entire shop for herself to take care of the child. His big eyes wide open in a sad expression, his ears low and the strong clutch of his small fingers around her index, he looked much more fearful than during her first impression in the cantina.

She had gotten him out of his bag to let him waddle a little on the counter before taking him in her arms with the arrival of the afternoon’s first clients. There, he had calmed down a bit, paying attention to all the noisy or talkative fuss of the shop going on around him.

Then, once they were alone again, Elara had kept talking to him; she had made him visit the place, had told him about her room above the shop, and they had even shared some salty treats from Chell’s personal reserve. He wouldn’t notice, anyway.

Other clients had come — a father and his two children — and Elara had left the child sitting on the counter while she helped the father and his daughter to find in the lev-loader the spare parts they needed to fix their droid. The little boy, however, had come to the counter and had babbled with the child who Elara had heard giggle on a high-pitched tone.

Once they were gone, she had focused back on him; sitting on the counter, he was playing with something in his hands, a necklace. And she had recognized its pendant with emotion. She had stroked the mythosaur skull with her thumb, smiling and heart heavy; she had seen this little piece of beskar around Din’s neck all their childhood. Or rather, until he had donned his full armor, anyway.

"D'you know the story of the mythosaurs?" she had asked him, as if he could answer. "Din told me that story himself when we were very little."

And for a reason she didn’t know, her words had made him titter. Maybe he was old enough to understand, after all. She didn’t know his species, she couldn’t really have said…

In any case, all these attentions had seemed enough to help him relax and, rocked by her comings and goings in the main room of the shop, he had eventually fallen asleep. And then, Elara could have done the same! There hadn’t been much clients for a good half hour and she could feel all the pains of this morning’s scrape here and there in her tensed body. She hadn’t planned to fight today, and it had been a while since the last time she had taken the time to prepare her muscles and keep them sharp through the regular warm ups of her training. A huge mistake, she was realising it now…

That being said there were so many other things she hadn’t planned. Like reuniting with her childhood friend, her best friend, for example, and that he would leave her his foundling to protect in a matter of hours. What were the odds?! If someone had bet with her that she'd see him again one day, she would clearly have lost that bet. This wasn't her kind of gambling anyway…

Sometime, in all these years, she had ended up believing him dead, and had added him to her daily grieving, remembering his name along those of her parents and her brother. In some ways, he had been part of her family… That was how she had always seen things, anyway. But now, he was here, alive… and with a foundling.

Elara yawned as she made her stool swivel in a complete circle, drawing from it a slow, creaking complaint under her weight and the child’s, much like the cry of a Glider. She fended off the tingling of sleep with a deep breath in and, in the crook of her left arm — the other shoulder was hurting her too much — the child let out a sleepy coo, one of his big ears flat under her throat, by her heart. Elara smiled, thinking back to little Jakem who had slept innumerable times the very same way. He had to be so big now…

Elara let her head drop, staring at the vault of the yellowed roughcast ceiling where a rusted lamp was projecting a few small patterns of light, like the stars of a holochart, through the holes in the metal. She frowned, thinking back to that datastick Din had given her, now stashed in her jacket's inner pocket.

What planet was it? And what were those — what was it already — Jedi? And why would he want to leave them his foundling?

So many questions she'd rather ponder upon than to imagine what dangers he was facing right now. What dangers could have found him here, anyway? And worrying enough to make him consider he could not make it out on top of that. Zar-Oda was a rather peaceful planet, Barjuun a pleasant city, so what could there be to worry about? He had even said he only stopped here to get repairs on his ship. And those were as many questions she wanted to ask him, and she was definitely planning to.

But for now, she had to remain calm. And take care of this little one for him. This one was still sleeping peacefully. Elara counted the bright dots as she made the stool swivel again, making up constellations with them and giving them names…

"H’chu a', footoo!" a familiar voice exclaimed at the shop's front door.

She straightened up, holding her cap and her goggles on her head with her free hand to face M'sunke'bokt, the Nikto manager of the speedies repair shop down the street.

"'chuta", she greeted him in return, her voice low.

And she hoped that he would take the hint as not to speak too loud.

"You know what?!" he asked, still with the same booming voice — and still in Huttese.

Evidently, Bokt didn’t seem about to keep it down. Hopefully, once asleep, the little one looked like he could nap through everything and anything. And Bokt exclaimed again:

"Imps are in town!"

"Imps?" Elara echoed, squinting.

Bokt looked even more yellow between the shop's walls.

"Yeah! And they are looking around for a Mando!"

Elara took a sharp breath. Oh, so that was the danger, then… But, the Empire was gone!? Or so they said.

"You know, like that one who saved you this morning."

Grumpy but also very worried, she retorted:

"Nobody saved me, Bokt. But… d'you know why?"

Raising his large clawed hands in a sign of ignorance, he continued, lowering his voice for the first time:

"Don't know, don't care. But, you wouldn't happen to know where that one is now by any chance? 'cause if there's a reward for the capture, well I'm interested. Imperial money is still good money!"

And on that, he let out a brief burst of laugher, sounding like a threatening growl, uncovering his pointy teeth. Elara kept her own gritted, her breath short. In her arms, the little one woke up with a start and a slow, anxious whine. She smiled to him and rocked him a little, stroking one of his hands, extended to her face, and then looked back at Bokt’s small, black eyes again.

"Was there anything you needed or did you just come here to chew the fat?"

He laughed again.

"No, I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about the Mando."

"I don't," she replied, in a clipped tone. "But it was nice to gossip anyway. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to take care of the kid."

She was feeling the emergency now, and hoped only for Bokt to leave. He let out a long growl when his small eyes landed on the child.

"Had no idea you'd laid an egg," he jeered. "That's how you, humans, work, right?"

"Yeah," Elara retorted, faking indifference. "You got it all right, laser brain."

He growled a new laugh and waved his big clawed hand as goodbye before heading to the exit.

"Gonna go ask around if you don't mind!"

"Yeah, yeah, sure," she replied in Basic. "E chu ta…"

As soon as he had walked out the shop by the wide open doors, Elara cast a sweeping look around her, in a hurry, keeping on stroking the child’s hand and feeling the weight of his big, worried gaze on her. She had to find a place to hide him; if one way or another, those Imps knew for the foundling with him, she couldn’t wave this proof of his whereabouts under their noses!

But there weren’t many safe spots she could hide him in and still being able to keep an eye on, in which he wouldn't risk hurting himself. None other than the metal lockers on the wall next to the counter, where they were keeping all the valuables of the shop. Or the personal ones.

Elara went back to the counter where she put the child down, muttering a few reassuring words to him. His ears low and his little face wrinkled in a frown made her sure that he was also hearing the shaking of her worries in her voice. She opened the satchel and he let out a quick, plaintive squeak.

"You're gonna need to stay hidden until Din comes back," she told him, in a tight voice. "And takes you both far away from here…"

The child complied and clumsily stepped back in the satchel by himself. Once settled, Elara put the bag in her own locker, which she opened by quickly typing the code on the numpad.

"It's really important that you stay quiet for a lil' bit, ok?" she told him, her voice soft and stroking the tip of one of his ears. "It's… it's like a game."

A very sick game, according to her, but a game anyway. There was no doubt the child was sharing her opinion since he protested with a long grumpy aaaah, a hand extended to her. She held his hand and stroke it with her thumb.

"I know it's scary," she replied tenderly. "But I'll be just there, by the counter."

And she moved aside from the door to show it to him, a good couple meters by.

"We just have to hang on tight for Din to come back for you…"

Because if those Imps were looking for a Mando, there was no chance that the gossips about this morning’s little show in front of this very shop wouldn’t make their way to them… And then, Elara felt bitter and on the verge of tears to be so eager to see him leave, just so that they’d be out of danger, far from here…

And as though he was suddenly sensitive to her emotion, the child clenched his fingers on hers, letting out a soft sound. She smiled to him, reassuring, and he released her, head low, sitting in the bottom of the satchel flattened around him.

"Hey, tell you what…"

She tapped on the edge of the locker's case before dashing towards the messy shelves from which she pulled a metal box; seeing it, the child let out a happy cry, his eyes wide open. As she had expected, he recognized that box, the one containing Chell’s salty treats!

Elara picked a handful from it which she put with him at the bottom of the bag. The hungry squawking of the child suddenly sounded happier and she felt better for it. He was already swallowing one as Elara took her cap off, the goggles around it, to put it on his head, like an additional hiding spot to the flap and the rest of the bag which she pulled up a bit around him.

"It's gonna be okay, don't worry…"

But, his little mouth full of treats, the child didn’t seem worried anymore. So, Elara pushed the door, enough for the edge to grip with the frame of the locker without really closing, or locking; in case of emergency, it would make their flight easier. She shot a last glance at him through the two horizontal slits cut in the door. But since he looked comfortable, Elara took a slow breath, calmed.

Gathering her mind and all her composure despite the violent beating of her heart, she walked back to the counter, without sitting on the stool; she needed to feel upright on her legs, in touch with the ground, able to react in a split second.

If you feel threatened, always be ready — to fight, or to prove yourself wrong, Crahl had taught her, from the other end of a training blade. And she had no intention to forget that, and especially not now. With a hand, she felt her sore shoulder, willing the pain away, and the other found the handle of an old KYD-21 blaster under the countertop. If the idea of using it on this morning’s bantha brains hadn’t even crossed her mind, now, the thought was overwhelming. And Elara would know how to use her blaster. Crahl had taught her that too.

It only took a tensed dozen minutes for three TIE fighters pilots to appear at the door. When Bokt had told her that Imps were in town, she had imagined it would be Stormtroopers in their white armors, the imperial grunts she had seen so many times making their lazy rounds in all the starports and the cities where she had stopped over with her different crews. But those vac-heads weren’t grunts. Not the same kind anyway…

Their thick black helmets with breathing tubes were sneering and shining with an almost aggressive glare, even between the walls of the shop. One of them stayed at the door with his back turned to the room, watching the street, blaster held clear, while the two others were walking towards the counter with purpose. The one on the right was holding a beeping device in their fist extended to her. Elara was hiding her fear behind a jaded look when she welcomed them, asking:

"What can I do for you, folks?"

"Where is the Mando?" the modulated voice of the pilot facing her asked, terse — he clenched his fingers a bit tighter on the grip of his blaster, as though eager to use it.

It didn’t take much efforts from Elara to look surprised.

"What? What Mando?!"

He turned towards the one holding this kind of detector in their hand; that same one strode towards Elara, almost completely walking around the counter. She wanted to keep them — politely — on the other side of it, to have the three of them in her field of view, and so that the pilot wouldn’t see the blaster within her reach under the counter but Elara’s focus made her more or less mute. Even more so when the device biped even faster once it got pointed towards her. And the lockers on her right. They had a tracker on the kid…

"Affirmative," the pilot with the detector commented, in a woman’s voice.

Then her colleague raised his blaster on Elara who refrained from stepping back.

"Hand over the asset."

"The-what?" Elara replied.

She hadn’t raised her hands and she knew that, soon, this stance would be suspicious, and that the pilot to her left would keep scanning the surroundings, up to the locker… She had to act fast. She took a slow breath and evaluated the threats all around; the pilot with the tracker was the closest to her but she didn’t have her weapon drawn and the one at the door didn’t seem to pay any attention to what was happening inside. Her priority would then be the one holding his blaster in front of her. 'Closer' does not always mean 'more dangerous', even more so when blasters are involved. Something else Crahl had taught her…

Her heart was thumping hard and she felt herself shudder from head to toe when she unclenched her jaw to answer with a vague sign of appeasement from her left hand:

"I-I don't know what you're talking about but… I've been given something this morning…"

The barrel of the blaster aimed at her lowered slightly, tipping off the slackening of her target — she had his attention.

"Maybe that's what you’re looking for?"

She pointed at the counter as if to ask permission to recover what she had been given from it, extending a careful hand. The pilot gestured her to proceed with a brief tilt of his blaster, and Elara closed her fist on the grip of her own. With a quick move, she pulled the weapon from under the counter.

PEW!

With a single blaster bolt at point blank, she pierced the helmet at her aim’s luck, somewhere around the faded paint of the imperial symbol. He fell heavily backwards without a cry, without a noise. Next to her, the pilot was already reacting despite an obvious moment of frozen shock and, dropping the tracker to the ground, she whipped her blaster out. Elara diverted her shot with a hit of her left arm in her weapon hand — PEW CLANG! The bolt hit a crate of scraps stored in the back of the shop.

The pilot at the door understood at that point that something was happening; spinning quickly, he aimed his blaster’s barrel at Elara who was struggling with the other — PEW!

Elara yanked her opponent in the line of fire. The vocoder let out a crackling yelp when the bolt sparkled as it hit somewhere on her body which stiffened and sagged in her arms. Elara tried a shot towards the pilot who dodged it easily, firing again at her when she found herself forced to let the pilot’s body collapse, weighting too much on her arms. Elara dropped behind the counter but regretted that choice right away; she had to hide elsewhere, lure that Imp as far as possible from the child. To spare him a stray bolt, if not to keep his position secret.

Firmly holding onto her blaster, she waited crouching there, watching the approaching long strides of the pilot thanks to his reflection on the glass of display cases, on the wall behind the counter. She couldn’t take the shot, her error ratio would be too high. And all she wanted was to drag him away from the locker, and the child, without risking a stray shot.

