Chapter Text
Din stalked as quietly as a shadow through the cargo bay. His prey was known to be sneaky but he was the master of this game, the deadliest of hunters. Something shifted to his left, a flash of green. To his right he thought he saw a flicker of gold. Clever he thought, splitting up to make me work for my victory. He continued his search, making exaggerated head movements towards areas he knew to be empty.
“Where could they be?” He mused out loud.
A high-pitched giggle came from behind a crate he had passed without an obvious glance, the sound quickly muffled.
‘Hmm, he must have moved again, faster that time, didn’t see him at all’.
Din crouched low to the ground and snuck back to the crate from the other direction. They were peeking round the side pretending not to see him. The little boy had a paw covering his sister’s mouth and two sets of huge eyes sparkled with identical expressions of glee. Din kept his eyes averted as he played along.
“Well I have no idea where Dash could be, maybe he’s playing with Dulcie? Wherever should I look for them next?”
Dash just about managed to stay silent but Dulcie was shaking with the effort of not bursting out laughing and a few giggles slipped past her brother’s paw. Fast as lightning a deeper shadow loomed over them and both children were hoisted up into the air.
“I think that means that Corin Buir wins this round kids, we’ll have to try harder to beat him.”
Din grinned up at his riduur from his spot on the floor before rising smoothly to his feet and extracting a wriggling Dulcie from Corin’s hold. Dash was content to perch on Corin’s shoulder but rolled his big dark eyes when the two men shared a brief chaste kiss.
Din didn’t think he would ever get used to this, the freedom to be without his armour when alone with his family, to let his children see his face, to kiss his husband. The last year had brought so many changes for them all.
Corin reached over to ruffle Dulcie’s’ pretty blonde curls and managed to suppress the grimace as his fingers brushed over whatever sticky substance she had apparently rolled in this time. She may have looked like a baby angel but she had her brother’s talent for mischief and was starting to learn just how easy it was to wrap the rest of her aliit around her little chubby fingers. It had been easier before she was walking but now she was a somewhere over two years old she was becoming a terror. Her exact age was unknown and when they had found her in an old tea chest in the slaver’s den they had been hired to shut down they had thought her less than a year old. When no family could be found for her, they had taken her with them, both Din and Corin refusing to even consider the idea of leaving her at the city orphanage. She seemed to thrive in their care and by the time they made it back to the Covert some weeks later she was already their daughter. The Armorer led them through the adoption rites without question but did impose one condition.
“You cannot call them both Ad’ika, nor can you issue them numbers. This is the ideal time to name both of your children before they get any older.”
They considered the possibilities when the tiny girl was being checked out in the med bay.
“How would you feel about using a family name?”
Din was a little shocked by Corin’s shy question, his riduur had never made much of a secret of his feelings for his relatives and although there was almost nothing he would ever deny him there was no way their son was going to be named after one of the men who had inflicted such misery on his cyare.
“Surprised? What were you thinking?”
“Well, our little girl has such beautiful blue eyes and with her fair skin and hair she made me think of my mother. Her full name is a little too formal but I know that some of her friends used to call her Dulcie for short, it suited her. She was the only good part of my childhood; I’d like to honour her memory if you are ok with that?”
“Sounds wonderful. Dulcie Djarin it is then. I had an idea for Ad’ika as well. Before I was taken in by the tribe I lived in a small town. I don’t remember much but I had a friend, a schoolmate. I never found out what happened to him after the attack but I missed him for years. We were always getting into trouble together, used to drive our teachers crazy. His name was Dashiel.”
The little green child was sat by his sister as the medic completed his scan, he took his big brother duty very seriously and hated to be away from her side. A hopeful smile lit up his face as he caught his father’s words and his ears wiggled in excitement.
“Guess he likes it.” Corin grinned beneath his helmet. “We can call him Dash for short, seeing as how he moves so fast when he wants something.”
“Dashiel and Dulcie Djarin, our clan is growing Cyare.”
The medic brought their daughter back to them and it had been heart-breaking to realise that she was actually closer to two than one year old but malnutrition and neglect had stunted her development. Months later she was a different child entirely, the devoted care she received had undone a lot of the damage and she was now a fairly sturdy toddler. In the covert she was doted on by the tribe, especially her Aunt Lure and Uncle Paz. The newly weds had no children of their own but adored their niece and nephew when the family returned to stay. Paz in particular seemed to have made it a personal mission to keep both children well fed. He even taught Corin some of his secret recipes so that he could cook when they travelled the galaxy.
The Djarin clan split their time between travelling in the Razor Crest as the tribe’s beroyas and staying at the Covert to give their children the best of both worlds. With two small ones to look after only one of them could hunt at a time so they traded turns depending on whose skills were a better fit for the job. Din had spent a lot of his time on the ship making improvements for his family’s comfort and it seemed to Corin that whenever he returned from a job there was a new surprise. The nursery wallpaper that covered the inside of the children’s sleeping compartments was a particularly cute touch but Corin was especially grateful for the new pull-out bed that was big enough for both men to sleep in easily at the same time. They retained their family quarters back at the covert but it was still nice to have a little comfort while travelling. The biggest difference had come from partitioning off their living areas from the working space, neither man had wanted to march often uncooperative bounties past their children as they passed through to the carbonite freezer. All their targets would see now was a plain internal wall, unaware that on the other side Dash could be found painting a never finished mural, Dulcie helping with finger paints along the lower edges. Corin had turned one square section into a blackboard for the children’s lessons and family pictures surrounded it like a frame.
The children were still in an excited giggly mood throughout dinner and seemed determined to turn bath time into a full-on water fight. Din couldn’t blame them for their excitement. The last bounty for this run had been dropped off earlier in the day and they were on their way to a deserted ocean planet that Din hoped to reach by the time they all woke. A couple of days playing on the beach and splashing in the shallows would do them all some good before heading back to drop off credits at the covert. There was also the bonus that if they managed to tire the kids out enough during the day then they would be sound asleep in the evening and Din could swim under the moonlight with his beautiful husband.
Corin currently had the task of trying to settle two extremely hyperactive little ones down for bed while Din plotted their course and programmed the autopilot. It took several bedtime stories and a promise that they would be at the beach sooner if they slept before they finally drifted off. Din joined him as they watched the sleeping faces of their children for a moment before they undressed and curled up together in their own bed. Kissing Corin was still one of his favourite things in the galaxy, regardless of whether it led to anything more heated. Tonight, they were both content to simply share soft kisses and the warm comfort of being close together. There would be time for everything eventually, time for family, time to explore the stars, time to work and support the tribe, and time to see their children happy and thriving. Their journey hadn’t always been easy, the path sometimes dangerous and hard to walk but it had been worth it in the end. To learn what makes a family.