The tip of his boot had barely appeared at the end of the counter after he walked over the body of the pilot and Elara rushed on him, grasping him around the waist to tackle him to the ground. He groaned when the back of his helmet hit the floor in a hollow thud and his blaster jumped from his hands, sliding on the tiles until stopping under the lev-loader.

Immediately, Elara tried to get back up but the gloved grasp of the pilot brought her back to the floor with him. She aimed her weapon’s barrel at him and he released her to clasp both his hands on hers to pry it from her. She held on but with a punch, he managed to make her drop it. Elara swayed and slouched to the side, hearing the clattering of the blaster, somewhere on the shop’s floor.

She straightened up to rush towards the pilot’s blaster that she could see under the loader but with a kick in the stomach, he sent her back to the ground, knocking her breath out. Sight blurred and breath painful, she still got up, staggering, at the slow sound of something metallic being pulled from the lev-loader’s pile. He was holding a big scrap hammer, the kind with which Chell had taught her to fix bent and dented metal sheets.

All her body throbbing with pain and anger, Elara was ready to take him on with her bare hands. She’d recover that blaster from the ground, no matter where she had dropped her own, and would get rid of that vac-head; she’d know where to hide in Barjuun, or even on Zar-Oda. There were unsuspected places around here, ranging from the underground tunnel network and empty buildings to the caves on the beach… And she had no doubt about Din’s bounty hunter skills. He’d know how to track and find them wherever she’d chose to take the both of them.

The pilot attacked first, with a vague grumble that sounded like a curse. Elara parried with her two hands on his wrist, tried to make him lower his arms with a hit in his legs but he thrust his helmet at her. To hold him back, she released his wrist to slam her two hands on his threatening visor, and he made another swing of his hammer which she dodged, jumping backwards.

She rushed at him again, taking advantage of his momentum to attack him on the side, grabbing one of the helmet’s breathing tube but, with a hit of his elbow in her arm, he made her let go of it. She jumped backwards again and, eyeing a crate full of metallic parts, she pushed it with her foot in the pilot’s legs as he strode again towards her, hammer raised.

Elara mentally thanked Chell to always be so slow to sort his deliveries. Today, it had come in handy!

The pilot almost tumbled over but managed to keep his footing, which was just enough time for Elara to hurry to the lev-loader. She picked a short rebar, about her arm’s length; that wouldn’t stand much against a hammer, but all she needed was one well aimed strike. With an agile swing, she hit in the pilot’s shoulder pad, then his helmet. The hollow sound was shortly followed by a furious grunt as he staggered on his legs, holding the hammer with both hands.

Unsteadied and with his focus lost, Elara could rush. Ignoring her exhaustion, her pain, and fear, she slammed him with her whole bodyweight to knock him to the ground but he held on, catching her by the edge of her jacket, clutching the leather so tightly she couldn’t have weaselled out of it. He wound his arm up, hand holding the hammer and Elara threw her leg against him, hitting with her sole in the soft part of his armor, on the abdomen. Stepping back clumsily under the shock, the pilot threw the hammer at her; she only had the time to round her back to take the violence of the impact.

A searing pain shot from her ribs to her head, taking her breath away and making her shake on her legs. The rebar slid from her hands and, with hazy moves, her fingers shaking and palms sweaty, sight blurred by tears of pain, she pated around her left side. But the slightest move was for her like another hammer blow, and her knees gave way under her weight.

Her heels knocked against more crates and she fell with her back to the wall, in a high-pitched whine. When she reopened her eyes, she could only see the pilot walking towards her, triumphant. He let the hammer clatter to the ground with a modulated snicker. No matter the pain, she’d keep fighting.

"I'm gonna kill you slow," he threatened her, satisfied. "I want to see you die…"

She managed to push aside his hands when he tried to reach for her throat, gave a few weak kicks, chocking of what little air she could breathe in. She coughed… and he coughed too. He coughed again and, through the overwhelming pain radiating across her entire body and making stars shine before her eyes, Elara managed to make out the shape of the pilot bringing his two hands to his own throat.

With panicking moves, he unsealed his helmet which fell in his back, only held by the tubes connected to his chestplate. She read fear in his bulging eyes, anger and incomprehension. To be honest, Elara didn’t really understand either. The whole room was spinning and swaying in her mind ringing with pain, and even the pilot seemed to hover in front of her, his hands still at his throat. He gargled sounds and was shaking his legs in the air as if raised by the powerful hand of an invisible giant. And he watched her with horror and fury, as if she was responsible for it.

Movement by the locker caught what was left of her ability to focus, and she made out the child, standing under the goggles-adorned cap that made him look funny in the frame of the case whose door had been pushed open; his two small hands extended towards the pilot, he seemed to be in full effort.

Elara let out a whine, unsure as to what she was even trying to express. Maybe she was only imagining that, maybe it was how her mind was processing the sudden and overwhelming pain with which it was attacked…

In front of her, the pilot had stopped kicking, and one of his arms fell limp at his side, the fingers from his hand agitated with brief jerks. Deep in his focus, the child lowered his ears and the cap slid over his squinted eyes.

Right away, the pilot’s body collapsed, heavy to the ground. In his fall, he slammed against the edge of the lev-loader which pitched, shaking all its contents, a part of which tumbled and slid to the floor, and against the pilot’s body, now unmoving on the coarse tiles.

Elara took a slow, wheezing breath. In the locker, the child fumbled with the cap, raising it from his eyes; he blinked and so did Elara, pushing the pent-up tears of pain away.

"Doo…" she heard him whimper as he flopped down seated in the locker, looking stunned and the cap covering his eyes again.

Dazed and not really sure of what she had just witnessed, Elara tried to move, to go to him, but the overpowering pain which shot through her whole body nailed her down, breathless, blood thumping in her temples at the rhythm of the hard pulses of her heart and the device, on the ground.

No trace of a warship in the immediate vicinity of the planet. Din then had got back to the spaceport where he landed the Crest in the hangar which had been kept free for him. Up there, he had seen no entry or exit from the planet anyway. So he wouldn't lose any more time — he had to get the child back… and leave. Using his jetpack yet again from the hangar with the promise from Nirhee that she would patch up the more pressing damage, he flew to the town.

This time, he would make an effort to be more discreet and wouldn't just land right in the middle of the street. But closing in, fast, to the town's gate, the sight of three TIE fighters carelessly landed and in complete disregard of the local traffic shook him to the point of making his flight wobbly. Another squadron had been deployed, and maybe Gideon had come down in person this time again ! With a swift move of an arm and a leg, Din corrected his balance, and sticking his arms by his side, he pushed his speed up. To hell with being discreet; he would touch down in the street. It would only give him a few seconds more. But a few seconds could change everything.

And this time again, he set foot in front of the shop where his heavy landing got a few passers-by yelping in surprise. Still wobbly to get back on the ground, Din hurried himself in one same move to the shop's front door, jostling a onlooker who protested. But he didn't stop and, blaster in hand, he strode in; Elara and the kid were nowhere to be seen and two bodies — those of TIE pilots — were sprawled on the floor between the counter and a pile of crates, heavy silence only disrupted by the regular bleep of a tracking fob. Of course, they had tracking fobs!

Breath short and jaw clenched, Din stomped towards the fob and picked it up. If this thing was bleeping, then the kid was still here, close. A third pilote was on the ground on a bed of spilled and scattered metal scraps, his helmet off. And, a few steps farther, back to the wall and slouched against a crate, he found Elara. She wasn't moving anymore, and he hurried to her side, holstering blaster and fob.

"No, no… Ela!" he cried out, his voice shaking.

He had made her suffer the same fate as Kuiil… He put a hand on her neck behind her head; even through his thick gloves, he could feel the warmth of her skin, almost feverish, despite her face being pallid. Din's relief was brief; she was obviously wounded even if he couldn't see where exactly. She let out a light groan as she opened her eyes, and tried to twist his wrist, to push him and the threat away with a weak hand. But she only found his vambrace. She clung onto it, wheezing and her forehead beaded with sweat. He was guessing in how much pain she was.

"D-Din…" she stammered.

He kept his hand on her neck.

"Where are you hurt?"

He managed to keep his voice as soft as possible in spite of his own anxiety. And, with his other hand, he felt under her jacket. When his fingers found her ribs in her back, she flinched and held back a whimper behind gritted teeth.

"Your ribs are broken…"

It was an assessment as much as he was warning her. And seeing the hammer's head peeking from under the third pilot's dead body, he had a fair idea of what caused this.

"Th-the child… he…"

Her breath quivered and he held her up.

"Where is he ?!"

Another kind of anxiety added itself to the pile.

"He's safe, he… did…"

A sob that changed into a weak gasp shook her. He held her tighter with an arm around her to help her on her feet. She knotted an arm around his neck.

"Come on, we have to leave this planet…"

He couldn't leave her here. And he didn't want to either. Painfully, she got up with his help and, with a shaking hand, she gestured to the locker. His attention caught by one wide open door, Din got a glimpse of the satchel's fabric and the shape of the child, curled up in Elara's cap. If he was that tired all of a sudden, Din guessed that he had to intervene, that he had helped her… Stifling a breath in, he supported Elara's walk to the locker against which she leaned, breathing a little better now that she was up.

"C'mon, kid, let's go," Din whispered.

He gathered the sides and the flap of the bag around him to extract it from the locker and hang it to his shoulder.

"W-wait," Elara muttered, delving her hand deeper in the locker. "We can't leave… w-without this…"

She recovered several datasticks, two holos and a leather pouch in which she peeked quickly; it contained currencies of all values and a datachip. And she put all this in the bag with the child, still nested in the cap. Neither of them talked as they walked across the shop, stepping over the bodies without looking back.

"What the kriff happened here ?!"

This alien, her colleague, was standing against the light in the big doorframe.

"The neighbours came to tell me there was some ruckus here but…"

He trailed off as Din, still holding Elara against him with an arm, was going through the door.

"Elak, wh… what's wrong ?!"

"I'm… fine, Chell," Din heard her whisper, too low for his colleague to catch any of it.

"Hey, what did you do to her ?!" he shouted.

But Din couldn't loose any more time in explanations; they still would have to walk to the town's gate and hope for a landspeeder to get back to the spaceport. So, he continued walking, Elara held tight against him.

"Where are you taking her ?! HEY!!?"

Going back to the city’s entrance had been the longest, walking too slow and drawing too much attention, all while avoiding the militia. Elara was suffering in silence, guiding them from street to street and through some nifty shortcuts but Din could see her shake even though she had assured him she could walk on her own, forehead covered in sweat and her face pallid.

At the gate, luck had finally shone on them; despite the fuss the TIEs had caused not too far, several landspeeders were waiting and one of the drivers was an acquaintance of Elara’s through someone she had named Bokt. And this familiarity had offered them a free ride to the spaceport. There, they reached bay 26 as fast as possible where Nirhee had started — and finished — some of the repairs within her abilities on the Crest.

"Hey, you're gonna pay for the additional work, right?!" the mechanic protested as Din was helping Elara towards the ship’s ramp.

"I gave you the last of my credits," Din replied, his tone firm — they were too much in a hurry for debate.

"Yeah, right, but eeeer, it's still work, you see? And we even kept the hangar clear for you, just now and, eeerrr…"

Din was about to reply when he heard Elara stifle a groan when she leaned towards the bag where the child was moving again, wide awake. She put a heavy knee to the ground and searched in the pouch from which she pulled a few imperial credits. She put them in Din’s hand, with which she helped herself back up.

"Is that enough?" she then asked, breath short.

"What?!" the mechanic bleated, with a perplexed frown. "You make your… your bounty pay for your expenses?!"

Neither Din, nor Elara bothered to correct him. He could feel her weight more and more on his arm which she was still holding onto.

"What did you do to her anyway?!" the mechanic insisted.

Then, talking directly to Elara as he gestured towards her:

"Are you ok, girl?!"

She nodded with a wince, and if the mechanic added anything other than nervous and unclear gibberish, Din didn’t pay any more attention to it, taking Elara up to the ship’s hatch and activating its closing. He walked her to the large footlocker of hardware on which he let her sit. She had a brief gasp of pain and leaned back carefully against the bulkhead behind her.

"How are you feeling?" he inquired, taking himself out of the satchel's strap to put it gently aside on the ground.

"I'm fine," she answered, her voice kinda hoarsy and her gaze unfocused. "I'm… okay."

"You need a medcent—"

"No," she cut him short, wincing. "No, it's nothing…"

Din wasn’t really sure about that, but he let it go for now. He would keep an eye on her and would stop at the slightest sign of complication.

"Sit tight, I'm gonna get us off the ground."

She nodded in silence, her attention turned towards the child, out of the satchel, who had waddled up to their legs. Din went to make a supportive gesture towards her but he held back and took his jetpack off instead, before striding to the ladder to return to the cockpit. He had left the tracker there, on the dashboard, and Din pocketed it as he sat down.

With quick fingers, he flipped up the switches on the left hand vertical pane and unlocked the reactor’s safeties on the overhead switch panel, and the Crest shook, ready to take off. Preparing the thrusters and putting both hands on the controls, Din made them leave the hangar without a bump.

The spaceport, then Barjuun, shrank through the viewport, and soon, they left Zar-Oda’s atmosphere. Din kept an eye on his scanner’s screen but also on the black space around them. No trace of other TIEs, or the warship. Either way, Din wouldn’t wait any longer; he expected that the absence of report from the squad sent on ground wouldn’t be interpreted as good news.

He pushed speed up and typed quickly on his keyboard to compute a destination, any destination, opposite from Ontellar. Outside, still no trace of enemy crafts.

BLEEP — the navicomputer was now displaying a course which connected with a big hyperlane a few hours from here. It would be enough to find a place to get rid of this tracker.

Escaping a planet’s gravity well never felt so long and, as soon as his screen displayed that the threshold was passed, Din pushed the throttle and made the Crest jump in hyperspace. The vortex of misty light gave him a sudden feel of calm and safety which he enjoyed while taking a long breath, eyes closed. The tracker’s signal wouldn’t be picked up by the warship again as long as they’d be in hyperspace; for now, they were free of worries about it.

But Din didn’t take the time to enjoy this any longer, swivelling his seat and jumping out of the cockpit to go back down into the hold, ignoring most of the ladder’s rungs. At the bottom, the child was trying to get on the crate where Elara had laid down on her stomach, in a sort of comfortable position to spare her ribs in her back, a knee on the ground and an arm dangling to the floor, her forehead resting on her other arm circling her jacket like some kind of pillow. Asleep, her breathing was still labored but smoother than a moment before. And also less wheezing.

Din crouched by the crate and helped the child to complete his delicate climb with a push of his palm under his little clawed feet. He let out a short happy quaver before waddling up to Elara’s side.

"Don't wake her up," he commanded, firm but not scolding.

She needed to rest after sustaining such an injury. And that, in addition to the exhaustion from the fight she had to carry against the three pilots to get there, added to the one from this morning… But the child was already reaching for Elara’s back with both his hands, his eyes squinted in expectation of the effort he was about to give. His little fingers found the fabric of her clothes, sinking in the material and Din held his breath, tensed but watchful. He could guess what the child was about to do — he wanted to heal her the way he had done for Karga on the lava flats of Nevarro.

Could his power also work on internal injuries such as Elara’s? After all, he had also removed the reptavians’ poison from the wound, so…

Curious and hopeful, Din let him. Under the rush of his power, Elara let out a weak, grumpy whimper. The little one was shaking without a sound and Din refrained from making a move, even to support him, enthralled to see at work once more this magic he knew nothing about. Then, the child released his focus suddenly and sagged, sitting, with a little tired sound.

Still without waking up, Elara took a slow and deep breath, relieved. The child, on the other hand, huddled against her now healed side with a little plaintive squeak, ears low and his big eyes blinking before keeping them closed. In his turn, Din released his breath and his shoulders slumped a little under the weight of his thoughts and confused emotions. He was realizing how essential it was to this child to find someone that would understand his needs and his powers, help him the way he had to be.

He watched them both for a thoughtful minute then, he stood up to take a folded blanket from the straps in his bunk and came back to cover them with it. Din stroke Elara’s shoulder with a light hand and tucked the blanket around the small shape of the child who was breathing as deeply as he was asleep.

"Get some rest too, kid…" he told him softly. "We're gonna find you a Jedi to help you through this."

Neither the child, nor Elara woke up to the sound of his voice, and Din would let them sleep as long as they'd need; he stood up and went back to the cockpit.

Masterlist: Tumblr Post / Tumblr chronological reading order Tag list: @hathorik @pheedraws @the-blind-assassin-12 @something-tofightfor

#my writing #the mandalorian #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian fic #mandalorian fanfic #mandalorian fic #din djarin #din djarin pov #din djarin x oc #OC povs #the child #baby yoda #fic:lost and found #tales of clan mudhorn series #ocs #oc:elara #star wars #tocm masterlist

13 notes · View notes

princess-yuna · 3 years

Text

Vow

Pairing: Din Djarin x Female Mandalorian Reader Words: 800 Warning: Just fluff. Rated: E Summary: Vows are sacred to Mandalorians, especially when it comes to feelings. This is a promised made under the stars. A/N: This is based before the events of This Shall Pass, but you don’t have to read it to understand! This takes place before season 1 of The Mandalorian, if you want to put it in the timeline of the series.

Series Masterlist

The stars were bright on this planet, and even when it shouldn’t have amazed you because you were always traveling through them, they were always so captivating. They mesmerized you, especially when the moons were also glowing against the dark canvas of the sky. The image would’ve looked better without the tinted vision of the visor of your helmet, but for now you only saw what you could. All you could do was appreciate the beauty that your vision could see.

Din didn’t care to look at the stars, only wanting to look at you. Even when he couldn’t see what was beneath the armor and the helmet, he had known that you were beautiful. The way you made him feel topped the feeling he got when he captured a bounty. That was an empty feeling because he knew that he was trained to do, but this… This was a feeling that he was never trained to feel. He had always been attached to you. You grew together, trained together, and always found time to be together. Sometimes you two would be off hunting different quarries, but then you’ll always end up in the same place. You would always have a spot in his heart.

When you turned your head to look at him, your head tilted to the side when you caught him looking in your direction. “What’s on your mind, cyare?” The question was soft, but it brought him into reality. The term of endearment made his heart warm. He didn’t know what spell you casted on him, but he was glad to be under it.

“Savoring the moment, cyar’ika,” he responded.

If only he could see the smile under the helmet. One day he would be able to, but that was in the distant future. You knew the love that you had for him, but it was never said. It didn’t have to be when actions spoke louder than words. The subtle moments between you was enough to show that there were feelings there. Everyone in the covert knew of the unspoken ties, knowing that the two of you were spoken for. Marriage had been advised, but it wasn’t forced when everyone knew of the union. The only reason marriage sounded appealing was to be able to see what was under the helmet, and as much as you wanted that, marriage was far from your thought. To see two dangerous beings sharing feelings such as love was an interesting sight, but no one ever saw those soft sides of you two. Everything was kept in private because no one needed to know.

You understood why he wanted to savor every moment he could with you. It’s the thought of not knowing when he would return, or if he would, from his hunts. That’s where you could share the same sentiment. Every moment you had was cherished because of not knowing what the future held. When you were alone on your ship the last thing you thought of was him, hoping that he was okay, and you knew it was mutual. Sometimes hunts took longer than others and the relief that filled you both when you saw each other next lifted a huge weight.

“Oh, I have a gift for you,” you told him, rising to your feet to walk to him. He stayed where he was, looking up at you with a possible curious look. “Be still,” you tell him as you walked out of his line of sight, standing behind him. From the pouch of your belt, you took a pendant out from it that was attached to a black cord that was similar to the one on his neck. “I had the Armorer make this for me to give to you,” you explained. Tying the cord around his neck, you let the pendant clink against the metal on his chest.

He took the pendant in between his fingers, raising it up so he could see. The mythosaur skull with the addition of two added tusks. It might’ve meant nothing to anyone else, but to him it meant more. To him, it represented a union between two Mandalorians, and that was what it meant to symbolize. Once you were done tying the cord, you walked to step in front of him again and he had rose to his feet. “My heart is yours as yours is mine,” he told you as his forehead pressed against yours without a moment of hesitation.

Your hand was placed on his hand that was on his chest that was holding the pendant. “And I vow to you that we will be together in time,” you promised.

You wouldn’t forget how the stars looked that night just as he wouldn’t forget the moment he had completely fallen in love with you.

#the Mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #din djarin x reader #din djarin x you #the mandalorian drabble #din djarin drabble #the mandalorian x you

98 notes · View notes

the-blind-assassin-12 · 3 years

Text

Resol’nare - Part Two

A/N: I really wanted to have this up earlier today but this headache had other plans. Anyways, not much to say here except... meet Navina!

*this story will regularly be using words in Mando’a. for a good list of references click here.*

Summary: Navina Harsa has been on her own for a long time, and she has done whatever she’s needed to in order to survive. From time to time that means forsaking the teachings, The Way of her people. But there is one thing that she will never do, and that is forsake her family- even if they’re gone.

Word Count: 4.8k

Warning: language

Yavin 4.

Navina Harsa leaned against the window of the transport shuttle as the destination came into view. Clouds swirled in wispy white clusters, parting to reveal the marbled green and blue hues that the dense foliage and deep, clear water painted across the moon’s surface. Quiet gasps from the row behind her gave those passengers away as first time visitors to the remote jungle moon, the three young children chattering excitedly about all the things that their parents must have told them in the weeks leading up to their trip. Navina tried to put herself in their shoes, imagining what it would be like to see Yavin 4 for the first time all over again. But while the family of travelers was choosing this location for a vacation, her own reason for visiting was vastly different. And she had seen it many times. It is beautiful, though.

As the shuttle neared the docking zone, the landscape and vegetation became more defined, and she could make out the massive ziggurat that poked up from the trees. Neither centuries of erosion, nor years of war and conflict had damaged the structures that still loomed like imposing stone giants over the land.

“You can see them from anywhere you are on the ground,” the man behind her was telling his children. “If you think they’re big now,” she glanced back in time to catch him tapping the youngest boy on the nose with the tip of his finger. “Just wait until we get up close.” He curved his other arm around one of the older two, corralling the three of them close to the window. The children giggled excitedly, their parents exchanging warm smiles over their heads as they continued to buzz with questions and exclamations.

Navina clamped her eyes shut and faced front, blinking them open again when she was sure she’d only see the back of the seat in front of her. She stared at the bright red material, a bittersweet ache opening in her chest. Another year. Her right hand came up to her throat, fingers digging beneath her dark gray shawl for the leather cord she wore around her neck. Sliding it between her thumb and index finger, she felt for the cool metal pendant, wrapping it in her palm. Squeezing until the pointed tusks of the carved mythosaur poked into her flesh, she closed her eyes once more, inhaling deeply through her nose.

Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, aliit.

She held her breath, letting that ache deepen for a few seconds as the three faces she would never forget appeared in her memory. Her mother’s sharp, shining eyes. The strength in her father’s calm smile. The little one, sound asleep and dreaming. You never left, because I carry you with me. Exhaling slowly, she released her grip on the pendant, the ache receding like she knew it would, and she tucked it back beneath the cowl of her shawl. Nothing can truly separate us. Hand falling back to her lap, she turned to look out the window once more as the Star Commuter began its final descent towards the docking platforms. Bending down, she scooped up the strap of her shoulder bag and slung it across her body, the contents clanging together as she adjusted its weight and readied herself to disembark.

An overhead speaker chimed before a cheerful pre-recorded voice rang out in the cabin. “Welcome to Yavin 4. Please be sure that you have all of your belongings before departing the ship. Passengers traveling with droids may claim them at the station hub once we have touched down. We thank you for choosing to fly with us, and hope that you enjoy your stay.”

There was further information regarding booking return passage from the moon, but Navina tuned it out. She wouldn’t be leaving Yavin 4 the same way that she arrived. And if all goes according to plan I’ll never have to shuttle hop again. Standing as the craft hovered closer to the platform, she reached for the handle above her head, using it to steady herself as the shuttle jerked into a parked position. Once the floor had stopped shuddering beneath her boots, and the children in the row behind her had all dramatically tumbled from their seats, Navina let go of the handle and pulled her hood up, tucking her long woven braid into it. As the cabin doors opened and the rest of the passengers fumbled to gather their belongings, she filed quickly past them and out into the thick, humid air.

Back again.

She wasn’t born here, so it technically wasn’t her home. But it was the closest thing that she had to one. Her parents had been forced to leave Mandalore when she was only a few months old, settling on Concordia with the rest of the warrior clans. They lived there as a family for almost six years, but she had no real memory of it, couldn’t conjure more in her mind than what she’d been told. Even the memories of the night that they left were scarce and came to her in pieces- Purple light. Deep voices. The frenzied feeling of being followed. She remembered being tired, wanting to sleep, and finally being able to, curling up with the baby and both of them drifting off quickly. Her parents explained as best as they could why they had had to leave, why they’d chosen to do they things that they had, and that explanation evolved to include more as she grew older. Even though she understood it, none of what they told her helped her to remember a home before they one they’d made there in the jungle caves of Yavin 4.

They’d only spent four years here, completely secluded, just the four of them, but she could recall almost every second. Training with her parents, learning how to fight among the wide, flat leaves and vibrant flowers, splashing in the shallows at the base of the waterfall with the little one as her parents watched, humming rhymes for him as he cooed and laughed. She remembered running through the tunnels that connected their cavern to the network of others, her own voice echoing off the walls as she practiced words she’d heard her parents say: morut'yc, cyar'ika, gra'tua. The language was harsh, hard to learn and harder to speak, but she remembered the pride that she felt when her pronunciation was correct, or if she used a word or phrase properly. Her mother’s pewter eyes would flash and her father would nod.

“This is the Way, Ina’ika,” her mother would always end every lesson, whether it was on weapons or traditions, with the words that every Mandalorian had heard thousands of times.

This is the Way.

But was she a true Mandalorian? It was something she struggled with for years now. Her parents were gone. She had no clan, no tribe, no one to swear allegiance or loyalty or anything at all to. She’d given up on wearing her armor at all times when several dire situations had demanded that she do so, donning it only when necessary. It’s not even my armor. Shrugging, she reached across her chest to pull the strap higher up on her shoulder. Had she grown up among other clans like her parents did, she would have been given her own armor as soon as she started training. When she reached a certain age she would have had the chance to swear the Creed and pledge herself to the Way of the Mandalore, and she would have been presented with her first custom piece of beskar armor- usually a helmet, sometimes a chestplate. Instead she carried her mother’s helmet, a pair of vambraces that she relieved a black market trader of, both too big for her wrists and needing extra padding so they wouldn’t slip when she used them, and a thin chestplate and shoulder pauldrons that had been salvaged from troopers during the Clone Wars and coated in several layers of durasteel. Beskar armor was impossible to come by, a Mandalorian armorer willing to smith something for a vagabond wearing mismatched steel even more difficult to find. She’d done her best to collect what she could. But it wasn’t beskar, aside from the helmet, and it wasn’t hers.

She’d called herself a bounty hunter and a pilot, a courtesan, a killer, a thief, a smuggler, a spice runner and a stowaway, and she’d done so without pause because at some point she had been all of those things, often a few of them at once. She hesitated, though, when it came to calling herself Mandalorian. I’ve broken almost every code there is to break. As much as she tried to keep the traditions and beliefs that her parents had instilled in her, she knew that for every action she took to walk the Way, she had taken at least one in direct opposition with it. Not to mention the things that she had planned. I doubt destroying the Darksaber counts as rallying to the cause of the Mand’alor.

The stone path beneath her feet gave way to the springy jungle moss that covered the ground as she navigated her way through the station hub, the only place on Yavin 4 that could be considered remotely crowded, and she forced such violent thoughts from her mind. Not here. For the last eighteen years, every move she made or job she took was influenced by one of three goals: survival, avenging the deaths of her family, or gaining information on the most infamous weapon in Mandalore’s history- specifically where she could find it, and how it could be obliterated. In her mind, it was just another thing that stood in the way of her people ever striking a balance, just another reason for Mandalorians to stay hidden or for clans to clash with one another instead of standing strong together. It unified them once...but it didn’t last. Any totem of power would attract corruption, she was sure of it, and that’s what the Darksaber was.

She’d never seen it herself, only imagining the way that the onyx blade would crackle to life, slicing through the air in swaths of glowing obsidian light. The stories that her parents had told her, the scraps of information that she was able to collect through the years were all she had to build her idea of the weapon on. But she was certain that she’d know it when she saw it, even if her imagination was off base. She exited the hub, something her father had once said about the sword tumbling to the forefront of her memory. “All the misuse… all the times it fell into the wrong hands… all that fear. There’s too much anger, too much hatred. The blade is imbued with it now. No one is strong enough to resist it anymore.” He didn’t believe that it could ever be used for good again- and certainly not if someone who’d been hardened and hollowed out by pain and loss and wrath were to lay claim on it. Someone like-

Shaking her head, Navina tried to clear her mind of the Darksaber and the emotions that it stirred in her. That’s not why I’m here. Her search for the blade, like her search for those who had betrayed her family, consumed most of her day to day thoughts and dictated almost every move she made or job she took. The leads she found determined where she travelled and how long she stayed there, chose her allies for her and taught her who her enemies were. But this trip was different. Her annual trip to Yavin 4 had nothing to do with her self-assigned mission. This is for them...and for me.

Behind her, the family from the shuttle was heading towards the Ruins, where a small camp was set up with accommodations for vacationers. The children skipped and jumped, practically tripping over one another with excitement now that they had made it to their destination and no longer had to sit still on the shuttle. A sad but wistful smile curved up the side of her mouth as she cast one last glance at the parents and their young ones. They’ll have fun here. Turning away from them, she headed instead for the thick underbrush of the rainforest. Pushing a leaf the size of an astromech droid out of her way, she slipped between the branches and out of site.

It was easier to push the Darksaber from her thoughts once the greenery had swallowed her, the air still and heavy with the heat, but fresh and clean and noticeably sweeter than it was closer to the hub’s docking platform. But before she could fully appreciate the comfort of being back in the only place she’d ever called home, a bright flash of light, this one amethyst, cut through her memory, blinding her. Suddenly, Navina recalled the face of the stranger that her family had encountered the night they left Concordia, his eyes calm but dark, the storm inside them contained but present. “Our enemies think that we are enemies.” His deep voice came back to her easily, more clear than it ever had before. “But perhaps more importantly, so do our allies.” The man had handed something small to her mother before passing a larger bundle to her father, and then within seconds he’d vanished.

The purple light flashed sharply in her mind once more, clearing the memory as quickly as it had assaulted her. Navina gasped, doubling over to brace her hands on her knees while she steadied her breathing again. That was… It’s never been that clear before, I… She inhaled shakily, straightening up and removing the hood from her head. Her long black braid tumbled free, smaller blue braids woven throughout it, and she pushed a silvery blue strand back behind her ear. I could never remember what he said, that man but now... She concentrated on his words, trying to etch them into her brain, desperate to find and keep any of the lost pieces of the puzzle she was trying to fit together.

“Our enemies think that we are enemies.” Speaking the words out loud, she started walking once more, her steps sure and confident despite the twisted roots and thorny vines that poked up from the ground. Navina knew each rock and root of these parts like the back of her hand, no matter how much new growth there was between now and her last visit. Feet finding the route for her, she continued to focus on the memory. He wasn’t...that man, he wasn’t a Mandalorian. That part seemed clear. But then… She chewed her bottom lip and shifted the strap of her bag, her armor knocking together and hitting her hip as she hopped a fallen massassi trunk. Then who was he?

Narrowing her eyes, she dug out the pendant that she wore around her neck again, this time pulling it out from under her shawl. Since she was alone it was safe to reveal the ancient symbol without giving herself away. Opening her palm, she stared down at the shiny silver skull, the faceted gem at the heart of the piece shining through the Mythosaur’s carved eyes. Sometimes, when the light reflected off the gem that was encased within her mother’s necklace, it appeared to be a soft purple color. Here, on the forest floor where only small patches of filtered greenish sunlight made it through the canopy, the gem seemed colorless. She sighed, dropping the pendant and letting it bounce against her chest. Who was he, and why am I remembering this now?

Immediately, the same hopeful flicker in her heart that had woken her from a dream a few nights prior came back, stronger this time. Maybe it means I’ll see them again… My father and-

“Well look what the loth-cat dragged in.”

A voice from her left broke her from her wishful thinking. Grabbing for the blaster that was hidden beneath her shawl, she whipped it from the holster strapped to her upper thigh. In one swift spin she pointed her weapon in the direction of the speaker before the familiarity in his tone registered. Wait, it’s-

“Woah, woah, woah there, Nav, take it easy, it’s just-”

“Firo!” She lowered her weapon, sliding it back into its holster as she sighed heavily. “Are you kriffing crazy? I could have shot you!”

“So,” Her friend’s green-gold eyes brightened, a smirk pulling his mouth crookedly up the side of one bearded cheek as he ignored her half-sincere outrage. “You didn’t know I was standing here?” He leaned casually against the nearest tree, arms crossed over his chest and one knee bent to rest his boot sole against the bark behind him.

“That wasn’t smart, Firo.” Navina rolled her eyes and made her way closer as the man fought to hold back his laughter, his long sandy brown hair falling in his face.

Shaking the strands away from his forehead, he blinked rapidly, each exaggerated bat of his lashes seeming to pump more sarcasm into his words. “You mean I,” he gestured to himself with his thumbs, hands clad in maroon leather fingerless flight gloves, “got the drop on you?” He extended both pointer fingers in her direction then, that same stubborn piece of hair flopping between his eyes again.

Technically, yes, but I was… distracted. She clicked her tongue and stepped over a boulder, half buried and covered in spongy green moss and bright orange mushrooms. “You need a haircut, Firo, you look like an overgrown bantha.”

“Deflecting, Harsa?” He pushed off from the tree with one foot and shoved his sleeves up his forearms. “Sounds to me like you’re deflecting.” He’s not gonna let this go. The bandolier that he insisted on wearing, even though it was too loose for his thin frame, fell down his shoulder and he reached across himself to fix it. “It sounds to me, like you don’t want to admit that I-”

“Oh dank farrik, fine. Yes. Yes, you got the drop on me.” Navina played into his gloating like she knew he wanted her to, lacing her own words with playful sarcasm. “So look out, Bounty Hunters of the Outer Rim, because Firostian Ottabok is going to claim all the highest paying pucks for himself.”

His grin finally grew too large for his face, and it burst into an open mouthed laugh. “Damn, Nav, it’s good to see you.” Throwing his arms around her, he pulled her into a tight hug and she smiled against his chest. Despite his lanky limbs and bony elbows, Firo’s hold on her was strong and secure. Navina returned it with equal force, sliding her arms under his to wrap them around his body.

“It’s good to see you too, scoundrel.” She pulled away and shoved that same piece of hair away from Firo’s face with two fingers. “But what are you doing out here? We always meet at the caves.” Her eyebrows came together in concern as she scanned his face for any of his tells. He’s not looking away or scratching his nose, so… “You didn’t run into any trouble, did you?”

“Me? In trouble? He blew out a puff of air and waved one hand, fingers spread wide. “Why are you always so quick to assume I’m in trouble?” Navina arched one eyebrow and stared up at him. Do you really want me to- “You know what?” He slung one arm around her shoulder and urged her to start walking again. “Don’t answer that.” She laughed, falling into step with him as they headed toward the cavern’s opening. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Navina and Firo had gotten each other into and out of about as much trouble as two outlaws could over the past ten years. If she was keeping track though, she had a strong feeling that the scales would tip slightly more in his direction than hers. There had been the time she convinced a fellow bounty hunter to trade a captured Firo for the three pucks she had on her, and the time she corrected his Twi’leki translation during a deal, diffusing an already heated situation before it could become more volatile. They’d only met in the first place because his ship had crash landed on Yavin 4, and he needed to offload and hide the contraband cargo he was carrying before whoever it was that shot him down found it or him- she was never sure which outcome would have been worse because luckily, neither had happened. She had found him instead.

The network of tunnels and caves deep within the jungle that had kept her family safe for years had also proven to be the perfect place for a smuggler to stash his goods. If Navina hadn’t shown up a few days later for her annual visit, he’d have gone completely undetected, possibly for years. She may have never found him at all. But that’s not how it went. Navina smiled to herself every time she recalled that day. Attacking on instinct, it had taken almost no time at all for her to see that this intruder was no trained fighter. She had him disarmed and pinned with his then hairless cheek pressed to the cool stone wall as she clasped his wrist behind his back in one hand, his blaster in the other. A severely muffled “Um… I can explain everything,” had been the first words he’d ever said to her, and they had set the tone for a friendship that she wouldn’t trade for all the credits that ever passed through Imperial hands.

“Alright then,” she tilted her chin up to peer at her taller companion. “If you’re not being followed and there’s no trouble to worry about?” She paused, giving him one last chance to come clean. Laughing, he just shook his head. “Why didn’t you stick to the plan? I come to you, that’s how it’s always been.”

“Yeah,” another burst of laughter pushed past his lips. “Ever since the first time, right?” He reached up with the arm that was still around her shoulders, tugging at her braid. That earned him a quick smack in the gut from the back of her hand, only causing more rumbling chuckles to erupt.

“And you were lucky it was me that found you, bantha brain, and not whoever it was that you ticked off.” Just like I was lucky that Firo found me when… Absently, the hand she’d just hit him with fell to her waist, where beneath her clothing a long jagged scar crossed her body. Before a chill could settle in her bones, Firo’s warm grin poked dimples into his cheeks and he swiveled his head down to look at her. Why does he look so kriffing happy? She was only slightly suspicious of her friend’s behavior though, his elevated mood and obvious excitement almost contagious.

The gold flecks that shot through his green eyes shone as his cheeks rose up into them with his smile. “This time I...have something for you.”

They were nearly there. Navina could see the brighter shafts of light coming through the trees and bushes as they thinned out closer to the cave mouth. “You have something for me?” She scrunched her face up questioningly. “What does that- why couldn’t you just...give it to me when I got there? What’s-”

“Because,” they climbed over a fallen tree in unison, the bottoms of their boots crunching on small gravelly rocks. “You need to see it, and it’s too dark down there.”

Finally reaching the entrance to their hideaway- to my...my home- Firo stepped away from her and dug something out of the back pocket of his brown pants. Navina slung the bag off her shoulder, setting it down at her feet in a clatter of metal. She watched closely as he brought the leather wrapped object between the two of them. What does he have?

“I found this two...no, three nights ago. When I first landed.” Squinting, she followed his fingers as they slipped under the flap of leather to uncover her gift. “Don’t know how I found it or why or…” He shook his head, the excitement still in his expression. “But as soon as I got down into the cave, soon as I was ready to settle in for the night? Something caught my eye and-”

Navina gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as he revealed his surprise. “Firo… is that?” Eyes widening, she let her hand fall away from her lips to reach out for the small blade that he held in his hands. Asking questions was some kind of default setting that her mind had scrambled to out of pure shock. She knew without a shadow of a doubt what she was looking at. That’s a beskar kal… The short dagger’s hexagon-shaped blade glinted dark silver in the light as Firo handed it to her. Her heart thudded heavily against her ribs as her left hand closed around the grip, the fingertips of her right hand tracing the rectangular cut out that ran the length of the small but lethal blade. But these markings… Looking closer, she sucked in another breath. “Firo...this was,” tearing her eyes from the dagger was difficult, but she did so to look up at him. “This belonged to my father.”

The shriek-hawk symbol that was engraved near the handle alone wouldn’t have identified this particular kal as her father’s. It was the addition of her mother’s clan’s signet, along with the tiny carved lettering that she could actually remember her father etching into the Mandalorian steel. Ina’ika.

“This will be yours one day, it’s only right that your name is added.” His rich voice echoed in her memory, punctuated by the scratching and clanging of his tools, the little sparks flying from the beskar mesmerizing her.

“Firo, I,” her eyes fell back to the dagger in her hands. “I never thought I’d see this again.” Twenty-three years. She hadn’t seen her father in Twenty-three years, and while she knew her mother was gone, she had never known for sure what had happened to her father. To my father or… But another thought sliced through, bringing with it a rush of hope that she knew was dangerous but couldn’t stop from flooding her anyway. “Firo, do you think that means… Do you think he was here? Recently?” The two of them had been back to Yavin countless times, and neither of them had ever found the blade. So why now? How?

“Hey, Nav, I...I dunno about… if your dad was- when the last time he was here was or…”Firo lowered his eyes so that he’d intercept hers. “I know that it belongs with you. And I knew you’d be happy to have it back. That’s all I-”

She didn’t let him finish though, launching herself at him in another forceful hug and being careful not to carve him up with her father’s dagger. “I know. I know you don’t know if he…” she sighed. I may have lost my family but… She pulled away then, brushing a tear away before she let it fully form. “Thank you, Firo.”

He smiled, the muscles in his face far more familiar with that formation than any other. “You’re welcome, Nav.” Not letting the moment become more emotional than he knew she’d be comfortable with, he picked up her bag and shouldered it. “Now, come on. We’ve got some...things to discuss.”

The mischief was back in his voice as Navina secured the kal in the inside pocket of her shawl. “Oh do we? What kind of things, trouble?”

“Well,” he began as they ducked to enter the cavern. “You said you needed a ship, right?” Navina confirmed, eyeing him with a sideways glance. “Well. Word is that the scraps of Imperial garbage that were stationed on Nevarro left in a big hurry.” Navina grinned, already liking where this was going. “Such a hurry,” Firo continued with a wink, “that they left some of their...equipment behind.”

“What a shame,” she answered. “All those ships just...sitting there with no one to fly them.”

“We really should do something about it, shouldn’t we?”

We should.

Not only would she and Firo both love to steal from the Empire, it would solve her transportation problem, and possibly get her closer to the information she’d been chasing. Whatever had caused the Empire to leave Nevarro in such a rush… Navina was sure that it had something to do with other Mandalorians.

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to let me know if you would like to be added to or removed from the tags! :)

tags: @something-tofightfor @alraedesigns @pheedraws @valkblue @malionnes @gollyderek

#resol’nare #the mandalorian fanfic #the mandalorian story #the mandalorian fic #din djarin fic #star wars fanfiction #mando x oc #din djarin x oc #this is the way #there is a lot happening in this chapter #but also not a lot at all #hmm #anyway #posting this story continues to make me nauseous so BYE!#pedro pascal characters

28 notes · View notes

shirozora-draws · 3 years

Text

Testing, testing, testing new charcoal/pencil brushes I picked up from Clip Studio Assets on a few sketchbook... sketches. Burned through quite a few pages thumbnailing the last illustrations for The Suns and these didn't make the cut, but if you wanna know where things are headed, welp.

#shirozora draws #din djarin #luke skywalker #dinluke #skydalorian #the mandalorian #star wars #mythosaur #sketching sketching sketching #been a while since i dropped off some sketches #the mythosaur pendant is there for a Reason #it feels a little shoehorned but I left out a LOT of details in chapter 1 which worked out in my favor #gave me lots of wiggle room for the parts of chapter 9 that came to me in a fever dream #and will set up beautifully for this year's NaNo project #also got myself an actual mythosaur pendant and it is beautiful #but my god i fucking love these new brushes #i'm gonna be fucking insufferable

806 notes · View notes

aureutr · 3 years

Note

Ironically, this is not the first time I've encouraged Venom-izing a different title/pairing. It's less that I don't expect the tentacle part as much as I get distracted by the rest of the idea until someone brings it up again. So in this AU, would Luke's crystal be somewhat like one of Venom & Eddie's "kids"? Would it manifest for Luke if he had to wield the Saber mid-fight for some reason? (Beskar pendant/brooch?) Instead of a spider, what symbol is on the chest?Mythosaur, mudhorn, Jedi Order?

I'll be honest I don't know a ton about Venom outside of the movie (I saw the Sam Raimi Spiderman movies and watched the cartoon back in the 90s but it's been a bit since then). Do Eddie and Venom have symbiote kids?

In this AU, though, all kyber crystals probably popped into existence around the same time (when the parasites/symbiotes were transformed/imprisoned/whatever). So Luke's kyber isn't directly related to the Darksaber kyber (necessarily) but they're the same "species." And Luke's can't manifest at all because it hasn't been gorging itself on lifeforces for centuries.

But if Luke had to actually wield the Darksaber? Hmm...

It wouldn't happen at first, I think it requires its wielder to attune to it for a while. How long that's necessary depends on the person. Din, for instance, is super compatible for whatever reason and it takes right away. Even as obsessed as it is with Luke that doesn't mean he's a perfect match for it. It's just his potential is out of this galaxy.

I think in a true emergency it could wrap around him temporarily but without significant beskar armor to adhere to it wouldn't last very long. Think of when Venom was riding Eddie's ex (whose name I forgot) until they could find Eddie again. I think a beskar accessory (like a signet necklace after marriage??) would help but it would still be a lot less effective than Din's full armor.

The chest symbol is the Kar'ta Beskar, hands down. Even if it gives Luke a temporary symbiote suit it's the same. Because the Darksaber is of Mandalore first and foremost.

#venom au #still not gonna write it #might do some doodles though

3 notes · View notes

motleymoose · 4 years

Text

Homecoming Pt. 3: Bits & Pieces Ch. 2

Chapter 2 Niceties in Flames

Fandom: The Mandalorian, Star Wars Universe Characters: The Mandalorian (Din Djarin), Gender Neutral Reader, The Child (Baby Yoda) Words: 3k+ Warnings: Panic, Anger, Angst Adjacent, FINALLY THERE’S SOME SIGNIFICANT FLUFF

Summary:

Panicking is not the best thing to do in these circumstances. But you know what? I'm going to do it anyway, any chance I get.

Notes:

Thank you for continuing to read this fear-fueled panic-fest!

Be prepared, all you polyglots out there - some of the Mando'a I made up using a combination of mandoa dot com and lingojam. It isn't perfect, and it probably makes zero sense. But until google translate has a Mando'a option, you're just gonna have to deal with the nonsense (unless, of course, you absolutely know your way around the language. I am all ears for some tips)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Homecoming Masterlist

Big green ears greeted me with a friendly waggle as the tiny, wide-eyed creature clawed its way out of the Mandalorian’s grasp and half-fell half-climbed down the beskar armor to the floor. It peered calmly up at the dumbfounded Mandalorian, meeping softly. At once, all of the resentment I had been holding dissipated. I had never seen anything like it, yet I wanted to safeguard it from everything else in the galaxy.

Perplexed at the sudden emotional assault, I took a careful step back. Maybe it was a creature that could influence my thoughts towards it? I didn’t know what those types of animals looked like, but I had heard stories. Stories that never turned out well for the beings duped into protecting the creature.

“Wh-what is that thing?” I asked, unease edging into my voice.

Looking over to me, the bounty hunter inclined his head in bewilderment. “He is a foundling.” The visor dropped my gaze, focusing on the thing at his feet. “He wants to - meet you.” And then, to the thing, quietly murmured, “You sure about this, kid?”

Huffing in answer, the critter - no, child? - waddled briskly up to me, stopping just short of my boots. He leaned back as far as he could, contemplating me with his immensely warm obsidian eyes. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, I finally broke.

“Uh, what now?”

The child looked back to the bounty hunter one more time. The Mandalorian sighed in defeat. “He wants you to pick him up.”

I nodded nervously. Of course, that made total sense. The kid was short. If he wanted to meet me, he needed to see me face to face. Didn’t mean I was comfortable with the idea, seeing as he might be able to mind-control me. Anxiety began to eat away at my insides. I didn’t want to become some mindless, slobbering zombie to something as cute and puntable as the little green child in front of me. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I haltingly took another step back. The kid followed, gaze intent.

Frag, frag, frag, it would’ve been better if he’d just get the mind controlling over with instead of waiting for me to do something erratic and stupid. It was as if he wasn’t -

Oh for Force’s sake! Barely able to contain my utter disbelief in myself, I facepalmed and groaned quietly. I still had all my normal paranoia. Logically, that proved the kid wasn’t trying to control. If he were anything like the stories, both the bounty hunter and I would’ve been dog food long before now.

“... you okay?” the bounty hunter grunted.

My head shot up at the noise. You’ve got to be doshing kidding me. In the onset of my panic, I’d completely neglected the fact that the Mandalorian was there.

“Yeah, I’m fine. So fine,” I muttered, embarrassed.

Right.

Mind made up, I lowered myself to sit cross-legged in front of the child. Now that I was at the little one’s level, I held out a hand, palm up, and smiled weakly. “Su’cuy, ad’ika,” I greeted him. The child’s eyes widened in wonder, and he grabbed a finger in each of his small fists, cooing animatedly back.

Glimpsing out of my periphery, the Mandalorian had moved closer, standing within arms-reach of the little one. His breastplate visibly moved with each breath, and I got the feeling he was very uncomfortable with the interaction.

The child, giggling at nothing in particular, dropped my fingers in favor of my knee. He clumsily grasped the wrinkles in my borrowed jumpsuit, pulling himself to stand on my thighs. Flat little feet, three-toed to match his three-fingered hands, curled into the fabric. The warmth of his little body was comforting in a way that I couldn’t recognize, and I had the sudden and all-encompassing urge to protect him with my life.

Chubby hands made quick work exploring my mostly-empty jumpsuit, only finding a clean rag and a half-consumed rations packet in one of the chest pockets. Disappointed in his discoveries, the little one tugged at the front of my tunic and with alarming dexterity, shimmied his way up to my right shoulder. He perched there, one foot in my face and the other kicking at my shoulder blade, happier than a mudhorn in the rain and giggling trilly.

“You little scamp,” I laughed, tickling the toes in front of me. The child tittered, wiggling away from me. He managed to swing his leg over my shoulder, clinging tightly to my back.

Chuckling, I reached behind me to find his little feet again. “Think you can hide from me back there?” I was met with a shrieking laugh when my fingers grazed the kid’s stubby legs.

“He likes you.” Startled, I released the child and halfway rose. I had all but forgotten about the bounty hunter, and his modulated voice was jarring after all the happy sounds that came from the little one.

“I bet you say that to all the bounties,” I replied dryly, the bite in my voice softer than what it had been before. Did I have to like the Mandalorian? No, a big ol’ negative no matter how many surprisingly nice things he happened to do.

But the child, well. I could rein in my attitude for a little while, just for his sake.

Shaking his head once more, the baffled Mandalorian stepped around me and the child and slipped silently into the cockpit.

“Is he always so chatty?” I asked the little one, gently scooping him into my arms and returning him to his original spot on my right shoulder as I stood up to follow my taciturn host.

The child burbled incomprehensibly, which I took as an absolute agreement, and held onto my ear as I settled into the co-pilot’s chair. His little green body radiated warmth, providing solace that I didn’t realize I needed up until now.

I snuggled my face into his little cloth-covered belly. The child squealed in delight, slapping the side and top of my head excitedly. Snorting like a dewback, I grabbed the little guy and pulled him to my lap, tickling him until he wriggled out of my grasp. From the floor, he practically rolled to the Mando, patting him animatedly on the knee.

The Mandalorian was at the controls, tapping something into the Navigation. He promptly stopped what he was doing and reached down to pick up the child. Cooing in delight, the little one set his tiny hands on the bounty hunter’s visor for a long few seconds before pointing at me.

“Fine,” the Mandalorian sighed. He got up from the pilot’s chair, setting the child carefully in his place, and disappeared through the door. I could hear the faint clanging and rustling coming from the back. Quirking my eyebrow at the kid got me a slobbery grin, so I made a face. I was still making faces at the child when the hunter snuck back in, a lumpy package in his hand.

“Here.” He dumped the cloth-bound parcel unceremoniously into my lap.

My hands closed on it automatically. It was heavier than its size suggested, and even though it was lumpy, I couldn’t tell what was wrapped inside. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gaped at the bounty hunter. “What-?”

With a sigh that could’ve extinguished a thousand flames, the Mandalorian picked up the child and plopped heavily into the pilot’s seat while nestling the little one gently in his lap. “Open it.”

Fingers curling possessively around the bulging fabric, I dropped my eyes once more before speaking. “Why?” My heart skipped a beat, clutching the bundle to my chest.

“Just, it’s yours, okay? Open it,” he replied gruffly.

For whatever reason, my hands trembled as I undid the neatly tied knot holding the fabric all together. After a few fumbling attempts, the Mandalorian impatiently reached over and nimbly plucked at the knot. It fell apart easily, and he settled back into the pilot’s chair.

Unfolding the fabric, I was greeted with a delightful yet disorienting surprise.

“I thought...?” There, neatly bundled in the rough fabric, were all of my tools and parts I’d had in my jumpsuit. I couldn’t believe it. He’d saved all of my stuff. Heart swelling in anticipation, I sorted through the jumble of wires and wrenches and screws, my eyes sharp for a familiar silvery glint. But the more I dug, the more my heart sunk. It wasn’t there. My pendant, the last remnant I had of my home, was gone.

“Where is it?” I gargled, my tongue suddenly much too big for my mouth. “Where’s my necklace?” Dread blossomed in my chest.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the hunter huffed in annoyance.

The little one cooed softly, catching my attention. He was slumped in the Mandalorian’s lap, snoring gently as he dozed, completely unaware of the tension spiking in the room.

I lowered my voice, frowning. “My necklace. It’s on an old silver chain. A Mythosaur charm.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “It’s from my caretaker.”

The bounty hunter froze, one hand poised over the flight panel. The little one stirred in his lap, and he laid a light hand on the child’s back to shush him. “What do you mean.”

A little flame of ire licked it’s way up my spinal column. I remembered having it when we got back to the ship. I remembered the steady, solid thunk of it swinging against my collar bone. He must have had it. It couldn’t have just gotten up and walked away.

“I want it back. Now.”

Turning his visor to me, he tucked the dozing child into the crook of his injured arm. “I don’t have it,” he warned in a deep-throated growl. “Everything you had on you is either ash floating in space or there.” He nodded his helmet at the bundle in my lap.

“Then where is it?”

“It’s a big ship,” he replied, turning back to the controls. “Things get easily lost.”

In my haste to stand, I barely caught the bundle of tools before they hit the floor. I turned on my heel and stormed out of the cockpit and down the ladder to the cargo hold, clenching my hands so hard that the steel and wire and other debris bit painfully into my hands.

Why was he lying? Could he even lie? I couldn’t recall a time where he wasn’t truthful, but that didn’t mean this time couldn’t be different. I tossed my beloved kit onto the bed and began sorting through it in a more organized and methodical manner. My favorite multitool, tiny spools of wire, the odd screw. My entire kit, from the biggest wrench to the tiniest washer, was spread out before me. Everything I’d had in my pockets had been returned.

But where was my necklace?

The pendant was a relic of Mandalore, and any Mandalorian worth their salt would recognize it for what it was just by the shape of it. I didn’t know the history behind such a symbol, only the little piece of information my caretaker had told me when he’d fastened it behind my neck. ”Ibic cuun aliit. Ibic cuun aliik. Ad’ika, bic gaa’taylir gar o’r buruk.” I didn’t understand what he’d meant at the time, yet I knew that it was important that I got the necklace back. It was a sign of allegiance. And that could have value to an outsider.

As I turned these thoughts over and over in my head, the guilt heavy on my shoulders, I inspected my tools for damage. But no matter what item I picked up, I couldn’t find anything remotely wrong with any of it.

Which was super weird, considering I’d been captured, beaten up, caught in a gunfight and then injured while on the dustiest and most polluted of planets in the sector. Surely my tools would show some sort of blemish or stain - probably my blood, in all seriousness - but they were clean and sharp and repaired.

What the ever lovin’ frag?

I didn’t want to add a whole other question to the pile that was already massive.

That meant I actually had to confront the doshing bastard.

I clambered up the ladder, face hot with anger and humiliation. “Hey, Mando! Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod?” I seethed when I entered the cockpit.

The bounty hunter bristled at the controls. A shiny domed pod floated motionless at his elbow, the opening facing the door. Inside slept the child, covered lovingly with a worn blanket, his soft breaths coming out in steady little puffs.

Swiftly rising from the pilot’s chair, he crossed the cockpit in one stride, reaching me before I could blink. With a rough shove to the chest, he pushed me into the engineering compartment and slid the door shut.

The room was full of wires and blinky lights and tubes of varying sizes snaking their way in orderly chaos to other parts of the ship. I took a short instant to gape and ogle in awe at all the shiny tech. For such an old ship, the hunter had outfitted the Razor Crest with some wickedly stars-quality mech. Enviously drooling over the fairly-new looking alluvial damper valves and definitely new motivator wiring, I almost forgot the reason I was back up here. Facing down a glowering Mandalorian.

Right.

“Why?” The spite on my tongue tasted off but pleasant, and it welcomed the rising ire with relish. “Why did you fix my kit? Frag, save it for that matter, after all the doshing kriff you’ve put me through?” I hissed. The anger was becoming its own being again, a beast uncaged and wanting to inflict hurt.

Standing like a statue in front of the door, the only sign of life was the tapping of his gloved fingers on the cuisses. Not a reaction I’d expected from a bounty hunter. I hoped for equal anger, shouting, maybe a sucker punch. Anything that allowed me to physically unleash the rage and fear and blasted confusion roiling unpleasantly in my guts.

A small sigh escaped through his vocoder, and he began to fidget with the wrist fastenings on his gloves, pulling at the fingers one at a time. The familiarity of the movement, such a little, almost automatic thing for a warrior, made my heart squeeze painfully, briefly tempering my anger, and I couldn’t help but picture my caretaker.

All of the things that reminded me of my warrior, the one who’d kept me from certain starvation and subsequent slavery, were all but nonexistent in this one. His brusque manner and indifferent attitude made me long for the kind words from the man I called buir. But he was gone, long ago abandoning me to the whims of the colony. More than anything, I hoped he was dead. At least that wouldn’t hurt as much.

Clearing his throat, the bounty hunter angled his visor to gaze at the converter panels blinking peacefully above my head. “Most bounties, when I bring them in. They - they plead innocence. Try to buy me off. Run. But you,” he paused, inclining his helmet to look me straight in the eyes. A shiver went up my spine. “You were the first quarry to ever accept your guilt. You didn’t fight back, you didn’t beg to be released. You just… took it so - so sincerely that I -,” The rumbling timbre of his voice, both rich and gravelly, cracked, making the vocoder buzz in protest. He took a shuddering breath, returning his gaze back to the point above me. “I knew the warrant was… off. No private entity pays that amount of bounty out of concern. I’ve done things like that before, awful things I can never take back but,” he stopped again, bare fingers tapping slowly and deliberately on the cuisses, gloves grasped tightly in the other hand. “I - I’m sorry. I about got you killed out of a sense of misplaced duty. You warned me, but I didn’t - couldn’t trust you, not then.”

I gawped at him in astonishment. Of all the things I figured would come out of that masked mouth of his, never in lightyears would I have thought it would be an apology. Closing my jaw with a snap, I swallowed and thought back to all of my tools he’d saved and repaired and cleaned.

My gaze dropped down to my boots. I still didn’t understand why he was being so… so… not a bounty hunter, but now wasn’t the time to question it. Never look a gift Tauntaun in the mouth, or something like that. A rustle of fabric was the only indicator that the bounty hunter was waiting for me to say something. I inhaled deeply.

“Th-thank you,” I whispered. My breathing came easier. My head felt lighter. Frag, even the atmosphere seemed brighter.

The Mandalorian didn’t reply. I mean, why would he? He’d saved my life - albeit being the one who endangered it in the first place, but that was neither here nor there at the moment - and patched me up. He fixed my kit without a word. He was bringing me with him on whatever he was doing on Nevarro, a decision that I barely understood to begin with. If anything, he deserved a little thanks for not killing me or letting me die when it would have been the easiest, and possibly the best, choice to make.

The Mandalorian still hadn’t made a sound by the time I was done with my internal debate. He was probably as surprised as I was at my capacity for gratitude. Maybe there was a way I could pay him back, and I decided to propose my services right then and there.

Steeling my nerves, I peeked up from under my lashes. The engineering room door was wide open, and I was completely alone among the blinking lights.

_____________________________________

Notes:

”Ibic cuun aliit. Ibic cuun aliik. Ad’ika, bic gaa’taylir gar o’r buruk.” - “This is our clan. This is our sigil. Little one, it will help you when you’re in danger.” (please forgive me for mashing a bunch of words together)

Copaani mirshmure'cye, vod? - Are you looking for a smack in the face, mate?

15 notes · View notes

theeasternempress · 4 years

Text

Baby’s First Temper Tantrum

Part Eight of the Baby’s First Series

Summary - The child’s precious mythosaur toy has gotten dirty, so Din washes it while the child is asleep. When his son wakes up and is unable to play with his favorite toy, chaos ensues.

AO3

Din’s morning started no different than usual; he woke up before his son, ate a small breakfast, and then prepared breakfast for his son. Once the child smelled food, he popped his head out of his bassinet to get his father’s attention. Din fed the child with ease and thought back to the many times he had done this. Over the past few months, Din had been getting better at feeding and playing with his child and it made him proud. He was by no means the best father in the galaxy, but Din knew that he was still doing well.

Once he was finished with his breakfast, Din lifted his son from his bassinet and carried him over to his toys so he could begin to play. The child instantly dashed over to his mythosaur and latched onto it. The bandages on his palms prevented him from grabbing it as tightly as he usually did, but the child loved the toy anyway. Stepping closer, Din saw that the mythosaur was covered in dirt and dried mud from being dragged across the playground by his little boy. Din decided that while the child took his first nap, he would clean the toy for him.

Hours of play quickly flew by and the child was ready to lay down for his nap. Din gave his son a gentle hug and rocked him for a few moments before placing him in his bassinet with his blanket. Din watched him until the child began to snore, then went down to the hull to begin cleaning his son’s toy. It was so brown with dirt that Din was surprised the dirt hadn’t gotten all over his son.

Din filled the refresher’s sink with warm water and left the mythosaur in the sink to soak for a few minutes, then Din came back with a scrub brush to begin scrubbing all the crusted dirt off the stuffed toy. Soon enough, the sink’s water was brown with dirt and Din had to drain and refill it.

After repeating the process of scrubbing the toy and refilling the sink multiple times, the toy was finally clean. Din squeezed out as much water as he could, but the toy would still need time to dry completely.

Not long after Din finished cleaning the toy, his son woke up and was ready to play. His son reached out to be picked up and Din did so, carrying him from his bassinet down to his play area. When the child saw that his mythosaur toy was not where he left it, he turned to his father with a confused expression on his face.

“Your toy was dirty, so I washed it for you. It’s drying in the refresher,” Din said simply. The child toddled off towards the refresher, but Din was quick to stop him with a, “It needs time to dry, little one. You can play with it once it’s dry.”

The child ignored his father and continued to make his way to the refresher. Din sighed and bent down to pick up his son. The child made a noise of annoyance and reached his arms out towards the refresher.

“I just told you,” Din began, “Your mythosaur needs to dry for a few more hours. You’ll have to play with something else. How about you color for a little?”

With the way the child’s ear drooped, Din could tell the child was not happy to be unable to play with his favorite toy. Hoping that seeing his art supplies would take his mind off of his toy, Din carried him to the bench and pulled out some paper and crayons. The child grabbed the crayons and threw them in anger. They didn’t go very far and none of them broke, but Din didn’t want him to break them and regret it later.

“Hey,” Din said in a firm voice, “Don’t throw things. You have to play nicely with your toys.” As Din bent down to pick up the crayons, the child picked up the paper and threw it at his head. It bounced off his helmet harmlessly, but it made Din frustrated.

He picked his son up to hold him to eye level and repeated, “You can’t throw things, especially not at me. Either you play nicely with these toys or I put you back in your bassinet.”

The child pouted and scrunched his face up in anger as Din placed him back on the ground with his paper and crayons. Din watched as the child reached for a red crayon and began to scribble wildly across the paper. He gripped the crayon as tightly as he could and his jaw was clenched. Din had never seen his child upset like this before and he already hated how it made him feel. He knew that his son was angry with him, but Din couldn’t let him have what he wanted all the time. He would get his toy back eventually, but it still hurt Din to see his child so upset about not being able to play with his precious mythosaur. After all, the main reason he loved that toy so much was because it reminded him of his father.

More scribbling disrupted Din’s thoughts and as he looked down, his son had covered the paper in a sea of red. He was out of breath from scribbling for so long and Din hoped that it had helped him to get some of his anger out.

“That’s a nice drawing,” Din complimented, hoping that praise would make his son continue drawing instead of focusing on his mythosaur. The child snapped his head up to stare at his father. The child extended his hand up in a gesture that Din thought meant he wanted Din to grab his hand but as Din bent down to do so, he saw that the crayons were floating around him. A moment later, the child flicked his hand and the crayons all came flying at Din’s chest. They didn’t hurt at all, but the surprise of the attack caused Din to take a step back.

Din opened his mouth ready to reprimand his son when the little boy giggled and clapped his hands together. Din sighed, took a couple of deep breaths, and collected his thoughts. If pelting his father with crayons was something that would distract his son, who was he to deny him that fun? It would do neither of them any harm.

“Alright, little one, continue with your target practice.” Din said, sitting across from his son. The child laughed, happy that he had permission to toss crayons at his father.

By the time his son was tired out from throwing crayons at Din, there were colorful waxy streaks across his beskar that Din knew would be difficult to remove. His son’s laughter at turning his father into a work of art made it all worth it to Din. He would rather have his son laughing at his expense than angry at him.

Being reminded of his son’s tantrum, Din went to check on his son’s toy only to find it dry and ready to be played with. When the child saw his father carrying his precious mythosaur in his hand, he babbled excitedly and kicked his feet out while reaching out for it. Din placed it in his little hands and watched as he buried his face into the toy’s stomach in a firm hug. Din smiled at the sight, happy that his son was finally reunited with the toy he loved so dearly.

His son turned his face away from his toy to look at his father. He sweetly smiled up at him and Din reached out to brush his fingers across his ear. The child released his arms from the toy, but it stayed floating in the air. The child giggled before flicking his wrist to force the plush toy at his father’s face. The force behind it knocked Din’s head back, but he managed to catch the mythosaur before it hit the ground and sighed. From the high-pitched giggles coming from his son, it seemed like he was enjoying getting to throw things at his father.

Din held the toy in his hands for a moment just to stare at it. Din’s heart swelled with pride knowing that his son loved this toy so much because it reminded him of the mythosaur pendant from Din. Getting lost in his thoughts, Din didn’t notice his son waddle over to him to lay his head down on Din’s forearm until he felt his warmth. Din returned the loving gesture by stroking his son’s forehead before placing his toy back into his arms.

Just like with the crayons, Din let his son throw his toy at his face. When it would bounce off of his helmet and fall to the floor, the child would babble and crawl over to grab his toy before crawling back to his original position. If all it took was letting his son throw things at him to get a smile back on his face, Din would gladly let him do so until the end of time.

#The Mandalorian #Din Djarin #Fluff #Din has no idea how to discipline his son #and honestly neither do I #Din loves his baby boy #Baby yoda loves his dad #Baby's First series #my writing

9 notes · View notes

unfunny-quips · 4 years

Link

Summary: Later, Din would wander down to find the Armorer and Kuiil testing the offensive and defensive abilities of their creation. Paz and his son watched on from a safe distance behind some blast proof barricades that had been brought as a tithe to the Tribe ages ago. The little one sat perched on one of Paz’s knees, eating the bang-corn Paz fed him happily and giggling whenever there was a particularly flashy explosion that the hovering cradle deflected or - often enough - caused.

Scenes from my Parables of Promise series that didn't quite make it into the stories they were written for, but I was still hopeful people would enjoy anyway. Will be updated whenever a random scene I like that's complete doesn't make it in to the main storyline.

Kuiil stood in the entrance of the Foundry, feeling shorter than usual besides the looming figure of Paz Vizla, as he waited to be granted entrance from the Mandalorian Armorer.

When he’d told Din that he would need additional parts for creating a new cradle for the little one, he’d expected the Mandalorian to either take a list and get them from the market or tag along with him and IG to pay for parts. He had not been anticipating the lad to direct him to the tunnels beneath Nevarro, nor was he expecting Din to further assure him that the Armorer would be both able and willing to give whatever supplies he might need for the project.

He’d gone anyway though, taking the indicated entrance to the tunnels and leaving Din and IG to barter for parts for the Crest in the market above. He took the little one with him, largely to ensure that - should Paz not be present to vouch for him - the Armorer would not think him an outsider and do to him what he’d heard done to the Storm Troopers. Even with Din’s assurances, he’d been in doubt at the wisdom of sending him down without a Mandalorian escort, only reassured he wouldn’t find his end in the tunnels when the imposing figure of Paz appeared from the gloom and greeted him cordially.

The Child in Kuiil’s arms wriggled and cooed, ears perked as the little one caught sight of a shiny bauble on a nearby work bench. Kuiil bobbed the little one gently, redirecting the toddlers attention to the Mythosaur necklace the little one wore instead with a practiced ease. It had been a long time since he’d cared for a child, let alone one so young, but some things stuck with a person and fatherhood was one of them.

“You’re quite good with him.” A cool, modulated voice said from across the room. Kuiil lifted his gaze to find that the Armorer had turned her attention away from her forge and on to him. After a moment considering his small frame in the door of her Foundry she nodded towards what appeared to be a set of low stools and a table. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

He adjusted the child in his arms and took the proffered seat, only partially surprised when Paz came to stand over him rather than sitting himself. His interactions with the Mandalorian in blue armor had been limited to the first day or so of being in the hospital, buzzing on pain medication. He’d learned more second hand from Cara and Din, the former teasing the latter mercilessly over the obvious affection Din had for the other Mando. He knew that Paz was gentle to the child and had saved Din’s life, which was enough for the Ugnaught to make an initial, favorable assessment.

“Has he eaten?” Paz asked, leaning his massive frame downward to brush a gloved finger over the child’s wrinkled forehead. The Child cooed, reaching out with the hand not preoccupied with keeping the mythosaur pendant in his mouth to hold onto Paz’s hand. Paz crooked his finger, bobbing the little one’s hand and electing a smile from the child.

Kuill felt a smile pull at his face and gently shifted the little one as the child moved to reach for Paz. “He ate before we came to the market.” He answered, allowing Paz to scoop the toddler up in much larger arms. “I imagine he’d be happy if you give him more though. His appetite has increased over the past few days.”

The mythosaur pendant dropped from the child’s mouth as two green hands reached to pat happily against Paz’s helmet. Large ears flicked excitedly as Paz bumped his forehead lightly against the little one’s, the child babbling cheerfully. “Are you finally going to grow ad’ika? If you eat well you might be as big as your Buir one day.” Paz told the child, gently tapping his fingers along the toddler’s ribs, pulling a delighted giggle from the child. Kuiil smiled as the massive Mandalorian tucked the little one against his chest and turned his attention back down to where Kuiil sat. “Just made some stew with some good flavor to it, I’ll get him some.”

Kuiil nodded, allowing Paz to wander off with the little one in his arms. He watched them disappear down the hall before turning back to the Forge, letting the hum of the Foundry settle over him. The Armorer set her tools down, quiet as she moved to take the seat across from him.

“You are Kuiil.” She said, golden helm tilting as if she was considering him. “I have heard of what you have done for the Foundling. On behalf of the Tribe, please know that we are in your debt.”

He shook his head, waving her words away with a hand the way he had so many months ago when Din had offered him funds in exchange for his aid. “I want no debt from you or your people.” He told her honestly. He’d spent a lifetime paying for debts, he’d not see them settled on anyone else if he could help it. “The only repayment I can ask is that the child is well and cared for.”

The Armorer made a soft, endeared sound beneath her helm. “Din Djarin said you would say as much.” She offered, and he thought he could hear a smile in her modulated voice. “You are an interesting one Kuiil.”

Warmth filled his chest at those words, a small smile touching his lips. “That is entirely untrue.” He told her, honestly. He was only an old Ugnaught, far past his prime with only lonely days of freedom ahead of him. Interesting was not a word to describe one such as himself. “Is this the reason he sent me down here then? I thought it odd he’d direct me to you to get parts for the baby’s cradle.”

The Armorer tilted her head, a low noise he realized to be a soft chuckle coming from beneath her helm, “Not at all. I am an Armorer, but that does not mean that armor is the extent of my craft.” She nodded towards a workbench a little ways away from where she had been working at the forge. Kuiil saw familiar tools laid out along its surface, along with several crates of parts set nearby. “If you would permit, I can aid in making this one a bit more sturdy than the last.” At his glance she added, “Beskar is usually reserved for Helms and the armor of warriors, but something tells me Din Djarin’s foundling will require a bit more than the standard durasteal for a buycika.”

Kuiil felt a smile pull his face wide at the idea. He’d never worked with beskar before. Too rare, to precious a resource, not meant to be used on the kinds of things Kuiil worked on. His fingers itched at the thought of getting to craft with it, see what the legendary iron could do. “Indeed.” He agreed, then paused as his eyes landing on some of Paz’s weaponry the other Mandalorian had set aside in the Foundry. “Perhaps something a bit more than just extra armor?”

The Armorer tilted her head, Helm shifting in such a way he could tell she was following his gaze. “Ah.” She said, and Kuiil heard the moment she understood what he was suggesting. “Yes. I rather think some additional security protocols would be rather beneficial. Shall we?”

Kuiil nodded, getting to his feet as she rose and following her lead eagerly as they began going over his initial plans and making the changes they deemed necessary. Adjustments would need to be made to account for the additions they were making, but between his own experience and the skill of the Armorer he was rather certain they could make something suitable for a child so often in trouble. As the Armorer began gathering equipment, Kuiil glanced over his notes, considering how feasible it would be to rig up a tracking jammer with the spare parts he could see laying about.

He would need to remember to thank Din later when he saw him next. He hadn’t had so much fun working on a new creation in centuries.

Later, Din would wander down to the hours later to find the Armorer and Kuiil testing the offensive and defensive abilities of their creation. Paz and his son watched on from a safe distance behind some blast proof barricades that had been brought as a tithe to the Tribe ages ago. The little one sat perched on one of Paz’s knees, eating the bang-corn Paz fed him happily and giggling whenever there was a particularly flashy explosion that the hovering cradle deflected or - often enough - caused.

Perhaps the the addition of the Whistling Birds was a tad overkill - even by Din’s standards - but Kuiil and the Armorer looked so pleased when their creation all but disintegrated the mock Storm Trooper they’d fashioned with scavenged gear that he hadn’t the heart to say anything. Besides, he was too enamored with the Mudhorn signet emblazoned on the side of the cradle too much to ever give them any kind of feedback that wasn’t overwhelmingly positive.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #Baby Yoda #The Armorer #Kuiil #Paz Vizla #everybody lives #fic #my writing #mandalorian fic #some paz/din #more to be included later #kuiil and the armorer are bros #parables of promise

15 notes · View notes

aenigmaticdays · 4 years

Text

Non-linear Trajectories

A series of significant steps over the next few months since the Mandalorian and the baby became a clan of two post-Nevarro. There’s still a lot Din has yet to learn about the kid he’s taken under his wings, and even if it’s a wild-goose chase to reunite him with his kind, who says space-parenting is easy?

A/N: Inspired by…Yoda, of all creatures, who became a Jedi Master at a hundred years old, and continued that way till he was 900 ish.

If it stands to reason that its ageing must not quite be that linear, what fun then, to know we’re probably standing at a precipice when Dyn Jarren is about to get thrown into a dizzying time of fatherhood with a kid whose sudden growth spurt and accelerated rate of learning will probably happen…quite soon.

Apart from this, all we know of this species is that it’s supposed to remain an archetypal mystery on George Lucas’s orders, though The Mandalorian has pretty much opened this can of worms by introducing the baby on our small screens.

I’m taking liberties here. #Sorrynotsorry

Also on AO3.

9 years, 3 months ABY

What pitiful little Din Djarin knows of parenting is thrown further into dissonance when the ad’ika finally speaks.

“Tion'ad's ogir? See you, I can.”

The high-pitched warble is enough to galvanise Din out of the pilot’s chair to stumble in front of the child who is gnawing at the silver Mythosaur, its attention fully fixed on the inanimate object as though it hadn’t nearly floored him with its casually-spoken but cryptic words.

After all, he’s only a novice at figuring out the ad’ika’s garbled coos, squeaks and trills when the kid suddenly decides to speak.

His own voice, rough with sleep, comes out gravelly, low and bewildered as he’d ever heard. “What…what did you just say?”

The only response Din gets is the slight lift of its disproportionate lift of its green years, a slobbery grin and two raised green arms.

He slumps back into his seat with the kid on his lap, his mind racing. More importantly, the kid’s first word isn’t Buir to his shamefaced relief, because he wouldn’t know how he’d react otherwise.

3 months after leaving Nevarro, the decree that they are now a clan of two still simultaneously terrifies and elates him. But it’s a bond—whether he wants to admit or not—that had been forged long before he’d traded the kid for beskar and hadn’t needed the Armourer’s affirmation or the emblematised mudhorn now welded onto the beskar he wore to give it a name.

The fault solely lies on Dyn’s shoulders which become weightier by day.

Coming to terms with being something akin to the kid’s father requires more than an overhaul in the long-held mindset that he only worked alone and had only himself to look after. It is a change that he tries to welcome nonetheless, according to the creed all the Mandalorians live by—the kid that started out as an asset is now a foundling.

Gone are the days of taking coin in exchange for bounties—that course of destiny he’d irrevocably altered with the split-second decision to get the child back and out of the clutches of the Client.

Theirs is a strange relationship: he’d turned from reluctant captor to reluctant protector to somewhat reluctant dad to a foundling who in its own way takes care of him as much as he takes care of it. There hadn’t been anyone, not even his own adopted parents, nor his clanmates, who’d been as fully attuned to the sweep of his emotions and physical well-being as this child, and maybe it’s because of that sorcery-magic that the green creature wields at moments of its choosing.

The kid is an odd contradiction on its own: small and vulnerable, helpless…yet not, not with the immense sorcerer’s power that he wields at opportune moments when Dyn had thought all was lost.

This is something that he had yet to fully assimilate, despite the daily, round-the-clock reminders of the kid’s dependence on him.

Swivelling the chair around, he turns to regard the kid, who’s still happily playing with his pendant like he hadn’t just upended Din’s brooding. A quick mental calculation about the kid’s development leaves him overwhelmed.

The low-level of panic that accompanies the thought of taking responsibility for the ad’ika hasn’t fully ebbed since the day he’s single-handedly tanked his bounty-hunting career, but he’d be in denial to say he’s taking on this momentous task with the same gusto he’d used to take down bounties.

If the ad’ika is merely a gurgling, teething infant at fifty who has just learned to talk, what then, is its lifespan and what other powers will it develop in the years to come?

“Buir!”

It’s the second time that Din nearly falls out of his chair at that squeaky warble, accompanied by a toothy giggle.

The uncomfortable feeling in his gut grows, but it isn’t one he can put a name to.

oOo

9 years, 8 months ABY

The slight, sharp prod in his mind is the only thing that nudges him upwards towards the light at the end of the tunnel—so sharp that it momentarily erases the lingering, recurring nightmare of dirt roads falling to ruin or of the sudden darkness that envelops him as his parents shove him into a basement storage or of the amplified sounds of broken screams and the whine of Imp blasters.

Amid the chaos and the flames, the intrusive presence twists itself into the well-worn scene, a supporting player in a familiar cast that always ends with him staring into the wrong end of a blaster.

Except that this has the exceptional warmth of someone he recognises by instinct, a warmth that suddenly takes on a rapidly-swelling tinge of green, red and yellow colouring the edge of his consciousness upon which only blackness had once encroached.

Wake up, Buir! Buir! Protect you, I will!

This is must be a hallucination, Din thinks, because the pain that colours his side has just blurred his vision fuzzy and dimmed all else around him.

With eyes that have crusted over, he blinks with difficulty and sits up, the noise of the shootout still loud in his ears, except—

Clarity returns incrementally as time ticks by slowly, as though orchestrated by a three-clawed hand that is waving shrapnel through the air in a miniature tornado that has them sitting in its calm eye.

With a flick of the ad’ika’s little arm, the funnel-shaped shrapnel loses its form and falls into a heap by his feet before arrowing upwards in a spectacular rush of speed and descending impossibly fast onto—and into—their would-be captors.

Only when the last Imp falls does the kid slump in exhaustion but not collapse, its slight wheezes and heaves of breath the only sounds echoing through his earpiece. Still, it’s instinct that has Din catching the kid and clutching it tightly to his chest as the baby babbles a mix of mando’a and Basic distractedly and pushes itself into him, before imprinting its claws into the edge of his armour.

The fumble back to the Razor Crest is a slow one, with the kid snoozing in his carrier bag after Din’s repeated assurances that they’re both fine and that yes—they are well clear of enemies.

The doors shut with finality on this godforsaken planet and it’s not a moment too soon as more Imps suddenly enter the arena.

Din busies himself with the take-off protocols before allowing himself the luxury to think in the silence of the cabin once he makes the jump into hyperspace.

“Bad men, they are.”

The soft squawk and the lifted green ears challenge him to deny otherwise.

He’s used to the kid’s random bursts of sentences by now. The kid’s intent is always understandable, even if his syntax defies correction. But it isn’t a moral issue that Din’s going to engage in right now, especially not with a kid who’s just saved both their hides.

So he nods, swivels around and touches a green ear in a way he knows the baby likes.

“You did good, kid. That was a hellhole we just got out of. And thanks to you, no less.”

As though pacified by the Mandalorian’s words, the kid returns to gnawing at the Mythosaur pendant that hadn’t left its neck since Nevarro.

Verd ori'shya beskar'gam.

The words uttered by the Armourer long ago floods his memory banks—words bestowed with restrained approval when he’d once used his smarts to outwit his trainer-captors and not with his weapons in the Fighting Corps.

A warrior is more than his armour.

The kid had proven that in spades.

Whatever the ad’ika had done earlier, this is the clearest and most overt displays of power he’d seen it wield over space and matter. If whatever the kid has done thus far—from moving pieces of toys for its own amusement or turning the flametrooper’s fire back on him—had baffled him or given him pause, it’s today’s show of power that brought a fuller understanding of how the Mandalorians had found the Jetii a fearsome foe.

If the kid had once collapsed after the fight with the mudhorn and slept for days, the energy that it seems to has right now is a clear sign that it’s capable of much, much more than Din could ever have imagined. That it’s only coming into its own now given the exponential rate of its increasing powers is more than unsettling, making the search for its own kind suddenly made much more urgent.

He continues to marvel at the baby’s growth, if it’s still considered a baby at this point in time. He’s flying blind as always, more so with a species whose unknown past is still hidden within the confines of the kid’s mysterious memory banks.

But the kid had grown remarkably in the months he’d left Nevarro, astonishing Din with its mental dexterity and its ability to…do its thing when it wants to.

Din checks the navi comp, mentally cancelling out the planet they’d just taken off from.

One more down, too many more to go.

oOo

10 years, ABY

How the holovid had found its way into a flea market is beyond anyone’s comprehension, but he’d made his purchase on impulse after hurriedly gathering his rations for the next space run, eager to get back to the Razor Crest lest the ad’ika’s latest brand of mischief involving opening and slamming shut the Crest’s various doors damages something permanently and strands them in yet another godforsaken planet.

Labelled nothing more as a training vid for aspiring Force-users and shoved among renowned fake vids, it’s probably worth fewer credits than he’d paid for, but this is the only hot lead that Din had been tossed in a long, long time.

Only when the child’s tuckered out with a full belly does he play it.

The grainy footage, short as it is, is…mesmerising.

It’s merely a static-filled, shaky snippet of a jetii in training, her luminescent, long, blunt-edged sword moving with a hum to deflect blaster shots before they meet their mark, before cutting to a scene where she leaps across the forest floor and onto the branches of primeval trees, each one higher than the other.

But it’s the last scene that threatens the relative stability that both him and the ad’ika had found.

It’s one where the same jetii grimaces—and trembles—in concentration, the gleaming sword held straight in front of her glistening face as she strains forward but makes no progress, as though resisting an invisible mental and physical probe.

A voice from outside the three-dimensional vid commands. “Steady, you will hold. Feel it. Runs though all living beings, it does.”

The jetii breaks, stumbling backward onto the grass as her chest heaves with exhaustion.

Finally, Din puts a face to the squeaky, raspy voice. A green creature with large, pointed ears and wispy white hair ambles into the side of the holovid, wielding a similar-looking, glowing, green blade in its claws—

Forgotten, you have.

The Force is with you, always.

It’s not so much the green creature speaking as it’s a…a reverberating hum in his own head just as the holovid crumbles into thin air at that moment.

Beneath his helmet, Din is sweaty and light-headed, his mind drawing a blank.

The Force. The jetii.

A creed, possibly, or an order, not unlike the Mandalorian Resol’nare that they live by.

More specifically, the older, jetii version of the ad’ika who is presently rushing around the Crest, babbling in its own curious mix of mando’a and Basic and finding new places to start a game of hide and seek.

A teacher of sorts.

As far as he’s concerned, this could be confirmation of more of the ad’ika’s kind out there, and in this short snippet, he’d learned much more about the mysterious, Force-sensitive jetii than anyone had been able to tell him apart from the stories of the Great Purge and the fragmented tales of ancient Mandalore.

It isn’t without a twinge in his gut when he realises that the answer he’s looking could be closer than he thinks.

oOo

11 years, 2 weeks ABY

They are uncomfortably close to a Mid-Rim planetary system that Din would have preferred to forego when the Razor Crest starts to act up.

It leaves him no choice but to guide the Crest into the icy, buffeting winds on Iridonia, a planet he’d judged too inhospitable for him and the kid to stay on, both for its terrain and its native predatory creatures.

The ship turns belly up, then rights itself, free-wheeling as it breaks Iridonia’s atmosphere even with his hands firmly on the landing controls. Swaying in the planet’s gravity pull, it heads straight for a massive, molten lava field south of its equator—

He’s swept left and right, barely hearing the alarmed screeches of the kid as they are nearly tossed off their seats. It’s the tail end of his cloak that the kid falls onto with a displeased, pained squeal, but he doesn’t even have the time to look at it for any injuries as he scrambles to flip several switches with one hand as a last resort while scooping up the ad’ika with the other.

A low whine indicates that the emergency landing gear has kicked in, but a short explosion a few seconds after that and pitch-darkness in the cockpit says that even that’s out of commission.

This is it, Din thinks.

He’s flat out of tricks of his trade.

The last year of his life with a kid that he probably hadn’t done any justice by is going to be snuffed out in a hot, painful burn. Along with a vulnerable, tiny creature that he still knows so little of. The regret that floods him is immense, along with the desperate panic that he could have still saved the child if he’d only—

Two shaking, green hands stretch past his peripheral vision as the kid strains forward with half-closed eyes.

The Razor Crest shudders to a halt in mid-air as the steaming vapours of the lava field obscures its viewport, then glides serenely past the wind storm and into a stable air flow before hovering unsteadily and landing bumpily on a patch of green near a massive body of water.

Whatever the kid does with the Force these days (and it’s getting more and more impressive by the day), it still stuns him speechless. How it’d gotten to a point where it wields this power over space and matter so instinctively and easily is not something he understands and probably can’t ever.

When Din speaks, he’s breathless with awe. “Once again, you’ve saved us, ad’ika.”

The child sags and fidgets drowsily on his lap. “Sleep…buir.”

The kid’s worn himself out this time around and even Din can understand the sheer amount of strength it’d taken to push a ship out of its path and into another.

He sighs and glances down at the snoozing kid.

The repairs that await him are extensive.

There’re some he can do on his own, but others are beyond him. Din only hopes that there’s a port that will stay peaceful long enough for the Crest to get fixed before they’re on their way again.

Luck barely stays on his side when he stumbles across an isolated workshop near a village, though the hostile stares of the humanoids Zabraks keep his hand permanently stayed on his blaster and the other holding the kid’s carrier bag more tightly.

A tall, grizzled native waits for him at tent flap, her pale orange skin oddly glowing in the light pushing the facial tattoos and horns into sharp relief.

“I have seen your ship.”

Din acknowledges her greeting with a curt admission of his own. “We nearly crashed.”

She merely smiles and gestures him in. “I saw this months ago. Come, your ship will be repaired. For now, rest, Mandalorian.”

It’s only after he’s had a meal and taken care of the kid’s needs that the Zabrak tells him of a jungle-covered moon that orbits a red gas giant.

She leans forward, the intensity of her stare somehow penetrating the toughness of his visor. “You are both ready.”

oOo

11 years, 1 month ABY

An ancient structure comes into view when the stars of deep space disintegrate into thick clouds and rain relentlessly pattering the viewport.

Yavin-4 is a cleverly-concealed habitable planet that has been the heart of the Rebellion for a long time and simply being in New Republic territory when he’s merely operated in the Outer Rim is justified cause for nervousness.

He gingerly puts the Razor Crest down on the landing site next to an X-wing but makes no move to lower the ramp. Behind him, the child fusses and fidgets, squawking when it’s unhappy (which is practically most of the time) and barely using the words Din knows it can speak.

Calming the kid down these days is a monumental task.

The ad’ika seems to have regressed in the last two weeks alone ever since they’d left Iridonia, restlessly chirping and babbling gibberish as though it’s trying to erase all the progress it has made since Nevarro.

The kid’s also clinging more than usual to his armour, refusing to sleep on its makeshift cot and insisting on being near him as much as it can. Even now, it toddles towards him, arms outstretched and eyes wide.

Something stirs on this planet despite its surface stillness: a particular sort of energy that rumbles through the mossy ground and saturates the humid air, the sort that lifts the hair on the back of his neck.

If Din has a slight inkling of it, the kid mostly likely feels it everywhere.

He’s got a bad feeling about this—this is the journey that will change the holding pattern that he’d found himself in for the last year or so.

Whatever happens from here onwards hasn’t yet been written.

The finality of the Zabrak’s words is deeply imprinted on to his psyche; months and months of searching is suddenly culminating in something that Din has no words for.

Maybe both him and the kid are not ready for it.

He gently settles the kid in its carrier bag and hits the ramp’s controls. “Ready to go?”

The ad’ika frowns in defiance. “No!”

The kid’s separation anxiety is rearing its head even before anything happens and he commiserates. The bond between them is a life bond—sacred words have been spoken about this and if anything, it’s his fault for not reassuring the child of it ever since they’ve become a clan of two.

Din sighs in empathy. “Neither am I, kid. But it has to be done.”

It does.

There are so many missing pieces here that he needs the answers to and the cloaked spectre—the jetii that he now knows by the name of Luke Skywalker—who awaits him at the structure’s massive entrance might provide them all.

But…

Din weighs the words he’d heard so long ago in his head and tests them on his lips, the feel of them strange on his tongue.

“Whatever it is, the Force will be with you, ad’ika.”

The kid stills suddenly, its ears lifting as he turns to glance at the waiting jetii and then back at his buir.

He tries again, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “Aliit ori'shya tal'din. And I will be with you. Always.”

-Fin

oOo

Tion'ad's ogir – Who’s there? Buir – parent (either father or mother) Jetii – Jedi Verd ori'shya beskar'ga – A warrior is more than his armour Aliit ori'shya tal'din – Family is more than bloodline

#The Mandalorian #Star Wars #Din Djarin #Dyn Jarren #Fanfic #I caved and wrote one #Baby Yoda

8 notes · View notes